An earlier post contains a video excerpt of Ray McGovern speaking with Tucker Carlson about this important issue. McGovern does not mention Michael Ledeen specifically, but various voices within the Italian press have done just that.
My previous article discussed Ledeen's "Give war a chance" philosophy. I also address the question of whether he provides a good fit for McGovern's cryptic indication that we should blame former intelligence agents with ties to Cheney.
Larisa Alexandrovna here offers her insights. As you know, she is the editor of Raw Story and the proprietor of the at-largely blog. In my view, she is one of the best investigative reporters we've ever had. Not only has she met with Ledeen and other players, she knows this tale as few others do.
There is original material in what follows. If you want to understand what went wrong in this country, Larisa's research -- as presented below -- is your best starting place. This may be the most important post ever to appear in these pages.
All words below the asterisks are hers. I've edited very slightly, mostly to add paragraph breaks.
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First of all, I think Tucker Carlson is not the most informed person with whom to discuss something as complex as the Niger forgeries. McGovern does clarify that he does not think Dick and Lynn Cheney sat around forging documents -- rather, it was part of an effort by the OVP.
But yes, I do agree that it could have been said with much more clarity. The original story of Rocco Martino approaching the French is true, yes. But I do not believe that Martino approached the French and then attempted to sell the fabrication to the Italians, suddenly giving the administration an interesting item to sell.
Martino is a con-man, as all such usable intelligence agents are, and he was trying to make some additional money on the side by approaching the French. Consider when the embassy break in happened and when Martino approached the French. Seems a bit of time passed between those two events. Now, the other possibility is that Martino was hoping to launder the fabrication through the French as they would be more credible to US intelligence officers than the Italians.
From my own sources and from the retired spooks I have talked to over the years, SISMI is not seen as worth the title of "intelligence." The French operate a cartel in Niger or something like a cartel and they know how much product is being moved. They knew the forgeries were just that, and warned our own agency about this very thing.
If Martino's only motive was money, as you say, then why did he finally hand over the documents to Burba for free? I think you are partly right, in that Martino might have been trying to sell the same product over and over, but the issue is not Martino's attempts to sell it. That has become a red herring. Again, consider when the embassy break in happened and when the French were approached and when Cheney began to hear murmurs of these allegations from "foreign intelligence."
Neither Cannistraro or Giraldi -- to my knowledge -- said Ledeen was behind the forgeries. What I recall -- and I may be wrong on this point (but I doubt it) -- is that they said "you would be very close" in starting with the Ledeen question regarding the forgeries. I cannot remember which one said it, but it was never said Ledeen "is" responsible, only that he is close in proximity to those who actually were behind it. That is an accurate statement.
Then you say the following:
My problem with this statement mirrors my problem with Adam Curtis' fine new documentary The Trap (available via Google Video): I am not willing to take Ledeen's word for -- well, for anything.This is not an accurate interpretation of why I believe Ledeen was not directly involved in the forgery making. While I have had quite a few conversations with Ledeen on this point, he has not been the only person with whom I have spoken regarding the Niger forgeries. Those people include intelligence officers from a few countries as well as reporters in those countries, as well as sources close to investigators looking at the Niger forgeries question. No one, not a single person believes that Ledeen was directly involved.
By the way, I did publish the Ledeen P2 questions and his answers, but this was not a P2 op. This was a US-DOD op, specifically, an OSP op. And it was done by people who either did not care how official the forgeries looked, because the audience was the US public and Congress, or simply were inept, which would absolutely rule out any credible or experienced CIA officers, Mossad, the French, and any number of people who have been suggested as the people behind the forgery.
That said, you need to read all three of my interviews with Ledeen: Part one is Here, Part two is Here, and Part three is Here. You also need to read the rest of stories I did on OSP and pre-war intel as well as this article on Ledeen's employment with Panorama.
P2 has nothing to do with this and Ledeen's one and only goal at the Rome meeting was Iran. He says so, others say so, my own sources say so. On that point, he is telling the truth. Just because someone lies quite often, does not mean that everything they say is a lie. Things can be either debunked or confirmed in various ways. On this point, he is telling the truth. But when he says he knows nothing of the forgeries, that is something that I do not believe.
On the points of his views of Fascism, that is not something I want to get into here as it is more philosophical and less relevant to the question at hand: the Niger forgeries. But yes, his son is in fact a marine, serving in Iraq.
Moving on then, when you wrote this:
As for whether or not Ledeen ever worked for the CIA -- well, quite a few Italian observers have had thoughts along those lines over the years. But the situation is actually rather more complex:You are heading in the right direction with Clarridge, but for the wrong reasons. The Iran-Contra players all know one another quite well, even those who testified against one another, continue to have some understanding what the "other players" are currently up to. I know, because I have spent years talking to most of them. Their friendships or lack thereof do not put them at the center of the Niger forgeries scandal, not alone anyway. Ledeen's role during Iran Contra was to carry messages to the key players and make certain introductions. Not unlike the role he played with regard to the 2001 meeting in Rome between Ghorbanifar, Rhode, Franklin and a few others. And Clarridge's view of Ledeen is shared in return by Ledeen's own view of Clarridge.Duane R. Clarridge, a longtime CIA field agent (NE & SE Asia) and administrator who was pardoned by George HW Bush for his role in the Iran-Contra affair, describes Michael Ledeen as a "fine journalist," "a scholar," and a friend. However, he comments that their friendship had a "rocky start." Clarridge wrote that Ledeen made "life difficult for us [the CIA]". He noted that the CIA took a "dim view" of individuals such Ledeen and retired CIA officer Theodore Shackley who freelanced with foreign intelligence services. In 1980, Ledeen and Shackley teamed up to provide "war games-type training" for European intelligence services, including Italy's intelligence service.
But you are confusing the idea of people "close to Ledeen" with the actual fabricated documents. You are also not seeing the Niger forgeries as part of a larger, more organized machine put together in order to create and launder intelligence in order to bypass the agency, the INR, and various other organizations, even the DIA in most cases. You have to see the Niger forgeries as only a part of a larger mechanism, then you begin to understand that Ledeen's role was incredibly limited, although the focus of his role was much more expanded with regard to Iran -- something he has never denied, nor has Ghorbanifar.
Once you understand that this was part of a larger mechanism, then the next logical question would be, who had the ability and authority to organize, fund, and control the mechanism? This is where you are not far off with regard to Clarridge, but again, for the wrong reasons.
Just as in Iran Contra, the operational role was given to the NSC, which once again housed one of the most criminal people ever to have served in any administration, Eliott Abrams. The rest of the NSC consisted of Cheney loyalists like Rumsfeld and so forth. Cheney set the policy, NSC carried it out via creating a secondary intelligence outfit, an illegal one at that, running out of the DOD known as the OSP, with Shulsky reporting to Abrams and Hadley.
And if you understand that all of this was always about Iran, something I have said for a long time now, and that Iraq was supposed to be a pit stop on the way (obviously something went very wrong), then you understand why Ledeen was pulled in early -- in order to facilitate phase II, as I call it: The move against Iran right after Iraq, which explains why the meetings continued well past the invasion of Iraq, years well past.
I am not going to get into the whole Billygate affair here or the whole Francesco Pazienza thing here. None of this is related to Ledeen's role in Iran Contra or his alleged role in the Niger forgeries, which in both cases appears to be the same: introductions to key players. The Billygate and Pazienza issues are much more complex and Ledeen's role is much more complex. To focus on Martino and/or Ledeen, again, is to miss the actual real scandal here: that the NSC on order of the VP created an illegal channel of intelligence in the DOD in order to fabricate evidence to lead us into an illegal war (and likely using taxpayer money to accomplish this task). That is what I think McGovern was attempting to say, although I may be wrong, it is my interpretation.
Regarding your point about Ledeen's relationship to the Italians, this is something I have pointed out and reported on. But again, he made introductions to the key players. Pollari made a rare visit to the US to meet with Hadley, and I was told -- although have never been able to fully confirm -- that he delivered documents to him at that meeting.
At the same time that meeting was taking place, or around the same time, Burba gets Martino's documents and instead of taking them to SISMI, she takes them to the US embassy. Why? When I have gotten alleged intelligence, I have taken it to the CIA, because that is the intelligence organization of my country or to the FBI, depending on the materials. Why would an Italian journalist take documents to a foreign embassy and not to her domestic law enforcement officials or to SISMI or to any member of the Italian Parliament? She did not publish the story because she did not find the documents credible, yet she found them credible enough to pass to the US embassy?
Burba was used as part of the laundry. Martino could not hand them off the the US embassy. It would be far more credible for a journalist to do so, claiming concern. She may have been a willing or an unwilling tool (as she says), but she was a tool nevertheless.
Then you have (besides Martino and Burba) in the laundry, Franklin - an Iran expert and Rhode, a shady character that no one ever talks about. Franklin went to Rome to discuss Iran and his intelligence espionage was all about Iran as well. Ledeen, Ghorbanifar, and Franklin all focused on Iran and continued well after the 2003 start of the Iraq war. Rhode, on the other hand, knew Judith Miller and Chalabi quite well, with all three meeting in Iraq in April of 2003. Rhode was part of all of the Rome meetings and most of the Paris meetings. So why has no one ever focused on Harold Rhode? Because everyone has been too busy focusing on Ledeen and the Iran arm of the policy -- myself included, but for a different reason.
Rhode is your key to the rest, but there is one more other key, the one that everyone has confused in various ways: The Rendon Group, a DOD propaganda outfit contractor. They are the ones who created the INC and brought Chalabi around like a star.
So, with Cheney setting the policy, the NSC carrying it out via the OSP and WHIG and the INC/Chalabi/Rhode helping to "fix the facts" around the policy, then laundering the "facts" through foreign channels, the answer should be staring you in the face. I cannot go much further than this, even if I am simply discussing via a public forum and not reporting, because in order to prove what I believe and what I think McGoven probably believes (although I don't honestly know), would require hard documentation beyond what I have already reported and beyond what others have uncovered and reported and beyond what has been leaked to the public domain. To make the direct allegation would require something I would feel solid signing my name to, and that point is not something I have reached. But you, as a private citizen, can take it from here, I think. But you have to stop focusing so much on the red herring elements and focus far more on the points I have put forth.
In the end, it does not matter who actually sticker taped the forgeries together, rather, what is key is who ordered it and who paid for it and how it was then used. To me, that is the story, if only I had enough to put my name to what I believe likely happened.
Anyway, that is my take on your take and I hope you don't mind me sticking my 2 cents in. I always find your observations interesting, but I rarely take the time to write a novel in response. I hope you don't mind.
Best wishes, Larisa
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