How conflicts between the Administration and the CIA marred the reporting on Iraq’s weapons.

The New Yorker ^ | 10/20/03 | Seymour Hersh

[Gothmog]

A long read and typical liberal slant, but what I find interesting is the theory that the CIA planted the Niger yellowcake rumor to embarrass the Bush Admin hawks.

Democrats are calling for finding the 'truth' behind the CIA 'leak,' but I've got a feeling if the real truth is ever uncovered they're going to be embarrassed.

[bert]

The beat goes on.

It's going to get louder and louder as the Rats continue to fall apart.

[LarryM]

The forged documents were planted by communist agents in Italian intelligence to discredit the US and Britain. Let there be no doubt that the CIA and State Dept. are out to sabotage Bush. What has he done about it? Nothing.

[Gothmog]

FYI in case you're still interested

[Just mythoughts]

I agree that somebody somewhere is playing games, so why is Congress so silent on the subject matter, now that the lying liberals are running campaign ads talking about this as a Bush scandal?

The President and White House officials cannot not comment, and the lying liberals are trying to bait someone to mouth off, so they can up the drama.

Seems that Congress can put an end to this BS by holding hearings into WHO sent the paragon of intel gathering (Mr. Wilson) in the first place.

[Gothmog]

Actually GOP Rep. Peter King (Rino-NY) has called for the probe to focus more on the CIA than any alleged 'White House' leak. But you're right, the best defense is a good offense and the GOP should be calling for a full accounting.

[Gothmog]

Just a few interesting things I noticed:

"A few months after George Bush took office, Greg Thielmann, an expert on disarmament with the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research, or INR, was assigned to be the daily intelligence liaison to John Bolton, the Under-Secretary of State for Arms Control, who is a prominent conservative."

Notice how Democrat activist Thielmann is not labeled, but Bolton is. And I love this one:

"Joseph Wilson, the diplomat who had travelled to Africa to investigate the allegation more than a year earlier, revived the Niger story. He was angered by what he saw as the White House’s dishonesty about Niger, and in early May he casually mentioned his mission to Niger, and his findings, during a brief talk about Iraq at a political conference in suburban Washington sponsored by the Senate Democratic Policy Committee (Wilson is a Democrat). Another speaker at the conference was the Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, who got Wilson’s permission to mention the Niger trip in a column. A few months later, on July 6th, Wilson wrote about the trip himself on the Times Op-Ed page. 'I gave them months to correct the record,' he told me, speaking of the White House, 'but they kept on lying.'”

Oh, I';m sure he just casually mentioned it to a bunch of Senate Democrats, ha ha ha.

[Matchett-PI]

"Actually GOP Rep. Peter King (Rino-NY) has called for the probe to focus more on the CIA than any alleged 'White House' leak. But you're right, the best defense is a good offense and the GOP should be calling for a full accounting." ~ Gothmog

Here is the email I sent to Tony Snow on 10-5-03:

Hi Tony!

What a great interview with Peter King!

Even though he didn't attribute bad motives to the anti-war, Bush haters in the CIA, I am so glad to see that some in the Republican Party are finally willing to step forward and insist that, for the sake of national security, the CIA should be focused on waging war against the terrorists and the states that sponsor them, instead of waging war against the Bush Administration.

There are swamps that need to be drained in the CIA, the State Department, and elsewhere in our government, and it needed to start YESTERDAY!

[Name and town]

[Gothmog]

And you'll notice the new information about Wilson addressing Senate Dems at a 'policy' meeting in May fits in with your theory. How much do you want to bet that Sen. Chuck Schumer, who is known for his political instincts rather than his national security credentials, was at that 'policy' meeting and that's why Schumer was busy driving the CIA to get the FBI to launch a formal inquiry all summer.

[ravingnutter]

Hmmm....

The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) continues to misstate the degree of success it achieved on dismantling Saddam Hussein’s covert nuclear-bomb program during nuclear inspections in Iraq between 1991 and 1998, according to an analysis by the Nuclear Control Institute (NCI), a non-proliferation research and advocacy center.

“IAEA’s recent claims that they have ‘neutralized [Iraq’s] nuclear-weapon program’ and ‘destroyed all their key buildings and equipment’ related to weaponization are patently false, and the Agency’s own inspection reports prove it,” said Steven Dolley, NCI research director.

Dolley, citing IAEA’s own inspection reports as documentation, said: “Iraq has never surrendered to inspectors its two completed designs for a nuclear bomb, nuclear-bomb components such as explosive lenses and neutron initiators that it is known to have possessed, or almost any documentation of its efforts to enrich uranium to bomb-grade using gas centrifuges, devices which are small and readily concealed from reconnaissance.”[5]

Moreover, IAEA has previously conceded that Iraq’s weaponization R&D---small-scale technical research devoted to the design of a nuclear bomb’s components---is not readily detected by means of inspections. IAEA Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei stated in 1998 that “no matter how comprehensive the inspection, any country-wide verification process, in Iraq or anywhere else, has a degree of uncertainty that aims to verify the absence of readily concealable objects such as small amounts of nuclear material or weapons components.”[6]

The IAEA’s own guidelines for the safeguarding of highly enriched uranium and separated plutonium gives the conversion time for transforming these materials into weapons components as on the order of seven to ten days or one to three weeks, depending on the form the materials are in (metal, oxide or nitrate) when the materials are acquired by means of diversion or theft.[7] Thus, Iraq could be capable of producing a nuclear weapon in less than a month with sufficient diverted or stolen fissile material if it has managed to fabricate and conceal all of the non-nuclear components of a weapon.

The Agency’s own October 1997 review of its inspections in Iraq concluded that "Iraqi programme documentation records substantial progress in many important areas of nuclear weapon development, making it prudent to assume that Iraq has developed the capability to design and fabricate a basic fission weapon, based on implosion technology and fueled by highly enriched uranium."

“THERE THEY GO AGAIN”: IA.E.A. MISSTATES ITS RECORD ON DISMANTLING SADDAM’S NUCLEAR-BOMB PROGRAM

An unsigned CIA memo on Oct. 5 advised that "the CIA had reservations about the British reporting" on Iraq's alleged attempts in Niger, Hadley said [No. 2 on Bush's national security team]. A second memo, sent on Oct. 6, elaborated on the CIA's doubts, describing "some weakness in the evidence," such as the fact that Iraq already had a large stock of uranium and probably wouldn't need more, Hadley said.

Source

The CIA abruptly removed from its Web site photos that showed key uranium enriching equipment found hidden in Iraq because they revealed secrets that countries seeking to develop nuclear weapons might find helpful, analysts said on Monday.

The CIA on Thursday had posted on its Web site a statement and six photos of centrifuge parts which had been hidden for 12 years under a rosebush in the garden of an Iraqi scientist, Mahdi Shukur Ubaydi.

CIA pulls Iraqi centrifuge photos off its Web site

[Gothmog]

Yeah, I don't know that much about the IAEA, but I figured since Hersh was relying on them they had to be incompetent. Thanks for providing the information.

[Matchett-PI]

BTTT for your #10 !!

Yes... the enemies of America and civilization, itself, were making great headway against us until "W" came into office. The panic they're exhibiting now to get their RAT party back in power is breathtaking!

[Matchett-PI]

"..I don't know that much about the IAEA..."

Read Laurie Mylroie's stuff -- she has the goods. Check google.

[rightazrain]

Here is a fascinating article posted previously on FR that gives some great insight into the CIA:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/994986/posts

[Gothmog]

Great article, thanks to both you and leadpenny. Kind of dovetails with my impression of what is going in this whole Iraq/WMD/Wilson leak thing. While there are many outstanding CIA operatives (like Johnny Spahn, who died in Afghanistan) the problem with the CIA is in its leadership/organizational structure.

It's like the political debate over teachers. There are many front-line teachers who work hard for low pay while the absurd decisionmakers from unions and the education lobby make lots of money pursuing outrageously stupid (liberal) policies.

I think that's part of the GOP's and conservatives problem with their response on this Wilson 'leak' thing -- and why Democrats are so eager to exploit it. Many conservatives support a strong, effective CIA so when the WH is accused of 'leaking' the name of a CIA operative it makes it difficult to defend Bush.

But, when the issue is more accurately described as a bunch of liberal CIA bureaucrats (with the help of the press) pushing a liberal agenda after losing a policy fight, I think conservatives will figure out the 'real' story behind this 'scandal.'

That's why I hope for a truly thorough investigation.

[WOSG]

Seymour Hersch - there's a reliable source, NOT.

[Gothmog]

I know, I admitted it was slanted leftwise, but he still does include some details which I have not seen anywhere else, like Wilson addressing Senate Democrats on the issue a month before he writes his op-ed. Helps strengthen the idea that this was all a political set up.

[ravingnutter]

Read Laurie Mylroie's stuff -- she has the goods. Check google.

I am very familiar with Laurie's work, but she is sometimes looked at as a conspiracy theorist and her facts are therefore discounted by those that choose not to do their research. If I remember correctly I believe the last response I got to that assertion was "Cheap Wal-Mart tin-foil material". However, documents are now beginning to surface that back up her theory and eventually, those naysayers will have to eat a healthy dose of crow, although I have found that some would not even believe it when I had other credible sources to back it up.

[Wolfstar]

Thanks for the ping, Gothmog. I am still very interested. First, because we need a reliable CIA, and I don't believe it has been reliable under George Tenet. Second, because cases of media fraud, such as this story, always interest me. The media is the one institution in this country that can sell the public outright fraudulent and defective product, yet remain almost entirely immune to any criminal or civil legal action.

[Gothmog]

She must be a raving nut, ha ha ha.