Marcy Wheeler on Simon Dodge (WINPAC Served As Filter For Efforts To Debunk Niger Forgeries)

[Hissyspit]

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/contributoremptywheel/index.html

Simon Dodge
by emptywheel

Imagine you're Condi. The guy whom you stuck a shiv in has been wandering around the talk show circuit for the past week, insisting you're responsible for the 16 words that made it into the SOTU. Next Thursday, he's going to go before the House Government Reform Committee and repeat the same story under oath.

If you're Condi, you think maybe you can ride it out, just do the Sunday shows and try to refute George Tenet by lying, not under oath (most Americans, Rove has told you, can't distinguish between sworn testimony and Tim Russert). Just keep repeating your lies over and over again, and maybe you can save your husband Bush's ass from having to admit that he trumped up a war on a set of forgeries.

But then Waxman decides to call the guy who debunked the documents right when they came into State, Simon Dodge. Dodge, of course, realized that the forgeries had a funky seal. He implied, in fact, that the person who made the forgeries used the funky seal to make it look more authentic.

FWIW, Dodge is not going to make Condi look like a complete liar, as Tenet would if he had even an ounce of credibility left. It is conceivable that Dodge's warnings never made it beyond his immediate email list, at least not before January 2003. But Dodge is going to get right to the core of the hoax, to the way WINPAC served as a filter for any efforts to debunk the forgeries--or any other crappy intelligence claims. And once we get into that scheme, we could blow the whole lid off this thing.

Come to think of it, we might see both Condi and Tenet completely discredited next week.

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