Larisa Alexandrovna: CHENEY TAPS IRANIAN ARMS DEALER FOR IRAN TALKS

[kpete]

Cheney has tapped Iranian expatriate, arms dealer to surveil discussions with Iran, officials say

Larisa Alexandrovna
Published: Thursday April 20, 2006

The Department of Defense and Vice President Dick Cheney have retained the services of Iran-Contra arms dealer and discredited intelligence asset Manucher Ghorbanifar as their “man on the ground,” in order to report on any interaction and attempts at negotiations between Iranian officials and US ambassador to Iraq, Zelmay Khalilzad, current and former intelligence officials say.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, three intelligence sources identified the Iran-Contra middleman as having been put back on the payroll, acting as a human intelligence asset and monitoring any movement in discussions about Iran’s alleged burgeoning nuclear weapons program.

“Khalilzad has been authorized to enter into discussions with the Iranians over the issue of stability inside Iraq,” one former intelligence source said.

These discussions, however, are now on hold for unspecified reasons. Sources close to the UN Security Council and a former high ranking intelligence official say that this latest failed attempt to bring Iran to the table is part of an ongoing attempt by Cheney and Rumsfeld to squash diplomatic activities.

Another intelligence source confirmed the spiking of diplomatic action on Cheney’s behalf, explaining that the Bush administration sees such talks as a “sign of weakness.”

more at:
http://www.rawstory.com/news/2006/Cheney_has_tapped_Iranian_expatriate_arms_0420.html

[ewagner]

1. I hope

Larisa is double or even triple sourced on this....this is about as close to treason as you can get....I hope she's got the story right.

[benburch]

3. If Larisa says it, she has it verified.

I never doubt Larisa. She is almost always totally correct.

[havocmom]

4. If she is, and it seems likely, she's gonna look SOOOO good

collecting a Pulitzer next spring.

[benburch]

5. I hope she can collect it.

Her health isn't great you know.

[havocmom]

7. Yep, heard that

If good wishes were good health, she would be on the mend pronto.

[bananas]

13. I hadn't heard

what is it?

[SeveneightyWhoa]

24. I don't get this comment.

How is it "close to treason"?

[ewagner]

33. If the mission of

this guy is to SABOTAGE PEACE TALKS then that is treason!

[SeveneightyWhoa]

34. Somehow I took the comments to mean that..

LARISA was close to committing treason! :wow: ..which is why I had to clear it up.

[orwell]

2. Seems like...

...they are repeating the "Iraq playbook" to a tee, with Ghorbanifar substituting for Chalabi.

And why not? It worked so well the first time...

[madeline_con]

6. They're even using the same players.

Khalilzad was one of the signers of the PNAC letter. :(

[SeattleRob]

8. Very interesting

Ghorbanifar is to Iran as Chalabi was to Iraq. Though Ghorbanifar has been dealing with the cabal for many years.

[rateyes]

9. The Dems in Congress should now call for both

Rumsfeld's and Cheney's resignations. And, then they both ought to be investigated, put on trial, and convicted for treason.

[fooj]

10. Will this shit ever stop?

GAWD..........:grr:

[Me.]

11. Calling Robert Paulsen

This one's for you!

[robertpaulsen]

15. Thanks Me. Just posted it in LBN!

As soon as I saw the developing headline, Ghorbanifar immediately came to mind:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x2238327

[myrna minx]

12. Wow, Larisa.

:wow: I hope Randi has you on this afternoon! I don't even know how to process this. :wow:

[kpete]

35. Where is Larisa?

Where is Stop the Bleeding?

[Peace Patriot]

14. Ghorbanifar is likely the one who cooked up the Niger forgeries, and

possibly tried to cook up a lot more than that (moving illicit nukes into Iraq after the invasion, to be "found" by the US troops with whom Judith Miller was embedded, for instance?*). He was present at the Rome 2001 meeting of Michael Ladeen and other Neo-Cons and Italian military/intelligence officials where the Niger forgeries were likely concocted. What was he doing at that meeting except providing his expertise at illicit arms dealing and lying and deceit? He is a persona non grata at the CIA, a known liar and fabricator.

If he is back on the Bush junta payroll (was he ever off it?)--and people are ratting on him--that means major foul play is in motion vis a vis Iran. Some scenarios I can think of--Bush junta operatives triggering a nuke accident within Iran, or a stray missile launching--some sort of "Gulf of Tonkin"-type excuse to obliterate everything but the oil fields. (There was a curious incident in Iraq after the invasion, involving Ghorbanifar trying to sucker the CIA into believing that Iranians had "stolen" Iraqi nukes and taken them to Iran--a story that quickly evaporated upon investigation. I've often wondered what that was about. I thought maybe it was a testing of the CIA, to find out who in the CIA was onto Ghorbanifar, to get them purged--prior to the movement of the nukes into Iraq to be "found." Now I'm wondering if it was some other kind of test run--aimed at the future and the Bushite's long standing plans to villify, indict and destroy Iran.**)

-----

*(I suspect that this is what the Plame/Brewster-Jennings outing was all about--and possibly the death of David Kelly in England as well: a Bushite/Ghorbanifar plot to plant the weapons, a foiling of that plot by OUR counter-proliferation network, and consequent coverup of this Bush/Blair skulduggery, and punishment of those who really believed in counter-proliferation. I DON'T think it was to "punish" Joe Wilson for his dissent, or not primarily for that. Too many holes in the story (too many signs of panic among the Bushites); not enough motive for top dog conspiracy to commit treason in a way that put top dogs at great risk. Potential exposure of deliberate plan of deceit--planting the weapons--WOULD be sufficient motive.)

**(My interpretation of Libby's cryptic letter to Judith Miller about the "aspens" and so forth was: Judith is not to worry; Libby has decided to take the fall for the others, and the main plan--for destroying Iran--is still in place; he then tells her she should "come back to life--and work" to cover the Iran weapons story.)

[KoKo]

28. Here's a little more about Ghorbanifar and Cheney:

Niger Yellowcake and The Man Who Forged Too Much
by Pen
Fri Jul 22, 2005 at 04:56:03 AM PDT

They say all roads lead to Rome. Well, this one certainly does. It's a road that starts in Paris, at the door of Iranian arms dealer and Mossad double agent Manucher Ghorbanifar, a man known to the CIA as an "intelligence fabricator". It's a road that runs through Niger uranium mines, past a Genoan fascist organization operating as a parallel Italian intelligence network with ties to Rocco Martino, and down the streets of Milan, where a CIA operative, now considered a fugitive at large by Italian authorities, once operated.

Ultimately, however, it is a road that does not end in Rome. It runs past that ancient icon of Imperial corruption and leads us to Washington D.C., past a Federal Investigation into Israeli espionage and right up to the steps of the White House and Dick Cheney's Office of Special Plans.

All signs along this road point to the answer to the question: Who forged the Niger Uranium Documents?

--------------------
We find ourselves beginning our journey in Paris with Manucher Ghorbanifar.

Back in 1984, Michael Ledeen put forward the idea of using Manucher Ghorbanifar to make illegal arms sales to Iran. The CIA's Deputy Director for Operations, Clair George, deemed Ghorbanifar totally unreliable. He felt that Ghorbanifar, a MOSSAD double agent, had Israel's security as his only priority. But George Bush Sr., having dealt with Ghorbanifar in Paris prior to the infamous "October Surprise" that got Ronald Reagan elected, agreed with Ledeen and so Ghorbanifar became the middleman in what became known as the Iran-Contra affair. In fact, Oliver North testified that the diversion of funds to the Contras was proposed to him by
Ghorbanifar during a meeting in January 1986.

So it should have come as no surprise that Newsweek reported that :

Ghorbanifar, a former Iranian spy who helped launch the Iran-contra affair, says one of the things he discussed with Defense officials Harold Rhode and Larry Franklin at meetings in Rome in December 2001 (and in Paris last June with only Rhode) was regime change in Iran....The Pentagon cut off contact with Ghorbanifar, whom the CIA years ago labeled as a fabricator, after news about the talks broke last summer....But Ghorbanifar says he continued to communicate with Rhode, and sometimes Franklin, by phone and fax five or six times a week until shortly after the Paris meeting last summer (June 2002).

The important points to note in the Newsweek article were this:

1: The two Americans at the meeting were
a) Harold Rhode, a member of the Office of Special Plans, protege of Michael Ledeen and the liason between the administration and Ahmed Chalabi and b) Larry Franklin, formerly of the Office of Special Plans, whom the FBI arrested for giving away secrets to Israel through the organization AIPAC.

2: The two Italian men present were
a) SISMI (Italian Intelligence) Chief Nicolo Pollari. b) Italian Minister of Defense Antonio Martino.

3: The meetings were in Rome in Dec. 2001.

What Newsweek doesn't tell us is that a third American was present at that first meeting and that he was the man who organized the meeting: Michael Ledeen.

But back to Ghorbanifar. A quick look in the Wikipedia shows us that:

Ghorbanifar's suspected duplicity during the Iran-Contra deal led CIA Director William Casey to order three separate lie-detector tests, all of which he failed. Iranian officials also suspected Ghorbanifar of passing them forged American documents. The CIA issued a "burn notice" (or "Fabricator Notice") on Ghorbanifar in 1984, meaning he was regarded as an unreliable source of intelligence. A 1987 congressional report on Iran-Contra cites the CIA warning that Ghorbanifar "should be regarded as an intelligence fabricator and a nuisance" who was known to spread false information to advance his own interests.

In case you missed it, let me repeat: Iranian officials also suspected Ghorbanifar of passing them forged American documents.

http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:-jJmg8HIP4oJ:www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/7/22/7563/12283+Manucher+Ghorbanifar,+Niger+Documents&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=3

[havocmom]

16. Only crooks and thugs would deal with Cheney

Who else could he work with?

[Roland99]

17. Thieves of a feather.

[robertpaulsen]

18. So...any guesses on who is "holding" Ghorbanifar?

From the OP link:

“Ghorbanifar has never made a secret of his desire to rid his country of the mullahs' tyranny,” Ledeen continued. “He has said that constantly since the first day I met him, in 1985. It shouldn't surprise anyone to hear that he may have spoken about that with US Government officials, in Rome and elsewhere. But if that happened, it was outside the meetings I attended.”

As previously reported by RAW STORY, the Paris meetings, which were also attended by Congressman Curt Weldon (R-PA) on at least two occasions in the spring of 2003, involved attempts by Ghorbanifar to advance false intelligence in order to implicate Iran in a bizarre uranium theft claim. The assertions were debunked by the CIA and by other US intelligence and military experts.

According to two of the three intelligence sources, the arms dealer was brought in to observe attempts by Khalilzad or Iranian officials at diplomatic activities and report back to Rumsfeld and/or Cheney through whomever is “holding” Ghorbanifar, sources say.


So, US or Italian?

[seemslikeadream]

19. Manusher Ghorbanifar claims he played the leading role.

:hi:

http://nuralcubicle.blogspot.com/2005/10/sismis-war-in-iraq-iranian-connection.html

In each and every one of these interchangeable frames for the meeting, Manusher Ghorbanifar claims he played the leading role. Iranian by birth and residing as far as we know between Paris and Geneva, Ghorbanifar does not have a good reputation. For some, he is an arms trafficker. For others, an expert in forgery. For civilian Italian intelligence, Ghorbanifar is a secret agent for Tehran. For a certain US intelligence agency, he is a Mossad agent. For yet others he is a clever bullshitter. And for still others, he is all those things. But the truth is that he is a minor character, or so it seems.

Ghorbanifar is the decoy planted by the organizers of the meeting to keep busybodies off the scent and away from the scene of the crime and above all, far removed from the motive. An American source tells La Repubblica: Manusher Ghorbanifar says he has a London source who is able, it appears, to identify where in Baghdad Saddam’s stockpile of enriched uranium is located. Ledeen then embellishes the tale by adding that Ghorbanifar’s contact knows of an effort by Iran to acquire uranium and that radiation emitted from Saddam's stockpile of radioactive material has contaminated a few Iraqi technicians, whose identities were known to him.

After some back-and-forth between the CIA and the Pentagon, Ghorbanifar’s London source is brought to Baghdad at the expense of the Agency to assist in the identificatoon of the site where the uranium has been stockpiled. After leading the men of Langley on a wild goose chase, the source demands $50 thousand to refresh his memory on just who in Baghdad would be in a position to help in the search. Naturally, the buffoon is dismissed with a kick in the pants.

[robertpaulsen]

20. Thanks for that seemslikeadream.

Funny how they refer to Ghorbanifar as a decoy. Ledeen could fit the same description in that context.

:hi:

[Peace Patriot]

23. Well, that could be true--that Ghorbanifar was a decoy--except that he

tried to hide the fact that he was behind the decoy operation. The CIA had to penetrate a false identity--and found out that he was behind it (the Iran/Iraq nuke thing). I think it was more like Ghorbanifar being the decoy for Ghorbanifar. And if the Bushites wanted to get illicit nukes into Iraq, to be "found" by the US troops and Ms. "embedded-by-Donald-Rumsfeld" Miller--which I'm pretty sure was the case--Ghorbanifar would be the kind of operative they would need. They knew him. They had dealt with him on Iran-Contra. It's very worrisome that Rumsfeld & Co. feel free to continue employing this criminal--especially since they have now purged the people in the CIA who could stop him. In fact, I think that's pretty much what happened: Ghorbanifar was moving the illicit weapons into Iraq; Plame and the Brewster-Jennings network (and maybe the Brits' David Kelly) foiled them; the good guys got purged (and in Kelly's case, suicided); and now Ghorbanifar is free to go about framing Iran, with a "Gulf of Tonkin" type incident or whatever the plan is.

[KoKo]

29. Watch Josh Marshall (TPM) and Linda Rozen's "War & Piece" sites for

new on this...because they have the goods.... I expect they will have some commenting.

And, good for Larissa for being on it...

[robertpaulsen]

21. Anyone have any dirt on Peter Hoekstra?

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Peter Hoekstra (R-MI) approved using Ghorbanifar as an intermediary, intelligence sources say. Hoekstra attended at least one meeting in Paris with Curt Weldon and Harold Rhode to meet with Ghorbanifar.

“Hoekstra okayed these channels,” one intelligence source said. “He gave his blessing.”

In response to an email from RAW STORY, the House Intelligence Committee’s Republican spokesman Jamal Ware said he was out of the office and unable to discuss this issue with Congressman Hoekstra, adding: it was “doubtful we would have a comment either way.”



So, here's what I've been able to find about him:

A Republican, Hoekstra has represented the Michigan's second congressional district since taking office in 1993 following his win in the 1992 election.

snip

He promised to serve no more than six terms (12 years) in the House, and also promised not to take any money from political action committees. He scored a monumental upset, winning by almost six percent. This primary win was tantamount to election in the 2nd district, the most Republican district in Michigan; Republicans have held the district for all but four years since its creation in 1873.

In 2004, Hoekstra announced that he would run for a seventh term, citing his membership on the Select Committee on Intelligence. He also took a considerable amount of political action committee money during his time in office. However, his constituents apparently weren't upset by these developments. As in his previous five reelection campaigns, he faced no significant opposition in the Republican primary or in the general election. Shortly after the primary, he was named chairman of the committee, succeeding Porter Goss, who was named director of the Central Intelligence Agency.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Hoekstra

Here's his dispicable voting record:

http://www.issues2000.org/MI/Peter_Hoekstra.htm

[leveymg]

25. Hoekstra's being groomed as another G.H.W. scholarship kid.

He's been tapped to play with the senior boys. Ghorbanifar works with Ledeen, so expect Mossad and Saudi external intel involvement.

This creeps me out because the same constellation is lining up as before Iran-Contra and 9/11. The professional arms merchants are looking to make a fortune from a lot of anticipated killing. Or, is that a killing from arms dealing? Expect a lot of car bombings in Khuzistan and Tehran. That's the next escalation of tensions.

The FBI and CIA need to arrest these people for known crimes. If they don't do that now, we're all screwed.

[lukery]

31. hoekstra

"Porter Goss's successor as HPSCI chairman, Rep. Peter Hoekstra of Michigan, has stated that his committee is now providing "intelligence" to the CIA from sources who have no way of directly providing it to the embattled intelligence agency."

http://wotisitgood4.blogspot.com/2006/02/duke-cunningham-and-turkey.html

[lukery]

32. group of 8

hoekstra was also one of the "group of 8"

larisa: "Shortly after the 9/11 attacks, President George W. Bush issued an order to the Central Intelligence Agency, Department of Defense, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the State Department, and his cabinet members that severely curtailed intelligence oversight by restricting classified information to just eight members of Congress."

http://rawstory.com/news/2005/HowSenate_Intelligence_chairman_fixed_intelligence_and_diverted_blame_fromWhite_House__0811.html

[robertpaulsen]

36. Thanks for those links, lukery.

Sounds like the worst from Hoekstra is yet to come if he sticks around. He's quite a stinker already.

[moodforaday]

22. This sickening feeling

Last night I was reading Robert Baer's "See No Evil" (the book Syriana was loosely based on), and just reached the chapter where Baer talks about Ghorbanifar's (and Baer's boss's) involvement in Iran Contra. Baer says he was given Ghorbanifar's file to read and he put it away as soon as he found out the guy was known to fabricate evidence. Out of curiosity I checked Ghorbanifar on Google News, and there was only one match - that was last night.

Today it turns out this well-known fraud is going to do some regime-changing in Iran. And it's so obvious Cheney is running the show.

[spanone]

26. Stay tuned for CurveBall 2.....

[Independent_Liberal]

27. Iran Contra Part II?

Interesting. Thanks for posting this.

[lukery]

30. Iran-MEK

on the radio earlier in the week lala called it "Iran-Mek"