The agency did its job and, with the help of German intelligence, concocted and planted stories about an ad hoc “off the books” operation that had led to the destruction of the pipelines. The scam had two elements: a March 7 report in the New York Times citing an anonymous American official claiming that “[n]ew intelligence…suggests” that “a pro-Ukrainian group” may have been involved in the pipeline’s destruction; and a report the same day in Der Zeit, Germany’s most widely read weekly newspaper, stating that German investigative officials had tracked down a chartered luxury sailing yacht that was known to have set off on September 6 from the German port at Rostock past Bornholm island off the coast of Denmark.
“It was a total fabrication by American intelligence that was passed along to the Germans, and aimed at discrediting your story,” I (Hersh) was told by a source within the American intelligence community.
The comments following the “SHEERPOST” re-posting of the Hersh update piece are also interesting.