Vice President Cheney was involved in a conspiracy to forge the Niger documents.

[originalpckelly]

Mr. Cheney was afraid that the American public would realize the dark cloud that hangs over said documents, if the public began talking about those documents so openly.

That's why they worked so feverishly to distract us.

The story involves a "break-in" at the Nigerian Embassy in Rome. (Really a staged break-in to cover up the loss of some letterhead.)

It involves secret meeting with Iran-Contra figure Manucher Ghorbanifar and a consultant to Doug Feith over at OSP.

This is the real reason Scooter lied. He's protecting Cheney from this gigantic weight.

Feith is a Cheney man. Mike Ledeen was the consultant to Feith who met in Rome with SISMI officials (people involved in passing the forged documents on.)

The conspiracy has been under our noses the whole time, and Cheney's effort to put a smoke screen up to keep it hidden worked.

We were all distracted by the Plame Affair, when the real story was the Nigerian Affair.

[opihimoimoi]

1. Cheney should be on trial for TREASON

Our good Troops are dying for HIS and Bush LIES...WTF is wrong with this picture?

[Canuckistanian]

2. A break-in in the embassy?

I've never heard that before. I thought it was a rogue Italian security agent....

Um.... link?

[originalpckelly]

5. There was a "break-in" to steal the letterhead. It was a faked break-in by the way.

It's been reported in La Republica.

The rogue agent worked with an asset at the Embassy to do it. Hence the "break-in" was an intel operation.

[originalpckelly]

8. Here are translations of it:

Part I:
http://nuralcubicle.blogspot.com/2005/10/berlusconi-behind-fake-yellowcake.html

Part II:
http://nuralcubicle.blogspot.com/2005/10/yellowcake-dossier-not-work-of-cia.html

Part III:
http://nuralcubicle.blogspot.com/2005/10/nigergate-great-nuclear-centrifuge.html

[Canuckistanian]

10. Thanks! n/t

[originalpckelly]

14. I hope you found that interesting.

[Canuckistanian]

23. VERY interesting.

I captured all those pages for future reference.

Whoever wrote that was well versed in international intelligence.

[catzies]

22. This link reposts an excellent Vanity Fair article

http://www.ciponline.org/nationalsecurity/Resources/publ/060606_vanityfair.dwt

[jaysunb]

3. I'm in...

:tinfoilhat:

[Leftisalwaysright]

4. Not Surprising

This does not surprising and getting to be very depressing. I would too be interested in reading further if you have a link.

[originalpckelly]

6. It's a hypothesis.

Backed up by lots and lots of reading.

[wiggs]

7. I buy it. nt

[originalpckelly]

9. Here's the ticket from the Italian investor's story:

"For SISMI Director Nicolò Pollari, the rules of his profession are very clear. He tells La Repubblica: I am an intelligence chief and my only institutional partner in conversation following 9-11 was CIA Director George Tenet in Washington. Obviously, I held my conversations solely with him.... But is it really true that our cloak-and-dagger people worked solely with the CIA? Or did they work as part of the clandestine effort within the parallel intelligence conduit <"Stovepipe"--Nur> created by Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz within the Iraq War Group, the Pentagon’s Office of Special Plans and the office of the National Security Advisor—all avidly determined to produce the evidence for “regime change" in Baghdad."

http://nuralcubicle.blogspot.com/2005/10/yellowcake-dossier-not-work-of-cia.html

[spindrifter]

11. It is confusing to refer to the Nigerian

Embassy. We are talking about the Embassy of Niger. I wonder how much of this info Mr. Fitzgerald ran into in the previous investigation.

[Holly_Hobby]

12. You are correct

I posted this earlier today, from the article at the link below:

So Scooter Libby has taken the fall. Three and a half years and a long bloody war after he and a gang of war-mongers in the White House and Blair House, including President Bush and Vice President Cheney, set out to undermine and trash the reputation of an Iraq war critic, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, Libby has been found guilty of perjury, lying to the FBI and obstruction of justice by a Washington jury.

Now maybe special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald and what passes for journalists in the mainstream media can get down to the real business of finding out just why the entire White House smear operation was unleashed upon a minor state department official and why they went so far as to violate federal law and expose his CIA-operative wife, Valerie Plame, in the process destroying her entire network of contacts for monitoring the spread of nuclear weapons in the Middle East. Because that's what this whole Libby story is really about. The whole focus of the media in this case has been on the narrow, inside-the-Beltway question of who leaked information about Plame to the media. Entirely forgotten or ignored has been what this leak was all about to begin with.

...

As it happens, way back in early 2001 there was a pair of burglaries at the Niger Embassy in Rome and at the home of the Niger ambassador. Police investigating the crimes found that the only things stolen were official stationary and some official stamps, used to make documents official. A cleaning lady and a former member of Italy's intelligence service were arrested for the crimes. They were odd burglaries to be sure, since there is precious little one could use, or sell, such documents for, given the country involved. I mean, it might make sense to steal official stationary from the French Embassy in Rome, which a thief might use to finagle a pass to the Cannes Festival. But Niger?

Jump to October 2001. A few weeks after the 9-11 attacks, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, accompanied by his ministers of defense and intelligence, made a visit to the White House. There he reportedly handed over the forged Niger documents (they were on Niger government stationary, and had Niger government stamps!), which appeared to be receipts for uranium ore, made out to Saddam Hussein. Now forget the matter of why either Hussein or Niger's government would want paper receipts for such an illegal transaction, and forget the matter of how Hussein would have transported 400 tons of yellow dust across the Sahara to his country without somebody noticing. The simple fact is that Bush's own intelligence experts at the CIA and State Department promptly spotted the forgeries, and they were dumped.

...

http://www.commondreams.org/views07/0306-38.htm

I didn't know about the Niger Embassy burglaries in Rome, or that the cleaning lady and a former member of Italy's intelligence service were arrested.

I didn't know that Berlusconi gave Bush the forgeries way back in October, 2001, and that the forgeries were dumped by the CIA and State Dept. IF THE DOCUMENTS WERE LEGIT, THE WH WOULD HAVE BROADCAST THEM EVERYWHERE - receipts noting purchase of uranium ore by Saddam Hussein, giving them proof that Saddam was making WMD's. But they didn't do that!

If I read about these two incidents earlier, I have forgotten. Does anyone remember them?

And just what the HELL was OSP doing meeting in Rome in December 2001 with the head of Italian intelligence?

The author is theorizing it was a black op aimed at the American people. If so, he contends, it's TREASON, and Cheney and Bush should be in jail.

But, it looks like Fitz can't/won't push it any further, unless Libby comes clean. How likely is that? Not very, I think.

It's up to the journalists to pursue these crimes. Yeah, right.

[originalpckelly]

13. That story differs from the reporting of the pair of Italian investigators...

who worked on this.

[Holly_Hobby]

16. I admit to not reading the links above.

All this makes me wonder why the Wilsons didn't say Jack about the rest of the story.

[originalpckelly]

18. It was a minor detail by the way, not the whole thing...

just the part about the burglaries. They weren't real, they were staged to cover-up the intel operation.

[Holly_Hobby]

19. Thanks for that. The plot thickens....

Why didn't the Wilsons sing like canaries? Certainly Joe Wilson was smart enough to figure it out.

[originalpckelly]

21. No, they did their job. They didn't know about this.

This was found out by others in Italy. The Wilsons just knew that the claim was crazy.

[monktonman]

15. Wheres our Deep throat????

Havent we suffered enough

[originalpckelly]

17. We don't need Deep Throat.

This time we have the collective power of hundreds if not thousands of people to notice patterns and make conclusion based upon the analysis of those patterns.

[Emit]

20. Check this out --NPR -- "Trial Documents Offer Inside View of White House"

We've all seen some of these documents (esp. the first one), with Cheney's handwritten notes, but this piece puts it into a different perspective. Very insightful. Go to link to see documents and to hear the audio:

TTrial Documents Offer Inside View of White House

Vice President Dick Cheney's hand-written notes and underlining can be seen on this copy of Joseph Wilson's New York Times op-ed article. The article was introduced into evidence at the Libby trial.

The National Security Archive at GWU

The trial of Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, opened up a window onto the inner operations of the White House and its relationship with the media.

A number of internal government documents were entered into evidence during Libby's trial that depict officials, including the vice president, directly engaged in shaping the media's coverage of the Bush administration and its drive to paint Iraq as a nuclear threat.

~snip~
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Cheney Questions Wilson Piece
Below is a clipping of Joseph Wilson's New York Times op-ed piece, published July 6, 2003. Wilson's article challenges the administration's public characterization of intelligence about alleged Iraqi attempts to buy uranium in Africa. The clipping shows Vice President Cheney's handwritten notes: "Have they done this sort of thing before? Send an Amb. to answer a question? Do we ordinarily send people out pro bono to work for us? Or did his wife send him on a junket?" Wilson's wife is Valerie Plame, who worked for the CIA.


Exhibit 402: Cheney's Notes on Wilson's Op-Ed Article

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The CIA Explains Its Role
Below is a copy of a July 2003 statement made by CIA Director George Tenet in response to a disputed section in President Bush's State of the Union address. The first page of the document is marked "Unsatisfactory" by Libby, who was then chief of staff to Vice President Cheney.


Exhibit 542: Draft CIA Statement on Uranium Intelligence

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Libby Challenges Dowd Column
Below is a printout of Maureen Dowd's New York Times column, "National House of Waffles," published on July 13, 2003. Large sections have been blacked out by the prosecution. Tom Blanton of the National Security Archive at George Washington University says that's not for national security reasons, but to focus the jury's attention on the section at the bottom. The handwritten notes on the document are from Libby. He writes, "not us" and "not to us" in response to suggestions that the CIA had debunked the evidence suggesting Iraq was trying to obtain yellowcake uranium in Africa.


Exhibit 412: Libby's Notes on Maureen Dowd Column
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

How to Spin the Media
Below are the notes of Vice President Cheney's press officer, Cathie Martin. On the second page of the document, her handwritten notes list the administration's options in response to a disputed section in President Bush's 2003 State of the Union address. Tom Blanton of the National Security Archive at George Washington University says, "These are their spin options and the pros and cons of putting the vice president on NBC's Meet the Press. Option Two is to leak the information to select reporters, including David Sanger of The New York Times and Walter Pincus of The Washington Post."


Exhibit 541: Cathie Martin's Notes on Media Strategy

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Notes on a Scandal
The notes at the top of this page (link below) are talking points written by Libby for White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan. Vice President Cheney added his own notes at the bottom. They read, in part, "Not going to protect one staffer + sacrifice the guy the Pres that was asked to stick his neck in the meat grinder because of the incompetence of others."


Exhibit 532: Libby and Cheney Notes on Scandal Response

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=7750388

[Holly_Hobby]

24. Kick

Everyone on DU should be reading this!

[bear425]

25. Thom Hartmann was saying this yesterday on AAR.

edit: Wilson retribution is just a MSM smokescreen

[LeftHander]

26. Been brought up before....

I think tricky dick II was at the head of the forgeries. The REAL reasons to out Plame was to prevent her from uncovering the truth about the forgeries.

SO MUCH so Dick went to the CIA himself to sniff out who was rattling the cage door. He found out it was Plame and he outed her via Libby. This killed her undercover work that itself was centered around nuclear proliferation...(i.e. illegal sales of nuclear material)

I wrote about this two years ago and it was plausible then.

Tying it all together would bring down the ENTIRE Bush presidency and destroy the Republican party as well.

Remember this is the same crew that MIHOP/LIHOP.

So creating some forgeries to start a war is not a big deal.

[Nickster]

27. Thom Hartmann is talking about this right now! n/t

[crappyjazz]

28. and well before 9/11

which is what I find the most damning. Setting up the snow job for a war in Iraq before 9/11 gave them a "reason" to.