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More Details on Bush Admin Iraq Forgery Allegations
Louis Bayard details Ron Suskind's claim that George Tenet ordered CIA officials Rob Richer and John Maguire to forge a letter from Iraqi security chief Habbush to Saddam Hussein.
The letter was a fictional smoking gun tying Iraq to 9/11.
It's generally accepted that the Habbush letter is a forgery.
The question remains, who forged it? Juan Cole suspects that Habbush forged the letter himself and that the CIA "authenticated" it in bad faith through its asset Ayad Allawi--whom journalist Con Coughlin contacted to vouchsafe the letter's authenticity after it was leaked to him.
What's novel and remarkable is that Suskind got Richer and Maguire to claim on the record that George Tenet ordered them to forge it.
Suskind believes the White House ordered the forgery in response to Joe Wilson's 2003 op-ed debunking many of the administration's lies about Saddam Hussein's alleged attempts to obtain uranium from Niger.
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