Stones Cry Out

Yeah...I suspected this story would be buried somewhere deep...thanks for reminding us.

In one respect you are right, although for the wrong reason. "Don't expect that this information will be brought out by Fitzgerald's investigation" because it's an accusation, not an "admission". An obvious explanation for why the MSM hasn't repeated your xenophobic charge is because there is good reason to believe the Italians are trying to shift the blame to the French. It is reckless and irresponsible for you to accuse the French of faking evidence, and it is hypocritical considering there is ample evidence that own government knowingly disseminated the misinformation contained in the Niger forgeries to an unwitting and frightened American public.

You are both an apologist and an enabler for high crimes against our country.

...because it's an accusation, not an "admission"
The whole "outing a covert CIA operative" was just an accusation until it was investigated. But you apparently think these forgeries aren't worth investigating. And it is reckless and irresponsible for you to suggest that the government disseminated information from the forgeries, when Bush himself said that it was British intelligence that he was using; intelligence, mind you, that they stand by to this very day.

Take off the blinders, man. Get the whole story before making accusations.

Thanks for expressing my opinions for me rather than waiting for me to convey my thoughts. Only you got it wrong. I fully support an investigation. Funny how we were supposed to get one a year ago about the forgeries and the administration's use of intelligence in the runup to the war. But Pat Roberts, head of the Senate Intelligence Committee, never followed through on his promise. From what you wrote, you must support the Democrats' move on Monday to force the Senate to investigate. You might want to be careful about what you wish for:
SEPTEMBER 2001 – WHITE HOUSE CREATES OFFICE TO CIRCUMVENT INTEL AGENCIES (NewYorker): http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?031027fa_fact
JANUARY, 2002 – TENET DOES NOT MENTION IRAQ IN NUCLEAR THREAT REPORT (New Republic): http://www.globalpolicy.org/security/issues/iraq/unmovic/2003/0630selling.htm
FEBRUARY 6, 2002 – CIA SAYS IRAQ HAS NOT PROVIDED WMD TO TERRORISTS (NYT): http://www.embargos.de/irak/post1109/english/terror_acts_waned.htmhttp://www.embargos.de/irak/post1109/english/terror_acts_waned.htm
SEPTEMBER, 2002 – DIA TELLS WHITE HOUSE NO EVIDENCE OF CHEMICAL WEAPONS: http://www.iraqwatch.org/government/US/Pentagon/us-dod-iraqchemreport-060703.htm
SEPTEMBER 20, 2002 – DEPT. OF ENERGY TELLS WHITE HOUSE OF NUKE DOUBTS (NYT): http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/bush/tunes.htm
OCTOBER 2002 – 3 MONTHS PRIOR TO STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS, CIA DIRECTLY WARNS WHITE HOUSE OF DOUBTS THAT SADDAM SOUGHT URANIUM FROM NIGER (WaPo): http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0723-05.htm
LATE 2002-EARLY 2003 – CHENEY PRESSURES CIA TO CHANGE INTELLIGENCE (Newsweek, 7/28/03)

As to Bush referring to British intelligence, he only did that in the State of the Union address. Similar claims were publicly made by Cheney and Rice in which the British were not mentioned. Even your limited scenario does not absolve Bush of responsibility. If the British got it wrong, Bush can't just blame them. His administration has a reponsibility to verify information before basing policy on it. As I said in my comment on your Oct 28 post, the British were relying on the same bogus documents that the Bush administration had seen. The CIA rejected their veracity, but members of the White House Iraq group, including Cheney, felt very Machiavellian about how the public should be convinced to support the war. So Bush included bogus information derived from bogus documents in his State of the Union address.

First of all, Roberts and John D. Rockefeller have been getting briefed on the FBI's investigation into this very issue. The FBI is the appropriate place for this. This has been going on, according to the article, for two years.

Secondly, the MSM routinely reports on accusations of all sorts. This one, for some reason, is being handled differently by them. If it turns out that France, in addition to illegally profiting from trade with Hussein, was also trying to toss a monkey wrench into the intelligence stream, this would hurt anti-war activists badly (which is my bet for why the difference in handling) who made common cause with Chirac, who himself was fine with the murderous ways of Hussein as long as he could still get some cash of it.

The CIA has really been the wild card in all of this, and I do mean 'wild'. The Clinton-appointed Tenet ran an agency that was positively manic; from "slam-dunk" to serious concerns. I understand well that the intelligence raised doubts along the way to the war, but those doubts had to overcome other intelligence that said that Hussein did have them, not the least of which was the fact that he'd actually used them. As early as 1998, samples of soil clandestinely gathered shows that Hussein was working with one of the main ingredients of VX nerve gas. Doubts as you get nearer to a major decision are nothing new, but again, there was loads of evidence in the affirmative that had to be overcome. That evidence was certainly enough for Bill Clinton to take some limited action, though it didn't really deal with the underlying problem; Hussein himself.

I've covered the "bogus documents" thing in my other response to you in this thread, so I'm not going to reiterate that. But you do need to remember that regime change in Iraq was our policy in this country when George Bush signed the Iraq Liberation Act.

Oh. Sorry, got that wrong. That was Clinton who signed it. You can thank George Bush, however, for implementing that policy. The Act was introduced as "A bill to establish a program to support a transition to democracy in Iraq", and we're well on the way to that.