News Intelligence Analysis
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Click here to read the transcript in a pdf file.
To find out a little about Michael Ledeen, the man who may have forged the documents, click here.
April 4, 2005
Forgery of Iraq-War-Justifying Documents Done in the U.S.
According to a Former Top U.S. Intelligence Official on Los Angeles Radio Program
Los Angeles, Ca.--Vincent Cannistraro is the former Director of National Security Council Intelligence under Ronald Reagan (’84-’87) and the former Chief of Operations of the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center, who led the investigation into the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103. On April 3, 2005, he was interviewed on Ian Masters' Background Briefing radio program, which broadcasts from Los Angeles, California on public radio. In the interview, Mr. Cannistraro made a number of withering observations on the Bush administration and the process failures that led to war.
In perhaps the interview's most startling moment, Cannistraro asserts that the famous forged "Niger documents," cited by President George W. Bush in his 2003 State of the Union address as proof of Saddam Hussein's intention to develop nuclear-weapons, "were fabricated in the United States." This charge has not been previously made publicly by a person of Cannistraro's standing, authority and stature.
When interviewer Ian Masters asked if he would name the person or persons involved in the forgery, Cannistraro declined. Masters pressed, asking Cannistraro if he would respond to the proffered name of a well-known national security operative, who had previously been fired from the Reagan National Security Council and was involved in the Iran-Contra scandal. Cannistraro responded by saying "you're very close." The person about whom Mr. Cannistraro made that comment was cited by the BBC as an "ultra neo-conservative." This individual has strong ties to the Vice President's office and to the Pentagon.
The forged "Niger documents" are significant, because they justified, in part, America's "pre-emptive" attack on Iraq. The Iraq war--two-years on--has cost over 1,500 American lives, tens of thousands of Iraqi lives, well over a hundred billion dollars and, many journalists and commentators believe, unprecedented loss of U.S. prestige worldwide and the nation's immersion in a hopeless Iraqi quagmire--all of which define the worst foreign-policy debacle in American history.
Some quotes by Vincent Cannistraro from the Ian Masters interview transcript:
"So, yes, the NIE, which as we know now was corrupted by false intelligence and in some cases fabricated—deliberately fabricated—information, it played a critical role in getting the US Senate to vote in favor of war with Iraq."
"This, we know now, was all based on fabricated documents.
But it’s not clear yet, either from this report, or from
any other report, who fabricated the documents. 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, and you had to do it soon to avoid the
catastrophe that would be produced by Saddam Hussein’s use
of alleged weapons of mass destruction. "
"The Niger documents, for example, which apparently were
produced in the United States, yet were funneled through the
Italians."
"That’s why we were misled into saying what we did
say, and doing what we did do . . . The case was that this was
not a fact-based policy that the US government adopted. It was
a policy-based decision that drove the intelligence, and not
the other way around. And that’s, of course, the reverse
of the process. You had a lot of people who played along to get
along."
The audio of the full interview is in various forms at www.ianmasters.org.
A full
transcript is attached. (Interview aired on Background
Briefing 11a.m. 4.3.05--journalists may use the interview
content, but we request that attribution to Ian Masters and Background
Briefing be made as the originating source.)
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