Daniel "The Socialist" SchorrPosted on 07/14/2005 4:11:32 PM PDT by Arkie2
WASHINGTON – Let me remind you that the underlying issue in the Karl Rove controversy is not a leak, but a war and how America was misled into that war.
In 2002 President Bush, having decided to invade Iraq, was casting about for a casus belli. The weapons of mass destruction theme was not yielding very much until a dubious Italian intelligence report, based partly on forged documents (it later turned out), provided reason to speculate that Iraq might be trying to buy so-called yellowcake uranium from the African country of Niger. It did not seem to matter that the CIA advised that the Italian information was "fragmentary and lacked detail."
Prodded by Vice President Dick Cheney and in the hope of getting more conclusive information, the CIA sent Joseph Wilson, an old Africa hand, to Niger to investigate. Mr. Wilson spent eight days talking to everyone in Niger possibly involved and came back to report no sign of an Iraqi bid for uranium and, anyway, Niger's uranium was committed to other countries for many years to come.
No news is bad news for an administration gearing up for war. Ignoring Wilson's report, Cheney talked on TV about Iraq's nuclear potential. And the president himself, in his 2003 State of the Union address no less, pronounced: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."
Wilson declined to maintain a discreet silence. He told various people that the president was at least mistaken, at most telling an untruth. Finally Wilson directly challenged the administration with a July 6, 2003 New York Times op-ed headlined, "What I didn't find in Africa," and making clear his belief that the president deliberately manipulated intelligence in order to justify an invasion.
One can imagine the fury in the White House. We now know from the e-mail traffic of Time's correspondent Matt Cooper that five days after the op-ed appeared, he advised his bureau chief of a supersecret conversation with Karl Rove who alerted him to the fact that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA and may have recommended him for the Niger assignment. Three days later, Bob Novak's column appeared giving Wilson's wife's name, Valerie Plame, and the fact she was an undercover CIA officer. Mr. Novak has yet to say, in public, whether Mr. Rove was his source. Enough is known to surmise that the leaks of Rove, or others deputized by him, amounted to retaliation against someone who had the temerity to challenge the president of the United States when he was striving to find some plausible reason for invading Iraq.
The role of Rove and associates added up to a small incident in a very large scandal - the effort to delude America into thinking it faced a threat dire enough to justify a war.
• Daniel Schorr is the senior news analyst at National Public Radio.
Ah, yes, NPR. So fair, so balanced. So deserving of my tax dollars.
Leni
Every time I run across him saying something, I just go nuts. He is beyond liberal bias. I guess that would "lias".
And, they refer to him as a "news analyst", as if what he is doing is something other than pure opinion.
Our tax dollars at work.
Do any of you people think anyone pays attention to claptrap you write here, outside of your little, tiny pathetic right-wing support group?
Apparently you do, troll. What brings you over here from DUmbassville?
Smarting over the Roberts nomination, huh? Put some ice on it.....
Daniel "The Socialist" SchorrLeft wingers employed by Fox:
Alan Colmes
Greta Van Sustern (husband works for Kerry 2004 campaign)
Susan Estrich
Ellis Henican
Eleanor Clift
Geraldo Rivera
David Corn
Geraldine Ferraro
Mara Liasson
Juan Williams
Ellen Ratner
Gloria Allred
Chris Wallace
Julian Phillips
Neal Gabler
Jane Hall
Greg Hymowitz
Conservatives employed by NPR:
Don't forget Bob "Fathead" Beckel, although you might wish you could.....
5.56mm
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