Edgewise

Are you sure that's the only problem?

U.S. Lacks Plan to Curb Terror Funds, Agency Says, NYT

The government's efforts to help foreign nations cut off the supply of money to terrorists…have been stymied by infighting among American agencies, leadership problems and insufficient financing, a new Congressional report says.

Senator Charles E. Grassley, the Iowa Republican who leads the Senate Finance Committee…said he was disappointed…"they haven't gotten very far yet".….Mr. Grassley said: "It's as simple as learning to stop the infighting and turf protection and get on with the job.”

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DKo: Are you sure that's the only problem?

I read years ago that investigations into the laundering of "drug-money" were stalled, because the techniques used were indistinguishable from the standard tax evasion methods of major "legitimate" corporations--whom no one would wish to embarrass.

16 lies

Mary McCarthy once famously declared that every word Lillian Hellman wrote was a lie, including “and” and “the.” I don’t bring this up to get into the feud between two acclaimed writers. Rather, it came to mind when I was thinking about President Bush’s now famous “16 words” in the January 2003 State of the Union speech. And how the telling of a lie must necessarily include “ands” and “thes”. Those 16 words are not untruths or misstatements or exagerations or distortions. They are lies. They are lies because every word is in the service of deceit. Every word is designed to persuade against fact and against truth.

Here is that lie, somewhat parsed:

“The British government has learned….”

This lie is designed to deflect the listener from thinking the American government is the source of intelligence implicating Iraq in activity perilous to American citizens, and therefore deflecting any suspicion that such intelligence might be fabricated. The British government, it could be reasoned, has no need to fabricate such evidence and, as a friend and ally, is merely warning of the peril. The words “has learned” imply an almost casual discovery, as if the information arrived suddenly, perhaps accidentally, but without, for instance, a concerted effort to uncover or find a secret intent of harm, of war-worthy threat.

This lie implicitly excludes the fact that the American government already knew about documents that purported to reveal the details of a deal between Saddam Hussein and the government of Niger to supply Iraq with yellowcake (uranium oxide) from Niger’s mines. Not only knew, but had those documents widely distributed to its own intelligence agencies by its own State Department. In fact, a government employee (Stephen Hadley) had already met and spoken with representatives of other governments (not British) about those documents.

“….that Saddam Hussein recently sought….”

This lie provides a false and crucial timing for an action that did not occur as described nor in the near past. The lie is crucial to establishing the need for immediate response to counteract an imminent threat to the American people. It personalizes that threat and puts a dark face on it. It is the face of the terrorists who flew American planes into the World Trade Center. It is the face of a despot and a murderer. But not of Americans. The face is that of a dictator who has killed his own citizens, for his own political ends. He is evil. But he is not our enemy.

“….significant quantities of uranium from Africa.”

This lie tells us so much more than we needed to know. If we needed to have a reason for declaring war on Iraq. I do not know how much a “significant quantity” of uranium is. Neither do you. It is sufficient that President Bush finds the quantity significant because there is only one reason for mentioning any quantity of uranium at all. And that is to bring up the spectre of nuclear bombs. Even though it was American planes that were used as bombs to attack an American city, there is only one kind of bomb that could attack Americans in America from far away Iraq.

Why tell us the uranium comes from Africa? This is too clever a lie. We don’t care where the uranium comes from unless that place is also to be a target. This lie intends to lend an air of truth to a complicated lie. It is complicated because it must get around the fact that reputable agents have not found actual weapons or materials that can produce weapons in Iraq itself. We know that. We don’t know about uranium from Africa, however. That is a new scenario of plausibility that could perhaps convince us that a threat indeed exists. A threat not only from Iraq but from Africa. The dark continent.

On July 7, 2003—six months after President Bush’s State of the Union speech—Ari Fleisher says, “We’ve acknowledged that the information turned out to be bogus involving the report on the yellow cake. That is not new. You can go back. You can look it up. Dr. Rice has said it repeatedly. I’ve said it repeatedly. It’s been said from this podium on the record, in several instances. It’s been said to many of you in this room, specifically.”

Bogus means fake. So, the British government gave us fake information and President Bush went to war with Iraq on the basis of fake information from an ally. Furthermore, we’ve already been told a million times that this yellow cake report was bogus. Everybody in Washington knew but me and you, apparently.

So, we’ve been duped. By mistake. Shouldn’t we be mad or something? Perhaps we are still stunned by the repeated revelations that our president unwittingly spouted bogus information that led us into war. Maybe we want to give him the benefit of our doubt. Our doubt that we could be so lied to so badly by so many government officials. This isn’t 1984. We would know if our leaders were lying to us.

Wouldn’t we?

Too Mean to Miss

Washington Post
A tearful [Ohio governor] Taft pleaded no contest Aug. 18 to misdemeanor charges. After vowing earlier not to tolerate ethics violations in his administration, he said he had failed to live up to his own standards and public expectations.

"I am disappointed in myself," said Taft, the son and grandson of U.S. senators and the great-grandson of President William Howard Taft. "I just want to say there are no words to express the deep remorse that I feel over the embarrassment I have caused."

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Pigs grunt.

--David

(I know it's not fair.)

Thanksgiving from The Buddha

Let us rise up and be thankful,
for if we didn’t learn a lot today,
at least we learned a little,
and if we didn’t learn a little,
at least we didn’t get sick,
and if we got sick,
at least we didn’t die;
so, let us be thankful.

-The Buddha

The last part fits well with something the Stoic philosopher Epictitus said: “If I am afraid I am not dead, and if I am dead I am not afraid.”

An interesting story about Epictitus, who was a slave. His master was twisting his arm. He said to his master, “If you twist my arm any further, you will break it.” But he kept twisting. And the arm broke. Epictitus said, “You see.”

Love,

David

Old War Stories

There is a good polling graph in this Christian Science Monitor article.

Among other things, check out the long, lonely first two or three years of the Vietnam War (they actually don’t say when they are counting from—maybe the Bay of Tonkin).

This is just the Mistake number. The Withdrawal number, phased or otherwise, grew much more slowly. Even "Negotiations Now!" was quite a big deal. News articles routinely began with a "boilerplate" paragraph: While no one seriously considers withdrawal from Vietnam… Just in case anyone forgot.

In the nostalgia newsreels, it all looks so popular, so obvious and easy, that it can be painful to watch. There were few retractions or apologies from the press, even to the draft resistors who remained in prison. Nor to those who had suffered and died needlessly in the war zone itself.

It is heartening to read in this story about a kind of "booster shot" for the Vietnam Syndrome:
Scholars like Mueller at Ohio State speak of an emerging "Iraq syndrome" that will have consequences for US foreign policy long after American forces pull out…."Iraq syndrome" seems to be playing out, too, with the American public.

Woodward's pucecake

Or, a tale of a sneakily different color....the testimony of Bob Woodward, purveyor of deep cover journalism, in which he reveals his conversation with "Cheney's Cheney" I. Lewis Libby on June 23, 2003 about an 18-page list of questions he wanted Cheney's Cheney's Cheney to answer, including one about "yellowcake." I too, would like to submit a list of questions to Cheney's Cheney's Cheney though I doubt I could even think of 18 pages worth. Still, I would like those questions to be read to C.C.C. while he is strapped down and forced to watch rap music videos in a not-really-torture session by the C.I.A. or C.I.A. equivalent - perhaps somewhere in an unrevealable location south of the Russian border.

Immaculately Conceived Torture 2--Optional reading for extra credit

Query to DKo: I know that JC was produced by immaculate conception but this is the first time I heard that Mary was also.

DKo: No, JC was not produced by Immaculate Conception, but by Virgin Birth. That is, Mary was not penetrated by a human male member emitting semen. Instead, the Holy Spirit (in the form of a Dove, I think) just hovered over her, and that’s how she became pregnant with Jesus. (I believe most people think of "the Virgin Mary" as a life-long virgin. But it is flatly stated in the New Testament that Jesus had four brothers—one of them James—and probably sisters, as well. You might say, Joseph did eventually "get some.")

It is only Mary who was produced by Immaculate Conception, and not by Virgin Birth. Mary's mother was penetrated by a human male member emitting semen; she got pregnant with Mary in the usual way. That's why there was the potential of her catching Original Sin. This potential was stronger than just a possibility; it was an inevitability (as it is for everyone), except for the miraculous fact that God intervened and prevented the Sin from actually reaching her. He purified the semen, I guess, as it was being ejaculated.

They wanted something for Mary's birth that would do the job. But it should not be as good as what Jesus' birth had. For Jesus, God went the extra mile.

BTW, I'm pretty sure there used to be a parallel in cases of artificial insemination. Legally, if it was performed by an MD, the paternity of the sperm donor was not transmitted in the semen. But, if it was performed by a non-MD, the sperm donor was legally the father. This may still be the law; I don't know. No kidding. Praise HIM!!

(It will be interesting to see if asexual sperm donation by a brother will trigger the same incest taboo as sexual intercourse. Or will it be demoted to a problem of inbreeding and Best-Practices eugenics? It is bound to come up at some point soon.)

I'm glad I was able to make this crystal clear.

Immaculately Conceived Torture

Immaculate Conception is different from the Virgin Birth. Mary gave birth as a virgin, which precluded Original Sin from being transmitted from Joseph. But what about Original Sin being transmitted from Mary?

Well, Mary, though not herself the offspring of a Virgin Birth, was also free from sin, because she was produced by Immaculate Conception. In the Virgin Birth, there was not even the potential of sin. In the Immaculate Conception, there was the potential of sin, but it was stayed by a the Hand of God from becoming actual.

This then brings us to the miraculous power over the Sin of Torture that can be conferred by the Divine Hand of Bush. In his capacity of Commander-in-Chief in Wartime (you can't say this stuff without a whole lot of capital letters), Bush is able to stay potential sin--the sin of violating the Geneva Conventions and US law against torture--from being actualized in himself and in those under his authority.

Now the question has arisen: Does the miracle of Bush's Hand extend to the Iraqi government and its ministries? Our diplomats have pronounced a resounding No to that. The United States is unalterably opposed to torture conducted by other nations.

Prior to the transfer of Sovereignty, that would have been different, of course. But when Sovereignty was restored to Iraq, the Bush Torture Immunity was apparently cut off.

The Iraq Interior Ministry, seems to have been confused on two counts:

--They did not fully appreciate the completeness of their ascension to sovereignty, because their country remains under occupation by American forces. This confusion can only be increased by the announced investigation of torture charges by the FBI, America's domestic Federal law-enforcement agency. Why does the US have any special rights or responsibilities over the sovereign actions of this independent country?

--The Bush administration has never made it clear whether this inherent power of the Commander-in-Chief in Wartime applies to the Commanders-in-Chief of all countries, or only to the Commander-in-Chief of the United States (a flagrant example of what used to be known as "American Exceptionalism." See also "Manifest Destiny.")

The Two CIA Leaks Are Not the Same!

CIA Article Sidebar: A Story of Deja Vu
Some Critics See a Plame Parallel
Media Notes By Howard Kurtz, Washington Post 11/14/05

"[S]aid author and radio host Bill Bennett, a fierce critic of the Post story. ‘The hypocrisy here is for the media establishment to say some great wrong was done to Valerie Plame, but where is the outrage about Dana Priest? [Author of the Post story]’"

DKo: I guess he means the great harm done to the alleged US torturers in Eastern Europe. House Republicans are investigating this CIA leak, as retaliation for the investigation that led to Scooter Libby’s recent indictment.

When I was an editor of Ramparts magazine, we published the first critical examination of the National Security Agency. In that article we revealed (since corroborated) that the NSA could then, already, pinpoint the location of every Soviet nuclear-armed submarine, the supposedly untrackable, hence invulnerable, arm of their, and our, “nuclear deterrent.” They had all the subs displayed on a huge map at their headquarters.

My reasoning went like this:

The government has a right--even, as in the Plame case, an obligation--to keep some secrets. A paradigm is tactical military details, like the location of particular units in wartime.

But when the government lies publicly about what it knows secretly, and it is a strategic fact on which it invites the body politic to form its political judgments, it gives up its right to keep the secret that refutes the public lie.

At that time, Defense Secretary Melvin Laird was engaged in one of the periodic “Missile Gap” scare campaigns. He claimed that the Soviets had gained a dangerous edge over us, which required from us heavy increased nuclear weapons spending, and a hard line against them internationally. The truth was the opposite.

(Our article was highlighted on the front page of the New York Times. Fortunately for the editors, the government chose to respond, “We wish we had those capabilities.”)

Currently, the government is lying about whether or not it adheres to international law against torture, and it invites the public the rely on those lies politically, even in the face of pending legislation. Reporters have the right to reveal secrets that set the record straight.

The truth hurts. Lies kill.

wonderful

what a lovely night to be a Democrat.
I'm just sitting here, watching the proposition results come in over on the CA secretary of state's site. And those two Ys have switched over to Ns. And we've got the floor all set up for a clean sweep. And there's Virginia! What a great state, Virginia. And my home state of NJ too.

And that's all. just wonderful lovely great. And home.

Bush Team on a Busman's Holiday*

2002 was a busy year for the Bush Team….

January 9: Douglas Feith (OOSP) calls Lt. Gen. Jay Garner on the phone….

Feith: Garner, I got a job for you.

Garner: Hello? Who is this?

Feith: Directive from da Man himself

Garner: The president?!

Feith: Rumsfeld, you idiot. Da Man. We need you to put together a team from the other agency to do the planning for postwar Iraq, if there was a war, I mean.

Garner: Which agency? What war?!

Meanwhile, at the State Department……

Colin Powell calls Tom Warrick, a State Department staffer.

Powell: Tom, I want you to head up a new project. I’m calling it The Future of Iraq Project.

Warrick: Um, great. Does this mean we’re going to war, Secretary?

February 19: At a meeting at the CIA, George Tenet, Condi Rice and Colin Powell all agree to send Joseph Wilson to Niger, even though the State Department says the Yellowcake story is bogus.

February 21: Lt. Gen. Garner has 70 to 100 staff on his new team, which includes Tom Warrick from the State Dept.

March 14: Garner briefs President Bush on the team project; Rumsfeld asks him if Tom Warrick is on the team. When Garner says yes, Rumsfeld tells him that he can’t use Warrick “or his work”. Tom Warrick is dismissed.

June: A memo from Washington lobbyist for the Iraq National Congress, Entifadh Qunbar, is read by a U.S. Senate Committee. It suggests that intelligence on Weapons of Mass Destruction is going directly to the Vice President via John Hannah (Cheney’s Senior National Security Advisor) and Bill Luti (OOSP). They are the only two people authorized to receive the intelligence reports.

August: WHIG (White House Iraq Group) is founded by Andrew Card to “market the Iraq war”; members of the group include Karl Rove, Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Stephen Hadley, Condoleezza Rice, and a few other insiders.

August 1: President Bush goes on vacation

August 26: Dick Cheney, in a speech to a convention of Veterans of Foreign Wars says we now know Hussein has nuclear weapons capability.

Labor Day: “Rollout” of new White House product: Iraq war (“From a marketing point of view, you don’t introduce new products in August,” Andrew Card.) Bush vacation over.

September 8: Condoleezza Rice on CNN: “We don’t want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.”

September 9: Stephen Hadley (WHIG member) meets with Nicolo Pollari, Chief of Italian Intelligence agency (SISMI)

September 26: Colin Powell, in closed testimony to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee says “reports” of yellowcake acquisition by Iraq are “further proof” of Iraq having nuclear weapons capability. British “white paper” on Iraq nuclear weapons program comes out and says Iraq “had recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.” CIA tells the Brits to drop that claim. The Brits say it’s from a different source. Condoleeza Rice is briefed on the British report.

October: The Office of Special Plans (D. Feith operation) inserts a reference to the British “white paper” into the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) which President Bush reads. The CIA insists on a footnote in the NIE stating that there are “different interpretations” of the yellowcake claims and that the State Department thinks the claims are “highly dubious.”

October 16: The Yellowcake Papers (direct from Italy via Pollari) are distributed by the State Department. President Bush makes a speech in Cincinnati, saying “We cannot wait for the final proof, the smoking gun that could come in the form of a mushroom cloud.”

December 19: The U.S. State Department accuses Niger of traffic in uranium. They put out a Fact Sheet that says Iraq is hiding efforts to procure uranium from Niger. The IAEA (Internatl. Atomic Energy Agency) reads the Fact Sheet and asks to see the proof.

They are still waiting…..

*busman’s holiday: from “buzz man’s holiday,” the word came from the common practice of two pickpockets working as a team, one of whom would “buzz the mark,” or engage the victim in conversation, while the other picked his pocket.

Yellowcake Shake and Bake

As the NY Times finally gets its ass in gear and finds some reporters who aren’t owned by their sources to get on the Yellowcake Papers story…we continue with our little tale of aging spies, Italians in love, and the Bush administration’s Alternative Reality Operations (AROs).

The Story, Part II: Recipe for a W-r (classified)

In which the Yellowcake Papers, lovingly forged and pasted together by our dapper Italian International Man of Mystery, Rocco Martino, and which have proved to be exceptional money-makers for a man in the waning years of a distinguished and lucrative career, are now floating free as balloons escaped from a toddler’s hand, landing here and there in the capitols of Europe and of the Great Empire of Evi…er Enterprise, the white and gold City of Washington, District of Columbia, that legendary district of the land of Camelot from the Age of The Kennedys.

The Players:

Nicolò Pollari, head of SISMI (Italian Intelligence agency)

Michael A. Ledeen, Freedom Scholar , war monger and Renaissance Man

Lawrence Anthony “Larry” Franklin, Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) analyst working for Douglas Feith and Bill Luti in Paul Wolfowitz’s Office of Special Plans (OOSP) in late 2001; former attaché at the U.S. embassy in Tel Aviv and an Air Force Reserve colonel; arrested by the FBI May 4, 2005 for passing classified information

Dick Cheney, Vice President of the United States of America (still) and former Secretary of Defense in the Bush I administration; chief executive officer of Halliburton (1995-2000) which got a no-bid contract for Iraq military operations approved by Douglas Feith in March 2003

I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, Chief of Staff (Cheney) and Assistant to the President (Bush), Cheney’s Cheney, and”Deputy Vice President”

In late October of 2001, after returning to Rome, Col. Nicolò Pollari receives a phone call from Italian Defense Minister Antonio Martino (no relation to Rocco) who tells him to expect a visit soon from “a friend of Italy”….

Pollari: “Pollari here. Oh, Minister. Uh huh. Uh huh. Huh. Yes, Minister. Got it.”

Scene I: An espresso bar in Rome, late October 2001….

Pollari: “Well if it isn’t the Renaissance Man himself. I thought your ass was grass around here. Who let you in?”

Ledeen: “Funny Nicky. I want you to meet my associate, Larry Franklin. He’s our man in the Pentagon. Very in (he winks at Larry). Larry, Nicky. Nicky, Larry. So. We hear there’s some sweet intell on yellowcake. The Big Guys are peeing their pants for this stuff Nicky. We need it. Now. And it better be good.”

Pollari: “Look Ledeen. It’s scrag. You don’t want it. It’s a bum product by some rogue operator. It’s not our brand.”

Ledeen: “Relax, Nicky. We won’t expose you. It’s gonna stay deep. We just want a clean copy, right Larry? Somthing to take home to the family.”

Pollari: “Ok Ledeen. But you’ve got to get me in with the Big Guys. My boss wants a good connection. Somebody who is discrete and can manipulate the intell in the right way. It’s gotta be good for Mr. B.”

Three months later:

Scene II: Cheney’s office bathroom where he is smoking a forbidden cigar with the door open….

Cheney : “Scooter Pie!! Get Tenet on the horn. I want one of his guys to check out that two-bit trading post in Africa and get the goods on this uranus ore thing!”

Libby: “Sure thing boss. I’ll have George get right on it.”

Thanks To:

Nur-al-Cubicle

corrente wire

Think Progress

Christian Science Monitor

European Tribune

Next: The Bush administration goes on A Busman’s Holiday

Yellowcake Goes to America

To continue the story of how an aging Italian spy called Rocco, for purposes all his own and not related to Dick Cheney’s need to find the goods on Saddam Hussein in order to justify a war on Iraq, concocted a phony “dossier,” also known as The Niger Papers (or Yellowcake as I like to call them), and peddled them around Europe….we come now to the part where the sham documents are delivered to the desk(s) of one or more officials of the Bush administration in Washington, D.C. in October 2001.

The Story, Part II: The Berlusconi-Bush Affair

The Players:

Nicolò Pollari, head of SISMI (Italian Intelligence agency)

Silvio Berlusconi, Prime Minister of the Republic of Italy, media magnate who owns the weekly, Panorama, (and most of Italy’s media industry) which was offered Rocco’s fake Niger dossier

Greg Thielmann, State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research; assigned by Colin Powell to John Bolton at the Pentagon in 2001

Paul Wolfowitz, Deputy Secretary of Defense (until March 2005) and now President of the World Bank

Douglas Feith, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy (Bush appointee, July 2001 to August 2005)

George W. Bush, President of the United States of America (still)

It is October 2001, only a shudder past the events of September 11, and Nicolò Pollari, newly installed director of SISMI, Italy’s CIA-equivalent, is anxious to please his boss. Pollari’s boss, Silvio Berlusconi, wants to do something nice for his good friend President Bush. In fact, Berlusconi is hot to really impress Bush with something that only Italy can deliver—evidence that Iraq is buying large quanities of uranium oxide (yellowcake) from Niger.

Pollari packs his suitcase and travels with Berlusconi to Washington with the Yellowcake Papers in (metaphorical) hand. He meets with CIA officers but the welcome is less than he expected. In fact, the spooks in Washington are very skeptical of his “gift” of intelligence.

Following up on Pollari, the CIA checks in with the U.S. embassy in Niger and asks the French-run consortium in charge of the two uranium mines there whether yellowcake had been going to Iraq. The French contacts say no. There is no possibility yellowcake was being diverted from Niger to Iraq (see Russ Hoyle’s story below). As well, Greg Thielmann, Colin Powell’s State Department staffer at the Pentagon, who has seen the report from Pollari, thinks the Yellowcake Papers are “highly suspect.” He will later tell the Italian newspaper, La Repubblica, that the intelligence collected in Rome is inconsistent, that the uranium story is phony and that a bunch of things contained in the report are fabricated.

Skepticism from the State Department and the CIA notwithstanding, the Yellowcake Papers have now begun their life as deep cover propaganda for the now-we-know-it-was-inevitable War on Iraq. But how?

Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith is how, for one. At a Department of Defense (DoD) briefing on June 4, 2003, Douglas Feith (accompanied by William J. “Bill” Luti—who will have his stage entrance a bit later in this story) tells reporters that his “team” at DoD “…began its work October of 2001…”. This team was to review intelligence from the CIA and “help digest it” for Feith and “other policy makers, to help us develop Defense Department strategy for the war on terrorism.” What was the work that Feith’s team began in October of 2001? The “work” was the creation of the Office of Special Plans (OOSP), founded by Paul Wolfowitz, at the Pentagon.

If the CIA and Colin Powell’s State Department were looking a gift horse in the mouth, the Office of Special Plans and it’s cabal of two saw an opportunity to build a Trojan Horse—packed with yellowcake-to be delivered to the American people. It will be almost a year and a half before that horse is trotted out but within months Joseph Wilson will be sent to Niger to investigate the Yellowcake Papers for the CIA.

But the story of yellowcake coming to America is also a love story. In October 2001 the Bush-Berlusconi Affair blossoms. Here’s a snippet of love talk from their October 15, 2001 press conference together:

Bush: It’s my honor to welcome the leader of one of our nation’s best friends, the Prime Minister of a country that has had so much to do with our nation and its development. I’m also pleased to be able to give him a lunch — after all, I had one of the best lunches I’ve had since I’ve been the President because of the Prime Minister. …I’m pleased that we’re sharing intelligence. I’m pleased that the Prime Minister understands that al Qaeda has cells all around the world and he’s more than willing to work with us to disrupt those cells, to bring people to justice.

Berlusconi: Thank you, Mr. President, I am here, first of all, to express our great pain and sadness for the attack on September the 11th and to say to you if the same attack had been — had occurred on an Italian city we would have felt the same pain as you are.And also I’m here to express to you our desire to be as close as possible and to provide both moral and material support.

The Evidence:

Russ Hoyle on yellowcake (via the Joseph Wilson website) http://www.politicsoftruth.com/

Russ Hoyle’s book excerpt (pdf):

DoD briefing

More on OOSP

Seymour Hersh [The New Yorker, October 21, 2003]

Nur-al-Cubicle

Next: Yellowcake Shake and Bake

Rocco and the Rome connection

The U.S. Senate Select Intelligence Committee inquiry may be going nowhere but thankfully we have the Italian Parliament to help us in our journey to enlightenment in the Yellowcake! story. And I have Nur-al-Cubicle to thank for providing a lucid summary of La Repubblica’s reportage on the government investigation of “The Niger Documents”.

The Story, Part I: Rocco Goes to Rome

The Setting: New Year’s Day 2001, the Niger Embassy, Rome

The Players:

Rocco Martino, a “retired” Italian spy and double-agent for France in need of cash

Antonio (Tony) Nucera, a SISMI (Italian Military Intelligence) division chief and friend of Martino

La Signora, an aging contract spy in the Niger embassy in Rome in need of cash

Yaou (Adam) Maiga Zakaria, First Embassy Counselor for Niger (Rome) in need of cash

(the following scene is imagined but the outcome is fact):

Nucero (on his cell): “Rocco. It’s Tony. The company documents are in the mail, the numbers and the telex. You got the key contact. You’re set to go. Ciao buddy.”

An espreso stand somewhere in Rome:

Rocco: “Look Doll. I’ve told you, this isn’t a home operation. Tony’s just helping me out. You’ve got the dough. Now we need somebody on the inside to get us in. Tonight.

La Signora (whispering): “Ok Rocco but I need another thousand for Adam. He’s in but he’s got an obligation to take care of right away.”

Rocco: “Merda woman, I’m not the CIA! Ok. Another thou. When is the shop closing?”

La Signora (melifluously): “Be there at 7. It will be dark by then and Adam can let you in. Have the cash with you.”

Later that evening at the Niger Embassy:

Rocco: “Adam, I want some sheets of official letterhead and the seal stamp.”

Zakaria: “No problem. Don’t you want to mess the place up a little?”

The next morning, January 2, an official at the Niger embassy notifies the police of a break-in although he can’t say what, exactly, was stolen. Rocco goes back to his apartment in Luxemburg with the stolen letterhead and official stamp and puts together a package of documents. The package contains both the real Niger documents from the late 1980s that his friend Nucero supplied him with, and the fake documents that Rocco created. The fake papers, dated July 5 and 6, 2000, are designed to solve a mystery for the French intelligence agents—they want to know who has been purloining uranium ore from a couple of inactive mines in their former colony, Niger. The papers document a deal between the Niger government and Saddam Hussein to supply Iraq with 500 tons of pure uranium oxide (yellowcake) per year—a main ingredient for the manufacture of nuclear weapons.

The French agents immediately recognize the documents are fakes (among other things, the official names are the wrong ones for the time period, and Niger uranium mines are incapable of producing anywhere near 500 tons of yellowcake in a year) and dispose of them. Rocco, however, decides to try and re-sell the Niger documents and contacts a reporter at Panorama, the Italian newspaper owned by Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

The Panorama reporter, Elisabetta Burba, declines the offer from Martino (for a suggested $10k) and does not write about the incident. What happens next is murky. Either Burba’s Editor in Chief, Carlo Rosella, passes the bogus documents on to the U.S. Embassy in Rome or he does not. Either Rocco Martino himself gives (sells?) the fake documents to MI6 in London or he does not. Either SISMI, in person of new Director, Niccolò Pollari, passes the fake information on to the CIA or he does not. We only know for sure that the fake dossier purporting to show that Saddam Hussein was importing significant quantities of weapons-grade uranium ore from Niger, lands on the desk of U.S. State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research official, Greg Thielmann, in the fall of 2001. At about the same time, the phony dossier also is received by British Intelligence in London.

This is the story as many have told it. There are also stories, or speculations about other possible “authors” of the fake yellowcake papers, for instance, Michael Ledeen, a former Reagan National Security Counsel consultant, or ex-CIA officers Duane Claridge and Alan Wolf (deceased) working for or in collaboration with Ledeen. The only certainty, however, is that the Iraq-Niger yellowcake papers are a hoax, a scam, fake, phony, bogus and a lie. But the yellowcake hoax will not die. In fact, it soon begins a new life in the Bush administration’s busy “policy” backrooms.

The Documents: http://cryptome.org/niger-docs.htm

Take your own Yellowcake journey:

Seymour Hersh [The New Yorker, October 21, 2003]

Talking Points Memo

Martin Walker at UPI

Part II: Yellowcake Goes to America

Reports of Pentagon Official's Bloodying Greatly Exaggerated

I should hope it was an exaggeration! And I hope that "ate him for lunch" was also greatly exaggerated

Detainee Policy Sharply Divides Bush Officials
NYT

A central player in the fight over the directive is David S. Addington, who was the vice president's counsel until he was named on Monday to succeed I. Lewis Libby Jr. as Mr. Cheney's chief of staff. According to several officials, Mr. Addington verbally assailed a Pentagon aide who was called to brief him and Mr. Libby on the draft, objecting to its use of language drawn from Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions.

"He left bruised and bloody," one Defense Department official said of the Pentagon aide, Matthew C. Waxman, Mr. Rumsfeld's chief adviser on detainee issues. "He tried to champion Article 3, and Addington just ate him for lunch."

A Defense Department spokesman, Bryan Whitman, also would not discuss Mr. Waxman's role except to say it was "certainly an exaggeration" to characterize him as having been bloodied by Mr. Addington.

Yellowcake!: a journey back from ignorance

Hey, the Democrats are finally getting mad about something! (Harry Reid shut down Senate business today saying, “… this administration manufactured and manipulated intelligence in order to sell the war in Iraq and attempted to destroy those who dared to challenge its actions…”) I feel for them. I’m just working up a head of steam myself. Too late, unfortunately. We’ve already all been duped. Some of us (approximately 2025 and counting) are dead. A whole lot more Iraqis are dead. It was just last week, I think, that I noticed an old bumper sticker while driving to the Bowl (Berkeley Bowl - radical vegetables, brutal parking): “If you aren’t outraged you’re not paying attention.” I sneered to myself, “that’s so Berkeley,” facing off with a Lexus for the only remaining parking space. I bought my vegetables and drove smugly back home to Oakland.

And then I heard Patrick Fitzgerald on the radio, taking questions after announcing his indictment of the Vice President’s Chief of Staff (and Assistant to the President) I. Lewis Libby for lying to a grand jury: “You’re asking, do these charges vindicate a serious breach of the public trust? And Fitzgerald sounded like Jimmy Stewart in Mr. Smith Goes To Washington.

The more I listened, the more I realized how little I really knew about what the heck was going on:Judith MIller goes to jail for the great cause and then it’s not such a great cause; Valerie Plame or Flame or Wilson is or is not a CIA agent, soccer mom, wife; there were or were not Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq that Joseph Wilson, husband or not of Valerie Plame/Flame Wilson was railing about in a newspaper and got Dick Cheney mad at him and perpetrated (or didn’t) the “Plame (or Flame or Wilson) Leak” for which I. (Scooter, which is or is not his real or baby name) Lewis Libby was indicted. Etcetera, Etcetera, Etcetera (quoting from The King and I).

Two days later on Sunday, Halloween eve (which itself is the eve of All Soul’s Day, the one day of the year when the veil of illusion between the living and the dead is momentarily lifted and ghosts and spirits are free to roam) I embarked on an obsessive Google-hunt to educate myself as to the origins of the Plame Leak Affair and everything and everyone associated with it. I mean everything I could dig up. It was my own personal search for truth in the muck of Washington war politics. I call this journey Yellowcake! because that is my new word for every lie that ever came out of a Washington official’s mouth in the service of a secret agenda. Yellowcake! It’s a lie.

Next: All Lies Lead to (or at least pass through) Rome