So the Niger forgery story is important because...

[The Witch]

(Let me see if I'm getting the point here.)

The Feith office of Special Plans was "wrong, but not illegal." The American public seems willing to forgive any amount of "cherry-picking" of intelligence. Feith says, "We were just applying an independent analysis" to the intelligence that was there.

But the Niger forgeries are MADE UP OUT OF WHOLE CLOTH. They are CONCRETE proof of completely FABRICATED evidence.

Berlusconi and Bush commissioned it. If they can be traced to their originator, we would see fabricated evidence before Sept. 11.

Nobody seems to point out this crucial point -- the line between cherry-picking intelligence and fabricating intelligence. That would have broken the Bush bank. And that's why they were willing to do just about anything to take the story away from Niger - nay - that's why they were compelled to do something SO BIG that it would completely change the focus of the story. Outing a CIA operative fit the bill perfectly. Nobody would ever look at the substance of Joe Wilson's op-ed again; it was the outing of his wife that was the main issue now.

so 1) Fabricated (not just cherry-picked) intelligence
and 2) A story that needed to be buried with something even more explosive.

Does that jive with others' understanding of the issue?

[sandnsea]

1. They used known forgeries to go to war

IIRC, these were known to be forgeries within the CIA and should never have been used as a justification for war. I don't think their origination needs to be traced back to Bush. All that needs to be proven is that it was known that they were forgeries and were used to lie us into a war anyway.

[The Witch]

2. Yes, but they've been careful to draw a line in the sand

For cherry-picked intelligence, even if the intelligence is weak, they can still say, "everyone had this intelligence." But if they traced it back, it would be something that they made up out of nothing. A 100% fabrication. So who did the forgeries is of paramount importance because it is the first evidence of actual LIES rather than "selective telling of the truth."

[sandnsea]

10. So we wait to uncover a forgery conspiracy???

Sorry that's just crazy. We already know that they used a document they knew to be a forgery to lie about yellowcake intelligence that the CIA repeatedly told them was from unreliable sources. That's the answer to the 'pardon Libby' bullshit. The information we know to be true, not another conspiracy theory.

[sandnsea]

11. dupe

oopsie

[Sir Jeffrey]

3. Perhaps...

but you have to remember that Brewster-Jennings was a counter-proliferation operation. You can safely assume that they had intimate knowledge of anything happening with Iraqi WMDs, Iranian WMDs, etc. You can also bet that if there was any attempt to plant WMD material in Iraq, an organization like that would know about it.

Regardless of what motive you ascribe to Cheney for blowing that organization's cover, serving as a distraction from the Niger forgeries would be A reason for doing it but probably not THE reason. There would be other less drastic ways to take the attention off of the Niger forgeries IMO. Remember, if they got caught doing what they did regarding Plame and Brewster-Jennings, they would face charges of treason and the death penalty. Fudging an intel report would be a lesser offense.

[lapfog_1]

4. Not only were the Niger documents a forgery

but it's very likely that the OSP commissioned and approved a "black op" in Italy to break into the Niger embassy and steal the stationary on which the forgeries were created.

The reason Wilson and his wife had to be discredited is that Cheney didn't want THIS story (much like the watergate break-in of the previous generation) to get out (and, for the most part, it hasn't).

If the American people knew that THEIR government not only "cherry picked" the intelligence, but created falsehoods out of whole cloth including stealing stationary on which to create lies to justify the invasion of another country, well, Cheney and Scooter and Feith and the rest could easily see demands for impeachment and trial for treason. And if that plot was unraveled and exposed, people might look more closely at the whole 9/11 "attack".

Cheney and the PNAC (Scooter was a main PNAC'r as well) could never allow that.

Hence the attack on Joe Wilson and outing of his CIA wife.

We need testimony on this before congress and, if the whole story comes out, including the relationship between the Saudi royal family and the very highest Al Qiada members... and the current funding of Sunni "insurgents" in Iraq and where those "shaped charge" IEDs are really paid for... well, the American people might demand not only impeachment, but execution for treason!

[H2O Man]

5. Right.

The other morning, I believe it was Howard Fineman on the Imus show that said he suspects VP Cheney freaked out when Joe Wilson challenged the Niger lies, because of a connection between the OVP and the forgeries.

[TahitiNut]

8. Let's not forget 'Curveball' ... Chalabi's pal

Cheney's filthy all the way above his eyeballs.

[emulatorloo]

9. that makes a lot of sense -- it was never clear to me why they went NUCLEAR on Wilson

On the one hand the White House was disavowing the 16 words, and on the other hand Cheney's office was EXTREME in its measures to destroy Wilson. It was like my mother in law going after a fly with a baseball bat.

But if OVP was involved in the forgeries, the extremeness of the reaction makes more sense.

[Parisle]

6. Yeah,.... all that, and more, lapfog

--- The so-called "Bush administration" came into office already having the deliberate intention and mapped-out gameplan for trumping up a war with Iraq, invading and occupying it in order to secure its oil reserves for the dual purposes of fueling their future war plans, and the direct enrichment of their Big Oil corporate financiers. A marriage made in Hell, to be sure. Execution for treason is the absolute minimum (think about that for a moment), and there are at least fifty individuals to whom it should be applied.

[poverlay]

7. Excellent thread. K&R for importance, relevance and general population outrage factor! nt

[DefenseLawyer]

12. Has everyone seen the "Niger documents"?

http://cryptome.org/niger-docs.htm

I mean I am no CIA expert, but I think the Official Seal (with the bull's head and all) hand drawn at the top of the page might be a clue that something is amiss. Nevermind that it was "signed" by someone who had been out of office for 15 years or something. Nevermind that the text (when translated from bad French into bad English) sounds just like an email I recently got from Nigeria wanting to put millions of dollars in my bank account. This was not a slick forgery, this was a TERRIBLE forgery. Anyone who thought these to be real doesn't deserve to pass the 5th grade, much less decide policy.

[DemReadingDU]

13. morning kick

[frogcycle]

14. IMO it really is big

That they were actually participating in the forgery before 9/11 shows prior intent. That is the last straw (as if we needed one).

Fools can rationalize that after 9/11 they were caught up in patriotic fervor and maybe somebody's judgement was a little shaded, maybe they "overlooked" that something was "possibly" a forgery, blah, blah, blah.

This, to me, is the absolute, incontrovertible proof of the conspiracy.

[mnmoderatedem]

15. even going beyond the forged documents

the contention was that Saddam was trying to obtain 500 TONS of yellowcake from Niger. From a practical perspective, Niger has no outward hostility toward the US, 500 tons of yellowcake would rather easily be traced back to Niger in the event Saddam had obtained it and was attempting to obtain nukes; Niger would thus incur the wrath of the US.

Why on earth would Niger agree to do that? They wouldn't, which is why Tyler Drumheller, head of covert ops for CIA Europe categorically denounced the contention. Probably why Tenant begged bush to leave it out of his speeches as well.