Just wanted to thank you for yours and everyone else's comments on the last thread, I got tugged away and didn't get back til this morning. I jumped the gun a bit, but thanks for the new post!

I think your argument is pretty persuasive, but then why would Martino get them into BUrba's hands. One thing I note from the stuff you linked to last week is that Burba's editor argued, "well the US are doing the most on CPD so they can verify these better than anyone." Well, no. The French could verify them better than anyone, as his move to send Burba to Niger indicates. So it does seem like they intentionally pushed them to the US (Again) in Fall 2002.

Note, too, that when they did that, it was less than a month after the September 8 aluminum tube claims. I'm vaguely working on an analysis of WHIG's campaign that fall. BUt the short version is they were really looking to build to a climax.

Finally, one more comment. The CPD "vault" would almost certainly be an SCI faclility (secure compartmentalized information). That says that any documents checked in or out of the vault would have been logged. If things WEREN'T logged, then it would have been possible for Val Plame to take a gander at them (might have been anyway, since there was a reference to Iran and she was workign on Iran at the time, per Larisa). If things WERE logged, then the SSCI should have had a record of it.

EW,

Martino, by all indications, was trying to make as much money as he could peddling the garbage. So it was in his interest to find as many willing pawns as possible for the dossier.

Also, one of the posts in this series will focus on what Rocco tried to do vis-a-vis the US embassy in 2001. I hope to be able to discuss this further in that post.

eriposte, this is excellent; I can't wait for the next installment!

It is simply amazing how deeply deceptive the SSCI report really is. I have one issue with your analysis though. You refer to the CIA as a unitary whole throughout this post. I think you're falling for one of the tricks in the SSCI report. The report weaves a time-based narrative of the CIA's position that doesn't make any sense and one of the ways they do that is by conflating the positions of different parts of the CIA. There are some very clear disagreements between NESA, WINPAC, and parts of the DO about the Niger claims (not to mention what appear to be disagreements within WINPAC). I think you're right that CPD (which is part of the DO) had them, but I doubt the analysis side of the house had seen them. I tend to think the NESA folks figured out on their own that the story didn't make any sense, but that WINPAC caved into to political pressure.

William,

I tried to keep this post very general intentionally...without getting into too much detail on the internal dynamics. In part, this is because I have already published, previously, a detailed analysis highlighting the very points you have.

eR: ...The CIA told the Committee its analysts did not seek to obtain copies of the documents because they believed that the foreign government service reporting was verbatim text and did not think it would advance the story on the alleged uranium deal.

This is also just crazy - why would the CIA believe the copies of the document were verbatim text if they read the email from the INR analyst? After all the email talked about the "funky" stamp - no verbatim text would have a stamp. Wonder who in the Senate bothered to ask the CIA how they could say they didn't think they would learn anything from the copies sent by Burka.

eR, I'm glad you're pointing out -- with your customary rigour and insight -- the total absurdity of the SSCI account of the handling of the actual forgeries once they arrived on American shores. I'm shocked that this silly, vague and contradictory account doesn't seem to have really been publicly challenged.

And I'm very glad you're drawing attention to the absolutely bizarre suggestion that nothing is supposed to have happened re: the documents in the three-month period after they were supposedly distributed. After, that is, they were brought to the attention of all the other relevant agencies for the first time by an INR e-mail which explicitly stated that the documents, whose content was virtually identical with verbatim transcriptions still ostensibly being treated with utmost seriousness by those very agencies, were probably forgeries. How is that supposed to work, again?

I'm really writing this off the cuff, but a totally un-thought-out idea about the CIA's sudden Oct. 2-6 reversal. Of course there was the problem/prospect of public attention being drawn to the Niger claims by Bush's upcoming Cincinnati speech and there were the SSCI hearings in which the CIA had to testify formally about the uranium claims. These were reasons enough, I suppose, to get cold feet about putting one's seal of approval on obvious fraud (though note of course the Oct. 1 NIE). But I wonder whether the CIA didn't start to back off, at least pro forma, precisely because it knew the actual documents themselves were coming.

For far from the keystone of the Niger/Africa/uranium case, the actual documents were in fact its weakest link, the only thing that could clearly and directly tie the CIA/IC/US government to the perpetuation of a fraud. (Never forget how crucial to this Admin's MO of deception the use of (especially "raw") intelligence has been, precisely because and insofar as it is so often publicly unfalsifiable.) Until October 2002, one could always claim one was relying on foreign intelligence (as indeed the SOTU's fraudulent "16 words" pretended to do). But when the documents were sheepishly handed over to the IAEA, after weeks of resistance and stonewalling, the fraud had US fingerprints all over it -- for the US government had actually had the blatant forgeries in their possession while publicly pimping their fraudulent content.

In this context it's perhaps also worth recalling the Hadley-Pollari meeting of 9 Sept./02. Before, that is, the documents actually arrived.

Finally, something I've been meaning to point out since Chouet's version first came out. Chouet claims that the CIA has had at least some of the Martino documents since at least June 2002 -- and indeed sent some of them to DGSE in late June. With the WMD frauds it's always helpful to check out the British angle from time to time. According to the ISC parliamentary report, the British Sept/02 dossier that made the infamous uranium-from-Africa claim relied on two ("independent") sources of intelligence, one acquired (conveniently!) in September 2002, the other -- the initial intelligence -- in June 2002.

Here is one good early analysis of the British intelligence. Hans points out that the June 2002 intelligence is the one that according to the ISC report was "based on documentary evidence" -- i.e. the forgeries (his inference IMO isn't totally watertight but still pretty damn likely). Hans thinks the Brits got the intelligence from the Italians, and then only the usual transcriptions/summaries. Perhaps -- given the patterns elsewhere, that's how one would certainly be at first inclined to read the facts. But note that June 2002 is the very time that Chouet claims Martino tried to sell DGSE the actual documents, and (coincidentally?) the very same time the U.S. allegedly sent DGSE some of the documents. So maybe MI6 got the documents themselves in June 2002. Maybe it's just the documents' "interpretation" that needed to be brokered with the original source, an "interpretation" that thereby became proprietary for that source.

Sorry if this are some basic flaws/errors here I'm ignoring -- it's late. :)

Oh, and I also think it's very telling that the US embassy in Rome declined to confirm one way or another when Burba explicitly asked them to verify the genuineness of the documents she'd just handed over to them.

eR,

I agree with much of your analysis. In particular, I think you're right that the CIA's behaviour upon receiving the Niger documents is extremely suspicious. However, I don't think your explanation for this behaviour, "that the CIA was already aware of the Niger forgeries and already had them in their possession", is the best explanation for the facts.

Up until early October, 2002, the CIA and the rest of the Intelligence Community act like how you'd expect intelligence services to run: they debate, they weigh evidence, they test theories, they butt heads with the administration, and most importantly, they collect and analyse intelligence. After October 6, when Tenet personally removed the uranium-from-Africa reference from the Cincinnati speech, all the debate, testing, collecting and analysing in the IC RE Iraq's WMDs seems to have stopped. The exception of course was WINPAC, but they only told the administration what they wanted to hear.

So, I think that the CIA didn't look at the documents, not because they had them already and knew they were forgeries, but because Bush had made his decision by this time and that was the end of it. I think CIA suspected the docs were forged (from the INR guy) but knew better than to try and find out for sure in case they actually were.

This behaviour, in fact, is not particular to the uranium-from-Africa intelligence. There's a pattern of shutting down analysis and collection of Iraqi WMD intelligence across the IC in early-October, 2002. The aluminium tubes are a good example. The CIA didn't bother to get the specs for the Italian Medusa rocket or run methodologically sound spin-tests until after the war had started. The CIA stopped trying to talk to Curveball. The INC defectors suddenly reappear despite their 'burn notices'.

Basically, after October, the CIA stopped asking questions. That's why they didn't check the documents.

What do you think?

Just to clarify my position: It might be the case that CIA got the docs earlier than October and from a source other than Burba, but I don't think you've established that here.

Hi Mary,
Very good point. I should update my post to weave that in.

Hi KM,

Absolutely valid points which I already planned to discuss in a subsequent post. Chouet's statement, when I went back and re-read it, was very precise and the guy explained away every possible objection to his claims convincingly. I am certainly convinced he was exactly on the money. Further, NESA's action on 8/1/02 helped tremendously - they pulled the claim from their report, despite the fact that nothing was mentioned in the Senate Report to indicate that anything happened between May and August for them to remove a claim they previously had in their report.

Hi FMJ,

The tubes analogy does not hold here for more than one reason.
If you look at my uranium/WINPAC piece, one thing you'll notice is that CIA NESA started to back away from the uranium claim in August 2002, not Oct 2002. (I'm going to mention that when I discuss Chouet). This would be right after the interactions with Chouet in the June/July 2002 timeframe. It is increasingly obvious why the SSCI Report has virtually nothing on the uranium matter between May and August 2002 --- a lot happened with the French which revealed the docs in their possession were forgeries and the SISMI reports were bogus.

More importantly, in the case of the tubes, Tenet put his backing behind WINPAC fraudster Joe early on, and the CIA leadership's view became that the tubes were likely for nuclear end-use. In the uranium case, Tenet made in very clear in early October 2002 - directly to the White House - that the CIA does not stand by the claim and got the WH to remove the claim from the Cincinnati speech. So, there is no reason to suspect that the CIA analysts downstream just gave up all analysis barely a few days later, because they thought it was a lost cause. If anything the removal of the claim from the Cincinnati speech must have made it clear to them that it was NOT a lost cause and it was worth fighting to get the claim off.

thanks eR for this and several previous posts i have read with interest.

and thanks to the commenters here

and to eR for taking the time to respond to commenters.

this back-and-forth on a very important topic is the web log world is at its best.

the back and forth here reminds me of one of my favorite activities

reading the letters column in the atlantic the issue after an author has published.

this back and forth gives wonderful

depth of perception.

thanks again to all participants.

eRiposte,

Thanks for the link. I either missed that one or just plain forgot about it. I should have known you'd already addressed that. Keep up the good work!

eR,

You make a compelling case. I'm not sure if I agree with you that CIA had the docs prior to October yet, but I'll wait til you post about Chouet.

orionATL,

It's pretty cool, huh? We can have honest disagreements because fundmentally we're all striving for the same thing: to find the truth.

It's the future of journalism. The blog-world at its best, indeed. :)