Order for Fake Letter Linking Iraq to 9/11 Came on White House Stationary: Transcript

As I wrote previously, Pulitzer Prize-winning author Ron Suskind asserts in his latest book, "The Way of the World: A Story of Truth and Hope in an Age of Extremism,that the Bush adminstration ordered a back-dated letter linking Iraq to 9/11 be forged. On Friday Suskind released a transcript of a conversation between himself and the Central Intelligence Agency's former Deputy Chief of Clandestine Operations Robert Richer.

Last Tuesday, the White House released a statement on Richer's behalf in which Richer said:

"I never received direction from George Tenet or anyone else in my chain of command to fabricate a document ... as outlined in Mr. Suskind's book."

However, Suskind's transcript puts the lie to that statement:

Ron Suskind: The intent--the basic raison d'etre of this product is to get, is to create, here's a letter with what's in it. Okay, here's what we want on the letter, we want it to be released as essentially a representation of something Habbush says. That's all it says, that's the one paragraph. And then you pass it to whomever to do it. To get it done.

Rob Richer: It probably passed through five or six people. George probably showed it to me, but then passed it probably to Jim Pavitt, the DDO, who then passed it down to his chief of staff who passed it to me. Cause that's how--you know, so I saw the original. I got a copy of it. But it was, there probably was--

Suskind: Right. You saw the original with the White House stationery, but you didn't--down the ranks, then it creates other paper.

Richer: Yeah, no, exactly. But I couldn't tell you--again: I remember it happening, I remember a terrible brief kinda joking dialogue about it, but that was it.

. . .

Suskind: Now this is from the Vice President's Office is how you remembered it--not from the president?

Richer: No, no, no. What I remember is George saying, 'we got this from'--basically, from what George said was 'downtown.'

Suskind: Which is the White House?

Richer: Yes. But he did not--in my memory--never said president, vice president, or NSC. Okay? But now--he may have hinted--just by the way he said it, it would have--cause almost all that stuff came from one place only: Scooter Libby and the shop around the vice president.

Suskind: Yeah, right.

Richer: But he didn't say that specifically. I would naturally--I would probably stand on my, basically, my reputation and say it came from the vice president.

As Suskind said in his post of the transcript:

The conversation below took place in June 2008. As in all of our conversations, it shows Rob pressing to get at truth and embrace probity.

This posting is contrary to my practice across 25 years as a journalist. But the issues, in this matter, are simply too important to stand as discredited in any way.