2.05.2004
Neocons Under Investigation: Getting Caught in a Web of Deceit
Buzzflash had a headline posted that will interest you "Cheney's Staff Focus of Probe". It goes well with yesterdays post. Lewis Scooter Libby and John Hannah are reportedly under investigation for the the "leak" that allowed reporter Robert Novak to expose Joseph Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame as an undercover CIA operative who's "Agency" was concern weapons of mass destruction.
The link to yesterdays post concerns the fact that Hannah, as well as being a Neocon was listed in an Iraqi National Congress lobbyist's memo as one of two principle points of contact in the Bush administration for "raw" data" William Luti being the other.
..."defectors, reports and raw intelligence are cultivated and analyzed"; the info was then reported to, among others, "appropriate governmental, non-governmental and international agencies."
Mr Cheney has been denying that he bypassed properly analyzed intelligence in favor of unvetted and unreliable INC
info. Another INC lobbyist, Francis Brooke states that he too spoke with Cheney staffers Hannah, Lewis Libby and William Luti about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and Saddams Al Qaeda connections.
William Luti oversaw cthe Office of Special Plans in the Pentagon. He was an advisor to Newt Gingrich before working on Cheney's staff, his last stop before the OSP. Gingrich, a member of Donald Rumsfeld's Defense Policy Board has visited the CIA 3 times to reportedly "browbeat" analysts
into making Saddam into a vital threat.
An article in the Washington Post gives a clear view of Gingrich's attitude toward " cooking" intelligence to go along with Bush administration plans for an invasion of Iraq.
"Contrast that vision with a recent classified report by the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research titled 'Iraq, the Middle East and Change: No Dominoes,' which was leaked in March 2003 to the Los Angeles Times. As reported by that newspaper, the document stated that 'liberal democracy would be difficult to achieve [in Iraq]. . . . Electoral democracy, were it to emerge, could well be subject to exploitation by anti-American elements.' " Gingrich goes on to list other Foggy Bottom low points, and concludes: "Can anyone imagine a State Department more out of sync with Bush's views and objectives?"
The State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research produces what sounds like a reality based assessment that doesn't fit Bush's "views and objectives" and it is "out of sync"? Sounds like a guy who would "cook" intelligence to me.
2/05/2004
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