The Central Intelligence Agency today added its denial to a lengthening list of officials who have repudiated author Ron Suskind's charges that the White House asked the spy agency to fabricate a document to "prove" that Iraq had links to the 9/11 hijackers and had imported uranium from Africa.
In a statement circulated to reporters and posted on its Web site, the CIA said that it had conducted "a thorough" internal investigation of Suskind's charges and found them wanting.
"As Agency officers current and former (officials) have made clear, those charges are false," the CIA statement said, noting that the White House and relevant British intelligence officials have also repudiated Suskind's charges.
"Those denials are powerful in and of themselves," the CIA said. "But they are also backed by a thorough, time-consuming records search within CIA and by interviews with other officers--senior and junior alike--who were directly involved in Iraq operations."
In his book, The Way of the World, Suskind quotes two top CIA officials as telling him how, in 2003, as U.S. forces searched vainly for weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, then-CIA Director George Tenet came back from an Oct. 2003 White House meeting with orders to create a phony document that would blunt growing skepticism about the administration's case for toppling Saddam Hussein.
The document, which was in fact produced by someone and leaked to pro-war journalists in Dec. 2003, was purported to have been written by the chief of Iraqi intelligence Tahir Habbush, to Saddam Hussein.
"At this point, the origins of the forgery, like the whereabouts of Habbush himself, remain unclear," the CIA said. "But this much is certain: Suskind is off the mark."
Suskind's credibility began taking blows two weeks ago when two key former CIA official he quotes in his book, Rob Richer and John Maguire, repudiated the author's interpretation of their interviews with him.
In response, Suskind released portions of his interview transcript with Richer, which he said vindicated him.
But nowhere in the transcript, however, does Richer say that then-CIA Director George Tenet actually carried out the alleged White House order, which he says "probably" originated with Vice President Dick Cheney.
It was treated like a joke by agency officials, Richer told Suskind.
"To characterize it right, I would say, right: it came to us, George had a raised eyebrow, and basically we passed it on--it was to--and passed this on into the organization. You know, it was: 'Okay, we gotta do this, but make it go away.' To be honest with you, I don't want to make it sound--I for sure don't want to portray this as George jumping: 'Okay, this has gotta happen.' As I remember it--and, again, it's still vague, so I'll be very straight with you on this--is it wasn't that important. It was: 'This is unbelievable. This is just like all the other garbage we get about . . . I mean Mohammad Atta and links to al Qaeda. 'Rob,' you know, 'do something with this.' I think it was more like that than: 'Get this done.'"
To some observers, Suskind undercut his case by not employing a common investigative reporting tool of taking a cooperative interview subject through his remarks repeatedly to make sure the reporter understands exactly what the subject is saying -- and that the interview subject will stand by the reporter's interpretation of his quotes when they are published.
Richer denies that Suskind showed him the passages in question before the book was published. He says he rushed out to buy the book himself when he began hearing about what it would say.
Suskind had interviewed Richer previously on two occasions, on matters unrelated to his current book, in personal meetings, sources say.
But Suskind conducted his interviews with Richer about the forged document by telephone.
Richer also denies Suskind's insistance that he and the author have exchanged a "flurry" of e-mails since the book's publication.
At this point, few things seem certain in the mysterious affair: One is that a phony document was forged and provided to the press -- but no one has made it public.
Meanwhile the central figure in the affair, Tahir Habbush, has vanished.
Rep. John Conyers, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, is looking into the charges.
On Aug. 20, Conyers sent letters of inquiry to Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, among others, asking about Suskind's allegations.
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