For all of the many details and connections related to the Niger forgeries, please go to wikipedia’s page for details, timelines and links. I don’t want to bulk up the diary unecessarily….
Also, Josh Marshall mentions it again in a recent entry…
My thoughts are below concerning Michael Ledeen being the person who was behind the forgery of the documents.
From the Alternet interview with former counterterrorism chief, Vincent Cannistaro:
It was SISME, yeah. …
[D]uring the two-thousands when we’re talking about acquiring information on Iraq. It isn’t that anyone had a good source on Iraq–there weren’t any good sources. The Italian intelligence service, the military intelligence service, was acquiring information that was really being hand-fed to them by very dubious sources. The Niger documents, for example, which apparently were produced in the United States, yet were funneled through the Italians.
Do we know who produced those documents? Because there’s some suspicion …
I think I do, but I’d rather not speak about it right now, because I don’t think it’s a proven case …
If I said “Michael Ledeen” ?
You’d be very close…
What I didn’t know until today was that there was a companion piece to the forged Yellowcake document that was also a forgery. A quote from this source says:
Here is a link to more information on the companion piece.
Now, in terms of a timeline, we know the Niger forgeries were given to the US Embassy in Rome in October 2002. So, was Michael Ledeen, neo-con extroadinaire, resposible for the forgery?
Well, I think it’s curious that in September 2002 (one month before the Niger forgeries were provided to the US Embassy, with the companion forgery), Ledeen wrote an article for the National Review where he says in the last paragraph the following:
Now this is not conclusive evidence of any sort, but it does strike me as curious that a month before the forged companion piece was “given” to the US Embassy in Rome, Ledeen was giving a heads up to a conspiracy of Middle Eastern countries in the National Review. If he was behind the forgery, the acceptance of the companion letter as a valid document would have more legitimacy if it was mentioned previously….
This was the story that CBS dumped at the last minute in favour of the TANG story (which, ironically enough, turned out to be yet another forgery…)
More here:
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6073449/site/newsweek/
written by, you guessed it, Michael Isikoff!
but it was not a forgery in the sense that the contents were said to be accurate by witnesses.
The 16 words didn’t say Niger, it said Africa. It also said British intelligence was our source, which gets our intelligence agencies off the hook. Freepers love to point these two details out every chance they get. It is yet another example of the weasely wording the White House uses to maintain deniability. Yet the Freepers ignore the fact that the WH apologized for the 16 words and said they should not have been included in the SotU. Gee, could this be some of the intelligence “fixing” the DSM mentions?
We also have yet to see what the source of the British intel is, and what the details of these sales from “Africa” are. I’m quite certain, that if there were solid, well-sourced data on traffic in nuclear materials from any country in Africa to Iraq, we’d know. Or, do they still have sources they need to protect from Saddam. You know, the way they had to protect their many sources on all those WMD in Iraq. Is there no end to the gullibility of Freepers?
I was directed to this today… VERY interesting read on the forgeries…
http://billmon.org/archives/001971.html
Thank you. I’ve been trying to see if anyone had a theory as to how the yellowcake forgeries and the UK’s “sexed up dossier” fit together. Interesting read.
is this person, my emphasis, below?
From Billmon
Yeah… I think that’s exactly what I’m saying. I do think Ledeen is the guy. His connections to this in so many ways is just too coincidental to ignore, IMHO.
He’s neo-con to the core!
Whether Chalabi and potentially his contacts in Iran might have been involved. It would be tragic, but somehow amusing if the powers that be in Iran played the neo-cons into doing their bidding for them in getting rid of Saddam. After all, who (other than Haliburton and pals) has benefited more from all of this. Too tin-foil hattish – let me know!