Joesph Wilson changes story, Baghdad Bob tried to buy uranium from Niger?

Best of the Web ^ | 04/30/04 | JAMES TARANTO

[Pikamax]

BY JAMES TARANTO Friday, April 30, 2004 4:11 p.m. EDT

Joe Says It Was So Remember Joe Wilson, the loudmouthed former ambassador who stirred up a kerfuffle last year by claiming that BUSH LIED!!!! when he purportedly said Saddam Hussein's Iraq had sought to buy uranium in Niger? Now Wilson has a book out, and it seems he's changing his story. The Washington Post reports:

It was Saddam Hussein's information minister, Mohammed Saeed Sahhaf, often referred to in the Western press as "Baghdad Bob," who approached an official of the African nation of Niger in 1999 to discuss trade--an overture the official saw as a possible effort to buy uranium. . . .

In his book, Wilson recounts his encounter with the unnamed Niger official in 2002, saying, he "hesitated and looked up to the sky as if plumbing the depths of his memory, then offered that perhaps the Iraqi might have wanted to talk about uranium." Wilson did not get the Iraqi's name in 2002, but he writes that he talked to his source again four months ago, and that the former official said he saw Sahhaf on television before the start of the war and recognized him as the person he talked to in 1999.

Weird. Wilson was a cause célèbre on the Angry Left for awhile there (there was also something about his wife, if we remember right), but apparently for no reason.

[piasa]

30 Apr 2004 17:37:18 GMT
Niger army kills 4 Algerian militants - officials

---

By Abdoulaye Massalatchi

NIAMEY, April 30 (Reuters) - The army in Niger killed at least four members of a hardline Islamic militant group linked to al Qaeda in the Sahara desert earlier this month, military officials in the West African country said on Friday.

"We had no loss of life among our soldiers, just a few light injuries. But we killed four Islamists and took four others prisoner," one official told Reuters, on condition of anonymity.

The clash with members of Algeria's Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) -- classified by the United States as a "terrorist organisation" -- took place on April 17 near Tassara, not far from the border with Mali, the official said.

The skirmish is the latest in a series of clashes involving the GSPC, which has largely been chased out of its homeland. Experts worry it may carry out more desperate attacks as its numbers decline.

Washington is concerned that the GSPC and other militant groups are travelling along ancient trading routes in the Sahara, looking to re-arm and recruit in the traditionally moderate Sahel region on the desert's southern fringe.

It has already sent military experts to Mali and Mauritania to train local soldiers in basic techniques and help them combat banditry in the vast swathes of thinly-patrolled wilderness, and plans to do the same in Niger and Chad.

Mali's military has twice said it has chased GSPC members from its territory -- once in January and most recently on April 16 after a fight near Tessalit, a town near the Algerian border.

The military sources in Niger said they believed the clash in their country had involved GSPC members who had come from Mali. They said the army had already pushed a group of GSPC fighters back over the border with Mali earlier this month.

The army in Chad -- a country further east that also borders the Sahara -- killed 43 Islamic militants that its government said were GSPC members during two days of fighting last month.

The region has long been known for bandits and smugglers. The GSPC claimed responsibility for the kidnapping last year of 32 European tourists in the Sahara, while January's Paris-Dakar motor rally was interrupted due to ambush fears.

Some U.S. officials also fear al Qaeda cells driven out of Afghanistan and parts of the Middle East could seek new havens in the area, seen as potentially rich recruiting ground because of weak national governance and lax border patrols.

[Quilla]

In 1999, Plame donated $1000 to Gore's presidential campaign. She listed Brewster-Jennings & Associates, a CIA front company, as her employer. Since many in Washington knew she was CIA, this disclosure basically blew it as a cover for any all agents who claimed to work there.

[piasa]

So... does Baghdad Bob look a lot like Nadhim Jabouri?

[piasa]

(DID WILSON ACTUALLY MEET ANYONE RELEVENT? OR WAS HE OFF MEETING WITH BUSINESS PARTNERS INSTEAD?) No Nigerien officials have admitted to attending those meetings. El Hadj Habibou Allele, who runs COMINAK, the major uranium-mining concern, stated he was never contacted. For their part, the staff at the Gawaeye thought Wilson was a nice guy, and they nicknamed him "Bill Clinton" after his former employer. -- - From "Mission to Niger by Robert Novak

[piasa]

2002 : (NIGER'S PRIME MINISTER HAMADOU SAYS FORMER PRESIDENT KOUNTCHE ALLEGEDLY SENT IRAQ'S HUSSEIN PACKING WHEN HE INQUIRED ABOUT BUYING URANIUM) Take Niger, for example, which has the fourth largest uranium reserves in the world. Prime Minister Hama Hamadou stated a few months ago that when Saddam sought to buy uranium in the 1980s, former president Seyni Kountche sent him packing. This is the same Seyni Kountche who in 1981 said that his country would sell uranium "even to the devil." Niger had begun uranium production ten years earlier, and among its loyal customers were Libya and Iraq, so Kountche may not have been exaggerating. He was no angel himself. In 1991, the reformist National Conference in Niger established that [Prime Minsiter Seyni] Kountche used billions in profits from uranium sales as a private slush fund, distributed to cronies, the military, and the secret police. - "Uranium-Gate? Some context," by James S Robbins, NRO, JULY 9, 2003

FEBRUARY 2002 : (WILSON CAMPAIGN DONATION TO HILLARY CLINTON) Wilson donated $1,000 to Senator Hillary Clinton’s (D-NY) PAC just before leaving for Niger in February 2002- (Center For Responsive Politics, www.opensecrets.org , Accessed 9/29/03; Political Money Line, www.tray.com, Accessed 9/30/03; FOX’s “Fox And Friends,” 9/30/03) via - "SAY IT AIN’T SO JOES? Joe Lieberman & Joe Wilson Make Bold Assertions That Facts Don’t Support, "RNC Research, Republican National Committee, October 5, 2003

The same month that Wilson says he went to Niger, another lefty went to Iraq:

FEBRUARY 2002 : (WILSON ARRIVES IN NIGER, BUT NO NIGERIEN OFFICIALS SAY THEY ATTENDED MEETINGS WILSON SAID HE HELD) --- "The Honorable Mr. Wilson. Frog-marching into the history books.," National Review Online, NRO, October 01, 2003, 8:38 a.m. by James Robbins *

FEBRUARY 23 - MARCH 7, 2002 : (SPIES : SUSAN LINDHAUER TRAVELS TO BAGDHAD, IRAQ) k. From on or about February 23, 2002 through on or about March 7, 2002, SUSAN LINDAUER, a/k/a “Symbol SUSAN,” traveled to Baghdad, Iraq, through Jordan, as a guest of the IIS. - "Text of indictment against American spying for Iraq," Findlaw. com, March 11, 2004

FEBRUARY 23 - MARCH 7, 2002 : (SPIES : SUSAN LINDHAUER MEETS WITH SEVERAL IRAQI INTELLIGENCE OFFICERS IN IRAQ AND ACCEPTS $5,000 FROM THEM) l. From on or about February 23, 2002 through March 7, 2002, SUSAN LINDAUER, a/k/a “Symbol SUSAN,” met with several IIS officers in Iraq, including at the Al-Rashid Hotel in Baghdad, and received cash payments of approximately $5,000.00. - "Text of indictment against American spying for Iraq," Findlaw. com, March 11, 2004

[Sacajaweau]

Ding! Ding! Ding! We have a winnner!!!!!

[mass55th]

"As for Wilson, he has proudly said that he accepted no payment for his time when he went on this trip."

All the more reason to push your own agenda (business connections). Why would someone go to Niger and do work for the government and not seek payment, especially in light of the fact that he claims "it was getting harder to live on two government paychecks." They obviously could have used the money.

Perhaps he felt that by not accepting any pay for the trip, the government couldn't come back and bite him in the ass later on, if it was discovered that he'd pursued his own business interests while there.

[mewzilla]

Paging Timmy Russert....

[mewzilla]

And we still don't know who sent him. And why.

[mass55th]

"She still works there. She still goes to work every day. Obviously her job has changed and her ability to do certain things has been lost. There are things she will not be able to do in the future. And we'll see in the long term how this works out."

Her job wasn't changed because her so-called identification was outed. I believe it was changed because she violated some rules in setting up that trip for her husband, and the hub-bub they created afterwards. More than likely, she got her hands slapped by the CIA for misbehaving. When he says "we'll see...how this all works out," it's my opinion, he means, "we'll see if this disciplinary action affects any future chances for her to move up in the agency."

[mass55th]

"In 1999, Plame donated $1000 to Gore's presidential campaign. She listed Brewster-Jennings & Associates, a CIA front company, as her employer. Since many in Washington knew she was CIA, this disclosure basically blew it as a cover for any all agents who claimed to work there."

Why in the hell would somebody who was trying to keep their CIA identity secret even bother to donate money to a political candidate, especially using her CIA name? You'd think she would have just listed herself as Valerie Wilson or something along that line. What jerks.

[mass55th]

See response #28 for Tenet's quote on this.

[cyncooper]

I have been posting Tenet's statement all over FR for months. Yay that the significance is being seen, because that's precisely the section I've bolded over and over and over.

We've also known about Wilson's Niger interests for months.

All studiously ignored by a compliant media willing to disseminate outright propaganda instead of correctly analyzing the facts and presenting them truthfully.

Thank God it is all becoming clear. As I've said many times, I suspect the grand jury is not looking at "who leaked" about Wilson's wife (a non-issue if I've ever seen one), but other aspects of the undermining of our government by this crew.

[okie01]

"And we still don't know who sent him. And why."

George Tenet has testified that Wilson was sent by the CIA's anti-proliferation section -- "on their own initiative". That would be Plame and her boss, Alan Foley (since resigned).

I think we already know why...

[Diva Betsy Ross]

Very interesting Goth...

"My own sense is that the first countries we should go to are countries capable of projecting military force such as--and I hate to say it--France. France can project military force, and it has the political will and can take casualties. It is a little stretched now because it is doing two operations in Africa. But what we do is go to France and other countries and demonstrate to them that the leadership model has changed and that they need to be part of the solution"

This is exactly the problem.