The Next Hurrah: Anatomy of a White House Smear, Redux: emptywheel reviews the Plame/CIA case. The article admittedly contains speculation but is juicy nonetheless.

Some of the more notable points: In September 2003, a "senior official [probably either Tenet or Powell] said the leaks [of the identity of covert CIA agent Plame] were "wrong and a huge miscalculation, because they were irrelevant and did nothing to diminish Wilson's credibility.""

The leaks certainly were a huge miscalculation, if they lead to indictments of Whitehouse officials, or uncovering of the Niger forgeries and other aspects of the neocon plot to make war against Iraq. We'll see.

Also: "There is now a lot of circumstantial evidence that Iran-Contra operative Michael Ledeen and Harold Rhode planted the Niger forgeries with SISMI, Italian intelligence. I think the original plan was just to plant the forgeries so friendly members of SISMI could funnel the intelligence--but never the documents--to the US. But as people within the US Intelligence Community continued to question the Niger claims, the plotters finally had to produce actual documents."

A neocon operative in Washington forged and planted documents in Italy so that they could be funnelled back to Washington to make the case for war against Iraq? If this were true, it is a real beauty, up there with Goering, Himmler and Heydrich's plot to bring down top German army commanders, or Operation Himmler (see also here) , Heydrich's staged attacks by 'Poles' against the Reich, allowing the Nazis to publicly claim the Reich had been attacked by Poland and thus had to 'defend' itself. And all the while, the Ministry of Propaganda or the Corporate Media has the poor public 'supporting' the Fuehrer or the troops in making war.

The Next Hurrah: Anatomy of a White House Smear, Redux: emptywheel reviews the Plame/CIA case. The article admittedly contains speculation but is juicy nonetheless.

Some of the more notable points: In September 2003, a "senior official [probably either Tenet or Powell] said the leaks [of the identity of covert CIA agent Plame] were "wrong and a huge miscalculation, because they were irrelevant and did nothing to diminish Wilson's credibility.""

The leaks certainly were a huge miscalculation, if they lead to indictments of Whitehouse officials, or uncovering of the Niger forgeries and other aspects of the neocon plot to make war against Iraq. We'll see.

Also: "There is now a lot of circumstantial evidence that Iran-Contra operative Michael Ledeen and Harold Rhode planted the Niger forgeries with SISMI, Italian intelligence. I think the original plan was just to plant the forgeries so friendly members of SISMI could funnel the intelligence--but never the documents--to the US. But as people within the US Intelligence Community continued to question the Niger claims, the plotters finally had to produce actual documents."

A neocon operative in Washington forged and planted documents in Italy so that they could be funnelled back to Washington to make the case for war against Iraq? If this were true, it is a real beauty, up there with Goering, Himmler and Heydrich's plot to bring down top German army commanders, or Operation Himmler (see also here) , Heydrich's staged attacks by 'Poles' against the Reich, allowing the Nazis to publicly claim the Reich had been attacked by Poland and thus had to 'defend' itself. And all the while, the Ministry of Propaganda or the Corporate Media has the poor public 'supporting' the Fuehrer or the troops in making war.