sorry, couldnt resist

Ledeen’s “concoction” had the small effect of having Cheney bypass the Italian station chief and force the CIA to investigate the matter seriously.

So why do you think Ledeen’s motives were to “concoct” a story? Isn’t it more likely that an old friend asked him to Italy to check out some information. After seeing this, Ledeen informs his chain of command which by-passes the local station chief making it an issue for the CIA? Hardly Machiavellian.

The article itself attepts to explain the US motivations

Wolfowitz convinced Dick Cheney that the uranium trail intercepted by the Italians had to be explored top to bottom.

This is the first time that I’ve seen this link explicitly stated anywhere. If there is hard evidence that Ledeen went to Rome to concoct the Niger document fiasco at the behest of the OSP, then there’s an even more direct link back to the Cheney/Rumsfeld cabal than the secret meeting with Stephen Hadley. Come on, there are neocon fingerprints all over these Niger documents.

But please do “catch me next time”, as I would hate to miss your lovely condescending attitude letting me know how enjoyable it will be to watch when I finally see the light that obviously emanates from the holy crown of knowledge resting upon your head.

Laugh with ya next time.

So you have “…These attempts ultimately fail” becoming “…nobody in the US was fooled,…”.

And then you have “SISMI’s success in fooling the US is hardly a reflection on Rice and Bush & Co. as the…US intelligence service is mostly a mockery…” becoming “the CIA is to blame”.

You are obfuscating what I said to make your own straw man. I said the US was fooled into taking the forgeries seriously enough to investigate and that they were ultimately proven false. This would be the US intelligence’s “fault” if you can fault them for taking an allied intelligence agency seriously.

Bush’s SOTU did not take the forgeries into account, and the case for war did no rest upon them. Although, the forgeries, even though false, did lead to more evidence of Iraq’s attempts to obtain uranium via Joe Wilson’s testimony to Congress (although he left that tidbit out of his NYT’s article).

Is my head still on at right angles? Or do you still think your misconstrued summation correct?

Isn’t it the case that the forgeries are so obvious that they can’t have been the work of a professional intelligence service? Unless, perhaps, that service was deliberately trying to produce something that would be detectable as a forgery.

I mean, they have nonexistent dates. Make up a date at random, what are the chances of it being the 31st of a month with 30 days?

Who would know the name of a particular Nigerien minister, without being able to check the dates he was in office? A Niger resident might possibly make that mistake, noone else would.

soru

Dantooine was far too remote to make an effective demonstration ….
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No.

On this issue, he’s justly ridiculed for pretending that it’s all too complicated.
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In comment #11 that the Bush administration was fooled, so the CIA is to blame. And, naturally, the Bush administration is blameless.

Jet, some people have described you as a troll, but you’re more of a puzzle. You write in complete sentences, yet your head’s on at right angles. At some point I’m sure the scales will fall, and I hope you don’t choose to stop posting here when that happens. It’ll be painful for you, but interesting to watch.