The Niger Documents--How They Did It

[kpete]

December 01, 2005
The Niger Documents--How They Did It
by emptywheel

eRiposte at the Left Coaster has been doing incredible work piecing together the Niger forgeries. For those who haven't been following along, I'd like to offer a quick summary of what he has shown, including:

The substantive American and British claims about Iraq acquiring uranium all relied on the Niger documents
There are several pieces of evidence that prove some in the Administration knew the Niger documents were garbage before they used them to justify war
There was clearly cooperation from someone at SISMI to make the documents more useful to justify the Niger claim

I really encourage you to go look through eR's work. But here's my short explanation of what it all means.
http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/
and more here:
http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2005/12/the_niger_docum.html#more

[Peace Patriot]

1. Part of the WMD-planting theory of Traitorgate goes back to the Niger

forgeries and views them as a deliberate provocation to the 'white hate' CIA, to draw them out into a public position of no-nukes in Iraq. This would explain why they were such crude forgeries, and even the coyness with which the docs were used to tease and not be fully provided until too late. The other end of this theory is that the Rome group was also planning how to plant nuke material or components (or weapons) on Iraqi soil, after the invasion--for Judith Miller to "find" (in her high profile "search" with US troops, on a special embed contract signed by Donald Rumsfeld). The "finding" of nukes would not only help them justify the war (enormous political benefit to the Bushites and Blairites), but they greatly help them to discredit the CIA, which they very much wanted to do (especially those who wouldn't give them false intel and be used that way).

This nefarious plot (if true) was obviously foiled. David Kelly had something to do with foiling this Bushite plot or knew something of it, this theory goes He was in a good position with great experience and friends in Iraq to have heard tell of it, and there were several Islamic country news items about the foiling of a US plot to plant WMDs in Iraq in March 2003.

Kelly started whistleblowing anonymously to the BBC about the 'sexed up' prewar intel on May 22, 2003. He was mysteriously outed to his bosses at the end of June, and interrogated at a safe house. On July 7, 2003, according to the Hutton report, Tony Blair was informed that Kelly "could say some uncomfortable things" (COULD say, not HAD said).

Plame was outed on July 14 (by Novak). Kelly was found dead, under highly suspicious circumstances, four days later, on July 18. Then, four days after that--and after Kelly's office and computers were searched--on July 22, Novak outed the entire CIA WMD counter-proliferation front company, Brewster-Jennings, disabling all projects and putting all covert agents and contacts around the world at great risk of getting killed.

This theory holds that Plame knew about the WMD-planting plot and its foiling--or her or her network helped foil it--and Traitorgate was the Bushites' effort to silence her and cover up their intended deceit. The way the Bushites outed Plame seems precipitous and panicky--for instance, calling at least six reporters in one week (six journalist witnesses to treason) and putting many top Bushites at risk of getting charged with treason). When you think that the motivation was supposed to have been to punish an ex-ambassador, Joe Wilson, for his dissenting article (published in the NYT July 6), it seems excessive and foolish. It feels like there is more behind it.

Another interesting thread is that Kelly's last email--the one where he is concerned about the "many dark actors playing games"--was to none other than Judith Miller (who had used him as a major quoted source in her book "Germs"). (This email was later released by his family, not by Miller.)

This theory holds up pretty well, as new information has been revealed. It's a good working theory, I think--and addresses many mysteries of the whole affair (like, why the crudeness of the forgeries? why was arms dealer Ghorbanifar at the Rome meeting? what could Kelly have known that could have gotten him killed? why the Rovian revenge story and its nepotism charge against Wilson seem so lame and non-credible? and more). One puzzle is, was Wilson targeted early, and set up as the one who would take the CIA view of the matter public, or was he just used opportunistically, and at what point did they begin targeting Plame, and knew they were married?