'Boston Phoenix' IDs 'Anonymous' CIA Officer

[seemslikeadream]

By E&P Staff

Published: June 30, 2004

NEW YORK The active U.S. intelligence officer known only as "Anonymous," who has gained world renown this month as author of an upcoming book called "Imperial Hubris," is actually named Michael Scheuer, according to an article in the Boston Phoenix today by Jason Vest.

Speculation about his identity has run rampant since a June 23 article in The New York Times discussed the book and the background of the author. The book, "Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror," asserts, among other things, that Osama bin Laden is not on the run and that the invasion of Iraq has not made the United States safer.

In that June 23 piece, the Times identified Anonymous as a 22-year CIA veteran who ran the Counterterrorist Center's bin Laden station from 1996 to 1999, adding that a "senior intelligence official" held that revealing the man's full name "could make him a target of Al Qaeda." Anonymous has appeared in brief television interviews always in silhouette.

According to Vest, "Nearly a dozen intelligence-community sources, however, say Anonymous is Michael Scheuer -- and that his forced anonymity is both unprecedented and telling in the context of CIA history and modern politics."

Vest in his article notes that "at issue here is not just the book's content, but why Anonymous is anonymous. After all, as the Times and others have reported, his situation is nothing like that of Valerie Plame, a covert operative whose ability to work active overseas cases was undermined when someone in the White House blew her cover to journalist Robert Novak in an apparent payback for an inconvenient weapons-of-mass-destruction intelligence report by her husband, Joseph Wilson. Anonymous, on the other hand, is, by the CIA's own admission, a Langley, Va.-bound analyst whose identity has never required secrecy.


http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000557752

[4_Legs_Good]

1. Interesting! How will this play?

Hmmmm...

[seemslikeadream]

2. Taking on Imperial Hubris

The book has an apt title: "Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror." And the author spells out "why."

We are losing because of the misguided war on Iraq and the upsurge in terrorism it has engendered.

Sadly, that conclusion was validated last week by the widespread, coordinated attacks by the Iraqi resistance-attacks that brought Vietnam to mind and, specifically, the country-wide "Tet" offensive by Communist forces in early 1968 that made Walter Cronkite and many other Americans realize we had all been badly misled into thinking that that war was winnable.

The final week of formal US occupation of Iraq was a bad one. And the last thing the Bush administration needed was publication of the challenging judgments of a CIA analyst who devoted 17 years to tracking al-Qaeda and other terrorists.

That analyst (let's call him Mike) wrote that the Iraqi adventure was "an unprovoked war against a foe who posed no immediate threat."

He emphasized, "There is nothing that bin Laden could have hoped for more than the American invasion and occupation of Iraq
http://www.conspiracyplanet.com/channel.cfm?channelid=80&contentid=1359


Taking on Imperial Hubris

By Ray McGovern, TomPaine.com. Posted June 30, 2004.


An anonymous CIA analyst has penned a new book that reveals how it's not hatred of our liberal democracy, but hatred of our policies that fuels terrorism.


The book has an apt title: Imperial Hubris: Why the West is Losing the War on Terror. And the author spells out "why."Â We are losing because of the misguided war on Iraq and the upsurge in terrorism it has engendered.

Sadly, that conclusion was validated last week by the widespread, coordinated attacks by the Iraqi resistance – attacks that brought Vietnam to mind and, specifically, the country-wide "Tet" offensive by Communist forces in early 1968 that made Walter Cronkite and many other Americans realize we had all been badly misled into thinking that that war was winnable.

The final week of formal U.S. occupation of Iraq was a bad one. And the last thing the Bush administration needed was publication of the challenging judgments of a CIA analyst who devoted 17 years to tracking Al Qaeda and other terrorists. That analyst (let's call him Mike) wrote that the Iraqi adventure was "an unprovoked war against a foe who posed no immediate threat." He emphasized, "There is nothing that bin Laden could have hoped for more than the American invasion and occupation of Iraq."

Mike added that the United States has "waged two failed half-wars and, in doing so, left Afghanistan and Iraq seething with anti-U.S. sentiment, fertile grounds for the expansion of Al Qaeda and kindred groups."

Asked yesterday to comment on these biting charges, National Security assistant Condoleezza Rice refused on grounds that she did not know who Anonymous is. Did she not think to ask the CIA? If I had no trouble finding out, certainly she should have none.

more
http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/19102/

[leftchick]

8. I saw that condiliar exchange... whirling dervish time!

spin condi spin....

[seemslikeadream]

9. whirling dervish time - yes indeed

A secret turning in us
makes the universe turn.
Head unaware of feet,
and feet head. Neither cares.
They keep turning.
- Rumi

[shockingelk]

3. Is this supposed to be funny?

"Anonymous, on the other hand, is, by the CIA's own admission, a Langley, Va.-bound analyst whose identity has never required secrecy."

The book had to be published anonymously because the authors identity was never required to be secret?

[dzeih]

4. good that his names out

Gives what he has to say more credibility.

[xchrom]

5. i'm glad the book is out

but what makes me nuts is, how many times does somebody have to say the gov. is not acting in the best interest of the people re: the middle east?
i mean it makes you nuts to look at the failure all around you and then listen to everyone in their best orwellian voice call it a success.

[Just Me]

6. So, he's not so "anonymous", I guess.

I'll be doing my monthly bookstore buying tomorrow.

I hope his book has been released,...but, the impression I get is that it will not be out until my next monthly bookstore trip.

Nevertheless, there are several I have yet to get.

[seemslikeadream]

7. Dick Cheney Wets Himself

Written by Su-An Closet

(Twelvetrees, MI) In an extraordinary week, VP Dick Cheney has shocked all with more lies, bouts of obscenity, and now peeing himself.

"Dick's having a tough week," noted loving wife Lynn Cheney. "He usually has much better control over his mouth and his bladder. But what with this war, the Valeria Plame thing, the Halliburton stuff-- he's a little freaked out right now."

Political psychoanalyst Marvel Orwell sees it as a bad sign. "He's ramping down for the 2004 lose, the end of his political career, and the time he will mostly likely spend in prison as a war criminal."

The urination incident occured in the Oval Office during a session of the cabinet. "I wish I could say I had just told a funny joke," said Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of Offense, "but on the contrary. We were discussing oil-- I mean Iraq-- as usual, and we all heard this strange tinkling and a distinctly unpleasant odor."

An unembarrassed Cheney had permeated the office with his urin, soaking the Iraqi Resolution agreement and President Bush's favorite pillow.
more
http://www.thespoof.com/news/spoof.cfm?headline=s9i5180

[seemslikeadream]

10. Safire the snookered and Safire the snookerer

I'm never sure with William Safire where the line is between Safire the snookered and Safire the snookerer. Nor am I sure which is the case in this instance. (With so many permutations of snookerhood I need a language maven to sort out all the possibilities.


But I'm not sure he'd take my call.)

Safire is now the first columnist to grab hold of the story which ran in Financial Times on Monday alleging A) a new trove of evidence that Iraq and other nations were illicitly seeking to purchase uranium from Niger and B) that the mystery of who is behind the notorious Niger uranium forgeries has been solved.




One premise of the two FT articles was that smugglers were getting uranium from derelict (and thus unguarded and unregulated) mines in Niger to sell to five countries.

Safire mentions three of the alleged countries: Iran, Iraq and Libya. The FT includes the other two: North Korea and China.

On its face, it's not inconceivable that countries seeking nuclear weapons technology like Iran, Iraq, Libya and North Korea would be in the market for illicit supplies of processed uranium.

But China? Last time I checked China is an acknowledged nuclear power and has been for decades. They also have a growing civilian nuclear power program. Perhaps most to the point they have big uranium mines in their own country and a national monopoly company (the China National Nuclear Corporation) charged with the running the mines and the nearby-located processing facilities. The IAEA says the Chinese have the domestic capacity to process 1200 tons of uranium a year.

Now, I don't know the precise needs of Chinese civilian and military nuclear activities. But given their own domestic capabilities, how likely is it that they're going to try to cut a deal with low-rent smugglers to get some uranium from derelict (and thus not very productive) mines in Niger? Does that make sense?

more
http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/