[source: Washington Post, March 22]
CIA OFFICIALS DOUBTED DOCUMENTS
LINKING IRAQ TO EFFORTS
TO PURCHASE URANIUM FROM NIGER,
and communicated those doubts
to the Bush Administration,
reports the Washington Post,
but President Bush nevertheless
cited the allegations in his State of the Union address.

"There is a possibility that the fabrication of these
documents may be part of a larger deception campaign aimed at
manipulating public opinion and foreign policy regarding Iraq,"
Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV (D-WV) wrote to FBI Director Robert Mueller on March 13.

Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) sent a letter to
President Bush on March 15, asking "why you and senior officials
in the administration presented the evidence to the U.N. Security
Council, the Congress, and the American people without disclosing
the doubts of the CIA."

The Post reports that intelligence officials also have doubt
about administration charges regarding the broader Iraqi program
of producing weapons of mass destruction.

"I have seen all the stuff. I certainly have doubts,"
says an unnamed senior official with access to intelligence.
Based on material he has reviewed,
he says that he expects the U.S. to "face significant problems in
trying to find" such weapons.

A former intelligence officer told EIR last week that there
is a widespread belief that Israel was involved in the forgery.
"Whenever they say `a third country,' and don't name the country,
there's a good chance that it is Israel," he said.

[source: veteransforcommonsense.org]

WAS RICHARD PERLE INVOLVED IN IRAQ DOCUMENT FORGERY?

The group of former CIA intelligence officers who have formed
"Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) sent a
letter to President Bush last week, protesting the abuse of
intelligence reporting by Administration officials.

Pointing to
the forged documents purporting to link Iraq to purchases of
enriched uranium, the letter states: "We find ourselves wondering
if amateur intelligence operatives in the Pentagon basement
and/or at 10 Downing Street were involved and need to be called on the carpet."

Noting the absence of any enthusiasm in the Administration
for determining where the forgery came from, they write:

"The lack of any strong reaction from the White House feeds the
suspicion that the US... was somehow involved in, or at least
condones, the forgery...."

Referring to the other evidence the Administration
claims to have, showing Iraq to be continuing its
nuclear weapons program, they note:

"Others believe the
`evidence' to be of a piece with the forgery--in all likelihood
crafted by Richard Perle's Pentagon Plumbers."

[source: New York Times, March 23]

CIA OFFICIALS COMPLAINING OF PRESSURE OVER IRAQ REPORTS.
Analysts at the CIA are complaining about the pressure they have
been put under, to make their intelligence reports conform to the
Bush Administration's policies on Iraq.

The forged Iraq-Niger
documents have fueled the renewed complaints, many of which
center on Administration efforts to link Iraq to Al Qaeda.

"A lot
of analysts have been upset about the way the Iraq-Al Qaeda case
has been handled," says one intelligence official.

Several analysts have become so frustrated
that they are considering leaving the CIA.