[Fedora]

Excellent work!--very enlightening to have that all pulled together in one place and organized like that. I've only had a chance to skim it so far, but what jumps out at me is a pattern of anti-Bush collusion between:

1. Saddam's regime.

2. Saddam's supporters in the UN, esp. Blix and Al-Baradei.

3. Anti-Bush elements in the British and US intelligence community, e.g. Wilson.

4. Anti-Bush elements in the British government (I'm reminded of the Galloway scandal) and US State Department (as you note regarding the December 20, 2002 instance of State keeping in the reference to Niger).

5. Anti-Bush elements in the British and US media, with a couple specific names mentioned here being Walter Pincus and Seymour Hersh, both of whom have long-standing connections to left-wing elements in the intelligence community. With respect to the question you raise about Pincus' November 10, 2002 article regarding how Pincus knew the contents of the unreleased British intelligence report, I'd be very interested to identify Pincus' source there, which I'm inferring must be linked to Blix at the UN and the British elements of the anti-Bush collaboration mentioned above. Along those lines, I'd likewise be interested to identify which British papers and reporters were key in leading the spin on this story.

[okie01]

"With respect to the question you raise about Pincus' November 10, 2002 article regarding how Pincus knew the contents of the unreleased British intelligence report, I'd be very interested to identify Pincus' source there, which I'm inferring must be linked to Blix at the UN and the British elements of the anti-Bush collaboration mentioned above."

Pincus apparently has a social relationship with the Wilsons. According to research done by another FReeper (Wolfstar or dirtboy, I can't recall), Pincus has dined with the Wilsons at their home -- several times in close proximity to the publication of Wilson's op-ed.

But, thanks to Shermy's research, one thing becomes very clear -- the familiarity that Wilson, Pincus, et al have with purported intelligence matters concerning the uranium market in Africa, apparently as understood by both the CIA and MI-6.

In retrospect, there can be only one source for this purported knowledge: Valerie Plame. Wilson's current wife was employed by the CIA, doing what...??? Was it not "covert work on nuclear proliferation"?

Plame IS the leaker. And is, thereby, herself a security risk.

Moreover, one cannot escape the conclusion that this has been a political operation from the get-go. It was not an opening or accidental oversight that Wilson, Plame, Pincus, et al decided to exploit. Instead, the issue was created out of whole cloth for the sole purpose of their exploitation.

Moreover, the media has been fully complicit -- Walter Pincus, Andrea Mitchell and all those who willfully ignore the statements by the administration (and British intelligence, indeed Wilson himself) that the "forged documents" and "Niger" are, neither one, part of the evidence.

Initially, Wilson was careful to qualify this evidence himself -- but his interrogators simply ignored it, in order to serve their mutual agenda.

And, once again, I am left wondering just exactly what Alan Foley's role in all this was. Was he the CIA "source" for Novak (and Newsday)?

The stench at CIA and State is stifling.