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They Doth Discredit Too Much
THE CUNNING REALIST —
... by Ron Suskind on what happened later in 2003 (related, be sure to read this post by Phil Giraldi). But the one at the top of the list, Bush's comment about 9/11, struck me at the time as particularly strange. I found it incongruous and jarring, almost "beneath" the presidency. Since then we've learned about various illegal, false-flag deceptions considered and/or carried out during this administration, the latest of which to become public is in Suskind's book. Like a prostitute-visiting politician who zealously champions family values, it's becoming clear that conscious guilt ...
Rathered
Balloon Juice —
... Too bad. If this is true then Ron Suskind just got hit with the exact same trick that brought down Dan Rather: take a damaging true story (in this case, that the administration fabricated documents that made it look like Iraq had contact with al Qaeda and sought yellowcake from Niger) and preemptively leak it to a reporter with enough bogus details stirred in to discredit the reporter and the story itself. I don’t know whether or not Philip Giraldi has better contacts than Ron Suskind does, but it doesn’t help Suskind’s case that his two named sources are ...
American Conservative: It was Feith’s office, not CIA, that forged the Habbush letter.
Think Progress —
... from the head of Iraqi intelligence to Saddam Hussein linking the dictator to the 9/11 terrorists. The American Conservative’s Philip Giraldi argues today that “an extremely reliable and well placed source in the intelligence community” told him Suskind’s overall claim “is correct,” but that it was Douglas Feith’s Office of Special Plans — not the CIA — that forged the letter: ...
Was Office of Special Plans Behind Forged Iraq Letter?
This Modern World —
Philip Giraldi: An extremely reliable and well placed source in the intelligence community has informed me that Ron Suskind’s revelation that the White House ordered the preparation of a forged letter linking Saddam Hussein to al-Qaeda and also to attempts made to obtain yellowcake uranium is correct but that a number of details are wrong. The Suskind account states that two senior CIA officers Robert Richer and John Maguire supervised the preparation of the document under direct orders coming from Director George Tenet. Not so, says my source. Tenet is for once telling the ...
Was Suskind's Forgery From Feith?
The Daily Dish | By Andrew Sullivan —
That's Philip Geraldi's take. Tim F. worries that possible errors in Suskind's reporting will undermine the deeper truth of what he's pointing out. The good news is that the question can now be examined some more and the facts slowly flushed out. ...
CIA vs. OSP
Political Animal —
CIA vs. OSP.... Philip Giraldi, about whom I know nothing, says that an "extremely reliable and well placed source in the intelligence community" tells him that Ron Suskind was wrong about the CIA forging a backdated letter trying to link al-Qaeda to Saddam Hussein. For one thing, he says: My source [] notes that Dick Cheney, who was behind the forgery, hated and mistrusted the Agency and would not have used it for such a sensitive assignment. I have to admit that this strikes me as an extremely compelling comment. In fact, when I first read Suskind's allegation, it was one of ...
Could I Have Been Right?
The Anonymous Liberal —
... Hussein in late 2003 in order to validate their pre-war claims. I pointed out that the document in question was such an obvious forgery that it seemed hard to believe that even this administration could be so incompetent. I ended the post with this attempt at humor: Then again, maybe they put someone like Doug Feith in charge of the operation. That might explain it. Well, sure enough, today Philip Giraldi at The American Conservative reports the following: An extremely reliable and well placed source in the ...
Not a Question of If, But Who, Forged the Letter
Firedoglake —
As a number of you pointed out last night, Philip Giraldi says Suskind got the forged uranium document close, but no cigar. ...
American Conservative Wants Us to Believe WMD Forgery was Work of Pentagon, not CIA. Should We?
BuzzFlash.org - Progressive News and Commentary with an Attitude | Fight Ignorance: Read BuzzFlash —
A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS by Meg White Philip Giraldi wrote on the blog for The American Conservative yesterday that he has an unnamed source who says that Ron Suskind's assertion about the ...
Suskind's Report About Forged Iraq-Al Qaeda Letter Holding Up Under Scrutiny
TPMMuckraker —
... The most interesting question raised about Suskind's accuracy came yesterday from Philip Giraldi, a former CIA agent, writing in the American Conservative. According to him, the Bush Administration did order up a forged letter, but did it through the Pentagon and Doug Feith's Office of Special Plans. Giraldi notes the the military has its own false documents center used to draw up fake papers for special ops officers traveling under cover as businessmen. ...
Cheney's Forgery Operation
TPMCafe —
... , a Conservative Blogger, Philip Giraldi says that the forgery of the letter stating the connection between Mohamed Atta and Saddam Hussein was also created by Cheney's operation. ...
Tape: Top CIA Official Confesses To 9/11-Iraq War Forgery Came From White House
Crooks and Liars —
... Today, The American Conservative also published a report saying that the forgery was actually produced by then-Defense Undersecretary Douglas Feith’s Office of Special Plans, citing an unnamed intelligence source. The source reportedly added that Suskind’s overall claim “is correct.” ...
Shorter David Frum
Sadly, No! —
Above: Andrew Sullivan overcooked his burger.
Who’s Behind the Fraud?
Only one thing could motivate such outrageous accusations against blameless public servants like Doug Feith and Michael Ledeen, and that is anti-Semitism. ...
A lie begets a smear
Power Line —
... the substance of Suskind's explosive report. At this point, Philip Giraldi, a onetime CIA officer, saw an opportunity to perpetuate Suskind's apparently baseless story notwithstanding the denials of sources and to indulge his passion for smearing "neocons." He thus claimed that Suskind's tale about a forgery was true except that the CIA wasn't involved. Instead, according to Giraldi, it was Feith, then undersecretary for policy at the Defense Department, who was behind the forgery. Giraldi based this smear on reports from unnamed sources, meaning that his story could ...
Robert J. Elisberg: How Would You Feel if You Were a Republican?
Politics on HuffingtonPost.com —
... It's not a question of just the Iraq War, which even The American Conservative magazine acknowledged the Bush Administration lied America into. Where 4,187 Americans have died, 30,182 Americans have been wounded, and $594 billion spent. ...
