Posted on 07/16/2003 12:32:17 PM PDT by Wallaby
Sounds like Ben-Veniste, all right. I'm glad I missed the hearing. He's obnoxious enough in the transcript.
But Walter Pincus is the Washington Post reporter who spends the Fourth of July holiday with the walking hollow tea-drinking self styled James Bond ego, the former Ambassador Wilson and his "CIA wife," over the Niger flap?
Wasn't it Pincus and not Novak who blew Plame's cover by getting even more specific than had Novak? And wouldn't it be interesting if the source for the much vaunted Pincus's article quoted here was also one silly former Ambassador?
MS. MYLROIE: Say when they concluded that there was no state sponsorship, they did not have the evidence from the FBI investigation, because of grand jury secrecy laws prevailing then. And they had no basis for making that claim.
MR. BEN-VENISTE: Now, is it fair to suggest that the current administration would not be reluctant to embrace your theory as a further justification for the invasion of Iraq, if evidence obtained since 9/11 -- debriefings of captured al Qaeda members, et cetera, which we will have access to, and have already begun receiving access to -- supported the notion of Iraqi sponsorship for either attack --
MS. MYLROIE: Senior --
MR. BEN-VENISTE: -- '93 or 2001?
MS. MYLROIE: A senior administration official told me in specific that the question of the identities of the terrorist masterminds could not be pursued because of bureaucratic obstructionism.
MR. BEN-VENISTE: And who was that?
MS. MYLROIE: I wouldn't want to mention the person's name publicly, but a senior and well informed person. I have been working with him on the question of Khalid Sheik Mohammed. He said, "We're sorry, we just can't do it because of the bureaucratic obstructionism regarding the question of Ramzi Yousef's identity." So I went ahead and put it in the public record.
MR. BEN-VENISTE: Now, the public record -- and I'll make reference to a June 22nd, 2003, newspaper article published by the Washington Post under the byline of Walter Pincus, who is one of the most respected journalists analyzing the intelligence community in our country, reported that there was significant doubt cast on this very al Qaeda-Iraqi connection. It references a National Intelligence Estimate from the fall of 2002 -- still classified, but this is a report which now is in the press. And of course the National Intelligence Estimate reflects the combined consensus of the U.S. intelligence community. And that report suggested that the National Intelligence Estimate concluded that while there had been some contact in the early '90s -- I think something which Dr. Yaphe has also concluded -- while Osama bin Laden was living in Sudan, those early contacts had not led to any known continuing high-level relationship between Iraqi intelligence and al Qaeda. And, as I say, we are in the process of obtaining information from debriefings and other sources which could conceivably throw more light on it. But your reluctance to mention even the name of someone who we could ask about this doesn't help us terribly much.
MS. MYLROIE: I can ask that person if he will give me permission to do so.
2008 UPDATE:
[1]
Andrew C. McCarthy
April 30, 2008 6:00 A.M.
Still Willfully Blind After All These Years
Laurie Mylroie pretends to review Willful Blindness.
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/224339/still-willfully-blind-after-all-these-years/andrew-c-mccarthy
[2]
Setting the Record Straight: What We Learned in 1993
By ANDREW McCARTHY and LAURIE MYLROIE | May 8, 2008
http://www.nysun.com/arts/setting-the-record-straight-what-we-learned/76090/
[3]
Laurie Mylroie
May 6, 2008 4:00 A.M.
Writing Blind
A response to Andy McCarthy.
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/224383/writing-i-blind-i/laurie-mylroie
[4]
Laurie Mylroie
May 6, 2008 9:59 A.M.
By Andrew C. McCarthy
http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/162693/laurie-mylroie-andrew-c-mccarthy
As she apparently wants to have Round Two, I will have more to say later this week about Laurie Mylroie’s blather here http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/224383/writing-i-blind-i/laurie-mylroie on the site today. Meanwhile, besides my take, http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/224339/still-willfully-blind-after-all-these-years/andrew-c-mccarthy and Steve Hayes’s post at the Weekly Standard last week, http://www.weeklystandard.com/weblogs/TWSFP/2008/04/mccarthy_on_mylroie.asp Daniel Pipes also has a few choice words today, in a post on his site called, “Laurie Mylroie’s Shoddy, Loopy, Zany Theories Exposed.” http://www.danielpipes.org/blog/2008/04/laurie-mylroies-shoddy-loopy-zany-theories
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