Wheels within wheels, lies within lies

I'm sure those who follow the politics of backstabbing leaks involving the CIA will be giving us some informed speculation on what this means over the next few days. But now there's yet another facet of the prewar WMD fraud that is coming to light.

From Iraqi diplomat gave U.S. prewar WMD details: Saddam's foreign minister told CIA the truth, so why didn't agency listen? by Aram Roston Lisa Myers and the NBC Investigative Unit MSNBC.com 03/20/06:

In the period before the Iraq war, the CIA and the Bush administration erroneously believed that Saddam Hussein was hiding major programs for weapons of mass destruction. Now NBC News has learned that for a short time the CIA had contact with a secret source at the highest levels within Saddam Hussein’s government, who gave them information far more accurate than what they believed. It is a spy story that has never been told before, and raises new questions about prewar intelligence.

What makes the story significant is the high rank of the source. His name, officials tell NBC News, was Naji Sabri, Iraq’s foreign minister under Saddam. Although Sabri was in Saddam's inner circle, his cosmopolitan ways also helped him fit into diplomatic circles.

In September 2002, at a meeting of the U.N.’s General Assembly, Sabri came to New York to represent Saddam. ...

But on that very trip, there was also a secret contact made. The contact was brokered by the French intelligence service, sources say. ... Through the intermediary, intelligence sources say, the CIA paid Sabri more than $100,000 in what was, essentially, "good-faith money." And for his part, Sabri, again through the intermediary, relayed information about Saddam’s actual capabilities.

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