On the face of it, we would seem to be looking for people who: Have an interest in persuading the American public that Iraq really is now the central front in the war against Al Qaeda. Want the public to believe that the administration's "Iraqification" policy is working, that the Pentagon's intelligence apparatus in Iraq is doing a good job, and that the war can still be won if we only stay the course. Would like the Shi’a of Iraq to believe they are being targeted by foreign terrorists and/or domestic Sunni fundamentalists, and thus need the Americans around to protect them. Know how to plant fake intelligence with New York Times reporters. Talk to Bill Safire. Gee, I wonder who that could be…

But the significance of Safire’s screed is actually in the scene-setting first three graphs -- before he goes into his prophet-crying-in-the-wilderness act:
In the town of Kalar, about a hundred miles northeast of Baghdad, Kurdish villagers recently reported suspicious activity to the pesh merga.
That Kurdish militia has for years been waging a bloody battle with Ansar al-Islam, the terrorist group affiliated with Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and supported by Saddam Hussein in Iraq. It captured a courier carrying a message that demolishes the repeated claim of Bush critics that there was never a "clear link" between Saddam and Osama bin Laden.
The terrorist courier with a CD-ROM containing a 17-page document and other messages was Hassan Ghul, who confessed he was taking to Al Qaeda the Ansar document setting forth a strategy to start an Iraqi civil war, along with a plea for reinforcements. The Kurds turned him over to Americans for further interrogation, which is proving fruitful.
Note the words in bold, because they flatly and directly contradict what Times reporter Dexter Filkins wrote when he broke the story on February 8:
A senior United States intelligence official in Washington said, "I know of no reason to believe the letter is bogus in any way." He said the letter was seized in a raid on a known Qaeda safe house in Baghdad, and did not pass through Iraqi groups that American intelligence officials have said in the past may have provided unreliable information.
Somebody – maybe more than one somebody – is lying here. Which only reinforces the suspicions I have had about the letter from the start.