Ron Suskind's new book Way of the World has an explosive snippit about an allegedly forged letter. The letter from Iraq Intelligence Chief, Tahir Jalil Habbush to Saddam Hussein ties together Iraq, Mohammad Atta and debunked Niger yellow cake. It was "found" by US Forces and released in December 2003. Suskind says the letter was in fact a forgery created by the CIA under orders from the White House. Not only that, but Habbush was in the CIA's pocket before the invasion and had told them Iraq had no WMD.
The notion that the Bush administration deliberately lied their way into Iraq has been fully internalized by the chattering classes in the US, and everyone outside the US. However, there is still a large slice of the American public that has not come to terms with this. So the story of the forged letter, if true (and I don't doubt it), could do for George Bush what the 18 minute gap did for Richard Nixon. The minor detail that gives the game away. The smoking gun.
You might well ask why is this important? To any sane observer, there are not only smoking guns everywhere, but smoking corpses as well. About a million of them. What makes this different than the hundreds of previous revelations is the White House reaction. They are reacting in the same way they did when Joseph Wilson penned his op-ed. Full attack mode. Wilson only suggested George Bush knew his State of The Union address contained dubious assertions. This is far more serious.
Suskind has a short piece today worth reading. This story could be the [insert cliche here]. As Suskind says, "And so, we watch and wait...." I'm keen to watch, and a lot of people have waited a long time.
