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Suskind's Sources Deny Book's Forgery Charge; Suskind Has Sources On Tape?

Submitted by JonathanSchwarz on Wed, 2008-08-06 20:11.

Last night Countdown read statements from Ron Suskind's two main named sources for the charge in his new book that the White House ordered the CIA to forge a letter from Iraq's intelligence chief to Saddam Hussein. Rob Richer, the former head of the CIA's Near East Division, spoke for both himself and John Maguire:

“I never received direction from George Tenet or anyone else in my chain of command to fabricate a document from Habbush as outlined in Mr. Suskind‘s book.

Further, today, I talked with John Maguire, who has given me the permission to state the following on his behalf, ‘I never receive any instruction from then Chief/NE Rob Richer or any other officer in my chain of command instructing me to fabricate such a letter. Further, I have no knowledge to the origins of the letter and as to how it circulated in Iraq.”

And here's some of Suskind's response:

OLBERMANN: Why do you believe they‘re backtracking now?...

SUSKIND: You know, I‘m sympathetic in a way to all these guys. They‘re under acute pressure. They‘re individuals. They‘ve got to feed their families. They really survive off the government, both of them, they‘re contractors and whatnot...

[T]hey may still stand up—and Maguire, I think, will still stand up in daylight...

You know, these guys, though, are feeling now great pressure. And, you know, what you realize in this process is that there is a limit to what a journalist can do even with taped interviews, people talking for hours at a time, when they can be brought into a moment of crisis by the government saying, “You‘ll never work again, you‘ll never earn a living.” That‘s the kind of thing that mostly happens in terms of what congressional hearings do testimony under subpoena with threat of perjury.

OLBERMANN: Well—and that‘s what we need. But in the interview, I presume the Maguire and Richer interviews are on tape, is that right?

SUSKIND: You bet, yes. And there‘s a lot of them. They‘re very detailed.

The obvious questions now are whether Suskind will release any of his interview tapes, and whether there will be any congressional investigation with witnesses testifying under oath.

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Something's mixed up, the CIA would not ever lie to the public

Submitted by channing on Wed, 2008-08-06 22:32.

Obviously, someone's got something really mixed up here.

First, the CIA does not lie to the public, just ask G HW Bush and Karl Goebbels Rove! (unless of course it's deliberate misinformation targeting large swaths of public opinion)

Second, there is no precedent of the CIA ever attempting to cover up High Crimes (unless those "bad apples" were also appointed by those accused)

Thirdly, Bush may be naive but he's got a good heart and would never appoint people who would protect him from Criminal liability or the light of Justice (unless it was made perfectly clear by Nancy "Give-Away-the-Constitution" Pelosi that Congress would avoid High Crimes Prosecutions through Taking Impeachment Hearings Off the People's Table)

And finally, just because Bush said something sounding like "authorization" to these "bad apples" doesn't mean he really meant to authorize Forgeries, False-Flags, Public Lies, political assassinations, stonewalling, conflicts of interest or cronyism.

See? The People's case against a Criminal Cabal in the Executive Office just doesn't pass the smell test and the CIA is Proof of that... You heard their Denial didn't you? I just can't support a Congress Distracted by this when they have such important work to do selling each other half-measures of mutually-profitable substance without that annoying accountability crap of the last couple centuries.

ixoxi

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Wolf and Suskind

Submitted by dikyzr on Thu, 2008-08-07 01:18.

From the 8/6/08 installment of Blitzer Follies on CNN:

WOLF: So, should GWB be impeached?

RONALD SUSKIND: I think he should be investigated.

There you have it from the guy with the latest smoking gun.
What a putz! He values his connections to DC cocktail parties over answering "the magic question."

Burn his book....

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Every leak is a good leak...

Submitted by channing on Thu, 2008-08-07 02:26.

Your pessimism may be justified, however, when Suskind said, "I think it should be investigated.", the highest authority in the land authorized to the task of investigating a rogue Executive is Congress, and that investigation is conducted through the Laws of Impeachment. Impeachment is an Investigation first, Trial second. He didn't say "no" to Impeachment and it didn't sound like he was averse to Congressional Impeachment. Had Blitzer pressed for clarification he would have been doing his job as a journalist and we all know Wolf Blitzer is not paid to uncover truth.

Impeachment as you know has been Suspended as a Law by Nancy Pelosi, so any talking about that Speaker-Suspended Law is a talk about hypothetical rather than Active Crimes, and we can't talk about the here and now, now can we?

We have to ignore the distracting framing provided by a CNNer, and dwell instead on the fact that we may be able to obtain recordings and other evidence that made it Out of the White House 'fence'. The more evidence we can identify the more likely the prosecution of the War Criminals in the White House. Every leak is a good leak coming from the Bush White House! Nancy may even think she's helping War Criminals escape (with its rewards), but there are larger people and principles than her, and one day soon she'll realize she's been identified too as we seek to established whether she knowingly aided and abetted them, and that shouldn't be too hard to prove one way or the other. She better have one hell of an alibi though.

ixoxi

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