Philip Giraldi of the American Conservative is disputing Ron Suskind's new book over the source of the pre-war lie that Saddam and Al-Qaeda were linked. Suskind blames the CIA; Giraldi says actually it was Douglas Feith at the Pentagon serving as Cheney's catspaw. "Unlike the agency, the Pentagon had no restrictions on it regarding the production of
false information to mislead the public. Indeed, one might argue that
Doug Feith’s office specialized in such activity."
I dunno. Though I would point out that in his book War and Decision, where he tries to cleanse his past of any ideological fervor, Feith specifically whitewashes a 50-point memo he prepared for the Congress, in which he was insistent on the alleged connection between Al-Qaeda and Saddam. Today Feith writes, "It was not a 'case' at all, much less an argument that an 'operational' relationship existed between Iraq and al Qaida."
That's funny. "Case Closed" was the title of the cover story in the neoconservative Weekly Standard, which excerpted the confidential memo barely a month after Feith wrote it. The story was written by Cheney amanuensis Stephen Hayes and makes clear that Feith mounted a feverish argument:
According to the memo–which lays out the intelligence in 50 numbered
points–Iraq-al Qaeda contacts began in 1990 and continued through
mid-March 2003, days before the Iraq War began.…[Point] 18. . . . Faruq Hijazi went to Afghanistan in 1999 along with
several other Iraqi officials to meet with bin Laden. The source
claimed that Hijazi would have met bin Laden only at Saddam's explicit
direction.
Saddam is the neocons Hitler, and Feith is lying about his record. The man will never leave us, he is the best character to come out of the Iraq war. I wish Shakespeare were alive today, he would have such fun with Feith.
As Malvolio is the most memorable character in Twelfth Night,
Shakespeare could have written a whole play around Feith–a nebbish with a zealous hidden agenda.
Phil,
One fact that has been dropped from the coverage of the Anthrax killer was reported by Sandra Sobieraj in the Washington Post on October 23, 2001: that the White House Medical Office issued Cipro to VP Cheney's staff as they left for Camp David on the evening of September 11, 2001, as a "precaution." Richard Cohen wrote on March 23 of this year in Slate (in blaming the Anthrax scare for his support for the war in Iraq) that he had "been told to secure Cipro, the antidote to Anthrax" early on, in September 2001, before anyone else is his sphere, indirectly from a high government official. He said that Anthrax attacks "were not entirely unexpected." By the end of September, Maureen Dowd wrote that everyone she knew was sharing information about who still had Cipro left and available. Those rumors didn't fly around in my circles out here in Northern California. Tom Friedman recently wrote that 25 people within a few blocks of his office had been essential in launching the war on Iraq, and he sure did his part. That would be the same community where people were anxious to get Cipro in mid to late September 2001.
Why was bioterror generally and Anthrax specifically anticipated in New York and Washington – to the point of exhausting drug store supplies? Only in the phony neocon intelligence world was bin Laden tied to Saddam, and Saddam tied to weaponized Anthrax. With Cheney, Rumsfeld, Feith, Libby, et al, Hellbent to sell those stories in order to start a war with Iraq, willing to dissemble, even under oath (Libby) or in print (Feith), and taking immediate steps to protect themselves from what would soon be released by the supposedly crazed loner opportunist Bruce Ivins, why isn't it logical to ask them and the White House Medical Office why Cipro? Why VP Cheney's staff, as Sobieraj reported, rather than the entire White House staff? Why so soon after airplanes fell out of the sky?
It certainly seems possible that Anthrax was a false flag attack, a la Operation Northwoods. Cheney certainly knew his Pentagon insider history, and his apparent conclusions were that prior executives, including Nixon, just had not shown the Strength & Will that the Fatherland, I mean, the country, needed in the evil world we live in.
With Leahy and Daschle specifically targeted, with fellow traveler Judy Miller sent a harmless mock-up, which I expect shook up the NYTimes newsroom, it sure feels like it was a false flag attack designed to push through the PATRIOT Act and justify the coming war against Iraq. (Why would Ivins send a fake letter to Judy Miller?). Sadly, given the corruption of the MSM, the absence of discussion of this possibility doesn't make it less credible.
Doppler
Phil,
The story is a simple one, actually. A person (in this case Saddam) cannot be "linked" to something that does not, in fact, exist. "Al Qaeda," as has been pointed out by numerous intelligence officials both here and abroad, is simply a propaganda term invented by intelligence agencies in order to label any Muslim dissident groups (or perhaps ANY dissident groups, for that matter). There is no group that refers to itself as "Al Qaeda," and the only times the term is ever used by those allegedly a part of "it" are in response to questioning, such as "Yes, I am a part of what YOU (Western intelligence agencies) refer to as Al Qaeda." The whole notion of "Al Qaeda" is just a fear tactic and it should be put to rest.
I couldn't agree with Philip Girald more–my own research pointed towards Feith. Doppler says some salient things I also noticed. Feith, the revenge of the nerd, Reality TV. The Office Of Special Plans… our government and its best principles were hijacked.
Imagine if we could get to the bottom of the Franklin spy case–but, we won't. It will stop with Franklin. And Anthrax will stop with Mister Suicide.
Kinda like that Madam with all the names who did the same thing, right?
On C-SPAN a few days ago, Ron Suskind took calls from across the nation. When a caller asked him some Scott Ritter questions leading towards Giraldi's point, Ron started fumbling out an answer–my TV screen went black for a bit; when he was back on he was saying he never met any neocons but Rummy who bended the facts to fit their view.
The show commenced with him touting the ways of the world and so how important the First Amendment was, closely followed by the Second Amendment; now that government policy is to classify nearly everything, where are we?
According to the Pentagon's Inspector General the findings of Feith's "Office of Special Plans" that Iraq was an "imminent threat" were consistently at odds with the findings of the CIA, State Department and other intelligence agencies. They found his activities "inappropriate" but not illegal since the Pentagon isn't under the same restrictions that the CIA is (Apparently, the Pentagon is allowed to fabricate intellligence evidence).
Cheney, Bush, Rumsfeld and Feith lied us into an unneccesary and deadly war of choice – they've commited the ultimate War Crime and need to be found accountable if not during this Administration, then under the next.
Now, what are the chances of that happening?
and still in america today it is considered loonacy to question the entire 9-11 operation….the anthrax case, the third tower and the myriad other pieces of the puzzle that the gang that couldnt plan straight put together……..the crew that masterminded the event/events remind me of the three stooges, sloppy.
Phil, while I am more inclined towards your position, Suskind had just released the transcript of an interview he did with Rob Richer where he appears to be admitting to the op. According to him the demand came from Libby and shop around the VPs office.
The Little Shop Of Horrors:
"Ron: The intent–the basic raison d'etre of this product is to get, is to create, here's a letter with what's in it. Okay, here's what we want on the letter, we want it to be released as essentially a representation of something Habbush says. That's all it says, that's the one paragraph. And then you pass it to whomever to do it. To get it done.
Ron: Now this is from the Vice President's Office is how you remembered it–not from the president?
Rob: No, no, no. What I remember is George saying, 'we got this from'–basically, from what George said was 'downtown.'
Ron: Which is the White House?
Rob: Yes. But he did not–in my memory–never said president, vice president, or NSC. Okay? But now–he may have hinted–just by the way he said it, it would have–cause almost all that stuff came from one place only: Scooter Libby and the shop around the vice president.
Ron: Yeah, right.
Rob: But he didn't say that specifically. I would naturally–I would probably stand on my, basically, my reputation and say it came from the vice president.
Ron: Right, I'm with you, I'm with you. But there wasn't anything in the writing that you remember saying the vice president.
Rob: Nope.
Ron: It just had the White House stationery.
Rob: Exactly right.
Ron: That's fine, White House stationery's fine. Everything's from there. You know, that's the center point. But not OVP's Office. It's just the White House. It comes from the White House. That's plain and simple."
It would be very interesting to hear what Allawi would say today about the Habbush forgery — and his broader relationship to the CIA and the Bush White House — especially if he were to tell his story in a congressional hearing. Lots of luck.
The OSP as diablolical as anything the NAZI's could ever conceive, though on the same wave length.
Why doesn't anyone in the MSM pursue this with Libby, and tie in the other neocon fabrication strings? Lean on Franklin too.
Eventually, this will come out in all its beauty–despite the cuts, right now, God's Warrior's is on cable TV, and it retains lots of good stuff–that is, if you care about fairness and the USA.