The WaPo's A1 Snooze

by emptywheel

Peter Eisner has an A1 story in the WaPo today, purporting to show how the Niger forgeries brought us into war. The story is, at best, a snoozer, repeating the dominant narrative that we've heard before. But it appears to miss important parts of the story. Either Eisner doesn't understand what has come before in this story and can't identify the real news bits in his story--or he is reporting information that has already been disproven.

The Verbatim Cable

[note: I'm mistaken. The verbatim text is not, as Eisner's article seems to suggest, the following document. Per Eisner's online chat, tt is, rather, a backup document to this text. If the "verbatim transcript" includes the headers and the dates received/sent, then it would qualify as "riddled with error."]
Most egregious is the central explanation Eisner purports to offer--that CIA simply didn't check the "verbatim" cable of one of the forgeries. Eisner presents this twice.

In February 2002, the CIA received the verbatim text of one of the documents, filled with errors easily identifiable through a simple Internet search, the interviews show. Many low- and mid-level intelligence officials were already skeptical that Iraq was in pursuit of nuclear weapons.

[snip]

Almost four months later, on Feb. 5, 2002, the CIA received more information from Sismi, including the verbatim text of one of the documents. The CIA failed to recognize that it was riddled with errors, including misspellings and the wrong names for key officials.

Eisner strongly suggests that, if the CIA had just examined these documents closely, they would have discovered they were bogus.

But, as eriposte has shown meticulously, this claim assumes that when someone says the document was verbatim, it is an accurate description. Yet that's not true. At least in the case of the October 2001 documents, the errors didn't exist in the cable the CIA got, they had been corrected. So it's not like, by googling the information from the cables--as opposed to the documents themselves, which CIA did not yet have--the CIA could have ended the inquiry.

Now, you might be thinking that perhaps eriposte is wrong and Eisner right. After all, Eisner did dozens of interviews, right?

Except that, on this issue, eriposte has corroboration from an unlikely source: the three partisan hack Senators out to attack Joe Wilson, Roberts, Bond, and Hatch. In a carefully parsed paragraph, they admit that the CIA didn't have the names and dates the IAEA proved to be wrong (though they make no mention of why!):

At the time the former ambassador traveled to Niger, the Intelligence Community did not have in its possession any actual documents on the alleged Niger-Iraq uranium deal, only second hand reporting of the deal. The former ambassador's comments to reporters that the Niger-Iraq uranium documents "may have been forged because 'the dates were wrong and the names were wrong,'" could not have been based on the former ambassador's actual experiences because the Intelligence Community did not have the documents at the time of the ambassador's trip. In addition, nothing in the report from the former ambassador's trip said anything about documents having been forged or the names or dates in the reports having been incorrect. The former ambassador told Committee staff that he, in fact, did not have access to any of the names and dates in the CIA's reports and said he may have become confused about his own recollection after the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported in March 2003 that the names and dates on the documents were not correct. Of note, the names and dates in the documents that the IAEA found to be incorrect were not names or dates included in the CIA reports.

And just the details from the SSCI report reveal that, on this issue at least, Roberts, Hatch, and Bond are correct (if parsing the truth). The wrong names for key officials? Not in the early intelligence to the CIA.

And it's not just hack Senators who disclaim the "verbatim" claim. The INR memo stops well short of claiming the documents were verbatim, when it describes the forgeries:

These documents appear to be related to, if not the actual basis of, the February 2002 foreign service liaison report that sparked original concerns about a Niger/Iraq deal.

If the February 2002 document really was a "verbatim" version of the actual forgeries, I would expect this language to be much stronger.

And in fact, I'm not sure how Eisner claims the letter was "riddled with errors" in any case. Here is the verbatim text of the document:

MR PRESIDENT,

IT'S MY HONOR TO REFER TO THE AGREEMENT # 3*1-NI 2000, REGARDING THE SUPPLY OF URANIUM, SIGNED IN NIAMEY ON THE 6TH OF JULY 2000 BETWEEN THE GOVERMENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF NIGER AND THE GOVERMENT OF IRAQ BY THEIR RESPECTIVE REPRESENTATIVES OFFICIAL DELEGATES.

ABOVE MENTIONED SUPPLY EQUIVALENT TO 500 TONS OF PURE URANIUM  PER YEAR, WILL BE DELIVERED IN TWO PHASES.

HAVING SEEN AND INSPECTED THE SAID DEAL. I APPROVE IN ALL AND EACH OF ITS INVOLVED PARTIES IN REGARD TO THE POWERS INVESTED IN ME BY THE CONSTITUTION OF THE 12TH OF MAY 1966.

ACCORDINGLY, I PRAISE YOU TO CONSIDER THIS LETTER AS BEING THE FORMAL TOOL OF APPROVAL OF THIS AGREEMENT BY THE GOVERMENT OF THE REPUBLIC
OF NIGER THAT BECOMES BY THIS RIGHTFULLY ENGAGED.

PLEASE ACCEPT, MR. THE PRESIDENT, THE CERTAINTY OF MY HIGHEST REGARDS

SIGNATURE

SEAL OF THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF NIGER

While the central premise of the letter is clearly bogus (as INR noted--transporting 500 tons of uranium to Iraq would require 10 trucks to travel across the Sahara), there is one error in this letter (assuming SISMI didn't clear it up in the transmission): the date of the constitution. And Mamadou Tandja, who signed this letter, actually was the President at the time (indeed, Tandja's relationship with the US was one of the issues State used to judge this deal unlikely).

So while some of the forgeries had glaring errors, this letter had few, even if it was verbatim.

The CIA and the Niger Forgeries
In his description of the provenance of the forgeries, Eisner tells an incomplete story. He tells how the CIA Station Chief didn't believe the Niger intell when he first received it in October 2001:

One person who refused to meet with Burba was the CIA chief of station. A few days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States, Sismi, the Italian intelligence agency, had sent along information about the alleged sale of uranium to Iraq. The station chief asked for more information and would later consider it far-fetched.

On Oct. 15, 2001, the CIA reports officer at the embassy wrote a brief summary based on the Sismi intelligence, signed and dated it, and routed it to CIA's Operations Directorate in Langley, with copies going to the clandestine service's European and Near East divisions. The reports officer had limited its distribution because the intelligence was uncorroborated; she was aware of Sismi's questionable track record and did not believe the report merited wider dissemination.

The Operations Directorate then passed the raw intelligence to the CIA's Intelligence Directorate and to sister agencies, including the Defense Intelligence Agency. A more polished document, called a Senior Executive Intelligence Brief, was written at Langley three days later in which the CIA mentioned the new intelligence but added important caveats. The classified document, whose distribution was limited to senior policymakers and the congressional intelligence committees, said there was no corroboration and noted that Iraq had "no known facilities for processing or enriching the material."

If Eisner in fact answered all the questions this raises, it'd be a real service. There have been reports that
the station chief, Jeff Castelli, actually saw a copy of the forgeries, rather than just the cable from SISMI. Did he? That'd be news, if Eisner could clarify it. But instead, this appears to be nothing more than an explanation why Castelli didn't get involved with Burba when she came to the US Embassy in October 2002.

But that allows Eisner to cop out on the reporting about the actual circulation of Burba's forgeries within the US. Eisner describes the US Embassy in Rome accepting the forgeries:

She handed over the papers; Kelly told her the embassy would look into the matter. But Kelly had not been briefed on what others in the embassy knew.

And then he describes their appearance in a meeting at the State Department:

On Oct. 16, Burba sat on a plane on her way to Niger, while in Washington, copies of the Italian letter and the accompanying dossier were placed on the table at an interagency nuclear proliferation meeting hosted by the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research.

But he doesn't describe how they got from one place to another. He doesn't describe that they were forwarded to the US through John Bolton's department at State. He doesn't explain that the INR analyst who immediately debunked the forgeries had provided details of that debunking, before he was mysteriously on leave for the nonproliferation meeting. And he doesn't explain a detail included in the INR memo:

These documents, which were sent to Washington via both CIA and [State] Department channels.

That is, he provides a nice narrative about why CIA ignored the forgeries that came in through State. But he doesn't mention--or explain--why CIA ignored the documents they got directly from Rome. Perhaps the INR memo is mistaken here. But it's a detail that any treatment of this story must nail down.

The French Investigation

And then Eisner just nods toward the news that should be big news, the report of the French investigation. He says:

The interviews also showed that France, berated by the Bush administration for opposing the Iraq war, honored a U.S. intelligence request to investigate the uranium claim. It determined that its former colony had not sold uranium to Iraq.

And that's it: no discussion of how the French investigated the intelligence, whether (as some have alleged) the French got their own version of the forgeries and found them laugable, and most concerning of all, no mention of the date.

The date is important for two reasons. First, it explains part of why Tenet was so convinced the Niger claims were baseless in fall 2002, when he made Stephen Hadley remove the claim from a Bush speech. And it raises questions of why the US tried to blame ongoing belief in the Niger claim on the French, when they had already debunked it.

It's a pity that this is what qualifies as an A1 story. The Niger story needs to be told. But Eisner didn't tell that story. Instead, he retold the dominant narrative, without noting key discrepancies or outstanding issues. I'm hoping that Eisner and Knut Royce's book on the subject answers these questions. But for now, I'm underwhelmed.

Comments

[John B.]

I am just amazed that you can keep all of the facts and feints and double feints straight on all these scandals that have been going on for so many years now.
You are truly remarkable in your skill and patience.
We are all the beneficiaries of your hard work and effort.

[my too sense]

Interesting as usual emptywheel. Care to speculate (and I realize it would be pure speculation) about what actually occured with the verbatim cable in relationship to the CIA and main players?

[p.lukasiak]

I'm hoping that Eisner and Knut Royce's book on the subject answers these questions. But for now, I'm underwhelmed.

well, since the Post article was based on the book itself...

"About This Story
This article was adapted from the book "The Italian Letter: How the Bush Administration Used a Fake Letter to Build the Case for War in Iraq," by Peter Eisner and Knut Royce, to be published today by Rodale Press."

I wouldn't hold my breath...

*****************
Cross-posted from Left-Coaster

Actually, p luk, I think they're trying to finesse the Cheney stuff. The DIA report may have come first.

while its pretty obvious that this whole thing is designed to protect Cheney, what drew my attention to the piece was this paragraph

Almost four months later, on Feb. 5, 2002, the CIA received more information from Sismi, including the verbatim text of one of the documents. The CIA failed to recognize that it was riddled with errors, including misspellings and the wrong names for key officials. But it was a separate DIA report about the claims that would lead Cheney to demand further investigation. In response, the CIA dispatched Wilson to Niger.

according to the SSCI Report (page 50) the DIA report was NOT separate, but was based on
the February 5th information; i.e....

Based on the information from the CIA report from the foreign service, on February 12 2002 the DIA wrote a finished intelligence product....After reading the DIA report, the Vice President asked his morning briefer for the
CIA's analysis of the issue.

Now, this is important because one of the latest wingnut talking points is that Valerie was recommending Joe for a trip to Niger BEFORE Cheney asked for more info -- Val's email is dated Feb 12 (SSCI Page 51), but the briefing on the DIA report did not happen until the next day...and the memo asking for more info is dated Feb. 14th (see http://wid.ap.org/documents/libbytrial/jan24/DX66.pdf )

Eisner, being the good little stenographer that he is, is repeating the lie that it was the DIA report -- and not the "raw intelligence" being stovepiped to Cheney -- that lead to Joe Wilson being asked...

[LabDancer]

'wheel - You're on a roll; keep it up. The stories of the Iraq-Niger fraud & the Plame leak & the Libby trial & the AG Eight & Sampson's controlled perjury & the NSLs out of control & Sen Hatch's Sunday panic & Nixon-to Cheney-to BushII & Liddy's Watergate burglars morphing into Rove's DoJ wiretappers & the evolution of GOP Con ops - it's all one story.

Do you think by now a Ben Bradley type would have put Pincus on this story 24/7?

[emptywheel]

Actually, p luk, I think it's worse than that:

Now, this is important because one of the latest wingnut talking points is that Valerie was recommending Joe for a trip to Niger BEFORE Cheney asked for more info -- Val's email is dated Feb 12 (SSCI Page 51), but the briefing on the DIA report did not happen until the next day...and the memo asking for more info is dated Feb. 14th (see http://wid.ap.org/documents/libbytrial/jan24/DX66.pdf )

Eisner, being the good little stenographer that he is, is repeating the lie that it was the DIA report -- and not the "raw intelligence" being stovepiped to Cheney -- that lead to Joe Wilson being asked...

The CIA report says:

The VP was shown an assessment (he thought from DIA) that Iraq is purchasing uranium from Niger.

So VP didn't just read something--he was shown something, suggesting some kind of briefing. And note that, either the time frame was long enough (7 days?) for Cheney to have forgotten where he got the information, or he was being coy about it. I also think that Dougie Feith John Bolton whoever showed him this material is likely the source of other "interest" besides OVP that Tenet apparently though was BS.

In any case, I agree, this ignores all the points where OVP intervened. Which is one of the reasons I find the elision of Bolton's role so interesting.

[Tom Maguire]

Meanwhile, in the other corner stands an elephant...

How does the Post front page this and nowhere mention Waxman's invitation to Rice to chat with his committee about the Niger forgeries?

Put another way, is there some other news hook? If so, it does not seem that you saw it (nor did I).

Baffling.

[Tom Maguire]

Oh, my bad - this is a book promotion by Eisner. Gracious of the WaPo, but still.

[emptywheel]

And while you're mentioning COndi, you might mention that she has already missed her deadline to provide answers to him...

[p.lukasiak]

Marci...

The letter that you reference is (eriposte's) Niger Document 3. Eisner, in describing the errors in the verbatim text during a post on-line chat, is apparently referring to Niger Documents 4 and 5

http://www.theleftcoaster.com/archives/005895.php#NIGERDOC4

how sure are we that it is the text of document 3 that was sent to the CIA on February 5, 2002?

[p.lukasiak]

Holy crap... apparently Eisner is even more full of it than we thought... or the SSCI report got it wrong...

The SSCI report specifies that the "verbatim text" discusses "500 tons of yellowcake uranium to Iraq" ("in two phases" appears to be the redacted in the SSCI report). The document you cite DOES say "500 tons of pure uranium". The document(s) cited by Eisner make NO mention of the quantity involved....

[Jeff]

I am frankly getting tired of the media-bashing on the left that increasingly looks like the media-bashing from the right. p luk, what you are saying is ridiculous. The demeaning way you refer to Eisner vis-a-vis Cheney is not supported by the evidence of the article, and I presume you haven't actually read the book yet. It's just ridiculous. More generally, as your 14:19 intervention itself suggest, maybe it's worth while taking some time and not presuming that this is all bs? Huh?

Furthermore, it is worth noting that Robb-Silberman in fact made the central point at issue here:

The errors in the original documents, which indicated they were forgeries, also occur in the February 2002 report that provided a "verbatim" text of the agreement, indicating that the original reporting was based on the forged documents.

To be sure, it doesn't provide the underlying evidence - but neither do any of the claims here with any confidence. Let's see what's in the book. Meanwhile, though, how about we cut the presumptive media-bashing. These are serious reporters. Why not read the book first?

[emptywheel]

Then his article is even stupider. Because he describes Document 3 in his article:

One of the documents was purportedly sent by the president of Niger to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, confirming a deal to sell 500 tons of uranium to Iraq annually. This was the smoking gun in the package, claiming to show the formal approval of Niger's president to supply Iraq with a commodity that would in all likelihood only be used for a nuclear weapons program: Iraq had no nuclear power plants.

Though the document was in French it would later come to be known as "The Italian Letter." It was written in all capital letters, in the form of an old telex, and bore the letterhead of the Republic of Niger. The letter was dated July 27, 2000, and included an odd shield on the top, a shining sun surrounded by a horned animal head, a star and a bird. The letter was stamped Confidential and Urgent.

The letter said that "500 tons of pure uranium per year will be delivered in two phases." A seal at the bottom of the page read "The Office of the President of the Republic of Niger." Superimposed over the seal was a barely legible signature bearing the name of the president of Niger, Mamadou Tandja.

And document 4, at least, is clearly described in the SSCI as the October 2001 document. So either the SSCI is blatantly wrong (in which case, again, he's just missing the real news here, that he caught the Senate and CIA completely lying on these issues), or his article grossly misrepresents the claim and seems to mistake what the CIA got.

Which leaves document 5, parts of which may have been included with document 3.

One more thing that seems to support the fact that the February 5 document is the 500 tons one--the INR does a report in response to the intell that we've seen, which clearly talks about the 500 tons.

Short of him saying "the SSCI is blatantly lying," he's just confused, wrong, mixing his dates, or stupid.

[Dismayed]

OMG - I've just got to point this out. Just listen to Bush shovelling shit ----

"The bottom line is this, Congress's failure to fund our troops on the front line also mean that some of our military families could wait longer for their loved ones to return from the front lines," Bush said.

"And others can see their loved ones headed back to the war sooner than they need to. That is unacceptable to me, and I believe it is unacceptable to the American people."

What a load. Deceptive, veiled threats? Trying to intimidate military families into revolt agains the very congress who's trying to put an end to his endless war -- AND THIS in the wake of an announcement yesterday of more premature reassignmnetn and more extended tours. These guys have some nerve, but the NERVE of this. Makes me boil.

[emptywheel]

Jeff

Yes, whether or not Eisner is a serious reporter, my main gripe here is that, if what Eisner alleges is true, then he's got a much bigger story on his hands--the wholesale fraud carried out by either the SSCI or the CIA or both.

Instead of telling that story, he tells a story that does nothing--nothing--more than repeat what Laura Rozen, Josh Marshall, and others have already reported. Without even acknowledging some of the key bits. And THAT's an A1 story?

Perhaps it's the fault of the WaPo, in choosing an excerpt that's not really newsworthy. Or perhaps it just isn't newsworthy.

Though I do look forward to seeing whether the SSCI report is a total fraud. Now that would be news.

[p.lukasiak]

. Let's see what's in the book. Meanwhile, though, how about we cut the presumptive media-bashing. These are serious reporters. Why not read the book first?

sorry jeff, but I don't take any reporter seriously who writes

Almost four months later, on Feb. 5, 2002, the CIA received more information from Sismi, including the verbatim text of one of the documents. The CIA failed to recognize that it was riddled with errors, including misspellings and the wrong names for key officials. But it was a separate DIA report about the claims that would lead Cheney to demand further investigation. In response, the CIA dispatched Wilson to Niger.

note he says "one of the documents". Then in his chat he cites two other documents (the one dated Oct 10, and the "annex" which used the phrase "State Court" which may have been an "attachment" and thus technically part of "one document") that cannot be the "one document" he describes earlier --- and isn't the document cited in the SSCI.

Furthermore, Eisner places the FULL blame for "not catching the errors" on the CIA... but the DIA and INR also had access to the "verbatim text" that was distributed by the CIA. Then, Eisner directly implies that it was inquiries that occurred after Cheney read the DIA report that lead to Wilson's trip -- an apparent impossibility unless you think Valerie Plame lied under oath when she described the sequence of events that lead up to her Feb. 12th email....

[Jeff]

Now that would be news.

It would?

In any case, if I have to choose between the legalistic, casuistic way in which Mssr. Roberts, Bond and Hatch appear to corroborate eriposte, and the Robb-Silberman report plus Royce and Eisner, I'd bet on the latter.

[p.lukasiak]

Perhaps it's the fault of the WaPo, in choosing an excerpt that's not really newsworthy. Or perhaps it just isn't newsworthy.

or perhaps its the fact that its the Washington Post, which has been egregiously slanting its coverage of the Plame outing since Day One....

[Jeff]

p luk

Fine. You have little idea of what you're talking about here.

For instance,

Eisner places the FULL blame for "not catching the errors" on the CIA... but the DIA and INR also had access to the "verbatim text" that was distributed by the CIA.

Eisner says the CIA screwed up - and it did! - not that it deserves full blame. Furthermore, you appear to be confusing February 2002, which is what Eisner is talking about in the passage about uncaught errors, and what happened in October 2002, when the documents came in through Rome - and in that regard, it seems to me the piece is hinting that CIA took the documents from INR and filed them away without much thought or examination because they were fully convinced, perhaps by the way INR presented them, that they were forgeries.

Then, Eisner directly implies that it was inquiries that occurred after Cheney read the DIA report that lead to Wilson's trip -- an apparent impossibility unless you think Valerie Plame lied under oath when she described the sequence of events that lead up to her Feb. 12th email

So you agree with the righties on this? In fact, this aspect of the story remains to be clarified, and I think there are some indications that when it is clarified, it will show that Cheney read the DIA report and that prompted questions to CIA, which in turn triggered the idea for the Niger mission by Wilson. The tasking report on Ferbruary 13 by Cheney's briefer appears to imply that Cheney saw the DIA report previously, and assuming the tasker was produced by the morning briefing, that most likely means he saw it or heard about it on February 12, the day it was produced, and the day that, according to Plame, someone from OVP called her subordinate at CPD.

I am going to read the book.

[Jeff]

emptywheel

Then his article is even stupider. Because he describes Document 3 in his article:

Well, you're getting confused by the article's shifting back and forth between October 2002 with Burba and February 2002. In that response in his online chat to the really really smart question, which I'd be willing to bet was submitted before this little controversy arose, Eisner does in fact say the CIA's February 2002 verbatim text was eriposte's document 4, not 3.

p luk is also wrong here:

The SSCI report specifies that the "verbatim text" discusses "500 tons of yellowcake uranium to Iraq" ("in two phases" appears to be the redacted in the SSCI report).

Incorrect. The February 5 2002 CIA report contains verbatim text, but it is not limited to that verbatim text. The SSCI on p. 37 has information from that report, but does not specify that it is drawing on the verbatim text when it discussed the 500 tons of uranium per year. In fact, it implies the contrary, that that bit did not come from the verbatim text. (And of course it wouldn't be surprising that whoever provided the CIA with the false verbatim text also had access to the equally false other documents.)

Similarly, emptywheel, you're incorrect to jump from the assertion that the October 2001 report contained information cleared based on document 4 to the notion that the October 2001 report had the verbatim text of that document. October 2001 had information from it, February 2002 provided the actual text of the document. That, in any case, is what Royce and Eisner's reporting would appear to suggest.

A fuller picture will no doubt emerge from the book. But I'm not seeing any problem. Except perhaps the SSCI has managed to confuse you two. But that the SSCi is not nearly as clear as it should be is hardly news.

[p.lukasiak]

Eisner says the CIA screwed up - and it did! - not that it deserves full blame.

Eisner repeatedly blames the CIA for its "failure" to catch obvious errors, and never blames any other agency despite the fact that they were doing their own analyses, and had access to the same original intelligence. Eisner is carrying water for Cheney and those who went to such lengths to distort the Iraq intelligence.... that much is obvious.

Furthermore, you appear to be confusing February 2002, which is what Eisner is talking about in the passage about uncaught errors, and what happened in October 2002, when the documents came in through Rome

I'm not confusing ANYTHING. You're apparently confused, and Eisner may be "confused", but I'm writing a critique about his shoddy and biased reporting. Eisner even blames the CIA for Libby going to jail, to wit...

As a result of the CIA's failure to firmly discredit the document text it received in February 2002, former U.S. ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV was called in to investigate the claim. That decision eventually led to the special counsel's investigation that exposed inner workings of the White House and ended with the criminal conviction of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, who was forced to resign as chief of staff to Vice President Cheney.

So you agree with the righties on this?

no, i think its pretty obvious that Cheney got the original CIA report that the DIA report was based on.... It should be noted that Eisner demonstrates no familiarity with the Wilson/Plame version of events -- that his narrative is based on the tasking memo itself.

I am going to read the book.

you can probably save $15-20 by waiting a few months and picking it up from the "remaindered" bin....

[emptywheel]

Jeff,

Actually, what appears to have happened is that all four sources are right, but only within limits.

First there's the Robb-Silberman report:

The errors in the original documents, which indicated they were forgeries, also occur in the February 2002 report that provided a "verbatim" text of the agreement, indicating that the original reporting was based on the forged documents.

Which is referring to the errors of the verbatim document, not the general errors of the forgeries. In this case, it would refer to the items Eisner mentions: the fact that the titles of the "verbatim" document all date from before transition to democratic rule and perhaps (if the annex was included) the names of the alleged ministers and the day of the week.

But Eisner still elides the difference between his "italian letter" and the verbatim text. Are they the same? Because his "italian letter" has one error, not the "riddled with errors" he presents it as. It would be helpful if he referred to "documents" to avoid this issue.

But if I'm not mistaken, those aren't the glaring errors, the ones the IAEA pointed out in its review (such as the Sabo for Hadj replacement). So in other words, Hatch, Bond, and Roberts are--as you point out--legalistically right. The errors in the verbatim text are not the glaring errors.

None of which changes my fundamental issue. This is not news. He's not presenting anything that Rozen hasn't already presented. And he doesn't do--at least in this article--what he says he does, explain how the documents got used here in the US. There is documentary evidence CIA had the forgeries on their own, either via Rome or via another channel, like the French. THere is the significant detail that the forgeries came in through Bolton's shop. There's the fact that Foley in fact carried out a negotiation regarding teh Niger claims, rather than "giving an okay" as Eisner explains. Those all get to the "how" of the question. You're not going to get into that in one newspaper article. But by pointing to these issues, you at least point to a sense of where the issues lie. Eisner doesn't seem to know where those lie, at least not in his chat or his article.

[Jeff]

Eisner even blames the CIA for Libby going to jail, to wit

Are you unfamiliar with the distinction between causal responsibility and moral responsibility? Eisner is not blaming the CIA for Libby going to jail. What he is saying is, if the CIA had conclusively determined that the report was based on forgeries, as they could have, there would have been no need for Wilson's mission. And hence the very conditions under which alone Libby would have ended up lying (about the things he was convicted of lying under oath about) would not have existed. And that's right.

Clearly, Eisner is suggesting that the CIA fell down on the job. But that seems right to me. It doesn't mean there weren't all sorts of malefactors throughout the government. But with this bunch, there's rarely need to pick and choose.

emptywheel

This is a newspaper article that is a teaser for the book, as you say. We'll see what they get into in the book. But I also think it's worth pointing out that there's value to reporting, and there's value to speculative inference-jumping, as eriposte specializes in.

[emptywheel]

Jeff

If I'm confused, it's because Eisner conflates the two documents. I agree, now, that the text of the "verbatim" document is document 4. But Eisner writes about the Italian letter--uses it in the title of his book and provides only a description of THAT, rather than document 4. He would have been much better served to say, "there was this ITalian letter" but there was a document accompanying it which sould have debunked it. Documents, not document.

[emptywheel]

This is a newspaper article that is a teaser for the book, as you say. We'll see what they get into in the book. But I also think it's worth pointing out that there's value to reporting, and there's value to speculative inference-jumping, as eriposte specializes in.

And there's a value to actual news. I'd prefer the WaPo to present news, books to present in depth reporting, and speculative blogs to present speculative reporting. My gripe is, and remains, that this is not news, certainly not A1 news. It's clear Eisner's book might include news, but he doesn't give it to us here.

Why not be the first in this country to report on the French investigations, which would directly challenge the existing narrative? That would be news. Why not focus on what Castelli knew when? That would be news. Instead, we get something that Laura Rozen--and others--has already told in this country.

[Jeff]

emptywheel

I'm underwhelmed by the story too. But we might as well get what they're doing and claiming right anyway. The example that is purportedly most egregious is actually fine. And to go from being underwhelmed, which is fair enough, to ranting about how this was clearly done to serve Cheney etc etc (you didn't do this, obviously) is deeply misguided and, frankly, annoying.

[emptywheel]

Okay, we're underwhelmed together.

At which point I'd correct something p luk said, because I think it relevant--it's not the WaPo that got Plame wrong (I think Jeff and I would agree that Carol Leonnig is the best Plame reporter this side of Murray Waas). It's WaPo's editorial page and the people who endorsed teh choices of the editorial (and in the case of Toensing, style or whatever it was) pages.

Which is not to say this is a clear Cheney bias. But it clearly fits into status quo. It is likely (and I expected, knowing this book was coming) that Eisner and Royce will have some bombshells. Then why not report them?

So while I'm not sure this is pro-Cheney (though, damnit, why not mention Bolton??), it sure is pro-status quo, which sometimes amounts to the same thing. And if the WaPo printed pablum in an effort to avoid rocking teh boat, they did Eisner a real disservice, because it's not going to help him sell the book.

[p.lukasiak]

Clearly, Eisner is suggesting that the CIA fell down on the job. But that seems right to me. It doesn't mean there weren't all sorts of malefactors throughout the government. But with this bunch, there's rarely need to pick and choose.

one problem "the CIA" did not fall down on the job in the way that Eisner would have it.

1) Eisner presents a wholly simplistic view of the CIA that shows not the slightest awareness that the CIA was reorganized in 2001, and Bush loyalists were placed in charge of "analysis".

2) Career analysts at the CIA were appropriately skeptical of the Feb 5th report of the sale -- if someone hands you a report saying that the sky is pinstriped, you don't even bother to see if its "genuine" -- its not credible to begin with.

Eisner assumes that had the CIA demonstrated that the "verbatim text" contained discrepancies that the "Niger/uranium" story would have died then and there. But the CIA demonstrated that the story contained discrepancies and wasn't credible --- and the story lived on anyway. INR later showed that the documents were forged --- but the story would not die, and wound up in the State of the Union.

The bottom line here is that the facts about Iraq's nuclear program didn't matter. They didn't matter when it came to aluminum tubes, and they didn't matter when it came to Niger.

Yet Eisner wants us to believe that if only "the CIA" had done a better job, we wouldn't be in the current mess. That is bullshit, pure and simple, and no real reporter would pretend otherwise.

***************
Marci.... Carol Leonnig may have done a half decent job of reporting at the trial (I didn't bother reading the coverage, since I was reading your liveblogging!), but if you check out the Post's coverage prior to the trial, its a whole different story. If you compare the aggressive way that the Post pursued any Clinton related scandal with the "well, we have to cover this" reporting of the Plame scandal, you can see the difference....

[emptywheel]

p luk

I guess this is just an issue on which I think it important to maintain a distinction between the WaPo's management and individual reporters. After all, the WaPo pays the salaries of Leonnig, Pincus, Dana Priest, Dafna Linzer (who's been on Iran in an important way), and Barton Gellman (who redeemed himself on Iraq intell). That's a much better crowd than anyone else has, even considering McClatchy's important contributions.

[p.lukasiak]

That's a much better crowd than anyone else has, even considering McClatchy's important contributions.

no one is denying that the Post has a few good reporters. But overall the Post has become the newspaper of a one company town --- and that "company" is the lobbying industry. (I mean for every Walter Pincus or Dana Priest you can name, I can come up with a Sue Schmitt or Dana Milbank... )

[Jeff]

its pretty obvious that this whole thing is designed to protect Cheney

I'm on p. 14, and it's obvious you're wrong.

[Garrett]

From the book promo:

• How did knowingly false intelligence move so high up the political food chain?

If the creature is alive, self-aware, invasive, and biting, but its niche is the top of the political food chain, I might consider it more annoying pest than dangerous predator.

The authors got reason to be concerned, though. It might thrive pretty well in the higher journalism ecosystems as well.

[lolo]

EW
Is this story being perpetuated to bolster Shooter's alibi to Fitz? Keeping to the statis quo per shooter?

These posts are thought provoking. The saga continues, so lucky to have you to show us the way. Thank you.

lolo

[ATS]

The pachyderm in the room is Michael Ledeen. necon agent provacateur and Likudnik-at large. Ledeen's fingerprints are all over the Italian angle of the Niger caper, but the POST won't touch this part of the story. For the usual reasons, only one of then being Fast Freddy Hiatt.

[Jeff]

The book's decent, but it really is mostly stuff that's been known for a while from previous reporting. A couple of inaccuracies in the coverage of Plame stuff.

The book does touch on Ledeen, and notes that there is not a shred of evidence connecting Ledeen to the forgeries. There is, for instance, strong evidence that the December meeting in Rome had to do not with Iraq and forgeries but with Iran.

[Seixon]

ATS,

VIPS made up the entire angle about Ledeen. Vincent Cannistraro and his business partner Philip Giraldi started it, and the rest of VIPS permeated it everywhere they could. Which is funny because both Ledeen and Cannistraro were involved in Iran-Contra. Of course, as Laura Rozen and countless others have realized, Ledeen has nothing to do with the forgeries. Ledeen, as always, was meeting with the Italians about Iran.

VIPS basically took a set of facts (Ledeen being in Rome at some point between January 2001 and January 2003, being a "scary" neocon, and eh... yeah that's it basically) and then concocted a story out of it by combining it with another set of facts (the burglary in the Niger embassy, the forgeries making their way to SISMI, the CIA, etc over the same time period... wow) and suckers like you fell for it.

They also made up things such as claiming that an Italian parliamentary report on the issue named Ledeen and others - later revealed to be entirely false as it named Rocco Martino, La Signora, and an Italian SISMI agent or two. The concocted story was credible (in the Jason Leopold way) until then...

And suckers like you fell for it. Why? Ah, because you needed to believe. You needed to believe in a grand nefarious conspiracy. Anyways, what were we talking about? A Washington Post reporter making things up as he goes along? That reminds me, it's time for vacation. Ahhhh.

[Jeff]

Yes, there's a competition on, who was worse at making up lies, and who was better at getting people to believe them, those ex-CIA folks who went after Ledeen, or SISMI who persuaded a significant chunk of the rightwing of the United States that France was behind the forgeries, via an Italian reporter who, it turned out, was on their payroll and some other echoes in the dubious but credulous rightwing press?