Posted on 07/17/2004 8:12:44 AM PDT by Gothmog
Former Ambassador Joseph Wilson demands that Republican members of the Senate Intelligence Committee set the record straight.
July 16, 2004 | Editor's note: Last week, the Senate Intelligence Committee released its report on the U.S. intelligence community's prewar assessments on Iraq. An appendix discusses the role taken by former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson in determining whether Iraq had obtained uranium from Niger. The following is Wilson's letter to the Senate Intelligence Committee pointing to errors in the Republican senators' additional comments to the report and demanding corrections.
The Hon. Pat Roberts, Chairman, Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
The Hon. Jay Rockefeller, Vice Chairman, Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
Dear Sen. Roberts and Sen. Rockefeller,
I read with great surprise and consternation the Niger portion of Sens. Roberts, Bond and Hatch's additional comments to the Senate Select Intelligence Committee's Report on the U.S. Intelligence Community's Prewar Assessment on Iraq. I am taking this opportunity to clarify some of the issues raised in these comments.
First conclusion: "The plan to send the former ambassador to Niger was suggested by the former ambassador's wife, a CIA employee."
That is not true. The conclusion is apparently based on one anodyne quote from a memo Valerie Plame, my wife, sent to her superiors that says, "My husband has good relations with the PM [prime minister] and the former Minister of Mines (not to mention lots of French contacts), both of whom could possibly shed light on this sort of activity." There is no suggestion or recommendation in that statement that I be sent on the trip. Indeed it is little more than a recitation of my contacts and bona fides. The conclusion is reinforced by comments in the body of the report that a CPD [Counterproliferation Division] reports officer stated that "the former ambassador's wife 'offered up his name'" (page 39) and a State Department intelligence and research officer stated that the "meeting was 'apparently convened by [the former ambassador's] wife who had the idea to dispatch him to use his contacts to sort out the Iraq-Niger uranium issue."
In fact, Valerie was not in the meeting at which the subject of my trip was raised. Neither was the CPD reports officer. After having escorted me into the room, she [Valerie] departed the meeting to avoid even the appearance of conflict of interest. It was at that meeting where the question of my traveling to Niger was broached with me for the first time and came only after a thorough discussion of what the participants did and did not know about the subject. My bona fides justifying the invitation to the meeting were the trip I had previously taken to Niger to look at other uranium-related questions as well as 20 years living and working in Africa, and personal contacts throughout the Niger government. Neither the CPD reports officer nor the State analyst were in the chain of command to know who, or how, the decision was made. The interpretations attributed to them are not the full story. In fact, it is my understanding that the reports officer has a different conclusion about Valerie's role than the one offered in the "additional comments." I urge the committee to reinterview the officer and publicly publish his statement.
It is unfortunate that the report failed to include the CIA's position on this matter. If the staff had done so it would undoubtedly have been given the same evidence as provided to Newsday reporters Tim Phelps and Knut Royce in July 2003. They reported on July 22 that:
"A senior intelligence officer confirmed that Plame was a Directorate of Operations undercover officer who worked 'alongside' the operations officers who asked her husband to travel to Niger. But he said she did not recommend her husband to undertake the Niger assignment. 'They [the officers who did ask Wilson to check the uranium story] were aware of who she was married to, which is not surprising,' he said. 'There are people elsewhere in government who are trying to make her look like she was the one who was cooking this up, for some reason,' he said. 'I can't figure out what it could be.' 'We paid his [Wilson's] airfare. But to go to Niger is not exactly a benefit. Most people you'd have to pay big bucks to go there,' the senior intelligence official said. Wilson said he was reimbursed only for expenses." (Newsday article "Columnist Blows CIA Agent's Cover," dated July 22, 2003).
In fact, on July 13 of this year, David Ensor, the CNN correspondent, did call the CIA for a statement of its position and reported that a senior CIA official confirmed my account that Valerie did not propose me for the trip:
"'She did not propose me,' he [Wilson] said -- others at the CIA did so. A senior CIA official said that is his understanding too."
Second conclusion: "Rather than speaking publicly about his actual experiences during his inquiry of the Niger issue, the former ambassador seems to have included information he learned from press accounts and from his beliefs about how the Intelligence Community would have or should have handled the information he provided."
This conclusion states that I told the committee staff that I "may have become confused about my own recollection after the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported that the names and dates on the documents were not correct." At the time that I was asked that question, I was not afforded the opportunity to review the articles to which the staff was referring. I have now done so.
On March 7, 2003, the director general of the IAEA reported to the U.N. Security Council that the documents that had been given to him were "not authentic." His deputy, Jacques Baute, was even more direct, pointing out that the forgeries were so obvious that a quick Google search would have exposed their flaws. A State Department spokesman was quoted the next day as saying about the forgeries, "We fell for it." From that time on the details surrounding the documents became public knowledge and were widely reported. I was not the source of information regarding the forensic analysis of the documents in question; the IAEA was.
The first time I spoke publicly about the Niger issue was in response to the State Department's disclaimer. On CNN a few days later, in response to a question, I replied that I believed the U.S. government knew more about the issue than the State Department spokesman had let on and that he had misspoken. I did not speak of my trip.
My first public statement was in my article of July 6 published in the New York Times, written only after it became apparent that the administration was not going to deal with the Niger question unless it was forced to. I wrote the article because I believed then, and I believe now, that it was important to correct the record on the statement in the president's State of the Union address which lent credence to the charge that Iraq was actively reconstituting its nuclear weapons program. I believed that the record should reflect the facts as the U.S. government had known them for over a year. The contents of my article do not appear in the body of the report and it is not quoted in the "additional comments." In that article, I state clearly that "as for the actual memorandum, I never saw it. But news accounts have pointed out that the documents had glaring errors -- they were signed, for example, by officials who were no longer in government -- and were probably forged. (And then there's the fact that Niger formally denied the charges.)"
The first time I actually saw what were represented as the documents was when Andrea Mitchell, the NBC correspondent, handed them to me in an interview on July 21. I was not wearing my glasses and could not read them. I have to this day not read them. I would have absolutely no reason to claim to have done so. My mission was to look into whether such a transaction took place or could take place. It had not and could not. By definition that makes the documents bogus.
The text of the "additional comments" also asserts that "during Mr. Wilson's media blitz, he appeared on more than thirty television shows including entertainment venues. Time and again, Joe Wilson told anyone who would listen that the President had lied to the American people, that the Vice President had lied, and that he had 'debunked' the claim that Iraq was seeking uranium from Africa."
My article in the New York Times makes clear that I attributed to myself "a small role in the effort to verify information about Africa's suspected link to Iraq's nonconventional weapons programs." After it became public that there were then-Ambassador to Niger Barbro Owens-Kirkpatrick's report and the report from a four-star Marine Corps general, Carleton Fulford, in the files of the U.S. government, I went to great lengths to point out that mine was but one of three reports on the subject. I never claimed to have "debunked" the allegation that Iraq was seeking uranium from Africa. I claimed only that the transaction described in the documents that turned out to be forgeries could not have occurred and did not occur. I did not speak out on the subject until several months after it became evident that what underpinned the assertion in the State of the Union address were those documents, reports of which had sparked Vice President Cheney's original question that led to my trip. The White House must have agreed. The day after my article appeared in the Times a spokesman for the president told the Washington Post that "the sixteen words did not rise to the level of inclusion in the State of the Union."
I have been very careful to say that while I believe that the use of the 16 words in the State of the Union address was a deliberate attempt to deceive the Congress of the United States, I do not know what role the president may have had other than he has accepted responsibility for the words he spoke. I have also said on many occasions that I believe the president has proven to be far more protective of his senior staff than they have been to him.
The "additional comments" also assert: "The Committee found that, for most analysts, the former ambassador's report lent more credibility, not less, to the reported Niger-Iraq uranium deal." In fact, the body of the Senate report suggests the exact opposite:
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In August 2002, a CIA NESA [Office of Near Eastern and South Asian Analysis] report on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction capabilities did not include the alleged Iraq-Niger uranium information. (page 48)
In September 2002, during coordination of a speech with an NSC staff member, the CIA analyst suggested the reference to Iraqi attempts to acquire uranium from Africa be removed. The CIA analyst said the NSC staff member said that would leave the British "flapping in the wind." (page 50)
The uranium text was included in the body of the NIE [National Intelligence Estimate] but not in the key judgments. When someone suggested that the uranium information be included as another sign of reconstitution, the INR [State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research] Iraq nuclear analyst spoke up and said the he did not agree with the uranium reporting and that INR would be including text indicating their disagreement in their footnote on nuclear reconstitution. The NIO [national intelligence officer] said he did not recall anyone really supporting including the uranium issue as part of the judgment that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear program, so he suggested that the uranium information did not need to be part of the key judgments. He told committee staff that he suggested, "We'll leave it in the paper for completeness. Nobody can say we didn't connect the dots. But we don't have to put that dot in the key judgments." (page 53)
On Oct. 2, 2002, the Deputy DCI [director of central intelligence] testified before the SSCI [Senate Select Committee on Intelligence]. Sen. Jon Kyl asked the Deputy DCI whether he had read the British White Paper and whether he disagreed with anything in the report. The Deputy DCI testified that "the one thing where I think they stretched a little bit beyond where we would stretch is on the points about Iraq seeking uranium from various African locations." (page 54)
On Oct. 4, 2002, the NIO for Strategic and Nuclear Programs testified that "there is some information on attempts ... there's a question about those attempts because of the control of the material in those countries ... For us it's more the concern that they [Iraq] have uranium in-country now." (page 54)
On Oct. 5, 2002, the ADDI [associate deputy director for intelligence] said an Iraqi nuclear analyst -- he could not remember who -- raised concerns about the sourcing and some of the facts of the Niger reporting, specifically that the control of the mines in Niger would have made it very difficult to get yellowcake to Iraq. (page 55)
Based on the analyst's comments, the ADDI faxed a memo to the deputy national security advisor that said, "Remove the sentence because the amount is in dispute and it is debatable whether it can be acquired from this source. We told Congress that the Brits have exaggerated this issue. Finally, the Iraqis already have 550 metric tons of uranium oxide in their inventory." (page 56)
On Oct. 6, 2002, the DCI called the deputy national security advisor directly to outline the CIA's concerns. The DCI testified to the SSCI on July 16, 2003, that he told the deputy national security advisor that the "President should not be a fact witness on this issue," because his analysts had told him the "reporting was weak." (page 56)
On Oct. 6, 2002, the CIA sent a second fax to the White House that said, "More on why we recommend removing the sentence about procuring uranium oxide from Africa: Three points (1) The evidence is weak. One of the two mines cited by the source as the location of the uranium oxide is flooded. The other mine cited by the source is under the control of the French authorities. (2) The procurement is not particularly significant to Iraq's nuclear ambitions because the Iraqis already have a large stock of uranium oxide in their inventory. And (3) we have shared points one and two with Congress, telling them that the Africa story is overblown and telling them this is one of the two issues where we differed with the British." (page 56)
On March 8, 2003, the intelligence report on my trip was disseminated within the U.S. government, according to the Senate report (page 43). Further, the Senate report states that "in early March, the Vice President asked his morning briefer for an update on the Niger uranium issue." That update from the CIA "also noted that the CIA would be debriefing a source who may have information related to the alleged sale on March 5." The report then states the "DO officials also said they alerted WINPAC [Center for Weapons Intelligence, Nonproliferation and Arms Control] analysts when the report was being disseminated because they knew the high priority of the issue." The report notes that the CIA briefer did not brief the vice president on the report. (page 46)
It is clear from the body of the Senate report that the intelligence community, including the DCI himself, made several attempts to ensure that the president did not become a "fact witness" on an allegation that was so weak. A thorough reading of the report substantiates the claim made in my opinion piece in the New York Times and in subsequent interviews I have given on the subject. The 16 words should never have been in the State of the Union address, as the White House now acknowledges.
I undertook this mission at the request of my government in response to a legitimate concern that Saddam Hussein was attempting to reconstitute his nuclear weapons program. This was a national security issue that has concerned me since I was the deputy chief of mission in the U.S. Embassy in Iraq before and during the first Gulf War.
At the time of my trip I was in private business and had not offered my views publicly on the policy we should adopt toward Iraq. Indeed, throughout the debate in the run-up to the war, I took the position that the U.S. be firm with Saddam Hussein on the question of weapons of mass destruction programs, including backing tough diplomacy with the credible threat of force. In that debate I never mentioned my trip to Niger. I did not share the details of my trip until May 2003, after the war was over, and then only when it became clear that the administration was not going to address the issue of the State of the Union statement.
It is essential that the errors and distortions in the additional comments be corrected for the public record. Nothing could be more important for the American people than to have an accurate picture of the events that led to the decision to bring the United States into war in Iraq. The Senate Intelligence Committee has an obligation to present to the American people the factual basis of that process. I hope that this letter is helpful in that effort. I look forward to your further "additional comments."
Sincerely,
Joseph C. Wilson IV, Washington, D.C.
And she escorted him to the meeting--it's not like he arrived and she had no inkling.
I agree with you--I'm dizzy from the spinning put forth here.
(But still see through it)
That isn't the point of the story...
fyi
AMERICAN MORNING
Interview With Ambassador Joseph Wilson
Aired July 7, 2003 - 09:02 ET
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: Back to Iraq right now. Two more American soldiers were killed overnight in Baghdad. And while U.S. forces continue to be attacked, there are new charges surfacing that the White House exaggerated the threat possibly posed by Iraq leading up to the war.
In his State of the Union address, President Bush accused Saddam Hussein of trying to buy materials used to make weapons of mass destruction.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HEMMER: That was the president from this past January.
Now, Joseph Wilson, a former ambassador to both Africa and Iraq, says he was asked by the CIA to investigate that report, and says they debunked it long before the president's address. In an op-ed piece yesterday in "The New York Times," Ambassador Wilson wrote -- I'm quoting now -- "If the information was ignored because it did not fit certain preconceptions about Iraq, then a legitimate argument can be made that we went to war under false pretenses."
Ambassador Joseph Wilson is back with us here on AMERICAN MORNING live in D.C.
Good to have you back. Good morning to you.
AMB. JOSEPH WILSON, FMR. U.S. CHARGE D'AFFAIRES TO IRAQ: Hi, Bill, and welcome to Soledad.
HEMMER: Well, it's great to have her.
SOLEDAD O'BRIEN, CNN ANCHOR: Thank you very much. Appreciate that.
HEMMER: It's a wonderful day for us here at AMERICAN MORNING.
You went to Niger several years ago. You concluded essentially that Iraq could not buy this uranium from that country. Why not?
WILSON: Well, I went in actually in February of 2002 was my most recent trip there, at the request I was told of the office of the vice president, which had seen a report in intelligence channels about this purported memorandum of agreement on uranium sales from Niger to Iraq. I traveled out there, spent eight days out there, and concluded that it was (UNINTELLIGIBLE) impossible that this sort of transaction could be done clandestinely.
First of all, any official government transaction would have required the signatures of the minister of mines and the prime minister. Secondly, the consortium that ran the two mines up there was made up of highly respected consumers of uranium products in the world -- the French, the Spanish, the Germans and the Japanese. And thirdly, the managing partner of the consortium -- that is to say the organization that actually handled the product -- was the French uranium company. And fourthly, frankly, Niger had been an ally of the United States, a close ally and a beneficiary of American largesse for 25 years, and Niger had actually sent troops to fight alongside American troops in the Gulf War.
So, for all of those reasons, it seemed that this information was inaccurate. That view was shared by the ambassador out there and largely shared in Washington even before I went out there.
HEMMER: We'll take that answer as a bit of a foundation for this interview. Listen to what Condoleezza Rice said about a month ago, early June on "Meet the Press." I'm quoting right now. She says, "We did not know at the time -- no one knew at the time in our circles -- maybe someone knew down in the bowels in the agency, but no one in our circles knew that there were doubts and suspicions that this might be a forgery" -- Condoleeza Rice back on June 8.
You say that is not possible. Why not?
WILSON: Well, when I was at the National Security Council, and before I wrote my piece for "The New York Times," I actually checked with very senior officials of the National Security Council from the time I was there, as well as very senior officials in the vice president's office just to refresh my memory.
HEMMER: And what did they tell you?
WILSON: And the standard operating procedure when we were there, of course, was that if you tasked at my level and above an executive branch agency with a specific question, you received a specific response. Now, clearly somebody in the vice president's office is within that circle that Dr. Rice is speaking of. That person or that office asked the question and that office received a very specific response.
HEMMER: I'm sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt you. But in the interest of time, let me push forward right here. The White House is saying that's just a small part of the entire argument. Nuclear programs is one thing, but the chemical and biological issues were still out there. Your response to the White House when they go that way is what?
WILSON: Well, the question has always been for me whether or not the threat of weapons of mass destruction was the grave and gathering danger or the imminent threat to our national security that it was said to be. Vice President Cheney flatly asserted in a "Meet the Press" interview that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear arms program. We had any number of officials talk about the mushroom cloud that was on its way from Iraq. Now, we've got 70 -- we've got 200 Americans dead in Iraq, 150,000 Americans occupying the country, $70 or $80 billion already spent. And the question really is whether or not the threat merited that sort of response.
HEMMER: It's getting a lot of talk. Ambassador Joseph Wilson, thanks for coming on today. This issue is not going away any time soon. Thanks again.
I've always felt that if Novak could take down Bush, he would have made sure the FBI had the name of the person who supposedly named her.
I don't think it was anybody the Left thinks it is - in fact, I think it's Andrea Mitchell because of their interest in Alan Greenspan's birthday party.
I can see her sloshed with her Fuzzy Navel bragging about her access by saying, "Oh, Alan told me it was because he's married to Valerie Plame".
Thank you Gothmog!
Yeah, according to Wilson she's got all kinds of documents on this. She's just the person the government should trust to keep classifed documents, ha ha ha.
But, I don't think she leaked Plame's name to Novak. Novak cited two administration officals. I've thought for a long time that he was told by State dept. employees, because it would be natural to call State sources to get background on Wilson.
Now we have that memo from a State intelligence official who was at the meeting that Plame escorted Wilson to saying that the meeting seemed to have been convened by Plame. I'll bet that's one of the Novak sources.
February of 2002 was my most recent trip there, at the request I was told of the office of the vice president, which had seen a report in intelligence channels about this purported memorandum of agreement on uranium sales from Niger to Iraq.
Is this not an assertion by Wilson that his mission was based on the forged document?
This is exactly the type of statement of his mixing up and misrepresenting the sequence of events the committee was referring to.
"The New War" by John Kerry (Freeper Book Review)
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1173313/posts
You may be interested in this July 7, 2003 interview Wilson gave (see post #44). It is filled with the misrepesentations we were discussing on the other thread.
That's great, thanks
The person who named Plame IS from the left. Her "name" and role in sending Wilson off to sip tea was not given out for any reason except to explain and justify Wilson's trip.
It was only later that Wilson came up with the "Her name was 'leaked' to harm her and me" spin.
BTW, I've heard rumors that Novak is cooperating with the grand jury (which I maintain is looking into other matters, having determined that Plame was not undercover and hence no law broken no matter who the source to reporters was).
Excerpt:
Second, as Mrs. Wilson rose in the agency, she was already in transition away from undercover work to management, and to liaison roles with other intelligence agencies. So this year, even before she was outed, she was moving away from "noc" — which means non-official cover, like pretending to be a business executive. After passing as an energy analyst for Brewster-Jennings & Associates, a C.I.A. front company, she was switching to a new cover as a State Department official, affording her diplomatic protection without having "C.I.A." stamped on her forehead.
~snip~
Well, just who was she representing herself to as a "State Department Official"? From the timeline presented in the above article, it would be after her husband's trip, but it is something to keep in mind when seeing anonymous sources about this story at all.
02/28/03
MOYERS: With war in Iraq more imminent than ever, we're going to talk tonight to the last senior American diplomat to meet with Saddam Hussein. Joseph Wilson was the Deputy Chief of Mission, the acting ambassador at the US Embassy in Iraq 12 years ago during Desert Shield, the lead-up to the first Gulf War.
He was a member of the American Foreign Service for 23 years. Our ambassador to two African countries. And served as the political advisor to the Commander in Chief of US Forces in Europe. He now heads his own international business firm and is an adjunct scholar at the Middle East Institute in Washington. Thank you for joining us.
WILSON: Oh, it's my pleasure.
MOYERS: Here we are, what one could reading our papers, say is the eve of war. What do you think is going through Saddam Hussein's mind this weekend?
WILSON: Well, I think Saddam Hussein is probably if the Gulf War is any example, I think has probably resigned themselves at some point that the war is going to happen. There may be one or two more games that they'll try and play, give out a few more missiles, allow more U.N. inspectors, or offer to allow Peacekeepers and inspectors in.
But ultimately, I think they've probably resigned themselves to the fact that they're going to be attacked. I suspect Saddam, being the survivalist he is, hopes that he will survive to fight another day. And I think that he probably believes that if he doesn't survive he will want to go down in history as somebody who actually confronted the West.
Because you know, in the Arab world, it has been enough to confront the West. You haven't had to defeat the West. You've just had to confront the West to achieve a certain status in the Arab world.
MOYERS: But if the United States attacks, he's a dead man.
WILSON: Well, I'm not sure about that. He's been preparing his security apparatus for 30 years. He knows his country. He may well have an out.
As the senior American diplomat 12 years ago in Iraq, did you support the effort to remove Saddam Hussein from Kuwait by force?
WILSON: I supported the effort to get Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait. And I understood fully that in order to get him out of Kuwait you had to have the credible threat of force. And in order for that force to be credible, you had to be prepared to use it.
MOYERS: Diplomacy had failed there as because he was so intransigent.
WILSON: That's right. That's right.
MOYERS: He's still just as intransigent.
WILSON: And I fear diplomacy is going to fail again.
MOYERS: What is the trip wire in your opinion for the use of force? What is your trip wire?
WILSON: Well, I've always said it's the first time he poses an obstacle to your conducting an inspection then you go in and you use force against that particular site. But you keep the use of force focused on disarmament. Let me give you an example.
When Colin Powell was up at the United Nations, he showed a couple of pictures of the site. He said, "This is a chemical weapons site and this is the trucks going out of that site just before the inspectors arrive at the front door. The trucks are going out the back door." That becomes a legitimate target for additional action on the part of the United Nations and the US. For example, that truck convoy leaving the site, as far as I'm concerned, becomes a legitimate target as does the site itself.
MOYERS: You're not against using force. So help me understand the distinction between the quantity of force you would use and the quantity of force that George W. Bush is proposing to you.
WILSON: Well, first of all, I think there's a question of objective. I'm not against the use of force for the purposes of achieving the objective that has been agreed upon by the United Nations in the international community, disarmament. If and when it becomes necessary. I think that is legitimate. Essentially, you could a lot of that just by the air. You do…
MOYERS: Precision bombing?
WILSON: …precision bombing. They've got more surveillance planes out there now. You've got the U2s. The French or moving some Mirages on. You've got the place blanketed.
MOYERS: You are calling for coercive inspections.
WILSON: That's right. Muscular disarmament, coercive inspections, coercive containment, whatever you want to call it. I don't think containment's the right word because we're really talking about disarmament.
MOYERS: Does it seem to you that the President, George Bush, is prepared to accept a disarmed Hussein? Or does he want a dead Hussein?
WILSON: I think he wants a dead Hussein. I don't think there's any doubt about it.
MOYERS: President Bush's recent speech to the American Enterprise Institute, he said, let me quote it to you. "The danger posed by Saddam Hussein and his weapons cannot be ignored or wished away." You agree with that?
WILSON: I agree with that. Sure. I…
MOYERS: "The danger must be confronted." You agree with that? "We would hope that the Iraqi regime will meet the demands of the United Nations and disarm fully and peacefully. If it does not, we are prepared to disarm Iraq by force. Either way, this danger will be removed. The safety of the American people depends on ending this direct and growing threat." You agree with that?
WILSON: I agree with that. Sure. The President goes on to say in that speech as he did in the State of the Union Address is we will liberate Iraq from a brutal dictator. All of which is true. But the only thing Saddam Hussein hears in this speech or the State of the Union Address is, "He's coming to kill me. He doesn't care if I have weapons of mass destruction or not. His objective is to come and overthrow my regime and to kill me." And that then does not provide any incentive whatsoever to disarm.
MOYERS: All of us change in 12 years and obviously Saddam Hussein has changed since you last saw him. But what do you know about him that would help us understand what might be going through his mind right now?
WILSON: Well, I think, first of all, it's important to understand that he's a creature of his-- of his country and of his region. His worldview is very limited. It is essentially what he sees from his palace and what his sycophants come and tell him.
So he does not have a broad vision of what's going on around him. There's, I think, a tendency to think of the world as rotating around not just Iraq but around his own palace. Secondly, he's a coldly rational political actor. But given that his worldview is limited, there is a tendency to develop a logical argument where the premise is skewed.
MOYERS: Such as?
WILSON: So he will, for example — four days after he invaded Kuwait when I saw him in August of 1990 — he said that the United States lacked the intestinal fortitude and the stamina to confront his invasion in Kuwait. And it was clear to me that he was drawing upon his interpretation of our experiences in Vietnam, Beirut and possibly Tehran. And he had drawn exactly the wrong lessons from that.
We, in fact, stayed in Vietnam far longer than we should have perhaps. We were there for 15 years. And we suffered 50,000 casualties. We did not cut and run. We did spill the blood of our soldiers for many, many years. Give you another example, the whole decision to go into Kuwait was, from his perspective, rational based upon his understanding of the region and of what the international community would do.
MOYERS: His decision to go…
WILSON: His decision to go into Kuwait. The only reason he had Ambassador Gillespie in to see him and then me in to see him four days after the invasion. Both were unprecedented meetings. He would normally meet only with senior diplomats resident in Baghdad when they were accompanying envoys from their respective capitals. So for him to have Ambassador Gillepsie and then me was really a first.
And it was clear that what he wanted to do in that is he wanted to deflect attention from what he really intended to do. And that's what he did with April Gillespie. He lied to her. He lied to President Mubarak that he was going to allow the negotiating process to go forward.
And with me, he wanted to make sure that the United States would not respond unilaterally. And so that he would get this thrown into the United Nations. And the reason he wanted it in the United Nations was because his experience was with Israeli-Palestinian issues, specifically Resolutions 242 and 338, which related to occupation of Palestinian territories. And as most people know, the Israeli withdrawal from Palestinian territories has not taken place even though those territories were occupied in the '60s and early '70s.
MOYERS: So what does he conclude from that?
WILSON: He concludes from that that if it goes into the United Nations system, he's got 25 or 30 years to occupy Kuwait during which time he can flag Kuwait City with Iraqis, pump all their oil, steal all their money and then submit it to a referendum which he would have stacked the odds for his victory.
MOYERS: So President Bush is not being naive to think that the UN may backfire on him. He's not being naive when he thinks that Saddam Hussein is lying to us, deceiving us, right?
WILSON: One should never believe Saddam Hussein. We certainly have enough experience with his deception and his lies not to be too trusting with him. With respect to the United Nations, it seems to me that the United Nations has far more often acted in a way that is-- that is consistent with our interests. And it has a obstacle to our interests. And it is our interests who have a broad international support for an objective.
And in order to get that broad international support, you have to frame your goals in such a way that you can get the allies as we did in the Gulf War.
MOYERS: So you're saying that it is important to enforce United Nations resolutions.
WILSON: Absolutely.
MOYERS: You think war is inevitable?
WILSON: I think war is inevitable. Essentially, the speech that the President gave at the American Enterprise Institute was so much on the overthrow of the regime and the liberation of the Iraqi people that I suspect that Saddam understands that this is not about disarmament.
MOYERS: Most Americans, including yours truly, know very little about Iraq. You've lived there. Tell me what we should know about it.
WILSON: Well, first of all, it is a wonderful country. It is the heart of Mesopotamia and everything that everybody understands about Mesopotamia…
MOYERS: The old biblical culture.
WILSON: And the breadbasket of that part of the world for many years. Two of the great rivers of history flow through it.
MOYERS: Tigris and the Euph…
WILSON: Tigris and Euphrates. It's got a population of about 25 million. Iraqis are wonderful people. They are imbued with a sense of their own history. They know who they are. They're fiercely nationalistic. They're a proud people.
They have tribal and ethnic cleavages that are difficult for outsiders to understand but which make up the fabric of politics and make it a very, very difficult place to govern as history has shown. That said they are educated. There is — was, when I was there, a vibrant commercial class, a vibrant educated class.
They grow dates. They produce oil. There was a wonderful construction industry. And, of course, we've seen from their ability to retrofit arms that they are active in the development of exotic weaponry. Which means that they've got engineering skills and science skills which have been put, unfortunately, to the wrong uses.
MOYERS: A great culture except that it's ruled by a dictator.
WILSON: As it has been for way too many years, for sure.
MOYERS: Tell me what you think we should do about Baghdad, the city, because apparently the strategy will be for — Saddam's strategy will be to defend Baghdad and make the war so bloody that he will create a worldwide reaction. And the United States is considering something called "Shock and Awe." Have you heard of that?
WILSON: I have. Yeah. And I've heard American military officials talk about how Baghdad would not be a safe place to be during the first several days of the air campaign. From what I understand about shock and awe, it will be a several day air assault in which they will drop as much ordinance in four or five days as they did during the 39-day bombing campaign of the Gulf War.
MOYERS: Missiles, bombs…
WILSON: Missiles, bombs, precision bombs. I believe the President and our military officials, when they say they will do everything to minimize casualties to the civilian population. But it was difficult to imagine dropping that much ordinance on a population of four million people without having a lot of casualties that are unanticipated. A lot of civilian casualties.
MOYERS: As I understand this concept of shock and awe, the United States would fire 100, maybe thousands of missiles the first day to shock…
WILSON: That's right.
MOYERS: …the Baghdad and the Iraqi population. And then wait to see what happens. Hoping that they might rise up against Saddam. Or the Republican Guards, his elite troops might flee in fear. Do you think that's a viable concept given what you know?
WILSON: Well, I think that from everything that I know about Iraq, Saddam will probably be surrounded by between 80 and 100,000 hardcore Republican Guard fighters who are prepared to die with him and who understand that their future is with him, live or die. And so they will probably defend him pretty close to the bitter end.
Now, defending Saddam Hussein will give them license to take on anybody who attempted to overthrow Saddam. So you might well have a bloody uprising in Baghdad in which pits essentially the Iraqi population against the Republican Guard in Saddam's palace. I think far more likely, is that most Baghdadis will just simply go into hiding and try and avoid getting hit by this American ordinance and/or getting killed by the Republican Guard.
Remember that Saddam Hussein, in his own mind, personifies Iraq. He is Iraq and Iraq is him. And so long as he's Iraq…
MOYERS: Just as Hitler with Germany. Hitler saw himself as Germany.
WILSON: And that permits him — that permits, in his own mind, to send as many Iraqis to their deaths as necessary so long as he survives.
MOYERS: Knowing this about — why do you think knowing this that the President Bush is so eager for war?
WILSON: Well, that's a — I think that's a very good question. I think that there is a sense in the administration that the time has run out for Saddam Hussein and the only way that they can achieve the disarmament objective that they want is to go in. But more importantly…
MOYERS: And you agree with that, don't you?
WILSON: Well, no, I don't think that that's the only way. That's where I disagree. I mean, I think that there are several other steps that can be taken before you have to go to total war for the purposes of achieving disarmament.
MOYERS: Coercive…
WILSON: But I think disarmament is only one of the objectives. And the President has touched repeatedly and more openly on the other objectives in recent speeches including this idea of liberating Iraq and liberating its people from a brutal dictator. And I agree that Saddam Hussein is a brutal dictator.
And I agree along with everybody else that the Iraqi people could — would well be far better off without Saddam Hussein. The problem really is a war which has us invading, conquering and then subsequently occupying Iraq may not achieve that liberation that we're talking about.
MOYERS: So this is not just about weapons of mass destruction.
WILSON: Oh, no, I think it's far more about re-growing the political map of the Middle East.
MOYERS: What does that mean?
WILSON: Well, that basically means trying to install regimes in the Middle East that are far more friendly to the United States — there are those in the administration that call them democracies. Somehow it's hard for me to imagine that a democratic system will emerge out of the ashes of Iraq in the near term. And when and if it does, it's hard for me to believe that it will be more pro-American and more pro-Israeli than what you've got now.
MOYERS: Tell me what you think about the arguments of one of those men, Richard Perle, who is perhaps the most influential advocate in the President's and the administration's ear arguing to get rid of Saddam Hussein. What do you think about his argument?
WILSON: Well, he's certainly the architect of a study that was produced in the mid-'90s for the Likud Israeli government called "a clean break, a new strategy for the realm." And it makes the argument that the best way to secure Israeli security is through the changing of some of these regimes beginning with Iraq and also including Syria. And that's been since expanded to include Iran.
MOYERS: So this was drawn up during the '90s…
WILSON: Right. During the '90s, absolutely.
MOYERS: By men outside of all this?
WILSON: Outside of all this, yeah.
MOYERS: And…
WILSON: Now, Richard Perle's been outside of office since the Reagan years.
MOYERS: And this, you're saying that this has become a blueprint for the Bush Administration?
WILSON: Well, I think this is part of what has been the underpinning of the-- of the philosophical argument that calls for basically radically changing the political dynamics in the Middle East and…
MOYERS: To favor Israel?
WILSON: Well, to favor American national security interests and Israeli national security interests which are tied. I mean, we have…
MOYERS: How so?
WILSON: We have an important strategic responsibility to ensure the territorial integrity of Israel. It's one that we've accepted since 1948. It's one that's been increasingly close. There are those who believe that perhaps we've confused our responsibilities with the slavish adherence to the Likud strategy.
MOYERS: Likud, the party.
WILSON: It's the party in power right now. And certainly when the President or when Sharon comes — the Prime Minister comes to Washington and says that George Bush is the best friend that Israel ever had. And George Bush calls him a man of peace, calls Sharon a man of peace, there are those who wonder about the depth of our ties and the extent to which our national security responsibilities may somehow be confused with our support for the current government in Israel.
MOYERS: So help us understand why removing Saddam Hussein and expanding that movement, throughout the Middle East which would benefit Israel?
WILSON: Well, I think those are the sorts of questions that you need to ask to Richard Perle. The argument that I would make…
MOYERS: We asked him but he didn't want to come on the show.
WILSON: Yeah. The argument that it seems to me — I've done democracy in Africa for 25 years. And I can tell you that doing democracy in the most benign environments is really tough sledding. And the place like Iraq where politics is a blood sport and where you have these clan, tribal, ethnic and confessional cleavages, coming up with a democratic system that is pluralistic, functioning and, as we like to say about democracies, is not inclined to make war on other democracies, is going to be extraordinarily difficult.
And let me just suggest a scenario. Assuming that you get the civic institutions and a thriving political culture in the first few iterations of presidential elections, you're going to have Candidate A who is likely going to be a demagogue. And Candidate B who is likely going to be a populist. That's what emerges from political discourse.
Candidate A, Candidate B, the demagogue and the populist, are going to want to win elections of the presidency. And the way to win election is enflame the passions of your population. The easy way for a demagogue or a populist in the Middle East to enflame the passion of the population is to define himself or herself by their enemies.
And the great enemy in the Middle East is Israel and its supplier, the United States. So it's hard to believe, for me, that a thriving democracy certainly in the immediate and near-term and medium-term future is going to yield a successful presidential candidate who is going to be pro-Israel or pro-America.
MOYERS: So you anticipate many unanticipated consequences to a war with Iraq?
WILSON: Not to anticipate unanticipated consequences is a dangerous thing to do. And my military planners used to always tell me, "Hope is not a plan of action." So you don't want to base things on how you hope the outcome is going to turn out.
MOYERS: Talk to me a moment about the notion of preemptive action and regime change. Preemptive action means an attack.
WILSON: That's right. That's right. We have historically reserved as part of our right of legitimate self-defense the authority to go in and take out an enemy before that enemy has an opportunity to take us out. Now what I worry about most is that we've lose focus on the war on terrorism where we've actually gone after al Qaeda and where we should continue to go after al Qaeda both in militarily as well as with our intelligence and our police assets.
We've got lost focus on that. The game has shifted to Iraq for reasons that are confused to everybody. The millions of people who are on the streets of our country and of Europe, as I said the other day, it strikes me as — it may prove that Abraham Lincoln is right. You cannot fool all the people all the time.
They have been sold. We have been sold a war on disarmament or terrorism or the nexus between terrorism and weapons of mass destruction or liberation. Any one of the four. And now with the President's speeches, you clearly have the idea that we're going to go in and take this preemptive action to overthrow a regime, occupy its country for the purposes, the explicit purposes of fostering the blossoming of democracy in a part of the world where we really have very little ground, truth or experience.
And, certainly, I hope along with everybody that the President in his assessment is correct. And that I am so wrong that I'm never invited to another foreign policy debate again.
MOYERS: You're not likely to be after this. (LAUGHTER)
WILSON: Because if I am right, this could be a real disaster. If I am wrong and the President is right, and you do have the democratic state that emerges, and you do have the power of the United States there as an arbiter, and you have a renewed commitment, as the President suggested in his speech to moving the Israeli-Palestinian process forward, then it could go well.
But I do believe — and it could be good for Israel. But I continue to believe that the path to peace in the Middle East goes through Jerusalem far more than it goes through Baghdad.
MOYERS: To a peaceful settlement between the Palestinians and the Israelis…
WILSON: Not just that. But that is the thorn that has to be pulled from the region in order for, in my judgment, the evolution of other governments in a more modern way. So long as you have the Palestinian — the Israeli-Palestinian problem there, any of these governments can use that…
MOYERS: Sure.
WILSON: …as the external enemy against which they mobilize their own populations.
MOYERS: And…
WILSON: And avoid responsibility for their own destinies.
MOYERS: Yeah. Joseph Wilson, thank you very much for this conversation.
WILSON: It's my pleasure.
The first time I actually saw what were represented as the documents was when Andrea Mitchell, the NBC correspondent, handed them to me in an interview on July 21. I was not wearing my glasses and could not read them. I have to this day not read them. I would have absolutely no reason to claim to have done so. My mission was to look into whether such a transaction took place or could take place. It had not and could not. By definition that makes the documents bogus.
Wilson talks again about Andrea Mitchell showing him documents.
BTW, see post #44 with an interview from July 7, 2003 with CNN where Wilson plainly tries to say Cheney wanted more information about Niger based on the "memorandum" that turned out to be forged, hence Wilson being sent on his trip---an impossible timeline and an example of what the committee was getting at when they said Wilson's references to the forged documents in his press statements was at odds with the fact that the forged memo didn't surface until 8 months after Wilson's trip.
Yeah, I think I might have seen that when it came out, it's always good to have at hand.
Yes indeed.
I've often noted this Moyers interview and wondered why Wilson failed to raise any concerns, even a hint, that he had a problem with the SOTU Address in so far as the "Sixteen Words".
He also wrote an anti-war column for The Nation in February with no mention of having problems with President Bush's SOTU representation.
The thing about the Moyers interview is Wilson does in fact make references to the SOTU Address, showing he was aware of its content so he can't claim he had missed seeing it and hadn't had a chance to read it.
The document surfaced when it was presented to the United Nations in the "Case Against Iraq" written report that Colin Powell briefed the U.N in October 2002 I believe
I have gone through this piece line by line and while this is Wilson's big chance to rebut his attackers he doesn't do it.
His claim that the Senate Committee is wrong, that his wife didn't have anything to do with his trip to Niger falls rather flat in the face of her memo lauding his qualifications for the job, and the statement that she escorted him to the meeting.
But that is really a minor point.
The major point is that his claim to have refuted the basic charge by Bush that Iraq was "seeking" uranium still falls flat. He continues to depend on the verbal sleight of hand, asserting that there was no transaction when Bush claimed that Iraq "sought", not that Iraq "got".
That Iraq "sought", in actual fact, is not controversial. Their 1999 trade mission to Niger is not a secret, it is not controversial. The CIA claims that Wilson himself reported that an Iraqi "businessman" had approached the prime minister and tried to set up a meeting, but Wilson makes no mention of either this or the trade mission in this letter.
His evidence that they didn't "seek"? That, since they already had uranium, and didn't have a nuclear research program, they had no need to "seek". Thats his evidence, his analysis of their needs based on his opinion of their needs. But this does not refute, and avoids mentioning, the trade mission.
His proof that no uranium transactions took place? First, is his assertion that the French wouldn't do such a thing. Faith can be beautiful, but it isn't evidence, of course. His second proof? He asked the Niger government, and they said no. Again, see the above remark concerning faith.
And his final, iron-clad proof? The CIA couldn't confirm British intel reports. Why couldn't the CIA confirm these reports? Because the CIA is naked in Niger. They have evidently stripped their assets there and are forced to send Wilson, who does nothing at all to investigate the issue, he follows no trucks, he doesn't stake out the port of Cotoneau, he doesn't get the plant accountant drunk, he doesn't burgle plant files. As he says in another interview, Wilson "doesn't do undercover".
He wisely avoids repeating the claim he made in his original op-ed that the IAEA was monitoring the mines, and for that reason no transaction could take place, because it isn't true.
Bump!
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