A White House Forgery Scandal?
Quote:
"The White House flatly denied Suskind's account. Tony Fratto, deputy White House press secretary, told Politico: 'The allegation that the White House directed anyone to forge a document from Habbush to Saddam is just absurd.'
"The White House plans to push back hard. Fratto added: 'Ron Suskind makes a living from gutter journalism. He is about selling books and making wild allegations that no one can verify, including the numerous bipartisan commissions that have reported on pre-war intelligence.'"
(...)
Viera: "You say this is worse than Watergate in large part because of this letter that you claim the White House ordered the CIA to forge that would link Iraq with 9/11 -- Mohammed Atta -- and with al Qaeda. CIA agents that you quote in the book agree there was a letter, but what convinced you that the White House was behind it? What evidence do you have that the White House ordered it?"
Suskind: "Well, the CIA folks involved, in the book -- and others -- talk about George coming back, -- Tenet -- coming back from the White House with the assignment on White House stationery and turning to the CIA operatives, who are professionals, saying, 'You may not like this, but here's our next mission.' And they carried it through. . . .
"It was a dark day for the CIA. It was the kind of thing where they said, 'Look, this is not our charge. We're not here to carry forward a political mandate,' which is clearly what this was, to solve a political problem in America, and it was a cause of a great grievance inside the agency."
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Go read the rest. Specially about the contrast between the Bush White House, and other administrations.
In a way this is the thin edge of the wedge for any accountability - but whether it picks up depends on the will shown by Congress to wish to draw this into the day. Since doing so would clearly give many people a reason to speak up.
Conversely, without those signals, they have the opportunity to let this fester and eventually boil down (at least for a time).
What do you think?
08-05-2008, 12:30 PM
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