The Steier Blog-o-rama

Lewis Libby, the man, the legend:

After graduating from Yale, Lewis Libby became part of the legal defense team for Marc Rich. Rich is a billionaire who was convicted for selling oil to the enemy which at that time was Iraq. This is ironic because Libby's current boss, Dick Cheney, also headed a company which sold stuff to the enemy, which happened to also be Iraq. Even more ironic, the same company which was once headed by his new boss is now subcontracting work in Iraq to a company partly owned by Libby's old boss.

Anyhow, back in '93, Libby put together a tome called "Defense Planning Guide". Here are some exerpts on intelligence gathering from its companion volume, "Money, Profit, and Big Bucks from Global Whoopass."

"Mama Mia! There's a nucular-a weapons-a inna East Carboneria!"

"I think you probably mean Iraq!"

Step 1: Send an expert you can trust to find weapons of mass destruction in an oil rich country or a country through which you can build an oil pipeline.

Step 2: Give any of the resulting documentation to the administration with one of the following approved seals of approval:

Step 3: Based on the report about Weapons of Mass Destruction, attack the specified country with a multi-national force of contractors paid for by the country you happen to be working for at the time.

Extra! Kids, can you pick out which person is U.S. military in the picture at the right?

(Haha! This is a trick question. The guy in fatigues is a contractor working as an interrogator at an Iraqi prison. The other guys are all military police.)

Step 4: If anything goes wrong, say, a former diplomat brings into question the authenticity of your intelligence on Weapons of mass destruction, make sure you have a trusted assistant (like a syndicated newspaper columnist) willing to do whatever you command.

"Okay, Bob, go and make that man's life miserable by outing his wife as a CIA agent in one of your columns and totally blowing her cover, making countless other agents in danger of being exposed and putting the United States at risk!"

"Yes, Master. Your Wish is my Command..."

Step 5: Finally, rely on the media to protect you should your methods of intelligence gathering come into question. The nebulous terror alert, custom fabricated just for this type of occasion, does a fine job of distracting the rabble while you write more contracts and gather intelligence on yet another country with weapons of mass destruction.

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