New Iraq Commander Spoke Up for Judith Miller

[Cheney Killed Bambi]

The military commander President Bush is counting on to rescue Iraq from chaos, Lieutenant General David Petraeus, once came to the defense of an American reporter caught up in one of Washington's most intense legal battles.

In 2005, when Judith Miller of the New York Times was facing the possibility of jail for refusing to name one of her sources in front of a grand jury, General Petraeus wrote to a federal judge to discourage him from imprisoning her.

http://www.nysun.com/article/46518

[ShortnFiery]

1. Oh man, that's just sick! :P

I don't even want to consider what inspired macho man Petraeus to give Miller's bony ass a break.

Ew! :puke:

[MADem]

2. Geez, did she visit his tent in the field?

Remember, she was banging Les Aspin up till his death...they were actually living together. She has a reputation for using sex as a weapon, as it were. And might it be that she doesn't kiss and tell? In that context, this is interesting:

"Judith demonstrated a deep commitment to her work and values as an American citizen," the general wrote. "Based on my interaction with her, I find it unlikely that Judith would compromise on those values, to include betraying information gained in confidence from her sources. ... Judith is clearly a highly professional journalist, one who has demonstrated to me that she will keep her word."

[TheDebbieDee]

3. "Banging Les Aspin up till his death......"

Ahhhhhhhh......so that's why DUers kept referring to a line of poetry about the aspens turning just before Ms. Miller got sent to jail.

I had always wondered what the hell aspens had to do with anything!

[Barrett808]

6. Does anybody have the "aspens will be turning" letter handy?

It would be cool to see that again in light of this.

[Peace Patriot]

8. Can't find it, sorry. But he told her that "the aspens are turning" and that

they "turn together" -- re to aspens in Colorado and their fall color--and also that she should "come back to life--and work" in order to cover, among other things, the IRAN bio-weapons story (whatever that was) (--chem weapons? something like that, not nukes, though). At the time, people were speculating that the Colorada ref was to some bigwig Republican meeting in Colorado, but nobody could quite figure out what "turning" meant. My read on it was that their plans for widened Mideast war were still on track, and that Libby was falling on his sword to protect that goal--so she needn't fall on hers any longer. (This was Libby letter to Miller while she was in jail for not cooperating with Special Counsel Fitzgerald.)

I believe this letter was part of Fitzgerald's filings in the Libby Treasongate case.

[Barrett808]

11. Cool, thanks for the analysis. n/t

[MADem]

13. here....

http://www.nytimes.com/packages/pdf/national/nat_MILLER_051001.pdf

[ShortnFiery]

4. I can't

get past the freudian slip DEEP. :crazy: :wow:

The thought of them bumping uglies is just too horrific an image to endure before lunch.

Excuse me now while I go and rip off my flesh in an effort to stop such a visual. :puke: :P

[screembloodymurder]

5. I had the same thought.

Is there anything these neo-cons won't do.

[FiveGoodMen]

10. Well, any act of kindness, generosity, or common sense

is pretty much ruled out with that bunch.

[silvermachine]

9. Let me give you a little more to ponder...

...how about this doozy...

<<<Ms. Miller got to know General Petraeus in 2003, while she was embedded with a special military team seeking Iraq's stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction.>>>

I'm sure something was embedded. Deep. ;)

[sofa king]

7. Petraeus helped Miller produce those bullshit WMD stories in Iraq.

Miller was working what is now obviously a psyops operation on the American people, and General Petraeus was her three-star guard dog. Miller was put in touch with a "scientist," who also appears to be a former Iraqi secret police officer now in the employ of Dr. Ahmed Chalabi. The "scientist" was willing to verify virtually any story Miller cared to tell about WMDs.

General Petraeus applied pressure on the commander of the 75th Military Exploitation Team (tasked with finding the WMDs) to accommodate Miller's wild goose chases.

And why not? There weren't any WMDs anyway, and both Petraeus and Miller knew it.

Miller would repeatedly announce the discovery of WMDs, Fox News would widely report it as truth, then both would quietly withdraw the claim a few days later. In less than six months, the stupider half of our country believed that we had found WMDs in Iraq.

http://nymag.com/nymetro/news/media/features/9226/index3.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A28385-2003Jun24?language=printer
http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2005/08/what_judy_mille.html

[Peace Patriot]

12. Fascinating info on Gen. Petraeus.

What I suspect was going on there, is that Miller was embedded (with a contract signed by none other than Rumsfeld, according to her), to "discover" the WMDs that they were trying to illicitly plant in Iraq. She would be there to "get the scoop." But something went wrong. The plan was foiled. Now, who do think was in a prime position to detect and foil illicit weapons' movements to/within Iraq? One excellent candidate is Brewster-Jennings, the WMD counter-proliferation network headed by Valerie Plame. Another possibility (as someone who may have stumbled upon a plot to plant the WMDs, or helped to foil it) is the Brits' WMD expert, David Kelly, who was found dead, under highly suspicious circumstances on July 18, 2003, four days after Plame was outed (July 14, 2003). Kelly's office and computers were searched, and then, four days later (July 22, 2003), the entire Brewster-Jennings network was ADDITIONALLY outed (also by Novak), putting all of our covert agents/contacts at great risk of getting killed, and disabling all counter-proliferation projects. This incredible coincidence of dates--of the Kelly and Plame stories--has always struck me as, well...just too much coincidence. We have WMD experts on both sides of the Atlantic--in the employ of the two main perps of the Iraq War, Bush and Blair--getting outed/disabled/killed in the same week.

A nefarious scheme to plant nukes in Iraq (possibly hatched--along the Niger/Iraq nuke forgeries--way back in 2001, at the Rome meeting of NeoCons and the infamous Iran-Contra arms dealer Manucher Ghorbanfar)--if true--would have required some insider cooperation, for instance, in the military.

I had no idea, until now, of the relationship between Petraeus and Miller. The relationship between Miller and Kelly is now fairly well known--he wrote one of his last emails to her, on the day he died, in which he expressed concern about the "many dark actors playing games"; she had used Kelly as a major quoted source in her book "Germs." Miller, of course, was ALSO thick with Scooter Libby, who is accused of lying and obstruction in the investigation of the outing of Plame/BJ.

This letter of Petraeus' to Miller's judge is very peculiar. Why would a U.S. general feel compelled to act as a character witness for the notorious NYT war propagandist, or for any journalist, for that matter? It is...peculiar. Inappropriate. Weird. It's not the sort of thing generals do--at least none that I've heard of. They try to give the appearance of neutrality on U.S. civilian matters. They are not supposed to mess around in such matters--trial of a White House aide, involvement of a reporter.

Well, well, well... is all I can say, at this point. The plot thickens.

[Supersedeas]

15. thanks for that -- Imperial Life in the Emeral City is a reflection of the cronyism too

[IndianaGreen]

16. All of this info stinks to high heaven

The question you posed deserves an answer:

"Why would a U.S. general feel compelled to act as a character witness for the notorious NYT war propagandist, or for any journalist, for that matter?"

[Roland99]

21. Didn't RawStory have an article on the failure to plant WMDs?

Maybe Ledeen was involved? At least maybe Feith/Hadley?

[ShortnFiery]

14. Kick for the evening crowd ... it's well worth the read.

:dem:

[crickets]

17. Another kick

:dem:

[daleo]

18. Petraeus sounds like a strange one

I read today that he missed combat in Viet Nam and Iraq War I (although he was shot in the chest during a training accident in Kentucky in 1991). Missing Viet Nam didn't stop him from writing a thesis about "lessons learned in Viet Nam", though. He also broke his pelvis skydiving a few years back.

He also married a commander's daughter when he was young, then worked as an aid to a bunch of four star generals. So his social skills are well honed.

From what I read, he sounds gung-ho but not very experienced in combat. Just what Bush likes.

[IndianaGreen]

19. Ike was a desk jockey too, until plucked from obscurity to lead the Allied troops

Petraeus has better political connections than Ike ever did. As the new commander in Iraq, he won't be able to hide behind a sponsor's ass as he has done in the past.

His marginal role in the Miller case is rather strange and disturbing.

[daleo]

20. Ike also had Roosevelt as his president

While Petraeus has Bush for his president. I don't think even Ike could have done a good job as general, if he was saddled with Bush.