Who is Michael Ledeen?

Sure he's a leading neo-con, everyone knows that. But he also may be the author of one of recent history's most famous memos, the infamous Nigerian Yellow-cake memo, which, among other things lead the US into war with Iraq (from alternet.org):

Editor’s Note: This is an edited transcript of an interview conducted by Ian Masters with Vincent Cannistaro, the former CIA head of counterterrorism operations and intelligence director at the National Security Council under Ronald Reagan, which aired on the Los Angeles public radio KPFK on April 3, 2005.

Cannistaro: The documents were fabricated by supporters of the policy in the United States. The policy being that you had to invade Iraq in order to get rid of Saddam Hussein, and you had to do it soon to avoid the catastrophe that would be produced by Saddam Hussein’s use of alleged weapons of mass destruction.

Masters: Well, Ambassador Wilson publicly refuted the claims — particularly the 16 words in the President’s State of the Union address that the Iraqis were trying to buy significant quantities of uranium from Niger. That document, I understand, was fabricated ... it originally came out of Italian intelligence...

Cannistaro: ...[D]uring the two-thousands when we’re talking about acquiring information on Iraq. It isn’t that anyone had a good source on Iraq—there weren’t any good sources. The Italian intelligence service, the military intelligence service, was acquiring information that was really being hand-fed to them by very dubious sources. The Niger documents, for example, which apparently were produced in the United States, yet were funneled through the Italians.

Masters: Do we know who produced those documents? Because there’s some suspicion ...

Cannistaro: I think I do, but I’d rather not speak about it right now, because I don’t think it’s a proven case ...

Masters: If I said “Michael Ledeen”?

Cannistaro: You’d be very close . . .

I report, you decide.