Yellow cake

Back in early 2003, Seymour Hersh reported on the deep suspicions raised by the forged "yellow cake documents" that led to the infamous "16 words" that found their way into Bush's State of the Union address. That story ended with these words:

On March 14th, Senator Jay Rockefeller, of West Virginia, the senior Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, formally asked Robert Mueller, the F.B.I. director, to investigate the forged documents. Rockefeller had voted for the resolution authorizing force last fall. Now he wrote to Mueller, “There is a possibility that the fabrication of these documents may be part of a larger deception campaign aimed at manipulating public opinion and foreign policy regarding Iraq.” He urged the F.B.I. to ascertain the source of the documents, the skill-level of the forgery, the motives of those responsible, and “why the intelligence community did not recognize the documents were fabricated.” A Rockefeller aide told me that the F.B.I. had promised to look into it.

The Italian La Republicca has virtually confirmed Rockefeller's suspicions; read Laura Rozen's summary of the scoop. (And, as usual, see Josh Marshall, too.)