Jumping in the Wayback Machine...
When the Plame Name Blame Game story broke back in 2003, a lot of interesting questions were raised, some of which we only dimly remember today. Here's my favorite from then, which I just remembered this morning...
Who forged the Niger yellowcake documents?
This may be a thread waiting to be pulled, one that could unravel the whole story.
Remember how the story works...
- CIA gets copies of the Niger yellowcake documents (from Italian spooks, iirc)
- Wilson is sent to Niger to investigate.
- Wilson returns and says unequivocably that the memos are false, there is no Niger-Iraq connection.
- After some internal debate, the "16 words" are added to Bush's
STFU SOTU address.
- UN inspectors announce the debunking of the Niger documents about five minutes after they stop laughing at them.
- We invade Iraq anyway.
- Mission Accomplished.
- Wilson goes public with his story.
- White House shops the Plame story around.
- Novak outs Plame.
- etc.
Now, scroll back to step 1, and note that we're missing a step 0 -
Someone forged the yellowcake documents. Moreover, someone forged them
poorly - the UN weapons inspectors debunked them within hours, due to flagrant errors.
So, who forged the documents, when were they forged, and why? Interesting questions, no? I'm not going to offer answers, because I'm basically ignorant of the facts. I'm just raising questions.
But being a good Kossack conspiracy theorist, here's a few suspects. Discuss amongst yourselves.
- Bushco. The docs were an internal forgery that the CIA wasn't SUPPOSED to investigate.
- Chalabi. Hey, he made up plenty of other evidence to get us to put him in power in Iraq!
- Mossad. Get the US to invade!
- Iraq. Yes, Iraq. The pufferfish defense, trying to make themselves look bigger and more dangerous than they actually were. Or trying internally to convince Saddam there was a nuke program when there really wasn't.
- The Saudis. See Mossad.
I'm sure y'all can come up with more potential players and motives. Just remember, these were
crappy forgeries, full of mistakes and holes. I think that argues against real pros like Mossad, and toward amateurs like Chalabi and Iraq. Then again, I'm ignorant.