Suskind on Iraq

My good friend Greg Jackson was the researcher for Pulitzer prize winning journalist Ron Suskind's new book The Way of the World. If what Ron and Greg wrote in this book holds up under grand jury investigation, the President of the United States could be impeached.

The book claims that the CIA, on orders from the President, forged a letter between a former Iraqi intelligence chief named Habbush and Saddam which stated that Iraq and al-Qeada colluded to get uranium from Niger, and that 9/11 hijackers trained in Iraq. Suskind alleges that Habbush actually explicitly told CIA that Iraq had no WMD several months before the invasion of Iraq, and while publicly a wanted man, was actually a US-paid informant living in Amman.

Not only would this be the most outrageous government lie in modern history, but it would also be illegal. A 1991 amendment to a 1947 law governing the CIA forbids disinformation campaigns aimed at United States public opinion. There are no listed penalties for breaking this law, but one assumes it is an impeachable offense.

Suskind's main source, a CIA agent named Robert Richer, now denies his account. Others are speculating that the letter was forged, but it came not from the CIA, but from Doug Feith's Defense Intelligence shop, which would not be governed by the same laws.

By the way, the book is haunted with 'what might have been' if the Administration had actually finished the job in Afghanistan, focused on keeping America safe from loose nukes, and supported Bhutto and democracy in Pakistan.