Joseph Wilson EPIC Lecture 6/14/2003 Outline/Transcript
I can assure you that that retired American ambassador to Africa, as Nick Kristof called him in his article, is also pissed off, and has every intention of ensuring that this story has legs. And I think it does have legs. It may not have legs over the next two or three months, but when you see American casualties moving from one to five or to ten per day, and you see Tony Blair's government fall because in the U.K. it is a big story, there will be some ramifications, I think, here in the United States, so I hope that you will do everything you can to keep the pressure on. Because it is absolutely bogus for us to have gone to war the way we did. . .I think it probably has legs, too, because of the course the press operates on profits, and if they can make a scandal out of this they'll do it, you know, that'll be great. And you already hear people talking about the 'i' word.
Wilson may have had financial motivations over and above these political motivations, but at least with regards to his political motivations there is direct evidence from his own mouth.
I think you're right about what can and cannot be said re Joe Wilson's financial ties and conflicts of interest. Still, it is obvious he has powerful personal and financial interests in blocking the Bush administration policies and being seen as the hero of the anti-White House jihad.
On another note, I always wonder why no one asks the bombastic Joe Wilson this question: Mr. Wilson, you claim to be a great expert who could KNOW from one week of sipping mint tea that there was nothing to the Niger uranium story.... so why didn't YOU know all about Libya's secret WMD programs?
Until the public revelations of Libya's extensive work on nuclear, chemical, and biological weaponry, we could have had the same kind of sequence of a Joe Wilson 'proving' that Libya had no WMD programs (if he had been asked by his CIA wife to debunk any parallel reports on Libya). He could have flown to Tripoli, sipped tea with Col. Gadhaffi, then flown on to Islamabad, and returned confident that he had debunked all such allegations. Indeed, if it had been reported anywhere that Libya had secretly obtained uranium and centrifuge equipment, and Joe Wilson had been asked to 'investigate' he could have felt just as certain that there was nothing to such reports -- and he would have been just as ignorant of everything that matters. In other words, Joe Wilson knew nothing about what was happening with either Libya or Iraq.... one turned out to have all sorts of WMD programs we didn't know about, while the other.... at least managed to pretend to the MSM that it had no major programs, though I still have my doubts regarding what has not been found, what went to Syria, etc.
http://www.iraqwatch.org/roundtables/RT4/Libya-Timeline.htm
January-June 2003:
According to the C.I.A., Libya develops its nuclear infrastructure, including discussions with Russia on cooperation at the Tajura Nuclear Research Center and a potential power reactor deal; expands its ballistic missile efforts; reestablishes contacts with chemical weapon experts and suppliers in Western Europe; and seeks dual-use capabilities useful for biological weapons.
July 2003:
Libyan leader Muammar Qaddafi announces that Libya has uranium, but will not develop a nuclear weapon.
August 2003:
Qaddafi offers to allow international inspections of industrial sites in search of biological and chemical weapons.
Libya accepts formal responsibility for Lockerbie and agrees to compensate each victim's family with up to $10 million.
September 2003:
U.N. Security Council votes to lift sanctions; U.S. and France abstain.
October 2003:
Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is quoted as saying Libya is working with North Korea and Pakistan to acquire nuclear know-how and technology.
U.S. and Britain intercept a German-owned freighter carrying thousands of centrifuge parts to Libya.
December 2003:
Libya agrees to verifiably dismantle its mass destruction weapon programs, freeze its nuclear activities, and limit the range of existing missiles to 180 miles.
U.S. and Britain announce that Libya's decision to disarm is a result of nine months of negotiations, during which U.S. and British weapon specialists and intelligence experts visited ten secret Libyan weapon sites. They describe the nuclear program as "nascent" but are shocked at Libya's success in buying sophisticated equipment, such as centrifuges, needed to produce nuclear weapons.
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) visits four Libyan nuclear sites and assesses that the nuclear program is still years away from being able to produce a bomb. The IAEA sees no full-scale uranium enrichment facility (only a pilot unit) or enriched uranium.
January 2004:
U.S. officials reportedly confirm that Libya's centrifuge design originated in Pakistan and appears to have been received after September 11, 2001.
Libya signs the Chemical Weapons Convention.
Libya ratifies the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty.
It is agreed that U.S. and British experts will oversee destruction and removal of nuclear components in Libya, and IAEA teams will certify Libya's compliance with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT).
U.S., British and U.N. inspectors reportedly reveal that Libya procured parts for 100 aluminum-rotor centrifuge machines beginning in the late 1990s, then adopted a more advanced maraging steel design, for which it ordered 10,000 machines, plus production equipment.
U.S. and Britain remove 55,000 pounds of Libyan nuclear and missile equipment and documentation – including uranium hexafluoride (UF6), missile guidance devices, and centrifuge components, plus warhead designs believed to have been bought from the A.Q. Khan nuclear network.
February 2004:
Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) begins inspections of Libyan chemical weapons.
IAEA details history of Libya's nuclear program in a public report and finds its past activities noncompliant with its NPT obligations, but commends its recent cooperation.
Malaysian investigators report that the Khan network shipped partly enriched uranium, as well as designs and technology for making a nuclear bomb, to Libya on Pakistani planes in 2001 and 2002. The report also says entities from Turkey, Germany, Switzerland, Britain, Dubai and Malaysia were involved in Libya's nuclear program.
U.S. eases sanctions against Libya.
Libya tells the IAEA it wants to retain at least three nuclear facilities, including a uranium conversion plant that the U.S. wants dismantled and removed.
March 2004:
OPCW receives a compete declaration that discloses a chemical weapons production facility at Rabta that produced 23 metric tons of mustard gas, two storage facilities and 2.9 million pounds of precursor materials that could be used to produce sarin nerve gas.
OPCW completes inventory of Libya's chemical weapons.
The last 500 tons of material from Libya's nuclear program is shipped to the U.S., including all centrifuge parts and equipment from the uranium conversion facility, plus all long-range missiles, including five Scud-C missiles.
Libya signs the Additional Protocol to its IAEA Safeguards agreement.
Libya sends 16 kilograms of uranium reactor fuel enriched to 80% U-235 from Tajura back to Russia.
U.S. says the Khan network received $100 million for the technology sold to Libya.