Follow the Bouncing Numbers -

Back in the bad old days when I was office temping between careers, I worked in a litigation support office. We sorted, read, summarized and coded immense stacks of legal documents obtained through the discovery processes, in huge lawsuits (in my case, a suit against a nuclear power plant). Each document - as in, each piece of paper - is given a unique number, a "serial number" if you will. In more advanced discovery systems, the documents are fed into Optical Character Recognition (OCR) systems, so that all of the text on each document can be put into a fully-searchable database.

I say this because when I read Powerline, and they wax legal, I frequently develop a raging headache (which is no reflection on the clarity of my writing, merely on my attention span). However, this bit on the O'Neil-Suskind flap rang a bell - it ties directly back to my wretched experience in the litigation support biz:

The CBS promo linked to above says that this document "includes a map of potential areas for exploration. 'It talks about contractors around the world from, you know, 30-40 countries. And which ones have what intentions,' says Suskind. 'On oil in Iraq.'"

True enough; there is a "map of potential areas for exploration" in Iraq here. But what Paul O'Neill and Ron Suskind don't tell you is that the very same set of documents that contain the Iraq map and the list of Iraqi oil projects contain the same maps and similar lists of projects for the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia! When documents are produced in litigation (in this case, the Judicial Watch lawsuit relating to Cheney's energy task force), they are numbered sequentially. The two-page "Iraqi Oil Suitors" document that Suskind breathlessly touts is numbered DOC044-0006 through DOC044-0007. The Iraq oil map comes right before the list of Iraqi projects; it is numbered DOC044-0005.

DOC044-0001 is a map of oil fields in the United Arab Emirates. DOC044-0002 is a list of oil and gas development projects then going on in the United Arab Emirates. DOC044-0003 is a map of oil fields in Saudi Arabia. DOC044-0004 is a list of oil and gas projects in Saudi Arabia. So the "smoking gun" documents that Suskind and O'Neill claim prove that the administration was planning to invade Iraq in March 2001 are part of a package that includes identical documents relating to the United Arab Emirates and Saudi Arabia. Does Paul O'Neill claim the administration was planning on invading them, too? Or, as Mylroie says, was this merely part of the administration's analysis of sources of energy in the 21st century?

There is only one possible conclusion: Paul O'Neill and Ron Suskind are attempting to perpetrate a massive hoax on the American people.

Read the whole thing - and ponder the implications of our apparently-impending invasions of Saudi Arabia and the UAE.

The Captain and Reding both comment .

The left desparately wants this to be a scandal [warning - the link is to "Kicking Ass". Take your Dramamine]. It might be - but it'll be held against them.

Posted by Mitch at January 12, 2004 10:02 PM