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I'm stil curious who Alan Wolf is. But maybe it's my coffeee.
But I'm realy curious about the reference to Ledeen at CIA.
Sure, he's got a big boner for James Jesus Angelton. Sure, he played CIA dress-up during Iran-Contra. But does this suggest that, at least according to Martino, Ledeen is CIA?
Would be rather interesting, not least because he'd have ties in counter-proliferation.
Posted by emptywheel at February 23, 2006 07:41 PMEW,
Alan Wolf was the CIA guy.
See here:
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Alan Wolf died about a year and a half ago of cancer. He served as chief of the CIA's Near East Division as well as the European Division, and was also CIA chief of station in Rome after Clarridge.
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There's a possibility that she meant Ledeen.......and.......Wolf at CIA. This is a translation of an Italian article which may not necessarily be written with the context clarified.
Posted by eriposte at February 23, 2006 08:54 PMLet's see, Ledeen was probably a former colleague of Burba at Panorama. He would obviously have been interested in the information that Martino was giving her. This might lead her to ask if Martino had been in touch with him, or, she might have just been asking if she knew who her former colleague was, because he might be interested in the documents. Which is what the transcription itself says:
"She says there are other people who would like to meet him."
In other words, "Hey, do you know who Ledeen and Wolf are? I bet they'd be interested in this, and I know some others who would be too."
Sorry, I shouldn't be pissing on the hunt for the "Ledeen forged the Niger documents" angle you guys are striving for.
Posted by Seixon at February 23, 2006 09:01 PMSeixon,
I don't know why you keep writing responses without reading my post properly.
Ledeen said clearly:
"I have no involvement of any sort with the Niger story, and I have no knowledge of it aside from what has appeared in the press"
Your comment:
"He would obviously have been interested in the information that Martino was giving her"
If he had been interested in meeting Martino or in Martino's documents he very much had "knowledge of it aside from what has appeared in the press" (he would have had real-time knowledge); and he would certainly have "involvement" of some sort "with the Niger story".
I said up front I have no idea whether he was involved. But it is certainly odd that for a person with "no involvement" and "no knowledge" of this, his name appears right in the middle of one of the most important transactions in this whole affair.
I appreciate you want to be critical but please take some time to read my points carefully first.
Posted by eriposte at February 23, 2006 09:15 PMActually, it's interesting that Burba mentions Alan Wolf "at the CIA". Wolf was fired from CIA after the Aldrich Ames scandal in the '90s.
Posted by FMJ at February 24, 2006 12:36 AMI've got a hunch that Burba mentions Ledeen and Wolf because they were the sources for Panorama's Sept. 12 2002 "Nigeria" uranium story.
Posted by FMJ at February 24, 2006 12:45 AMSeixon,
On a whim I clicked on your website. I have to say I am very impressed with your .pdf trick that shows definitively that Italian intelligence was behind the original Niger reporting. I'm going to try that with some other parts of the SSCI report.
Great job!
Posted by FMJ at February 24, 2006 01:08 AMeriposte,
Obviously I am not of the opinion that Michael Ledeen always tells the truth, I have no horse in this race. It just seems like certain people really would love for Ledeen to have manufactured the forgeries and be behind everything in an evil CIA plot to... ehm, well, embarrass the Bush administration, but let's forget that for just a moment...
I'm just saying that I don't find it odd that Burba would mention Ledeen. Either Burba was in contact with him about this story, or she knew he might be interested in the info. We can't know whether or not Burba actually told Ledeen about it or not. As far as I'm concerned, I don't really care because his "involvement" seems meaningless here.
FMJ,
Thanks! Trust me, I have scoured through the rest of the SSCI to try the same thing again, but the CIA managed to cover up everything else more craftily. Which leads me to wonder exactly why they made it so easy to uncover that it was Italian intelligence that gave them the reports.
I have suspicions that factions of the CIA have lied about who they got the information from...
Posted by Seixon at February 24, 2006 08:43 AMI have loved your site for its useful and funny content and simple design.
Posted by Hero at March 1, 2006 02:50 AM