Posted on 07/16/2005 7:26:49 AM PDT by hipaatwo
The New York Times reports on a memo that Colin Powell reportedly carried aboard Air Force One on a trip to Africa the week before Robert Novak named Valerie Plame as a CIA agent. The importance of this memo revolves around the people who accompanied the President and Powell on the Africa trip and the fact that it describes the circumstances of Joe Wilson's hiring for the mission to Niger. However, the report by Richard Stevenson makes several factual errors that even a quick perusal of the Intelligence Committee report would correct.
The first error committed by Stevenson is one of omission. The Times has been beating a supposed Karl Rove connection to death over the past few weeks. However, if one looks at the contact dates for the two conversations Rove had with reporters -- July 9 for Novak, July 11 for Matt Cooper -- obviously Rove didn't go to Africa and didn't have access to the memo. After all, both reporters called Rove, not the other way around, and both started their conversations on different topics that hardly would have been so pressing that they would have been redirected by satellite to AF1.
So if the memo does hold any key to the leak, Rove can't be the leaker.
The other errors misrepresent what happened in Niger and how the CIA selected Joe Wilson as its investigator. Stevenson writes this about the Niger information:
On Thursday, a person who has been officially briefed on the matter said that Karl Rove, President Bush's senior adviser, had spoken about Ms. Wilson with Mr. Novak before Mr. Novak published a column on July 14, 2003, identifying the C.I.A. officer by her maiden name, Valerie Plame. Mr. Rove, the person said, told Mr. Novak he had heard much the same information, making him one of two sources Mr. Novak cited for his information.
But the person said Mr. Rove first heard from Mr. Novak the name of Mr. Wilson's wife and her precise role in the C.I.A.'s decision to send her husband to Africa to investigate a report, later discredited, that Saddam Hussein was trying to acquire nuclear material there.
Had Stevenson actually read the SSIC report, he would know that the report in fact was substantiated by Wilson's investigation. Iraq had on at least one occasion in the three years prior to Wilson's trip attempted to open secret trade negotiations with Niger:
[Wilson's] intelligence report indicated that former Nigerien Prime Minister Ibrahim Mayaki was unaware of any contracts that had been signed between Niger and any rogue states for the sale of yellowcake while he was Prime Minister (1997-1999) or Foreign Minister (1996-1997). Mayaki said that if there had been any such contract during his tenure, he would have been aware of it. Mayaki said, however, that in June 1999,(REDACTED) businessman, approached him and insisted that Mayaki meet with an Iraqi delegation to discuss "expanding commercial relations" between Niger and Iraq. The intelligence report said that Mayaki interpreted "expanding commercial relations" to mean that the delegation wanted to discuss uranium yellowcake sales. The intelligence report also said that "although the meeting took place, Mayaki let the matter drop due to the UN sanctions on Iraq."
Given that Niger exports a total of four commodities, that assumption of Iraqi interest in uranium ore should have appeared rather solid. No one goes into secret talks to discuss the purchase of livestock, cowpeas, or onions, the only other Nigerien exports. This demonstrated that Saddam still planned on pursuing WMD and had actively searched for new resources for a nuclear-weapons program. Stevenson got this exactly wrong.
The other major factual error comes in Stevenson's description of the role of Valerie Plame in Wilson's selection. He underplays Plame's efforts to get her husband involved in the Niger mission:
The notes, which did not identify Ms. Wilson or her husband by name, said the meeting was "apparently convened by" the wife of a former ambassador "who had the idea to dispatch" him to Niger because of his contacts in the region. Mr. Wilson had been ambassador to Gabon.
The Intelligence Committee report said the former ambassador's wife had a different account of her role, saying she introduced him and left after about three minutes.
Talk about cherry-picking! Yes, the above does describe what Plame did, but it leaves out a few other items. Again, had Stevenson bothered to read the relevant portions of the SSIC report, he would have found that Plame was much more enthusiastic about hiring hubby Joe:
Some CPD officials could not recall how the office decided to contact the former ambassador, however, interviews and documents provided to the Committee indicate that his wife, a CPD employee, suggested his name for the trip. The CPD reports officer told Committee staff that the former ambassador's wife "offered up his name" and a memorandum to the Deputy Chief of the CPD on February 12, 2002, from the former ambassador's wife says, "my 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." This was just one day before CPD sent a cable DELETED requesting concurrence with CPD's idea to send the former ambassador to Niger and requesting any additional information from the foreign government service on their uranium reports. The former ambassador's wife told Committee staff that when CPD decided it would like to send the former ambassador to Niger, she approached her husband on behalf of the CIA and told him "there's this crazy report" on a purported deal for Niger to sell uranium to Iraq. The former ambassador was selected for the 1999 trip after his wife mentioned to her supervisors that her husband was planning a business trip to Niger in the near future and might be willing to use his contacts in the region ...
On February 19, 2002, CPD hosted a meeting with the former ambassador, intelligence analysts from both the CIA and INR, and several individuals from the DO's Africa and CPD divisions. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the merits of the former ambassador traveling to Niger. An INR analyst's notes indicate 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." The former ambassador's wife told Committee staff that she only attended the meeting to introduce her husband and left after about three minutes.
Plame didn't just make an off-hand suggestion and then play hostess once. She repeatedly suggested Wilson for the job, wrote a memorandum requesting him for the mission, and then delivered the assignment to Wilson herself.
All this begs the question: why was Plame so set on using her husband for the job? Wilson told the SSIC that she had characterized the initial report of Iraq-Niger contacts as "crazy". After Wilson returned, he reported that the Iraqis had indeed tried to start trade talks in secret with Niger, and that the Nigerian PM believed that to be an effort to get yellowcake uranium. However, after the invasion of Iraq, Wilson started leaking a warped version to journalists such as Walter Pincus, also described in the SSIC report and determined to be false.
It looks like Plame wanted a specific result from the Niger investigation, and she selected the man who she felt would guarantee it.
Finally, Stevenson holds off until the last paragraph a little fact that tends to undermine the entire notion of this AF1 memo sourcing Novak's column:
The information in the State Department memorandum generally tracked the information Mr. Novak laid out for Mr. Rove in their conversation, according to the account of their exchange provided by the person briefed on what Mr. Rove has told investigators.
But it appears to differ in at least one way, raising questions about whether it was the original source of the material that ultimately made its way to Mr. Novak. In his July 14, 2003, column, Mr. Novak referred to Ms. Wilson as Valerie Plame. The State Department memorandum referred to her as Valerie Wilson, according to the government official who reread it on Friday.
Given that her identity as Valerie Plame caused the entire brouhaha -- after all, Wilson was known to be married -- it seems unlikely that Novak got his information directly or indirectly from this memo. Why didn't Stevenson put that in the lead of the article? It seems somewhat more important than a ten-paragraph recap of the history of the leak.
Given the Times' deep involvement in this case, I'd say that these mistakes are either grossly inexcusable or deliberate attempts to warp the record -- perhaps both.
Judy's rotting in jail for Powell. Wow. Pinch has really stepped in it this time. Times is publically traded, some of this has to be available through FOIA.
This whole thing has a dan rather, cbs type stink to it.
It's starting to look to me like the dems, wilson, his wife, the new york times and maybe even others in the mainstream media are trying desperately to pull off another rather-gate of sorts. Like the whole thing was cooked up even before the trip that wilsons wife arranged for him to go on.
It all just smells funny... like there's a skunk close by and you can smell a faint whiff of it... but you don't see it yet.
Like the whole trip and everything after is just a big set up by the dems. First wilsons wife gets him sent on a trip he's not really qualified to go on. And then he comes back and lies about what he found just so he can call President Bush a lier. And the dems jumped on that bandwagon and rode it for all it was worth. And then these reporters just happen to both call Rove and both change the original subject of the conversation to get Rove to say something, anything about wilson's wife. And the dems rode that one as far as they could. And now there is supposed to be some memo and they want to try to throw mud on President Bush?
This just has a dirty dem stench all over it. Especially with the media ignoring facts and still trying to push lies. It just stinks like the media, the dems, and wilson have all been in on cooking the whole thing up from the start.
Remember, how in rather-gate mary mapes was found out to have been in touch with the kerry campaign? Well, this stinks like that.
It was the pilot, in the cockpit, with a candlestick.
We call her OGH, the H is for Ho.
ummmm....because he leaked the memo. sarcasm off
bumpity bump
You also have to remember his Investment company. He was doing business in the Middle East/Africa; Which makes it even more of a conflict of interest. You noticed Val said her husband can talk to his business contacts.
any fax number for the Slimes and/or e-mail address for this Slimes writer so we can send them a copy of this and pass it out to other media outlets?? Thanks
I believe the administration thinks that that some of these folks might have broken some laws and they need to feel this.
This is why Miller sits in jail.
There is a reason why Joe Wilson vehemently denied that his wife had anything to do with his trips to Niger, until the memo she wrote was uncovered by the Senate Intelliegence Committee. There's a reason why he was apoplectic when her name was published by Bob Novak, and as we know now, it isn't because she was some secret agent whose career was destroyed. It's because HIS career was destroyed, I mean his business deals in Africa that he was using her to promote. I believe we are going to find out that Joe Wilson was dealing in uranium, he used his wife to find out what the CIA knew about where uranium shipments were going, because she was in counterproliferation at the CIA. He used her to get himself assigned to the Niger investigation so he could cover his own tracks.
I sent an Email to Rush on Wednesday suggesting that the leaker was the MSM darling Colin Powell, who Bush has already sacked.
Of course, when that is proven correct it will not be the main MSM story, because he is not their target.
In fact, I imagine that is why Judith Miller is not talking. Powell was her source and either Miller or Powel gave it all up to Novak.
I suspect that everyone of any importance at the NY Slimes already knows all that, but in their evil hatred of Bush they will continue to slime Rove as long as they can.
Then, the story with the truth about Powell will be up and gone in 24 hours and people's memories will in the long run reflect the length at which the two stories were front page - Rove was guilty.
They're Pravda on the Hudson and they do it every time.
Joe took the Islamicists' side,
When he said that the President lied.
The Times spread the tale
Please put them in jail
And, certainly, Joe should be fried.
It looks like Plame wanted a specific result from the Niger investigation, and she selected the man who she felt would guarantee it.
IMO, there isn't enough scrutiny being put on Plame herself. And now this connection to Powell...? I gotta read more on this.
I agree.
You may certainly be right. The liberal cabal can be said to include all those government officials and others who are in the roloxes of the NY Times and other leaders of the MSM media. These are the folks in the CIA and elsewhere who regularly leak to their good friends at the Times or the ComPost.
In fact, that seems to have been the pattern at the center of Watergate.
1988 to 1991: Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq. During "Desert Shield" he was the acting Ambassador and was responsible for the freeing of several hundred American hostages. He was the last official American to meet with Saddam Hussein before "Desert Storm. He was number two, in charge of administrative matters, to April Glaspie, the career diplomat who it seems in July 1990 made Saddam think the U.S. would not mind if he invaded Kuwait and has not held an ambassador-level job since. She left on vacation later that month, leaving Wilson in charge, and after Saddam invaded Kuwait a few weeks later she didn't return to Iraq. The Air Phase of the First Gulf War started in January 1991.
1992-1995: U.S. Ambassador to the
Gabonese Republic and to the Democratic Republic of Sao Tome and Principe from 1992 to 1995 (one ambassador for those two countries is standard) 1995-1997: Political Advisor to the Commander-in-Chief of United States Armed Forces, Europe
June 1997 - July 1998: Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for African Affairs at the National Security Council
The January 2001 Vanity Fair article contains lots of useful information, especially if you connect it to what else we know. There is mention of Wilson's Turkish connection: He had met Plame in February 1997 at a reception at the Washington home of the Turkish ambassador.
We learn that he is rich and that he was having an affair with Valerie Plame in or before the year he divorced the second of his three wives. The article says "On the third or fourth date, he says, they were in the middle of a 'heavy make-out' session" and from the following excerpt we see that they were looking at houses and discussing marriage in 1998, the same year he was divorced: The Wilsons live in the Palisades, an affluent neighborhood of Washington, D.C., on the fringe of Georgetown. In winter, when the trees have no leaves, the back of their house has a stunning view of the Washington Monument. They'd first seen the house in 1998, when it was still being built, and they had instantly fallen in love with it. Even so, Plame took some persuading before they made an offer. "She's very frugal," explains Wilson. "My brother who's in real estate had to fly in from the West Coast and explain that a mortgage could cost less than our rented apartment in the Watergate." Plame also told Wilson that she'd be moving with him into the new house only as his wife. Records show that Wilson and his second wife, Jacqueline, to whom he was married for 12 years, were divorced in 1998. By the mid-90s, Wilson says, that relationship had pretty much disintegrated. "Separate bedrooms-and I was playing a lot of golf," he says.
Note, too, that exactly as I speculated in my earlier post, he was playing a lot of golf in the 1990's-- not the sign of a successful career.
On the positive side, the article (which, it must be noted, is extremely positive and takes a known liar-- Wilson himself-- as its source for much of what it says) has some good things to say about Wilson's career: After only one year in the job Wilson decided to retire and go into the private sector because "we wanted to have kids, and felt that it had become very difficult to live off two government salaries." He set up a consultancy, J. C. Wilson International Ventures, with an office in downtown Washington at the headquarters of the Rock Creek Corporation, an investment firm of which little is known. Wilson's right-wing critics have been quick to condemn the affiliation as "murky," though Wilson does not work for Rock Creek and merely rents space and facilities there. ... "I have a number of clients, and basically we help them with their sort of investments in countries like Niger," explains Wilson. "Niger was of some interest because it has some gold deposits coming onstream. We had some clients who were interested in gold.... We were looking to set up a gold-mine company out of London." ... Wilson also came back to Washington, as a senior director for African affairs at the National Security Council, where, according to the Reagan administration's assistant secretary of state for African affairs, Chester Crocker, he was the most effective person in that job during the Clinton administration.
and In 1992, Wilson was rewarded with the ambassadorship to Gabon, where, he says, he helped persuade President Omar Bongo-"the most clever politician in African politics," according to Wilson-to have free and open elections.
Of course, when Crocker says that Wilson "was the most effective person in that job during the Clinton administration," that may be damning with faint praise. And we also learn that Former defense secretary Caspar Weinberger wrote in The Wall Street Journal that Wilson had had a "less-than-stellar record."
How about the question of whether Wilson's consulting job is real or phantom?
That doesn't really tell us much, except to say that though he lists himself as "Strategic Advisor" for Rock Creek Corporation, he is not really an employee-- just a tenant-- and so must not be getting any salary from them. Thus, I conclude the opposite from Bryan Preston and Roger Simon, who seem to worry about how much he was making from Rock Creek Corporation-- instead, it looks like he is making no money from them, and just wants to list an affiliation so it seems like he has a real job. Further investigation might determine who is right.
The Vanity Fair story tells us more about Wilson's background, including how his first wife got fed up with him: Also in Burundi, Wilson met his second wife, then the cultural counselor at the French Embassy there. They spent a year back in Washington on a congressional fellowship, during which time he worked for Al Gore, then a senator from Tennessee, and Tom Foley, then House majority whip. "It was," Wilson says, "happenstance" that he worked for two Democrats. Then he returned to Africa as deputy chief of mission in the Congo Republic, where he helped Assistant Secretary of State Chester Crocker set up the process that led to negotiations for the withdrawal of the Cuban and South African troops from the Angolan Civil War. Wilson is the son of freelance journalists who lived in California and then moved around Europe while he and his brother were growing up. He went to the University of California at Santa Barbara and characterized himself as a "surf dude" with some carpentry skills. In person, he gives off a charismatic, relaxed air, and someone who was with him in Baghdad said it's easy to underestimate him. In 1974 he married his college sweetheart, Susan Otchis, and in 1976 went to work for the State Department. His postings included Niger, Togo-where his wife became pregnant with the first set of Wilson twins, Joseph and Sabrina, now 24-South Africa, and Burundi. It was in Burundi that Susan "decided she'd had about enough of me" and left him, he says. He remains on good terms with the family.
This is all interesting, but what is most interesting is not Wilson's desire to go to Niger and discredit the Bush Administration, but the CIA's desire to help him do it. I'll post on that separately in a little while.
link to above post:
http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache:6X0GeSO4kQQJ:www.rasmusen.org/x/archives/000028.html+JC+Wilson+International+Ventures&hl=en&client=firefox-a
There are other posts here about Wilson's business dealings, many of which were put together when this whole thing started.
I can't say I've read them in depth, but there are connections to some shady people and companies.
Sorry, I don't have any links but they can be found; I know some of them have been bumped in recent days.
VALERIE PLAME is the maiden name of the wife of Joseph Wilson, the retired diplomat who attacked the Bush Administration for mentioning Niger uranium. Some web-logs are in a lather because Robert Novak wrote: 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 his wife suggested sending Wilson to Niger to investigate the Italian report. The CIA says its counter-proliferation officials selected Wilson and asked his wife to contact him. ''I will not answer any question about my wife,'' Wilson told me.
Newsday then published an article titled "Columnist Blows CIA Agent's Cover," which said Intelligence officials confirmed to Newsday yesterday that Valerie Plame, wife of retired Ambassador Joseph Wilson, works at the agency on weapons of mass destruction issues in an undercover capacity - at least she was undercover until last week when she was named by columnist Robert Novak.
Something interesting is going on here. It starts with Mr. Wilson, a Clinton ally and strong opposer of military action in Iraq, being asked by the CIA to investigate whether Iraq tried to buy uranium from Niger, in response to an inquiry by Vice-President Cheney. Why would the CIA ask Wilson? And why send anyone over merely to talk to Niger government officials, who would surely deny everything?
The answer may lie in an attempt by mid-level CIA people to try to kill the Niger story. If they were on record already as being skeptical of the British claims about Niger, then it was important to their careers that the story be squelched. If Mr. Wilson were sent, he would come up with nothing, and that could be cited in a report to Mr.Cheney without mentioning exactly who Wilson was and what he did.
If Mrs. Wilson works in the office that analyzes weapons of mass destruction, as seems to be the case from my survey of web-logs, then she would know Mr. Wilson could fill the role of story squelcher. She herself is a "counter- proliferation official", after all. That, apparently, is what was leaked to Mr. Novak.
I don't know why the CIA would confirm the story to Novak. And it is odd that the CIA would later confirm to Newsday that Mrs. Wilson worked there, and volunteer that she worked "in an undercover capacity". And what does "undercover capacity" mean? It sounded to me as if she works in the analysis division. I doubt she's a spy. Rather, she's like the vast majority of CIA employees, a civil-service worker who processes data (or perhaps she's an administrator).
Maybe CIA people wanted it to sound as if the Administration was betraying our covert agents to their deaths, and so contacted Newsday and told them that since she works for the CIA, it would be fair to say she works "undercover", as she works every day in a building that requires a tough security clearance. This would be a counter-leak, retaliation for the first leak, which would be most damaging to the careers of the CIA people who sent Mr. Wilson to Niger.
Any other ideas?
UPDATE, AUGUST 28. Mark Kleiman has a good summary of the story and the law. Professor Kleiman also reports, from a transcript that Ambassador Wilson now blames Karl Rove for the leak and says he should go to jail for it.
It turns out that Newsday probably got their news from David Corn in the Nation on July 16. He slides without comment from saying that Mrs. Wilson (Valerie Plame) works from the CIA to saying that she is a covert operative. My guess is that he didn't even realize there was a difference. If he did, and he's right, then *he* is the one who has revealed the identity of a covert operative. I doubt she does much cloak and dagger work, though; Corn reveals she is the mother of 3-year-old twins!
Senator Schumer has called for an investigation. His press release makes the mistaken claim that "the unauthorized disclosure of information relating to the identity of an American intelligence official is a crime." No, it *can be* a crime to reveal the identity of a *covert* employee. Most employees aren't covert. Also, recall that the Novak story did not say she was a covert employee. The David Corn story did.
Schumer says "This is one of the most reckless and nasty things Ive seen in all my years of government," Schumer said. "Leaking the name of a CIA agent is tantamount to putting a gun to that agents head. It compromises her safety and the safety of her loved ones, not to mention those in her network and other operatives she may have dealt with. On top of that, the officials who have done it may have also seriously jeopardized the national security of this nation."
This says a lot about Senator Schumer. He doesn't remember Waco, clearly, or Ruby Ridge, or a variety of other nasty government mistakes. What evidence does he have that Mrs. Wilson is a spy? Or that she is in danger? None, I bet. Probably she, like most CIA employees, lives in America and writes up reports on the data other people collect.
Further details on evidence as to whether Mrs. Wilson is a covert operative for the CIA. Mr. Corn's July 16 article reports that she is "a woman known to friends as an energy analyst for a private firm". The July 22 Newsday article says 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] air fare. 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. 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.
I think this fits well into the theory I describe above that the Administration was tricked by career officials in the CIA into sending an anti-war consultant to Niger to find no evidence of uranium deals. If going to Niger usually requires paying big bucks, did the "senior intelligence official" wonder why Wilson, an anti-war Democrat, was willing to go for free? Doesn't he know that people with a political agenda (or, more kindly, with a desire to serve their country and make a difference) would *pay* big bucks for the opportunity? Or that professional consultants (as Wilson now is) with time on their hands will do jobs for free just to keep their names in play and to maintain contacts? It sounds to me like the official is using defense and counterattack to protect certain people in the CIA from Administration criticism.
I was wrong, though, to say there was no evidence except Wilson's that Mrs. Wilson was covert-- this "senior intelligence official" also says it. (And I read that very article back in July, so I just forgot--my fault!) I don't find the evidence conclusive, though. The official may have lied, or the reporter may have misinterpreted him (maybe she works in the Directorate of Operations but is not undercover, or maybe she is just a consultant whose main job is as an energy analyst, or maybe she is "undercover" but that is technically different from "covert",...)
Anyway, that official would seem to be as fitting a target of investigation as the "two senior Administration officials" who simply said she worked for the CIA (though I note that Novak never actually said that the officials were his source that she works for the CIA, just that the CIA asked her (from what Corn said, an energy industry consultant) to talk with Mr. Wilson: 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. The CIA says its counter-proliferation officials selected Wilson and asked his wife to contact him.
In a White House press briefing, Scott McClellan sort of denies that the White House authorized the information release to Novak ("sort of", because he actually said something like that the White House doesn't operate by smearing reputations-- but in this case, the info wasn't derogatory, except in the sense that it said Wilson got the Niger assignment because of his wife, not because the Administration trusted his judgement). What is potentially more interesting is that nobody from the CIA, the FBI, or the White House has ever denied that Mrs. Wilson is a CIA covert operative. Does this mean she is one? It's some evidence, but if I were the CIA and FBI, I'd have a firm general policy of not commenting on who is a covert operative and who is not. Along these lines, it is similarly relevant--though in the opposite direction-- that Mr. Wilson has never said what his wife's "overt" job is. And that the liberal press has not picked up on this. And I'd like to know what her background, too, in assessing the situation.
It could end up that Mrs. Wilson actually is a spy, going on covert missions to dangerous foreign countries or personally meeting with covert people who do (a more likely,and equally important possibility). But I don't see the evidence yet, and remain skeptical.
Time magazine, by the way, says that Wilson's report actually did report one overture by Iraq to Niger: ... Wilson tells the story differently and in a crucial respect. He says the official in question was contacted by an Algerian-Nigerien intermediary who inquired if the official would meet with an Iraqi about "commercial" sales --- an offer he declined. Wilson dismisses CIA Director George Tenet's suggestion in his own mea culpa last week that the meeting validates the President's State of the Union claim: "That then translates into an Iraqi effort to import a significant quantity of uranium as the president alleged? These guys really need to get serious." Government officials are not only privately disputing the genesis of Wilson's trip, but publicly contesting what he found. Last week Bush Administration officials said that Wilson's report reinforced the president's claim that Iraq had sought uranium from Africa. They say that when Wilson returned from Africa in Feb. 2002, he included in his report to the CIA an encounter with a former Nigerien government official who told him that Iraq had approached him in June 1999, expressing interest in expanding commercial relations between Iraq and Niger. The Administration claims Wilson reported that the former Nigerien official interpreted the overture as an attempt to discuss uranium sales.
I'd sure interpret the Iraqi overture as an effort to import a significant quantity of uranium (though one that perhaps didn't get past first base). What else would Iraq import from Niger? And Wilson's phrasing is odd--- is he saying that it was probably just an effort by Iraq to import an *insignificant* quantity of uranium -- maybe to put in a jar as a conversation starter in Saddam's office?
It's also worth going back to my July 14 post on the original Wilson attack on the Administration, before the fuss about his wife. It's relevant to that fuss because it shows Wilson's attitude, and his distorted and personalized view of situations.
http://www.rasmusen.org/w/2003/03.07.28a.htm
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