Micheal Ledeen is the probable source of the falsified intelligence on Iraq 
and nuclear weapons that Dick Cheney used to get the U.S. to go to war 
in Iraq.

The intelligence, now verified as false, first surfaced in Italy and 
was then passed to British and American intelligence.


KARL ROVE, MICHAEL LEDEEN SPIES PROCURED FORGED NIGER DOCUMENTS

   

   
Excerpted from Executive Intelligence Review--

The same drumbeat for "regime change" that led to war against Iraq, is 
now coming from the mouths of Vice President Dick Cheney's cabal; only 
now, the target is Iran. This destabilization is being run through U.S. 
private foundations and think-tanks, to overthrow the government in 
Iran, and run a destabilization, and/or military strike against Iran's 
nuclear energy production facilities.

The pointman is Michael Ledeen, who divides his time among National Review 
Online, JINSA, and the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). Ledeen is 
stirring up the networks in Congress and the press, and lining up tainted 
intelligence to justify war on Iran.

This is the same Michael Ledeen, who, as a consultant to the Reagan-Bush 
Administration National Security Council in the mid-1980s, was a pivotal 
criminal figure in the Iran-Contra fiasco, covertly peddling weapons to the 
very Ayatollahs whom he is now plotting to overthrow. He is also the same 
Ledeen who now calls for the United States to wage war against Iran, Syria, 
Lebanon, Sudan, Libya because, he alleges, they are all "masters of 
terror." Yet in the 1980s, Ledeen was one of the biggest promoters in 
Washington of the so-called Afghansi mujahideen—including Osama bin 
Laden—whom he touted as "freedom fighters" and "champions of the democratic 
struggle against totalitarian communism."

Ledeen's operations are not merely the rantings of deeply disturbed wanna-
be Il Duce. His efforts should be understood as reflecting the immediate 
intentions of the Administration neo-conservatives. His cronies, Deputy 
Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz and Undersecretary of Defense for 
Policy Doug Feith, are the key advisors to Secretary of Defense Donald "Dr. 
Strangelove" Rumsfeld.

Ledeen, the self-proclaimed "universal fascist," has long been under 
scrutiny by EIR researchers, as a man who has been in the midst of some of 
the dirtiest covert intelligence operations of the past 30 years. EIR's 
Special Report of April 1987, Project Democracy: The 'Parallel Government' 
Behind the Iran-Contra Affair, put a spotlight on Ledeen, from which I draw 
some of the brief profile published here.

Ledeen, as he wrote in his book Machiavelli on Modern Leadership: Why 
Machiavelli's Iron Rules Are As Timely and Important Today as Five 
Centuries Ago (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2000), is a believer in "total 
war" through "creative violence." There is no such thing as peace between 
nations, he maintains; peace is just an interlude between wars.

Ledeen fits the profile of a "Synarchist," or "Nazi/Communist," as those 
concepts were discussed in World War II-era documents made available to EIR 
by military intelligence and other sources during the 1980s (see Jeffrey 
Steinberg, "Synarchism: The Fascist Roots of the Wolfowitz Cabal," EIR, May 
30, 2003). Particularly relevant to this characterization is Ledeen's work 
with both "Red" and "Black" terrorists in Italy, and his support, along 
with Henry Kissinger, of the Propaganda Due (P-2) Freemasonic Lodge of 
former Nazi collaborator Licio Gelli, which directed the NATO- related 
"strategy of tension" against former Italian Prime Minister Aldo Moro. 
Still Promoting Terrorists

On June 23, France's Secret Service launched a crackdown on the Iranian 
Mujahadeen e-Khalq (MEK, or MKO), an anti-regime group that has been on the 
U.S. State Department's list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations since 1997. 
Simultaneous with recent confrontations in Iran, some 150 MEK members were 
arrested at their "international headquarters" near Paris, and accused of 
plotting terrorist attacks against Iranian embassies and diplomats 
throughout Europe. The MEK members arrested by the French authorities were 
operating under the cover of the National Council for Resistance in Iran, 
the MEK's international front group. Among those arrested were MEK cult 
leader Maryam Rajavi and her husband, MEK military chief Massoud Rajavi. 
Following the arrests, nine members of the group set themselves on fire in 
protests in Paris. One died.

Rather than applaud the French moves as part of the war against terrorism, 
Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) is trying to whip up public support for the 
group. In an open letter, published in the June 24 Washington Times, he 
called for the "terrorist" designation to be dropped. He had earlier put 
forward an amendment to a bill that would give $50 million to exile Iranian 
satellite TV stations, to continue the sort of psy-ops carried out by Radio 
Farda. Back on March 13, Senator Brownback had joined Rep. Tom Lantos (D-
Calif.) to call for a "regime change," in Iran, despite the fact that 
moderate reformers, notably President Khatami, have become a significant 
factor in the country. Brownback's website states: "It may seem that our 
support is not really that important, but in truth, democracy dissidents 
inside Iran tell me that it is crucial to motivate the opposition and for 
them to know that there can be a strong future with the U.S. once they have 
re- claimed their ancient land."

Brownback was joined in the call to arms in defense of the terrorist MEK, 
by Michael Ledeen's alter-ego Daniel Pipes, who posted an op-ed on his 
website, demanding not only that the MEK be removed from the State 
Department terror list; but that the U.S. government adopt the MEK as a 
"liberation group" to wage guerrilla insurgency against the Iranian 
government.

Ledeen joined the fray with a raving article in the June 16 National Review 
Online, "The Iranian Revolution, 2003," in which he proclaims that he can 
"sniff out" Iranian revolution from "the tell-tale odors coming from the 
undergarments of its doomed leaders." The article cites six reasons why the 
Iranian "revolution" is unstoppable now—and why President Bush must embrace 
it. The article is considered a signal that the neo-con cabal inside the 
Administration is going into high gear behind the scenes to get war in 
Iran. Among other objectives, war on Iran would help derail the Road Map 
negotiations for Israeli- Palestinian peace—a policy the President 
supports, but the Administration neo-cons despise. Ledeen's 'Focus on Iran'

Ledeen and company have been putting this operation in place for some time. 
In 2001, Ledeen founded the Coalition for Democracy in Iran (CDI), with a 
call for regime change in that country. One of his partners in founding the 
coalition was Dr. Rob Sobhani, a professor at Georgetown University and 
president of Caspian Energy Consulting. Support for the CDI also comes from 
the Center for Security Policy's Frank Gaffney, former Rep. Jack Kemp, 
Joshua Muravchik of AEI, and former CIA director James Woolsey, who sits on 
the Defense Policy Board. Woolsey has also worked for the Doug Feith/Abram 
Shulsky "Office of Special Plans" in the Pentagon, which cooked the 
intelligence to push through the Iraq War. One of CDI's policies, as 
spelled out in the June 15 Washington Post, is to support Brownback's call 
for an Iran Liberation Act, similar to the 1997 one for Iraq.

Ledeen rails against Iranian terrorism in his recent book The Terror 
Masters: Why It Happened. Where We Are Now. How We'll Win. According to 
Pacific News Service of May 19, he gave a speech at a JINSA policy forum on 
April 30, entitled "Time to Focus on Iran—The Mother of Modern Terrorism." 
Bernard Lewis Joins In

The next big push came on May 6, when Ledeen moderated a panel at a 
conference at AEI, on "The Future of Iran: Mullarchy, Democracy, and the 
War on Terror."

Co-sponsoring the event was the Hudson Institute—funded by the Russian and 
Jewish Mafia-linked Marc Rich (whose attorneys had included Cheney's 
"Scooter" Libby) and by British media baron Conrad Black—and the Foundation 
for the Defense of Democracies. Opening the event was Meyrav Wurmser, 
director of Middle East programs at the Hudson Institute, whose husband, 
David Wurmser, is an adviser to Assistant Secretary of State John Bolton. 
Her morning panel was entitled, "Iran Today—A Reality Check," and panelists 
included Uri Lubrani of the Israeli Defense Ministry.

Ledeen gave the introduction for former British military intelligence 
operative and Princeton Professor Emeritus Bernard Lewis, who is the 
inventor of the idea of a "Clash of Civilizations," later popularized in a 
book by that name by Samuel Huntington. Lewis' thesis, cloaked in phrases 
of Athenian democracy, is that which President Carter's National Security 
Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski formerly called "the Arc of Crisis" and today 
calls "the Zone of Instability." It calls for stopping Eurasian integration 
through manipulating tribal, ethnic, and religious axioms to destroy 
nation- states, beginning especially in the Middle East. Ledeen introduced 
Lewis as "the reigning genius of Middle East studies everywhere."

Lewis openly called for a "revolution" in Iran, to follow the military 
conquest of Iraq; he compared Iran to Napoleonic France or Stalin's Soviet 
Union. Lewis said that the most important and dangerous neighbor of Iraq 
was Iran, adding, "It is, I suppose, in Iran that this fear of a success of 
democracy in Iraq is most strongly felt, and with the very best of 
reasons." Pointing to the fact that there are more Shi'ites than Sunnis 
among Islamic religious denominations in Iraq, Lewis continued, "Shi'ism is 
[also] the predominant religion in Iran and the one which ... [is] invoked 
by the current leadership of that country and the theocracy that was 
established by the revolution in '79."

Lewis presented the pie-in-the-sky view that "democratic ideas and 
democratic examples from a new Iraq might spread across the border ... and 
the Muslim Shi'ite divines on both sides may feel—and one can understand 
this—they feel they have to do something about it. They have to do 
something to counter this American-sponsored Democratic fright.... What is 
necessary from the point of view of the Iranian theocracy is that the 
democratic experiment in Iraq should fail and that the consequences to 
Americans there should be so awful that they would go away and not come 
back."

Also speaking at the AEI event was Senator Brownback, who called for 
support for his Senate Resolution 82, and promoted his Iran Democracy 
amendment. "It should be the policy of the U.S.," he said, "to seek a 
genuine democratic government in Iran that will restore freedom to the 
Iranian people, abandon terrorism, and live in peace and security with the 
international commuity."

Everyone who knows the first thing about Iran realizes that any American 
meddling there—such as the actions already being run through Ledeen, 
Brownback, Woolsey, et al.—is a recipe for chaos and likely mass deaths. 
The promotion by Ledeen of a "liberation" of Iran is, thus, a drive for the 
kind of "purgative violence" that is at the heart of his "universal 
fascism." Which brings us to Ledeen's variety of fascism. Ledeen's 
'Synarchist' Roots

The first important influence on Ledeen's life was George Mosse, a German 
Jewish emigré, who had been on good terms with such Nazi leaders as Joseph 
Goebbels and Herman Goering. Mosse was so close that Goering offered to 
make his father an Aryan, and the family was permitted to leave Germany 15 
minutes before the law was changed.

The Cambridge-educated Mosse, who would become Ledeen's teacher at the 
University of Wisconsin, taught Ledeen that despite its "perversion" by 
anti-Semitism, Fascism ought to be scientifically studied, because the 
Geist (soul) of Western countries had been suffocated and could only be 
revived through Fascism or Nazism. It is reported that while Ledeen was 
working on his Ph.D., he was blackballed for having joined—under Mosse's 
influence—a cell of the Israeli intelligence-linked movement associated 
with Vladimir Ze'ev Jabotinsky, whom Israeli leader David Ben Gurion 
referred to as "Vladimir Hitler."

It was through Mosse that Ledeen was introduced to later Presidential 
Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board member David Abshire, who was the 
founder of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), and 
who hired Ledeen as a political intelligence operative.

But an even more important mentor to Ledeen was Renzo de Felice, an 
advocate of the Jacobin Revolution in France which led to the emergence of 
the first modern Fascist, Napoleon Bonaparte. De Felice did not hide his 
Fascism, as he wrote in The Illuminati and Revolutionary Mysticism, 1789-
1900: "There is something in common between my Jacobins and a certain kind 
of Fascism.... Fascism wanted to achieve the transformation of society and 
the individual ... [toward] a new phase in the history of civilization."

After researching in Italy from 1966 to 1967, where he met scions of the 
Venetian oligarchy who are "magicians" in cultural warfare, Ledeen wrote: 
Universal Fascism (1972); "Italian Fascism and Youth," Journal of 
Contemporary History, July 1969; "Fascist Social Policy," in The Use and 
Abuse of Social Science, ed, Irving Louis Horowitz; and, among others, 
Fascism, An Informal Introduction to Its Theory and Practice, by Renzo de 
Felice, which includes an interview with Ledeen.

Ledeen preferred unbridled, Jacobin-style fascism, such as that of 
Gabrielle D'Annunzio in the early 1900s. In his 1972 Universal Fascism, 
Ledeen criticized Benito Mussolini as being too rigid: "He never had enough 
confidence in the Italian people to permit them a genuine participation in 
Fascism." Ledeen's Criminal Trail

Ledeen has been associated, throughout the past two decades, with some of 
the most sordid criminal affairs, implicating government officials, 
intelligence services, and private "synarchist" networks:

    * Irangate: It is particularly ironical that Ledeen is today calling 
    for a "regime change" in Iran, since he had been an integral culprit in 
    Project Democracy's covert operations with Iran's regime during the 
    1980s. He worked closely with Manuchar Ghorbanifar, an Iranian living 
    in France, to whom he had been introduced by top Israeli political 
    intelligence agent David Kimchee. Ledeen brought Ghorbanifar to a 
    meeting on Oct. 8, 1985 with the National Security Council's Lt. Col. 
    Oliver North, at which was also present Israeli arms dealer Ya'acov 
    Nimrodi, a key player in North's "Enterprise." Ledeen had frequent 
    meetings with North in this regard throughout 1985, despite CIA 
    warnings that Ghorbanifar was not to be trusted. It was through 
    Ghorbanifar that 500 TOW missiles were shipped to Iran, and then 19 
    Hawk SAM missiles, in exchange for the release of American hostages 
    then being held by terrorists in Lebanon. This was the "arms for 
    hostages" deal that was at the heart of the Iran-Contra scandal. The 
    weapons that went to Iran came either directly from the U.S. military 
    stockpiles, or from Israel's massive arms industry, involving top 
    officials of the Israeli government.

      Ledeen maintained that he was just involved in a "research program" 
      on Iran, which "by accident," turned into an "action program." 
      However, it is notable that throughout this period, he was involved, 
      by way of a firm called EATSCO, with former CIA Deputy Director for 
      Plans Theodor Shackley, who was another pivotal Iran-Contra figure.

    * Italy's Propaganda-2 Lodge: According to innumerable sources on both 
    sides of the Atlantic, while working for Kissinger and Alexander Haig 
    at CSIS, Ledeen became a member of the Propaganda Due (P-2) Lodge, 
    which emerged to public light on May 20, 1981. This unmasking occurred 
    just seven days after the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II 
    by Mehmet Ali Agca, in which P-2 was thought to be involved. The 
    exposure of P-2 forced the resignation of 47 Italian Army generals and 
    6 Navy admirals. Also named was Bruno di Fabio, a naval officer working 
    at NATO headquarters in Brussels, across whose desk passed the reports 
    of the secret services of all of NATO's members. Other prominent 
    Italians revealed to be members of the secret society, who were toppled 
    and were known to be among Ledeen's close associates, were the chief of 
    staff of defense, Giovanni Torrissi; the head of the coordinating body 
    of the secret services, Walter Pelosi; the head of military 
    counterintelligence (SISMI), Giuseppe Santovito; the head of the 
    civilian intelligence service (SISDE), Giuliano Grassini. As for P-2 
    Grand Master Licio Gelli himself, he was the perfect "Synarchist" or, 
    as Ledeen might put it, "universal Fascist," having been both a Nazi SS 
    liaison officer and, until at least 1956, a Soviet agent.

    * The Temple Mount conspiracy: Ledeen and his wife Barbara have been 
    part of an "Armaggedon Project" to rebuild Solomon's Third Temple in 
    Jerusalem on al-Haram al-Sharif (a.k.a. "Temple Mount") which is the 
    third most holy site in Islam. The planned destruction of the al-Aqsa 
    Mosque on the Dome of the Rock would unleash unstoppable warfare in the 
    Middle East. Barbara Ledeen was until recently on the editorial 
    masthead of Biblical Archeology Review, which has played a central role 
    in plotting where the Third Temple should be placed, together with the 
    Quatuor Cornati ("Four Crowns") research 
    lodge of British Freemasonry.