Bush Pentagon Hired Conspiracy Theorist As Al Qaeda Specialist

[kpete]

Source: Talking Points Memo

Bush Pentagon Hired Conspiracy Theorist As Al Qaeda Specialist
Justin Elliott | January 25, 2010, 1:12PM

When the Pentagon's internal think tank decided in 2004 it needed a better understanding of Al Qaeda, it turned to an unlikely source: the terrorism analyst Laurie Mylroie, who was known as the chief purveyor of the discredited idea that Saddam Hussein was behind Sept. 11 and many other attacks carried out by Al Qaeda.

Mylroie was paid roughly $75,000 to produce a 300-page study, "The History of Al Qaida," for the Defense Department think tank, known as the Office of Net Assessment, a DOD spokesman tells us. The study, which is dated September 2005, was posted on an intelligence blog last month.

It documents the development of Al Qaeda and spends many pages dancing around the theory that has defined Mylroie's career -- that key Qaeda leaders acted at the behest of the Iraqi regime. She also argues that group-think among U.S. analysts has obscured the true nature of the terrorist group.

Those who know Mylroie's work are shocked that the Pentagon would hire her.

Read more: http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/01/pentagon_hired_saddam-bin_laden_theorist_mylroie.php

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

1. 75G

That's walking around money.

[bluestateguy]

2. She is a serious nutball

She even floats the idea that Iraq was behind the OKC bombing in 1995.

[Blue Owl]

3. Laurie "Dale Gribble" Mylroie

Wow -- her nutbag is all full of crazy!

[philly_bob]

5. For those (like myself) who don't know Dale Gribble...

http://www.hankhillquotes.com/quotes/Dale-Gribble/

[whatchamacallit]

4. It makes perfect sense; a fiction writer for a fiction (Al Qaeda)

:banghead:

[Brother Buzz]

6. What, no mention of Judith Miller?

Surely she stuck her nose in there somewhere

[pjt7]

7. You got to pay somebody

to lie for ya.

[Brother Buzz]

11. Laurie Mylroie was a conduit for sure but....

75 grand isn't a big cookie. You know there were a whole lot of back-room deals GOA will never flush out.

[UpInArms]

14. see my post #13 eom

[Brother Buzz]

15. Yes. In many ways they were joined at the hip

They played tag-team on the talking head shows during that period.

[Turbineguy]

8. 75 grand

That's just under $15 dollars for every American soldier killed in Iraq.

I wish the families of those soldiers had been given the option of paying that POS for not killing their loved ones.

Extradite this person to Iraq. They can recycle Chemical Ali's rope.

[CJCRANE]

9. It would surprise if the neocons *didn't* hire a propagandist.

They've never accepted reality in any issue.

[Roland99]

10. Yeah, if they'd hired someone like, oh, Jason Burke, they'd not have gotten their boogeyman.

Might as well have hired Bill Gertz.

[SlingBlade]

12. Yep, Conspiracy Theorist... But ....

Don't forget.War Criminals,Sadistic Mercenaries ,Political Hacks,Liars and War Mongers

"Birthers,Baggers and Blowhards oh my !"

Your Tax Dollars, Hard at Work Folks :banghead:

[UpInArms]

13. Laurie Mylroie and Judith Miller (liar extraordinaire) co-authored a book

http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Judith_Miller

During the first U.S.-led war in the Persian Gulf, Miller co-wrote a book with Laurie Mylroie, titled Saddam Hussein and the Crisis in the Gulf.

Miller and Mylroie have both been clients of Eleana Benador, whose PR firm has represented many leading pro-war figures that have appeared prominently on television and in other public venues. She has also worked closely and uncritically with Ahmed Chalabi, the head of the Iraqi National Congress, in developing her reports on Iraq. In a May 2003 e-mail message, Miller stated that Chalabi "has provided most of the front page exclusives on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction to our paper."

Miller played an important role in promoting the presidential team's agenda on Iraq. Indeed, she wrote the first article, entitled «Threats and Responses : The Iraqis ; U.S. Says Hussein Intensifies Quest for A-Bomb Parts», on Saddam Hussein's WMD programme, mentioning "aluminium tubes" which could be used for nuclear weapons. That was on September 7, less than two weeks after Vice-President Dick Cheney delivered the first speech in which he presented Iraq as Washington's next target. It is therefore possible to think that she played a role in the public relations campaign that was led by the Bush administration on Iraq, directed by Andrew H. Card, Jr..

In June 2003, Washington Post reporter Howard Kurtz noted that "Miller played a highly unusual role in an Army unit assigned to search for dangerous Iraqi weapons, according to U.S. military officials, prompting criticism that the unit was turned into what one official called a 'rogue operation.' More than a half-dozen military officers said that Miller acted as a middleman between the Army unit with which she was embedded and Iraqi National Congress leader Ahmed Chalabi, on one occasion accompanying Army officers to Chalabi's headquarters, where they took custody of Saddam Hussein's son-in-law. She also sat in on the initial debriefing of the son-in-law, these sources say. Since interrogating Iraqis was not the mission of the unit, these officials said, it became a 'Judith Miller team,' in the words of one officer close to the situation." <10>

The links of Judith Miller with the Pentagon are not new. In 1986, she wrote numerous articles on Libya, thus contributing to a massive disinformation campaign on Khadafi which was coordinated by Admiral John Poindexter. Bob Woodward has written a major article in the Washington Post on this strategy.