United for Peace of Pierce County, WA - We nonviolently oppose the reliance on unilateral military actions rather than cooperative diplomacy.

Pulitzer Prize-winning nvestigative journalist and author Ron Suskind said Tuesday on the Huffington Post web site that the U.S. had access to reports from Iraqi Intelligence Chief Tahir Jalil Habbush before the March 2003 invasion and heard from him that Saddam Hussein had no WMDs, but the U.S. "deep-sixed the intelligence report in February, 'resettled' Habbush to a safe house in Jordan during the invasion and then paid him $5 million in what could only be considered hush money."[1] -- Later, the U.S. used Habbush to forge a letter allegedly written in July 2002 "saying that Atta trained in Iraq before the attacks and that Saddam was buying yellow cake for Niger with help from a 'small team from the al Qaeda organization,'" and the CIA then successfully used the letter in an illegal disinformation campaign. -- Raw Story gave more details, and posted video of Suskind's appearances on NBC and CBS on Tuesday, the day Suskind's new book making the charges, The Way of the World: A Story of Truth and Hope in an Age of Extremism, was published.[2] -- The New York Times is ignoring this story; the Washington Post reported the story on page 2, emphasizing denials and doubts about sources.[3] -- A reader commenting on the Washington Post wrote: "Very good interview of Suskind on NPR today. He says he has tapes of the CIA agents discussing the letter and the order the CIA received, which was carried to the CIA by Tenet himself from the White House, ordering the production of the forgery. The White House can call the allegations 'absurd,' but as Suskind points out, that's not the same as saying 'Absolutely NOT, we did NOT order anyone to forge a letter.' It may come down to Tenet having to fall on his well-used sword again, if this matter ever is properly investigated and the principals questioned under oath." -- Scarcely a single reader of the Washington Post disbelieves Suskind, if readers' responses are any guide. -- That Democrats in Congress are unwilling to consider impeachment in these circumstances beggars belief....

What just happened? Evidence. A secret that has been judiciously kept for five years just spilled out. All of what follows is new, never reported in any way:

The Iraq Intelligence Chief, Tahir Jalil Habbush -- a man still carrying a $1 million reward for capture, the Jack of Diamonds in Bush's famous deck of wanted men -- has been America's secret source on Iraq. Starting in January of 2003, with Blair and Bush watching, his secret reports began to flow to officials on both sides of the Atlantic, saying that there were no WMD and that Hussein was acting so odd because of fear that the Iranians would find out he was a toothless tiger. The U.S. deep-sixed the intelligence report in February, "resettled" Habbush to a safe house in Jordan during the invasion and then paid him $5 million in what could only be considered hush money.

In the fall of 2003, after the world learned there were no WMD -- as Habbush had foretold -- the White House ordered the CIA to carry out a deception. The mission: create a handwritten letter, dated July 2001 from Habbush to Saddam saying that Atta trained in Iraq before the attacks and that Saddam was buying yellow cake for Niger with help from a "small team from the al Qaeda organization."

The mission was carried out, the letter was created, popped up in Baghdad, and roiled the global newcycles in December 2003 (conning even venerable journalists like Tom Brokaw). The mission is a statutory violation of the charter of the CIA, and amendments added in 1991, prohibiting the CIA from conducting disinformation campaigns on U.S. soil.

So, here we go again: the administration is in full attack mode, calling me names, George Tenet is claiming he doesn't remember any such thing -- just like he couldn't remember "slam dunk" -- and reporters are scratching their heads. Everything in my book is on the record, with many sources. And so, we watch and wait...

SUSKIND: BUSH ORDERED FAKE LETTER LINKING IRAQ TO 9/11
By David Edwards and Nick Juliano

A blockbuster new book from investigative journalist Ron Suskind adds another revelation to the growing canon demonstrating the lengths to which President Bush and members of his administration lied, misled, and deceived the American people to pursue its invasion of Iraq.

Bush allegedly ordered the CIA to forge a handwritten letter from the head of Iraq's intelligence service to Saddam Hussein that purported to link the Iraqi dictator to the ringleader of the hijackers who toppled the Twin Towers on 9/11, according to news accounts of Suskind's new book, The Way of the World: A Story of Truth and Hope in an Age of Extremism. Such use of an intelligence service to influence domestic political debate could be an impeachable offense, Suskind writes.

Politico's Mike Allen reports: "According to Suskind, the administration had been in contact with the director of the Iraqi intelligence service in the last years of Hussein’s regime, Tahir Jalil Habbush al-Tikriti.

"'The White House had concocted a fake letter from Habbush to Saddam, backdated to July 1, 2001,' Suskind writes. 'It said that 9/11 ringleader Mohammad Atta had actually trained for his mission in Iraq -- thus showing, finally, that there was an operational link between Saddam and al Qaeda, something the Vice President’s Office had been pressing CIA to prove since 9/11 as a justification to invade Iraq. There is no link.' [...]

"The author claims that such an operation, part of 'false pretenses' for war, would apparently constitute illegal White House use of the CIA to influence a domestic audience, an arguably impeachable offense."

The faked letter was first reported as genuine by the conservative London Sunday Telegraph in December 2003. Right-wing commentators and Bush defenders harped on that disclosure as evidence of Saddam Hussein's involvement in the 9/11 attacks. According to Suskind's book, the CIA had been protecting Habbush in the early months of the invasion; the agency persuaded the Iraqi intelligence chief to write the letter in his own handwriting and paid him $5 million.

CBS White House correspondent Bill Plante reported Tuesday that Suskind's sources had seen a draft of the letter written on White House stationary.

Suskind outlined his findings further in a Huffington Post diary Tuesday: "The Iraq Intelligence Chief, Tahir Jalil Habbush -- a man still carrying with $1 million reward for capture, the Jack of Diamonds in Bush's famous deck of wanted men -- has been America's secret source on Iraq. Starting in January of 2003, with Blair and Bush watching, his secret reports began to flow to officials on both sides of the Atlantic, saying that there were no WMD and that Hussein was acting so odd because of fear that the Iranians would find out he was a toothless tiger). The U.S. deep-sixed the intelligence report in February, 'resettled' Habbush to a safe house in Jordan during the invasion and then paid him $5 million in what could only be considered hush money.

"In the fall of 2003, after the world learned there were no WMD -- as Habbush had foretold -- the White House ordered the CIA to carry out a deception. The mission: create a handwritten letter, dated July, 2001, from Habbush to Saddam saying that Atta trained in Iraq before the attacks and the Saddam was buying yellow cake for Niger with help from a 'small team from the al Qaeda organization.'

"The mission was carried out, the letter was created, popped up in Baghdad, and roiled the global newcycles in December, 2003 (conning even venerable journalists with Tom Brokaw). The mission is a statutory violation of the charter of CIA, and amendments added in 1991, prohibiting CIA from conduction disinformation campaigns on U.S. soil."

The Way of the World is Suskind's third book on the inner workings of the Bush administration, joining The One Percent Doctrine, which outlined the often extreme anti-terror policies advanced by the likes of Vice President Dick Cheney, and The Price of Loyalty, which painted a picture of the early day's of Bush's presidency with the help of ousted former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill.

Predictably, the White House is unhappy with Suskind's latest offering and the Bush administration is relying on its trademark push-back of insulting the messenger. White House spokesman Tony Fratto insulted Suskind, who won a Pulitzer Prize for his work with the Wall Street Journal, as a practitioner of "gutter journalism," and called the allegations "absurd."

Such a reaction is merely aimed at downplaying the impact of Suskind's explosive revelations, the author says.

"So, here we go again: the administration full attack mode, calling me names, George Tenet is claiming he doesn't remember any such thing -- just like he couldn't remember 'slam dunk' -- and reporters are scratching their heads," Suskind writes at Huffington Post. "Everything in the book is on the record. Many sources. And so, we watch and wait...."

Suskind appeared Tuesday on NBC's Today Show for interviews about the latest book.

The Bush administration joined former top CIA officials in denouncing a new book's assertion that White House officials ordered the forgery of Iraqi documents to suggest a link between Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and the lead hijacker in the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

The claim was made by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Ron Suskind, whose book The Way of the World also contends that the White House obtained compelling evidence in early 2003 that Iraq possessed no significant stocks of nuclear or biological weapons but decided to invade the country anyway.

Suskind, who has written two previous investigative books that contained criticism of Bush administration policies, described the alleged forgery as a deliberate "misusing of an arm of government, the kind of thing generally taken up in impeachment proceedings." White House condemnations of the book were equally dramatic, with officials blasting it as "gutter journalism." In separate statements, several former and current CIA officials disputed portions of the account, including two named by Suskind as key sources.

"The notion that the White House directed anyone to forge a letter . . . is absurd," said White House deputy press secretary Tony Fratto.

The book's most contentious claims involve Tahir Jalil Habbush, the former head of intelligence in Saddam Hussein's government in the years before the U.S.-led invasion in March 2003. As the deadline for war neared, U.S. and British intelligence officials arranged a series of secret meetings with Habbush in early 2003 and confronted him regarding their concerns about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.

In those private meetings, Habbush explained why U.N. weapons inspectors had been unable to find evidence of active Iraqi WMD programs: There were none. According to Suskind, Habbush said Saddam Hussein had ended Iraq's nuclear weapons work after the first Persian Gulf war in 1991, and halted biological weapons research in 1996.

Habbush's accounts were shared with top officials at the CIA and the White House, where they were dismissed as Iraqi deception. In subsequent meetings, Suskind writes, intelligence officials prodded Habbush for proof that the weapons programs had been abandoned.

"Ultimately, Habbush could not offer proof that weapons that didn't exist, didn't exist," Suskind wrote.

After the invasion, Habbush was paid $5 million by the CIA for serving as an informant and resettled in Jordan. It was then, according to Suskind's account, that White House officials decided to enlist his help with the alleged forgery -- one suggesting a link between Saddam Hussein's government and Mohamed Atta, the leader of the 19 hijackers in the Sept. 11 attack. The administration, and particularly Vice President Cheney, had long argued that such a link existed but that the CIA had failed to find supporting evidence. Claims by a captured al-Qaeda official of links to Hussein were later determined to be false.

Suskind states that in September 2003 the White House directed then-CIA Director George J. Tenet to concoct a fake letter, backdated to July 2001 but bearing Habbush's signature, claiming that Atta had been trained in Iraq for his mission. Habbush agreed to sign the letter, which was then leaked to a British journalist in December 2003, Suskind writes in the book.

The author quotes two former CIA officials -- Robert Richer and John Maguire, veterans of the CIA's operations division -- as sources for the account. But the two men, in a statement to the Washington Post, disputed Suskind's account that they had been tasked with producing the forgery.

"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," Richer said in an e-mail.

"I have no knowledge to the origins of the letter," Maguire said in the same statement.

Suskind said he stands by his account, which he said was based on many hours of interviews in which sources "laid out the story bit by bit." Many of the interviews were taped, he said. Suskind added that he understood "the enormous pressure that can be brought to bear" on sources who formerly worked for the government and still have professional ties.

Tenet acknowledged the prewar contacts with Habbush but denied that the agency or the White House ignored vital evidence.

"There were many Iraqi officials who said both publicly and privately that Iraq had no WMD -- but our foreign intelligence colleagues and we assessed that these individuals were parroting the Ba'ath party line and trying to delay any coalition attack," he said in a statement. "The particular source that Suskind cites offered no evidence to back up his assertion and acted in an evasive and unconvincing manner."

"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," he said. "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."