Larisa Alexandrovna: Missing Pilot Speicher, Chalabi, Cheney's Ghost Team and Sy Hersh's Team?

[Hissyspit]

http://www.atlargely.com/atlargely/2009/08/chalabi-cheney-and-captain-michael-scott-speicher.html#more

AUGUST 02, 2009

Chalabi, Cheney and Captain Michael Scott Speicher

Several years ago I reported the lengths to which Dick Cheney was willing to go to justify off-book missions in Iraq, including using the claims of a captured US navy captain Michael Scott Speicher being held by Saddam Hussein's military. Cheney's go-to official source of lies (to give Cheney plausible deniability) on this and everything else was Ahmed Chalabi. Here is a few snips from that article:

"New allegations indicate that American civilian military leadership may have used an off-book quasi-military team to address political issues, placing those concerns above securing peace in the region, RAW STORY has learned.

Three U.S. intelligence sources and a source close to the United Nations Security Council say that the Pentagon civilian leadership under the guidance of Stephen Cambone, appointed to lead Defense Department intelligence in March 2003, dispatched a series of “off book” missions out of the ultra-secretive Office of Special Plans (OSP). The team was tasked to secure the following in order of priority: fallen Navy pilot Scott Speicher, WMD and Saddam Hussein.

While it is known that an authorized special operations unit was dispatched before the invasion of Iraq with similar objectives, sources say another team also operated on the ground in Iraq, primarily from the summer until the fall of 2003. This team appears to have been composed of 4-5 men."

I have often referred to this OSP/Cheney team as the ghost team, but was always troubled by several factors.

The most fascinating element of the ghost-team's make-up is that they appeared to have the highest security clearances, because they shadowed legit special forces which means they knew team movements and composition. No known task force or special ops unit was aware of them, yet the ghost team was aware of task force movements and objectives.

In fact, the ghost-team adopted the same objectives of special forces, using those objectives as cover for why they were really in Iraq. One of those objectives was to locate Navy pilot Scott Speicher, even though most intel officials believed that the captain had long been dead and even though the legit teams were already looking for him or his remains.

From my same article:

"Sources say the Office of Special Plans deployed several extra-legal and unapproved task force missions prior to and after combat operations began. Under the supervision of Doug Feith, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy, the OSP ran largely unsupervised and operated in secrecy. According to those familiar with the plans, the off-book missions were approved by Feith -- himself currently under investigation by the FBI for allegations of passing US secrets to Israel and Iran -- Cambone and then-Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley.

"But the lines between what were considered sanctioned forces and those considered almost as rogue units began to blur shortly after the invasion. Whether this was done deliberately to misrepresent official military, CIA, and other operations missions in the region, or whether this confusion stems from a lack of coordination remains unknown.

It is also difficult to establish whether or not TF20’s various sub-teams were used by civilian leadership to achieve other goals, not known to the primary unit.

What is, however, apparent is that the Office of Special Plans’ teams were deployed in obscurity and on occasion even bumped into sanctioned special ops teams, creating a sense of unease among the various forces on the ground.

Sources raised most concern about an alleged off-book 4-5 man team which operated in the summer through the fall of 2003. What this team was doing and under whose authority it operated is unclear."

While the legit advanced teams had completed their mission by late March of 03, the ghost-team stayed well into August of '03, still using the claim that they were searching for Speicher. There have been serious allegations regarding what they were actually doing. I will let you read those allegations for yourself in that same article.

What is interesting and new now is the latest news that Captain Speicher's remains have been located and identified. It is now clear that he died fairly early on, either upon impact after his plane was shot down in 1991 during the first Gulf War or shortly thereafter.

But the ghost-team has still to be identified. Perhaps if they had actually looked for Speicher rather than the off-book games they were playing, his family would have had closure six years ago. I also wonder if this team is the same team that Sy Hersh has referred to. There is, however, no way of getting to the bottom of this without a Congressional investigation. The ghost-team was so secretive, that even the special ops leaders had no idea who they were working for.

RIP Captain Speicher, finally.

Mods, reproduced in entirety with permission.