Posted on 09/24/2004 7:10:28 AM PDT by bikepacker67
The CBS scandal gets worse every day. Now, in an amazing twist, Michael Isikoff of Newsweek was on Chris Matthews' MSNBC "Hardball" show on Wednesday night claiming that CBS had been planning to air a story about the White House using forged documents to make the case for war against Iraq. CBS postponed the story so it could go on the air attacking President Bush on the National Guard issue. It backfired when 60 Minutes itself got caught using forged documents. Still, Isikoff indicates that 60 Minutes is planning to air the anti-Bush piece, perhaps as early as Sunday night, September 26.
There is only one big problem—the anti-Bush story, as described by Isikoff and eagerly embraced by Democrat partisan Matthews, is completely false. It's as phony as those National Guard documents.
The Iraq-uranium link, the subject of much media misinformation, has been documented and confirmed by authoritative reports from Britain's Lord Butler, who had been a cabinet secretary under five different Prime Ministers, and the Senate Intelligence Committee.
In an article on the Newsweek website, Isikoff claims that 60 Minutes had originally planed to run a story about "how the U.S. government was snookered by forged documents purporting to show Iraqi efforts to purchase uranium from Niger." Isikoff says the story, narrated by CBS correspondent Ed Bradley, "asked tough questions about how the White House came to embrace the fraudulent documents and why administration officials chose to include a 16-word reference to the questionable uranium purchase in President Bush's 2003 State of the Union." Isikoff says 60 Minutes has been working on the story for more than six months.
(Excerpt) Read more at aim.org ...
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(From July 11, 04 time period)
Senate Report Offers Backing for Claim Iraq Sought Uranium in Africa http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGB62OSSGWD.html
By Matt Kelley Associated Press Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) - A Senate report criticizing false CIA claims that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction at the same time provides support for an assertion the White House repudiated: that Iraq sought to buy uranium in Africa.
White House officials said last year it was a mistake for President Bush, in his 2003 State of the Union message, to refer to British reports that Saddam Hussein's government tried to buy uranium. The White House said the evidence for that claim was too shaky to have been included in such an important speech, and CIA Director George Tenet took the blame for failing to have the reference removed.
A Friday report from the Senate Intelligence Committee offers new details supporting the claim.
French and British intelligence separately told the United States about possible Iraqi attempts to buy uranium in the African nation of Niger, the report said. The report from France is significant not only because Paris opposed the Iraq war but also because Niger is a former French colony and French companies control uranium production there.
Joseph Wilson, a retired U.S. diplomat the CIA sent to investigate the Niger story, also found evidence of Iraqi contacts with Nigerien officials, the report said.
Wilson told the committee that former Nigerien Prime Minister Ibrahim Mayaki reported meeting with Iraqi officials in 1999. Mayaki said a businessman helped set up the meeting, saying the Iraqis were interested in "expanding commercial relations" with Niger - which Mayaki interpreted as an overture to buy uranium, Wilson said.
Mayaki told Wilson he met with the Iraqis but steered the discussion away from commercial activity because he did not want to deal with a country under United Nations sanctions.
All of that information came to Washington long before an Italian journalist gave U.S. officials copies of documents purporting to show an agreement from Niger to sell uranium to Baghdad. Those documents have been determined to be forgeries.
Even before the forged documents surfaced, U.S. analysts cast doubt on the Niger story, the Senate report said. State Department analysts thought the uranium story was farfetched because such a deal would be detected easily and Iraq already had some 500 tons of lightly processed uranium "yellowcake."
Some CIA analysts shared that view, the report said.
The CIA also made only "halfhearted" attempts to investigate a West African businessman's claim that Nigerien uranium bound for Iraq was being stored in a warehouse in the nearby African nation of Benin, the report said. The CIA never contacted the businessman, even though the U.S. Navy gave the CIA his phone number, the report said.
AP-ES-07-09-04 1705EDT This story can be found at: http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGB62OSSGWD.html
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Senate Report: Wilson Lied
http://www.captainsquartersblog.com/mt/archives/001992.php#trackbacks
One of the supposed martyrs of the Left in the war on terror, former Ambassador and newly-minted author Joseph Wilson, lied to the public about how he got that questionable assignment to Niger, according to a Senate report:
Wilson's assertions -- both about what he found in Niger and what the Bush administration did with the information -- were undermined yesterday in a bipartisan Senate intelligence committee report.
The panel found that Wilson's report, rather than debunking intelligence about purported uranium sales to Iraq, as he has said, bolstered the case for most intelligence analysts. And contrary to Wilson's assertions and even the government's previous statements, the CIA did not tell the White House it had qualms about the reliability of the Africa intelligence that made its way into 16 fateful words in President Bush's January 2003 State of the Union address.
So Joe Wilson came back from Niger and actually confirmed the intelligence regarding uranium sales, instead of debunking it, as he claimed. Of course, that's not what Wilson has been saying since his return; he's taken every opportunity to claim that he found nothing to support claims from British intelligence, and he's said it on the Kerry campaign trail and on his own book tour. So much for "Bush Lied!" Someone lied, and now we know who.
Saint Joe may have even more trouble than just this crucial point regarding his credibility, as the Washington Post report continues:
The report turns a harsh spotlight on what Wilson has said about his role in gathering prewar intelligence, most pointedly by asserting that his wife, CIA employee Valerie Plame, recommended him. ... The report may bolster the rationale that administration officials provided the information not to intentionally expose an undercover CIA employee, but to call into question Wilson's bona fides as an investigator into trafficking of weapons of mass destruction. To charge anyone with a crime, prosecutors need evidence that exposure of a covert officer was intentional.
The report states that a CIA official told the Senate committee that Plame "offered up" Wilson's name for the Niger trip, then on Feb. 12, 2002, sent a memo to a deputy chief in the CIA's Directorate of Operations saying her husband "has good relations with both 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." The next day, the operations official cabled an overseas officer seeking concurrence with the idea of sending Wilson, the report said.
Wilson has asserted that his wife was not involved in the decision to send him to Niger. "Valerie had nothing to do with the matter," Wilson wrote in a memoir published this year. "She definitely had not proposed that I make the trip."
For the moment, Wilson stands behind his denials that his wife used improper pull within the CIA to get him the Niger assignment. However, as has long been discussed, the decision to give Wilson the assigment makes sense no other way. Wilson had no particular experience in non-proliferation intelligence, and he gave no inclination that he had much interest in finding anything out for the US. Further, Wilson had been employed with a foundation that primarily had been funded by Saudis, making an assignment for counterespionage against Iraq very suspect.
The Senate Intelligence Committee also leaves open the possibility that the British (and now the French) were entirely correct about the attempted purchase, and scolds the CIA for bungling the investigation. Read the entire article. Anyone who believes that Wilson or Plame were simply innocent bystanders will be sorely disillusioned.
UPDATE: Please read Power Line's excellent post http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/007135.php on this article.
And my boycott is forever. I have no interest in whether or not they "change their ways". I personally am finished with them. For the rest of my life.
Why not just turn off CBS news? There are some good programs on CBS, and it certainly doesn't seem fair to punish those employees that have nothing to do with the news department.
How many "bad" stories have they done about Kerry? Certainly there's enough dirt to dig through: his alleged affair with a campaign staffer (or was it a journalist?), his uncanny knack for marrying rich women (does he really love them?), all-things swift-boat, his attendance at an anti-war meeting where the assassination of a congressman (senator?) was discussed, etc. I'm no investigative reporter - I'm sure if they wanted Kerry as much as they want Bush, they'd come up with some doozies.
The truth is, CBS isn't interested in a story at all. They hate Bush and all things conservative. They consider themselves smarter, better, and thus entitled to not only report the news but to add little improvements to it.
They can continue to misunderestimate his strategery all they want. He didn't become President by being stupid, in spite of what they say.
Communist traitors.
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Communist traitors.
Communist traitors.
Communist traitors.
Bump.
Controlled, Biased, & Slanted
Did you get that from Lucy?
???
Just an FYI on this thread:
Searchable 9/11 Report:
http://vivisimo.com/911
"At my signal, unleash hell."
If 60 Minutes runs this bs, Redstone and the suits at Viacom should be put in jail for another attempted coup.
CBS was going to slam the President for believing forged documents? Think about that for a minute.
One more thing: I'm sending and email and calling my cable company and telling them that the ONLY reason I have cable is because of FOX news. The fact is, most of the other programming on the other networks is repetitive and stupid. Same 6 movies shown over and over again, sometimes even back-to-back. And I'm talking about the non-pay channels (I don't have HBO or the other extras).
If there was no FOX, I'd get a DSL connection and just watch movies on DVD and get my news completely from the internet.
I'm sure many others agree with me. I hope they make their feelings known to their cable companies.
CBS was attacking Bush this morning on their morning liberal indoctrination program.... bunch of greasy swines.
According to their timetable, I guess you're right.
Thanks.
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