The original piece can now be found online here. You may also want to see (See this response, as well as the Al Jazeera take on this matter. Giraldi's brief squib has riveted the attention of observers across the political spectrum.
This really is the most important story of our time. More important than Judge Roberts, Senator Roberts, or Mister Roberts. More important than the appalling rape of young boys at Abu Ghraib. More important than Rove or Wilson.
Why? Because Cheney's scheme could not so much change history as end it.
And I've discovered an interesting new angle to the tale...
The American Conservative piece was written by one Philip Giraldi, a former CIA guy. Of course, with that organization, you never know whether quotes around the word "former" are warranted. (Did E. Howard Hunt "quit" three times, or merely two? I tend to forget...) Giraldi also did a three-year stint with the DIA -- Defense Intelligence Agency -- which probably explains where he made the contacts necessary to write the afore-cited piece.
Giraldi co-publishes a newsletter called Intelligence Brief, which is circulated within the business community. (It doesn't seem to have an online existence.) His partner in that enterprise is an equally intriguing fellow -- another former CIA guy named Vincent Cannistraro, formerly chief of operations for the CIA's counter-terrorism efforts.
You will recall that he was all over the news media in the aftermath of 9/11 and the invasion of Afghanistan. In story after story, quote after quote, he delivered his views -- as well as the views of his former employer. (For an example, see the interview here.) Of course, the CIA regulates what former employees may or may not reveal, so we may fairly presume that higher-ups at the Agency tacitly approved of (or at least were not angered by) his recent pronouncements.
Cannistraro's history places left-ish spook-watchers like myself in an odd position. (So does the Plame/Wilson affair, to be perfectly honest. I can recall a time when most progressives opposed the Reagan-era law against revealing the names of CIA agents.)
For example, Cannistraro was in charge of the CIA's investigation in the Pan-Am 103 bombing. Many believe that the "official" version of that event, which places the blame entirely on Libya, may not reflect reality. Some alternative theorists believe that the bombing targeted passenger Charles McKee, a career spy returning from Lebanon, and that a team of spooks scoured the crash site to make sure that McKee's suitcase (filled with revealing information) never fell into the wrong hands. Still others assert that the bomb was placed in a suitcase intentionally left unexamined because the flight was part of a "protected" CIA drug smuggling operation (or, alternatively, a drug sting.) Perhaps we should classify Cannistraro himself as an "alternative theorist," since he views Iran as the ultimate sponsor of the incident.
Alas, the Pan-Am 103 case is far too complex for even a brief summary here. I mention the matter only to demonstrate that Cannistraro played a role in the affair which some consider controversial. His "blame Iran" theory certainly indicates that he is no softie on Iranian matters.
Cannistraro later played an interesting role in the Oklahoma City investigation. From a story on Jayna Davis' site:
An FBI report, for example, records a call a few hours after the bombing from Vincent Cannistraro, a retired CIA official who had once been chief of operations for the agency's counter-terrorism center. He told Kevin Foust, a FBI counter-terror investigator, that he'd been called by a top counter-terror adviser to the Saudi royal family. Mr. Foust reported that the Saudi told Mr. Cannistraro about "information that there was a 'squad' of people currently in the United States, very possibly Iraqis, who have been tasked with carrying out terrorist attacks against the United States. The Saudi claimed that he had seen a list of 'targets,' and that the first on the list was the federal building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma."(Again, this post is not the place to debate the contentious issue of the Oklahoma City bombing. Right now, I'm simply attempting to trace Mr. Cannistraro's public history vis-a-vis the investigation of terrorism.)
Stephen Jones, McVeigh's lead lawyer, discusses the FBI report in his book, "Others Unknown: Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma City Bombing Conspiracy." Mr. Cannistraro later told Mr. Jones that he didn't know if the caller "was credible or not." But Mr. Foust's memo says Mr. Cannistraro described the Saudi official as "responsible for developing intelligence to help prevent the royal family from becoming victims of terrorist attacks," and someone he'd known "for the past 10 or 15 years."
More recently, Cannistraro's name cropped up in pieces exposing the Iranian connections of that former BushCo darling, Ahmed Chalabi.
In a not-unrelated move, he also offered important testimony in the continuing Wilson/Plame investigation. A sample:
The leaking was, in my judgment, a manifestation of the continuing battle by some policy-makers to pressure the intelligence community into providing the intelligence data that would support previously adopted objectives. Some senior officials have contempt for the professional intelligence community, including CIA and DIA. This contempt has been manifested by attempted intimidation of analysts to produce supporting data for the policy-makers' own ideological beliefs. This disdain for the intelligence community led to dependenceby policyy makers on dubious channels of information such as the defector sourcesproduced byyaimedd Chalabi and the INCC....That "contentious give and take" remark remains one of our few clues as to what really went on when Dick invaded Langley.
...The Vice President and his chief of staff Lewis Libby visited CIA headquarters to engagethe CIA analysts directly on this issue of uranium acquisition in Africa and thealleged renewall of a nuclear program. I have heard that this unprecedented act, in which a Vice President engages desk level analysts, resulted in a contentious give and take.
Even more revealing is this recent discussion between spook-watcher/broadcaster Ian Masters and Cannistraro on the still unresolved mystery of just who forged those Niger documents. (Yes, I know Rush Limbaugh still tells his listeners that these docs were real. He's lying. As usual.)
Here are a few excerpts. This, friends, is must-read material, because it hints at a great scandal to come -- the scandal behind the Plame scandal:
Vince Cannistraro: The documents were fabricated by supporters of the policy in the United States. The policy being that you had to invade Iraq in order to get rid of Saddam Hussein, and you had to do it soon to avoid the catastrophe that would be produced by Saddam Hussein's use of alleged weapons of mass destruction.So what do we have here?
Ian Masters: Well, Ambassador Wilson publicly refuted the claims -- particularly the 16 words in the President's State of the Union address that the Iraqis were trying to buy significant quantities of uranium from Niger. That document, I understand, was fabricated ... it originally came out of Italian intelligence, I think SISME, or SISDE -- I'm not sure which one.
VC: It was SISME, yeah. ...
[D]uring the two-thousands when we're talking about acquiring information on Iraq. It isn't that anyone had a good source on Iraq -- there weren't any good sources. The Italian intelligence service, the military intelligence service, was acquiring information that was really being hand-fed to them by very dubious sources. The Niger documents, for example, which apparently were produced in the United States, yet were funneled through the Italians.
IM: Do we know who produced those documents? Because there's some suspicion ...
VC: I think I do, but I'd rather not speak about it right now, because I don't think it's a proven case ...
IM: If I said "Michael Ledeen" ?
VC: You'd be very close . . .
Cannistraro has a history as a strong opponent of Iran and its ties to terrorism. He also opposed the Chalabi/Ledeen/Cheney neocon axis. He opposed Chalabi -- and by extension, Ledeen -- precisely because of their ties to figures within Iranian intelligence.
And now Cannistraro's partner Giraldi has exposed a scheme by this very same neocon cabal to nuke Iran.
Can anyone truly explain just what sort of game these neocons are playing? Just who was Chalabi dealing with in Tehran? And why would any Iranian want to get in bed with a bunch of criminals who hope to turn that country into radioactive slush?
Here's a parting message for Vinnie and Phil (and I hope they will forgive the familiarity)...
Guys, I know you were involved with a certain organization which isn't exactly known for having a fond and forgiving attitude toward squealers. We all understand that this organization maintains a code of omerta.
But if you know more about what this rival gang -- the neocon "family" -- is up to, spill it. This is not the time to play Johnny Tightlips.
Because if facia bruta Cheney and his oobatzs neocons have their way -- fuggedabouddit. Pretty soon the entire world will be sleeping with the fishes.
Capice?
4 comments:
I don't find it so weird that American Conservative would publish this stuff, because AC is Pat Buchanan nutso rather than G. W. Bush nutso.
My two cents worth is this: an unholy alliance of Iranian/Israeli shadow characters forged the Niger documents, fed them (perhaps via Ledeen) to SISMI. Why? Because both factions (Shiite Iranians and AIPAC Israelis) wanted Iraq to be invaded by the US.
I don't believe Cheney was behind the forgery (although I'm hesitant to stake a lot on that belief). I think he got suckered because he so badly wanted such evidence, and the guys who fed it to him (via Italian intelligence)knew how bad he wanted it, and that he wouldn't be skeptical of its provenance.
Tha means, of course, that the US got conned into this war. But WC Fields had it right when he said--"You can't cheat an honest man." And while the motives of Neocons can be sometimes murky, you can be certain they are never honest men.
Despite the complexities of the machinations involved, I tend to think that the essence of all that is happening is related to control of oil fields. The production of oil wells in the US, Britain and Mexico is falling, while world demand growth is accelerating. Iraq has the second-largest reserves in the world, and, being relatively untapped, is a bigger plum than Saudi Arabia itself.
I don't see the point, however, in taking on Iran. Does anyone else? Is it a Christian Crusade kind of thing? Does it have some eschatological significance?
"Guys, I know you were involved with a certain organization which isn't exactly known for having a fond and forgiving attitude toward squealers. We all understand that this organization maintains a code of omerta."
So true? Vin? Phil? What Joe posted. Save yourselves, and the rest of us--or at least give that objective the old college try.
Let's not forget that the worse the economy gets as interest rates continue to steadily increase, and the lower Bush's poll ratings sink, the more at risk we are for having another 9/11 on US soil which BushCO needs in order to keep control. For this is exactly what happened when the first 9/11 happened. 9/11 saved BushCo and made Bush look like a hero and helped him get support for his war in Iraq and help win re-election.
The neocons see Iran's religious fanaticism as posing a huge threat to the US and especially to our control of Iraq's oilfields. So having another 9/11 on US soil is the perfect reason to pin the tail of blame on Iran and go after them for a number of reasons. After a second 9/11, an "atomic 9/11", expect that we will now be operating under martial law, the draft will be reinstated and several draconian laws limiting civil liberties (expect travel to be severely curtailed, and internet sites will be limited) will be in force at least temporarily. Gays and lesbians could be the targeted scapegoat group and used as slave labor as a result of new laws identifying the "gay lifestyle" as a threat to national security. There could be some kind of a scandal involving national security and an openly gay man in which a gay organization becomes scapegoated.
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