‘Mr. Counterterrorism Guru’ [Byron York on Larry Johnson]

n July 10, 2001, the New York Times published an opinion article titled “The Declining Terrorist Threat.” It was written by Larry C. Johnson, a former CIA analyst and State Department counterterrorism official, who argued that Americans spent too much time worrying about terrorist attacks that would likely never come. “Judging from news reports and the portrayal of villains in our popular entertainment,” Johnson wrote, “Americans are bedeviled by fantasies about terrorism.” And then:

They seem to believe that terrorism is the greatest threat to the United States and that it is becoming more widespread and lethal. They are likely to think that the United States is the most popular target of terrorists. And they almost certainly have the impression that extremist Islamic groups cause most terrorism. None of these beliefs are based in fact.

Surveying the security situation around the world, Johnson sought to reassure readers. “The greatest risk is clear: if you are drilling for oil in Colombia — or in nations like Ecuador, Nigeria or Indonesia — you should take appropriate precautions,” he wrote. “Otherwise Americans have little to fear.”

Two months later, the planes of September 11 crashed into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, and a field in Pennsylvania. And Larry Johnson became known, at least in the eyes of some of his former colleagues, as the author of perhaps the most embarrassing op-ed ever published. “The worst,” says one such colleague. “On an issue of national interest, has there ever been a worse prognostication in the history of man?”

Probably not. Yet Johnson’s career as a commentator did not just continue after September 11 — it thrived.

In recent years, Johnson, who says he is a registered Republican, has made a new career of using his CIA credentials to bash the Bush administration. He has become a favorite not only of the left-wing blogosphere — on his website, called No Quarter, he writes entries like “Frog-March the Bastard,” which was a call for the indictment of Karl Rove — but also of the nation’s biggest newspapers and cable news networks. If you’re a reporter looking for a quote criticizing the president about warrantless surveillance, or about the CIA’s “secret prisons,” or about the troubled efforts to reform the spy agency, Johnson is your man. In just the last few months, his observations about intelligence matters have appeared in or on the New York Times, the Washington Post, the New York Daily News, the Sunday Times of London, the Guardian, the Associated Press, Knight-Ridder, National Public Radio, CNN, MSNBC, and more.

Why does Johnson receive such attention? Compared with some of the CIA’s other critics, like Bob Baer, who spent 21 years as a case officer, or Milt Bearden, who spent 30 years at the agency and left as a high-ranking official, Johnson’s credentials are a little thin. He worked there as an analyst, not as a top manager or a covert agent, for all of four years, 1985 to 1989, which means it has been 17 years since he was employed by the CIA. And his specialty wasn’t the Middle East or terrorism; instead, he dealt with issues related to Central America, a subject he’s rarely called on to comment about today. What experience he had with terrorism came not at the CIA but at the State Department, where he worked mostly on transportation-security issues from 1989 to 1993.

So why the demand for Johnson’s opinions? “He’s willing to say very bold things,” says a former intelligence official. “If you say things that are balanced and reasoned and calm, they’re less likely to ask you back than if you throw some bombs.”

That is certainly true, but perhaps the biggest reason for Johnson’s prominence these days is his connection to Valerie Plame Wilson, the woman at the center of the CIA-leak investigation. Although they’ve never been characterized as close friends, Johnson and Plame began CIA training together in 1985, and Johnson rushed to her defense when her identity was revealed as part of the White House’s pushback against her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, who had attacked the administration over pre-war intelligence. Denouncing the administration figures involved in the matter as “traitors,” Johnson maintained that the leak did horrendous damage. “Not only was her cover destroyed, but an undercover company was destroyed,” he said in April on MSNBC. “Intelligence assets that were involved with trying to determine, detect, and protect America against weapons of mass destruction — they were destroyed in that leak.”

That would certainly qualify as a bold — and questionable — statement. In the actual investigation, CIA leak prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, trying the case against former Cheney chief of staff Lewis Libby, has said that prosecutors do not plan to offer “any proof of actual damages” caused by the Wilson leak.

Still, Johnson is a go-to guy on the leak affair. And by an almost Zelig-like coincidence, he is also an acquaintance of another woman involved in another big leak case: Mary McCarthy, the CIA analyst fired for allegedly leaking classified information, possibly about the “secret prisons” story. Johnson and McCarthy worked together at the CIA in 1988, and Johnson took up her cause when she was fired as part of the CIA’s attempt to crack down on leaks. In an interview with the Washington Post, Johnson speculated that McCarthy might have thought the CIA’s anti-leak campaign was “a whitewash,” and therefore might have come to the conclusion, “Why not tell the press?”

Johnson was speculating, at least in part, because he has not stayed close to McCarthy in the nearly 20 years since they worked together. In fact, he told National Review that “she’s the reason I left the CIA,” explaining that McCarthy was a “lousy manager” who had “no experience in Latin America.” Listening to him talk, it appears they really, really did not get along. Yet when McCarthy became an anti-Bush hero, Johnson put aside his feelings to become her defender. One for all and all for one when it comes to opposing the president.

To his credit, Johnson is not one of those figures who refuse to speak with anyone who might ask him difficult questions. He has always been willing to talk to National Review, and, in a discussion for this article, he didn’t bristle even when asked about “The Declining Terrorist Threat.”

Of course, he didn’t give an inch, either. “I stand by everything I said in that piece,” Johnson says. “Go through it in detail. Put it into the right context. . . . Nowhere in that article did I say we needed to ignore Islamic terrorism.”

Mark that up as another bold statement. On the issue of his credentials, Johnson says he received commendations for his work at the CIA, but he takes a more modest tone than one might expect. “I don’t represent myself to be Mr. Counterterrorism Guru,” he says. “I get introduced as the deputy director of counterterrorism at the State Department. But my full title was deputy director for transportation security, antiterrorism assistance training, and special operations. In Washington, the longer your title, the less important you are, and I had a really long title.”

As for his connections — how he knows enough to speak about the CIA after 17 years away — well, that’s where the openness ends. “I’m not going to get into the specifics of how I know what I know,” Johnson says. And that’s that.

Of course, that doesn’t really matter to Johnson’s fans in the press and the left-wing blogs. Johnson is celebrated not so much for what he knows as for what his fans hope he knows: that the Bush administration is corrupt, traitorous, and a danger to national security. These days, he can always find someone to listen.

Byron York gives it a good start, but the blogger "SEIXON" has just done a far more thorough examination of how Larry Johnson and his pals have been flogging their b.s. with various reporters. Here is a much more detailed overview of the sordid relations between Larry Johnson, Joe & Valerie, media frauds such as Jason Leopold et al, and the other VIPS frauds:

Truth on Sale

http://www.seixon.com/blog/archives/2006/05/truth_on_sale.html

After doing some research on Jason Leopold’s previous work, I came away with a (well-founded) suspicion that the Wilsons and Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) were sourcing a good deal of his work and using him as a mouthpiece. I discovered that this flock of people, the Wilsonistas, suddenly started writing less about the Plame investigation after Libby’s indictment. However, Jason Leopold started writing almost exclusively about the Plame investigation at about the same time, in October.

Instead of VIPS writing articles in Truthout and elsewhere about the imminent indictment of Rove, Cheney, Hadley and that Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald was going to get his hands into the Niger forgeries, they now had Jason Leopold to do their work for them. This way they could claim all sorts of things and wouldn’t have to stand accountable for them, while hanging Leopold out to dry.

Truthout has been a stenographer for the Wilsonistas for quite some time. Ray McGovern and Larry Johnson are contributors, McGovern since 2003 and Johnson apparently since late 2005. William Rivers Pitt and other Truthout reporters have used them as named sources quite often, while other reporting done by Leopold indicates they have also been unnamed sources. However, there is another guest to the party which may have escaped the radar while writing for UPI as an intelligence correspondent: Richard Sale.

Sale is an interesting journalist, a bit obscure, but has written some heavy-hitting pieces that have made waves. Three years ago he wrote a detailed article about all the supposed ties between Saddam Hussein and the CIA from before he became a dictator. Needless to say, this story became a staple in many an anti-war diet, leading to dense statements such as, “The United States created Saddam Hussein!” This isn’t Sale’s fault, of course, his article is fairly nuanced and detailed, but you have to wonder how many of the details are actually accurate – most coming from anonymous intelligence sources. He was also involved in covering the AIPAC spy scandal back in 2004 for UPI, although it was CBS who broke the story.

The earliest work Sale did on the Plame investigation was back on February 5, 2004, a piece titled “Cheney’s Staff Focus of Probe”. The article is heavily pro-Wilson and recycles some of the most common false claims about the whole ordeal, including Wilson being sent by the administration. It seems he was spot on when it came to Libby, but we haven’t heard anything about Hannah, who I cannot recall has even been named in any court documents at all. We also see him recycling a false rumor that two administration officials called up six reporters to plant a story; the rumor is widely attributed to Marc Grossman, a long-time friend/acquaintance of Wilson. Finally, he claims that the exposure of Plame violated the IIPA, although Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald has long since said he will not be pursuing any charges along those lines.

The most revealing article done by Mr. Sale came two days before Libby was indicted, October 26. Here the nexus between Sale, VIPS, and Truthout comes together in all its glory. In an article titled “Aides to Be Indicted, Probe to Continue”, Larry Johnson introduces Sale to the Truthout readers, commenting that he’s “found Richard to always be on target”. Ironically, this may very well have been the most inaccurate article Sale has done for quite some time. Let’s just start out with the lead paragraph:

Two top White House aides are expected to be indicted today on various charges related to the probe of CIA operative Valerie Plame, whose classified identity was publicly breached in retaliation after her husband, Joe Wilson, challenged the administration's claim that Saddam Hussein had sought to buy enriched uranium from Niger, according to federal law enforcement and senior US intelligence officials.

I can hear the echoes of Leopold’s disingenuous defense, “I always said… EXPECTED.” Notice how it is stated as fact, according to his sources, that the naming of Plame was done in retaliation. The two officials being talked about are Libby and Rove of course:

I. Scooter Libby, the chief of staff of Vice President Richard Cheney, and chief presidential advisor Karl Rove are expected to be named in indictments this morning by Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald.

It was “expected”, so I guess Sale is off the hook, right Leopold? In fact, you could just keep writing that it is “expected” that a huge earthquake is going to rock California, and then when it does, you can just say you were there to report it first. Uh huh. This article contains inaccurate or false information in almost every paragraph, continuing:

Others are to be named as well, these sources said. According to US officials close to the case, a bill of indictment that named five people has been in existence since before October 17. Various names have surfaced, such as National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley, yet only one source would confirm that Hadley was on the list. Hadley could not be reached for comment.

Keep in mind that Larry Johnson had written just 8 days earlier on October 18 on his blog that he had received a tip from what he would later reveal to have been a friend of Hadley’s that Hadley expected to be indicted. In the same breath, Johnson also personally confirmed a rumor that there were 22 indictments going to be handed down, and that Hadley, Rove, Cheney, and others were among them. Anyone want to bet that Johnson was one of Sale’s sources, perhaps the single source that would confirm that Hadley was on the list of indictments? More cannon fodder:

But letters from Fitzgerald notifying various White House officials that they are targets of the investigation,went out late last week, a former senior US intelligence official said.

100% bogus, as there’s only been one White House official who has received a target letter. I wonder which former senior intelligence official in VIPS sourced that claim. Johnson? McGovern? Colonel Patrick Lang? We’ll get back to Lang later. The string of complete cock-and-bull continues:

But federal law enforcement officials told this reporter that Fitzgerald was likely to charge the people indicted with violating Joe Wilson's civil rights, smearing his name in an attempt to destroy his ability to earn a living in Washington as a consultant. The civil rights charge is said to include that "the conspiracy was committed using US government offices, buildings, personnel and funds," one federal law enforcement official said.

Violating Wilson’s civil rights? You’re joking right? Did Sale note down a joke as fact? This is just bizarre, and completely wrong.

Other charges could include possible violations of US espionage laws, including the mishandling of US classified information, these sources said.

What didn’t these sources say? Wrong, wrong, wrong.

That Vice President Cheney is at the center of the controversy comes as no surprise. Last Friday, Fitzgerald investigators were talking to Cheney's attorneys, and detailed questionnaires, designed to pin down in meticulous sequence what Cheney knew, when he knew it, and what he told his aides, were delivered to the White House on Monday, according to these sources.

You don’t say, Cheney at the center of the controversy? That almost sounds like what Ray McGovern wrote a week earlier, in “Chickens Come Home to Roost on Cheney”, where he also speculated that Bush would fire Fitzgerald for getting too close to home. I’m sure that is just a strange coincidence though, right guys? How deep does the rabbit-hole go? Watch and learn:

Thanks to a letter of February, 2004, in which Fitzgerald asked for and obtained expanded authority, the Special Prosecutor is now in possession of an Italian parliament investigation into the forged Niger documents, alleging Iraq's interest in purchasing Niger uranium, sources said.

They said that Fitzgerald is looking into such individuals as former CIA agent Duane Claridge, military consultant to the Iraqi National Congress Gen. Wayne Downing, another military consultant for INC, and Francis Brooke, head of INC's Washington office in an effort to determine if they played any role in the forgeries or their dissemination. Also included in this group is long-time neoconservative Michael Ledeen, these federal sources said.

This has only been reported by UPI, which reported the following 2 days earlier (October 24) in a piece called “Bush at Bay: Fitzgerald Looks at Niger Forgeries” by Martin Walker, UPI’s Editor in Chief:

The second is that NATO sources have confirmed to United Press International that Fitzgerald's team of investigators has sought and obtained documentation on the forgeries from the Italian government. Fitzgerald's team has been given the full, and as yet unpublished report of the Italian parliamentary inquiry into the affair, which started when an Italian journalist obtained documents that appeared to show officials of the government of Niger helping to supply the Iraqi regime of Saddam Hussein with Yellowcake uranium.

Have we seen anything of this? Nope. So where was this coming from? October 19, Justin Raimondo of Antiwar.com reported:

According to a source in the Italian embassy, Patrick J. "Bulldog" Fitzgerald asked for and "has finally been given a full copy of the Italian parliamentary oversight report on the forged Niger uranium document," the former CIA officer tells me: "Previous versions of the report were redacted and had all the names removed, though it was possible to guess who was involved. This version names Michael Ledeen as the conduit for the report and indicates that former CIA officers Duane Clarridge and Alan Wolf were the principal forgers. All three had business interests with Chalabi."

Do any of these names look familiar? They are some of the same ones Richard Sale reported about a week later. Raimondo isn’t shy; he tells us quite bluntly what’s up:

I am hardly the first to implicate Ledeen in connection with the Niger uranium forgeries. Former CIA counterterrorism officials Vince Cannistraro and Larry Johnson have pointed the finger in Ledeen's direction.

Larry Johnson and Vince Cannistraro, of VIPS fame, were the ones who started the rumor that Ledeen made the Niger forgeries? Well isn’t that special. I wonder who sourced the articles for UPI claiming that Ledeen & Co forged the documents, and that Fitzgerald expanded his probe to look into them. Never mind that Fitzgerald hasn’t said one peep about the forgeries, and hasn’t mentioned anything even remotely having to do with them. It seems that most of the things Johnson, McGovern, Leopold, and Sale have reported haven’t remotely resembled reality. Is this a grand coincidence?

(As far as a so-called report implicating Ledeen & Co, that’s 100% false. An Italian parliamentary report was released in February which named Rocco Martino, “La Signora”, and Colonel Antonio Nucera as being the ones involved with the forgery. At least the VIPS crew got one detail correct, there were three names – they just made up which three names were in it to sell a story that would appease their anti-Bush base.)

VIPS member Patrick Lang has a blog. A category on his blog: Richard Sale. On October 26, the same date as his aloof article on all things Plame, Sale wrote a blog post for Lang detailing everything about the Niger forgeries. Here he repeats the entire conspiracy theory about Ledeen, Larry Franklin, Doug Feith, and the Niger forgeries, sourcing just about everything he needs to “former intelligence officials”.

Richard Sale, UPI reporter, writing on the blog of a VIPS member about a conspiracy theory concocted by VIPS members, while citing anonymous “former intelligence officials”. I’ve got to give it to them; they’ve got some balls trying to pull that off. In fact, they did pull it off, most of the lefty blogosphere chugs this stuff down by the gallon and doesn’t think twice about where it is coming from.

Just to ensure that the story got through, wink, wink, it was repeated by several other journalists eager to make use of the story that Johnson and Cannistraro concocted. Philip Giraldi, a former CIA official and a partner in Cannistraro Associates (ding!) repeated the tale in Truthout in late November, just in case everyone had forgotten. Does everyone remember Jason Leopold? On January 23rd, Leopold reports the same story about Fitzgerald looking into the Niger forgeries:

Over the past few months, Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has been questioning witnesses in the CIA leak case about the origins of the disputed Niger documents referenced in President Bush's January 2003 State of the Union address, according to several current and former State Department officials who have testified in the case.

What would you say if I told you that this was coming from Marc Grossman:

"To me it showed a total disregard for the truth, plain and simple," said one former State Department official who had worked closely with former Secretary of State Colin Powell, referring to the administration's use of the flawed intelligence.

Did I mention that my suspicions are well-founded?

Truthout is whoring itself for VIPS and Wilson, with Leopold acting as a mouthpiece, William Rivers Pitt backing him up, and Richard Sale chiming in with his UPI-credibility. They’ve all been running numerous rumors and outright falsehoods fabricated by VIPS to influence public opinion and perhaps even Fitzgerald’s investigation. The Fitzgerald Niger forgeries story was invented by Vincent Cannistraro and Larry Johnson of VIPS; it was peddled to Justin Raimondo then Richard Sale and Martin Walker of UPI. Leopold carries the gig by repeating all of these stories in Truthout, while Larry Johnson conducts damage control when things get out of hand.

There can no longer be any doubt that most of these explosive and uncorroborated “news” stories are being manufactured by the tight-knit group of former intelligence officials in tandem with Joe Wilson, Valerie Plame, and most likely backers in the Democratic Party. It is also probably no coincidence that David Shuster and Chris Matthews of MSNBC have carried many of the same rumors and false stories, such as the one claiming that outing Plame damaged efforts on Iran. Shuster has been hyping a Rove indictment as imminent for over a month, something only one other source has been doing: Jason Leopold.

VIPS was started to compel intelligence officials to illegally leak classified information to damage the Bush administration, and is apparently now in the business of manufacturing false news and rumor-mongering to do the same. It should come as no surprise that a group of veteran intelligence officials would have the clout to pull off such an enterprise, and that they would cut any corner necessary to fulfill their agenda.

Unlike outing covert intelligence officials, outing VIPS as the shadow group behind months and months worth of bogus news and rumors is neither illegal nor immoral. This needs to stop now, VIPS needs to be held accountable. The only way this can happen is if Jason Leopold, Marc Ash, William Rivers Pitt, Richard Sale, Martin Walker, and Justin Raimondo come forward and reveal who has been pulling their strings all this time.

There’s just one problem: the only reason any of those are (liberal) household names is precisely because they are mouthpieces for a dishonest, fake news enterprise. Truthout and UPI would have none of these “scoops” if they didn’t print as fact a bunch of nonsense coming from the quarters of VIPS.

In that sense, these journalists would be speaking truth to power by revealing their sources, the power that VIPS wields over them by handing out the precious “truth” that they have for sale.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/520764/posts

The Declining Terrorist Threat
New York Times | July 10, 2001 | Larry C. Johnson

Posted on 09/11/2001 6:05:46 PM PDT by Nick Danger

The Declining Terrorist Threat
By Larry C. Johnson
July 10, 2001
WASHINGTON - Judging from news reports and the portrayal of villains in our popular entertainment, Americans are bedeviled by fantasies about terrorism. They seem to believe that terrorism is the greatest threat to the United States and that it is becoming more widespread and lethal. They are likely to think that the United States is the most popular target of terrorists. And they almost certainly have the impression that extremist Islamic groups cause most terrorism.

None of these beliefs are based in fact. While many crimes are committed against Americans abroad (as at home), politically inspired terrorism, as opposed to more ordinary criminality motivated by simple greed, is not as common as most people may think. At first glance, things do seem to be getting worse. International terrorist incidents, as reported by the State Department, increased to 423 in 2000 from 392 in 1999. Recently, Americans were shaken by Filipino rebels' kidnapping of Americans and the possible beheading of one hostage. But the overall terrorist trend is down. According to the Central Intelligence Agency, deaths from international terrorism fell to 2,527 in the decade of the 1990's, from 4,833 in the 80's.

Nor are the United States and its policies the primary target. Terrorist activity in 2000 was heavily concentrated in just two countries -- Colombia, which had 186 incidents, and India, with 63. The cause was these countries' own political conflicts.

While 82 percent of the attacks in Colombia were on oil pipelines managed by American and British companies, these attacks were less about terrorism than about guerrillas' goal of disrupting oil production to undermine the Colombian economy. Generally, the guerrillas shy away from causing casualties in these attacks. No American oil workers in Colombia were killed or injured last year.

Other terrorism against American interests is rare. There were three attacks on American diplomatic buildings in 2000, compared with 42 in 1988. No Americans were killed in these incidents, nor have there been any deaths in this sort of attack this year.

Of the 423 international terrorist incidents documented in the State Department's report "Patterns of Global Terrorism 2000," released in April, only 153 were judged by the department and the C.I.A. to be "significant." And only 17 of these involved American citizens or businesses.

Eleven incidents involved kidnappings of one or more American citizens, all of whom were eventually released. Seven of those kidnapped worked for American companies in the energy business or providing services to it -- Halliburton, Shell, Chevron, Mobil, Noble Drilling and Erickson Air-Crane.

Five bombings were on the list. The best known killed 17 American sailors on the destroyer Cole, as it was anchored in a Yemeni port, and wounded 39. A bomb at a McDonald's in France killed a local citizen there. The other explosions -- outside the United States embassy in the Philippines, at a Citibank office in Greece, and in the offices of Newmont Mining in Indonesia -- caused mostly property damage and no loss of life. In the 17th incident, vandals trashed a McDonald's in South Africa.

The greatest risk is clear: if you are drilling for oil in Colombia -- or in nations like Ecuador, Nigeria or Indonesia -- you should take appropriate precautions; otherwise Americans have little to fear.

Although high-profile incidents have fostered the perception that terrorism is becoming more lethal, the numbers say otherwise, and early signs suggest that the decade beginning in 2000 will continue the downward trend. A major reason for the decline is the current reluctance of countries like Iraq, Syria and Libya, which once eagerly backed terrorist groups, to provide safe havens, funding and training.

The most violent and least reported source of international terrorism is the undeclared war between Islamists and Hindus over the disputed Kashmir region of India, bordering Pakistan. Although India came in second in terms of the number of terrorist incidents in 2000, with 63, it accounted for almost 50 percent of all resulting deaths, with 187 killed, and injuries, with 337 hurt. Most of the blame lies with radical groups trained in Afghanistan and operating from Pakistan.

I am not soft on terrorism; I believe strongly in remaining prepared to confront it. However, when the threat of terrorism is used to justify everything from building a missile defense to violating constitutional rights (as in the case of some Arab-Americans imprisoned without charge), it is time to take a deep breath and reflect on why we are so fearful.

Part of the blame can be assigned to 24-hour broadcast news operations too eager to find a dramatic story line in the events of the day and to pundits who repeat myths while ignoring clear empirical data. Politicians of both parties are also guilty. They warn constituents of dire threats and then appropriate money for redundant military installations and new government investigators and agents.

Finally, there are bureaucracies in the military and in intelligence agencies that are desperate to find an enemy to justify budget growth. In the 1980's, when international terrorism was at its zenith, NATO and the United States European Command pooh-poohed the notion of preparing to fight terrorists. They were too busy preparing to fight the Soviets. With the evil empire gone, they "discovered" terrorism as an important priority.

I hope for a world where facts, not fiction, determine our policy. While terrorism is not vanquished, in a world where thousands of nuclear warheads are still aimed across the continents, terrorism is not the biggest security challenge confronting the United States, and it should not be portrayed that way.

Larry C. Johnson is a former State Department counterterrorism specialist.

They said that Fitzgerald is looking into such individuals as former CIA agent Duane Claridge, military consultant to the Iraqi National Congress Gen. Wayne Downing, another military consultant for INC, and Francis Brooke, head of INC's Washington office in an effort to determine if they played any role in the forgeries or their dissemination. Also included in this group is long-time neoconservative Michael Ledeen, these federal sources said.

As noted further down, this is 100% incorrect, it is Vincent Cannistraro and the VIPS that are pushing this theory. From my files:

Fitzgerald went to Italy to investigate the Niger Embassy (in Rome) burglary...where the letterhead and seals for the forgeries were stolen. Ex-CIA agent (and coincidentally, an advisor to the Vatican in Rome),Vincent Cannistraro has stated that Alan Wolf and Duane Clarridge were the actual forgers, but his account is the only one available that I can find on the subject. He has also pointed the finger at Michael Ledeen, but Ledeen has publicly made a statement that he had nothing to do with it and demanded an apology from Cannistraro.

In addition, despite what the MSM is reporting, the Italians released a press report yesterday saying they had nothing to do with the forgeries:
Italy denies role in fake documents on Iraq
This was also backed up by Rocco here

Cannistraro's "theory" falls apart when you consider that he:
1) blamed SISME (the Italians), which has proven to be wrong
2) bases his assumptions on a Dec 2001 Ledeen meeting, when Cannistraro himself was in Rome in Nov 2001, which would make him just as suspect.
I also discovered that Cannistraro worked directly with Clarridge during Iran Contra, so he has alot of nerve bringing that up in connection to Ledeen. Another interesting tidbit (#47) that I discovered is that Wolf and Clarridge worked with Aldrich Ames, who outed Plame to the Russians in the 90's. Coincidence? I think not. Cannistraro trying to kill two birds with one stone to cover his own carcass seems to be the more likely answer. Equally suspicious is the Hersch article, where Cannistraro and another unnamed agent state the exact route the documents took and Cannistraro actually admits that he called the CIA about the documents before they were proven to be false. This begs the question...just how did Cannistraro know about the documents before they were vetted? Sounds a whole lot like Wilson's slip-up about seeing the documents.

Now it gets interesting:

Two other names just crept into this...Niger Ambassador Adamou Chekou, who was in charge at the Embassy when the break-in and forgeries occurred and Wissam al-Zahawiah, Iraqi Ambassador to the Holy See. Seems Italian Intelligence was eavesdropping on these two and discovered their "hotline".
Did you read that carefully. Holy See? As in Vatican? Where Vincent Cannistraro is the security advisor?
And speaking of al Zahawie, he was also apparently clairvoyant:
JANUARY 2003 : (AL ZAHAWIE, "RETIRED IN JORDAN" - IS RECALLED BACK TO BAGHDAD, IRAQ; HE IS TAKEN TO MEET UN WEAPONS INSPECTORS) But last January, al-Zahawie was summoned back to Baghdad for what he had expected would be a request to help Iraq's Foreign Service plan for deputy prime minister Tariq Aziz's planned visit to the Vatican. Instead, upon landing in Baghdad, al-Zahawie was taken to meet with UN weapons inspectors. Five inspectors interviewed him in a 90-minute session, he says.
"They asked why I went [to Niger], why I was chosen, when I left Rome and whether there were any other Iraqi diplomats at the Vatican," he says. "But then they asked who had the seal of the embassy and where I had left it." That's when al-Zahawie got wind of some kind of foul play. Italy had handed over cables from al-Zahawie to the Niger government announcing the trip, and other documents had pointed to his presence in Niger. But the inspectors were particularly interested in a July 6, 2000, document bearing al-Zahawie's signature, concerning a proposed uranium transaction. The inspectors refused to show him the letter, he says, but al-Zahawie was sure he had never written it. "If they had such a letter, it had to have been a forgery," he says. The tell-tale signs of the forgery were quite obvious, he stresses. [* My note: How would he know the 'tell-tale sign' if they refused to show the letters to him? Shades of Joe Wilson's foreknowledge of the docs?]

Here, my friends, you have an attempted coup of a sitting President by a bunch of current and ex-CIA agents, that much is becoming very apparent. While no one here considers Hersch a credible journalist, he is being fed info from Cannistraro and crew and did admit it was the CIA:

Hersch also claims in the above linked article:

Another explanation was provided by a former senior C.I.A. officer. He had begun talking to me about the Niger papers in March, when I first wrote about the forgery, and said, “Somebody deliberately let something false get in there.” He became more forthcoming in subsequent months, eventually saying that a small group of disgruntled retired C.I.A. clandestine operators had banded together in the late summer of last year and drafted the fraudulent documents themselves.
A more reliable source, Joe diGenova claims it was a possible CIA coup as well. As does James Lewis in two articles, here and here

Now there's the real story.

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