Seymour Hersh: Niger forgeries setup to discredit Cheney….

[Junkdrawer]

Get ready for it, here's the newest spin on the lies and forgeries leading up to the disastrous Iraqi invasion: Seems Bush/Cheney didn't lie, they had a 'procedural problem' called The Stovepipe:

THE STOVEPIPE
by SEYMOUR M. HERSH
How conflicts between the Bush Administration and the intelligence community marred the reporting on Iraq’s weapons.

http://www.newyorker.com/printable/?fact/031027fa_fact

The point is not that the President and his senior aides were consciously lying. What was taking place was much more systematic—and potentially just as troublesome. Kenneth Pollack, a former National Security Council expert on Iraq, whose book “The Threatening Storm” generally supported the use of force to remove Saddam Hussein, told me that what the Bush people did was “dismantle the existing filtering process that for fifty years had been preventing the policymakers from getting bad information. They created stovepipes to get the information they wanted directly to the top leadership. Their position is that the professional bureaucracy is deliberately and maliciously keeping information from them.


So, if they weren't "lying", what about the forged Niger uranium papers? Well, would you believe disgruntled former agents...


Another explanation was provided by a former senior C.I.A. officer. He had begun talking to me about the Niger papers in March, when I first wrote about the forgery, and said, “Somebody deliberately let something false get in there.” He became more forthcoming in subsequent months, eventually saying that a small group of disgruntled retired C.I.A. clandestine operators had banded together in the late summer of last year and drafted the fraudulent documents themselves.

“The agency guys were so pissed at Cheney,” the former officer said. “They said, ‘O.K, we’re going to put the bite on these guys.’” My source said that he was first told of the fabrication late last year, at one of the many holiday gatherings in the Washington area of past and present C.I.A. officials. “Everyone was bragging about it—‘Here’s what we did. It was cool, cool, cool.’” These retirees, he said, had superb contacts among current officers in the agency and were informed in detail of the sismi intelligence.

“They thought that, with this crowd, it was the only way to go—to nail these guys who were not practicing good tradecraft and vetting intelligence,” my source said. “They thought it’d be bought at lower levels—a big bluff.” The thinking, he said, was that the documents would be endorsed by Iraq hawks at the top of the Bush Administration, who would be unable to resist flaunting them at a press conference or an interagency government meeting. They would then look foolish when intelligence officials pointed out that they were obvious fakes. But the tactic backfired, he said, when the papers won widespread acceptance within the Administration. “It got out of control.”

All I can say is that if this is the rationalization, they must have some pretty damning evidence in the Senate intelligence committees.

[WilliamPitt]

1. Kick for Seymour

[CaptainMidnight]

2. YES, but...

If that's the gist of SY's article and the CIA's argument...

Then doesn't this actually HELP Cheney and BushCo to wriggle off the hook?

Their "spin," and the media's enabling of such, has not been that Bush and Cheney LIED, but rather that they had been given "bad intelligence." The CIA fucked up. Those dumb bunnies screwed up Bush's Iraq intelligence.

It seems like this article only re-affirms the White House spin, or "hangout" on this which is, "okay, it WAS a lie, but it wasn't OUR lie."

IT's still bad, but again, much like 9-11 Foreknowledge, by them helping paint the picture that they were INCOMPETENT as opposed to COMPLICIT, it seems as though it's enough to let them ultimately get away with.

And of course, with regards to all that, the economy, foreign policy, Iraq War, War on Terror, it seems as tho the American people will let them get away with INCOMPETENCE as opposed to COMPLICITY.

Thoughts?

Captain Mike

[blm]

3. Hmmm....Hersh isn't exactly BFEE, so.....

I imagine that he must have some intent of following this article up with greater details in the rebuttal from the CIA camp.

[Junkdrawer]

5. I looked up his writings...

He went from books on the Gulf War Syndrome to a book discrediting John Kennedy (The Dark Side of Camelot)

All I know is that I just heard him on NPR give that 'disgruntled former CIA agent' story and thought: "why can't anyone believe Bush/Cheney would LIE? Why must there always be another explanation, no matter how torturous?"

[WilliamPitt]

6. Um

Hersh is an incredible journalist.

[Junkdrawer]

11. Yeah, I know. A more impressive CV would be hard to find.

I'm trying to find some of his more recent (post Bush II) articles. Would you happen to have a link or two?

[salin]

13. He did a piece this winter - that exposed Perle

as the mangy war profiteer that he is. Perle ended up resigning his chairmanship of the Defense Policy Board (but he is still on the board). Set off a series of (brief) exposes (front line? Center on Public Integrity?) on the links between various DPB members and their employers (and potential lucrative deals for said organizations).

[0007]

37. One of the best!

I don't understand some of the logic I'm hearing on this article, do you? Seymour's article was clear as it could be!

[blm]

7. He may be getting out that part of the story to bring more

detailed info IN that rebuts the angle he's laying out now. He's too sharp a journalist and too sharp a Bush critic to be used by the Bush White House.

[Devlzown]

4. That's how I see it, too.

All the blame will be focused on the CIA. Americans seem to have accepted (and even like) Homer Simpson as their President. They don't want to be disturbed by the fact that he's more like Monty Burns.

[RapidCreek]

10. Ok...so we have now established that the administration

is either incredibly stupid or that they are lier's or that they are incredibly stupid lier's. It seems to me, none of the fore mentioned are particularly desirable traits for those afforded the power to annihilate all human life on the planet, several times over.

The document which supposedly formalizes the sale of uranium to Iraq, dated October 2000, bears the signature of a man who has not been Niger's foreign minister since 1989. How vast an intelligent do you need to discern such a clear inconsistency? Then again AWOL believes Africa is a country.

RC

[Beetwasher]

8. Believe it or not, I suspected something like this might be

the case way back when. I'm pretty sure I even posted this theory and it's buried in the archives somewhere.

I swear, sometimes I think we're now living in some bizzarre novel written by Tom Clancy, William S. Burroughs and Robert A. Wilson. Just think of the most bizzarre, twisted, convoluted conspiracy theories, and it's bound to be truth.

[The Backlash Cometh]

9. You know what they say...

If you can accept blame for your own mistakes, you have strong character; but if you can place the blame for your mistakes on others, you can be CEO.

[Postman]

12. So the forged Niger Docs were made up by ex-CIA to out the administrations

unscrupulous intelligence vetting methods......

"They would then look foolish when intelligence officials pointed out that they were obvious fakes."............

....given the atmosphere that permeated the country at the time (i.e. being attacked as un-patriotic for challenging the Bush Junta)I find it hard to beleive that "intelligence officials" would have readily pointed out to Bush and his cronies the "faked" docs. Which intelligence officials? Where?

I don't know. Maybe that WAS the plan. Maybe the ex-CIA officers expected more than what they got in the form of reporting from the mainstream media. Maybe they didn't take into consideration the spineless mainstream press' inability to inform the American people. How they too were "necklaced" into projecting an image of being "pro-American"........but then again, these guys are ex-CIA. Wouldn't they know that the mainstream press is nothing more than a PR firm for the people occupying the White House?

[remfan]

14. Incredilbe

My god...it's what I've suspected was going on, but my god, to see it all laid out like that is stunning.

Cheney wasn't 'set-up', Cheney and the rest of those thugs set this whole thing in motion by DELIBERATELY bypassing NORMAL intelligence vetting procedures, and if it wasn't the Niger forgeries, they would have found something else.

Don't focus on the claims that the CIA forged the documents, focus on the rest of the article, because THAT mentality is running OUR government. THAT mentality is responsible for thousands of DEAD and WOUNDED.

Impeachment is too fucking GOOD for them.

[grasswire]

15. remember though...

....these are alleged claims of a hoax. Hersh doesn't state it as fact, but rather hearsay.

[hedda_foil]

16. Folks ... THINK about this.

You know exactly who Hersch's source is trying to smear. A disgruntled group of retired veteran intelligence professionals? C'mon, c'mon, c'mon. This is a very serious accusaction they're trying here. Against some VERY reputable very senior former intel guys who have spoken out LOUDLY for sanity.

There are holes a mile wide in this "leak" via Hersch, several of which show up in the body of the article itself. The whole Panorama Magazine business in which an Italian journalist for one of Berlusconi's magazines was able to determine that the story was bogus in the first place. The point that the intel vets decided to leak the papers to the IAEA themselves ... which is immediately contradicted when the IAEA is given the papers officially ... late, but officially.

Hersch has some very good contacts, but he's also been used to convey disinformation in the past. This story seems to begin by going for Cheney's jugular, and then veers off to hit some people we have come to know and respect ... while pulling the knockout punch to Cheney's jaw.

[Junkdrawer]

17. I know. It's not the CIA vs. the White House...

It's a small group of career people in the CIA, State Department, and the White House trying to expose the takeover of our government by an even smaller group of well-funded RW radicals.

[Postman]

18. Are you speaking of VIPS?

Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity? Lead by Ray McGovern?

[Junkdrawer]

19. Among others. Joe Wilson comes to mind. And then there's the...

"White House official" who told the Washington Post about the six calls before the call to Novak.

[Junkdrawer]

32. And then there's Greg Thielmann (former Colin Powell aide)...

Here's his latest Op/Ed:

Time for reckoning
By Greg Thielmann and Daryl G. Kimball

FOR MONTHS, President Bush has asked the American people for more time to find the Iraqi weapons of mass destruction he said the war was intended to counter. But David Kay and the U.S. survey team charged with finding Iraq's chemical, biological and nuclear weapons provide further evidence that the Bush administration's most dire claims about unconventional Iraqi weapons were wrong and based on discredited intelligence.

It is past time for Congress to hold Mr. Bush and his administration to account, beginning with an independent, public investigation of the gathering and handling of intelligence on Iraq.

Rather than admitting their errors, Mr. Bush and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell have attempted to portray the Kay report as consistent with the administration's pre-war warnings, adding to their WMD credibility gap. Administration officials now suggest that the Kay report, based on three months of work in Iraq, shows Saddam Hussein's WMD "intentions" and justifies the decision to invade. They are attempting to morph the original WMD rationale for the war into a campaign for human rights, Middle East democratization and anti-terrorism.

But the official justification for war that was presented to Congress was to enforce the U.N. Security Council requirement that Iraq's WMD be eliminated. The key question was never whether Mr. Hussein's Iraq sought WMD or had chemical or biological weapons and a nuclear weapons program before the 1991 gulf war. It clearly did.


More...

http://www.sunspot.net/news/opinion/oped/bal-op.iraq21oct21,0,2253683.story?coll=bal-oped-headlines

[ByeDick]

34. Question about "intentions"

How many major U.S. universities should be bombed by George W. Bush for their WMD "intentions."

The new preemption doctrine, courtesey of Bush & David Kay, is to attack (Moslem) countries which have educated their people to the point where they can THINK like Americans.

God Bless America

[hedda_foil]

20. That appears to be who Perle's source is speaking of.

It appears to me to be exactly the same type of smear as the outing of Joe Wilson's wife to try to take HIM down.

[ByeDick]

21. Cheney is the TRAITOR and the TERRORIST...good stuff

There's no way in hell that some CIA tricksters forced a bogus yellowcake story into the State of the Union Address.

What makes this article so great is that it once again points to Cheney as BOTH the terrorist who put the bogus yellowcake story in the State of the Union Address AND the traitor who outed Valerie Plame.

Why out Plame if you had confidence in the intelligence? Cheney did not.

This is coming together nicely.

More here:

http://www.mikehersh.com/All_Roads_Lead_To_Cheney.shtml

[AP]

22. Two problems with this theory, I think

- Hersh said in an interview today that he came to this conclusion today because nothing else made sense. Well, I heard two ex-CIA agents say they thought Mossad was responsible because nothing else made sense.

- Wasn't Cheney at the CIA every day for months. Isn't it more likely that the CIA was working on something with him, rather than against him?

[beanball]

25. The veep is a creep

and should be exiled to devils isle.(oops don't forget take Lynn the evil hen along.)

[nolabels]

39. I go to work and see my boss everyday

I don't always agree with him but do what I am told even I know it won't work. I have fixed trucks for a long time and know when I will be endangering other people and put my foot down in such instances. You cannot go to direct insubordination unless they tell you to do something that is clearly illegal and dangerous. I give them the benefit of the doubt if possible, but I am not that big a fool when it comes to how safely repair a truck.

I put this in the context for background that these people, the older Intelligence guys know what the eff they are doing and know what has been done and surely talk amongst themselves. There seems to be a lot of things going on behind the scenes that us general public are only getting brushes of. I would never trust anyone’s sole word on it let alone hearsay from unnamed sources from secret people.

But back to the boss part, when my boss gets paid a visit from one or two higher up and they bring things to make them selves look good and screw the rest of us lower tiered people. This is the time when the rest us get together and figure out ways to throw monkey wrenches into the machines (figuratively speaking) I think we are looking more at Human nature rather than written down and mapped out plan by whomever

The best or the worst thing is we might be looking the other way when it happens.

Read some tea leaves

http://www.antiwar.com/

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?031027fa_fact

I saw that and thought sy was getting prolific for second, then remembered people only see things through their own prism

People just can't fathom that the real * is not really in charge

[RainDog]

23. No. This quote is NOT the gist of the article

Make sure you read the entire article, not just the quotes here.

Hersh spends much time in this article talking about how intelligence is traditionally vetted, and titles this article "Stovepiping" because THAT is the gist of his article...the way in which the Bush administration refused to hear anyone who would not support what they already wanted to believe.

Hersh goes though the entire process, long before the Niger document issue, to show that the Bush administration routinely failed to weigh the value of intelligence and refused the expertise of those who have a history of reading intelligence. The people in our country who have routinely done this use the technique of stovepiping, sort of like tuning the radio so that you get rid of as much static as possible.

Hersh makes it plain, early on, that EVEN WITH this technique of filtering and assessing information, the US was far more reactionary (and wrong) than the UN and IEAC.

He also notes that this rumor at the CIA is a rumor. There are other explanations as well given in the article, and Hersh admits he does not know if this rumor which is making the rounds at the CIA is true.

Hersh also explains how Wilson got into the whole situation, because the CIA could not satisfy Cheney that the uranium claim which he wanted to believe before the forged documents were available, was, in fact, disinformation, most likely, from Chalabi's friends.

In addition, Hersh notes the Iraqi scientist who is in the UAE who explains all the questions about the WMD issue, and who, his former foe from the UN says, sounds like he's telling the truth.

So, the question of where the information came from is not the gist of this article.

I suppose it's possible that a group of ex officers did this, and further investigation needs to go forward to find out the truth of this situation.

Both one faction of the CIA and the Bush administration have regularly exaggerated threats to the US. Who knows if this allegation is true, or if the (Bush) CIA is trying to smear those who are calling them to account.

Whatever the case, this article is a fascinating read, and once again underscores for me how dangerous Bush and his gang are in office.

They refuse to believe any truth if it contradicts their preconceived notions.

[Spazito]

26. I agree, the article confronts the issue that it didn't matter what....

intelligence provided, they wanted only material that backed up their position. I think the article condemns the whole bunch of them, no exceptions.

[salin]

35. ding, ding, ding... we have been diverted - there is a LOT of stuff in

this article.

First the concept of "StovePiping" and the incessant a) push up of unassessed or "raw" intel (finally going around intel avenues to do so) and the b) intentional shut out of career intel folks from the discussion of the information. Bolton refers to it as "in the family" (eg ideological purity).

Second is detailing the shutout process and the skewing of intel processes in the State Dept and Pentagon. At different points in the article he goes back and forth.

Third is a detailing of SEVERAL times the Niger stuff was discounted - and WHY - much more than often gets told - Wilson: The signatures that should be there and that there was NO available yellowcake at the time to be on the market (it was ALL committed.); Ital reporter (who later got the report and passes it on - goes to check authenticity) - NO trail /evidence of any transaction and the cited businesses (transport company and bank) were way to small (no capacity) to handle such a large transaction. Then the track and timing of finally handing the docs over to the IAIE.

The rumor of a set up is a small part of the story - and acknowledges there is NO backup - that there is no more proof that an agent did this than there is that the author of the story set the vp up. It is used in the story to demonstrate the fact that the rumor is even believed... demonstrates the very deep rift between the intel community and the White House.

Another big point that comes up multiple times - esp in regard to the Pentagon - is that the long standing tradition of vetting info and plans on worse case scenarios was thrown aside... so there was NO contingency planning (WE know that - but the general public doesnt - except that evidence in Iraq points to it).

In addition is laying blame at Condi's feet - that there should be interdepartment vetting at the top - coordinating different info, and that she CHOSE to play politcal operative rather than her important role in NSA.

Another point - Hersch points to the assertion that Bush had decided to go to war in March 2002. I wish this could be matched to a few of the protesting topfigures in the Blair govt who early stated (but have not continued to do so) that they believed that Blair and Bush struck a deal to go to war in Iraq in.... March of 2002.

There is much, much more here. Do not get so distracted on the one rumor (or view Hersch as an enemy or component of the GOP propoganda machine), he has laid out many pieces (that we have seen in snippets, and thus could put together with documentation thus it is no easily discredited. This is BIG.

[Junkdrawer]

40. I don't see Hersch as an enemy. My "take" on the article...

was informed by Hersch's own NPR interview Monday afternoon. (Try http://www.npr.org and look for the 10/20/03 ATC page - I'll give you a better link when I get home, NPR is blocked at work.) Anyway, in the interview with Bob Edwards, the "rumor" got a full half of the play time.

Look, I agree that The Stovepipe is pretty damning, but it can (and probably will) be used to deflect impeachable offenses if things ever get to that point. That's my main concern with the article.

[nolabels]

41. LOL

Can I let this sink in for awhile, Republicans, their corporate operatives and cohorts a going to set up and impeach *.

These people have set up camp so far from the interests of common folks, that sometimes I wonder if they ever wondered what it would be like to be homeless.

If Sy was looking from the point of view of others less connected rather than his cloak and dagger mentality he might be finding his connections drying up rather fast. He might be good but I also think he is being used as a fire wall to protect * and * 's failed and miserable life that is inflicting damage on the rest of us

[salin]

43. I disagree

don't think there has been evidence of 'impeachable offenses' against bush. If there is evidence anywhere - it is against a slew of these top officials - including Cheney.

The pattern of behavior is the problem.

The 'rumor' of a setup is on one single issue. They exhibited this behavior, and intentionally used and repeated known false info (including Cheney) to decieve the country on numerous points. The 60 Minute story with Thielman from a week ago tells the same story (nice repetitive pattern) focusing on the aluminum tubes.

Too bad for the GOP. There is a lot of information coming out, from many sources, that make a documentable pattern of behavior - again on numerous issues related to the buildup of war. This is just one that puts pieces together as a whole for a gestalt. But there are many pieces, and they keep coming out. So even as the GOP is able to spin this piece and that piece, stories keep dribbling out... creating more seeds of doubt in more and more citizens - not the true believers but all of those who out of a sense of national loyalty believed they should support this administration after 911. Expect many more stories over the next year.

We won't see impeachment.

But I think we will continue to see people grow less and less trusting of the newest spin put out by the admin - as the repetitive pattern of behavior makes it harder and harder to remain in full denial. Then we will see "deselection" (as in - no reelection).

[ByeDick]

24. Where's the beef?

Whether the yellowcake papers came from x-CIA or from a Kinko's in Niger, it makes no difference. Whether the intelligence came through a stovepipe or a fish tank filter, it makes no difference.

[BigLed]

27. I'm sorry this piece of the article

is emphasized by Junkdrawer because the overall story is about the way the administration totally turned on its head the normal channels of vetting intelligence in order to hear only what it wanted to hear to justify a decision that had already been made.

Read the whole thing. I think it is devastating and shows not mere incompetence but willful intent to deceive.

Kick.

[Junkdrawer]

42. Read posts #5 and #40...

I think this administration LIED. Flat out LIED. Although I think Hersch probably doesn't want this article to be used to deflect responsibility from the administration, it may very well be used that way.

[Snazzy]

28. Hersh moves slowly...

... but he is very much clued in. He's got some people who clearly are in the loop. This is investigative journalism, an endangered species.

The article cranks the Plame affair back up to a 11, where it belongs. That's one higher--loud plus 1--for the Spinal Tap challenged.

Allow me to humbly kick this thread.

[Unknown Known]

29. Was the Plame outing a tit for tat?

Games, games, games...

Sy has done it again! Awesome in its getting to the meat!

First off, let me say that I have my problems with Tenet. I think he has been weak, ineffectual, and most importantly, has not stood by his people. Has he turned around? We'll see.

Most of Hersch's article is nothing new to those who have been following this situation closely, except for a few things like, ex-CIA guys planting the yellow-cake story? Who knows? Wouldn't surprise me. So they pulled a Rove on Rove. Good for them. And...

some major damaging comments about THE MIND SET that led us into this fiasco, as well as subsequent events to keep this mind set enforced and shielded from the American public.

By early March, 2002, a former White House official told me, it was understood by many in the White House that the President had decided, in his own mind, to go to war. The undeclared decision had a devastating impact on the continuing struggle against terrorism. The Bush Administration took many intelligence operations that had been aimed at Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups around the world and redirected them to the Persian Gulf. Linguists and special operatives were abruptly reassigned, and several ongoing anti-terrorism intelligence programs were curtailed.

Among the best potential witnesses on the subject of Iraq’s actual nuclear capabilities are the men and women who worked in the Iraqi weapons industry and for the National Monitoring Directorate, the agency set up by Saddam to work with the United Nations and I.A.E.A. inspectors. Many of the most senior weapons-industry officials, even those who voluntarily surrendered to U.S. forces, are being held in captivity at the Baghdad airport and other places, away from reporters. Their families have been told little by American authorities. Desperate for information, they have been calling friends and other contacts in America for help.

These two paragraphs are very damning! The first we all knew -
THE STOVEPIPE was controlled by the neocons in Pentagon/OSP, but the second paragraph - that they are holding witnesses who could dispute their justifications for war is UNBELIEVABLE! This is major news and very damning to this misadminstration.

[ByeDick]

30. Remember, the yellowcake was attributed to UK intelligence.

Cheney and his gang knew, without question, that the U.S. intelligence community DID NOT support the bogus yellowcake story. The State of the Union address was designed to affirm something which was disaffirmed by U.S. intelligence. This was a false threat of nuclear war.

To try to say now that Cheney was trapped by 3 x-CIA ops, does not work as far as the yellowcake angle goes. Whatever came out of the stovepipe convinced the conspirators to attribute the false nuclear threat to the UK.

[RainDog]

31. a goodmorning kick n/t

.

[UTUSN]

33. Great Expose of the Ignorant, Arrogant Pricks

Darth Rums complaining about "the unwillingness of intelligence analysts 'to make estimates that extended beyond the hard evidence they had in hand.' ”--------HAH!

This article can't be read in any other way besides depicting the incompetence, gullibility, and tunnel vision of the mal-administration string-pullers with the idiot boy as figurehead. This makes read-my-lips look like scientific truth. As to "what they have learned"----HAH! again.

[0007]

36. btt

*

[fishnfla]

38. Good On Ya, SY Hersh

Now this is a great piece of investigative journalism! Compare this to the crap that came out of the Arkansas Project and the American Spectator, only to spillover to the WSJ editorial pages.