But I’m not buying any “they cut me out of the loop” excuses from Powell. They may have, but he disregarded the caveats of the INR analysts in his own department to make the disgraceful UN presentation. He saw which way the wind was blowing and decided to go with it.

A wilderness of mirrors, indeed.

Yep, it is just one short story dropped in among many. Pages 179-182. It is when you combine the two by comparing them in terms of how the White House used intelligence developed by CIA that you get the real picture. In both cases they got sources very close to Saddam, got them between summer of 2002 and early 2003, both were gifts from other services, Sabri from the French, Habbush from the Brits. In both cases they were essentially stovepiped into the White House, rather than pushed through the normal analytic process. Both cast grave doubt on Saddam having any WMD — CIA made serious efforts to validate the work, was able to confirm many essentials. But in both cases the White House — Bush and Cheney, ordered efforts stopped. From all I can tell, Powell was given no information on these sources other than the material from the fake version of Sabri in the NIE. (Wonder why no one has asked Powell what he thinks of Suskind’s book???)

But the fake Sabri report was recycled to other intelligence services, it was, for instance, sent to Dearlove at MI6. The fake version was also made available to those writing the NIE in the fall of 2002. And again, the true version was never provided to Powell. He had no knowledge that CIA had developed a contact with Iraq’s Foreign Minister — and that there were two versions of the intelligence being handed around, one fake, one real. The Fake version was used to blindside MI6.

Holy kamoley. This is from Suskind’s book?

A wilderness of mirrors, indeed.

The Post’s front-page coverage of the French ambassador’s letter notes that it includes criticism of a November 2002 Post story retailing a lie about French possession of a prohibited strain of the smallpox virus by “an American intelligence official”. But that’s the only instance in which the Post appears to have taken part in the smearing of the French.

That I could find, anyway; maybe there are other cases.

I wonder: Did the French government push back at the Telegraph story, directly to the paper and/or to the Blair government?

The essence of the intelligence Habbush offered prior to the invasion was that Iraq had eliminated its WMD’s in 1991, but that Saddam had wanted to keep Iran and Syria guessing, and thus had not made this at all clear. In fact, in the initial contact, Habbush didn’t believe it likely that the US would invade at all. His view was essentially Saddam’s, and Suskind describes Saddam as more concerned with his image and position with respect to his regional enemies.

Suskind also makes the point that the intent in collecting intelligence from Habbush was different for the Americans and British. The Brits were trying to get inside Saddam’s head — understand his thinking and intentions, whereas the Americans pushed from the White House were only interested in usable intelligence to back up their argument for war. When what Habbush provided didn’t suit the Argument Bush was making — Bush closed down the contact.

The question that very much interests me about this is whether at any point leading up to the UN Speech, Tenet, who had to be in the know about the British Contact with Habbush, furnished Powell with any of this intelligence. Was Powell at any point “in the loop” or did they play Powell as simply someone (a useful idiot) who would fall for the Curveball stuff? (the contacts between Habbush and MI6’s Shipster occured a month or so before the 16 words and the Powell Speech.) Was Rice in the loop regarding Habbush’s intelligence? Did she agree to closing down the Habbush connection? Perhaps more important, did anyone with real professional credentials as an intelligence anaylist evaluate what the Oval Office was getting via the British? Did Tenet ever attempt to get any sort of professional evaluation of the information?

There was another high level source from inside Iraq prior to the invasion, Naji Sabri. Sabri was Saddam’s last Foreign Minister, and had a long relationship with French Intelligence. In the summer of 2002 the French introduced the Paris CIA station chief, Murray to the possibility they could connect him up with Sabri — and eventually in the fall of 2002 it was possible when Sabri traveled to the UN. CIA did not meet with him directly, they used a Journalist from Lebanon to ask the CIA’s questions, and then Murray went to DC to see John McLaughlin and reported Sabri’s information, which was that Saddam had no WMD. The written report that Murray dictated before returning to Paris got altered between the New York CIA office and CIA, in fact it was a complete distortion, reporting that Saddam was actually developing chemical and nuclear weapons. Thus there were two Sabri reports within CIA saying quite the opposite positions. Bush apparently got the “real” one from McLaughlin, called it disinformation, and requested the contact be closed down. Said he would only find it believable if Sabri defected. In the summer of 2002, CIA had given Murray 200,000 for the Sabri account — whether he got paid or not, no word. Apparently inside CIA some followed up on the original report delivered to McLaughlin by Murray, and after monitoring Sabri’s phone calls and all, the analyists found him totally believable.

But the fake Sabri report was recycled to other intelligence services, it was, for instance, sent to Dearlove at MI6. The fake version was also made available to those writing the NIE in the fall of 2002. And again, the true version was never provided to Powell. He had no knowledge that CIA had developed a contact with Iraq’s Foreign Minister — and that there were two versions of the intelligence being handed around, one fake, one real. The Fake version was used to blindside MI6.

I am wondering if either Sabri or Habbush are the source Drumheller mentions he was reporting just prior to the invasion?

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20050418/baker

And of course, it probably goes without saying that after they took away Judy’s front page privileges to write about WMD, she was focused almost exclusively on the Oil for Food program.