Always the same pathetic story

Hey, remember the late 90s when oral gratification in the White House was the worst thing ever?

Apparently, it is a sin greater than a war crime:

A new book by the author Ron Suskind claims that the White House ordered the CIA to forge a back-dated, handwritten letter from the head of Iraqi intelligence to Saddam Hussein.

Suskind writes in “The Way of the World,” to be published Tuesday, that the alleged forgery – adamantly denied by the White House – was designed to portray a false link between Hussein’s regime and al Qaeda as a justification for the Iraq war...

“The White House had concocted a fake letter from Habbush to Saddam, backdated to July 1, 2001,” Suskind writes. “It said that 9/11 ringleader Mohammad Atta had actually trained for his mission in Iraq – thus showing, finally, that there was an operational link between Saddam and al Qaeda, something the Vice President’s Office had been pressing CIA to prove since 9/11 as a justification to invade Iraq. There is no link.”

Of course, this article is written by Mike Allen so it contains 80% White House push-back - uncritically.

And that will undoubtedly be the end of that as far as the media is concerned.

Just like:

- Bush wanting to fly fake "UN" planes over Iraq in hopes Saddam would shoot at them;
- Cheney having American soldiers shoot at other American soldiers dressed up like Iranian soldiers;
- Bush suggesting firing a cruise missile into Al Jazeera headquarters.
- And just recently, like the media has completely ignored how the Bush Administration (and McCain) pushed the idea that Al Qaeda or, even better, Iran was behind the Anthrax attacks.

A tip to Kevin Drum for remembering a couple of these items first.

[cross-posted at Firedoglake]