Book:  Iraq evidence was White House forgery

Keith Olbermann Anchor, 'Countdown' • Profile

In a Countdown cable exclusive, journalist Ron Suskind talks to Keith Olbermann about the allegations in his book, "The Way of the World," which suggests there was no evidence linking Saddam Hussein to al-Qaida, so the White House ordered the CIA to forge a letter to justify the Iraq war.

Below is a transcript of their conversation.

KEITH OLBERMANN, HOST, COUNTDOWN: If you scoff at the thought that the American government might actually try to create a forged document to establish a link between Saddam Hussein and the 9/11 attacks and thus an excuse to invade Iraq, some snippets of history to consider as we begin our fifth story, our cable exclusive interview with the author reporting this in his new book, Ron Suskind.

Fake government documents created by the Soviets were used against President Reagan, and President Carter, and President Eisenhower, and Nelson Rockefeller, and Secretary of Defense Weinberger and the police commissioner of New York City, and the U.S. ambassador of the United Nations.

The French faked their own government documents in the Dreyfus case, and forged Napoleon’s signature to use against President Madison.  There were the SISMI documents, the Tanaka memorandum, and most pertinent to our purposes here, the Italian Niger Yellow cake uranium forgery.

Ron Suskind in a moment.  First, the details of what he has written in “The Way of the World” published today.  The Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, writing that before the March 2003 invasion of Iraq, President Bush already knew that Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction, something that did not stop him from ordering the invasion anyway.

Suskind speaking on the record with U.S. intelligence officials, who told him that in early 2003, in secret meetings with British intelligence, Saddam’s own intelligence chief, Tahir Jalil Habbush, revealed that Iraq, in fact, did not have weapons of mass destruction, information that was passed on to the CIA.

When that information was then passed on to Mr. Bush, author Suskind says, the president became frustrated and said of Habbush, quote, “Why don’t they ask him to give us something we can use to help us make our case?”

Habbush then held weekly meetings with British intelligence, telling them that Saddam had no WMD stockpiles and no active nuclear, chemical or biological weapons programs.

When all this was shared with CIA Director George Tenet, he said, quote, “They’re not going to like this downtown,” downtown being the White House.  It sounds like a police drama.

“The White House then buried the Habbush Report.  They instructed the British that they were no longer interested in keeping the channel open.

Rob Richer, the CIA’s Near East Division head, telling Suskind again on the record, quote, “Bush wanted to go to war in Iraq from the very first few days he was in office.  Nothing was going to stop that.”

Now, for the smoking gun about the smoking gun that was never a smoking gun.  CIA division head, Richer, is telling Suskind that not only did the order to forge a fake letter come from the White House, but the assignment had been written on creamy White House stationary.

“The White House had concocted a fake letter from Habbush to Saddam, backdated to July 1, 2001.  It said that 9/11 ring leader , Mohammed Atta had actually trained for his mission in Iraq—thus showing finally that there was an operational link between Saddam and al Qaeda, something the Vice President’s Office had been pressing CIA to prove since 9/11 as a justification to invade Iraq.  There is no link.”

Another CIA official, John Maguire who oversaw the Iraq operations group also is confirming the existence of the forged letter to author Suskind, but Mr. Richer backtracking for both of them tonight in a statement to MSNBC, quote, “I never received direction from George Tenet or anyone else in my chain of command to fabricate a document from Habbush as outlined in Mr. Suskind’s book.

Further, today, I talked with John Maguire, who has given me the permission to state the following on his behalf, ‘I never receive any instruction from then Chief/NE Rob Richer or any other officer in my chain of command instructing me to fabricate such a letter.  Further, I have no knowledge to the origins of the letter and as to how it circulated in Iraq.”

The letter, whatever its origins, was passed in Baghdad to Con Coughlin, a reporter for the “Sunday Telegraph” of London who wrote it about in the front page of his newspaper on December 14^th, 2003, the same day that Saddam Hussein was discovered in his hiding hole in Iraq.  That day, Mr. Coughlin describing the significance of his find to Tom Brokaw on “MEET THE PRESS.”

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, DECEMBER 14, 2003)

CON COUGHLIN, SUNDAY TELEGRAPH:  It’s an intelligence document written by the then head of Iraqi intelligence, Habbush to Saddam.  It’s dated the 1^st of July, 2001.  And it’s basically a memo saying that Mohammed Atta has successfully completed a training course at the house of Abu Nidal, the infamous Palestinian terrorist, who, of course, was killed by Saddam a couple of months later.

Now, this is the first, really, concrete proof that al Qaeda was working with Saddam.  It’s a very explosive development, Tom.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

OLBERMANN:  Not true, but explosive.

As we mentioned Ron Suskind, the author of “The Way of the World: The Story of Truth and Hope in an Age of Extremism”—welcome.

RON SUSKIND, AUTHOR, “THE WAY OF THE WORLD”:  Nice to be here.

OLBERMANN:  The CIA officials, Maguire and Richer, they spoke with you at length on the record about the existence of this letter.  They were detailed down to the stationery and the tone of voice in Mr. Tenet’s voice.  Why do you believe they’re backtracking now?

SUSKIND:  Well, it’s interesting, because Maguire and Richer and I, have been talking obviously over the last couple of days.  Rob got a book early, the night before, so he could read it before the morning that the book was released.  He was fine with it this morning.  He was fine with it at midday.

Now, reporters actually called him.  He said to me, “I’ll tell them no comment because it’s in the book, but Ron Suskind is a fine journalist.  That will be my comment.”  He said, “It’s fine, Rob.”

You know, I’m sympathetic in a way to all these guys.  They’re under acute pressure.  They’re individuals.  They’ve got to feed their families.  They really survive off the government, both of them, they’re contractors and whatnot.

Maguire, interestingly, from that statement, John and I have been exchanging e-mails from, he’s in Iraq now where he’s doing some consulting, and he sends very inspirational notes.  You know, he’s—go get ‘em, go get ‘em.  Interestingly, it seems like he doesn’t have a book yet because it’s hard to get one in Baghdad.

OLBERMANN:  Right.

SUSKIND:  Rob is, seems casting some of his comments to him over the phone in some way because what he says there obviously in his statement, that’s not said in the book.  It never says that Maguire was in the chain of command.  It says in fact that Rob talked to John Maguire about it but Maguire was going back to Baghdad, so his successor handled it.

So, you know, what you’re getting is, you know, guys who I think did the right thing.  I think people will agree that historically they may still stand up and Maguire, I think, will still stand up in daylight.  He’s a guy who said something to me that journalists I think might, you know, take into consideration.

He said to me at one point in the last of couple weeks.  He said, “You know, I understand now why the First and Second Amendment are the way they are.  See, the First Amendment is the most important amendment, and if they take that one way, then you should start loading your weapons.”  I mean, the kind of thing that might turn journalists around the world into NRA members, ain’t it?

You know, these guys, though, are feeling now great pressure.  And, you know, what you realize in this process is that there is a limit to what a journalist can do even with taped interviews, people talking for hours at a time, when they can be brought into a moment of crisis by the government saying, “You’ll never work again, you’ll never earn a living.”  That’s the kind of thing that mostly happens in terms of what congressional hearings do testimony under subpoena with threat of perjury.

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