Wednesday, August 6, 2008
Ron Suskind --Helping put US back on Track? Items are flooding in...
Speed Reading Suskind: Leave Me My Name! New Republic 26 minutes ago Wednesday 1:45
Los Angeles Times, CA The controversy erupted Tuesday over Ron Suskind's new book-length account of the Bush/Cheney administration's conduct of the war on ...
In 'Way Of The World,' Fabricating A Case For War NPR...Also:
Ron Suskind vs. the White House: Who do you believe? Seattle Post Intelligencer
White House 'buried British intelligence on Times Online
NewsBusters - MSNBC
US 'knew Saddam had no weapons' The Australian, Australia - 2 hours ago
In The Way of the World, Pulitzer prize-winning author Ron Suskind claims the White House ordered the CIA to forge a backdated handwritten letter ...
Speed Reading: Bush's Fatal Flaw The Plank on TNR.com, DC - 19 hours ago
Pulitzer-prize winning political writer Ron Suskind's new book, The Way of the World, was released in stores today. The book is chock full ...
White House denies fake Iraq-al-Qaida link letter
The Associated Press - 20 hours ago
The allegation was raised by Washington-based journalist Ron Suskind in a new book, "The Way of the World," published Tuesday. The letter supposedly was ...
CIA officials deny fake Iraq-al-Qaida link letter The Associated Press - 16 hours ago
... adamant denials from the CIA and Bush administration about the claim, made in "The Way of the World," a book by Washington-based journalist Ron Suskind. ...
Los Angeles Times, CA - 5 hours ago
His column looks into the brouhaha over an explosive allegation in Ron Suskind's new book, "The Way of the World," regarding how the White House built ...
Book reveals secret Iraq mission and more MSNBC - Aug 4, 2008
In Ron Suskind’s bold new book, “The Way of the World: A Story of Truth and Hope in an Age of Extremism,” the Pulitzer prize-winning journalist critically ...Times Online
Bush knew Iraq had no WMD The National, United Arab Emirates - 5 hours ago
"The charge is made in 'The Way of the World: A Story of Truth and Hope in an Age of Extremism' by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ron Suskind, ...
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
ReplyDeletehttp://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/376015_amy22.html
Now there's very good reason to investigate Bush, Cheney, etc.
Last updated August 21, 2008 5:40 p.m. PT
AMY GOODMAN
SYNDICATED COLUMNIST
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi is on a book tour, where she is being hounded by activists and questioned about her pledge that "impeachment is off the table." She responded on the TV talk show "The View," "If somebody had a crime that the president had committed, that would be a different story."
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ron Suskind may have provided the evidence she doesn't want to see. Suskind's new book, "The Way of the World," makes an explosive charge: that the Bush administration instructed the CIA to forge a letter that would support its claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and was linked to al-Qaida. He also charged that the person whose name is on the forged letter, the former head of Iraqi intelligence, the man who was the Jack of Diamonds in the U.S. military's "Most Wanted" deck of cards, Tahir Jalil Habbush, was given $5 million in hush money.
Suskind has recorded interviews with key U.S. and British intelligence agents who told him that secret meetings were held with Habbush, who insisted that Iraq had no WMD, and that Saddam Hussein's evasiveness on WMD was more to protect Iraq from its neighbors, principally Iran. Suskind interviewed Rob Richer, a career CIA operative (who resigned to take a top job with the military contractor Blackwater, to head up its new private spy operations). Richer told Suskind how George Tenet, then director of Central Intelligence, handed him the assignment to deal with the fabricated letter:
Richer: "What I remember is George saying, 'We got this from' -- basically, from what George said was 'downtown.' "
Suskind: "Which is the White House?"
Richer: "Yes. ... I would probably stand on my, basically, my reputation and say it came from the vice president."
Suskind: "It just had the White House stationery."
Richer: "Exactly right."
After Suskind's book came out earlier this month, Richer issued a carefully phrased "nondenial denial," which Suskind says reflects the enormous pressure Richer and people like him are under to keep important truths quiet. The key points stand: Habbush, in January 2003, assured British and U.S. intelligence that there were no WMD. This was in time to prevent the invasion. Richard Dearlove, then head of British Intelligence (MI6), personally flew to Washington to deliver this damning report. Rather than calling off the invasion, the U.S. secretly relocated Habbush to Jordan and paid him $5 million. When no WMDs were found, according to Suskind, Habbush became "radioactive inside of the White House ... everyone was terrified that Habbush would pop up on the screen during that summer of Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame" -- that is, Habbush could exacerbate the political problems the White House was facing around its justification for the war.
By September 2003, with Habbush silenced, the scheme was hatched to provide the letter that would solve all the White House's problems: a letter, backdated to July 2001, written in Habbush's hand, explaining that 9/11 ringleader Mohamed Atta had indeed received training in Iraq for the hijacking, and that al-Qaida had also been helping Iraq obtain uranium from Niger. The letter was faked and leaked in Baghdad, after which a conservative British pundit, Con Coughlin, broke the story that supported the Bush administration. It raged through the international press like wildfire.
Since Suskind's book has come out, Rep. John Conyers, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, has begun an investigation. I asked Conyers if there is talk of a bipartisan commission to investigate the charges. The chairman replied, "There are four committees, and how they relate to each other will come forward very shortly." Suskind has been told that Sen. Jay Rockefeller's powerful Senate Select Committee on Intelligence is also investigating.
Congress should find out: Who authorized the $5 million payout to Habbush? Where is Habbush, and will he be brought to Congress to testify? Who authorized the fabrication of the letter? What possible reason can there be for not declassifying the Dearlove report, that there were no WMD in Iraq, other than for political reasons?
The upcoming presidential conventions will be filled with vague promises of change. Congress should prove it and fully investigate Cheney, Bush and Habbush.
Amy Goodman is the host of "Democracy Now!," a daily international TV/radio news hour.
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