Venezuela - Operations Pliers

navindra "Anarcho-Muppet"
Posts: 117 Joined: 22-01-07
Submitted by navindra on 2 December, 2007 - 14:37.

Anyone know if the CIA memo that is referenced in the Operation Pliers stories has been published anywhere?

Quote:
November 28, 2007
COUNTERPUNCH EXCLUSIVE!
Counterattack as Fateful Referendum Looms
CIA Venezuela Destabilization Memo Surfaces

By JAMES PETRAS

On November 26, 2007 the Venezuelan government broadcast and circulated a confidential memo from the US embassy to the CIA which is devastatingly revealing of US clandestine operations and which will influence the referendum this Sunday, December 2, 2007.

The memo sent by an embassy official, Michael Middleton Steere, was addressed to the Director of Central Intelligence, Michael Hayden. The memo was entitled 'Advancing to the Last Phase of Operation Pincer' and updates the activity by a CIA unit with the acronym 'HUMINT' (Human Intelligence) which is engaged in clandestine action to destabilize the forth-coming referendum and coordinate the civil military overthrow of the elected Chavez government. The Embassy-CIA's polls concede that 57 per cent of the voters approved of the constitutional amendments proposed by Chavez but also predicted a 60 per cent abstention.

The US operatives emphasized their capacity to recruit former Chavez supporters among the social democrats (PODEMOS) and the former Minister of Defense Baduel, claiming to have reduced the 'yes' vote by 6 per cent from its original margin. Nevertheless the Embassy operatives concede that they have reached their ceiling, recognizing they cannot defeat the amendments via the electoral route.

The memo then recommends that Operation Pincer (OP) [Operación Tenaza] be operationalized. OP involves a two-pronged strategy of impeding the referendum, rejecting the outcome at the same time as calling for a 'no' vote. The run up to the referendum includes running phony polls, attacking electoral officials and running propaganda through the private media accusing the government of fraud and calling for a 'no' vote. Contradictions, the report emphasizes, are of no matter.

Continued here...

Tacks "in it to win it"
Posts: 4723 Joined: 08-11-05
2 December, 2007 - 15:17

Oh wow.

Cheers for that - as to your question i haven't seen any papers tyoday yet.

JH
Posts: 402 Joined: 11-02-07
2 December, 2007 - 15:30

There's a report about Operation Pliers on a blog by Eva Golinger. However its authenticity is questioned in a comment on the blog.

menshevik wrote:
Even a co-worker with Eva Gollinger
("Jeremy Bigwood & Eva Golinger: the shady duo"
http://www.vcrisis.com/index.php?content=letters/200503250937
)
thinks the document is a fake.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/30/world/americas/30venez.html
>...Reports of such plots are not in short supply here. The main state
television network broadcast coverage this week of a memorandum in
Spanish that it claimed had been written by the C.I.A. in which
destabilization plans against Mr. Chávez were laid out. American
involvement in Venezuelan politics remains a particularly delicate issue
here, after the Bush administration tacitly supported a coup in 2002
that briefly ousted Mr. Chávez.

"We reject and are disappointed in the Venezuelan government's
allegations that the United States is involved in any type of conspiracy
to affect the outcome of the constitutional referendum," Benjamin Ziff,
a spokesman for the United States Embassy here, said in a statement.

A C.I.A. spokesman called the document "a fake," while analysts,
including investigators who had previously uncovered financing of
Venezuelan opposition groups by the United States government, expressed
doubts about the authenticity of the memo.

"I find the document quite suspect," said Jeremy Bigwood, an independent
researcher in Washington. "There's not an original version in English,
and the timing of its release is strange."
November 30, 2007 11:10 AM

Of course the CIA would probably say it was a fake anyway. It might be a question of which country's intelligence agency you prefer to believe in this case.

Iron Column
Posts: 35 Joined: 21-05-07
6 December, 2007 - 16:54

Has anything happened to verify this? It certainly seems like if the Venezuelans have the evidence, they would want to dish. And I believe the original copy would be in English, which they still haven't shown? As time passes this is looking more like a plausibly believable election time ploy from Chavez.