The White House's Weak Denials

"The White House had concocted a fake letter from Habbush to Saddam, backdated to July 1, 2001. 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. The letter also mentioned suspicious shipments to Iraq from Niger set up with al Qaeda's assistance. The idea was to take the letter to Habbush and have him transcribe it in his own neat handwriting on a piece of Iraq government stationery, to make it look legitimate. CIA would then take the finished product to Baghdad and have someone release it to the media.

"Even five years later, Richer remembers looking down at the creamy White House stationery on which the assignment was written. 'The guys from the Vide President's Office were just barraging us in this period with one thing after another: run down this lead, find out about that. It was nonstop. Of course, this was different. This was creating a deception.'"

As for Maguire, Suskind writes that Richer later "took him aside and briefed him on the Iraq Operations Group's next assignment: the Habbush letter.

"'When it was discussed with me I just thought it was incredible,' Maguire recalls. "A box-checking of all outstanding issues in one letter, from one guy.'"

Suskind's Rebuttal

On NBC's Today Show this morning, Meredith Vieira confronted Suskind with the official responses.

Suskind replied: "It's interesting. Rob Richer talked to me and actually other reporters, too, yesterday morning -- he was fine. He'd gotten the book Monday night, read it. And then something happened yesterday afternoon. It's, you know, it's one of these instances you've got a few people whose testimony could mean the impeachment ostensibly of the president. It's enormous pressure on both men. Look, I'm sympathetic to them. They're good guys. I've spent a lot of time with them. Their interviews are taped. . . . "

Viera: "What would have happened yesterday, that's what I don't understand. Richers retired from the CIA."

Suskind: "But also, he's a government contractor. He runs an intelligence firm that lives on government contracts by and large. . . .

"This is a dynamic situation. There are folks in Congress calling -- they want people under oath -- they said, 'There's only so much a journalist can do. We need to have people under oath with threat of perjury. That's the way to get to the bottom of something this contentious and portentous.'"

Viera: "So you still stand by everything and say that perhaps these two guys were pressured."

Suskind: "You know, in this situation, you know, you can almost expect that they would be pressured. You know? It's the testimony of a few people with so very much at stake. . . . We'll see how it unfolds."

Last night, in an interview with MSNBC's Keith Olbermann, Suskind also noted the specificity of the denials. His book, he said, "never says that Maguire was in the chain of command. It says in fact that Rob talked to John Maguire about it but Maguire was going back to Baghdad, so his successor handled it."