[Mb-civic] About the Niger Forgery

[Mike Blaxill]

Fitz has unredacted Italian Niger forgery report

Who forged the papers upon which Bush based his
infamous 16-word claim that Saddam was seeking
uranium from Africa, and that Joseph Wilson
debunked? Justin Raimondo reports a new (though
not entirely unexpected) revelation in the case,
in the context of Patrick Fitzgerald's
investigation of the retaliatory leaking of
Wilson's wife's identity as a CIA operative....

...In 2005, Vincent Cannistraro, the former head
of counterterrorism operations at the CIA and the
intelligence director at the National Security
Council under Ronald Reagan, expressed the
opinion that the documents had been produced in
the United States and funneled through the
Italians: "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 ...." [7]

In an interview published April 7, 2005,
Cannistraro was asked by Ian Masters what he
would say if it was asserted that the source of
the forgery was former National Security Council
and State Department consultant Michael Ledeen.
(Ledeen had also allegedly been a liaison between
the American Intelligence Community and SISMI two
decades earlier.) Cannistraro answered by saying:
"you'd be very close." [8]...

...According to a source in the Italian embassy,
Patrick J. "Bulldog" Fitzgerald asked for and
"has finally been given a full copy of the
Italian parliamentary oversight report on the
forged Niger uranium document," the former CIA
officer tells me:
"Previous versions of the report were redacted
and had all the names removed, though it was
possible to guess who was involved. This version
names Michael Ledeen as the conduit for the
report and indicates that former CIA officers
Duane Clarridge and Alan Wolf were the principal
forgers. All three had business interests with
Chalabi."....

Go read the whole post at this link
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/10/19/41429/846