FBI could talk to source of forged Niger papers. I did

[seemslikeadream]

Josh Marshall

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.

There are many reasons to believe that the FBI’s investigation has been at best perfunctory. But let me describe one of the clearest.

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?
more
http://www.thehill.com/marshall/092304.aspx

[olddem43]

1. The CBS documents are much more important.

[Heath.Hunnicutt]

2. wow

This is really sad, but illumintating. Mostly: kick

[HysteryDiagnosis]

3. Something like... they're my rules and I'll break them if and when

I want to.... the rest of you get in line or else.

[Must_B_Free]

4. Who cares? I'd rather be kept safe from Cat Stevens

no matter what lies I need to consume.

[Eloriel]

5. This is really breathtaking

Is there any part of our government left that isn't either totally inept or corrupt to the core?

[Tyler Durden]

13. Welcome to the machine.

Nope. The pigs have taken over completely.

El, we are the new Acadians, and the rePukes and Neocons want us to fall in line or leave. There is no third way.

[Carolab]

6. According to the New Yorker

the CIA was behind the forged documents. The CIA is trying to bury Bush, since Rummy took intelligence away from them and placed it under the DOD. Now, with Porter Goss involved...who REALLY is in charge of "intelligence" in this country?

[AP]

7. The forged docs actually helped Bush in a couple ways.

All last summer they focused the discussion on hating bush and thinking about Iraq. Bush amost got himself an anti-war dem nominee.

They were also used to try to get rid of Blair.

Neither strategy worked.

[reorg]

8. unfortunately

[MARALE]

15. I love your sig line pic.s

I finally figured out what he had on his head, because it makes him look like a dickhead, not an elephant.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

11. The New Yorker doesn't know what they're talking about...

...the NeoCons are the ONLY group of individuals that would have benefitted from the story that a Middle Eastern country wanted to buy Niger "yellowcake". That would have supported their false contention that Iraq was developing a pipeline of raw materials to build their alleged WMDs.

Additionally, the Italians have a rightwing government willing to do anything asked of them by the NeoCon Junta in Washington. What better way to ingratiate yourself to FratBoy than to have your intelligence agency fabricate evidence of Iraqi complicity in a Niger-uranium pipeline to the Middle East and leak it to the Italian press.

Now, was the CIA unhappy that this little NeoCon operation was exposed? Heck, no! It's a very minor payback for what the NeoCons did in exposing Valerie Plame and her global WMD monitoring network.

And although Rummy helped create the Pentagon-based OSP, that in no way detracted from the intelligence activities of the CIA. The OSP's major job duty appears to be fabricating as much information as possible to support the illegal war aims of the NeoCon Junta.

[Carolab]

16. You missed the point

What the New Yorker said was that the documents were so obviously forged that nobody in government or intelligence would possibly take them seriously. In fact, they were full of mistakes. But Cheney used them in order to justify invading Iraq, anyway.

[DeepModem Mom]

9. kick

[steely]

10. I wanted what Burba's answer was?

SHame the journalist didn't talk to Rocco too.
Expose this just a little more.

[ChrisK]

12. And we wonder why 9/11 happened

The agents that are "trying" to get to the bottom of where these documents came from are showing the same type of "drive" they showed before 9/11...almost non-existent.

I have a good deal of respect for the FBI, they have worked to crack many cases and chase the person(s) involved in the attacks on the Murrah Building in 95' and the 93' attack on the World Trade Center but what happened here?...Why is the FBI so laid-back in getting to the bottom of these documents?...have they been told to let it go?

If their lack to fine out where these documents originated from is any indication of what they have become, its not surprising that when an agent raised the suspicion of a handful of Middle Eastern men training in flight schools here in the U.S. it was ignored, when all one needed to do was look a bit deeper to see something was not right, setting off a few alarms.

It's sad that we have fallen so far in our trust and respect for our government that it does not surprise us when we see stories like this and what's worse is how there ignored by the populace at large.


Looking away does not make it stop

[sattahipdeep]

14. Valerie James

John became very paranoid the last year, year and a half of his life.
I would say to him, "John, I feel like you're paranoid."

But you know what? He wasn't paranoid.

They were out to get him.

There were a handful of people in D.C. that were out to get John O'Neill.

John actually is not the happiest person in the world with this great
new job. ... He wasn't excited about it.

If John had his druthers, he would have stayed with the FBI.

He would have still been assistant director in New York.

Well, his own people were fighting him. "John was fighting a double war.

He was fighting terrorism, and he was fighting his own people too." ...

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/knew/interviews/james.html