[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.