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JOE WILSON: ’The President should fire Rove’!
http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=7012 ^ | July 13, 2005

Posted on 07/13/2005 6:25:47 PM PDT by Howlin

The Ambassador Strikes Back, Answers to the Right Wing Spin Machine *** A BRAD BLOG EXCLUSIVE ***

Ambassador Joseph Wilson fired back today at the Rightwing Spin Machine, which, having been issued marching orders late yesterday in a set of talking points from the RNC, is once again hoping to distract from the potentially treasonous crimes that George W. Bush’s top political operative and Deputy Chief of Staff, Karl Rove is being alleged to have committed.

In a phone discussion early this afternoon, Wilson told The BRAD BLOG in no uncertain terms that "the President should fire Rove."

He told us that he’d be appearing on NBC’s Today Show tomorrow morning and would be repeating that call.

As well, he told The BRAD BLOG that he planned to read a letter on air which he received from Bush’s father, President George H.W. Bush shortly after an article of his was printed in the San Jose Weekly News, on October 13, 2002, in which Wilson related his concerns about the pitfalls of the approach to Iraq being taken at the time by both the U.N. and the U.S.

In reply to that article, Wilson said that the former President wrote that he had "read your article and I agree with a lot of it."

Additionally, Wilson explained, Bush 41’s own National Security Advisor, Brett Scowcroft had contacted him to ask whether he "could walk on over to the White House with the letter" at the time. Which apparently he did.

Wilson also had sent the article to Bush 41’s Secretary of State, James Baker.

"None of them responded saying you’re a Democratic partisan hack and your views suck," said Wilson.

The above points are notable, because armed with those RNC talking point, Rush Limbaugh, Fox "News" and Friends have today kicked into overdrive smearing and lying about Wilson, claiming that he was against the Iraq War from the get-go.

If fact, Wilson, who was in charge of the Embassy in Iraq during the first Gulf War under Bush 41 (he was the last American to speak personally with Saddam Hussein before the war begain, and was responsible for taking care of some 125 Americans who had sought refuge in the American Embassy there when they were not allowed by Saddam to leave the country just prior to the war), says that it was "a full eight months" after he was sent by the CIA to Niger to investigate claims that Iraq had attempted to purchase uranium there, "before I had said anything publicly about what America should consider in regard to a war with Iraq."

"My real concern was always WMD," he told us, "not Regime Change."

That concern was expressed in the October 2002, San Jose Weekly News editorial which apparently George W. Bush’s own father and National Security Advisor tended to agree with. Wilson’s trip to Niger occurred a full eight months earlier, in February of that same year.

We asked him if he had heard Fox "News’" John Gibson make his deplorable and irresponsible statement yesterday which said that "Karl Rove should receive a medal," because Wilson’s wife, covert CIA asset Valerie Plame, "should have been outted."

"Where I come from," slurred Gibson, "we do not want secret spy masters pulling the puppet strings in the background.

Gibson’s "logic", such that he has any, seems to be based on the unsupported claims that Plame -- or Wilson’s "little wifey" as Gibson condescendingly referred to her -- was "pulling the puppet strings" of national policy from her covert position in the CIA by sending Wilson, to Niger. That was, in Gibson’s false claim, because Wilson, "was opposed to the War in Iraq, opposed to Bush policy, and pointedly and loudly said so."

No, he didn’t, Mr. Gibson. Never mind those pesky facts. It’s only Fox "News" you work for, so we realize such facts are hardly relevant to you receiving your paycheck there.

"That is something that should be out in the open," blathered Gibson, "And the person doing it should be identified and should own up to it. So Rove should get a medal, if he did do what he says he didn’t do."

In response, Wilson simply said, "Well, that’s a lie. But no surprise there."

In the meantime, despite such pesky facts, the wingnuts also continue to claim that Plame was, in fact, not even a covert asset at the time of her outting.

The BRAD BLOG has learned from several sources, as also confirmed in Time magazine that Plame was indeed a "NOC", a nonofficial covert agent, the most valuable and secretive of CIA assets.

In regard to whether she was covert or not at the time of her outting by Rove, Bob Novak or whoever his "two senior administration sources" were, Wilson said, "What I can say is, that the CIA looked at the evidence of what had happened and referred the case to the Justice Department. That means that the CIA may think that a crime has been committed."

On Rightwing Hackery hoping to cynically deflect from the seriousness of the potentially treasonous crime committed by claiming that "Wilson lied" about his wife’s involvement in sending him to Niger, Wilson says, "In actual fact, all I’ve done is repeat what the CIA itself has said since July 22nd, 2003 as reported initially in Newsday by Knut Royce and Tim Phelps."

That Newsday article says [emphasis added]:

A senior intelligence official 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."

"The CIA said [my wife] was not the person to have authorized my trip. They’ve repeated that time and time again."

And the Bush Apologists, who suddenly don’t seem to care all that much about National Security after all, keep repeating the opposite. Time and time again.


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Foreign Affairs; Front Page News; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: cia; cialeak; johngibson; leak; plame; rove; wilson; yellowcake
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To: hole_n_one
Yeah, I saw those. I'm talking about all on one page, one bookmark for the whole kitinkaboodle. On the 'Home Page' each one would have to be bookmarked individually.
121 posted on 07/13/2005 7:28:35 PM PDT by processing please hold (Islam and Christianity do not mix ----9-11 taught us that)
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To: Howlin

OH PUKE...


The following Monday, July 14, 2003, I read Novak's syndicated column in the Washington Post. The sixth paragraph of the ten-paragraph story leapt out at me: "Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction. Two senior administration officials told me Wilson's wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate the Italian report."

When I showed it to Valerie, she was stoic in her manner but I could see she was crestfallen. Twenty years of loyal service down the drain, and for what, she asked after she had read it. What was Novak trying to say? What did blowing her cover have to do with the story? It was nothing but a hatchet job. She immediately began to prepare a checklist of things she needed to do to minimize the fallout to projects she was working on. Ever efficient, she jotted down reminders to mask the emotions swirling through her body. Finally, as the enormity of what Novak had done now settled on her, she sat in the corner and wondered aloud if she would still have any friends left after they found out that the person they knew was not her at all but a lie that she lived very convincingly.


122 posted on 07/13/2005 7:33:23 PM PDT by kcvl
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To: pbrown
Unless you don't want any links within a bookmark, the CIA Leak link addy would be considered 1 bookmark and self-updating as posts are made.

Right?

123 posted on 07/13/2005 7:34:59 PM PDT by hole_n_one
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To: kcvl

Does anyone know which year she quit with the 007 missions and became deskbound? She and Wilson do have 5 year old twins.


124 posted on 07/13/2005 7:36:55 PM PDT by daybreakcoming (May God bless those who enter the valley of the shadow of death so that we may see the light of day.)
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To: Howlin

The Dems need to find the architect of their failure and fire him/her


125 posted on 07/13/2005 7:39:22 PM PDT by woofie (I Predict...... Dr. Neil Clark Warren will someday kill his wife and stop being pleasant to others)
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To: Howlin

My theory is that Novak got essentially the same info from Rove that Cooper got and THEN he got the specifics about Wilson's wife from SOMEONE else, possibly a Dem. All this will come out once investigation is over. Speaking of that, any ideas on when this thing wraps up or do we have to wait til Miller gets out of jail?


126 posted on 07/13/2005 7:40:22 PM PDT by pangaea6
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To: kcvl

Where's that picture of them sitting at what looks like a banquet table?


127 posted on 07/13/2005 7:41:08 PM PDT by Protect the Bill of Rights
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To: Protect the Bill of Rights
here
128 posted on 07/13/2005 7:42:51 PM PDT by hole_n_one
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To: torchthemummy
Keep this in mind as well. If I am right I think Novak was against the action in Iraq. If that is true Clarke may have felt he had an "ally" in Novak. He may have felt "comfortable" in confiding some things to him.

This all hinges on Novak being against Bush on Iraq.
129 posted on 07/13/2005 7:43:37 PM PDT by JediForce (DON'T FIRE UNTIL YOU SEE THE WHITES OF THE CURTAINS THEY ARE WEARING ON THEIR HEADS !)
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To: Howlin

Our talking points very from person to person, meaning we have none. Libs talking points are all the same and when asked questions outside the talking points they hang up or shut up. We just answer the questions, we have no talking points.


130 posted on 07/13/2005 7:43:53 PM PDT by Brimack34
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To: Howlin; FlingWingFlyer
You can thank Frank Church for this.

Along with Stansfield Turner and Bobby Ray Inman.

131 posted on 07/13/2005 7:44:29 PM PDT by tarheelswamprat (This tagline space for rent - cheap!)
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To: RobFromGa
I read your post and could have sworn it said 'Sandy Berger and Kofi Annan-- two great heros of the theft'.

Left. Theft. Not much difference.
132 posted on 07/13/2005 7:45:21 PM PDT by dmartin (Who Dares Wins)
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To: hole_n_one

Sorry to hear she lost her arm.


133 posted on 07/13/2005 7:45:42 PM PDT by Protect the Bill of Rights
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To: Brimack34

That's because we have the truth on our side.


134 posted on 07/13/2005 7:46:05 PM PDT by Howlin (Who is Judith Miller covering up for?)
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To: Howlin

JOE WILSON IS LUNATIC!!!


I had received a call from Post reporter Walter Pincus, who alerted me that "they are coming after you."



Family members are expressly forbidden from accepting employment that places them in any direct professional relationship, even once or twice removed.


Dick Cheney might be able to find a way to appoint one of his daughters to a key decision-making position in the State Department's Middle East Bureau, as he did; but Valerie could not—and would not if she could—have had anything to do with the CIA decision to ask me to travel to Niamey.



There was no possibility of Valerie recovering her former life. She would never be able to regain the anonymity and secrecy that her professional life had required; she would not be able to return to her discreet work on some of the most sensitive threats to our society in the foreseeable future, and perhaps ever.


So what if she conveyed a request to me to come to the Agency to talk about Niger? She had played absolutely no part in the decision to send me there.


Novak was slavishly doing the bidding of the cowards in the administration who had decided that the only way to discredit me was to betray national security.


In fact, watching Valerie's face fall as she realized that her life had been so irreparably altered, I felt that punching the man in the nose would not have been an unreasonable response.



A few days later, Newsday reporter Timothy Phelps, whom I had met in Iraq twelve years earlier, informed me that he had heard from the CIA that what Novak had reported vis-à-vis Valerie's employment was not incorrect.



I was waking up in the middle of the night and pacing the floor, as I had during that critical period in Baghdad during Desert Shield. Back then, my mind would be going a thousand miles a minute, trying to gain an edge on the thugs in the Iraqi regime; now I was trying to predict what the thugs in my own government would do, so I'd be ready to react effectively to their next move.


I was horrified that I could actually harbor suspicions—ones that were also being expressed by others—that a democratic government might actually do bodily harm to a political opponent. I laughed it off for my friends and pointed out that my golf handicap had gone down two strokes in the two and a half weeks of my enforced vacation.



That same week, on Thursday, July 17, David Corn called to alert me that what Novak had done, or at least what the person who had leaked Valerie's name to him had done, was possibly a crime, in that it might represent a violation of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982. Corn then published a detailed explanation of the law to ensure that other journalists, as well as regular readers of The Nation, understood all the legalities involved.



NBC's Andrea Mitchell, who had been guest-hosting Meet the Press when I'd been on the show two weeks earlier, reached me at home on the Sunday night after Novak's article appeared to ask for my reaction to "what White House sources were telling her about the real story being not the sixteen words but Wilson and his wife." I agreed to do an interview with her the following day in my office. Although I had planned not to appear on any television shows prior to Thursday, July 24, when I was scheduled to do The Daily Show with Jon Stewart, I felt I had no choice but to try to stop the White House from continuing to push this canard.



The White House was trying to fling dust into the eyes of the press and public while descending into what a Republican staffer on the Hill later called a "slime-and-defend" mode.



That afternoon I received the call from Chris Matthews tersely informing me that Karl Rove had entered the fray with the comment that my wife was "fair game." To make a political point, to defend a political agenda, to blur the truth that one of the president's own staffers had scripted a lie into the president's mouth, one of the administration's most senior officials found it perfectly acceptable to push a story that exposed a national security asset.



The next morning I appeared on the Today show. Katie Couric was the interviewer. Unfortunately, I was on remote location, in Washington—my one chance to sit face-to-face with "America's sweetheart," and all I could see was the unblinking eye of the camera in front of me.






135 posted on 07/13/2005 7:49:04 PM PDT by kcvl
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To: Howlin

Good try Wilson, but we prefer to get a second opinion.


136 posted on 07/13/2005 7:49:33 PM PDT by F.J. Mitchell (Pests are eating leaves off the vine of liberty-let us spray. some feign innocence-let them pray!)
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To: Brimack34

The guest host for tonight's Countdown on MSNBC was waving around pages (they looked to be copies of the same 1 page) of what she said were Republican "talking points" about how to respond to questions re; Rove that were sent out today.


137 posted on 07/13/2005 7:49:43 PM PDT by hole_n_one
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To: Howlin

Why would anyone give this documented liar the time of day?


138 posted on 07/13/2005 7:50:31 PM PDT by PeoplesRepublicOfWashington (Washington State--Land of Court-approved Voting Fraud.)
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To: hole_n_one
Humpty???




139 posted on 07/13/2005 7:50:34 PM PDT by Chode (American Hedonist ©®)
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To: Howlin

On Hannity and Colmes tonight, Annie Coulter referred to him as 'Clown Wilson'. Clown lied like mad all over the place, and when Rove tried to warn Cooper not to go down that road, Rove gets pilloried. Furthermore, the GOP can't defend Rove, according to Libs. As usual, this is much ado about nothing...other than the customary Lib lies. Soon, we'll hear that ever popular 'I' word, Impeachment...or has Dean already got to that point.


140 posted on 07/13/2005 7:51:10 PM PDT by hershey
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