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More on "The Memo"
2003-11-18
deeper & deeper; from WaPo, one of the few places to say anything about this
The CIA will ask the Justice Department to investigate the leak of a 16-page classified Pentagon memo that listed and briefly described raw agency intelligence on any relationship between Saddam Hussein’s Iraqi government and Osama bin Laden’s al Qaeda terrorist network, according to congressional and administration sources. In addition, the leaders of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Chairman Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) and Vice Chairman John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), are considering making their own request for a Justice investigation. The top-secret memo was attached to an Oct. 27 letter to them from Undersecretary of Defense Douglas J. Feith. Feith was answering a request that he support his assertion during a closed-door hearing in July that there was intelligence to support a longtime relationship between the Iraqi leader and the terrorist group.

Excerpts from the memo were first published Saturday in the issue of the Weekly Standard dated Nov. 24. Under the headline "Case Closed," the article described the memo as documenting "an operational relationship from the early 1990s to 2003" between bin Laden and Hussein. It describes the memo as containing "50 numbered points" that are "best viewed as sort of a ’Cliff’s Notes’ version of the relationship. It contains the highlights, but it is far from exhaustive." In making their case for invading Iraq, President Bush, Vice President Cheney and other senior administration officials stressed both Hussein’s possession of weapons of mass destruction and his connection to bin Laden. To date, the administration has been unable to come up with unconventional weapons in Iraq or evidence that there was a close connection between the Iraqis and al Qaeda. A Washington Post poll in August found that 69 percent of the American public believed Saddam Hussein was connected to the attacks against the World Trade Center and the Pentagon.
That last sentence has nothing to do with what went before it. What people believe and what actually happened can be two different things...
A CIA request to Justice is automatic when classified information purported to come from the CIA is involved in an unauthorized disclosure. Under the normal referral system, a request would be made to Feith to determine who had access to the memo and what other distribution it may have had beyond the Senate committee. In a news release, the Defense Department late Saturday described the Feith memo as containing "either raw reports or products of the CIA, the NSA [the National Security Agency, which performs electronic intelligence intercepts] or in one case, the DIA [Defense Intelligence Agency]." The release said that leaking such a document "is deplorable and may be illegal."

One item reported in the Weekly Standard began, "According to CIA reporting, bin Laden and [top bin Laden deputy Ayman] Zawahiri met with two Iraqi intelligence officers in Afghanistan in Dec. 1998." Another item refers to "sensitive CIA reporting" about the Saudi National Guard going on alert in December 2000 "after learning Saddam agreed to assist al Qaeda in attacking U.S./U.K. interests in Saudi Arabia." In its Saturday release, the Pentagon took the unusual step of saying, "News reports that the Defense Department recently confirmed new information with respect to contacts between al Qaeda and Iraq . . . are inaccurate." The release also said the memo "was not an analysis of the substantive issue of the relationship between Iraq and al Qaeda and drew no conclusions."
Raw intel doesn't draw conclusions. It presents facts for people to use to draw conclusions...
A senior intelligence official said yesterday that the NSA and the DIA may make their own referrals to Justice, based on their analysis of the information disclosed from the Feith memo. While Stephen F. Hayes, author of the Weekly Standard article, concluded that "there can no longer be any serious argument about whether Saddam Hussein’s Iraq worked with Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda to plot against Americans," some critics of the administration policy came to a different conclusion. W. Patrick Lang, former head of the Middle East section of the DIA,
anybody know this guy? a Clinton appointee?
In that position he should be a civil servant...
said yesterday that the Standard article "is a listing of a mass of unconfirmed reports, many of which themselves indicate that the two groups continued to try to establish some sort of relationship. If they had such a productive relationship, why did they have to keep trying?"
Who said they had a productive relationship?
Another former senior intelligence official said the memo is not an intelligence product but rather "data points . . . among the millions of holdings of the intelligence agencies, many of which are simply not thought likely to be true."
but these are thought likely to be true, he added
Posted by:Spot

#11  That's o.k., S.H., Murat seems to be very quiet concerning this blockbusting news.

Wonder why?
Posted by: LeftEnd   2003-11-19 12:41:35 AM  

#10  The content that the Weekly Standard released certainly wasn't classified. Their article implied that they were in possession of Top Secret material. If they were given possession of a classified document, there should be heads rolling. If they were given a sanitized summary, there still should be an investigation and firing of the clowns involved. I would rather read Murat's barbs daily than know that I can't trust the folks that are holding Top Secret material.
Posted by: Super Hose   2003-11-18 9:10:23 PM  

#9  . W. Patrick Lang, former head of the Middle East section of the DIA,
anybody know this guy? a Clinton appointee?

There is an ex Spec Forces Col. that appears on "The News Hour" on PBS from time to time with that name...I think. He's introduced as a Middle East expert.
Posted by: Kentar   2003-11-18 2:39:40 PM  

#8  OP -- It's possible both documents were leaked by the same source. Imagine a Democrat who actually cares about national security -- there are a few -- getting sick and tired of watching his party's games.

These two leaks are a way of saying "GET SERIOUS!"
Posted by: Robert Crawford   2003-11-18 1:25:41 PM  

#7  The media completely denigrates the product coming out of the CIA in one breath, and in the next tries to take the administration to task for not listening to CIA warnings. So which is it? Or do the scumbags in the media merely want it both ways?
Posted by: Anonymous   2003-11-18 11:49:38 AM  

#6  This kind of leak is exactly why most US intelligence agencies don't like to send hard intelligence to Congress. Congress has a long track record of being leakier than the Titanic after the collision with the iceberg. To most congresscritters (sadly, on both sides of the aisle), politics is much more important than 'silly old prattling about national security'.

It's one thing to classify something in order to cover up wrongdoing (usually on the part of Congress or some government agency), and another to release classified information solely to prove a political point. Hopefully, this release won't lead to the deaths of any US agents.

I have to think, however, that this "leak" was in direct response to the leaked DEMOCRATIC memo about using the Senate Committee on Intelligence as a Democratic political process.
Posted by: Old Patriot   2003-11-18 11:44:36 AM  

#5  If the Weekly Standard is listing a mass of unconfirmed reports from the LAST 10 YEARS then the CIA hasn't been doing its' job, has it?

WP might be playing the memo down, but at least it was mentioned.
Posted by: Anonymous   2003-11-18 11:04:31 AM  

#4  Get Jack Nicholson in there:

"You cant handle the truth!"
Posted by: mojo   2003-11-18 10:43:37 AM  

#3  Somewhat paranoid world view, I expect, but I wonder if the main reason the Dems are mad is because it shows the utter hypocracy of the Dems "Bush lied to us".
Posted by: rabidfox   2003-11-18 10:20:24 AM  

#2  But of course! A leaked memo that makes the Democrats look bad is a crime; one that makes the administration look bad is front-page, around-the-clock news.
Posted by: Robert Crawford   2003-11-18 9:42:31 AM  

#1  of course, it was the leak, not the facts that disputed the "Bush lied!" meme that's most important. Walter Pincus was going out of his way in the WaPo to downplay the memo...
Posted by: Frank G   2003-11-18 9:15:27 AM  

00:00