The Niger Forgeries

Update: May 4, 2007 Cannonfire has more (different) information.

Well, the most intriguing video making the rounds right now is the one above, with former CIA analyst Ray McGovern placing responsibility for the Niger forgeries with the Office of the Vice President.

First, I must point out that McGovern gives the wrong impression: Neither Cheney nor anyone associated with him did the actual forgery. That part of the origin story is well-known: Rocco Martino and couple of old SISMI buds ginned up those docs in order to pull a fast one on the French. The motive was money, and the French weren't buying.

Later, someone else came up with the idea to turn Rocco's bit-O-whimsy into a cause for war. Who?

  Cannonfire post

"The only way to achieve peace is through total war."

"The purpose of total war is to permanently force your will onto another people."

"Every ten years or so, the United States needs to pick up some small crappy little country and throw it against the wall, just to show the world we mean business." [Michael Ledeen]

Go ahead and check out the Cannonfire post, it has a clip of Ray McGovern telling MSNBC that he has evidence people in Cheney's office are responsible....he just won't say who, or what the evidence is.

....but hey, do what you want....you will anyway.

Can You Google?

[I]f the CIA had done a simple Internet search on some of the terms used in the [Niger Yellowcake] letter, the agency would have quickly learned that it was a forgery.

  ABC article: Could a Google Search Have Helped Prevent the War in Iraq?

There are excuses quoted in the article for people who didn't Google this one item, but those excuses don't answer how other false information, such as the aluminum tube B.S. that Powell provided the UN, could have been found out the same way. Bloggers were finding it out.

I wouldn't lay it onto the CIA, because the CIA always has an agenda. But it's always been my contention that the members of Congress who supported the invasion of Iraq were derelict in their duty, and that if they were too busy themselves to keep up with internet information available at the time which was revealing all those lies the Administration was pushing leading up to the invasion, then they surely had an office boy who could have been doing it. (Except Mr. Foley, whose office boy was busy. But that doesn't excuse the Democrats.)