Iraqi refugees in Jordan face further difficulties with the Jordanian Government's announcement that they will no longer issue or extend residency permits for Iraqis in Jordan. The Jordanian Government views the Iraqis living in Jordan as only visitors and not as refugees. Thankfully, the government did promise not to deport any of the Iraqis living illegally in Jordan.

Pulitzer Prize-winner Ron Suskind exposed a C.I.A. forgery in his new book The Way of the World: A Story of Truth And Hope In An Age of Extremism, where he says that he learned from taped conversations with inside sources that the Bush administration knew Iraq had no weapons of mass destruction, and fabricated intelligence assessments to support its case for war, clearly an impeachable offense.

Oddly, most mainstream press has refrained from reporting on the scandal. The New York Times even removed any references to the story posted in reader comments, and have not responded to those querying about the curious lack of reporting.

National Public Radio is one of the few mainstream press to report on the story. From a transcript of one of their broadcasts:

Suskind, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, tells Steve Inskeep that a secret mission was conducted, in which a British intelligence agent met with the head of Iraqi intelligence in a secret location in Jordan, and that the Iraqi conveyed that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

"What that meant is that we knew everything that became so obvious by the summer after the invasion, and the president made a decision essentially to ignore that intelligence," Suskind says.

He says once the final report went to President Bush, Condoleezza Rice and others, the U.S. cut off communications with the Iraqi intelligence chief and then moved forward. An agreement was made to resettle the Iraqi and pay him $5 million.

Then, in the fall of 2003, the White House decided that a letter should be fabricated, dated July 2001, from the Iraqi to Saddam Hussein establishing a link to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the U.S. "And the letter should as well say that Saddam Hussein has been actively buying yellowcake uranium from Niger with the help of al-Qaida," Suskind says.

He says that sources at the CIA remember seeing the order for that letter on "creamy White House stationery" and that the letter could only have come from the "highest reaches of the White House. ... It would have to come from the very top."

Suskind's book has been so controversial, he has even broken with traditional journalistic tradition and posted transcripts of his conversations to prove his facts.

The White House has responded, first saying the allegations were "absurd", then backtracking. Friday, former CIA officer Philip Giraldi said "the bulk of Suskind’s claim, that a forged letter was produced linking Iraq to al-Qaeda, is correct but a “number of details are wrong.”

House Judiciary Committee Chairman John Conyers said in a statement late Monday that Congress will review Suskind's allegations.

What I would like to know is who is hushing this story up — and why.