who was the audience for the forgeries?

* larisa:

"You cannot understand the Niger forgeries without first asking: "who was the audience for the forgeries?" and once you ask that, you understand that the audience was never intelligence agencies, rather, we - the public - were the audience to give the administration plausible denial. It has worked... because to this day, the worst that has been said of the pre-war intelligence on Iraq was that it was "cherry picked," suggesting there were external allegations and reports that were picked over other key pieces of information. In reality, intelligence was fabricated and we were the target audience."

* larisa:

The Fabricators (the fixers of fact):

The list of candidates of the likely pre-war intelligence fabricators, for me anyway, is short:

From a go-between angle: people who likely served as a go-between to either Italian intelligence and OVP, or between the OVP and the DIA, on the project:

Herald Rhode, John Hannah, David Wurmser, Michael Rubin, Eleana Benador, Abram Shulsky, Ahmed Chalabi, and a few others, including some more than willing journalists.

From a lower-level managerial angle: people who likely oversaw each smaller element of the project:

John Bolton, Doug Feith, Dov Zakheim, Peter Rodman, William Luti and a few others

From a high-level managerial angle: people who likely oversaw large parts or most if not all of the project:

Elliot Abrams, Scooter Libby, Stephen Hadley, and a few others

The Policy Cabal:

Beyond the above listed - the "decision" - crowd is hard to trace just how close to the Oval Office the fabrication scandal goes. At the very least, the following people from the OVP and DOD are likely implicated: Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, and Richard Perle.

It is nice, however, to see the IG pointing directly at Feith, as though those below and above him in rank/position, could not have known of what the OSP was doing. "

* muriel:

"So I still can't put my finger on just what Fred Zeidman is all about, but there is clearly something going on in this sliming of Pelosi that is not simply about the goals and policies of the Republican Party -- and which seemingly involves a faction that is more extreme, more hellbent on further war in the Middle East, than even the great majority of Israelis themselves.

Clifford May, who has been so central to the push for war with Iran, was formerly a vice chairman of the Republican Jewish Coalition as well. The question of who would want a war that by any objective terms is totally insane may come down to this one particular small group of people."

* krugman:

"Fox News, which is a partisan operation in all but name, plays a crucial role in the Little Lie strategy — which is why there is growing pressure on Democratic politicians not to do anything, like participating in Fox-hosted debates, that helps Fox impersonate a legitimate news organization.

But Fox has had plenty of help. Even Time’s Joe Klein, a media insider if anyone is, wrote of the Pelosi trip that “the media coverage of this on CNN and elsewhere has been abysmal.” For example, CNN ran a segment about Ms. Pelosi’s trip titled “Talking to Terrorists.”

The G.O.P.’s reversion to the Little Lie technique is a symptom of political weakness, of a party reduced to trivial smears because it has nothing else to offer. But the technique will remain effective — and the U.S. political scene will remain ugly — as long as many people in the news media keep playing along."

* laura has more on tommy konto:

"Flush with cash, able to get meetings with the US postmaster general, owner of more than twenty companies, one wonders what Kontogiannis is really about. Laundering or moving money for certain people? Through real estate and other ventures?"