THIS must be the story CBS brass spiked at '60 Minutes'

[AirAmFan]

What OTHER story could have been so explosive that it made the suits nervous enough to mimic Rupert Murdoch or Roger Ailes and "mess with" the news?

Why else would Ed Bradley have been sent to Jordan recently, explicitly to research Zarqawi's roots? If Bradley's story is a profile of Zarqawi, how could he leave out the fact that the White House let Zarqawi's terrorists off the hook THREE TIMES? Ed Bradley must be pissed at Dan Rather for bringing down censorship of this story with unnecessary heat over inadequate attention to authenticating TANG documents..

From http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/09/24/60minutes/main645596.shtml

"This week, Correspondent Ed Bradley went to Jordan, where al-Zarqawi was born and spent most of his life, to find out more about this man who now has a $25-million price on his head. It�s the same reward the United States is offering for Osama bin Laden, dead or alive. ...

Al-Zarqawi heads al-Tawhid wal-Jihad, a terrorist organization alleged to be behind much of the increasing violence in Iraq."

My guess is that THIS is the story that got too hot for CBS brass:

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Zarqawi and his men: Where are their Bush/Cheney buttons?



Do you remember this photo from mid-May? Wearing the tres chic hoods are Abu Musab Zarqawi, Iraqi terrorist leader responsible for the demise of hundreds of US military personnel, and four of his men. Seated on the floor in orange is Nicholas Berg, an American hostage whose HEAD Zarqawi himself was about to saw off.

You may ask, how did this situation come about? Why are these men even at large? There are well over 100,000 US troops looking for them. How do they continue to escape capture?

The AMAZING answer is, THE WHITE HOUSE PROTECTED THEM FROM THE PENTAGON, THREE TIMES, as recently as a year and a half after 9/11!

In a recent column, Arianna Huffington comments on Rove/Bush/Cheney's relentless campaign to portray John Kerry as "soft" on terrorism, to win over otherwise solidly Democratic "Security Women". She writes,

'Somewhere -- and I don't think it's heaven -- Lee Atwater is smiling. ... WHAT'S NEXT, A PHOTO OF ABU MUSAB AL-ZARQAWI SPORTING A KERRY-EDWARDS CAMPAIGN BUTTON?" (From http://www.ariannaonline.com/columns/column.php?id=736 )

But a seven-month old MSNBC story by the respected Jim Miklaszewski strongly suggests Zarqawi and company should be wearing BUSH/CHENEY buttons, not Kerry/Edwards buttons:

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From http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4431601/

'MSNBC - Avoiding attacking suspected terrorist mastermind: Abu Musab Zarqawi blamed for more than 700 killings in Iraq

By Jim Miklaszewski, Correspondent, NBC News. Updated: 7:14 p.m. ET March 2, 2004

Abu Musab Zarqawi, a Jordanian militant with ties to al-Qaida, is now blamed for more than 700 terrorist killings in Iraq. But NBC News has learned that long before the war the Bush administration had several chances to wipe out his terrorist operation and perhaps kill Zarqawi himself, but never pulled the trigger.

In June 2002, U.S. officials say intelligence had revealed that Zarqawi and members of al-Qaida had set up a weapons lab at Kirma, in northern Iraq, producing deadly ricin and cyanide. The Pentagon quickly drafted plans to attack the camp with cruise missiles and airstrikes and sent it to the White House, where, according to U.S. government sources, THE PLAN WAS DEBATED TO DEATH IN THE NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL.

Four months later, intelligence showed Zarqawi was planning to use ricin in terrorist attacks in Europe. THE PENTAGON DREW UP A SECOND STRIKE PLAN, AND THE WHITE HOUSE AGAIN KILLED IT. By then the administration had set its course for war with Iraq. 'People were more obsessed with developing the coalition to overthrow Saddam than to execute the president's policy of preemption against terrorists, according to terrorism expert and former National Security Council member Roger Cressey.

In January 2003, the threat turned real. Police in London arrested six terror suspects and discovered a ricin lab connected to the camp in Iraq. THE PENTAGON DREW UP STILL ANOTHER ATTACK PLAN, AND FOR THE THIRD TIME, THE NATIONAL SECURITY COUNCIL KILLED IT...."

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Two blog threads provide many more details of this amazing, unreported, unknown story.

There's a March 2004 thread at Kos: http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/3/4/2045/08540

and a DU thread this week from SoCalDemocrat, summarized at http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=909236&mesg_id=916224&page=

The actual video of Nicholas Berg's beheading is accessible through a link to a report by Stacy Case in the right-hand column at http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/09/24/60minutes/main645596.shtml

[hlthe2b]

1. CBS spiked story was Iraqi "justification"-- Salon has the article:

The Cowardly Broadcasting System
CBS cravenly killed a "60 Minutes" segment about Bush's deceptive case for invading Iraq. What did it contain that was too much for voters to see?

- - - - - - - - - - - -
By Mary Jacoby

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2004/09/29/cbs_wmd/index.html

You can get a day pass to read the entire thing for free.

[AirAmFan]

2. Yes, but THIS is the the most controversial part of the False Justification story,

the part that had Powell at the UN claiming Saddam was harboring al-Qaeda terrorists. Powell was lying, because Zarqawi's Ansar al-Islam was the only notable group of terrorists in Iraq at the time, and they were trying to bring Saddam down, not enjoying his support. They numbered about 200 and were ensconced mainly in one well-known base camp on the other side of the US "no-fly zone" from Saddam. They could have been wiped out in one air strike, but the White House HALTED three separate post-9/11 Pentagon plans to get rid of them.

Read this link, which is part of my original post: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=132&topic_id=909236&mesg_id=916224&page=

The reason the White House protected Zarqawi and company three times -- the reason Zarqawi and his men should be wearing Bush/Cheney buttons -- is that they wanted to have some Iraqi terrorists they could tell relentless lies about, to try to help justify their prearranged plan to invade!

Thanks for the Salon link: I had not seen it. I can't get my computer to read their stories on a "Day Pass", though. Could you post a few salient paragraphs, or give me a link to somebody who has?

[hlthe2b]

3. more.....

--snip--
The report contains little new information, but it is powerfully, coherently and credibly reported. It features the first on-camera interview with Elisabetta Burba, the Italian journalist who received the fake Niger documents in 2002 and passed them on to the U.S. embassy in Rome. Burba tells how she traveled to Niger and concluded that Iraq could not have purchased uranium from the tightly controlled French-run mines in Niger and that therefore the documents must have been faked.
According to Newsweek, CBS also interviewed Burba's source for the documents, a shadowy Roman businessman named Rocco Martino with reputed connections to European intelligence agencies, especially Sismi, the Italian intelligence service. The producers flew Martino to New York for an on-camera interview, but footage of the interview was not included in the final version of the report. It is unclear why Martino was cut; perhaps it was because, as Burba told Newsweek, Martino had lied to her in the past and was not someone she considered reliable.
--snip--
According to a knowledgeable source, the lead producer of the report, David Gelber, had toyed with using Martino to delve into another intriguing angle: why has the Federal Bureau of Investigation apparently done little to fulfill a request by Sen. Jay Rockefeller, D-W.Va., the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, for an investigation into the origins of the forged Niger documents? Martino, a central figure in the affair, should be of keen interest to the FBI. But, as of late last week, investigators had still failed to interview him. A U.S. law enforcement source told Newsweek the bureau was waiting for the Italian government to grant permission.

That strange explanation raises the question of whether the right-wing government of Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi had helped manufacture evidence that his ally, Bush, could use to persuade Americans to support an invasion. Burba passed on the documents to the U.S. Embassy in Rome at the instruction of her editor at Panorama, a news magazine owned by Berlusconi. An alternative theory, floated in corners of the conspiracy-minded European press, is that Martino was working for the antiwar French, who hoped to discredit the Bush administration by getting American officials to swallow obviously forged documents.

--more--

It's a 3 page article, so perhaps some others can post additional portions they view as pertinent.

But, the focus was on the Niger documents--their origin and ultimate manipulative use to make the case for war, despite signficant evidence in advance that they were forged or at least questionable and all other evidence that was contrary to the case the Bushies* were trying to make. I don't think the Zarkawi issue re: Powell's assertions on Saddam's harboring of terrorists was a part of the story, from what the Salon article, a related newsweek article and some Josh Micah Marshall blogs have indicated (JMM worked on the "origin of the Niger documents story with CBS).

[AirAmFan]

4. Thanks for your quick response. But why would CBS brass spike a story about

false documents provided by Italian allies, long branded as false by CBS and the rest of the media?

Are you sure Salon was claiming to have ALL of the CBS "false justification" story? There were TWO big themes in the false case for invasion: WMDs (Niger uranium documents) and Terrorist Haven.

Funny you should mention Marshall. He had this story -- about Terrorist Haven -- even before Miklaszewski published it, and "connected the dots" between protecting Zarqawi and the false White House case for invading Iraq.

See the post at timestamp "Fri Mar 5th, 2004 at 01:09:00 GMT" in http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/3/4/2045/08540

"Josh Marshall elaborates on this:

'I think there's a pretty obvious reason why eliminating Zarqawi could have slowed or impeded the drive for war....

So Zarqawi and Ansar were in Iraqi Kurdistan. Thus they were 'in Iraq'. And they were linked to al Qaida. So al Qaida was 'in Iraq'. That was the argument. Now, there was a pretty big problem with this argument. Namely, the US and the UK had made Iraqi Kurdistan into a virtual Anglo-American protectorate through its no-fly zones which kept not only Iraqi air power but basically all of Saddam's forces out of the region. The Kurds themselves had already set up a de facto government, though the region where Ansar was operating from was one they didn't control.

In other words, saying Ansar was operating out of Iraq was deeply misleading in anything other than a narrowly geographical sense since Ansar was operating from area we had taken from Saddam's control. Saddam might as credibly -- perhaps more credibly -- have charged us with harboring Ansar as vice versa.'"

[AirAmFan]

5. I wonder whether this sentence from yr article rings false to DUers

It sure didn't convince me Salon knows why CBS brass spiked a '60 minutes' story:

"THE REPORT CONTAINS LITTLE NEW INFORMATION, but it is powerfully, coherently and credibly reported. It features the first on-camera interview with Elisabetta Burba, the Italian journalist who received the fake Niger documents in 2002 and passed them on to the U.S. embassy in Rome." (Source: See post#3 in this thread)

Now, if CBS were following up Miklasewski's seven-month old Terrorist Haven Lie story, THAT would be EXPLOSIVE. It would explain reports that CBS was having trouble getting on-the-record comments from Republicans and explain why CBS might fear retribution from the White House. PROTECTING TERRORISTS THREE TIMES, as recently as a year and a half after 9/11, so that the White House would have a few 'Iraqi" terrorists to LIE about, could get a President IMPEACHED if the story became widely known. Especially since the terrorists the Pentagon could and would have wiped out when they all were in one place have metastasized throughout Iraq and already have killed hundreds of US military personnel!

[hlthe2b]

7. Salon maintains they had a taped copy of the program and had

reached an agreement with CBS to write their story once CBS aired it. Here's the pertient summary:

One measure of the debacle is a "60 Minutes Wednesday" segment that millions of viewers now will not see: a hard-hitting report making a powerful case that in trying to build support for the Iraq war, the Bush administration either knowingly deceived the American people about Saddam Hussein's nuclear capabilities or was grossly credulous. CBS News president Andrew Heyward spiked the story this week, saying it would be "inappropriate" during the election campaign.

The importance that CBS placed on the report was evident by its unusual length: It was slated to run a full half hour, double the usual 15 minutes of a single segment. Although months of reporting went into the production, CBS abruptly decided that it would be "inappropriate to air the report so close to the presidential election," in the words of a statement that network spokeswoman Kelli Edwards gave the New York Times.

The real reason, of course, was that because of CBS's sloppy reporting on the Bush National Guard story, the network's news executives believed they could no longer report credibly on the heart of the Iraq nuclear issue, involving another set of completely forged documents: those purporting to show that Iraq had purchased yellowcake uranium from the African country Niger.

Salon was given the videotape by CBS News on the condition that we report on it only shortly before it was to air. But after the network effectively spiked its own story (which was reported by Newsweek online and by the New York Times), we sent an e-mail late last week to CBS stating that we believed that the embargo no longer applied. We received no reply and therefore feel free to report.

[AirAmFan]

10. Hey, thanks for persisting! Actually, I hope you are RIGHT:

Then the Zarqawi story the '60 Minutes' homepage reported sent Ed Bradley to Jordan a week ago would NOT have been spiked (See the first link in this thread). We all may have a '60 Minutes' Zarqawi profile to look forward to!

Such a '60 Minutes' segment has much more potential to harm Dubya's vote than anything on WMD. Of the two main WH pretexts for invasion, WMD ALREADY has been done to death by the media. "Terror Haven" remains obscure. Maybe '60 Minutes' will help make the public as familiar with all the details of the "Terror Haven" ruse as it is with Niger yellowcake documents and UN inspection teams.

Any thorough investigation of the WH's "Terror Haven" pretext for invasion would have to unearth the three occasions when Dubya PROTECTED al-Qaeda, lasting until over a year and a half AFTER 9/11.

[AirAmFan]

6. Kick -- for the afternoon shift

[no name no slogan]

8. I remember the camp in the no-fly zone

It was also noted to be a Al-Qaeda/"terrorist" training camp with possible WMDs before/during the Iraq invasion. This was mentioned in a couple of mainstream publications as "justification" for the invasion.

Too bad the camp was in the northern "no-fly zone", and made an easy target for either a "shock and awe" airstrike or Special Ops operation.

Most people don't remember this, but it was out there before the invasion. But like most truths, it went straight down the memory hole.

[AirAmFan]

11. 'Mr Bush, why did you harbor 200 al-Qaeda TERRORISTS in a US-

controlled Middle East enclave, for a year and a half after 9/11?'

Now THAT's a "frame" for this story James Carville would be proud of!

I thought I was keeping up with essential news, but evidently you're dong a much better job than I. I don't recall hearing anything about "little Tora-Bora" in Iraqi Kurdistan, protected by the US "no-fly zone", until I read SoCalDemocrat's thread yesterday (See the next-to-last link in the lead-in post above).

This "spin" on the "Terror Haven invasion pretext" story untangles most of the complexity with which people trying to tell this story have had to cope. Everybody understands what "harboring terrorists" means. A fairly complete explanation of essential details for this story fills only one paragraph, after it has been introduced as a case of "harboring terrorists".

Seven months ago, Joshua Micah Marshall reported that Abu Musab Zarqawi, who now has the same $25 million price on his head as Osama, ran a well-known anti-Saddam terror camp in US-controlled Iraqi Kurdistan, for a year and a half AFTER 9/11. NBC's Jim Miklaszewski reported that, on THREE separate occasions, the Bush White House HALTED specific Pentagon battle plans to wipe Zarqawi's gang out when they still were all in one place.

The reason: If the WH could not point to "Iraqi terrorists", they could not claim that Iraq was a terrorist haven and needed to be invaded. Problem: The terrorists were in an area of Iraq BUSH controlled, not Saddam!

See post #4 above (here at http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x923052 ) for links.

[w4rma]

9. OMG!! THOSE !@#$ing PSYCHOS! (nt)