Manucher Ghorbanifar

Larisa has a new article out

"Several U.S. and foreign intelligence sources, along with investigators, say an Iranian exile with ties to Iran-Contra peddled a bizarre tale of stolen uranium to governments on both sides of the Atlantic in the spring and summer of 2003.

The story that was peddled -- which detailed how an Iranian intelligence team infiltrated Iraq prior to the start of the war in March of 2003, and stole enriched uranium to use in their own nuclear weapons program -- was part of an attempt to implicate both countries in a WMD plot...

By all credible accounts, the source of this dubious tale was Manucher Ghorbanifar, an Iranian arms dealer who used middle-men and cut-outs to create the appearance of several sources. "

much of the larisa's tale has already been told by laura rozen - and she gets back to the famous meeting in Rome in Dec 01 with Ledeen, Franklin, Harold Rhode, Ghorbanifar and others.

"According to James Risen's New York Times article dated December of 2003, Ledeen was a paid consultant to the National Security Council at the time of the meeting. Risen reports that National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley was informed of the plans for the meeting and that Hadley expressed reservations given Ledeen and Ghorbanifahr's background.

The Office of Special Plans, however, authorized the meeting without notifying any other agency, violating protocol. They did not notify the Rome CIA station chief or the U.S. Ambassador to Italy, Mel Sembler.

Ledeen, however, says that Hadley had authorized the trip. This would also implicate Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, then-National Security Advisor.

"Hadley authorized it and he could not have done so without reporting it to his direct superior," said Ledeen."

That's kinda interesting. Why is Ledeen pointing the finger at Condi? Is he trying to redirect the story away from Doug Feith? That would be a brave, if futile, effort. The interesting thing to remember when reading this article by larisa is that she is working on a much bigger story - she knows that BrewsterJennings was outed intentionally. Her reporting lately is a bit frustrating because she can't really report on what the true story is yet, because she hasn't quite proved it.

Her previous article didn't seem to get much attention - but she basically accuses Feith of trying to plant WMD in Iraq. As I asked last week,

"is it possible that they were planning to smuggle some in through Turkey and BrewsterJennings learnt about the scheme? If so, did BJ specifically learn that the neocons were involved? or did BJ only learn the transaction and trafficking details?"

In any case, it's important to remember that this is the story that larisa is working on - so it's interesting that she has come back to Ledeen and the Rome meeting. Let's hope she can inch closer to the real story in her next article.

(incidentally, larisa is quite kind to Curt Weldon. sibel told me that she has met him and that he isn't the wingnut that he appears to be)