I Liked This Stuff Better When Tom Clancy Wrote It

I don't quite know what to say about the tectonic plate–shifting story regarding suspected Israeli mole, Larry Franklin, that evolved over the weekend, but check out this summary version by Josh Marshall, Laura Rozen, and Paul Glastris here.

Here it seems we have another instance of Marshall's and Rozen's story getting scooped, although it sounds as if we're getting close to a revelation (a second one) regarding the forged Niger yellowcake documents. What do yellowcake and Larry Franklin have in common? Search me, but of particular interest is this December 2001 meeting in Rome featuring a Hogan's Alley of suspicious elements, including Larry Franklin (the potential Israeli spy), Harold Rhode ("a polyglot Middle East expert"), Manucher Ghorbanifar (Iranian arms dealer; sinister Iran contra player), and Michael Ledeen (American Enterprise Institute neocon, apparently working in some consultancy capacity for Douglas Feith):

The meeting was a source of concern for a series of overlapping reasons. Since the late 1980s Ghorbanifar has been the subject of two CIA "burn notices." The Agency believes Ghorbanifar is a serial "fabricator" and forbids its officers from having anything to do with him. Moreover, why were mid-level Pentagon officials organizing meetings with a foreign intelligence agency behind the back of the CIA -- a clear breach of US government protocol? There was also a matter of personal chagrin for Sembler: At State Department direction, he had just been cautioning the Italians to restrain their contacts with bad-acting states like Iran (with which Italy has extensive trade ties).

According to U.S. government sources, both the State Department and the CIA eventually brought the matter to the attention of the White House -- specifically, to Condoleezza Rice's chief deputy on the National Security Council, Stephen J. Hadley. Later, Italian spy chief Pollari raised the matter privately with Tenet, who himself went to Hadley in early February 2002. Goaded by Tenet, Hadley sent word to the officials in Feith's office and to Ledeen to cease all such activities. Hadley then contacted [US Ambassador to Italy, Mel] Sembler, assuring him it wouldn't happen again and to report back if it did.

You couldn't write this stuff if you tried—Jack Kelley's copy for USA Today wasn't this good and he was making shit up. I can't quite wrap my head around it yet but suffice it to say I see reason enough to be skeptical of the Financial Times version of the Niger/SISMI documents origination.

Who's going to connect the dots? (So you know, unsubstantiated rumor-mongering is the norm around here. If you knew what I know about the Olympic Committee. . . .)

Posted by Kriston at August 30, 2004 11:41 AM