> KARL ROVE, MICHAEL LEDEEN SPIES PROCURED FORGED NIGER DOCUMENTS
4 November 2005, 04:54
This article is so riddled with inaccuracies that it wouldn’t withstand a child’s scrutiny.
The timeline is all wrong, especially about when the CIA got the documents, and just about everything related to the US intelligence community. Have you even read the various intelligence reports? The SSCI report? The Robb-Silverman report? The Butler report? Apparently not, since your "story" conflicts with a lot of it.
You also fail to source just about every claim in your entire piece. I think I had to debunk this kind of story before, because in reality, some of the US officials you cite never went to Italy, or they were only cited being in Italy on a certain month, and there’s no proof they ever even met with any of the others you talk about.
It reads like a typical conspiracy theory, where you throw in as many "nefarious" people you can and try to hammer out some sort of connection between all of them.
If there’s anything that needs to be looked into, it is the French connection into this mystery. Martino was paid by the French, as you have noted, and the French also reported to the US on Nov 22 2002 that they have information about Iraqi attempts to acquire uranium from Niger.
I have always suspected all of this was a French counterintelligence op, but there just isn’t enough evidence to substantiate that, although after reading the SSCI report, the French definitely look suspicious here.
Of the entire intelligence community in the US, only the INR doubted the information about Niger and the uranium up until the State of the Union. After that, it quickly started falling apart, with the IAEA declaration of the documents as forged being the nail in the coffin.
Another thing I have noted is that the Rome embassy faxed the documents to the CIA first when they received them from the Italian journalist. The SSCI report is redacted, so you can’t tell where in the CIA the documents were faxed to. This happened on Oct 9 2002. On Oct 11 02, the embassy reported to the State Department that they had sent them to the CIA. On Oct 15 02, the embassy faxed the documents to the State Department Bureau of Nonproliferation. They forwarded them to INR.
INR distributed copies of the forged documents on Oct 16 02 at a meeting with DIA, CIA, DOE, and NSA representatives. The CIA representatives present cannot recall picking up a copy.
Copies of the forged documents were found in CIA’s CPD’s vault. Valerie Wilson works at the CPD.
Later, WINPAC (CIA) had to get the copies of the documents from INR, since they apparently didn’t have them.... which means that CPD sat on them and didn’t say anything to anyone about them.
This article is so riddled with inaccuracies that it wouldn’t withstand a child’s scrutiny.
The timeline is all wrong, especially about when the CIA got the documents, and just about everything related to the US intelligence community. Have you even read the various intelligence reports? The SSCI report? The Robb-Silverman report? The Butler report? Apparently not, since your "story" conflicts with a lot of it.
You also fail to source just about every claim in your entire piece. I think I had to debunk this kind of story before, because in reality, some of the US officials you cite never went to Italy, or they were only cited being in Italy on a certain month, and there’s no proof they ever even met with any of the others you talk about.
It reads like a typical conspiracy theory, where you throw in as many "nefarious" people you can and try to hammer out some sort of connection between all of them.
If there’s anything that needs to be looked into, it is the French connection into this mystery. Martino was paid by the French, as you have noted, and the French also reported to the US on Nov 22 2002 that they have information about Iraqi attempts to acquire uranium from Niger.
I have always suspected all of this was a French counterintelligence op, but there just isn’t enough evidence to substantiate that, although after reading the SSCI report, the French definitely look suspicious here.
Of the entire intelligence community in the US, only the INR doubted the information about Niger and the uranium up until the State of the Union. After that, it quickly started falling apart, with the IAEA declaration of the documents as forged being the nail in the coffin.
Another thing I have noted is that the Rome embassy faxed the documents to the CIA first when they received them from the Italian journalist. The SSCI report is redacted, so you can’t tell where in the CIA the documents were faxed to. This happened on Oct 9 2002. On Oct 11 02, the embassy reported to the State Department that they had sent them to the CIA. On Oct 15 02, the embassy faxed the documents to the State Department Bureau of Nonproliferation. They forwarded them to INR.
INR distributed copies of the forged documents on Oct 16 02 at a meeting with DIA, CIA, DOE, and NSA representatives. The CIA representatives present cannot recall picking up a copy.
Copies of the forged documents were found in CIA’s CPD’s vault. Valerie Wilson works at the CPD.
Later, WINPAC (CIA) had to get the copies of the documents from INR, since they apparently didn’t have them.... which means that CPD sat on them and didn’t say anything to anyone about them.
Odd?