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host · 11-03-2005, 02:20 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by pan6467

.....I do find it interesting the GOP is allowing this investigation. They either believe this will blow up in the Dems faces or they know the truth will come out and they want to be able to save face and say they knew something was wrong. I believe the latter.

I don't think the Dems would chase this if they didn't think they would win.

And I truly believe there are enough truly honest GOP, who in their hearts know Bush f'd up and lied and is tearing the country apart, and are willing to see what the truth truly is.

uhhh....pan....no one appears to be "allowing this investigation". There are not even signs that there are honest democrats, let alone "truly honest GOP".

Quote:

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/006875.php
<h3 class="date">(October 28, 2005 -- 11:37 AM EDT)</h3>
Now, about that FBI investigation into the origins of the Niger forgeries, <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/28/politics/28niger.html">discussed</a> by Doug Jehl in his piece in today's Times.

(Apologies to longtime readers of the site who will be familiar with much of what follows.)

Jehl reports that a "counterespionage official said Wednesday that the inquiry into the documents ... had yielded some intriguing but unproved theories."

That's not a lot for an investigation that <a href="http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_07_04.php#003144">began</a> two and a half years ago.
And, remember, the existence of the supposed FBI investigation was the basis on which Sen. Roberts' Senate intel committee <a href="http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_07_04.php#003144">agreed not to examine</a> anything about the origins of the documents or how they came into American hands.

So how serious has that investigation been? And what is known by the two senators -- Roberts and Rockefeller -- who've been regularly briefed on it? 

Consider this: As is now all over the papers in the US and Italy, the 'security consultant' who tried to peddle the forgeries to a reporter for the Italian magazine Panorama in October 2002 is a man named Rocco Martino. FBI sources continue to tell reporters that they have not been able to question Martino because they have not been able to secure the permission of the Italian government to speak with him.

Given the gravity of the case, it seems difficult to believe that the United States would tolerate Italy's non-cooperation. But what about when Martino came to the United States?

Martino travelled to the United States twice last year. He travelled under his own name and stayed in New York City where he provided interviews to me and two other journalists. By the time Martino made his second visit to the United States his name and his central role in the case had been reported in several Italian and two major British papers. Yet no effort was made to contact him or question him when he was in the US for several days.

Surely US law enforcement wouldn't need the permission of the Italian government to speak to Martino when he was on US soil.

How serious can an investigation be when there is no attempt to speak to the central person in the case?

Another indication.

Elisabetta Burba is the Italian journalist, who works for the Berlusconi-owned magazine Panorama, to whom Martino tried to sell the forgeries. She was interviewed by the FBI not long after Sen. Roberts agreed to co-sign Sen. Rockefeller's request for an FBI investigation in the spring of 2003. But she <a href="http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_09_19.php#003490">describes</a> the interviews and follow-ups as cursory at best.
There are various other reasons to doubt that the Justice Department has made a serious effort to solve the mystery of the Niger forgeries. But the apparent lack of interest in even speaking to the man at the center of the scheme is a decent place to start.
As Chairman of the senate intel committee, Sen. Roberts is in a position to receive detailed briefings on the status of the investigation. And his spokespersons say he's received them. So what does he know? More reporting needed.

-- Josh Marshall

And of course....there is this....

Quote:

http://www.dkosopedia.com/index.php?...&printable=yes
"Phase two" of the investigation
At the time of the report's release (July 9, 2004), Democratic members of the committee expressed the hope (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...-2004Jul9.html) that "phase two" of the investigation, which was to include an assessment of how the Iraqi WMD intelligence was used by senior policymakers, would be completed quickly. Committee Chairman Pat Roberts (R-KS) said of phase two, "It is a priority. I made my commitment and it will get done."

On March 10, 2005, during a question-and-answer session (http://www.washingtontimes.com/upi-b...0505-9514r.htm) after a speech he had given at the Woodrow Wilson Center, Senator Roberts said of the failure to complete phase two, "[T]hat is basically on the back burner." Senator John D. Rockefeller (D-WV), vice chairman of the Committee, made a statement later that day in which he said, "The Chairman agreed to this investigation and I fully expect him to fulfill his commitment... While the completion of phase two is long overdue, the committee has continued this important work, and I expect that we will finish the review in the very near future."

In a statement regarding the release of the report of the presidential WMD commission on March 31, 2005, Senator Roberts wrote (http://intelligence.senate.gov/050331.htm), "I don’t think there should be any doubt that we have now heard it all regarding prewar intelligence. I think that it would be a monumental waste of time to replow this ground any further."

On April 10, 2005, Senators Roberts and Rockefeller appeared together on NBC's Meet the Press (http://msnbc.msn.com/id/7452510/) program. In response to a question about the completion of phase two of the investigation, Roberts said, "I'm perfectly willing to do it, and that's what we agreed to do, and that door is still open. And I don't want to quarrel with Jay, because we both agreed that we would get it done. But we do have--we have Ambassador Negroponte next week, we have General Mike Hayden next week. We have other hot-spot hearings or other things going on that are very important."

Moderator Tim Russert then asked Senator Rockefeller if he believed phase two would be completed, and he replied, "I hope so. Pat and I have agreed to do it. We've shaken hands on it, and we agreed to do it after the elections so it wouldn't be any sort of sense of a political attack. I mean that was my view; it shouldn't be viewed that way."

As of July, 2005, phase two of the Committee's investigation had not yet been completed.

November 2, 2005.....Jay awakens....

Quote:

http://www.cnn.com/2005/POLITICS/11/....ap/index.html
......"Any line of questioning that has brought us too close to the White House has been thwarted," said Sen. Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, the top Democrat on the intelligence committee. "We have been undermined, avoided, put off and vilified by the other side."

Roberts has been able to jerk off Rockefeller over this "delay" in producing the "Phase II" committee report for 15 months and three weeks. The MSM and Rockefeller have produced hardly a peep in that time span...until Reid pulled his stunt in the senate on Nov. 1.

In the interim, as prosecutor Fitzgerald so aptly put it, "fact fixer" Cheney's "enforcer" was able to <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/28/AR2005102802234.html">"throw sand in the umpire's eyes"</a>, to obscure "the play", delaying the indictment for a full year, while Roberts delayed the predicatbly damning "Phase II" report, thereby facilitating the theft of a second term in the white house for Bush-Cheney, while Rockefeller and the MSM dozed quietly.........