American Conservative Wants Us to Believe WMD Forgery was Work of Pentagon, not CIA. Should We?
A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS
by Meg White
Philip Giraldi wrote on the blog for The American Conservative yesterday that he has an unnamed source who says that Ron Suskind's assertion about the forged WMD document came from Pentagon official Doug Feith and not the CIA. It sort of makes sense when you consider the logic Giraldi uses to back his anonymous source up:
"Tenet is for once telling the truth when he states that he would not have undermined himself by preparing such a document while at the same time insisting publicly that there was no connection between Saddam and al-Qaeda. Richer and Maguire have both denied that they were involved with the forgery and it should also be noted that preparation of such a document to mislead the media is illegal and they could have wound up in jail.
My source also notes that Dick Cheney, who was behind the forgery, hated and mistrusted the Agency and would not have used it for such a sensitive assignment."
I guess it doesn't matter where the forged letter came from; our government lied to us either way. But still, something about it rubbed me the wrong way.
Maybe it was the fact that Giraldi wrote about it in a tiny blog entry that didn't even add up to 300 words instead of exposing this revelation in a full-blown story.
Maybe it was Giraldi's insistence that his anonymous source is "extremely reliable and well placed" and that Giraldi felt the need to make the source sound plausible with the background he provided. Seems as though he doth protest too much.
Maybe it's the idea that two senior CIA officers would implicate themselves for no good reason. If the Pulitzer Prize winning Suskind is to be believed, Robert Richer and John Maguire are on tape, on the record about their involvement in the forgery. Why would he tell the world he had the tapes if he didn't? He knows he'll have to produce them eventually. Giraldi won't have to back up his claim because it's not getting nearly as much media attention.
Also, it seems rather convenient to dump responsibility for the whole mess on Feith, a guy well-known to have been called the "stupidest guy on the face of the Earth" by Gen. Tommy Franks.
This whole thing is somewhat of an exercise in futility, because it's not like I could prove Giraldi wrong anyway. Now I know why they told us not to use unnamed sources in J school. It's the same reason people use them: irrefutable authority without the nagging burden of responsibility.
A BUZZFLASH NEWS ANALYSIS
Technorati Tags: Analysis ron suskind WMD forgery CIA Pentagon douglas feith 



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