Jan 02 2006
Risen Factually Challenged
Looks like we are going to treated to lots of James Risen with his new stab at America book coming out. Barnes and Noble has this to say about Risen’s book:
New Book by New York Times Reporter James Risen Reveals Covert Operations by the Bush Administration and the CIA
Translation: James Risen tips terrorists on how to evade capture.
But hopefuly Risen is as factually challenged as this snippet is:
A new book on the government’s secret anti-terrorism operations describes how the CIA recruited an Iraqi-American anesthesiologist in 2002 to obtain information from her brother, who was a figure in Saddam Hussein’s nuclear program.
Dr. Sawsan Alhaddad of Cleveland made the dangerous trip to Iraq on the CIA’s behalf. The book said her brother was stunned by her questions about the nuclear program because – he said – it had been dead for a decade.
For us non professional journalists, facts still count. As do historic timelines (as opposed to hysteric timelines). Saddam’s nuclear weapons program was discoverd in August 1995 by the defection of his son-in-law, Hussein Kamel. The destruction of the nuclear program materials found took months to complete.
Risen is obviously factually challenged. All he had to do was go to the IAEA and get their timeline to see that in 2002, the program which was still being dismantled was not dormant since 1992.
Why is it Risen is accurate when telling our national security secrets, but inaccurate in explaining Saddam Hussein’s???
AJ writes:
“Risen is obviously factually challenged. All he had to do was go to the IAEA and get their timeline to see that in 2002, the program which was still being dismantled was not dormant since 1992.”
That’s odd, because Michael Scheuer, a former CIA expert on Bin Laden, claimed in his 2002 book, Through Our Enemies’ Eyes that Iraq was trying to help Al Qaeda get nuclear weapons.
[Scheuer] offered startling conclusions regarding Saddam Hussein’s willingness to assist al Qaeda’s effort to obtain nuclear weapons. “In pursuing tactical nuclear weapons, bin Laden has focused on the FSU [Former Soviet Union] states and has sought and received help from Iraq,” wrote Scheuer. In fact, bin Laden’s “first moves in this direction were made in cooperation with NIF [Sudan’s National Islamic Front] leaders, Iraq’s intelligence service, and Iraqi CBRN [chemical-biological-radiological-nuclear] scientists and technicians.”
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/004/949ycflv.asp
“We know for certain that bin Laden was seeking CBRN weapons . . . and that Iraq and Sudan have been cooperating with bin Laden on CBRN weapon acquisition and development.”
[CIA Bin Laden expert Michael Scheuer in his 2002 book “Through Our Enemies’ Eyes”]
Here is an article about Risen’s earlier reporting
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/006/426viezs.asp
“On June 9, 2003 the New York Times published a piece by James Risen (“Threats and Responses: C.I.A.; Captives Deny Qaeda Worked With Baghdad”) that suggested that the Bush administration was being duplicitous in linking Iraq and al Qaeda. The Times relied on anonymous intelligence officials who explained that the two top al Qaeda operatives in custody (Abu Zubaydah and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed) told their CIA interrogators that the terrorist group had rejected the idea of working with Saddam. …
Two of the highest-ranking leaders of Al Qaeda in American custody have told the C.I.A. in separate interrogations that the terrorist organization did not work jointly with the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein, according to several intelligence officials.”
[But]
On July 7, 2004 the Senate Intelligence Committee published its “Report on the U.S. Intelligence Community’s Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq.” Many of the report’s passages, including those related to Abu Zubaydah’s debriefings, were ignored. Here is the complete passage regarding Zubaydah’s testimony:
The CIA provided four reports detailing the debriefings of Abu Zubaydah, a captured senior coordinator for al-Qaida responsible for training and recruiting. Abu Zubaydah said that he was not aware of a relationship between Iraq and al-Qaida. He also said, however, that any relationship would be highly compartmented and went on to name al-Qaida members who he thought had good contacts with the Iraqis. For instance, Abu Zubaydah indicated that he had heard that an important al-Qaida associate, Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi, and others had good relationships with Iraqi intelligence. [Redacted sentence(s)] During the debriefings, Abu Zubaydah offered his opinion that it would be extremely unlikely for bin Ladin to have agreed to ally with Iraq, due to his desire to keep the organization on track with its mission and maintain its operational independence. In Iraqi Support for Terrorism, Abu Zubaydah’s information is reflected as:
[Redacted] Abu Zubaydah opined that it would have been “extremely unlikely” for bin Laden to have agreed to “ally” with Iraq, but he acknowledged it was possible there were al-Qaida-Iraq communications or emissaries to which he was not privy. [emphasis added]
Abu Zubaydah’s denial was, therefore, not nearly as clear cut as the Times’s anonymous sources would have had us believe.
James Risen Traitor Book a Bomb?
According to Time Magazine – “caveat emptor”
Instant Karma!
The Time reviewer quotes Risen as saying he went to these sources
at a time when their frustration with the Bush Admin were at their peak. That is Risen reason that so many were willing “to risk their
careers to come forward”
Peak of their “frustration” and the risk to their “careers” was more
likely the confirmations of Goss to the CIA and Gonzales at Justice.