THE UNSC DIRTY TRICK

I'm sure you've heard the story by now, that the US supposedly set up a spy operation to determine how the debate re Iraq would shape up in the UNSC. Having reviewed the text of the email purporting to reveal that effort, I have to say that I doubt its authenticity. I'm no intel agency expert and I've never worked for one, but the text just strikes me as ginned up by someone trying to play a dirty trick on the US.

Laying aside the objections already detailed by Matt Drudge, here's why I think it's a fake: The opening paragraph offers too much detail. Would real National Security Agency workers really need to know that the spy effort isn't directed at the US and UK? Would a real NSA supervisor really go into so much background on a story that he assumes his audience is already aware of? I doubt it--NSA types are notorious for their circumspection, not needless verbosity. This email strikes me as a particular insecure method of discussing what would be a fairly secretive undertaking.

I'm not saying, by the way, that such an effort isn't going on or that the Bush administration has no interest in such a scheme. It does have such an interest, and may well be engaged in various methods of gathering as much intelligence as it can get on how UNSC members are thinking. It would be one way of determining how to influence any members whose votes are still up for grabs. But I don't think that the email reported in The Observer is legitimate, and I do think that it is in itself a "dirty trick" aimed at sowing mistrust of the US among the UNSC's non-permanent members.