Josh Micah Marshall refers us to this widely noted Financial Times piece, which has identified the individual/forger behind the Niger/uranium documents that were passed to Italian journalist Elisabetta Burba. Only, JMM says, FT has it wrong:
My colleagues and I have reported on this matter extensively, spoken to key players involved in the drama, and put together a detailed picture of what happened. And that picture looks remarkably different from this account which is out today -- specifically on the matter of the origins of those forged documents and who was involved.That's. . . astonishing. I'm guessing this has something to do with the piece he's been collaborating on that stands to "shuffle the tectonic plates under th[e] capital city." I'm listening, anyway. Posted by Kriston at June 28, 2004 10:53 AMI cannot begin to describe how much I would like to say more than that. And at some later point in some later post I will do my best to explain the hows and whys of why I can't. But, for the moment, I can't.
Let me, however, offer a hypothetical that might help make sense of all this.
Let's say that certain individuals or organizations are responsible for some rather unfortunate misdeeds. And let's further postulate that such hypothetical individuals or organizations find out that some folks are on to them, that a story is in the works -- perhaps more than one -- and that it's coming right at them. Those individuals or organizations -- as shorthand, let's call them 'the bad actors' -- might well start trying to fight back, trying to gin up an alternative storyline to exculpate themselves and inculpate others. If that story made its way into the news, at a minimum, it might help the bad actors muddy the waters for when the real story comes out. You can see how such a regrettable turn of events might come to pass.
And yet if you look deeper into the stories, almost always the brits continue to defend their intelligence, having acknowledged the forgery, and that their intelligence preceded the forgery.
But it's not as much fun to actually talk about the actual yellowcake...
Posted by: j.scott barnard at June 28, 2004 11:17 AMThis is "astonishing" if in fact what Josh Marshall implies is true. Maybe it is - I'm listening to. But I'm holding off on my astonishment until he comes through with something substantive.
Posted by: BTD Steve at June 28, 2004 12:38 PMErm, listening "too."
By the way, I hate hate hate it when people correct minor typos in their comment postings. So, at this moment, I hate myself.
Posted by: BTD Steve at June 28, 2004 12:39 PMHa, ha. Me 2. But I've unfortunately gone and labelled my blog "Grammar.police" so I'm bound to catch shit about it one way or the other.
Most astonishing right now to me is that JMM would call out the FT on his blog. I don't know. . . he's either right or stupid.
Posted by: Kriston at June 28, 2004 12:51 PMI'm guessing the former, as you can tell he wants to spill the beans badly. Sounds like he (and a few others) have been working on this story for a while, and I'll bet they're pretty pissed to be pre-empted like this; it'll be interesting to see if this pushes up their release date. I'd imagine he'd have to be pretty confident to call out the FT like this...
Posted by: Mike D at June 28, 2004 1:38 PMI'm intrigued as well. Marshall is reasonably reliable, and it is clear he says some things he wants to say. So what's the holdup? Is he confirming a few final facts? We should still be cautious - if the intelligence services of multiple nations have gotten the Niger/uranium story wrong, it's certainly possible for a blogger to get it wrong, too.
Posted by: BTD Steve at June 28, 2004 3:27 PMI'm curious who he's working with, too. News reporters or other opinion-type journos? Five will get you ten it's Laura Rozen.
Posted by: Kriston at June 28, 2004 3:39 PMSpencer Ackerman too. Who we already know is collaborating with Rozen, and who guest-blogged TPM last week.
Apparently, Marshall and Ackerman are friends, and I don't see how that could have happened without some sort of professional collaboration. Given that Marshall is like in his late 30s with a doctorate, while Ackerman just graduated college two or three years ago.
Posted by: JP at June 29, 2004 12:39 AMYou're on the money, JP. I'm calling Ackerman/Marshall/Rozen, on 60 Minutes, with the candlestick.
Posted by: Kriston at June 29, 2004 7:43 AMHaha, I'll put five on that. Now the question is "When?"
Posted by: Mike D at June 29, 2004 11:24 AMyeah plus rozen is all sneaky here: http://www.warandpiece.com/blogdirs/000863.html
she totally knows what's up!
Posted by: catherine at June 29, 2004 1:57 PM