landgazing

Yesterday, I blogged about Tyler Drumheller, a CIA chief (and 26-year veteran of the agency) involved in the intelligence operation regarding allegations of Iraq seeking uranium from Niger, and now I’ve read something more disturbing.
 
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/11927856/page/2/
 
Essentially, it tells about a high-ranking Iraqi government official (not ‘Curveball’) who the CIA paid to get Iraqi military secrets. Drumheller, in the 60 Minutes interview, was asked if they could trust this guy. They said they “validated him the whole way through.” Hmm…
 
The source was Naji Sabri, Iraq’s foreign minister under Saddam.
 
I haven’t heard much about this story, except that a conservative blogger recalled a speech he gave to the U.N. in which he blasted the U.S. as a Zionist occupier. Yet, he was reading a letter written by Saddam Hussein.
 
Anyway, it turns out that this guy on the whole was more accurate than the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate. From the above story:
 
“On the issue of chemical weapons, the CIA said Saddam had stockpiled as much as “500 metric tons of chemical warfare agents” and had “renewed” production of deadly agents. Sabri said Iraq had stockpiled weapons and had “poison gas” left over from the first Gulf War. Both Sabri and the agency were wrong.”
 
However, it turns out Sabri was right about Saddam’s inability to build nukes AND his nonexistent biological weapons program.
 
Drumheller alleges the White House lost interest in the source after they heard what he had to say. Drumheller mentions that Condi Rice said Sabri was only one source and there were many others, although they relied on single sources regarding other areas. So this raises the question: Why shouldn’t they have gone to war when only one source said that Saddam essentially didn’t have WMDs? Read on…
 
Drumheller said he was told it was now about ‘regime change,’ recalling the 1998 Iraq Liberation Act. However, if you read the act:
 
“Nothing in this Act shall be construed to authorize or otherwise speak to the use of United States Armed Forces (except as provided in section 4(a)(2)) in carrying out this Act.”
 
What is in that section?
 
“The President is authorized to direct the drawdown of defense articles from the stocks of the Department of Defense, defense services of the Department of Defense, and military education and training for such organizations.”
 
That does not sound like the President was given sole discretion to use decisive force.
 
Soon after, documents popped up in Rome that seemed to prove the opposite - that Iraq had purchased uranium in Niger. However, the Italian reporter who got hold of them thought they were forgeries. The documents were given to the U.S. Embassy. The CIA station chief in Rome and Drumheller, who the station chief worked for, thought something smelled fishy. So did the State Department. So did the National Intelligence Council that oversees all U.S. intelligence agencies. They submitted a final report to the White House that concluded the story was false. However, it must be mentioned that the NIC also heads up the effort to produce the infamous intelligence estimates that were so infamously wrong.
 
Weeks later, Bush told the nation the British government discovered Iraq was trying to get uranium from Africa. What? So either they thought our intelligence was wrong (why?), they didn’t know or they didn’t care. The British government said their intelligence was credible but haven’t disclosed it, presumably because it is classified. In the Butler Report (the British report which investigates this very matter) they concede the documents weren’t available to them. And the administration didn’t know this? They didn’t think to check? The report also says the CIA “agreed that there was evidence that [uranium from Africa] had been sought.” George Tenet, then-head of the CIA, said he ran with the story because he felt the CIA had not investigated it thoroughly. What about the State Department? What about the National Intelligence Council? What about Drumheller? What about the CIA section chief in Rome? And what about Carlton Fulford, Jr.?
 
Fulford was a Marine General, deputy commander of the United States European Command (EUCOM), and Africa was in his purview. In February 2002, at the behest of the American ambassador to Niger, he was sent to investigate general concerns about possible procurement of uranium by al-Qaida. He learned of the many controls and international monitoring of the industry, and sent a report to Washington asserting such. Fulford says he never again was asked to look into these concerns before he stepped down in December 2002. He also didn’t get wind of any efforts to acquire uranium ore from Somalia or Congo, which the NIE also mentioned, although Somalia was outside EUCOM’s area of responsibility.

I am puzzled as to why Drumheller’s story hasn’t gotten more traction. All of this has dire implications for our nation, and if what is suggested here is true, we cannot allow this matter to continue unexamined. Controversy easily molded itself around Joseph Wilson, but would it just as easily gel around what is ostensibly a straight-talking former CIA man? In light of what has surfaced, cries of “honoring the soldiers” and “Consitutional obligations” would be groundless when the policy was a geopolitical experiment whose outcome was all but certain.