Posted on 07/17/2004 6:35:46 AM PDT by Pokey78
One can only hope that wise guys at RNC are "getting it" and saving it for the proper time to release upon the sheeple.
As had been suspected all along, it is now known for certain that Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, initially recommended him to her boss at the CIA (Alan Foley) and strongly supported his candidacy for the Niger mission.
Foley was the head of the Counter-Proliferation Division of the CIA and Valerie Plame reported to him. Foley "retired" rather suddenly last August, about a month after Novak broke the story about Wilson being sent to Niger on his wife's recommendation.
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The point we are both making is valid. That Wilson, while he may have been travelling under CIA credentials, could have been working for just about anybody. And, almost certainly, was not working in behalf of the U.S.
Thanks, Pokey.
Should be required reading for....well...for EVERYONE!
It's bigger than Kerry behind it,IMO. It was an orchestrated hit against Bush coordinated with an orchestrated hit againts Blair over in GB regarding the ossier.
Yes, I think Kerry has a lot to answer for, but the brains behind the scheme? No way. He's a follower not a leader.
That's the angle of investigation only if she was a covert agent at the time--or in the recent past which evidence says she wasn't. The investigation most likely is regarding other aspects of this tale. Her name was given to reporters by way of explaining the otherwise inexplicable question of why on earth Joe Wilson was "sent" to Niger on behalf of an administration he is against. Not given out to harm them.
Perhaps. But Lehane isn't the mastermind---we can guess who instructed Lehane....I think we all have a very good guess.
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Ditto to that.
I would like to hope that the new CIA chief will take a hard-ass line on this, but who knows? Seems to me that the whole business borders on outright treason.
If Wilson is a paid-off foreign asset then it damn sure IS treason.
Fortunately for us, Wilson was granted many opportunities to stick his foot into his own mouth. (while thinking that he was sticking it in W’s ass)
There are many interviews that he wishes now he had not done, including this one:
http://www.buzzflash.com/interviews/04/04/int04023.html
BuzzFlash: People such as yourself who make a career in the State Department are known as people who don’t rock the boat. Let’s talk about what compelled you to write the column in The New York Times that dispelled the Niger uranium accusation that Bush included in his State of the Union Address. You had to know before you submitted that column that there would be consequences both personally and professionally.
Ambassador Wilson: First of all, I had been retired for several years from government. But secondly, with respect to this idea of diplomats not rocking the boat, I think it’s important to understand that the American diplomatic service is full of people who are patriots, and who serve their country with great distinction. These people carry out their government’s foreign policy irrespective of which party happens to be in power at any given time. Now that means that they are generally very bright and very knowledgeable about the practicality of doing international relations and foreign policy, since most of them spend a good part of their career overseas.
I wrote my article only after I had given the government several months, both in terms of talking to people close to the Administration, as well as some people within the Administration, and by talking on background to the press. I urged the government to come clean with this story that was patently not true. I did so because I fully understood that it is a penchant of this Administration, and it is a modus operandi of Karl Rove, to attempt to destroy the messenger who brings bad news.
It was important that the government correct the report that Iraq obtained uranium from Niger. And it was important that if, in fact, the government was going to come after me, which I fully understood they would, that the story was fully understood by the American people before they in fact destroyed the messenger. In urging the government to come clean on this Niger business, I was doing nothing more and nothing less than any American has been taught from social studies in seventh grade -- it is the responsibility of any American citizen in our democracy. We have checks and balances, and we have rights, and we have protections to ensure that we hold our government accountable for its actions. And that’s exactly what I was doing.
Now understanding that they would come after me, I didn’t feel that I had anything personally to worry about. After all, as you correctly pointed out, the former President Bush had called me an American hero and had written me any number of laudatory handwritten letters. What did shock me and I think shocks most Americans was what this Administration decided when they couldn’t discredit me to their satisfaction. Somebody close to the President of the United States decided that in order to defend Bush’s political agenda, that individual or individuals would violate the national security of the country and expose my wife’s name and her profession.
That was absolutely unexpected, that this government would take a national security asset off the table, working in an area that is of primordial importance to the national security of the United States -– the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction into the hands of rogue states and non-state actors. Yet for some reason, either because they wanted to discourage other people from stepping forward and telling the truth, or out of simple revenge, as was reported in the Washington Post, this government decided that it would go ahead and take that national security asset off the table.
It was truly un-American. It was a betrayal of the country, irrespective of whether they can prosecute this through conviction. It was treasonous and clearly the act and the subsequent pushing of the story, and trying to sort of promote this lie, was un-American in every sense of the word.
BuzzFlash: When the Administration falsely claimed that Iraq was seeking enriched uranium from Niger, I think some people in their minds didn’t fully understand what that meant. It seems to me that most people thought that meant the transfer of a suitcase of highly explosive material or something. And in reality, what we’re talking about was a very large-scale operation.
Ambassador Wilson: Sure. We’re talking about 500 tons that would have had to cross the Sahara Desert, been loaded onto a ship in West Africa, transported to some destination, and then further transported into Baghdad. Five hundred tons is a lot of poundage.
BuzzFlash: And essentially that could not happen without somebody noticing something, right?
Ambassador Wilson: That’s correct. And I lay all that out in the book and why I concluded that it could not have happened.
Steyn bump for the evening crowd.
Thanks, Pokey!
"For the ball-faced lies."
The correct term is bald-faced lies.
BUMP!
You're right, but I kind of like ball-faced though, since Wilson's face looks like a testicle ;-)
Scott Ritter has to be the next one outed.
Ball-faced worked well for me too when speaking of amb wilson!
Hmm, Wilson as the leaker, well I did read that in an article posted here. Don't recall the author, though. It wasn't Novak, nor a personal opinion piece. Sorry I'm so absent-minded about this. I recall goggling at the monitor when I read it, though, and thinking various unprintable phrases regarding Wilson.
Wilson had written about his wife's job in a previous book or article he'd published.
Sorry for the delay in reply. I posted what I could remember about this a few minutes ago to someone else. I did read it on FR recently, not a casual post. It was in an article, and not the one some time back about Wilson's having revealed the CIA connection in something he himself published, a magazine interview or book blurb. This was something else. Sorry I can't recall the exact piece I read here. My broadband gets weird and floats in and out, so days go by when I can't get on. I miss all sorts of information FR chats about, posts, etc.. So I thought Wilson as the source was something you'd all discussed in the past week or two while I was internet deprived.
A superb, unexpurgated Steyn....Thank you Pokey!
Thanks for the ping
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