David Corn is the person responsible for first calling attention to the possible criminal misconduct associated with Robert Novak's exposure of Valerie Plame as a covert CIA operative. David and Newsweek's Michael Isikoff have co-authored a new book, and this morning there is significant blog attention directed to what the book reveals about Richard Armitage's involvement in the matter.
But there is so much more. David provides a brief description of the book's contents: It reveals behind-the-scene battles at the White House, the CIA, the State Department, and Capitol Hill that occurred in the year before the invasion of Iraq. It discloses secrets about the CIA's prewar plans for Iraq. It chronicles how Bush and Cheney reacted to the failure to find WMDs in Iraq. It details how Bush and other aides neglected serious planning for the post-invasion period. It recounts how the unproven theories of a little-known academic who was convinced Saddam Hussein was behind all acts of terrorism throughout the world influenced Bush administration officials. It reports what went wrong inside The New York Times regarding its prewar coverage of Iraq's WMDs. It shows precisely how the intelligence agencies screwed up and how the Bush administration misused the faulty and flimsy (and fraudulent) intelligence.
(…)
And there's more, including:
* how and why the CIA blew the call on the Niger forgeries
* why US intelligence officials suspected Iranian intelligence was trying to influence US decisionmaking through the Iraqi National Congress
* why members of Congress on both sides of the aisle who doubted the case for war were afraid to challenge the prewar intelligence
* how Cheney and his aides sifted through raw intelligence desperately trying to find evidence to justify the Iraq invasion
* how Karl Rove barely managed to escape indictment with a shaky argument.
Please consider supporting our work.
I hope you found this article important. Before you leave, I want to ask you to consider supporting our work with a donation. In These Times needs readers like you to help sustain our mission. We don’t depend on—or want—corporate advertising or deep-pocketed billionaires to fund our journalism. We’re supported by you, the reader, so we can focus on covering the issues that matter most to the progressive movement without fear or compromise.
Our work isn’t hidden behind a paywall because of people like you who support our journalism. We want to keep it that way. If you value the work we do and the movements we cover, please consider donating to In These Times.
