BUSH'S FORGERY PROBLEM?

Ron Suskind has a new book that tells us George Bush’s White House asked/ordered the CIA to forge documents from the former head of Iraqi intelligence, Tahir Jalil Habbush al-Tikriti. The forged documents would be backdated and would essentially say two things: (1) 9/11 hijacker Mohammed Atta had been trained in Iraq, and (2) Saddam Hussein had been seeking Niger yellow-cake (to make WMDs).

Two birds with one stone. How convenient.

How credible are Suskind’s charges? Here’s a link with pretty good review of why Suskind rather than President Bush should be believed.

Interestingly, what’s not being discussed is how the White House not only made the intelligence fit around the policy, but how the White House withheld information from Congress. Consider the following Niger yellow-cake debunking documents the White House had but never shared.

1. A DEFENSE DEPARTMENT REPORT prepared by Four Star Marine General Carleton Fulford, who was in charge of military relations in Africa.

2. Few outside of the intelligence community saw Nigerian Ambassador Barbro Owens-Kirkpatrick’s STATE DEPARTMENT REPORT which said there were no efforts by Saddam Hussein to secure yellow-cake.?

3. Then we have Ambassador Joe Wilson’s CIA ASSESSMENT, which said there’s nothing to the yellow-cake story.

Reports from the CIA, the State Department, and the Defense Department saying the Niger yellow-cake claim was bogus … and what does the White House do? It chose to run with the Niger yellow-cake story anyways.

Then we have the long forgotten original yellow-cake forgery story which Italian news sources tell us involved then Deputy National Security Advisor, Stephen Hadley. The documents proved to be so crude and dubious that the Italian media originally refused to run a story on them, while the document’s “mule” now regrets his role in the debacle.

Bush's White House, of course, used the information ...

- Mark

UPDATE: Here's Ronald Suskind, in his own words.