Reply #8: RE: Michael Ledeen/Niger Docs/Etc. [View All]

[Emit]

As discussed on this thread this past weekend:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=4124354&mesg_id=4126740

Don't know how credible these sources are...


Here's a piece that points to Ledeen, or someone very close to him, as being the forger of the Niger Documents:

Who Forged the Niger Documents?
By Ian Masters, AlterNet. Posted April 7, 2005.

http://www.alternet.org/story/21704 /

This is an excerpt of transcripts of an interview by Ian Masters (Los Angeles public radio KPFK on April 3, 2005)with Vincent Cannistaro, former CIA head of counterterrorism operations and intelligence director at the National Security Council under Reagan.

<<snip>>
(Cannistaro cont'd)...Information, for example, about an alleged attempt by Saddam Hussein to acquire nuclear material, uranium, from Niger. This, we know now, was all based on fabricated documents. But it’s not clear yet — either from this report, or from any other report — who fabricated the documents.

The documents were fabricated by supporters of the policy in the United States. The policy being that you had to invade Iraq in order to get rid of Saddam Hussein, and you had to do it soon to avoid the catastrophe that would be produced by Saddam Hussein’s use of alleged weapons of mass destruction.

(Ian Masters) Well, Ambassador Wilson publicly refuted the claims — particularly the 16 words in the President’s State of the Union address that the Iraqis were trying to buy significant quantities of uranium from Niger. That document, I understand, was fabricated ... it originally came out of Italian intelligence, I think SISME, or SISDE—I’m not sure which one.

(Cannistaro) It was SISME, yeah. ...

During the two-thousands when we’re talking about acquiring information on Iraq. It isn’t that anyone had a good source on Iraq—there weren’t any good sources. The Italian intelligence service, the military intelligence service, was acquiring information that was really being hand-fed to them by very dubious sources. The Niger documents, for example, which apparently were produced in the United States, yet were funneled through the Italians.

(Ian Masters) Do we know who produced those documents? Because there’s some suspicion ...

(Cannistaro) I think I do, but I’d rather not speak about it right now, because I don’t think it’s a proven case ...

(Ian Masters) If I said “Michael Ledeen” ?

(Cannistaro) You’d be very close . . .

<<snip>>