or Powell's or me• • •
"Mike and Jon, Jon and Mike—I've known them both for years, and, clearly, one of them is very funny. As for the other: truly one of the great hangers-on of our time."—Steve Bodow, head writer, The Daily Show
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"Who can really judge what's funny? If humor is a subjective medium, then can there be something that is really and truly hilarious? Me. This book."—Daniel Handler, author, Adverbs, and personal representative of Lemony Snicket
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"The good news: I thought Our Kampf was consistently hilarious. The bad news: I’m the guy who wrote Monkeybone."—Sam Hamm, screenwriter, Batman, Batman Returns, and Homecoming
May 01, 2007
Speaking Of Forgeries
So Henry Waxman is going to be delving more deeply into the uranium-from-Niger crap. But I don't think anyone knows anything at all about these other forgeries, described in George Tenet's new book, p. 356:
The Iraq-al-Qa'ida controversy continued, even after Saddam was long gone from power. Once U.S. forces reached Baghdad, they discovered—stacked where they could easily find them—purported Iraqi intelligence services documents that showed much tighter links between Saddam and Zarqawi and Saddam and al-Qa'ida. CIA analysts worked with the U.S. Secret Service to have the paper and ink checked and tried to verify the names and information in the documents. Time and again, documents that were supposedly produced in the early 1990s turned out to be forgeries. CIA officers interviewed Iraqi intelligence officers in Baghdad who also discounted the authenticity of the documents. It was obvious that someone was trying to mislead us. But these raw, unevaluated documents that painted a more nefarious picture of Iraq and al-Qa'ida continued to show up in the hands of senior administration officials without having gone through normal intelligence channels.
It might be nice if someone, you know, looked into this.
Posted at May 1, 2007 10:18 AM | TrackBackA while back I wrote a little bit about a forged memo on the subject of Atta, Salman Pak and yellow-cake originating from Iyad Allawi. I imagine most of the forged documents came from similar sources - eager lickspittles with shit for brains.
Posted by: saurabh at May 1, 2007 11:45 AMthat probably means any random money you find on the sidewalk belongs to the pentagon.
but, on the fool's gold rush: lucky for curveball, the other players were little league.
Posted by: hibiscus at May 1, 2007 02:27 PMThey are casting their nets wider? Why don’t they just ask Dick Cheney? Dick Knows.
Posted by: rob payne at May 1, 2007 05:10 PMWhy didn't they go to the people who turn out fake IDs for hight school students? They seem more competent.
Posted by: SPIIDERWEB™ at May 1, 2007 05:35 PMrob payne:
Time to bring back that 80s standard: "Dick Cheney is watching!"
Posted by: saurabh at May 1, 2007 06:11 PMyes, dick knows. and if he won't tell us, well water-boarding is NOW LEGAL...
Posted by: Susan at May 1, 2007 08:44 PMListen to Terri Gross' interview with Italian journalist Carlo Bonini (Fresh Air 26 Apr 07):
http://www.npr.org/templates/rundowns/rundown.php?prgId=13&prgDate=26-Apr-07
He spells it all out from the Continental side.
Posted by: AdmNaismith at May 1, 2007 08:51 PMAccording to Bonini, rogue Italian agents had been trying for years to make money selling forged docs about Hussein and Niger. The Italians bit because they wanted to be in The Game, and the Bush Admin bit because it fit their world view. No one else gave these obvious forgeries a 2nd look.
Posted by: AdmNaismith at May 1, 2007 08:54 PMSaurabh and Susan,
Yup, Dick nose, whoops I meant Dick knows, and he can watch while he is water boarded, maybe it would wipe that snarl from his face. What a farce.
I think it was exceedingly considerate of the looters to leave those neatly stacked documents alone.
Posted by: Jonathan Versen at May 2, 2007 12:57 AMRegarding the neatness I would guess the CIA’s reputation for not getting things right must have been one consideration though the looters did not want to be too obvious by actually painting arrows on the floor though they might have left a sign above the stack labeled “Important un-evalutated documents, attention: Dick Cheney" in large red letters.
Posted by: rob payne at May 2, 2007 04:21 AMThis is all getting to surreal for me...
I can't quite figure this out. How much SH*T has to hit the fan before our collective immune system gets this administration out of office completely?
fabricitaion of lies, responses to questions about failure sound like "We are making progress"
Dick Cheney hasn't said ANYTHING true for six years and he is still VP?
This is undoubtedly the worst administration in US history and yet day by day passes and they are still in office. Impeachment bills are drafted only to lie fallow...are we waiting for the fall to actually start doing something?
anyone??
Posted by: kevin behr at May 2, 2007 12:45 PMONLY YOU, FELLOW TAXPAYERS CAN FORCE CONGRESS TO IMPEACH DEADEYE DicTRAITOR AND THE DECIDER TOGETHER. I've called my Congressional Representative (Barbara Cubin) concerning the matter of IMPEACHMENT, now it's your turn to call yours. Congress will HAVE TO BE HEARDED in that direction.
Posted by: Mike Meyer at May 2, 2007 06:02 PM
