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Lies. Deceit. Disinformation. And some very clever, twisty disinformation. Mainly to the purpose of protecting the war machine. So, don't swallow their acting all virtuous and "exposing" the war lies. PRESUME that they have an ulterior motive in publishing this story at this particular time.
Here's my surmise about what's going on:
Rumsfeld is in deep. That's why he's gone, without change of policy in Iraq. (It was timed to seem like it was the Bush Junta being responsive to the voters, but once you laugh that one down, you gotta figure something's up. What is it?)
Rumsfeld would be the Bushite with the most operational interest in the CIA network that was monitoring WMDs in the Middle East (Brewster-Jennings--Plame's network). He created his own intel operation--the Official of Special Plans (OSP)--to get around the honest professionals at the CIA, but probably not just to "cherry-pick" and "stove-pipe" evidence (to invent a case for WMDs in Iraq)--it was likely also a black ops group. How to get dirty deeds done that the CIA considered unethical, or stupid?
The Niger docs (which I believe have been proven to be pre-existing--some sting Italian intel was involved in--but with an additional fake covering document placed with them, an "accord" between Iraq and Niger) were probably pulled out of obscurity and the "accord" added as the result of a meeting in Rome in late 2001 attended by the head of Italian intelligence (SISMI), the notorious Iran/Contra arms dealer, Manucher Ghorbanifar, and a number of rabid NeoCons who were on the Pentagon payroll, among them Michael Ladeen.
But these docs raise certain questions: Why couldn't they concoct better forgeries? The docs were so crude, they got the names and dates wrong. The CIA and others easily established that they were fakes (once they got their hands on the actual docs, shortly before the invasion). Also, why was there such insistence on Bush explicitly making this easily disprovable allegation? The CIA took it out of one speech as too questionable. The WH put it BACK INTO Bush State of the Union. One of Joe Wilson's concerns was that it made the US look foolish and deceitful. It was the most foolish and insupportable of their claims--and Bush later had to eat his words. How this kind of thing would normally be handled is by hedging it round a bit--having Cheney and Rice do their "mushroom cloud" thing--all suggestive and scary--but preserve more deniability for the President. Just fudge it a bit. But no. It was a positive assertion, with no hedging. No subtlety.
Could be they are just stupid and inept. Always a possibility with this gang. But I think there is a better explanation, and it is that they were intending to make the allegation come true--to plant the nukes in Iraq, to be "found" by the US troops who were "hunting" for them after the invasion.
Now it all makes sense. Bush making the official and explicit allegation was Part One. Part Two was to make it come true.
And why didn't they create better forgeries? Because they WANTED the CIA to debunk them, and to take a known position of "no nukes in Iraq," so that, when the planted nukes were "found," the CIA would be forever discredited, and would become more easily purge-able.
But someone foiled Part Two of their diabolical scheme. No WMDs were found (or "found").
It was the particular purpose of the Brewster-Jennings network to monitor WMDs, to keep them out of the wrong hands, and to obstruct and prevent the illicit procurement and movement of dangerous weapons in the Middle East. This was a network of deep cover CIA agents/contacts in foreign countries, probably some in their countries' weapons development programs. They would have been in the best position to notice something--missing materials and parts, missing weapons, colleagues of theirs in league with thieves and weapons dealers. Others might be in positions to watch the military, and within chaotic, post-invasion Iraq, to watch both the US military and others. They might have detected and stopped a Pentagon operation not even knowing who was really behind it. IF this was the Rumsfeld plan, he was probably using many layers of shady go-betweens, and of course he had Abu Ghraib where he could 'disappear' anybody--his own ops, or the CIAs--in the general mayhem, if it became necessary to snuff out witnesses, or to torture people to find out who knew what. (And the outing of BJ network, of course, may well have made it easier to identify local counter-proliferation agents/contacts.)
The outing of Plame--and especially the SECOND outing, of the BJ network (not as well publicized)--has always had a smell of panic about it, in my opinion. It was a very risky thing to do--and it was done in a hasty and awkward way, maximizing the exposure of top Bushites. Their plan had gone all awry. It had failed. And what their actions wreak of is fear of exposure (which may be where the David Kelly story intersects with the Plamegate story--he was the Brits' top WMD expert who was found dead, under highly suspicious circumstances, four days after Plame was outed; his office and computers were searched, and, four days after that, the entire BJ network was additionally outed, by Novak also naming her front company in his newspaper column). The outing of Plame/B-J seems like an excessive overreaction to an op-ed by an ex-diplomat--especially given that the Bush Junta had such control over the newsstream back in 2003. Why not just let it die? No, they had to kill it with a hundred bloody knives, and that many "smoking guns" with their fingerprints all over them. It points to great fear of exposure of something more than mere words--a dissenting article.
This is one theory that could explain why Rumsfeld is out. He was in charge of the dirtiest operations in Iraq and the Middle East. This particular scenario suits him and the Bush Junta very well. And maybe it was discovered and exposed, by insiders--in the military or the intelligence agencies, or by Patrick Fitzgerald--and is now known in certain circles. Possibly something is about to come out, about it. Rumsfeld had to go. Cheney, Rove and Libby were handling the POLITICAL end of this plot--getting the Niger allegation into Bush's SOTU speech, etc.--and, later, dealing with both political and legal fallout. But Rumsfeld was the mastermind. His hands are dirtiest. And perhaps he is something of a fall guy/scapegoat. They can blame it Rumsfeld.
There are a lot of other reasons why Rumsfeld might be gone. 9/11 comes to mind. But this speculation as to the behind-the-scenes of Plamegate is particularly resonant, especially with Libby getting convicted of perjury and obstruction, Rove barely escaping the same, and the Fitzgerald investigation aimed right at Cheney. What would Cheney do to get himself out of deep legal trouble (in fact, treason)? Throw Rumsfeld under the bus.
As for WaPo--if this is what has happened (or something comparable)--then, a) they need to seem like they are out in front of it, and b) since it is their mission to protect the war profiteers--to shape the story as a rogue operation, and not as the rotten stinking heart of the cesspool known as the US "military-industrial complex"
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