""Watergate-level event" is about to occur in

by **dbeach** » Wed Oct 26, 2005 2:18 pm

One of my personal favs for arch villain is wolfie..he gettin a lil too close to all dat loot in da world bank which former VN luv muffin robert mac looted for yrs then wrote a book trying to excuse himself for his roles in VN War. Wolfie as under sec of defense whan asked at a press conference DID NOT know the war deaths in Iraq. Its over 2000 now wolfie thanx to you and your neo-con criminals MAYBE the ghosts will bust em if he don't get a OCT surprise gift from fitzgerald Wolfowitz = uber chickenhawk war mongering TRAITOR

by **hmm** » Wed Oct 26, 2005 2:20 pm

alot of heroin moves through turkey,some destined for Europe, the rest for the international ports of amsterdam and antwerpen. <a href="http://www.disinfo.com/archive/pages/article/id911/pg2/">www.disinfo.com/archive/p...id911/pg2/</a> "Dan Russell: Yeah, if you look at the recent history of Turkey, and then just east of that, Afghanistan, you'll see that Richard Helms and company were operating as the Iranian Shah's military team. Ted Shakley was there, and Richard Armitage, Felix Rodriguez, and Helms was US Ambassador to the Shah in 1975. This is just after he'd stepped down from running the CIA. They were the ones who engineered the 1980 coup in Turkey. They did it from their base in Iran. What they were doing at that time was working with Abdullah Catli and his Grey Wolves, using them to engineer control of the heroin trade throughout that region. Disinformation: Who were the Grey Wolves? Dan Russell: They were the street fighters for the facist National Action Party (MHP). In 1997, Judge Rolf Schwalbe concluded that two Kurdish clans known to be heavily involved in heroin trafficking had "excellent relations with the Turkish Government," and "personal contacts with a woman minister in the government." The Turkish publicity first hit the fan in November 1996 when a Mercedes Benz crashed in Ankara. Inside the Mercedes was the former Istanbul deputy police chief, and also CIA organizer of the counterinsurgency teams aimed at the Partiya Karkeran Kurdistan (PKK), the Kurdish Workers Party."

by **hmm** » Wed Oct 26, 2005 2:26 pm

<img src="http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2005/POLITICS/10/26/cia.leak/vert.libby.leak.ap.jpg" style="border:0;"/>

by **Jen** » Wed Oct 26, 2005 7:54 pm

They *all* look haggard this week. Really disheveled and flustered. I'm LOVING it.

by **Peachtree Pam** » Thu Oct 27, 2005 7:46 am

on Patrick Fitzgerald: "With impeccable timing, Fitzgerad is set to issue indictments in the Plame affair, just as US fatalities breach the 2,000 mark. It's a tactic to seduce people into letting the 'system' tackle the Buysh Administration -rather than relying on their own direct protest action. It's designed to buy them time in Iraq. If you buy it... the war goes on longer. Remember, former Harvard boy Fitzgerald convicted Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. He put together the first criminal indictment against Osama bin Laden, and he prosecuted four 'Al-Qaida' members for the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies. He is a 'safe pair of hands'. Geddit? This is an Establishment/CIA operation. Fake politics at its worst. " <a href="http://breakfornews.com/my/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=192">breakfornews.com/my/modul...le&sid=192</a> I had been wondering myself how Fitzgerald can continue his investigation, and still continue to breathe, without some sort of Bush Sr sanction.

by **antiaristo** » Thu Oct 27, 2005 8:29 am

This should cheer you up (via fdl) And in other news that should be heartening to those who feel themselves in a protracted state of coitus interruptus, Steve Clemons reports: <blockquote>Quote:<hr>Patrick Fitzgerald is expanding not only into a new website -- but also into more office space. Fitzgerald's office is at 1400 New York Avenue, NW, 9th Floor in Washington. What I have learned is that the Office of the Special Counsel has signed a lease this week for expanded office space across the street at 1401 New York Avenue, NW.<hr></blockquote> Another coincidence? More office space needed to shut down the operation?

by **Peachtree Pam** » Thu Oct 27, 2005 8:37 am

that you wonder what they have in mind to shove in our face next. They have caused so much death and destruction with this group, what next? <img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/embarassed.gif ALT=":o">

by **Prac** » Thu Oct 27, 2005 8:55 am

Check out CS's latest post. <a href="http://www.citizenspook.blogspot.com/">www.citizenspook.blogspot.com/</a> What's done in this world is what's paid for... ...Who's had the Money

by **Peachtree Pam** » Thu Oct 27, 2005 9:43 am

Hi Prac, It seems to me if there is no prosecution of Plame or Wilson, then Fitzgerald, who seems to be very bright, IS complicit in the entire "prosecution" farce ("the system works")<img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/wink.gif ALT=";)">

by **AnnaLivia** » Thu Oct 27, 2005 9:52 am

umm, what was up with that first comment after CSpook's latest entry? have i finally become paranoid? anybody think that a comment referring to identities of lawyers on his site, sounded like a "warning"? geez, CS, be careful. and thanks again, good man! GO PADDY

by **AnnaLivia** » Thu Oct 27, 2005 9:56 am

oh, priceless. Harriet Miers just withdrew. just in time to placate the bushco religious base. they're gonna need their support for what's coming down the pike. back into the fold, oh bushco worshippers.

by **Prac** » Thu Oct 27, 2005 10:48 am

Pam Your fear that the System will find a way out of this mess is predicated on the reasonable observation that that's the way its always gone. Totally reasonable and the leftist view is that it can only be overcome by some kind of popluar uprising. This is Fintan Dunne's view (you cited it a few posts back). The problem is that uprisings are always led... and leadars are always ideologically driven. They sees to impose their utopian view necessarily based on what's gone before, some kind of extrapolation from the corruption they deplore. As an obsessive compulsive observer of what's happening, I've come to the firm conclusion that those at the top of all of our pyramidal organisations are so addicted to past success that they their ignorance is only matched by their arrogance. My feeling is that what we are witnessing is the collapse of our pyramidal structures as the oil fueled ponzi scheme that has invisibly sustained their psoitions reaches its inevitable end. Those in power seem strong as the climax approaches but they are fatally weekened by their hubris. But if revolution is not the answer then what is, or could be? Some element or Institution within the current System must do its job. The Media shows no sign (yet) of doing so because they clearly have been bought off. So too the bulk of the Courts, everywhere. But with the Fitzgerald Grand Juries we have something new... or maybe we have... the chance of an institutionally correct investigation that will tell it how it is; and with sufficient power to bring criminal behaviour at the top of a critical pyramid to account. We have a Special Prosecutor with powers that Jim Garrison would have dreamed of, and a Grand Jury or ordinary people to judge the evidence put before it. This is a far cry from the Royal Commisions that whitewash away any nastiness in Australia or the UK. It all depends, doesn't it, on the integrity of Mr Fitzgerald, and judging from what we know of how he's gone about things, he may well have it. All we can do is wait and see... and not be too disappointed if he doen't deliver everything. It is going to be people that make the difference in the end, not organisations of employees constrained within money and power logics and ideology. We are witnessing the actions of empowered people right now. And this attourney, Mr Fitzgerald, and his grand Grand Jurors have already opened the opportunity for us people to probe many aspects of how the System works in great detail. All will not be lost, whatever happens. The mechnistic, seemingly all powerful Monster is in its death thows. When it will die, no-one knows... but die it will. And then we people will have the task of picking up the pieces. Be Patient, and maintain faith. <img src=http://www.ezboard.com/images/emoticons/eek.gif ALT=":eek"> Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=prac@rigorousintuition>Prac</A> at: 10/27/05 9:05 am

by **seemslikeadream** » Thu Oct 27, 2005 12:11 pm

He gave me great hope that this treason will not stand. If you get a chance watch it on <a href="http://www.cspan.org/" target="top">www.cspan.org/</a> The White House cabal By Lawrence B. Wilkerson, LAWRENCE B. WILKERSON served as chief of staff to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell from 2002 to 2005. IN PRESIDENT BUSH'S first term, some of the most important decisions about U.S. national security — including vital decisions about postwar Iraq — were made by a secretive, little-known cabal. It was made up of a very small group of people led by Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. When I first discussed this group in a speech last week at the New America Foundation in Washington, my comments caused a significant stir because I had been chief of staff to then-Secretary of State Colin Powell between 2002 and 2005. ADVERTISEMENT But it's absolutely true. I believe that the decisions of this cabal were sometimes made with the full and witting support of the president and sometimes with something less. More often than not, then-national security advisor Condoleezza Rice was simply steamrolled by this cabal. Its insular and secret workings were efficient and swift — not unlike the decision-making one would associate more with a dictatorship than a democracy. This furtive process was camouflaged neatly by the dysfunction and inefficiency of the formal decision-making process, where decisions, if they were reached at all, had to wend their way through the bureaucracy, with its dissenters, obstructionists and "guardians of the turf." But the secret process was ultimately a failure. It produced a series of disastrous decisions and virtually ensured that the agencies charged with implementing them would not or could not execute them well. I watched these dual decision-making processes operate for four years at the State Department. As chief of staff for 27 months, I had a door adjoining the secretary of State's office. I read virtually every document he read. I read the intelligence briefings and spoke daily with people from all across government. I knew that what I was observing was not what Congress intended when it passed the 1947 National Security Act. The law created the National Security Council — consisting of the president, vice president and the secretaries of State and Defense — to make sure the nation's vital national security decisions were thoroughly vetted. The NSC has often been expanded, depending on the president in office, to include the CIA director, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Treasury secretary and others, and it has accumulated a staff of sometimes more than 100 people. But many of the most crucial decisions from 2001 to 2005 were not made within the traditional NSC process. Scholars and knowledgeable critics of the U.S. decision-making process may rightly say, so what? Haven't all of our presidents in the last half-century failed to conform to the usual process at one time or another? Isn't it the president's prerogative to make decisions with whomever he pleases? Moreover, can he not ignore whomever he pleases? Why should we care that President Bush gave over much of the critical decision-making to his vice president and his secretary of Defense? Both as a former academic and as a person who has been in the ring with the bull, I believe that there are two reasons we should care. First, such departures from the process have in the past led us into a host of disasters, including the last years of the Vietnam War, the national embarrassment of Watergate (and the first resignation of a president in our history), the Iran-Contra scandal and now the ruinous foreign policy of George W. Bush. But a second and far more important reason is that the nature of both governance and crisis has changed in the modern age. From managing the environment to securing sufficient energy resources, from dealing with trafficking in human beings to performing peacekeeping missions abroad, governing is vastly more complicated than ever before in human history. Further, the crises the U.S. government confronts today are so multifaceted, so complex, so fast-breaking — and almost always with such incredible potential for regional and global ripple effects — that to depart from the systematic decision-making process laid out in the 1947 statute invites disaster. Discounting the professional experience available within the federal bureaucracy — and ignoring entirely the inevitable but often frustrating dissent that often arises therein — makes for quick and painless decisions. But when government agencies are confronted with decisions in which they did not participate and with which they frequently disagree, their implementation of those decisions is fractured, uncoordinated and inefficient. This is particularly the case if the bureaucracies called upon to execute the decisions are in strong competition with one another over scarce money, talented people, "turf" or power. It takes firm leadership to preside over the bureaucracy. But it also takes a willingness to listen to dissenting opinions. It requires leaders who can analyze, synthesize, ponder and decide. The administration's performance during its first four years would have been even worse without Powell's damage control. At least once a week, it seemed, Powell trooped over to the Oval Office and cleaned all the dog poop off the carpet. He held a youthful, inexperienced president's hand. He told him everything would be all right because he, the secretary of State, would fix it. And he did — everything from a serious crisis with China when a U.S. reconnaissance aircraft was struck by a Chinese F-8 fighter jet in April 2001, to the secretary's constant reassurances to European leaders following the bitter breach in relations over the Iraq war. It wasn't enough, of course, but it helped. Today, we have a president whose approval rating is 38% and a vice president who speaks only to Rush Limbaugh and assembled military forces. We have a secretary of Defense presiding over the death-by-a-thousand-cuts of our overstretched armed forces (no surprise to ignored dissenters such as former Army Chief of Staff Gen. Eric Shinseki or former Army Secretary Thomas White). It's a disaster. Given the choice, I'd choose a frustrating bureaucracy over an efficient cabal every time. <a href="http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/10/index.html#008117" target="top">www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/10/index.html#008117</a> HADLEY NAMED. La Repubblica has a dynamite series this week on the origin of the yellowcake forgeries. Laura Rozen reports: With Patrick Fitzgerald widely expected to announce indictments in the CIA leaks investigation, questions are again being raised about the murky matter that first led to the appointment of the special counsel: namely, how the Bush White House came into possession of discredited Italian intelligence reports claiming that Iraq sought uranium "yellowcake" from Niger. The key documents supposedly proving the Iraqi attempt turned out to be crude forgeries on official stationery stolen from the African nation's Rome embassy. Among the most tantalizing aspects of the debate over the Iraq War is the origin of those fake documents and the role of the Italian intelligence services in disseminating them. In an explosive series of articles appearing this week in the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, investigative reporters Carlo Bonini and Giuseppe d'Avanzo reveal how Niccolo Pollari, chief of Italy's military intelligence service, known as SISMI, brought the Niger yellowcake story directly to the White House after his insistent overtures had been rejected by the Central Intelligence Agency in 2001 and 2002. Today's exclusive report in La Repubblica reveals that Pollari met secretly in Washington on September 9, 2002, with then–Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley. Their secret meeting came at a critical moment in the White House campaign to convince Congress and the American public that war in Iraq was necessary to prevent Saddam Hussein from developing nuclear weapons. The La Repubblica article quotes a Bush administration official saying, "I can confirm that on September 9, 2002, general Nicolo Pollari met Stephen Hadley." Laura will have more on this story later today. and this <a href="http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=7256" target="top">bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=7256</a> JANUARY 2001 BREAK-IN AT NIGER EMBASSY At night, between the first and second of the January 2001, a mysterious thief came to the embassy of Niger in Rome and into the residence of the counselor in charge. It turned out that some letterhead and seals (see photocopy) were missing. A second dossier on Niger-Iraq trade soon came into Martino’s hands, one that included references to uranium trafficking. Martino claims he got it from embassy personnel and that he thought it was authentic. http://www.repubblica.it/2005/j/sezioni/esteri/iraq69/bodv/bodv.html Please excuse the translation I had to use this, it can be used for the rest of the article http://www.freetranslation.com/ "Pollari went to the White House to offer its truth on the Iraq" The dossier on the uranium from the Niger did not involve the Ioc of CARLO BONINI and GIUSEPPE OF REMAINDER ROME - For Nicolò Pollari, director of the Earthquakes, the rules of its occupation I am inequivoche. It says to Republic: "I Am the director of the intelligence and the mine alone institutional speaker, after the 11 September, was at Washington the director of the Ioc, George Tenet. How it is obvious, I speak only with him. ..". But it is actual truth that our barbefinte have working only with the Ioc? Or they supported also the clandestine efforts of the intelligence parallel created from Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz with the "group Iraq", the office for Special plans of the Pentagon, the office of the national security advisor, specific to find the useful tests for the "change of regime" to Baghdad? It is a fact that, to the eve of the war in Iraq and with the supervision of the diplomatic advisor of Palace Chigi, Gianni Castellaneta (today ambassador in the Usa), the director of the Earthquakes organizes to Washington its diary with the staff of Condoleezza Rice, in those national years security advisor to the White House. Republic is in a position to document this double platform of the government and of the Italian intelligence. At least one of the meetings "very little institutional" of Pollari and, how they the secret agents say, it "accomplishment of a system" that holds together Government - Intelligence - Information. Short recapitulation. The Earthquakes of Nicolò Pollari wants to credit the iraqui purchase of uranium crude to build a nuclear bomb. The diagram of the game is rather transparent. The cards "authentic" on an attempt to purchase in Niger (old "intelligence" Italian of the eighties) the door in gift the vicecapo of the Center Earthquakes of Rome (Antonio Nucera). They come bundled with other card built to the bell' and better with a theft simulated in the embassy of the Niger (if they extract of it card addressed and you stamp). The documents come shown from the men of Pollari to the agents of the station Ioc of Rome while a "mailman" of the Earthquakes, a such one of name Rocco Martino, delivers them to London to the MI6 of sir Richard Dearlove. It is the before instantaneous one. It returns useful to tell the second chapter of the Large organizing Deciet in Italy to build the necessity of a military intervention in Iraq. It already we saw. Greg Thielmann, former director of the front desk of intelligence of the Department of State, itself meeting place on the table the report "Italian" on the uranium. It does not remember the exact date. "Pollari andò alla Casa Bianca per offrire la sua verità sull'Iraq" Il dossier sull'uranio dal Niger non coinvolgeva la Cia di CARLO BONINI e GIUSEPPE D'AVANZO ROMA - Per Nicolò Pollari, direttore del Sismi, le regole del suo mestiere sono inequivoche. Dice a Repubblica: "Sono il direttore dell'intelligence e il mio solo interlocutore istituzionale, dopo l'11 settembre, è stato a Washington il direttore della Cia, George Tenet. Come è ovvio, io parlo soltanto con lui...". Ma è proprio vero che le nostre barbefinte hanno lavorato soltanto con la Cia? Oppure hanno sostenuto anche gli sforzi clandestini dell'intelligence parallela creata da Dick Cheney e Paul Wolfowitz con il "gruppo Iraq", l'Office for Special plans del Pentagono, l'ufficio del consigliere per la Sicurezza nazionale, determinatissimi a trovare le prove utili per il "cambio di regime" a Bagdad? È un fatto che, alla vigilia della guerra in Iraq e con la supervisione del consigliere diplomatico di Palazzo Chigi, Gianni Castellaneta (oggi ambasciatore negli Usa), il direttore del Sismi organizza a Washington la sua agenda con lo staff di Condoleezza Rice, in quegli anni consigliere per la Sicurezza nazionale alla Casa Bianca. Repubblica è in grado di documentare questo doppio binario del governo e dell'intelligence italiana. Almeno uno degli incontri "molto poco istituzionali" di Pollari e, come dicono gli agenti segreti, la "realizzazione di un sistema" che tiene insieme Governo - Intelligence - Informazione. Breve riepilogo. Il Sismi di Nicolò Pollari vuole accreditare l'acquisto iracheno di uranio grezzo per fabbricare una bomba nucleare. Lo schema del gioco è alquanto trasparente. Le carte "autentiche" su un tentativo di acquisto in Niger (vecchia "intelligence" italiana degli anni Ottanta) le porta in dote il vicecapo del Centro Sismi di Roma (Antonio Nucera). Vengono affastellate con altra cartaccia costruita alla bell'e meglio con un furto simulato nell'ambasciata del Niger (se ne ricavano carta intestata e timbri). I documenti vengono mostrati dagli uomini di Pollari agli agenti della stazione Cia di Roma mentre un "postino" del Sismi, un tale di nome Rocco Martino, li consegna a Londra al MI6 di sir Richard Dearlove. È la prima istantanea. Torna utile per raccontare il secondo capitolo del Grande Inganno organizzato in Italia per costruire la necessità di un intervento militare in Iraq. Lo abbiamo già visto. Greg Thielmann, ex direttore del bureau di intelligence del Dipartimento di Stato, si ritrova sul tavolo il report "italiano" sull'uranio. Non ricorda la data esatta. http://nuralcubicle.blogspot.com/2005/10/berlusconi-behind-fake-yellowcake.html Double-Dealers and Dilettantes--the Men Behind Nigergate Were All Italians. The military intervention in Iraq was justified by two revelations: Saddam Hussein attempted to acquire unprocessed uranium (yellowcake) in Niger (1) for enrichment with centrifuges built with aluminum tubes imported from Europe(2). The fabricators of the twin hoaxes (there was never any trace in Iraq of unprocessed uranium or centrifuges) were the Italian government and Italian military intelligence. La Repubblica has attempted to reconstruct the who, where and why of the manufacture and transfer to British and American intelligence of the dodgy dossier for war. They are the same two hoaxes that Judith Miller, the reporter who betrayed her newspaper, published (together with Michael Gordon) on September 8, 2002. In a lengthy investigative piece for the New York Times, Miller reported that Saddam could have built an atomic weapon with those aluminum tubes. These were the goods that the hawks in the Bush administration were expecting. The "war dance" which followed Judith Miller’s scoop seemed like "carefully-prepared theater” to an attentive media-watcher, Roberto Reale of Ultime Notizie (The Latest News). Condoleezza Rice, who was then White House Security Advisor, said on CNN: We don’t want the smoking gun to look like a mushroom cloud. A menacing Dick Cheney told Meet the Press that We know with absolute certainty that Saddam is using his technical and commercial capacities to acquire the material necessary to enrich uranium to build a nuclear weapon. This was the beginning of an escalation of fear. 26 September 2002: Colin Powell warns the Senate: The Iraqi attempt to acquire uranium is proof of its nuclear ambitions. 19 December 2002: The information on Niger and the uranium is included in the three-page President’s Daily Briefing prepared each day by the CIA and the Department of State for George W. Bush. The ambassador to the United Nations, John Negroponte, added his stamp of approval: Why is Iraq dissimulating its purchase of Niger uranium? more http://crookedtimber.org/2005/10/25/la-repubblica-scoop/ .... It’s a fact that on the eve of the Iraq war, and under the supervision of the diplomatic advisor to the Foreign Ministry, Gianni Castellaneta (today ambassador to the USA), the director of SISMI organized his agenda in Washington with the staff of Condoleeza Rice, who was National Security Adviser to the White House at that time. La Repubblica is able to document this two track process between the government and Italian intelligence. At least one of these ‘barely official’ [molto poco istituzionali] meetings of Pollari’s was, according to secret service agents, the ‘creation of a system’ that would bring together government, intelligence and public affairs [informazione]. To summarize: Nicolo Pollari’s SISMI wanted to substantiate the [case for] the Iraqi acquisition of raw uranium to build a nuclear bomb. The game-plan was rather transparent. ‘Authentic’ documents relating to an attempted acquisition in Niger (old Italian intelligence from the 1980’s) were the dowry of the second-in-command of CISMI’s Roman headquarters (Antonio Nucera). They were bundled together with another fabricated document … through a simulated burglary on the Nigerien embassy (from which they had gotten headed notepaper and seals). The documents were shown by Pollari’s men to CIA station agents, and at the same time, a SISMI ‘postman’ by the name of Rocco Martino was sent to Sir Richard Dearlove of MI6 in London. turning to the second chapter of the Great Swindle, organized in Italy, to build the case that military intervention in Iraq was necessary. … the Italian report on uranium … … The CIA analysts thought the first report ‘very limited’ and ‘without the necessary details.’ INR analysts in the Department of State assessed the information as ‘highly suspect.’ … The immediate impact on the American Intelligence community wasn’t very gratifying for Pollari … Gianni Castellaneta advised him to look in ‘other directions’ too, while the minister of Defence, Antonio Martino invited him to meet ‘an old friend of Italy’s.’ The American friend was Michael Ledeen, an old fox in the ‘parallel’ intelligence community in the US, who had been declared an undesirable person in our country [Italy] in the 1980’s [editorial note – I understand that this claim was contested when it was made by Sidney Blumenthal]. Ledeen was at Rome on behalf of the Office of Special Plans, created at the Pentagon by Paul Wolfowiz to gather intelligence that would support military intervention in Iraq. A source at Forte Braschi told La Repubblica : “Pollari got a frosty reception from the CIA’s station head in Rome, Jeff Castelli, for this information on uranium. Castelli apparently let the matter drop [lascia cadere la storia]. Pollari got the hint and talked about it with Michael Ledeen.’ We don’t know what Michael Ledeen did in Washington. But at the beginning of 2002, Paul Wolfowitz convinced Dick Cheney that the uranium trail intercepted by the Italians had to be explored top to bottom. The vice-president, as the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence tells it, once again asked the CIA ‘very decisively’ to find out more about the ‘possible acquisition of Nigerien uranium.’ In this meeting, Dick Cheney explicitly said that this piece of intelligence was at the disposition of a “foreign service.” … Forte Braschi says that “Pollari was incredibly cunning – he knew that it wasn’t enough to rely on the CIA to push the uranium story. It was necessary to work, as Palazzo Chigi and the Department of Defence had indicated, with the Pentagon and with the National Security Adviser, Rice. … An administration official has told La Repubblica “I can confirm that on September 9 2002, General Nicolo Pollari met Stephen Hadley, the deputy to the National Security Adviser, Condoleeza Rice.”… SISMI’s ‘postman,’ Rocco Martino contacted a journalist for a weekly newspaper – edited by Carlo Rossella – to sell her the documents at issue. … Panorama had a worldwide scoop. Title “The War? It’s already begun,’ it spoke of ‘half a ton of uranium.’ … The government asked. The intelligence service gave. The media spread it. The government confirmed it. It was an old disinformation technique from the Cold War. Exaggerate the danger of the threat. Terrify and convince public opinion of it. more Edited by: <A HREF=http://p216.ezboard.com/brigorousintuition.showUserPublicProfile?gid=seemslikeadream@rigorousintuition>seemslikeadream</A> at: 10/27/05 10:15 am

by **seemslikeadream** » Thu Oct 27, 2005 5:36 pm

WHITE HOUSE Cheney, Libby Blocked Papers To Senate Intelligence Panel By Murray Waas, special to National Journal © National Journal Group Inc. Thursday, Oct. 27, 2005 Vice President Cheney and his chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, overruling advice from some White House political staffers and lawyers, decided to withhold crucial documents from the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2004 when the panel was investigating the use of pre-war intelligence that erroneously concluded Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, according to Bush administration and congressional sources. Cheney had been the foremost administration advocate for war with Iraq, and Libby played a central staff role in coordinating the sale of the war to both the public and Congress. - Advertisement - - Advertisement - Among the White House materials withheld from the committee were Libby-authored passages in drafts of a speech that then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell delivered to the United Nations in February 2003 to argue the Bush administration's case for war with Iraq, according to congressional and administration sources. The withheld documents also included intelligence data that Cheney's office -- and Libby in particular -- pushed to be included in Powell's speech, the sources said. The new information that Cheney and Libby blocked information to the Senate Intelligence Committee further underscores the central role played by the vice president's office in trying to blunt criticism that the Bush administration exaggerated intelligence data to make the case to go to war. The disclosures also come as Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald wraps up the nearly two-year-old CIA leak investigation that has focused heavily on Libby's role in discussing covert intelligence operative Valerie Plame with reporters. Fitzgerald could announce as soon as tomorrow whether a federal grand jury is handing up indictments in the case. Central to Fitzgerald's investigation is whether administration officials disclosed Plame's identity and CIA status in an effort to discredit her husband, former ambassador and vocal Bush administration critic Joseph Wilson, who wrote newspaper op-ed columns and made other public charges beginning in 2003 that the administration misused intelligence on Iraq that he gathered on a CIA-sponsored trip to Africa. In recent weeks Fitzgerald's investigation has zeroed in on the activities of Libby, who is Cheney's top national security and foreign policy advisor, as well as the conflict between the vice president's office on one side and the CIA and State Department on the other over the use of intelligence on Iraq. The New York Times reported this week, for example, that Libby first learned about Plame and her covert CIA status from Cheney in a conversation with the vice president weeks before Plame's cover was blown in a July 2003 newspaper column by Robert Novak. The Intelligence Committee at the time was trying to determine whether the CIA and other intelligence agencies provided faulty or erroneous intelligence on Iraq to President Bush and other government officials. But the committee deferred the much more politically sensitive issue as to whether the president and the vice president themselves, or other administration officials, misrepresented intelligence information to bolster the case to go to war. An Intelligence Committee spokesperson says the panel is still working on this second phase of the investigation. Had the withheld information been turned over, according to administration and congressional sources, it likely would have shifted a portion of the blame away from the intelligence agencies to the Bush administration as to who was responsible for the erroneous information being presented to the American public, Congress, and the international community. In April 2004, the Intelligence Committee released a report that concluded that "much of the information provided or cleared by the Central Intelligence Agency for inclusion in Secretary Powell's [United Nation's] speech was overstated, misleading, or incorrect." Both Republicans and Democrats on the committee say that their investigation was hampered by the refusal of the White House to turn over key documents, although Republicans said the documents were not as central to the investigation. In addition to withholding drafts of Powell's speech -- which included passages written by Libby -- the administration also refused to turn over to the committee contents of the president's morning intelligence briefings on Iraq, sources say. These documents, known as the Presidential Daily Brief, or PDB, are a written summary of intelligence information and analysis provided by the CIA to the president. One congressional source said, for example, that senators wanted to review the PDBs to determine whether dissenting views from the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, the Department of Energy, and other agencies that often disagreed with the CIA on the question of Iraq's programs to develop weapons of mass destruction were being presented to the president. An administration spokesperson said that the White House was justified in turning down the document demand from the Senate, saying that the papers reflected "deliberative discussions" among "executive branch principals" and were thus covered under longstanding precedent and executive privilege rules. Throughout the president's five years in office, the Bush administration has been consistently adamant about not turning internal documents over to Congress and other outside bodies. At the same time, however, administration officials said in interviews that they cannot recall another instance in which Cheney and Libby played such direct personal roles in denying foreign policy papers to a congressional committee, and that in doing so they overruled White House staff and lawyers who advised that the materials should be turned over to the Senate panel. Administration sources also said that Cheney's general counsel, David Addington, played a central role in the White House decision not to turn over the documents. Addington did not return phone calls seeking comment. Cheney's office declined to comment after requesting that any questions for this article be submitted in writing. A former senior administration official familiar with the discussions on whether to turn over the materials said there was a "political element" in the matter. This official said the White House did not want to turn over records during an election year that could used by critics to argue that the administration used incomplete or faulty intelligence to go to war with Iraq. "Nobody wants something like this dissected or coming out in an election year," the former official said. But the same former official also said that Libby felt passionate that the CIA and other agencies were not doing a good job at intelligence gathering, that the Iraqi war was a noble cause, and that he and the vice president were only making their case in good faith. According to the former official, Libby cited those reasons in fighting for the inclusion in Powell's U.N. speech of intelligence information that others mistrusted, in opposing the release of documents to the Intelligence Committee, and in moving aggressively to counter Wilson's allegations that the Bush administration distorted intelligence findings. Both Republicans and Democrats on the committee backed the document request to the White House regarding Libby's drafts of the Powell speech, communications between Libby and other administration officials on intelligence information that might be included in the speech, and Libby's contacts with officials in the intelligence community relating to Iraq. In his address to the United Nations on February 5, 2003, Powell argued that intelligence information showed that Saddam Hussein's regime was aggressively pursuing programs to develop chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons Only after the war did U.N. inspectors and the public at large learn that the intelligence data had been incorrect and that Iraq had been so crippled by international sanctions that it could not sustain such a program. The April 2004 Senate report blasted what it referred to as an insular and risk- averse culture of bureaucratic "group think" in which officials were reluctant to challenge their own longstanding notions about Iraq and its weapons programs. All nine Republicans and eight Democrats signed onto this document without a single dissent, a rarity for any such report in Washington, especially during an election year. After the release of the report, Intelligence Committee, Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kan., and Vice Chairman Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., said they doubted that the Senate would have authorized the president to go to war if senators had been given accurate information regarding Iraq's programs on weapons of mass destruction. "I doubt if the votes would have been there," Roberts said. Rockefeller asserted, "We in Congress would not have authorized that war, in 75 votes, if we knew what we know now." Roberts' spokeswoman, Sarah Little, said the second phase of the committee's investigation would also examine how pre-war intelligence focused on the fact that intelligence analysts -- while sounding alarms that a humanitarian crisis that might follow the war - failed to predict the insurgency that would arise after the war. Little says that it was undecided whether the committee would produce a classified report, a declassified one that could ultimately be made public, or hold hearings. When the 2004 Senate Intelligence Committee was made public, Bush, Cheney, and other administration officials cited it as proof that the administration acted in good faith on Iraq and relied on intelligence from the CIA and others that it did not know was flawed. But some congressional sources say that had the committee received all the documents it requested from the White House the spotlight could have shifted to the heavy advocacy by Cheney's office to go to war. Cheney had been the foremost administration advocate for war with Iraq, and Libby played a central staff role in coordinating the sale of the war to both the public and Congress. In advocating war with Iraq, Libby was known for dismissing those within the bureaucracy who opposed him, whether at the CIA, State Department, or other agencies. Supporters say that even if Libby is charged by the grand jury in the CIA leak case, he waged less a personal campaign against Wilson and Plame than one that reflected a personal antipathy toward critics in general. Lawrence Wilkerson, who served as chief of staff to Powell as Secretary of State, charged in a recent speech that there was a "cabal between Vice President Cheney and Secretary of Defense [Donald L.] Rumsfeld on critical decisions that the bureaucracy did not know was being made." In interagency meetings in preparation for Powell's U.N. address, Wilkerson, Powell, and senior CIA officials argued that evidence Libby wanted to include as part of Powell's presentation was exaggerated or unreliable. Cheney, too, became involved in those discussions, sources said, when he believed that Powell and others were not taking Libby's suggestions seriously. Wilkerson has said that he ordered "whole reams of paper" of intelligence information excluded from Libby's draft of Powell's speech. Another official recalled that Libby was pushing so hard to include certain intelligence information in the speech that Libby lobbied Powell for last minute changes in a phone call to Powell's suite at the Waldorf Astoria hotel the night before the speech. Libby's suggestions were dismissed by Powell and his staff. John E. McLaughlin, then-deputy director of the CIA, has testified to Congress that "much of our time in the run-up to the speech was spent taking out material... that we and the secretary's staff judged to have been unreliable." The passion that Libby brought to his cause is perhaps further illustrated by a recent Los Angeles Times report that in April 2004, months after Fitzgerald's leak investigation was underway, Libby ordered "a meticulous catalog of Wilson's claims and public statements going back to early 2003" because Libby was "consumed by passages that he believed were inaccurate or unfair" to him. The newspaper reported that the "intensity with which Libby reacted to Wilson had many senior White House staffers puzzled, and few agreed with his counterattack plan, or its rationale." A former administration official said that "this might have been about politics on some level, but it is also personal. [Libby] feels that his honor has been questioned, and his instinct is to strike back." Now, as Libby battles back against possible charges by a special prosecutor, he might be seeking vindication on entirely new level. <a href="http://nationaljournal.com/about/njweekly/stories/2005/1027nj1.htm" target="top">nationaljournal.com/about/njweekly/stories/2005/1027nj1.htm</a>

by **chiggerbit** » Thu Oct 27, 2005 5:53 pm

According to the former official, Libby cited those reasons in fighting for the inclusion in Powell's U.N. speech of intelligence information that others mistrusted, in opposing the release of documents to the Intelligence Committee, and in moving aggressively to counter Wilson's allegations that the Bush administration distorted intelligence findings. What was wrong with Powell that he couldn't be man enough to put his foot down and refuse to include such suspicious information in his own speech? What a weak, compliant wanna-be-one-of -the-clique-at-any-price jerk.

""Watergate-level event" is about to occur in

Re: Indictments

Re: turkey,heroin and RW-terror:"grey wolves"

Re: Indictments - libby needs crutches today (photo)

Libby and crutches

Fintan Dunne's take

Pam, have faith

It's just that these scumbags plan so far ahead

New CS post

CS latest post

Re: CS latest post

Re: CS latest post

Be Patient and keep faith

Re:Lawrence Wilkerson was on CSPAN this morning

Re:Cheney, Libby Blocked Papers To Senate Intelligence Panel

Re: Re:Cheney, Libby Blocked Papers To Senate Intelligence P

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