The letter itself was handed by Ayad Allawi to the Sunday Telegraph's foreign editor and Chief MidEast reporter, Con Coughlin. Allawi is well known to be a paid operator who worked for years for the CIA, while Coughlin is known to be a source of a lot of NeoCon claptrap that has appeared in print over the years.
Specifically, Allawi was a longtime asset of the Central Intelligence Agency, which had funded his struggle against Saddam for years prior to the invasion. His CIA sponsorship is noted in nearly every news article about Allawi, usually contrasted with the Pentagon sponsorship of his political rival, Ahmed Chalabi, the infamous fabricator of WMD intelligence (and suspected double agent for Iran).And where was Allawi right before Coughlin broke the story of the Habash Letter?
On Dec. 11, 2003 -- three days before the Telegraph launched its "exclusive" on the Habbush memo -- the Washington Post published an article by Dana Priest and Robin Wright headlined "Iraq Spy Service Planned by U.S. to Stem Attacks." Buried inside on Page A41, their story outlined the CIA's efforts to create a new Iraqi intelligence agency:So RonSuskind has extensive tapes with sources in the CIA who were aware of the instructions from the White House to forge and plant the Habash Letter. (See the partial transcript Suskind has posted with Rob Richer.)Then we have a well-known CIA asset, Allawi, who the reporter Coughlin reports gave him the letter who oddly enough was in the U.S. working with the CIA (as was independently reported by Dana Priest and and Robin Wright of the Washington Post) immediately prior to the date the Telegram printed the letter.
"The new service will be trained, financed and equipped largely by the CIA with help from Jordan. Initially the agency will be headed by Iraqi Interior Minister Nouri Badran, a secular Shiite and activist in the Jordan-based Iraqi National Accord, a former exile group that includes former Baath Party military and intelligence officials.
"Badran and Ayad Allawi, leader of the INA, are spending much of this week at CIA headquarters in Langley to work out the details of the new program. Both men have worked closely with the CIA over the past decade in unsuccessful efforts to incite coups against Saddam Hussein." (The Web link to the full story is broken but it can be found on Nexis.) [Snip]
That picture becomes sharper in the months that followed Allawi's release of the Habbush forgery, when he suddenly returned to favor in Baghdad and eclipsed Chalabi, at least for a while. Five months later, in May 2004, the Iraqi Governing Council elected Allawi as his country's interim prime minister, reportedly under pressure from the American authorities. Combining subservience to the occupiers with iron-fisted tactics, he quickly squandered any popularity he might have enjoyed, and his INA party placed a humiliating third in the 2005 national elections.
Shortly after the letter was printed, the U.S. government pressured the Iraqis to appoint Allawi as interim Prime Minister. A payoff?
This is a story that supports Suskind's book. The Bush administration will clearly push back as hard as it can. This story, published by Ron Suskind, may well determine the legacy of George Bush and his administration. It comes down to a question of the relative reliability of the known liars in the Bush/Cheney administration against the reputation of a Pulitzer Prize winning reporter, Ron Suskind. The weight so far is heavily on Suskind's side. Any allegation that Suskind is wrong will be seen as coming from known liars and will very likely have been planted - much as was the Habash letter itself.
We will hear more about the Habash Letter. A lot more.
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