Ari on bugging

[H. Curtiss Leung]

FWIW, there are reasons to believe it's a forgery (the Anglicized spellings 
in the email as the Observer first published it NOT being one of them).  
But even if it is, someone with some credibility tossed it to the Observer,
which means (a) serious dissent within intelligence/policy/military communities
on the wisdom of the coming war or (b) something so devious I can't imagine
what it might be.
--
Curtiss, waiting for the other shoe to drop on this


> Date: Mon, 3 Mar 2003 16:25:50 -0500
> From: Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com>
> Subject: Ari on bugging
> 
> [from today's White House press briefing]
> 
> Q May I also ask you about a report in The Observer newspaper in 
> London, of a memo purported to be from the NSA -- an email message 
> from a man who actually works at the NSA they established -- in which 
> he describes a surge in surveillance of U.N. Security Council members 
> to see what these nations are thinking about an Iraq vote. What's 
> your response?
> 
> MR. FLEISCHER: Terry, as a matter of long-standing policy, the 
> administration never comments on anything involving any people 
> involved in intelligence. For example, if somebody were to say to me, 
> is Libya an object of American intelligence -- I would never answer 
> that question yes or no. The administration does not answer questions 
> of that nature. We don't answer who does or does not work in the 
> intelligence community. Once you start that, you start getting into 
> process of elimination and we do not do that about any question, 
> about any report, as a blanket matter of policy.