who forged the YELLOWCAKE documents -- the Wilsons were trapped.

[grasswire]

The Plame matter can't be fully understood without a forensic investigation into the document that sent Wilson to Niger.

Was it a trap? Was Joe Wilson entrapped in order to stop his wife's work?

Valerie Plame would know or come to know if Saddam Hussein did have nuclear capability. Her co-workers in that particular CIA niche would know.

Perhaps she and they had to be stopped.

And so a document was produced and then leaked in order to reveal Plame's long-time cover, compromise CIA assets and stop their work, and generally botch any U.S. effort to tell the truth about the centerpiece of the BFEE's rush to war -- the "mushroom cloud."

This seems pretty clear, and plausible. They didn't just spank the Wilsons. They STOPPED Mrs. Wilson and entrapped them.

[two gun sid]

1. I thought it came from Italian Intelligence who possibly bought it...

by someone in the Nigerian Embassy in Rome.

[sam sarrha]

13. it was such a Amaturish hack job of Fraud the CIA laughed their ass's off

the Nigerian cut and Zeroxed letter heads and signatures that had different type to the message and were not even parallel.. the letter head came out so bad it could not be identified and the Counterfeiter actually had to outline the eagle with a pen.. and very crudely.. no one took it seriously..

this had to be cherry picked !!!

[notadmblnd]

2. anyone know if Ms Plame testified to the GJ?

nt

[bilgewaterbill]

3. Only one problem with your premise...

How would the document forgers/ conspirators know that Plame would send Wilson?

[Beaver Tail]

4. According to one of Bushes lies - I mean speaches

The Intelligence came from Britain

[TahitiNut]

5. Find out who Cheney REALLY wanted to send to Niger ...

... and we'll find out who knew they were forgeries and was complicit in the WMD Hoax.

[punpirate]

6. Possibly...

... but the CIA isn't the only body monitoring this sort of thing--the IAEA has jurisdiction internationally.

If you recall, they were the ones, when the documents surfaced, to definitively determine they were forgeries. And, as I recall, the IAEA had determined they were forgeries before Joe Wilson made public his charges, and before Valerie Plame was outed. The IAEA inspected the documents in October, 2002.

Wilson's charges were made over the fact that he'd determined they weren't true, and that the administration had continued to sell that line of bull, particularly in the 2003 State of the Union.

So, the prima facie bone of contention of the White House is still that Wilson called them liars. From that, one can be fairly certain that the move against Wilson's wife was retaliatory--which is entirely consistent with Rove's modus operandi.

There's little doubt that the forgeries furthered the interests of the White House, but I think it's a bit of stretch of the evidence to suggest that they were created to undo Valerie Plame's operation. They were most likely created to be used as evidence of the claim for nuclear weapons in Iraq--and specifically to induce Congress to vote for the Iraq invasion resolution. Many who voted for it said they were exclusively motivated to vote as they did because of administration charges of a reconstituted Iraqi nuclear weapons program.

Now, what makes this a bit more complicated (and suggests validity to your claim, but for an entirely different reason) are Sibel Edmonds' charges that very prominent public officials in Washington were involved in matters related to the black marketing of nuclear materials. That could be something Valerie Plame and her group might have come across. But, that's an entirely different motivation than the one you suggest.

Cheers.

[H2O Man]

7. On March 7, 2003

the IAEA announced they were forgeries. A State Dept spokesperson would tell CNN that "We fell for it" on March 8th. Wilson told a CNN reporter that State had more information on this later that day. (Keep in mind, Wilson's report was only one of three -- which eliminates any possibility he or Plame were "set up" with the forgeries.) The office of the VP was used that day to begin the "work up" on Wilson to destroy him if he continued to expose the WH lies.

[punpirate]

9. The IAEA announced it publicly then...

... but this article says they asked the British for copies and looked at them much, much earlier than March, 2003, i.e., October, 2002:

http://www.liberalslant.com/jl071503.htm

It took the IAEA only a few hours to determine they were forgeries, and you can bet they informed the British and the US of their findings at that time, and that the evidence of forgery was probably one of the main reasons they prevailed in getting inspectors back into Iraq well before the start of the invasion.

Cheers.

[H2O Man]

10. Interesting link.

I am under the impression that the British refused for some time to allow the IAEA to examine their copies of the documents, although by international agreement, they were supposed to. I was under the impression that any other copies had been provided through the previous investigations conducted by American ambassador Barbro Owens-Kirkpatrick, and by General Carleton Fulford.

[punpirate]

15. Again, we're not on the inside...

... but they could have been leaked to them--I recall the IAEA saying it could not make some determinations of authenticity because they received copies of copies. And, Leopold cites CNN as the source that the documents from the British dossier were supplied to the IAEA not by the British, but by US officials in late September, 2002. Someone at the CIA could have done that without the knowledge of the White House, or Tenet, for that matter. The CIA also had to have had knowledge of the IAEA's determination by October, because the Niger claim was footnoted in the October, 2002 NIE on Iraq as improbable.

Throughout all this, there are going to be cover stories. Which ones are true, and which are false, only time and a little sunlight will tell.

Here's another interesting link I found, someone's timeline on the build-up to the invasion:

http://www.geocities.com/dearbenedict/time.html

Some of this probably duplicates what's in cooperativeresearch.org's timeline, but it's shorter and not as much of a trial to wade through.

Cheers.

[H2O Man]

22. Clearly we are not

on the inside. However, Wilson was. And his book covers the IAEA's work with the Niger documents pretty clearly. He notes that: "On March 7, 2003, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), Dr. Mohamed El Baradei, told the U.N. Security Council that the documents belatedly submitted by the administration relating to the purported sale of uranium from Niger to Iraq were not authentic." (page 325) More, on page 2 Wilson notes that the documents that the British claimed as evidence of the yellow cake sale were not submitted to the IAEA until February 2003. Further, on page 340, Wilson notes that despite article ten of UN Resolution 1441, Great Britain refused to share the documents that they claimed would substantiate their allegation. Seems clear to me, from the outside.

[punpirate]

23. Unless Wilson...

... didn't know about the earlier bit. Truly, I don't know. What I see are contradictions, and at least one news reference to this happening earlier. Again, that's CNN, so, who knows.

And, the CIA had to know something fairly definitive by October, 2002, because of the manner in which the NIE was written. Yes, that hesitation to wholly endorse the claim may have been prompted by Wilson's trip, but something was causing the CIA to back off from it in the NIE, and something was causing them not to endorse Bush's remarks regarding the claim.

I suspect the IAEA knew much earlier, and from copies supplied by US sources. But, I also doubt they would have publicly said anything until the dates you describe because they did not have the actual documents which were held by the British, on which the UK based its claims.

There's just enough to suggest that both happenstances are true. I find it quite plausible that someone in the CIA had sent copies to the IAEA, asked for a private evaluation, and were given one by IAEA in time for the NIE to be prepared.

Cheers.

[H2O Man]

24. Could be.

Dean tells much the same story in "Worse Than Watergate," though. And the US didn't give the IAEA any of the information until 2-2003. And the comment about how quickly they could be recognized as forgeries, using even just a 20 minute Google search, was made by El Baradei's deputy, Jacques Baute, in Vienna in regard to the American supplied documents.

[grasswire]

8. in any event........

...here's where criminality may lie: the introduction of documents KNOWN to be false into the WH case for war (knowing the Niger documents were false makes Bush's request to Congress false as well, doesn't it?)

From Seymour Hersch's article:

"'Somebody deliberately let something false get in there,' the former high-level intelligence official added. 'It could not have gotten into the system without the agency being involved. Therefore it was an internal intention. Someone set someone up.' (The White House declined to comment.)"


http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?030331fa_fact1

Worth a re-read.

[punpirate]

11. Oh, yeah, I don't dispute that...

... I just question that the forgeries were intended to trip up Plame's group in the first place.

Who created the forgeries is a major question, still, and it's unfortunate that no one has pursued the forgeries to their origin. What I find interesting about them is that they were so ham-fisted. The number and kind of obvious errors in them would not have fooled anyone in a reputable intelligence service, but the political offices of both the British and the US glommed onto them as if they were the Holy Grail.

That does suggest to me that their production originated for political purposes outside an intelligence agency (or that someone inside intelligence intentionally made them crude enough forgeries that they would be exposed as such almost immediately--if I were an intelligence analyst ordered, against my wishes, to produce forgeries to satisfy the White House, that's what I would probably have done).

Yup, the provenance of the documents is still of considerable interest.

Cheers.

[grasswire]

16. supposedly...

...Rockefeller asked the FBI to investigate the documents. He didn't want a Congressional investigation or a CIA investigation, purportedly.

[punpirate]

18. These days...

... that's not a particularly reassuring gesture, is it? :)

I have about as much expectation of the FBI finding and announcing the truth in this as I do of Ashcroft becoming a Wiccan. :)

[grasswire]

26. Oh My.

He would do Wicca SO badly.

[flyarm]

12. does anyone know if fitgerald could question sibel edmonds??

could she have been brought into a grand jury or was that stopped by the supreme court in keeping her info classified??

would fitgerald be able to have sibels classified info??
that would b einteresting if we knew..

[punpirate]

17. He could have tried and failed...

... for all we know. She's under a DOJ gag order, and I would presume that would apply to all, even a federal grand jury.

Cheers.

[flyarm]

19. but if the judges could look at all this

classified info supplied by fitzgerald..couldn't they look into what info she has??

isn't the doj gag just for talking publically?..or would it extend to a federal prosecutor?? under oath??

[punpirate]

20. Well, as for the judges...

... look at what happened in her own appeal hearing in her suit against the government. She and her lawyers were excluded from the hearing so the government lawyers could talk things over with the judges. Then they were dismissed and the order came out that her appeal was denied.

Fitzgerald is also constrained from seeking information not directly related to the case, by prosecutorial rules. If he did see a connection (which he may or may not have), he'd still have to get a judge to agree to subpoena her, and the DOJ's lawyers would be on that request like flies on shit. And, when the government starts spouting about "national secrets," most judges accede to their wishes.

Cheers.

[cascadiance]

21. I'm wondering if Bushco WANTS for them to have Sibel on the witness list!

That way they can issue a gag order on the Rove investigation too! I'm sure they'd love that... Folks, while you're at it, visit this thread and put in a vote to create a DU group for Sibel Edmonds and other Whistleblowers. We need a good place to collect information in a centralized area as these investigations and other incidents heat up!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=4064079&mesg_id=4064079

[sam sarrha]

14. This is why Rove Leaked Plame.. to cover Chaney & WMD's, LINK>>>

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x66773

Chaney had been complicit in WMD's and aparently making money off it all.. for a long time

[mzteris]

25. Niger links

REPORT ON THE U.S. INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY'S PREWAR INTELLIGENCE ASSESSMENTS ON IRAQ
TABLE OF CONTENTS
II. NIGER 36
A. The Original Niger Reporting 36
B. Former Ambassador 39
C. Continuing Analysis 47
D. The British White Paper 49
E. The National Intelligence Estimate 51
F. The Cincinnati Speech 55
G. The Niger Documents 57
H. The Fact Sheet 60
I. The State of the Union 64
J. Secretary Powell's UN Speech 66
K. Niger Conclusions
http://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/library/congress/2004_rpt/iraq-wmd-intell_toc.htm

****

U.S.: The Iraq-Niger Link: -- The Tangled History Of A Discredited Story By Jeffrey Donovan

http://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/library/news/2003/intell-030716-rfel-172643.htm


***
Office of the Spokesman
Washington, DC
March 14, 2003
Question Taken at March 14, 3003 Daily Press Briefing

Iraq – Uranium Procurement Attempts from Niger (Taken Question)


Question: Did the State Department recommend not sending the forged documents related to Iraqi attempts to procure uranium from Niger to the IAEA? Did we send anyone to Niger to explore this issue?

Answer: -- We recommended sending the documents in question to the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) for their own analysis and interpretation.

-- We have communicated closely with the government in Niger on this issue and appreciate its efforts in providing information that sheds more light on Iraq’s continued efforts to acquire illicit items from abroad.

-- We did not send State Department personnel to Niger for the specific purpose of discussing this matter. However, our Embassy in Niamey raised the issue with Nigerien officials on several occasions and we were satisfactorily assured that they did not sell uranium to Iraq. We continue to consult on a wide range of nonproliferation issues with a variety of African countries, including Niger.

-- We stress that the focus remains on Iraq’s pursuit of illegal materials from abroad for its weapons of mass destruction programs.

***