from Raw Story
Tape: Top CIA official confesses order to forge Iraq-9/11 letter came on White House stationery
John Byrne Published: Friday August 8, 2008
In damning transcript, ex-CIA official says Cheney likely ordered letter linking Hussein to 9/11 attacks.
A forged letter linking Saddam Hussein to the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks was ordered on White House stationery and probably came from the office of Vice President Dick Cheney, according to a new transcript of a conversation with the Central Intelligence Agency's former Deputy Chief of Clandestine Operations Robert Richer.
The transcript was posted Friday by author Ron Suskind of an interview conducted in June. It comes on the heels of denials by both the White House and Richer of a claim Suskind made in his new book, The Way of The World. The book was leaked to Politico's Mike Allen on Monday, and released Tuesday. read
from Raw Story
Book claims White House ordered faked letter to tie Saddam and 9/11 (AFP)
Published: Tuesday August 5, 2008
A new book by author Ron Suskind alleges that the White House ordered the CIA to fabricate a letter purportedly showing links between deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and the September 11, 2001 attacks.
The book, "The Way of the World," was immediately attacked by the White House, the CIA and former CIA director George Tenet who is alleged to have passed the White House order to senior CIA operators.
"There was no such order from the White House to me nor, to the best of my knowledge, was anyone from CIA ever involved in any such effort," Tenet said in a statement.
In an interview with National Public Radio, Suskind said his account came from the former head of the Near East Division, Rob Richard, and others "right in the thick of this operation."
"Tenet turns to Richard, as he remembers it, and says, 'Listen, Marine' -- Richard is a former marine -- 'you're not going to like this, but here goes."
According to Suskind, the White House gave Tenet a letter to be rewritten in the hand of Tarir Jallil Habbush, a former Iraqi intelligence chief in CIA protective custody after the 2003 US invasion.
The letter, dated July 2001, had Habbush saying Iraq had hosted Mohammed Atta, the lead September 11 hijacker, who "displayed extraordinary effort and showed a firm commitment to lead the team which will be responsible for attacking the targets that we have agreed to destroy," according to the book.
"The idea was to take the letter to Habbush and have him transcribe it in his own neat handwriting on a piece of Iraqi government stationery to make it look legitimate," Suskind wrote.
"CIA would then take the finished product to Baghdad and have someone release it to the media," he wrote.
The July 2001 dated letter surfaced in Britain in December 2003.
Suskind does not say who ordered it to be fabricated but claims it came from the "highest reaches" of the White House.
Mark Mansfield, a CIA spokesman, denied that the agency was involved in forging the letter, and dismissed the book in scathing terms as belonging in the "fiction section."
Tenet said: "It is well established that, at my direction, CIA resisted efforts on the part of some in the administration to paint a picture of Iraqi-Al Qaeda connections that went beyond the evidence.
"The notion that I would suddenly reverse our stance and have created and planted false evidence that was contrary to our own beliefs is ridiculous," he said.
The book also says a British intelligence official secretly met with Habbush before the war in Amman, and that Habbush told him that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction.
Suskind says President George W. Bush knew of the intelligence before the invasion.
Habbush was later resettled and paid five million dollars.
Book claims White House ordered faked letter to tie Saddam and 9/11 (AFP)
Published: Tuesday August 5, 2008
A new book by author Ron Suskind alleges that the White House ordered the CIA to fabricate a letter purportedly showing links between deposed Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein and the September 11, 2001 attacks.
The book, "The Way of the World," was immediately attacked by the White House, the CIA and former CIA director George Tenet who is alleged to have passed the White House order to senior CIA operators.
"There was no such order from the White House to me nor, to the best of my knowledge, was anyone from CIA ever involved in any such effort," Tenet said in a statement.
In an interview with National Public Radio, Suskind said his account came from the former head of the Near East Division, Rob Richard, and others "right in the thick of this operation."
"Tenet turns to Richard, as he remembers it, and says, 'Listen, Marine' -- Richard is a former marine -- 'you're not going to like this, but here goes."
According to Suskind, the White House gave Tenet a letter to be rewritten in the hand of Tarir Jallil Habbush, a former Iraqi intelligence chief in CIA protective custody after the 2003 US invasion.
The letter, dated July 2001, had Habbush saying Iraq had hosted Mohammed Atta, the lead September 11 hijacker, who "displayed extraordinary effort and showed a firm commitment to lead the team which will be responsible for attacking the targets that we have agreed to destroy," according to the book.
"The idea was to take the letter to Habbush and have him transcribe it in his own neat handwriting on a piece of Iraqi government stationery to make it look legitimate," Suskind wrote.
"CIA would then take the finished product to Baghdad and have someone release it to the media," he wrote.
The July 2001 dated letter surfaced in Britain in December 2003.
Suskind does not say who ordered it to be fabricated but claims it came from the "highest reaches" of the White House.
Mark Mansfield, a CIA spokesman, denied that the agency was involved in forging the letter, and dismissed the book in scathing terms as belonging in the "fiction section."
Tenet said: "It is well established that, at my direction, CIA resisted efforts on the part of some in the administration to paint a picture of Iraqi-Al Qaeda connections that went beyond the evidence.
"The notion that I would suddenly reverse our stance and have created and planted false evidence that was contrary to our own beliefs is ridiculous," he said.
The book also says a British intelligence official secretly met with Habbush before the war in Amman, and that Habbush told him that Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction.
Suskind says President George W. Bush knew of the intelligence before the invasion.
Habbush was later resettled and paid five million dollars.
Another 'Suicide' for servicemen who stopped the nukes from leaving Minot Air Force Base. This death brings it to seven.
The officer who commands an air force wing in Alaska has died of a gunshot wound that likely was self-inflicted, authorities said Monday.
Brig. Gen. Thomas L. Tinsley suffered a gunshot wound to his chest late Sunday night and was pronounced dead within a half hour, said Col. Richard Walberg, who assumed command at Elmendorf Air Force Base after Tinsley’s death.
The weapon was likely a handgun, Walberg said. (How can it be 'likely' when it was a suicide? What did he do, throw the gun away after he died?)
Medical responders who rushed to Tinsley’s home on base were unable to save him. Tinsley’s wife and college-age daughter were home at the time.
Tinsley was named base commander in May 2007. He had served as an F-15 instructor pilot, F-15C test pilot, wing weapons officer, exchange officer and instructor with the Royal Australian Air Force.
His previous 22-month assignment was executive officer to the Air Force chief of staff, Gen. T. Michael “Buzz” Mosely, who resigned in June under pressure in an agency shake-up.
Mosely, the Air Force military chief, and Air Force Secretary Michael W. Wynne, the agency’s civilian head, were held accountable for failing to fully correct an erosion of nuclear-related performance standards. One concern was a cross-country flight in August of a B-52 carrying armed nuclear weapons.
Walberg said Tinsley was not under investigation or undue stress.
“As far as stress, sir, this job, by nature of being an Air Force officer in a nation at war, is stressful,” he said. “Undue stress, no.”
Representatives of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology will do a report and declare whether Tinsley’s cause of death was suicide, Walberg said. Such reports take about 30 days.
read the story
The officer who commands an air force wing in Alaska has died of a gunshot wound that likely was self-inflicted, authorities said Monday.
Brig. Gen. Thomas L. Tinsley suffered a gunshot wound to his chest late Sunday night and was pronounced dead within a half hour, said Col. Richard Walberg, who assumed command at Elmendorf Air Force Base after Tinsley’s death.
The weapon was likely a handgun, Walberg said. (How can it be 'likely' when it was a suicide? What did he do, throw the gun away after he died?)
Medical responders who rushed to Tinsley’s home on base were unable to save him. Tinsley’s wife and college-age daughter were home at the time.
Tinsley was named base commander in May 2007. He had served as an F-15 instructor pilot, F-15C test pilot, wing weapons officer, exchange officer and instructor with the Royal Australian Air Force.
His previous 22-month assignment was executive officer to the Air Force chief of staff, Gen. T. Michael “Buzz” Mosely, who resigned in June under pressure in an agency shake-up.
Mosely, the Air Force military chief, and Air Force Secretary Michael W. Wynne, the agency’s civilian head, were held accountable for failing to fully correct an erosion of nuclear-related performance standards. One concern was a cross-country flight in August of a B-52 carrying armed nuclear weapons.
Walberg said Tinsley was not under investigation or undue stress.
“As far as stress, sir, this job, by nature of being an Air Force officer in a nation at war, is stressful,” he said. “Undue stress, no.”
Representatives of the Armed Forces Institute of Pathology will do a report and declare whether Tinsley’s cause of death was suicide, Walberg said. Such reports take about 30 days.
read the story
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