Has anyone refuted or shed doubt on Gerald Posner’s conspiracy?

Vince Cannistraro, former head of the CIA’s counterterrorism unit, has stated that there is no evidence to support Posner’s claims and that he was perhaps used by his two “unnamed” sources.

Mr. Cannistraro was interviewed for an article in Salon.com [Interview click here], where he “dismissed the Zubaydah [Posner’s] theory as part of a disinformation campaign. ‘My view is this didn’t come from inside the [active] intelligence community, but from an administration source, a neoconservative who’s promoting it, who also provided a former CIA officer for confirmation….I doubt Posner had access to the Zubaydah debriefing, though one of his sources probably did. But the point is, none of his sources had access to the debriefing on the person who is the key figure here.’”

In the same Salon.com article, Robert Baer, a former CIA case officer, was interviewed. Baer “agrees it would be possible for someone with access to classified information to smear the Saudis. ‘If you gave me all the al-Qaida interrogations, I could go through them if I wanted to and cherry pick stuff that [collectively] could destroy relations between Saudi Arabia and the U.S.’”

Has anyone questioned Posner’s journalistic accuracy?

James Woolsey, former director of the CIA, having been interviewed by Posner, wrote about his problems with Posner’s accuracy in a review of his book [Wall Street Journal, October 21, 2003]. He concluded his review by writing:

“I’m willing to assume that my experience with Mr. Posner is an exception and that I was the only interviewee who read the book with a puzzled frown. Still, he [Posner] should get into the habit of checking his quotes and notes, maybe twice.” (click here for the entire article)

How sure is Posner of the credibility of his “unnamed” sources?

Posner himself admitted in an interview on MSNBC’s Hardball with Chris Matthews [September 4, 2003] that “one of his biggest concerns” was that his sources were using him to intentionally damage US-Saudi relations. What follows are excerpts (click here for excerpt) from the interview (click here for the full interview)