So Scooter Libby has taken the fall. Three and a half years and a long bloody war after he and a gang of war-mongers in the White House and Blair House, including President Bush and Vice President Cheney, set out to undermine and trash the reputation of an Iraq war critic, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, Libby has been found guilty of perjury, lying to the FBI and obstruction of justice by a Washington jury.
Now maybe special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald and what passes for journalists in the mainstream media can get down to the real business of finding out just why the entire White House smear operation was unleashed upon a minor state department official and why they went so far as to violate federal law and expose his CIA-operative wife, Valerie Plame, in the process destroying her entire network of contacts for monitoring the spread of nuclear weapons in the Middle East. Because that's what this whole Libby story is really about. The whole focus of the media in this case has been on the narrow, inside-the-Beltway question of who leaked information about Plame to the media.
Entirely forgotten or ignored has been what this leak was all about to begin with....
As it happens, way back in early 2001 there was a
pair of burglaries at the Niger Embassy in Rome and at the home of the Niger ambassador. Police investigating the crimes found that the only things stolen were official stationary and some official stamps, used to make documents official. A cleaning lady and a former member of Italy's intelligence service were arrested for the crimes. They were odd burglaries to be sure, since there is precious little one could use, or sell, such documents for, given the country involved. I mean, it might make sense to steal official stationary from the French Embassy in Rome, which a thief might use to finagle a pass to the Cannes Festival. But Niger?
Jump to October 2001.
A few weeks after the 9-11 attacks, Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, accompanied by his ministers of defense and intelligence, made a visit to the White House. There he reportedly handed over the forged Niger documents (they were on Niger government stationary, and had Niger government stamps!), which appeared to be receipts for uranium ore, made out to Saddam Hussein. Now forget the matter of why either Hussein or Niger's government would want paper receipts for such an illegal transaction, and forget the matter of how Hussein would have transported 400 tons of yellow dust across the Sahara to his country without somebody noticing.
The simple fact is that Bush's own intelligence experts at the CIA and State Department promptly spotted the forgeries, and they were dumped. ...
http://www.commondreams.org/views07/0306-38.htmI didn't know about the Niger Embassy burglaries in Rome, or that the cleaning lady and a former member of Italy's intelligence service were arrested.
I didn't know that Berlusconi gave Bush the forgeries way back in October, 2001, and that the forgeries were dumped by the CIA and State Dept. IF THE DOCUMENTS WERE LEGIT, THE WH WOULD HAVE BROADCAST THEM EVERYWHERE - receipts noting purchase of uranium ore by Saddam Hussein, giving them proof that Saddam was making WMD's. But they didn't do that!
If I read about these two incidents earlier, I have forgotten. Does anyone remember them?
And just what the HELL was OSP doing meeting in Rome in December 2001 with the head of Italian intelligence?
The author is theorizing it was a black op aimed at the American people. If so, he contends, it's TREASON, and Cheney and Bush should be in jail.
But, it looks like Fitz can't/won't push it any further, unless Libby comes clean. How likely is that? Not very, I think. :(
It's up to the journalists to pursue these crimes. Yeah, right.
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
