Last night, 60 Minutes interviewed Tyler Drumheller, a now-retired CIA officer who headed up European convert operations in the run-up to the invasion of Iraq. The Saddam-wants -uranium-from-Niger allegations emmanted from Europe, so Drumheller was heavily involved in vetting them. And he, along with what he says what most of the CIA, thought the allegations were bullshit. (Makes sense; after all , we know the CIA repeatedly tried to stop Bush from using the uranium story.
Drumheller also talked about how the White House was simply not interested in following up on the assertions of Iraq's foreign minister, who had become a CIA source and insisted there were no WMD programs. (That also jibed with the much forgotten assertions of Saddam's bro-in-law, who had been in charge of WMD programs, defected in 1995, and said there was no nukes program. He returned to Iraq and was killed.)
In any case, Josh Marshall notices one of the most remarkable things about Drumheller's story, namely that it hasn't seen the light of day before. Turns out, Drumheller has repeatedly been interviewed by the much-heralded WMD commission and for some darn reason, his story never ended up in the subsequent report. Writes Josh:
Did the Robb-Silbermann Commission not hear about what Drumheller had to say? What about the Roberts Committee?
I asked Drumheller just those questions when I spoke to him early this evening. He was quite clear. He was interviewed by the Robb-Silbermann Commission. Three times apparently.
Did he tell them everything he revealed on tonight's 60 Minutes segment. Absolutely.
"I was stunned," Drumheller told me, when so little of the stuff he had told the commission's and the committee's investigators ended up in their reports. His colleagues, he said, were equally "in shock" that so little of what they related ended up in the reports either.
I wonder why that could be.
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Posted by: Alex Fetcher | November 02, 2007 at 01:42 AM