Turning Tale (New Republic savages Wilson, Berger, and France)

The New Republic ^ | July 22, 2004 | Martin Peretz

[Dog Gone]

The tale spun by former Ambassador Joseph Wilson that Iraq did not ever try to buy uranium yellowcake from Niger is now in the process of unraveling. And, of course, the phalanx of anti-war journalists is desperately trying to stop the bust-up.

But it can't be done. The flying apart began with two stories in the Financial Times (London), one on June 28, the other on July 4. Relying on information ultimately sourced to three European intelligence services--none of them British and one of them that had monitored clandestine uranium smuggling to Iraq over three years--Mark Huband reported that the network also serviced or was to service Libya, Iran, China, and North Korea. A tell-tale element of the story is that the mines in Niger from which several thousand tons of uranium had been extracted and sold were owned by French companies.

Apparently, after a time, they had abandoned the mines as economically unviable. But, as a counter-proliferation expert told Huband, this does not mean that extraction stopped. In any case, Lord Butler's altogether independent panel in the United Kingdom concluded that Tony Blair's claim about Hussein being in the market for uranium was "well-founded." These are the same claims made by George W.

Moreover, the U.S. Senate report undercuts Wilson's very believability. I myself had wondered why the CIA had been so dumb--such dumbness is something to which we should have long ago become accustomed!--as to send a low-level diplomat to check on yellowcake sales from Niger to Iraq when it should have dispatched a real spook. Well, it turns out that a "real spook" had recommended him to her boss, that spook being Valerie Plame, who happens also to be Wilson's wife. He has long denied that she had anything to do with his going to Niger and that, alas, was a lie. It appears, in fact, that this is the sole reason he was sent.

Still, in a lot of dining rooms where I am a guest here, there is outrage that someone in the vice president's office "outed" Ms. Plame, as though everybody in Georgetown hadn't already known she was under cover, so to speak. Under cover, but not really. One guest even asserted that someone in the vice president's office is surely guilty of treason, no less--an offense this person certainly wouldn't have attributed to the Rosenbergs or Alger Hiss, Daniel Ellsberg or Philip Agee. But for the person who confirmed for Robert Novak what he already knew, nothing but high crimes would do.

I confess: I do not like Sandy Berger; and I have not liked him since the first time we met, long ago during the McGovern campaign, not because of his politics since I more or less shared them then, but for his hauteur. He clearly still has McGovernite politics, which means, in my mind, at least, that he believes there is no international dispute that can't be solved by the U.S. walking away from it. No matter.

Still, here's his story about the filched classified materials dealing with the foiled Al Qaeda millennium terrorist bombing plot from the National Archives: He inadvertently took home documents and notes about documents that he was not permitted to take from the archives; secondly, he inadvertently didn't notice the papers in his possession when he got home and actually looked at them; and, thirdly, he inadvertently discarded some of these same files so that they are now missing. Gone, in fact.

One of his lawyers attributes this behavior to "sloppiness," which may better explain his career as Bill Clinton's National Security Adviser and certainly describes his presentation of self in everyday life. But it is not an explanation of his conduct in the archives or, for that matter, at home. Personnel at the archives actually noticed him stuffing his pockets with papers as he left, which is how the FBI found out about this bizarre tale in the first place. Inadvertence, then, doesn't do it either. Maybe Sandy wanted souvenirs from his career in the White House that was punctuated by so many catastrophes for the United States.

Nonetheless, he has had ambitions tied to John Kerry's, ambitions that clash with those of Richard Holbrooke and Joe Biden, who decisively do not have McGovernite politics. But Berger did run the Kerry foreign policy team at the writing of the Democratic Party platform a few weeks ago (when the only opposition, easily pacified, came from a handful of Dennis Kucinich loyalists) and has been deeply involved in crafting how the candidate presents himself on these issues.

So my question is: Did Berger, who knew that he was under scrutiny since last fall, alert Kerry to the combustible fact that he was the subject of a criminal probe by the Justice Department and the FBI? My guess is not. Kerry is far too smart, too responsible to have kept him around had he known. But if Kerry didn't know, it tells you a lot about Berger, too much, really.

A more important question, of course, is: What was contained in the papers that Berger snatched? The answer to that question might answer another. Maybe Clinton's top national security aide didn't want others to see what they documented.

French President Jacques Chirac has let it be known that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon is not welcome as a guest in Paris. Mazel tov! Can you actually imagine Chirac putting out a genuine welcome mat for the Israeli leader who has shown that all of France's interventions in the area have brought nothing good: more of terror, more of Arafat, worst of all, more of Palestinian suffering, all to succor the illusion of French influence in the region. But this latest donnybrook between the two leaders focused not on the dispute with the Palestinians but about anti-Semitism in France itself.

Chirac has for years been denying that the ugly phenomenon even exists. Finally, when day after day, evidence mounted that the country has not expelled the virus of Jew-hatred from the body-politic and that it is now becoming more malignant, even Chirac himself has had to sound the tocsin. And Sharon sounded it, as well, when this week he called on French Jews to make aliyah or "go up" to Israel. (Would that some Israeli leader had a quarter century ago called on the Jews of Argentina to immigrate.)

This really got Chirac's goat. But not before he demonstrated in an off-hand remark that, for him, neither Jews nor Muslims, for that matter, are really genuinely French: "we are witnessing racial events involving our Jewish and Muslim compatriots. ... Sometimes just simple Frenchmen are attacked." This is an ugly dichotomy. But it is not new. After the terrorist bombing of the rue Copernic synagogue on October 3, 1980, Raymond Barre, the French prime minister, alluded to this "odious act which intended to strike Jews [and] struck innocent Frenchmen."

Of course, Chirac and Barre are from the center-right and right where anti-Semitism has always nested. But such views are now a staple of the oh, so enlightened left, as well. French hatred of Jews now goes wall-to-wall. And French hatred of Israel, too.

A few days ago, France went into a frenzy to mobilize the countries of the European Union at the UN to vote "yes" on the General Assembly resolution calling on Israel to take down the security barrier it is building against Palestinian terror. Many fatuous reasons were mustered to support this demand. But the real reason that France and some others oppose the fence is that it works.

A new book by Christopher Andersen will hit The New York Times bestseller list this week. It is called American Evita, and it is about Hillary Rodham Clinton. She pushed herself into a prime time, opening night spot at the Democratic convention after the Kerry folk had relegated her to just one in an "all-the-girls" appearance of the party's women senators, with Barbara Mikulski doing the speaking.

How Rodham Clinton maneuvered herself out of this is hard to tell. But one clue is that the Democratic National Committee is still run by Clintonians.

And, while we're mentioning arch names, there is Teresa Heinz Kerry, more than a bit on the haughty side herself. Heinz Kerry has certainly put John Edwards in his place in announcing that he is her husband's "second running-mate." This is fair warning of how she sees herself as first lady.

< snip >

Postscript, July 22

The Kerry campaign has accused the White House of having leaked Sandy Berger's troubles to the press, and I wouldn't be a bit surprised if it did. As The New York Times pointed out today (July 22), however, this would not at all have been illegal or even unusual. It smells nonetheless. But most recent news answers another question that I asked yesterday: Did John Kerry know that Berger was under investigation by the FBI and the Justice Department. As I surmised, neither Kerry nor his staff was at all "witty," as it is called in the intelligence trade, and they were caught completely off guard. Kerry was probably rip-shit. Nonetheless, he issued a gentlemanly, even statesmanlike, comment saying, "Sandy Berger is my friend, and he has tirelessly served this nation with honor and distinction. I respect his decision to step aside as an adviser to the campaign..."

But Berger's behavior in clinging to his role as Kerry's foreign policy guru shows that he is anything but a friend. Hoping that the disgrace of pilfering from the National Archives what were actually documents with the very highest security coding would somehow pass unnoticed in public, Berger was even willing to put his candidate at risk. This is a distinction of sorts. But it is not at all honorable.

 

[Dog Gone]

Interesting stuff coming from a liberal source.

[Guillermo]

...he believes there is no international dispute that can't be solved by the U.S. walking away from it.

Isn't this what most leftists think?

They've always been blaming America first.

[Peach]

Bump for later read.

[leadpenny]

Holy Moly! What am I reading here? I've scanned and will now read. Who wrote the postscript? Kerry was probably rip-shit.

[Dog Gone]

Martin Peretz wrote the entire column, including the postscript. He's the editor in chief at The New Republic.

[the_Watchman]

After the terrorist bombing of the rue Copernic synagogue on October 3, 1980, Raymond Barre, the French prime minister, alluded to this "odious act which intended to strike Jews [and] struck innocent Frenchmen."

Notice that the Frenchmen are "innocent", but presumably, not the Jews?!

[atomicpossum]

The Kerry campaign has accused the White House of having leaked Sandy Berger's troubles to the press, and I wouldn't be a bit surprised if it did.

What is it with this liberal psychosis?? Apparently, great numbers of the former Clintonistas knew about this for months. Berger certainly knew. Various investigatory agencies knew, Justice probably knew. I'd say the 9-11 Commission chairs probably knew. The attempt to steal Kerry's 'thunder' at the convention seems like a pretty weak motivation, as Mr. Kerry has been very adept at stealing his own 'thunder' at most every opportunity, even to taking away any possible impact of his convention with his weeks-ago, dead-cat-bounce announcement of Dorothy Hammill as his running mate.

Certain dems could have leaked it to blame the White House. They could have done it to get it over with BEFORE their convention. Certain Dems could have been seeking to damage the Kerry Kamp themselves (who are conspicuous amongst people who have already SAID they knew).

The screaming of the unlikely White House leak scenario comes form two factors: Democrats are insane (and would believe G.W. Bush invented a time machine just to kidnap the Lindbergh baby), and someone had the 'suspicious timing' spin ready to go, as unlikely as it is....

[G.Mason]

"A tell-tale element of the story is that the mines in Niger from which several thousand tons of uranium had been extracted and sold were owned by French companies."

Ask me again whay I despise the smelly French whores.

[Bahbah]

"the dead-cat-bounce announcement of Dorothy Hammill as his running mate."

LOL. Dorothy Hammill. Very funny.

[G.Mason]

whay?

I could chew nails, but sure can't spell. ;)

[Mike1973]

Why do I get the feeling that none of this information will be noticed anywhere except at foxnews? At least there are some honest people in the media.

[atomicpossum]

"A tell-tale element of the story is that the mines in Niger from which several thousand tons of uranium had been extracted and sold were owned by French companies."

Ask me again whay I despise the smelly French whores.

And remember-- the French (Chirac in particular) have been trying to make Iraq a nuclear power for decades. (A strategy to contain the US ally in the region, Israel?)

[Tallguy]

Interesting stuff coming from a liberal source.

Marty Peretz was a big Gore-backer. This article does not seem to reveal any political preferences that he may have amoung the current crop of Democratic leaders. He seems lukewarm to Kerry, and ambivalent toward Hillary. I wonder if Marty has a dog in this fight?

[Badeye]

"Interesting stuff coming from a liberal source."

Yep. I think the story the day after the coming elections will be just how many Democrats cringed when Kerry got the nod, cringed when he named Edwards, and cringed when Bergerlargate happened at exactly the wrong moment.

I think of it as the Estrich Wing of the Democratic Party.

[Sloth]

This really got Chirac's goat. But not before he demonstrated in an off-hand remark that, for him, neither Jews nor Muslims, for that matter, are really genuinely French: "we are witnessing racial events involving our Jewish and Muslim compatriots. ... Sometimes just simple Frenchmen are attacked." This is an ugly dichotomy. But it is not new. After the terrorist bombing of the rue Copernic synagogue on October 3, 1980, Raymond Barre, the French prime minister, alluded to this "odious act which intended to strike Jews [and] struck innocent Frenchmen."

This is the sort of racist Eurotrash before which the left wants us to prostrate our national sovereignty.

[tanknetter]

Berger's being hung out to dry in a deliberate effort to separate him and his actions from the Kerry Campaign. This piece isn't so much a slam on Berger (even though it reads that way) as a covering of Kerry's a** on the matter.

[Dog Gone]

John Solomon, in the AP article that broke the story, quoted "government and congressional sources" as the ones who made the "leak." Note he didn't say "sources in the Administration" or "White House."

The most likely source was a Democrat, who wanted to get the bad news out of the way before the conventions and the debates. The amazing thing isn't the leak; it's that it took so long to happen.

[js1138]

Martin Peretz wrote the entire column, including the postscript. He's the editor in chief at The New Republic.

NR has been consistently in favor ot the war in Iraq. At least they were when it counted, before it started.

I think it's pretty clear how the story Leaked. Nearly everyone in Washington knew about it. One reporter got tired of waiting and asked a few key people point blank.

But everyone in the clinton camp knew.

[Billthedrill]

Berger's being hung out to dry in a deliberate effort to separate him and his actions from the Kerry Campaign.

Yeah, my take as well. And Wilson, interestingly. Both men have been caught lying just a little too blatantly to spin into anything but liars, although a couple of attempts have been made to blame Bush's people for saying so.

But Berger hung himself, mostly. His behavior has gone from sleazy to stupid to criminal, and he did the one thing that made the others unacceptable to the Dems - he got caught.

[UCANSEE2]

Sometimes the simplest answer is the best.

DNC planners (Kerry/Edwards campaign) put Hillary in non-speaking line for convention.

Berger had been stealing documents for HILL AND BILL and using some of the other stolen documents to advise KERRY ahead of the public on the 9/11 commission.

Berger is sacrificed by Hillary (she wants him to where no one will believe a word he says, when he decides to SING about the hill/bill documents), to let the KERRY DNC planners know WHO THE HELL IS BOSS!