I resist conspiracy theories with all my gusto, but the undisputed convergence of all these players in the Plame/Cheney/fake-intelligence fiasco, IS downright CHILLING. Unfortunately, the under-reported
December 2001 meeting in Rome finally removes this whole "Plame conspiracy" case from the realm of "theory." Perhaps we could just call it "amazing
cooperation" among people in the "neo-con" universe.
A must read article on the Niger Forgeries by former UPI intelligence reporter Richard Sale, is the most efficient yet at describing the time line and connections between all these right wing nut jobs, who somehow, incredibly, managed to bypass nearly the entire American military and intelligence establishments.
The bottom line in all this is that Dick Cheney created his own amateur intelligence "agency" (hey, like the Reagan crew!) operated it out of the White House, fed his own twisted version of "intelligence" directly into the feeble mind of G.W. "no nation building" Bush, and precipated their own personal Mid-East war. More...
The scary fact is that Dick Cheney (and his "neo-con" associates around the world) were SO SURE of their own dillusions, that they went around the "professionals" (yes, much like they avoid those idiot "scientists" who promote "global warming") and created an "intelligence" entity that existed only to confirm their nutty PREVIOUSLY HELD beliefs.
We may fairly call this "Faith Based Foriegn Policy," or even the deliciously self-canceling "Faith Based Intelligence."
Cheney, Libby, Michael Ledeen (the Fascistophile expert who literally wrote the book, and links them all, including Karl Rove) Pentagon "special planner" Doug Feith, his aide Larry Franklin (currently UNDER INDICTMENT accused of espionage for Israel) "conservative" elements of Italian intelligence SISMI who literally brought us the fake Niger documents, and even Iran-Contra figures, all attended, or knew about, that December 2001 meeting in Rome, that even the CIA knew nothing about!
Google the above names, and those that may well surface in the coming indictments, like Larry Franklin, Stephen Hadley, Harold Rhode, David Wurmser, Eliot Abrahms, Manucher Ghorbanifar (yes, THAT Ghorbanifar, of Iran-Contra fame) and you will have a field day exploring their long association and whacky agenda for the world (especially the mid-east) that LONG PREDATES the events of 9/11
The fact that Fitzgerald is SHARING evidence with the Larry Franklin prosecutor on the Niger forgeries should be sending reporters scurrying to expose the links between these guys. But so far precious little has emerged about the larger history and agenda of this group that people casually call "neo-cons."
That Cheney was essentially running his own personal intelligence agency was widely reported before the last election, and even brought up vaguely by Kerry in the debates. But it was so successfully denied by Cheney, and sufficiently ignored by the press, that there was never any real national debate about the wisdom of the Vice President single handedly running American intelligence.
And it has never really been made clear why, with the almost complete opposition to the invasion of Iraq by the American military, intelligence agencies, and even old guard Republicans like Colin Powell and Brent Scowcroft (none of whom could be accused of being mushy-headed liberal pacifists) a handful of people were able to push us into war anyway.
Dr. Strangelove finally became a reality. These guys didn't even need to drop The Bomb (yet) to complete the take over.