Here's a fascinating article, seemingly from an expert source, charging the
American administration with causing false information to be manufactured
in order to support its case for the war in Iraq. It was seen through
almost immediately. But then that's also happened with all the reasons
given so far by Bush and Co.
Keith Hudson
<<<<
A CIA Analyst on Forging Intelligence.Whose Deliberate Disinformation?
CounterPunch, March 10, 2003, By RAY CLOSE, Retired CIA analyst, Near East
Division
There was a small but very important passage in Mohammad Elbaradei's
testimony on behalf of the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency before
the UNSC last week that cries out for further investigation: "With regard
to uranium acquisition, the I.A.E.A. has made progress in its investigation
into reports that Iraq sought to buy uranium from Niger in recent years.
This investigation was centered on documents provided by a number of states
that pointed to an agreement between Niger and Iraq for the sale of uranium
between 1999 and 2001.
"The I.A.E.A. has discussed these reports with the governments of Iraq and
Niger, both of which have denied that any such activity took place. For its
part, Iraq has provided the I.A.E.A. with a comprehensive explanation of
its relations with Niger and has described a visit by an Iraqi official to
a number of African countries, including Niger, in February 1999, which
Iraq thought might have given rise to the reports.
"The I.A.E.A. was able to review correspondence coming from various bodies
of the government of Niger and to compare the form, format, contents and
signature of that correspondence with those of the alleged
procurement-related documentation. Based on thorough analysis, the I.A.E.A.
has concluded, with the concurrence of outside experts, that these
documents, which formed the basis for the reports of recent uranium
transaction between Iraq and Niger, are in fact not authentic. We have
therefore concluded that these specific allegations are unfounded."
On Saturday, March 8th, the Washington Post reported under the headline
"Some Evidence on Iraq Called Fake" that the documents in question had been
given to the U.N. inspectors by the British Government and "reviewed
extensively by U.S. intelligence." The documents were then forwarded to the
I.A.E.A. by the U.S. Government, an action clearly implying that in
Washington's opinion they constituted reliable intelligence. A similar
stamp of authenticity must have been implied in the case of the British
Government's actions. Such is certainly the impression that would be gained
by the United Nations recipients, knowing that the documents had been
"reviewed extensively" by U.S. intelligence experts. However, after the
I.A.E.A. determined through its own "outside experts" that the documents
were bogus, the U.S. and British governments were reluctantly compelled to
acknowledge that they had both been the victims of an elaborate deception
operation. One unnamed (but hopefully red-faced) U.S. official was honest
enough to admit to Washington Post reporter Joby Warrick that "We fell for
it." In a curious display of unwarranted courtesy, an I.A.E.A. spokesman
graciously informed the Washington Post that his agency did not blame
either Britain or the United States for the forgery. The documents "were
shared with us in good faith", he said.
The following questions immediately occur to anyone with experience in the
area of covert technical operations ("Department of Dirty Tricks"), and to
everyone else with a modicum of common sense:
1. The fabrication of false documentation, especially what purports to be
official correspondence between the agencies of two different governments,
is a major undertaking for any professional intelligence service or
criminal enterprise. This is obviously most true when the perpetrator
intends to accomplish an extremely important purpose and so anticipates
that his work will be carefully scrutinized by competent experts. The job
requires extensive and time-consuming research, reasonably advanced
technical skills, and a high level of motivation. It would not be attempted
by anyone whose intentions were frivolous. All of these factors would be
accentuated in a case such as this, where the political costs of exposure
of deliberate fraud would be very high.
2. Unless accomplished with a high degree of skill, the counterfeit quality
of the documents in this case should have been quickly obvious to the
British and American intelligence services, and the contents should have
been dismissed immediately as a trivial diversion. Surprisingly, however,
according to the Washington Post story, the forgeries contained "relatively
crude errors" that gave them away. This clearly points to one or the other
of two possible conclusions:
a. The technical services departments of MI-6 and CIA (historically reputed
to be credible rivals to the KGB and Israel's Mossad for technical
sophistication) are in fact incompetent. If they manufactured the forgeries
themselves, they did a careless and clumsy job. On the other hand, if they
merely evaluated the authenticity of the documents as a means of
determining whether the information contained therein was valuable
intelligence for their own governments, they obviously showed an equally
appalling lack of professional skill. They "fell for it", we are informed.
b. The only other explanation that I can think of is that the British and
American intelligence services, despite having figured out that the
documents were crude forgeries, nevertheless decided to pass the
information to the U.N. inspectors anyway, knowing that they would serve
conveniently to mislead the I.A.E.A. into thinking that this was
documentary evidence supporting US-UK claims that Iraq has made illegal
attempts to acquire nuclear resources. (Of course, intelligence services
can be incredibly obtuse sometimes. Note the recent public admission by the
British that the famous "dossier" of evidence against Iraq, glowingly
praised by Colin Powell in his testimony to the Security Council, consisted
mainly of hearsay plagiarized from the work of a California graduate
student.)
3. Somebody has engaged in the criminal act of manufacturing false
evidence. If it has been done once, it may well have been done before. The
issues under consideration are matters of war and peace, life and death for
perhaps thousands of people. How much more despicable could a crime be? And
yet our government and that of Great Britain seem more bemused than
concerned. Shouldn't Congress be alarmed that our intelligence service, on
which we are so dependent these days, is so incompetent or so inured to the
corruption of the national intelligence process as to tolerate the
deliberate or careless introduction of false evidence into a process so
critically important to our national security and to the credibility of the
United States? Those responsible for this humiliating fiasco should be
exposed and discredited --- for the good of our country.
4. The Washington Post story is also a testament to the flaccid quality of
American investigative journalism these days. It apparently never occurred
to any reporter how important it would be to know exactly who it was that
forged the documents in the first place. Here was an organized effort to
spread extremely significant disinformation to at least two governments,
and through them to the Security Council of the United Nations, that might
have a direct influence on a momentous decision about war and peace.
5. Immediately, a host of other specific questions come to mind. Who were
the "outside experts" consulted by the I.A.E.A. who correctly spotted the
falsity of the Iraq-Niger correspondence (and exposed the incompetence of
MI-6 and CIA in the process)? Were they governments, or private agencies?
Where located? By whom controlled?
Elbaradei reported that these documents were provided to the I.A.E.A. by "a
number of states." Very interesting. Any other government besides the
British and American? Did "a number of states" provide identical
counterfeit documents to the U.N. inspectors, representing those documents
as reliable "intelligence"? Did each of those states originally obtain the
documents from the same source? When the information was passed by the
British and Americans to the United Nations, was the original source
identified? Or did MI-6 and CIA claim the necessity to protect "sensitive
sources and methods". (Wouldn't it be interesting to learn that in this
case that same familiar claim was made? What would that do to the
credibility of other intelligence provided by us to the United Nations?
This is not a trivial question. If the United States is accused of either
careless indifference or deliberate corruption in matters of this import,
what does that do to our reputation and to our image as "leader of the free
world"? Or is Brady Kiesling right --- it only matters that others fear our
power?
It would make no sense to suppose that a neutral or non-governmental entity
would go to the trouble and expense of falsifying documentation and then
convincing "a number of states" to deliver that evidence to the I.A.E.A.
Quite clearly, the more one thinks about this intrigue, the more obvious it
becomes that someone was responsible for a deliberate intelligence
disinformation campaign targeting the United Nations with an aim toward
padding the evidence supporting an American-British invasion of Iraq. That
is a world-class criminal act, a felony of historic proportions, by any
definition.
We should not let it be swept under the carpet.
Ray Close was a CIA analyst in the Near East division. He can be reached
at: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
� Source: <http://www.counterpunch.org/close03102003.html>
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Keith Hudson, General Editor, Handlo Music, http://www.handlo.com
6 Upper Camden Place, Bath BA1 5HX, England
Tel: +44 1225 312622; Fax: +44 1225 447727; mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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