"Parallel investigation" into forged Niger documents underway - Guardian

[rndmprsn]

i haven't heard much about this "parallel investigation" into the forged Niger documents...does anyone else on here have any other info?

this "parallel investigation" could blow the lid off of TRAITORGATE and the whole pack of lies that got us into iraq...VERY IMPORTANT.

--

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1534684,00.html

The investigation into the White House leak of a CIA agent's identity is now focusing on whether two top administration officials provided misleading statements to the FBI, it was reported yesterday.

According to press accounts, Karl Rove, the president's chief political adviser, and Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the vice-president's chief of staff, both provided testimony that was later contradicted by other evidence.

The revelations come at a time when the burgeoning scandal over the outing of a CIA undercover agent, Valerie Plame, is threatening to engulf the White House...

Meanwhile, a parallel investigation is under way into who forged the Niger documents. They are known to have been passed to an Italian journalist by a former Italian defence intelligence officer, Rocco Martino, in October 2002, but their origins have remained a mystery. Mr Martino has insisted to the Italian press that he was "a tool used by someone for games much bigger than me", but has not specified who that might be.

A source familiar with the inquiry said investigators were examining whether former US intelligence agents may have been involved in possible collaboration with Iraqi exiles determined to prove that Saddam Hussein had a nuclear programme.

[babylonsister]

1. Thanks, mdmprsn. I wasn't aware of this at all.

This info gives me additional hope that this story will be exploding soon!

[rndmprsn]

3. more and more i believe bushco's house of cards is coming down...

i predicted the day after the election 2004 that dimson and his admin would not serve their entire second term...arrogance, overreaching and abuse of power would be their undoing, i hope i am proved right.

[babylonsister]

5. "I hope I am proved right" - you and me both! nt

[iconoclastic cat]

2. Wow, gotta love those neocons: they're like "Alias," but stupider!

[maddezmom]

4. must read: Sy Hersh's ~ The Stovepipe

~snip~
Who produced the fake Niger papers? There is nothing approaching a consensus on this question within the intelligence community. There has been published speculation about the intelligence services of several different countries. One theory, favored by some journalists in Rome, is that sismi produced the false documents and passed them to Panorama for publication.

Another explanation was provided by a former senior C.I.A. officer. He had begun talking to me about the Niger papers in March, when I first wrote about the forgery, and said, “Somebody deliberately let something false get in there.” He became more forthcoming in subsequent months, eventually saying that a small group of disgruntled retired C.I.A. clandestine operators had banded together in the late summer of last year and drafted the fraudulent documents themselves.

“The agency guys were so pissed at Cheney,” the former officer said. “They said, ‘O.K, we’re going to put the bite on these guys.’ ” My source said that he was first told of the fabrication late last year, at one of the many holiday gatherings in the Washington area of past and present C.I.A. officials. “Everyone was bragging about it—‘Here’s what we did. It was cool, cool, cool.’ ” These retirees, he said, had superb contacts among current officers in the agency and were informed in detail of the sismi intelligence.

“They thought that, with this crowd, it was the only way to go—to nail these guys who were not practicing good tradecraft and vetting intelligence,” my source said. “They thought it’d be bought at lower levels—a big bluff.” The thinking, he said, was that the documents would be endorsed by Iraq hawks at the top of the Bush Administration, who would be unable to resist flaunting them at a press conference or an interagency government meeting. They would then look foolish when intelligence officials pointed out that they were obvious fakes. But the tactic backfired, he said, when the papers won widespread acceptance within the Administration. “It got out of control.”

snip~





http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?031027fa_fact

[Karenina]

6. Kick!

:kick: