The Importance of ‘Nine Fingers’: Second Powerful Goss Aide Linked to Wilkes Parties
The Importance of ‘Nine Fingers’: Second Powerful Goss Aide Linked to Wilkes Parties
Over the weekend, Newsweek magazine revealed the identity of another CIA official — previously known only as “Nine Fingers” — who reportedly attended the poker parties, that allegedly featured prostitutes, thrown by corrupt defense contractor Brent Wilkes
His name is Brant Bassett. He is identified by Newsweek only as “a former Goss aide,” but that’s an understatement. Congressional expenditure reports show he was actually the staff director of the House Intelligence Committee while Porter Goss was committee chairman. Bassett is the second Goss aide to be linked to the parties, in addition to Kyle “Dusty” Foggo.
What’s important to keep in mind is the heavy role that top aides have played in influencing Goss’ decisions. Both in Congress and while heading the CIA, news reports have suggested that Goss played a hands-off role, delegating his responsibilities to powerful staffers like Patrick Murray. Weeks after Goss was initially appointed as CIA Director, “Goss’ closest aides” were already being accused of wanting “to micromanage decisions.” Goss rewarded those aides by creating powerful, high-profile positions for them to fill:
Goss didn’t just give them top positions in the agency, he invented new posts for them, as mediators between the DCI and the intelligence and operations directorates. “They are not positions that are rigorously defined in agency regulations,” observes Steven Aftergood, an intelligence policy expert with the Federation of American Scientists. “Rather, they are invested with whatever authority Goss wants to give them, which means they could be very important indeed.”
So, there are now two powerful Goss aides, Basset and Foggo, that were squarely within Wilkes’s sphere of influence and are linked to parties being aggressively investigated by the FBI.
Yet, the White House wants the media and the public to believe that Goss’s sudden resignation had nothing to do with the emerging bribery and postitution scandal. The more we learn, the more implausiable the official version of the story becomes.
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48 Responses to “The Importance of ‘Nine Fingers’: Second Powerful Goss Aide Linked to Wilkes Parties”
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“The more we learn, the more implausiable the official version of the story becomes.”
Man, thats what you guys say about everything. Put down the hippy tobacco and you’ll suddenly be much, much, less paraniod. (Try our kool-aid instead, its to die for)
May 8th, 2006 at 3:35 pmYou don’t need to see his identification, these aren’t the droids you’re looking for. He can go about his business, move along.
May 8th, 2006 at 3:37 pmMan, thats what you guys say about everything.
Comment by squegeeboo — May 8, 2006 @ 3:35 pm
That’s because it’s true of virtually everything.
May 8th, 2006 at 3:37 pmUgh
“You don’t need to see his identification, these aren’t the droids you’re looking for. He can go about his business, move along.”
And those were the good guys using the mind trick, so you must think this administration is also the ‘good guys’
May 8th, 2006 at 3:39 pmYes the CIA stooges of Goss are wrapped up in the Watergate Hooker scandal! Goss himself most likely as well! But I still believe that Ray McGovern outing Rumsfeld as a liar on Thursday was the final straw that broke the back of Goss to resign on Friday!
May 8th, 2006 at 3:53 pmImportant news item today : Democrat Senator Diane Feinstein says that General Hayden is a good choice to replace Porter Goss as CIA Director. Feinstein said the same about Goss about 20 months ago, so she is one of the dumbest senators in history! Everyone flood her phone and fax lines in DC, and California, with words and faxes of outrage! Her husband is a multi-millionaire who has profiteered from the Iraq War/Occupation! They just purchased a 22 million dollar estate with a stone villa above San Francisco on the coastline! Feinstein is up for re-election in November, so a real Democrat must challenge her and get her out of the Senate! Sen. Feinstein is a war whore and a traitor too!
May 8th, 2006 at 4:01 pmI’m amazed the FBI has been able to find its own arse. “Tail-gating” can be very time and energy consuming. I wonder when Gluckert/Gannon going to re-emerge as a prominent “Hookergate” player.
May 8th, 2006 at 4:07 pmWith democrats like Feinstein and Lieberman, who needs republicans?
May 8th, 2006 at 4:11 pm#6 - Hey Jay, I just won $1,000,000 on Feinstein’s support of Hayden. I wonder who I can get to pay me?
May 8th, 2006 at 4:18 pmI also wonder if “Nine Fingers” only has 9 fingers, or if this is some sort of weird code name.
Yep post 8 and wait for Lieberman to praise General Hayden soon too! Hayden ran all the illegal wiretapping operations at the NSA, so for any Democrat Senators to vote for him is plain stupid and political suicide as well! I guess several Senators want their phones tapped? I wonder how the FBI found out about hookers having sex with GOP Reps and CIA guys? Phones were tapped at Watergate hotel!!!
May 8th, 2006 at 4:20 pmDid you hear? The official version is just” one of those mysteries”.
May 8th, 2006 at 4:22 pmIs anyone really surprised by this info? It’s been clear for almost two weeks that Goss is deep in this scandasl. And still nothing from the MSM. Sick and wrong.
http://www.lcoliberal.blogspot.com
USDA talking points on Iraq?!?
Right now on LCL
http://www.sunstateactivist.org
May 8th, 2006 at 4:24 pmPost 9 Zookeeper > contact Senator Lieberman to pay you a million since he will also vote YES for General Hayden > lol.
The guy really only has 9 fingers > maybe a male hooker bit one off during rough sex? LOL.
May 8th, 2006 at 4:24 pm#13 - JR,
May 8th, 2006 at 4:45 pmOr does he have nine fingers and two thumbs?
#13
May 8th, 2006 at 4:48 pmOr he lost it in some corn hole incident that went horribly wrong.
It’s endless. Thieves, liars, hypocrites. Good God Almighty.
May 8th, 2006 at 4:51 pmSqueegieboob, I haven’t heard any fat lady singing yet. Have you?
May 8th, 2006 at 4:54 pm#13 - Why would his FINGER be in the hooker’s mouth? :P
#14 - Damn, it could go that way, couldn’t it? Now I’m going to thinking about this until I find out. ;)
May 8th, 2006 at 4:56 pm#13, 9 fingers from play-for-keeps poker…shit the cia doesn’t mess around - anyone can play for money, few play for body parts!
May 8th, 2006 at 4:56 pmFoggio’s gone…from UPI
May 8th, 2006 at 4:59 pmPost 14 Walt > they say he only has 9 digits/fingers so implication is a missing finger, but possible for 9 fingers and two thumbs > lol > and webbed feet perhaps?
Post 15 dlet > anything is possible of how the guy lost his finger > lol > the press needs to ask the guy about it!
May 8th, 2006 at 5:00 pmFoogo, my bad, i apoligize to my fellow I-talianos
May 8th, 2006 at 5:01 pmfoggo…damn i give up!
May 8th, 2006 at 5:02 pm(ok, ok, I can’t resist……)
May 8th, 2006 at 5:02 pmmaybe he just likes to play “hide the finger”……….
No one in this administration ever resigns unless there is an impending indictment. Some don’t even resign until they are frog marched out.
Goss and Faggo as well as sticky fingers are getting ready for some serious legal trouble no doubt.
Anyone with half a brain knows that anything coming from this Administration in the form of a cover story is just fiction. And if you do believe anything they say, how many times do you have to be lied to before you stop drinking the kool-aid?
I find it particullarly interesting that the sex of the hookers is never mentioned in the “news” and the ages of the hookers are overlooked as well. Smells like S***t, looks like it too, so it must have come from the end of a bull.
May 8th, 2006 at 5:19 pmPlease tell me you don’t actually believe that the head of the CIA engaged in postitution. C’mon why would you give someone an opportunity to leverage you. Especially, if your head of the CIA. I think -He lost the political battle taking on both the NSA and Pentagon.
May 8th, 2006 at 5:20 pm#26 He DID say he wasn’t qualified to run the CIA. Actually I don’t think he would be qualified to be Dan Quayle’s caddy. He isn’t the brightest bulb.
May 8th, 2006 at 5:25 pm#26- glug, glug, glug…. burp
May 8th, 2006 at 5:30 pmThis is the second time I check left wing blogs and caught another lie. First it was lying about what Jon Seceda sang at the inaugruation
Now left wing blogs are lying about what Bush said to the BILD magazine
“And so I would say the toughest moment of all was after the whole reality sunk in and I was trying to help the nation understand what was going on, and at the same time, be empathetic for those who had lost lives.
The best moment was — you know, I’ve had a lot of great moments. I don’t know, it’s hard to characterize the great moments. They’ve all been busy moments, by the way. I would say the best moment was when I caught a seven-and-a-half pound large mouth bass on my lake. (Laughter.) ”
First of all it’s a bass not a perch as several left wing blogs are lying about. Also you can see Bush is making a joke obviously after saying he couldnt single out one.
Anyway the point here is that left wing blogs are not holy - they twist words and lie just like right wing blogs. So next time you call Bush a liar, look at yourself first
May 8th, 2006 at 5:47 pmYes the Mafia plays a poker that if you lose the game your pinky little finger gets cut off! Interesting to find out what digit is missing? If a little finger is missing, then perhaps the CIA guy has Mafia connections? His pet name of “9 fingers” implies a Mafia hitman guy!
May 8th, 2006 at 5:49 pm#26..We still haven’t gotten the truth about Goss’s activites in Mexico City-1963 and a guy named Lee Harvey Oswald.
May 8th, 2006 at 5:52 pmThese guys are looking more and more like the criminals I have always believed they were.
May 8th, 2006 at 5:52 pmHey if we find out that “Nine Fingers” was in Dallas in 1963 he could be the hitman on JFK?
May 8th, 2006 at 5:54 pmPorter Goss was in the CIA from around 1958 to 1972 > he did take part in the “Bay of Pigs” fiasco, that failed CIA invasion of Cuba! So did George Bush Senior as well and it was called “Operation Zapata” named after his oil drilling company in Mexico! Bush supplied 3 of his oil ships for that debacle > one was named “Barbara” for his wife, another “Houston” for that Texas city, and I forget the name of the third ship!
Bush Senior was also in Dallas, Texas, the day JFK was shot dead, so why was he there?
May 8th, 2006 at 6:03 pmBuild more prisons!
Invest in KY Jelly!
The republican party is going down!
May 8th, 2006 at 6:04 pmKJ Lovell — you’re right: the gender of the prostitutes is never mentioned by journalists covering this story. Can we infer by their not specifying gender that they *mean* female prostitutes by default? Or is somebody playing word/gender games to obfuscate? I wonder… do you have any other background/sourcing on this, that makes you think they might be male prostitutes? I know there have been some gossipy Web rumblings about Duke Cunningham’s proclivities w/r/t loving men, but that’s about it. Anybody have any evidence for either/or?
May 8th, 2006 at 6:09 pmPost 39 > the White house does not want the press to publish the sex of the hookers or their ages either! Underage hookers means under 18 teenagers, which would mean sex crimes took place as well! If Foggo had sex with a 16 year old boy this scandal would explode like a nuke?!
May 8th, 2006 at 6:16 pmI wish I was linked to Wilkes parties. They sound like a good time. Now wait a minute, what are Republicans doing at my party, only I like parties with hookers and shit. Conservatives don’t like that stuff, right?
May 8th, 2006 at 7:00 pm[…] Think Progress […]
May 8th, 2006 at 7:07 pmdid johnny nine fingers ever spend time in japan or korea?
he may have lost it up porter’s bunghole?
May 8th, 2006 at 7:22 pm#30
are you from norway, by any chance?
anyway, if you look at the main thread on this issue, you will see that a) there are pirate perch in texas; b) a much larger perch, the nile perch, was ’seeded’ in several texas lakes and ponds because it was seen as a more ’sporty’ fish; and c) whitehouse.gov has your president saying that there are perch in his private hole, as well as bass.
however, if your answer to the initial question posed is ‘yes’, then, maybe not so much…
May 8th, 2006 at 7:26 pmMy 27-31 year old drama teacher had sex with a 13 thgru 17 year old boy(me)(it was fun and she did not carry any STD’s).
May 8th, 2006 at 7:36 pmKJ Lovell — you’re right: the gender of the prostitutes is never mentioned by
journalists covering this story. Can we infer by their not specifying gender that
they *mean* female prostitutes by default? Or is somebody playing word/gender
games to obfuscate? I wonder… do you have any other background/sourcing on
this, that makes you think they might be male prostitutes? I know there have
been some gossipy Web rumblings about Duke Cunningham’s proclivities w/r/t
loving men, but that’s about it. Anybody have any evidence for either/or?
Comment by IncandenzaH
Washington times - 6/29/89 front page story….HOMOSEXUAL PROSTITUTION INQUIRY ENSNARES VIPS WITH REGAN AND BUSH - CALL BOYS TOOK MIDNIGHT TOUR OF WHITE HOUSE
The story is complete and even has pictures of receipts from the prostitutes. ONCE A DOG, ALWAYS A DOG…..more of the same time and again.
(even dumbya’s speech about Hayden today was a dust off and repeat of the speech he gave when Goss was to be next head guy - only the names were changed)
Porter Goss was in the CIA from around 1958 to 1972 > he did take part in
the “Bay of Pigs†fiasco, that failed CIA invasion of Cuba! So did George Bush
Senior as well and it was called “Operation Zapata†named after his oil drilling
company in Mexico! Bush supplied 3 of his oil ships for that debacle > one was
named “Barbara†for his wife, another “Houston†for that Texas city, and I forget
the name of the third ship!
Bush Senior was also in Dallas, Texas, the day JFK was shot dead, so why was he
there?
Comment by Jay Randal — May 8, 2006
And Jay, you forgot to mention “Operation Northwoods” a false flag operation that would use hijacked planes for domestic terror attacks here in the USA and they would blame Cuba and have an excuse to invade….McNamara said no….
So like I said above ONCE A DOG, ALWAYS A DOG….the REPUGnicans saved it for 40 years, dusted it off and used it 9/11……(see wikipedia for this one)
May 8th, 2006 at 11:27 pmOperation Northwoods
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Jump to: navigation, search
Northwoods Memorandum (March 13, 1962) Click PDFOperation Northwoods, or Northwoods, was a 1962 plan to generate U.S. public support for military action against the Cuban government of Fidel Castro as part of the U.S. government’s Operation Mongoose anti-Castro initiative. The plan, which was not implemented, called for various false flag actions, including simulated or real state sponsored terrorism (such as hijacked planes) on U.S. and Cuban soil. The plan was proposed by senior U.S. Department of Defense leaders, including the highest ranking member of the U.S. military, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Lyman Louis Lemnitzer.
The proposal was presented in a document entitled “Justification for US Military Intervention in Cuba,” a collection of draft memoranda (PDF PDF) written by the Department of Defense (DoD) and the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) representative to the Caribbean Survey Group. The document was presented by the JCS to Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara on March 13 with one paragraph approved, as a preliminary submission for planning purposes.
The previously secret document was originally made public on November 18, 1997 by the John F. Kennedy Assassination Records Review Board[1], a U.S. federal agency overseeing the release of government records related to John F. Kennedy’s assassination.[2][3] A total of about 1500 pages of once-secret military records covering 1962 to 1964 were concomitantly declassified by said Review Board.
“Appendix to Enclosure A” and “Annex to Appendix to Enclosure A” of the Northwoods document were first published online by the National Security Archive on November 6, 1998 in a joint venture with CNN as part of CNN’s 1998 Cold War television documentary series[4]—specifically, as a documentation supplement to “Episode 10: Cuba,” which aired on November 29, 1998.[5] “Annex to Appendix to Enclosure A” is the section of the document which contains the proposals to stage terrorist attacks.
The Northwoods document was published online in a more complete form (i.e., including cover memoranda) by the National Security Archive on April 30, 2001.[6]
In response to a request for pretexts for military intervention by the Chief of Operations, Cuba Project (Col. Edward Lansdale), the document lists methods (with, in some cases, outline plans) the author believed would garner public and international support for US military intervention in Cuba. These are staged attacks purporting to be of Cuban origin, with a number of them having real casualties. Central to the plan was the use of “friendly Cubans”—Cuban exiles seeking to oust Fidel Castro.
The suggestions included:
Starting rumors about Cuba by using clandestine radios.
Staging mock attacks, sabotages and riots at Guantanamo Bay and blaming it on Cuban forces.
Firebombing and sinking an American ship at the Guantanamo Bay American military base—reminiscent of the USS Maine incident at Havana in 1898, which started the Spanish-American War—or destroy American aircraft and blame it on Cuban forces. (The document’s first suggestion regarding the sinking of a U.S. ship is to blow up a manned ship and hence would result in U.S. Navy members being killed, with a secondary suggestion of possibly using unmanned drones and fake funerals instead.)
“Harassment of civil air, attacks on surface shipping and destruction of US military drone aircraft by MIG type [sic] planes would be useful as complementary actions.”
Destroying an unmanned drone masquerading as a commercial aircraft supposedly full of “college students off on a holiday”. This proposal was the one supported by the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
Staging a “terror campaign”, including the “real or simulated” sinking of Cuban refugees
“We could develop a Communist Cuban terror campaign in the Miami area, in other Florida cities and even in Washington. The terror campaign could be pointed at Cuban refugees seeking haven in the United States. We could sink a boatload of Cubans enroute [sic] to Florida (real or simulated). We could foster attempts on lives of Cuban refugees in the United States even to the extent of wounding in instances to be widely publicized.”
Burning crops by dropping incendiary devices in Haiti, Dominican Republic or elsewhere.
According to James Bamford in Body of Secrets:
Operation Northwoods, which had the written approval of the Chairman and every member of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, called for innocent people to be shot on American streets; for boats carrying refugees fleeing Cuba to be sunk on the high seas; for a wave of violent terrorism to be launched in Washington, D.C., Miami, and elsewhere. People would be framed for bombings they did not commit; planes would be hijacked. Using phony evidence, all of it would be blamed on Castro, thus giving Lemnitzer and his cabal the excuse, as well as the public and international backing, they needed to launch their war.
[edit]
Related Operation Mongoose Proposals
In addition to Operation Northwoods, under the Operation Mongoose program the Department of Defense had a number of similar proposals to be taken against the Cuban regime of Fidel Castro.
Twelve of these proposals come from a February 2, 1962 memorandum entitled “Possible Actions to Provoke, Harass or Disrupt Cuba,” written by Brig. Gen. William H. Craig and submitted to Brig. Gen. Edward Lansdale, the commander of the Operation Mongoose project.[7][8][9][10][11][12]
The memorandum outlines Operation Bingo, a plan to, in its words, “create an incident which has the appearance of an attack on U.S. facilities (GMO) in Cuba, thus providing an excuse for use of U.S. military might to overthrow the current government of Cuba.”
It also includes Operation Dirty Trick, a plot to blame Castro if the 1962 Mercury manned space flight carrying John Glenn crashed, saying “The objective is to provide irrevocable proof that, should the MERCURY manned orbit flight fail, the fault lies with the Communists et al Cuba [sic].” It continues, “This to be accomplished by manufacturing various pieces of evidence which would prove electronic interference on the part of the Cubans.”
Even after General Lyman Lemnitzer lost his job as the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Joint Chiefs of Staff still planned pretext operations at least into 1963. A different Department of Defense policy paper created in 1963 (reported on by the Associated Press on January 29, 1998[13] and later in journalist James Bamford’s book Body of Secrets, published April 24, 2001[14]) discussed a plan to make it appear that Cuba had attacked a member of the Organization of American States (OAS) so that the United States could retaliate. The Pentagon document says of one of the scenarios, “A contrived ‘Cuban’ attack on an OAS member could be set up, and the attacked state could be urged to take measures of self-defense and request assistance from the U.S. and OAS.” The plan expresses confidence that by this action “the U.S. could almost certainly obtain the necessary two-thirds support among OAS members for collective action against Cuba.”
Included in the nations the Joint Chiefs suggested that the United States covertly attack were Jamaica and Trinidad-Tobago. Since both were members of the British Commonwealth, the Joint Chiefs hoped that by secretly attacking them and then falsely blaming Cuba, the United States could incite the people of England into supporting a war against Castro. As the Pentagon report noted, “Any of the contrived situations described above are inherently, extremely risky in our democratic system in which security can be maintained, after the fact, with very great difficulty. If the decision should be made to set up a contrived situation it should be one in which participation by U.S. personnel is limited only to the most highly trusted covert personnel. This suggests the infeasibility of the use of military units for any aspect of the contrived situation.”
The Pentagon report even suggested covertly paying a person in the Castro government to attack the United States: “The only area remaining for consideration then would be to bribe one of Castro’s subordinate commanders to initiate an attack on [the U.S. Navy base at] Guantanamo.”
It has been reported that John F. Kennedy personally rejected the Northwoods proposal, but no official record of this exists. The proposal was sent for approval to the Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, but was not implemented. President Kennedy removed General Lyman Lemnitzer as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff shortly afterward, although he became Supreme Allied Commander of NATO in January 1963.
The continuing push against the Cuban government by internal elements of the U.S. military and intelligence community (the failed Bay of Pigs Invasion, The Cuban Project, etc.) prompted President John F. Kennedy to attempt to rein in burgeoning hardline anti-Communist sentiment that was intent on proactive, aggressive action against communist movements around the globe. After the Bay of Pigs, John F. Kennedy fired then CIA director Allen W. Dulles, Deputy Director Charles P. Cabell, as well as Deputy Director Richard Bissell, and turned his attention towards Vietnam.
Kennedy also took steps to bring discipline to the CIA’s Cold War and paramilitary operations by drafting a National Security Action Memorandum (NSAM) which called for the shift of Cold War operations to the Joint Chiefs of Staff and The Pentagon as well as a major change in the role of the CIA to exclusively deal in intelligence gathering.
Since its declassification, the document has often been cited as evidence of historical precedent for a number of claimed contemporary conspiracies relating to government manipulation of public sentiment surrounding foreign policy through violent acts, including the suggestion that the U.S. government was responsible for the September 11, 2001 attacks.
May 8th, 2006 at 11:33 pmThanks KJ Lovell for all the information you posted on here!
May 9th, 2006 at 12:20 amBTW, Darth Cheeney is scheduled to be in Duncan, OK for the Halliburton Shareholders meeting on 5/16/06. City officials on the record deny it, but off the record say it is true. Some schools will be closed that day, again school officials on the record deny it, but off the record admit it.
One official with law enforcement off the record says it is true, and that over 600 SWAT team members will be at the ready should anything go afoul.
What is really funny is the fact that the meeting, usually held in Houston was moved for the first time in over two decades to a little po-dunk town where Halliburton originated.
The thing that smells of fascism is over 60 groups have filed with the City for permits to gather, yet only one permit has been issued. Boys and girls can you say coverup/limit dissent?
you can call the city of duncan to ask at 580-252-0250 and ask for the city manager you can call the police dept at 580-255-2112
you can call the board of ed at 580-255-0686
you can call the sherriffs dept at 580-255-3131
Thanks for all your help
May 9th, 2006 at 4:02 amIt’s time for phased-in term limits for all elected American officials. Thank you for your public service, next please. Ready to just say noe more? I need help - thanks
May 9th, 2006 at 9:09 am[…] Harper’s Ken Silverstein: “Two former CIA officers told me that Foggo, Bassett [aka “Nine Fingers”], and a third man — a CIA official close to Goss, whose name I learned but am withholding because he remains undercover — have been friends for years and worked together overseas. According to these two sources, Bassett and the undercover officer (whom Goss brought up to the 7th Floor at Langley when he took over the CIA) positioned Foggo to be picked by Goss for the number-three slot. Perhaps more importantly, I’m told that Bassett, like Foggo, has connections to [corrupt defense contractor Brent] Wilkes.” 8:39 pm | Comment (0) […]
May 9th, 2006 at 8:40 pm