VOA interview with Peter Eisner on "The Italian Letter"

http://www.voanews.com/audio/audio/440477.html

pl

Comments

[robt willmann]

To another unnecessary, destructive adventure, which is in Afghanistan, as has been reported today, an inside shooting has claimed the life of a U.S. Major General, with others wounded, at an "Afghan Military Academy".

http://abcnews.go.com/International/american-general-killed-shooting-afghan-military-academy/story?id=24843479

http://news.yahoo.com/afghan-soldier-opens-fire-nato-troops-kabul-112616080.html

[tunde]

rw,
Saw that. RIP to the dead and a speedy recovery to those injured. The dying embers of a mission with no purpose.
My apologies for being so off topic, but I followed a group of British Airways managers into a diplomatic compound. Presumably discussions regarding mandatory passenger screening (data retention ?) for Ebola for all West African passangers. My guess was there was a long discussion about how to manage the message. Btw, this has completely overshadowed BO's afterthought of a West African summit. Even the participants got screened. Hilarious !
There seems to be a deepening clunkiness in US foreign policy gaffes that one wonders if some hidden hand is at work.

[Castellio]

Good interview. Clearly spoken.

Eisner returns to the central and critical role of Cheney in creating misinformation in the drive to war, a war, as Eisner puts it, intended against both Iraq and Iran.

Still left unanswered: why that commitment?

[The Twisted Genius]

Very good interview. I remember the atmosphere of inevitability on the ops side of DIA at the time. There was plenty of futile talk of "They're lying!" and "This is bullshit!" but the answer from management was that the decision has already been made. We are going in. Now support it. They had dreams of a future flagship operating base in Baghdad.

One poor young intel sergeant working with us bought it all, hook, line and sinker. Once the invasion started he was sure that WMD would be found every morning. And every afternoon he was disappointed. I think we finally convinced him that those who got us into this war were a pack of lying bastards. Youthful innocence died hard.

[PS]

To add to the off-topic items, did people see the report that Israel is sharing intercepts of Kerry's phone calls with the Russians and Chinese?

http://www.richardsilverstein.com/2014/08/03/both-israel-and-russia-shared-kerrys-intercepted-phone-calls/

[Cee]

Oookay. Listened while I was making my coffee. Yawn.
No mentioned of Office of Special Plans, JINSA or Michael Ledeen being the one who passed the documents to SISMI. And only a minor mention of Paul Wolfowitz who was planning this crime as early as 98.
I also wonder if Eisner writes about the murder, ah, um suicide of weapons inspector Dr. David Kelly.

[Castellio]

Cee, I was surprised by the non-presence of Ledeen, who is central to that story.

But as to non-presence of the OSP and JINSA... I thought, well, this is VOA, for them the interview is already 'radical'.

[Anna-Marina]

Here is an interview with Glen Greenwald where a very important confirmation has been produced re Cheney and Saudis "cooperation." This is absolutely scandalous:

"We did an interview with Senator Bob Graham...the co-chair of the congressional investigation into 9/11, where they specifically, in 27 pages name names of members of the Saudi government that we know from at least a couple of reports in The New York Times and the L.A. Times actually directly helped finance and facilitate the 9/11 attacks... According to the investigation, this was Saudi government policy.
[Bob Graham] even went further. Actually, I asked him about all the evidence of American intelligence agencies that had come up with information that in theory could have prevented the attacks, and that information in one way or the other never surfaced, as far as we know, to the highest levels, or was blocked or ignored. And I asked him directly, do you think there was a deliberate culture of not wanting to know? And his answer was, well, if all the players on a football field are running in one direction, you've got to figure there's a coach somewhere, which kind of goes as far as I've ever heard a senior person implicate Bush-Cheney in some way or another in this thing."

http://www.therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=12200

[Peter Eisner]

Is that fair? How much can you get into a thirty minute interview? All of your points are mentioned in the book, $4.99 to support starving writers.

[Peter Eisner]

All dealt with in the book--had to get the cast of characters into a brief interview.

[Cee]

Peter,

Then I apologize for my criticism. However, the things I mentioned would have been the hooks to get people to buy this since those things have been left out of mainstream discussions. Keep that in mind for futher interviews.
I'll buy your book on Amazon.

[Cee]

There!

I just bought: 'The Italian Letter: The Forgery That Started The Iraq War' by Peter Eisner
www.amazon.com

[optimax]

I thought some of the questions to Mr. Eisner were irrelevant to the Bush administration ignoring intelligence that didn't fit their preconceived agenda to invade Iraq. The one woman asked a few questions about how the US could have created a better outcome by keeping the Baathists in power and not disbanded the military. Relevant questions in a different context, but for me it distracted from Mr. Eisner's focus on how we got into the war in the first place.

[turcopolier]

Peter E.

You and King Canute have a standing offer to join our guest authors list on SST. If you did that you could write your own front page pieces here and moderate comments on your material. No schedule of course. pl

[Castellio]

I think you did well in the interview with the hand dealt you. I also admire how you chose a specific and knowable detail to leverage open a much broader and complex situation. I will buy the book, and thank you for your work.

[Castellio]

I've heard rumours... Saudi Arabia as paymaster, Mossad as operations manager, facilitated by elements within the American government co-ordinated by Cheney.

The foot soldiers of this grotesquerie are well known, having advanced quickly into 'responsible positions' to begin the wars, as well as into agencies to handle the domestic fall out, the investigation, the courts, and the "archives" more generally.

So, why Dick? What possibly could have been worth treason?

[Peter Eisner]

Many thanks, and for the comments to you all.

[Peter Eisner]

Will do, Pat, thanks.