SSCI Leaks

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Update: Jeff is correct. This is not the SSCI report, it’s a second report, sponsored by the Pentagon.

An exhaustive review of more than 600,000 Iraqi documents that were captured after the 2003 U.S. invasion has found no evidence that Saddam Hussein’s regime had any operational links with Osama bin Laden’s al Qaida terrorist network. The Pentagon-sponsored study, scheduled for release later this week, did confirm that Saddam’s regime provided some support to other terrorist groups, particularly in the Middle East, U.S. officials told McClatchy. 

Which pretty much invalidates what I’ve said below. Thanks for straightening me out, Jeff. 

Boy, you guys sure like to talk about smutty governors, don’t you?

I’m still watching all the leaks coming out about the SSCI report–everyone with decent intelligence sources seems to have gotten a leak. I’m interested in the focus Warren Strobel gives to the story; he focuses very closely on the lack of any real ties between Al Qaeda and Iraq.

The new study of the Iraqi regime’s archives found no documents indicating a "direct operational link" between Hussein’s Iraq and al Qaida before the invasion, according to a U.S. official familiar with the report.

He and others spoke to McClatchy on condition of anonymity because the study isn’t due to be shared with Congress and released before Wednesday.

I wonder whether this is getting leaked now in another attempt to pre-empt Cheney’s attempts to game declassification.

You see, in one of the earlier reports on Iraq the SSCI did, Cheney’s office twice prevented information pertaining to Cheney’s claims about Mohammed Atta and Iraq from being declassified. While I don’t have the report in front of me (you’ll have to take my word, for now), it had to have been since 2006, because the Democrats put a big note next to the redaction saying something to the effect of, "Dick Cheney won’t let us declassify this even though it is not technically classified."

Given that, in the past, Cheney was particularly anxious to have his lies about Al Qaeda’s ties to Iraq be hidden, I wonder whether he isn’t already chumming up Kit Bond to make sure it happens again. Of course, SSCI will look even stupider if they don’t declassify this than they did when they offered the telecoms immunity, because the news that Cheney lied will have already been all over the news.

Or it would have been, if Eliot Spitzer could have just stayed away from the high priced call girls.

23 replies
  1. perris says:

    Or it would have been, if Eliot Spitzer could have just stayed away from the high priced call girls.

    this is tuesday, we can create the firestorm of blogdom if you like

    • MarieRoget says:

      Blogstorm sounds like a plan, since the blanketing Spitzer coverage is MSM’s excuse to kick this under the carpet.

      Never knew much except the headlines about Eliot Spitzer, but now that I’ve read up on him, I’m doubting he’ll resign quickly so the news cycle can start to backburner his story. IMO Spitzer will resign soon only if he deems it’s the best thing for Spitzer.

  2. alank says:

    Ah, so the report has only been leaked, not officially released. There is the opportunity for Cheney to go unclassified>classified>won’t declassify. How did he do that the first time? I forget what was said here about that process.

    • perris says:

      Ah, so the report has only been leaked, not officially released. There is the opportunity for Cheney to go unclassified>classified>won’t declassify. How did he do that the first time? I forget what was said here about that process.

      it was pixie dust, powerful stuff

  3. AZ Matt says:

    … because the news that Cheney lied will have already been all over the news.

    I am sure he didn’t mean to do it. He will pray to the Conservative GOP Jesus and be forgiven.

  5. Slothrop says:

    McClatchy stories don’t get the juice they should get, but that’s because of its “outside-the-beltway” status.

    Also, “Cheney lied” stories are old news in whatever new frame appears.

    • GeorgeSimian says:

      I agree. Everybody knows that they lied. Providing proof isn’t going to change anything at this point. They will call it old news and challenge Congress to do something about it – ie. impeach them – which they won’t do.

      So Bush and Cheney will look bad again. But let’s stack it up on the pile. Gas hit 107. The Surge is flailing. The economy is tanking. Etc, etc.

      We can say “I told you so” a million times, but nobody likes it when you say “I told you so”, and Bush used to have 80% popularity. So there’s a lot of people who don’t want to be told “I told you so.”

  6. Jeff says:

    I believe the report McClatchy is reporting on is not the SSCI report, but rather one commissioned by the Pentagon.

  7. Neil says:

    It *is* news SSCI published Phase II but is it news that Cheney falsely claimed a direct operational link between Saddam’s Iraq and al Qaida before the US invasion? Is the SSCI Phase II report even the first authoritative source that’s debunked the Iraq/al Qaida alliance claim because I thought this was old news.

    Between Spitzer’s walk of shame, rehashing Vitter and Craig, and debating whether the Clinton campaign politics are damaging Obama’s chances, even though he has a marginal lead, there seems to be no oxygen in the MSM to discuss titillating leaks from Phase II. …And then came Emptywheel with her fine-tooth comb.

    • GeorgeSimian says:

      It doesn’t matter if it is the first authoritative source, they’ll call it “old news”.

      Anyway, they admitted making mistakes. We know they broke the law, but as long as Congress refuses to do anything, it will be “old news”.

  11. klynn says:

    EW,

    Enjoy the ocean view…

    O/T Did you read Lichtblau today re FISA?

    Instead of blanket immunity, the tentative proposal would give the U.S. courts special authorization to hear classified evidence and decide whether the phone companies should be held liable. House Democrats have been working out the details of their proposal in the last few days, officials said, and expect to take it to the House floor for a vote on Thursday.

    The Democrats’ proposal would fall far short of what the White House has been seeking.

    President George W. Bush has been insisting for months that Congress give retroactive immunity to the phone companies, calling it a vital matter of national security. The Senate gave him what he wanted in a vote last month that also broadened the government’s eavesdropping powers.

    But House Democratic leaders have balked at the idea.

    More here:

    http://www.iht.com/articles/20…..11fisa.php

  12. klynn says:

    O/T

    LOVED this story too!

    The Justice Department announced guidelines Monday to prevent the sort of conflict-of-interest accusations that followed its decision to steer a private contract worth tens of millions of dollars to former Attorney General John Ashcroft to monitor a large out-of-court settlement.

    The announcement came on the eve of scheduled congressional testimony by Ashcroft to explain the circumstances of the no-bid 18-month contract, worth $28 million to $52 million, that calls for him to monitor a settlement between the government and an Indiana medical supply company.

    Until now, the Justice Department has allowed individual federal prosecutors who do not work in Washington to select outside lawyers to monitor out-of-court settlements involving large companies, with the companies paying the monitors’ fees.

    Under the new guidelines, the monitors must now be chosen by a committee and approved in Washington by the office of the deputy attorney general, the department’s No. 2 official.

    The timing of the announcement appears intended to undercut some of the criticism of Ashcroft and the department that is expected to emerge Tuesday at a hearing of the House Judiciary

    More here:

    http://www.iht.com/articles/20…..hcroft.php

  13. PetePierce says:

    Boy, you guys sure like to talk about smutty governors, don’t you?

    We like to talk more about smutty DOJ who is using banking data and the US Attorneys as tools to prosecute Democrats.

    Bank Data Is Sifted by U.S. in Secret to Block Terror

    Targeting bad Democrats

    Amnesty is essential for the Bush administration not only to protect itself after illegal wiretapping, but to perpetuate the platform they have setup now to use Herbert Hoover’s method of taking down political opponents.

    Glenn writes:

    As this week’s red-district election to Congress of anti-telecom-amnesty candidate Bill Foster demonstrates, they’re not doing these things because it’s politically necessary. They’re doing it because more than enough Democrats believe in the virtues of telecom amnesty and warrantless eavesdropping — just as they believe in the continued occupation of Iraq, the abolition of habeas corpus, the “enhanced interrogation techniques” authorized by Military Commissions Act, concealing Bush’s illegal eavesdropping programs, and a long array of other radical Bush policies that now have bipartisan Congressional support.

  14. Mary says:

    18 – that cracked me up – centralization of cronyism is far better than allowing a 92 (or is it 93?) office dispersion of cronyism. Oh yeah, all those great torture advocate, FISA felon DAGs who have walked the halls at DOJ these last few years, they would have prevented all that cronyism and politica hiring and firing and … Yeah. Right.

    On the Pentagon report, there is a huge gap. It’s the same gap that has been in everything I’ve seen so far. That gap is the “intelligence” touted by Powell at the UN – the “source” that “gave” the information about Hussein training al-qaeda.

    The gap is the torture-to-Cheney’s-spec of al-Libi.

    All the pages from all the sources, and no one talks about that specific allegation made by Powell. No one talks about the torture success there – the ‘non-ticking, no time bomb, but we need false information so we can go bomb babies and send American soldiers to be blown up’ success of the torture of al-Libi.

    Com’on. Where are the brave men and women who should stand up and, if only behind a screen with altered voice, take their patriotic bow and reap their just praises for that episode?

    Every death in Iraq, every torture, every orphan, the destruction of the American military – where are the brave patriots, lined up to get their medals for that?

    I mean, surely those paragons of literary excellence – Feith, Tenet, Goldsmith – surely they’ve raced to explain who can claim the glory?

    Yeah, right.

  15. orionATL says:

    i read this post this am

    all day long this sentence has been nagging at me:

    “Boy, you guys sure like to talk about smutty governors, don’t you?”

    why?

    because that was the whole point of having the spitzer news show up on this monday, wasn’t it?

    for the bush administration

    the spitzer “affair” is just like

    – the arrest of the “dirty bomber”

    – or that of the miami voodoo cult of haitians,

    – or that of the “we’ll cut up the brooklyn bridge with propane torches” gang,

    – or the admin flashing “code orange” every time there was a lesser political embarrassment looming.

    that’s what the release of spitzer “affair” info at this time is all about –

    turning heads

    misdirecting.

    while the defense department publishes a report that says that a central underpinning of the invasion of iraq had not a smidgen of info to validate it,

    the nation is focusing on where and when gov spitzer pulled out his dick.

    if i were spitzer’s defense attorney

    i would make some claims right now,

    and i would make them publicly, loudly, and repeatedly

    – that the news story of the gov’s behavior was released to the news media around monday mar 10

    by the bush justice department

    for the specific purpose of drawing media attention away from

    the far more important story that the bush administration,

    and v.p. dick cheney in particular

    had knowingly, and repeatedly, lied to the american people

    about a collusion between saddam husein and the saudi al quaeda in pre-invasion iraq.

    – and that the bush administration,

    deliberately targeted a democratic governor

    using its self-ordained, and illegal, powers of eavesdropping on phone conversations, e-mails exchanges, and bank accounts

    which that admin had claimed were to be used solely for the purpose of fighting terrorism,

    for political purposes.

    if i were spitzer i would not resign without a fight.

    and in addition to the above arguments,

    i would publicly offer to resign,

    only in the company of

    sen david vitter and sen larry craig,

    en masse.

    let’s see how the bush admin likes them apples –

    and how much more damage to the justice dept/fbi this administration will engage in

    or how much more damage doj shepard mukasey will allow.

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