"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.

[rodeodance]

1. no, but it makes sense to me-given this statement (below).

.....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......

[DoYouEverWonder]

2. It is possible that Fitzgerald has expanded the scope

of his investigation and this would be the natural direction to go in. Who forged the Niger Documents? If there is a WH connection, then Bu$hCo we've got a big problem.

[pinkpops]

3. ''We're an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality...

From Richard Clarke's account of a conversation with a WH aide-

From NTY, I found it here:
http://cscs.umich.edu/~crshalizi/sloth/2004-10-16b.html

Do the liars even know they are lying, or do they think everything they say becomes truth? Power corrupts alright.

[punpirate]

4. Someone in Congress asked the FBI to investigate...

... quite a while ago. But, according to Josh Marshall, the FBI is dragging its collective feet on the investigation, and have not even interviewed the Italian who sold the documents to the Italian journalist who turned them over to the American embassy in Rome, even though the seller has been in this country twice since the FBI was charged with investigating.

Cheers.

[Monkie]

5. i will give you one name: David Wurmser

because he seems to get missed out each time this comes up.

David Wurmser was in the OSP with feith (faked the reason for Iraq war)
He now works for Dick Cheney
He has been questioned by FBI about passing intelligence to Chalabi
He has worked with Perle as has his wife

http://www.sourcewatch.org/wiki.phtml?title=David_Wurmser

this quote sums him up pretty well in my view:

"David Wurmser is close to the Likud Party in Israel and served in Douglas Feith's Office of Special Plans in the Pentagon, where he helped manufacture the case that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and was linked to al-Qaeda.
David Wurmser, who wants to get up American wars against both Iran and Syria, then moved over to Vice President Dick Cheney's rump national security team."

http://antiwar.com/cole/?articleid=3898

[evermind]

6. An FBI investigation was started in 2003 (cnn article)

FBI looking into forged Iraq-Niger documents

Wednesday, July 16, 2003 Posted: 8:01 PM EDT (0001 GMT)

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The FBI is conducting a preliminary inquiry into forged documents alleging Iraq wanted to buy uranium from Niger in an effort to find out who forged the documents and why, and whether anyone tried to influence U.S. foreign policy on Iraq, bureau officials told CNN Wednesday.

The FBI is not looking into any possible wrongdoing by the Bush administration, the officials said.

In an interview on CNN Tuesday, Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-West Virginia, who had been pushing for an FBI inquiry, disclosed that the probe had begun. Details of the probe were first reported by Newsweek.

FBI agents in the counterintelligence unit are interviewing officials from the CIA and the State Department. There are plans to dispatch agents overseas, but none have left yet.

http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/07/16/fbi.niger/ for the rest of the story.

... But I don't know what the current state of this is or if it the one the Guardian allude to.

[rodeodance]

7. so--this 'preliminary' fbi investigation is ongoing-or over??--

[rodeodance]

8. J.Marshall--2004--"FBI Could Talk to Source of Forged Niger Papers. I d

id"



http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/092604K.shtml

Go to Original

FBI Could Talk to Source of Forged Niger Papers. I did
Josh Marshall
The Hill

Thursday 23 September 2004

Why haven't we found out yet who was behind the forged Niger-uranium documents caper?

One big reason is that the FBI - which is supposed to be investigating the case - has really never tried.

Back in March 2003, Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), vice-chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, asked the FBI to investigate the matter. It was on the basis of that supposed investigation that the committee later decided not to look into anything about the forged documents before they showed up at the U.S. Embassy in Rome in October 2002. (See Page 57 of the committee report.)

But, despite claims to the contrary, the FBI hasn't made any serious efforts to find out who was behind the scam.

[rodeodance]

9. Marshall claims that the FBI never contacted Burba.

.....One of the obvious places to start such an investigation would be with Elisabetta Burba, the Italian journalist who got copies of the documents and later turned them over to the American Embassy in Rome.

The obvious question would be: Who gave you the documents?

FBI agents did do a cursory interview with Burba not long after Rockefeller asked for an investigation. And they made a pro-forma request for her to contact her source to see if some arrangement could be devised under which they could speak with him.

But after that, they didn't follow up with her for months to find out what the answer was. And when they did finally do so, it was mainly because one agent was passing the matter on to someone else.

To this day, they've never made contact with the guy who tried to sell Burba the documents......

[rodeodance]

10. "results' of this probe on p. 57 of 9/11Report. um... says the committee

decided not to do any more work on it--so they accepted the little FBI report. umm...

.....Back in March 2003, Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), vice-chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, asked the FBI to investigate the matter. It was on the basis of that supposed investigation that the committee later decided not to look into anything about the forged documents before they showed up at the U.S. Embassy in Rome in October 2002. (See Page 57 of the committee report.)......

[rodeodance]

11. I still do not know if this art. by Marshall is the one the Guardian is

referring to.

[Monkie]

12. have you read this?

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A60497-2004Sep3.html

Its the same people being questioned by the FBI in relation to leaks to Chalabi and AIPAC

check my other post to this thread or this:
http://www.sourcewatch.org/wiki.phtml?title=David_Wurmser

"Wurmser, a neo-conservative, previously served as a "special assistant" to John R. Bolton at the State Department"

"On September 4, 2004, the Washington Post reported that FBI counterintelligence investigators had questioned David Wurmser, along with Harold Rhode, Paul Dundes Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith about their involvement in passing classified information to Ahmad Chalabi and/or the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC)."

"Wurmser is a close friend and political ally at the AEI with Richard N. Perle"

hes worked for Feith,hes working for Cheney now,yet hardly ever mentioned,i think its relevant?

[rodeodance]

13. thanks-will catch up

[evermind]

14. The FBI investigation may be linked to the one which nabbed Franklin

according to this Knight Ridder story by Warren Strobel:

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2002024726_leaks03.html

Several U.S. officials and law-enforcement sources said yesterday that the scope of the FBI probe of Pentagon intelligence activities appeared to go well beyond the Franklin matter.

FBI agents have briefed top White House, Pentagon and State Department officials on the probe. Based on those briefings, officials said, the bureau appears to be looking into other controversies that have roiled the Bush administration, some of which also touch Feith's office.

They include how the Iraqi National Congress, a former exile group backed by the Pentagon, allegedly received highly classified U.S. intelligence on Iran; the leaking of the name of CIA officer Valerie Plame to reporters; and the production of bogus documents suggesting that Iraq tried to buy uranium for nuclear weapons from the African country of Niger. Bush repeated the Niger claim in making the case for war against Iraq.

"The whole ball of wax" was how one U.S. official privy to the briefings described the inquiry.

I found this after looking at a nifty timeline on kos ("Feith and Company: Some Dots") which seems to have good info on the timing of various events in the Niger story:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/9/5/152456/7365

Well worth a look.

One can only hope the FBI are pursuing their inquiries with exceptional diligence ;-)

[rodeodance]

15. thanks for the info.

[rodeodance]

16. hopefully they ARE pursuing these threads

[Independent_Liberal]

17. Kick!

[rndmprsn]

18. kick

anymore info?

[WHAT]

19. An interesting du thread...

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=132&topic_id=1933753

It ties a lot of this stuff together.

from initial opening post comment...More stuff about Ledeen in here as well as the forged Italian documents and how this may affect Cheney. No wonder Cheney is possibly suffering from the affects of GERD.

I keep waiting to hear more, too.

[rumpel]

20. Rockefeller asked the FBI to look into the forgeries as per footnote in

the official Intelligence of Pre War Report of the Senate Intelligence Committee.