Char :)
From your lips to God's ear.
Good post.
The tip of the iceburg must hardly be showing as of yet. Hopefully heads will roll. And as the the L/MSM try to keep it low, we shall get the real stories and expose them.
[ snip ]
At Plame's suggestion, the CIA sent her husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, to Niger in February 2002 to investigate a report by a foreign intelligence service that Saddam Hussein was trying to buy uranium. In his report to the CIA (as documented by the Senate Intelligence Committee), Wilson said Iraqis had approached Nigerien officials. In 1999, an Iraqi delegation met with the prime minister in the interest of "expanding commercial relations" -- which the prime minister interpreted to mean uranium sales -- but no deal had been made.
In September 2002, the British government published a white paper in which it made public British intelligence's belief that Saddam had tried to buy uranium in Africa. A month later, the CIA received from an Italian source documents purporting to show that Niger and Iraq had done a deal. These turned out to be forgeries....
.
Wilson's official role ended when he returned from Niger in March. The CIA didn't get the Italian forgeries until October. Wilson had no access to them. He either was making up what he told Kristof and Pincus, or he had received an unauthorized leak of classified information.
.
What if someone in the CIA was leaking classified information to influence the 2004 election? Uncovering a crime like that would be worthy of (prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's) doggedness.
.
Jack Kelly is national security writer for the Post-Gazette and The Blade of Toledo, Ohio (jkelly@post-gazette.com, 412-263-1476).
Be halarious if Fitz did uncover this (suggested in article) and wet on to publicly laud the NYT etc. for making his success possibile?
Thank you.
The forged documents were commissioned by the French and produced by the Niger embassy, and then passed to the US. When Bush mentioned African uranium, they were exposed in an attempt to embarrass Bush and his case for war.
At the same time, Wilson made his trip to Niger in which he did no investigating at all, and returned to accuse Bush of lying about the same subject.
The catch is that France knew of Niger's uranium smuggling, because they are involved, and the same French intel which commissioned the forged documents had real ones in their possession which they declined to mention.
Wilson, despite trying hard not to investigate anything, nevertheless found out that Bush was telling the truth, that Iraq had come calling, looking for uranium. But he didn't let that stop him from publicly accusing Bush of lying.
He also mentions having seen the supposedly forged documents, which he ought not to have seen, since they were classified. How did he have access to them? Did his wife bring her work home with her from the office?
Wilson and Plame cooperated to cover up the big story in Niger. France and Niger were deeply involved in uranium smuggling. CIA's WMD experts faked a mission in order to help cover up French smuggling. French intel forged documents in order to help cover it up, and passed them to CIA, meaning, Plame.
Thats the real story here. Is Plame a French agent? Is Wilson? Since Wilson is swimming in Saudi money, is he a Saudi agent? Is Plame? Or is she a victim of Wilson's gamesmanship? Did he use her for his ends? Or are they in on this together?
Wow! Are you saying Fitzgerald might actually uncover dirty tricks to influence the 2004 election, and might actually hold some Dems accountable? That would make him kind of a vastrightwing fanatic, and hell kind of frozen over, wouldn't it?
I think that someone has been reading FreeRepublic.
Could minor Ambassador Joe Wilson himself have been the source in blowing his own Wife's "cover" (even if she had not been a covert CIA agent at the time of the alleged "leaks")?
It is distinctly possible, (though it may be unlikely that Joe Wilson himself directly was NY Times Judith Miller's source), since Joe Wilson himself evidently routinely bragged openly to strangers about her CIA employment, prior to such "cover" being "blown" in the press.
Here's an example of Joe's apparently routine and open bragging about Valerie being a "CIA agent," which became known directly to me over a year ago:
He certainly bragged about it per a famous and highly reliable source's (named below) account of his own face-to-face encounter with Amb. Joe Wilson prior to Valerie Plame's "outing" as a CIA agent/employee.
Based upon a personal conversation (we were in a small group eating; it was NOT an "off the record") I had with eminent historian Victor Davis Hanson (we were at a luncheon table together during a trip to Europe), it appeared entirely possible that Joe Wilson himself was the (or one source, if not the original one) possible source in revealing his own wife's status as a CIA agent or employee.
Victor Davis Hanson (Wilson presumably knew Victor Davis Hanson wrote regularly for NRO (National Review Online), had done OpEds for the Wall street Journal, and other publications, and had his own Website with a widespread following) said he (VDH) & Joe Wilson were both in the same "Green Room" before a televised debate-discussion on Iraq, etc. and Joe first warned the TV make-up person not to get powder on his $14,000 Rolex watch, then he bragged to Victor about several things (possessions and trips to Aspen, etc.), like his expensive car (I think it was a Mercedes), and then bragged about his beautiful ("hot") wife who, Joe Wilson said (braggingly) was a CIA operative.
I asked Victor Davis Hanson Why he didn't write up this account.(?) He replied that Joe Wilson would probably simply deny it, since only he (VDH) & Joe Wilson were in the Green Room together before the broadcast.
However, it is now easy to surmise that Joe Wilson is a crass, materialistic, self-promoting, vain, egotistical, bragaddocio-opportunist, so this account is perfectly consistent with Valerie Plame's TWO photo shoots in Vanity Fair.
If the UN can be bought...why not Americans?
ping
Everyone who can do research, or writing to editors and reporters, please keep after the whole Wilson-Corn-Plame-gate scandal because there is FAR FAR more to this than we have been told so far.... and the bloviating Wilson must be exposed for the charlatan he is. Far more importantly, if this is (as seems plausible) an attempt by Plame or others to manipulate the US election with false stories, that is HUGE! duh.....
We need to be all over the forged documents aspect, what did Wilson know and when/HOW did he know it? Did his wife leak classified info to him in their pillow talk (more likely with complete malice aforethought as a co-conspirator)? Is Valerie Plame a leaker to Judith Miller and/or other reporters, was Valerie manipulating this story, and even worse are there larger players such as the French, Saudis, etc. pulling the strings behind the curtain??
We already know much about Wilson's 'report' and subsequent op-ed column (not to mention his book) is a fraud - he never should have been sent on this 'mission' and his report was bogus and he never should have pretended to the public that his conversations over "sweet mint tea" could ever possibly disprove anything about Iraq seeking uranium from Niger.
Yet, most of the media has totally failed to investigate the grave problems with the original Wilson report and then his attendance at caucus of Democratic pols in May 2003 where he first met Nicholas Kristof and began his bloviating to the media. What are Wilson's ties and contacts with various reporters and Democratic Party figures, especially in May-June-July 2003 as the story unfolded?? Was his wife present when he met Nick Kristof and was she already helping to 'blow' any cover she may have had by cooperating with him in his madcap adventures with the media??
Every reporter who might have received info from Wilson BEFORE the David Corn column appeared identifying Valerie Plame as a secret CIA agent needs to be pressed to fess up - once Wilson is shown to be a liar and manipulator of the story, there is no ethical claim for various reporters to continue to protect him as a source, is there? I would think that journalistic ethics should require that reporters unmask and debunk a source who has been shown to be lying to and manipulating them.
In addition to the fact that Wilson had not the slightest competence or experience as an investigator, his original NY Times op-ed was deeply flawed by his assumption that anything he heard in his days in Niger could possibly disprove Iraqi interest in Niger uranium. No one in the media seems to be noticing that Wilson changed the standard from whether there was any Iraqi interest in uranium (all that was asserted in the reference to British intelligence in the infamous "16 words" of the Bush SOU address) to whether there had been actual SALE of uranium. Even the latter could not be disproved by Wilson's sessions over sweet mint tea, and he certainly could not disprove whether there had been any secretive Iraqi approaches about uranium - Wilson's account assumes that some official(s) in Niger, involved in any discussion of illegal uraniums sales (possibly smuggling for private gain??), would simply volunteer this information to a visting US former diplomat. It is preposterous on the face of it that Wilson's mission could possibly settle the policy and intelligence debate, yet he has gone on now for 2+ years pretending that he, Joe Wilson, established the facts and the WH ignored them.
Wilson's report only added some 2nd-hand support to the concerns about Iraq and Niger uranium, though he was too dense to realize it, because he did relay the information that "Baghdad Bob" himself had tried to initiate trade talks with Niger.... since Niger has exactly ONE export that could be of any potential interest to Saddam (besides uranium, the other options for Niger's potentially booming trade relations with Baghdad are "livestock, cowpeas, onions"). Just think, maybe they wanted the uranium, not the cowpeas!
http://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ng.html
Now we need someone to find out whether Valerie had any further role in this boondoggle - i.e., did she go on the trip (was it a taxpayer funded scam), did she have anything to do with producing his report, did she use him to further any sort of position she was taking within the CIA vis-a-vis WMDs???? Perhaps this was taking bureaucratic warfare among analysts within the CIA to a new level, especially if it was Valerie who termed the idea of Iraq seeking Niger uranium a "crazy report" when she first recommended her husband for the mission....
OR, perhaps Jack Kelly's suggestion is correct and this whole manipulated story was all about throwing the 2004 election to Kerry? It all fits - now we have to piece together all the details and raise hell, because the MSM certainly won't pursue the story without massive pressure.
"What if someone in the CIA was leaking classified information to influence the 2004 election? Uncovering a crime like that would be worthy of Inspector Javert's doggedness. I suspect the biggest shoe in this case has yet to drop, and liberal journalists won't be happy when it does."
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1445035/posts?page=8#8
The pieces come together even more....
To: FReethesheeples
"It is distinctly possible, (though it may be unlikely that Joe Wilson himself directly was NY Times Judith Miller's source), since Joe Wilson himself evidently routinely bragged openly to strangers about her CIA employment, prior to such "cover" being "blown" in the press."
I think it's more likely that Judith Miller and Valerie Plame knew each other, and that Plame was a source for Miller's WMD stories for years. Plame worked on the issues that Miller wrote about, and Washington is a small town.
I think that Miller is in jail to avoid revealing her sources... not on this issue, but for all her WMD stories. She doesn't want to burn her main CIA contact.
If anyone committed a crime leaking, my guess is it was Valerie Plame leaking top secret data to Miller for years.
8 posted on 07/17/2005 8:27:09 PM MDT by adam_az (It's the border, stupid!)
In September 2002, the British government published a white paper in which it made public British intelligence's belief that Saddam had tried to buy uranium in Africa. A month later[October 2002], the CIA received from an Italian source documents purporting to show that Niger and Iraq had done a deal. These turned out to be forgeries.
President Bush mentioned the British findings in his State of the Union address in January 2003. In his leaks to Pincus, and earlier to New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, Wilson claimed Bush knew this was false
On July 14, 2003, columnist Robert Novak wondered why Wilson...had been selected for the Niger mission. "Two senior administration officials told me Wilson's wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate the Italian report" he wrote.
In other words two senior administration officials told Novak that Wilson had been sent to investigate a report which the CIA did not receive until 9 months later!
Wilson said in his July 2003 article that he believed the "memorandum" he was sent to investigate was the forgery...although he never saw it. Of course, he knew exactly what it was since his wife had seen it but he couldn't acknowledge that because he wasn't cleared to see it and the CIA, which was sending him to investigate it, didn't disclose the details to him (according to the Senate Intelligence Committee report).
There's the REAL scandal.
bttt
From all of the stories that I've read so far, all I can make of it is that noone can be blamed for any kind of leak. There is no violation here. In order for someone to be charged with breaking this 1982 statute, the exposed operative protected by this law has to have been an active, overseas, covert agent within the past 5 years. She doesn't fit any of the criteria.
This investigation seems like it's going to reveal some huge &%*#, and Rove isn't going to be one of those crucified. There are going to be some major heads rolling.
Also, it seems like the liberals are going to be really upset, they've come up with countless conspiracy theories in hopes of throwing Karl Rove over the fence. It looks like they've just opened a pandora's box and there's no way they'll be able to make light of it once it comes rolling back at them.
(from the story) - - -
In September 2002, the British government published a white paper in which it made public British intelligence's belief that Saddam had tried to buy uranium in Africa. A month later, the CIA received from an Italian source documents purporting to show that Niger and Iraq had done a deal. These turned out to be forgeries.
President Bush mentioned the British findings in his State of the Union address in January 2003. In his leaks to Pincus, and earlier to New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, Wilson claimed Bush knew this was false. The key sentence in Pincus' story is this:
"Among the envoy's conclusions was that the documents may have been forged because 'the dates were wrong and the names were wrong,' the former U.S. government official said."
Wilson's official role ended when he returned from Niger in March. The CIA didn't get the Italian forgeries until October. Wilson had no access to them. He either was making up what he told Kristof and Pincus, or he had received an unauthorized leak of classified information.