CNS Scoops the World!
Wow, CyberSex News (CNS), Brent Bozell's outfit, has obtained photocopied documents proving that Saddam did have WMDs, was in league with al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations, and that John Kerry personally forged those Dan Rather documents! This is such big news that I think we should just eliminate the election and declare Bush President for Life!
Or rather, lets look at just a few of the points which point to these documents being rank forgeries.
Laurie Mylroie, who authored the book, "Study of Revenge: Saddam Hussein's Unfinished War against America," and advised Clinton on Iraq during the 1992 presidential campaign, told CNSNews.com that the papers represent "the most complete set of documents relating Iraq to terrorism, including Islamic terrorism" against the U.S.
These are the documents which prove everything that Laurie has claimed (except that Iraq was behind 9/11 and the Oklahoma City bombing) -- proof right there that they are bogus.
They were apparently all together in a file marked "Super Duper Top Secret /Do NOT Allow to Fall Into the Hands of the Great Satan, As This Could Ruin Everything."
Okay, I made up that classification, but no intelligence service I know keeps all their highly incrimindating documents on a wide variety of topics in one handy file -- especially not documents like "a list of terrorist groups with whom Iraq had relationships and considered available for terror operations against the United States." A document like that is just too good to be true --proof that it isn't true, IMHO.
And if they are everything CNS claims, why hasn't Dick Cheney waved them in everybody's face? Well, per the source, nobody knows about them but him.
The senior government official and source of the Iraqi intelligence memos, explained that the reason the documents have not been made public before now is that the government has "thousands and thousands of documents waiting to be translated.
"It is unlikely they even know this exists," the source added.
The government official also explained that the motivation for leaking the documents, "is strictly national security and helping with the war on terrorism by focusing this country's attention on facts and away from political posturing.
"This is too important to let it get caught up in the political process," the source told CNSNews.com.
Okay, let's say you're a senior government official who found THE smoking gun which will prove everything that Dick Cheney has claimed, and everything he has secretly believed and been unable to get the damned CIA and State Dept. to prove. Instead of bringing these documents to your superiors at your government agency, like you are required to do (which would help your career immensely), or even taking them directly to the White House (which would probably get you an ambassadorship or something), you decide to go to the media, because you're really concerned about national security. (Not concerned enough to obey the security regulations you are bound by, of course, but concerned enough to not want the documents to be used politically.)
So, what media outfit do you take them to? CBS? CNN? The New York Times? Fox News? No, you go to CNS -- which has all the credibility of that guy who thinks the KGB is sending him secret messages through the static on his radio, and all the prestige of the free want-ads paper. Oh, and a national readership of about 50.
Which means that (a) you're trying to pull off a hoax, and realized that only a rinky-dink outfit like CNS would fall for it; or (B) You're an incredibly stupid senior agency official who has been duped by documents planted by somebody else -- stupid enough to also believe that CNS is a legitimate news service.
Either way, the way the records came to light would make even the most credulous doubt their authenticity.
So, how did CNS authenticate them? Well they asked a panel of experts consisting of crackpot Laurie Mylroie, a long-retired CIA guy who is now something of a crank, and an unnamed former UNSCOM inspector, to look at them.
All said the documents comport with the format, style and content of other Iraqi documents from that era known to be genuine.
Which is how any forger would work -- use the format and style of a genuine document.
But here are the specifics that these experts were willing to commit themselves to:
Bruce Tefft, a retired CIA official who specialized in counter-terrorism and had extensive experience dealing with Iraq, said that "based on available, unclassified and open source information, the details in these documents are accurate ..."
The former UNSCOM inspector zeroed in on the signatures on the documents and "the names of some of the people who sign off on these things.
So, they look like available, unclassified Iraqi documents, and they were purportedly signed by real Iraqi officials. That's it for authentication.
Oh, and they make sense to Laurie.
Mylroie has long maintained that Iraq was a state sponsor of terrorism against the United States. The documents obtained by CNSNews.com , she said, include "correspondence back and forth between Saddam's office and Iraqi Mukhabarat (intelligence agency). They make sense. This is what one would think Saddam was doing at the time."
If they prove that Saddam was doing what Laurie thinks he was, then there is something wrong with them, since she's crazy.
But can YOU look at them for yourself, and make up your own mind? Sadly, no (to coin a phrase). Because you might make up stuff about their kerning or type face or something.
To protect against the documents being altered or misrepresented elsewhere on the Internet, CNSNews.com has decided to publish only the first of the 42 pages in Arabic, along with the English translation.
Well, "Credentialed journalists and counter-terrorism experts seeking to view the 42 pages of Arabic documents or to challenge their authenticity may make arrangements to do so." I imagine some of them will. I give them 2 weeks to prove the documents are forgeries. But until then, the Corner, Hugh Hewitt, InstaPundit, and all the other members of the 101st Fighting Keyboarders® (a registered trademark of TBogg News Service) can say, "These documents, if true, prove that we were right all along, so let's assume they are true, and say, like Nelson Munz, HA ha!"
8:46:32 AM 
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