A Mediterranean Battlefield - Syria

[Jan Klimkowski]

I woke up this morning to BBC Radio 4's flagship current affairs Today banging on about Syrian state media being a lying propaganda operation.

They then spoke to Daily Telegraph "foreign correspondent" Con Coughlin and asked him to explain what was happening in Syria, without even the hint of an interrogatory question.

Which prompts two thoughts:

i) the hypocrisy of the BBC in criticizing Syrian state media operation for peddling propaganda and then putting up Con Coughlin;

ii) the historical record of when Coughlin surfaces.

See for instance his role in MSM coverage of the Habbush letter:

In late 2003, in a front-page exclusive story, Coughlin revealed a leaked intelligence memorandum, purportedly uncovered by Iraq's interim government, which detailed a meeting between Mohamed Atta, one of the September 11 hijackers, and Iraqi intelligence at the time of Saddam Hussein.[10][11] The memo was supposedly written by Iraqi security chief General Tahir Jalil Habbush al-Tikriti to the president of Iraq. The report was subsequently challenged with American officials also reiterating that there was no such link.[12]

The Daily Telegraph's exclusive report was picked up and repeated by several conservative columnists in the United States, including syndicated columnist Deroy Murdock[13] and William Safire.[14]

More here:

Ron Suskind allegation

According to Ron Suskind in his 2008 book The Way of the World:

The White House had concoted a fake letter from Habbush to Saddam backdated to July 1, 2001. It said that 9/11 ringleader Mohammed Atta had actually trained for his mission in Iraq . . . The letter also mentioned suspicious shipments to Iraq from Niger set up with al Qaeda's assistance. The idea was to take the letter to Habbush and have him transcribe it in his own neat handwriting on a piece of Iraq government stationery, to make it look legitimate. CIA would then take the finished product to Baghdad and have someone release it to the media. [11]

Suskind goes on to describe what happened next. Richer talks to Maguire, a CIA Iraq expert, who says that this plan will not work - Habbush will not sign anything himself because the insurgency would harm his family. This, by Suskind's account, leads to the White House telling the CIA directly to hand write the letter itself. Suskind's book says that this new order then passed down eventually to the Iraq Operations Group for it to be carried out. Maguire left for Baghdad to help run the CIA station there and was not involved directly in the mission, other than discussing the mission with Richer.

Suskind's evidence includes, according to an interview he gave on August 7, 2008, on-the-record statements from two CIA agents, Robert Richer and John Maguire, and others. He also claims to have tape recorded statements to back up his claims.[12]

According to the tape recorded interview with Richer, former CIA deputy chief of clandestine operations, Richer saw a letter on White House stationery, passed down the ranks of the CIA through George Tenet, then-CIA director, "probably" to James Pavitt, the Deputy Director of Operations, who passed it to his chief of staff, who passed it to Richer. Richer said that the letter might or might not have come from the vice president's office, but he wasn't sure. The letter described what the White House wanted Habbush to say in a forged letter. Suskind published a partial transcript on his web site on August 8.[13]

In a taped interview on the Fox News program Hannity & Colmes,[14] which aired on August 15, 2008, Suskind said, "We are putting up all the transcripts. They're on my Web site, and I think they're all over the Internet at this point."

On August 5, 2008, the White House issued the statement on behalf of George Tenet, Robert Richer and John Maguire, addressing Suskind's allegation. Tenet said:

It is well established that, at my direction, CIA resisted efforts on the part of some in the Administration to paint a picture of Iraqi-Al Qa'ida connections that went beyond the evidence. The notion that I would suddenly reverse our stance and have created and planted false evidence that was contrary to our own beliefs is ridiculous.[15]

The CIA issued its own statement on August 22, 2008 saying that Suskind's allegations regarding Habbush "did not happen",[16] and Tenet followed the same day with a second statement saying that Suskind's charges were "demonstrably false in every regard."[17]

Suskind also contends that Habbush, who still carries a $1 million reward for his capture and appears as the Jack of Diamonds on the US military's deck of most-wanted Iraqi playing cards, was secretly resettled in Jordan by the CIA with $5 million in US taxpayers money.

[edit] Philip Giraldi allegationFormer CIA officer Philip Giraldi, writing in The American Conservative, has claimed to have a reliable source who tells him that Suskind's basic story about the White House ordering the forgery is correct, but some of the detail is wrong.[18] His source claims that Dick Cheney ordered the forgery, but not from the CIA, instead using the Office of Special Plans, an office created by Donald Rumsfeld and run by Douglas Feith.[19]

Giraldi writes that "Tenet is for once telling the truth when he states that he would not have undermined himself by preparing such a document while at the same time insisting publicly that there was no connection between Saddam and al-Qaeda."[18]

[edit] Subsequent reactionsProfessor Juan Cole posits that Habbush crafted the letter himself, and that the CIA "authenticated" it in bad faith through onetime asset Ayad Allawi whom journalist Con Coughlin contacted to vouchsafe the document's authenticity after it was leaked to him.[20]

Author Joe Conason noted that Ayad Allawi had visited CIA headquarters in Langley just days before speaking with Con Coughlin of the Telegraph.[21]

Con Coughlin, in a blog post highly critical of Suskind, confirmed that he had indeed received the letter from Ayad Allawi. He also calls the letter a 'leak' and says he got it in November 2003, in Baghdad.[22]

[edit] Congressional investigationThe House Judiciary Committee is now[when?] investigating the allegations. Chairman John Conyers stated, "I am particularly troubled that the decision to disseminate this fabricated intelligence is alleged to have come from the highest reaches of the administration. The administration's attempt to challenge Mr. Suskind's reporting appears to have been effectively dismissed by the publication of the author's interview recordings and transcripts. I have instructed my staff to conduct a careful review of Mr. Suskind's allegations and the role played by senior administration officials in this matter."[23]

Something is clearly in the air....