Posted on 08/05/2005 7:44:20 PM PDT by STARWISE
Amidst the vacuum of Judy Miller saying nothing and the misshapen vessel of Bob Novak's obfuscations, informed speculation swirls, on this site among many. At bottom, we wonder if Miller -- perhaps the private citizen singly most responsible for the current quagmire -- is admirably upholding a principle underlying one of the few brakes on an unbridled administration.
Or has she realized, potential book deal and all, the salutary power of a four-month stint in reputation rehab? Or just maybe, as has been recently and deliciously floated, is she protecting her own Tinkers to Evans to Chance role as a leaker herself in the Plame affair? Ball's in your court, Mr. Fitzgerald, though Miller's fate is small beer amidst the even more tantalizing rumors of big-fish indictments lurking ahead.
Waiting, we pass time parsing Miller's unfathomables (as well as wondering why Joe Wilson didn't publish his critique months before the Iraq invasion rather than months after).
(snip)
Back when Miller was being lauded and denounced for making much of the baseball-capped scientist who she never actually spoke to, but who nevertheless revealed -- to her Army censors anyway -- significant Iraqi WMD activity as well as Saddam's link to Al Qaeda (of the latter, Rush Limbaugh averred: "This kind of wraps it all up, doesn't it."), I published this piece on Miller's role as an on-call "expert" associated with pro-war hawk Daniel Pipes' Middle East Forum.
(snip)
Testifying before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in June, 2000 Pipes advocated potential military action against Syria, referencing a forum report on America's "undisputed military supremacy" which precludes the "specter of huge [American] casualties." That was mere prelude to his plans for Iraq; in December, 2001 one of his regular New York Post columns was headlined: "On to Baghdad?: Yes -- The Risks Are Overrated."
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Would somebody tell Mr. Forbes that, in the months running up to the Iraq invasion, Joe Wilson was too busy warning the world about Saddam's WMD...and his willingness to use them.
Middle East Policy Council Symposium, Remarks by Joseph C. Wilson IV, October 9, 2002
Jeez!!!
It's Miller time!
The left is really going after her, huh?
Could Wilson have been "Rittered"?????
Do you mean, was Wilson caught using the internet to lure children to shopping center parking lots for sex, like Scott Ritter was arrested for? That's certainly a good possibility.
Who exactly is this Daniel Pipe....and who pulls his strings?
Probably referring to this person.
http://www.danielpipes.org/
More likely "Kerried".
Wilson went on to make a speech at his alma mater, UCSB, in January, 2003 repeating the same mantra: Saddam has WMD...and he will use them.
Former Diplomat To Give Views On War With Iraq, January 14, 2003.
Then, in February, after the President's SOTU and just before the Iraq invasion, Wilson produced a bellicose op-ed for the Los Angeles Times repeating his UCSB claims.
However, by early May, we know he had signed on with the Kerry campaign. And, also in early May, Wilson attended a meeting of the Democrat Senatorial Policy Committee -- where he met the NYT columnist, Nicholas Kristof. Joe and Miss Valerie had breakfast with Kristof the next morning where he apparently began his new career as "leaker of fiction"...
One suspects that Wilson was positioning himself for a major State Department appointment in a Kerry White House. He seems just the kind of unctuous, self-serving suck-up one would want to represent America to her allies...and enemies.
Tinker, not Tinkers & Evers, not Evans. If someone is going to reference someone, it's always kinda nice if they get the names right.
None of them are ever content to just report the news. If they waited until news actually happened, someone else is sure to scoop them. Rather than waiting for that to happen, they throw scads of speculation at the fan to make sure they occasionally have the opportunity to say they "reported" something first.
Very true .... it's all about "me, me, me."
(as well as wondering why Joe Wilson didn't publish his critique months before the Iraq invasion rather than months after).
This is a good question, since according to Wilson's own account in his book, he was opposed to intervention with Iraq as early as late 2001. So why was he going around in 2002 emphasizing the threat of Saddam's WMDs? Was he actually somehow intending that as a deterrent to war, implying that we should be afraid to attack Iraq because Saddam might use his WMD, or something to that effect? Or was he perhaps building a legend of being "nonpartisan"?
So in his small brain, the scheming, lying and revisionism would be rationalized and justified by thoughts of his new importance, prestige and grand spot on the world stage. And with the MSM as willing accomplices, he thought it was a lock.
This may not be the right thread for all this info, but I got into another hunt ...
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = Nets Ignore How Senate Report Discredited Joe Wilson’s Claims
Amb. Joseph Wilson - The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Report released on Friday discredited Joseph Wilson’s claim that his wife, a CIA operative, had nothing to do with the decision to send him to Niger to check claims that Iraq had sought to purchase uranium and that the report determined that what he found actually backed up the statement made by President Bush in his State of the Union address about Iraq’s quest. But since the Washington Post on Saturday outlined the explosive revelations in the committee’s report released on Friday, few media outlets have bothered to update viewers on the serious doubts raised about Wilson’s claims which the media so eagerly publicized over the past year.
Last year, Wilson earned a lot of publicity when he complained about how someone in the White House supposedly told columnist Bob Novak the name of his wife who works at the CIA, a revelation he portrayed as an intimidation tactic, and again in May this year when he wrote a book denouncing the Bush administration’s Iraq policy and alleged misuse of intelligence. Plus, in between and since, the media have offered regular updates on the Justice Department’s probe of who revealed the name of his wife.
NBC has shown the most interest in publicizing his claims, but none in reporting the fresh disclosures which undermine him.
The July 21, 2003 NBC Nightly News, for instance, led with Andrea Mitchell on the charge by Wilson, who claimed to have disproved the Niger uranium story, that he is “now the subject of a smear campaign by senior administration officials” who leaked that his wife is a CIA operative. Today featured the Mitchell story the next morning: "Former Ambassador Joe Wilson, one of the first to debunk the Iraq-Niger uranium link almost a year before the State of the Union speech....Now the retired diplomat tells NBC News the administration is striking back. Leaking his wife's covert job at the CIA to reporters."
Last September, the networks went into a frenzy over Wilson. An excerpt from the Tuesday, September 30, 2003 CyberAlert:
The networks entered full scandal mode on Monday with the evening shows leading for a second straight night with the news that the Justice Department was investigating who in the administration back in July told columnist Bob Novak a CIA operatives’s name, though stories conflicted on whether the wife of Joe Wilson, the man who since July has been on a personal PR crusade to undermine President Bush’s State of the Union line about Iraq seeking uranium in Africa, was an “agent,” an “operative” or a “covert” operative, whether the leak came from “senior administration officials,” “top White House officials” or just “White House officials” and, despite Wilson on Monday morning having specifically admitted he went too far in accusing Karl Rove, both CBS and NBC relayed Wilson’s naming of Rove.
The hype began Sunday night when CBS Evening News anchor John Roberts led the show: “The Justice Department tonight is investigating whether to launch a criminal probe of the White House after the CIA complained someone at 1600 Pennsylvania may have leaked the classified identity of an agency operative. If those allegations are true, whoever is responsible for the leak could be headed to jail for ten years.”
Over on ABC’s World News Tonight/Sunday, anchor Terry Moran intoned: “Tonight, the Bush White House is facing a potential criminal investigation. ABC News has learned the Justice Department has launched a preliminary probe into charges that top White House officials leaked the identity of an undercover CIA agent. That's a serious violation of federal law....”
Fast forward to Monday night and NBC’s Jim Miklaszewski offered this warning: “If tried and convicted, the leakers could get ten years in prison. But the political fallout could be much worse for the White House whose credibility on Iraq is already on the line.”
MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann teased his Countdown show with the most derisive characterization of White House action: "The Washington Post reports not only did the White House out an undercover CIA agent as political revenge, but it tried six different reporters before it found one willing to help."
An excited Aaron Brown proposed at the top of Monday’s NewsNight on CNN: “It seems like the good old days, doesn't it? Or perhaps the bad old days depending on your point of view.” Brown explained: “There were calls in Washington today for a special prosecutor to be appointed to investigate the White House.” Brown conceded: “It is, of course, not likely to happen. The country seemed to have its fill of special prosecutors during the Clinton years but it is an interesting argument. Can the administration be trusted to investigate itself over the outing of a CIA agent? We suspect the answer, as it so often does, depends on who you voted for.”
After “the Whip,” Brown set up the first of three stories on the subject: “We begin tonight with a dark corner of a murky place with a lot to learn and a long way to go. There ought to be a better way of characterizing the affair brewing in Washington over the CIA operative, her husband, the White House and the war but there isn't not yet, certainly nothing quick and snappy like scandal or cover-up or anything with a 'gate’ in it, though at the end of the day, one day it may turn out to be all of the above or nothing at all. So far we can only say two things for certain. There is clearly growing political dimensions to this and there are still far more questions than there are answers.”...
END of Excerpt of previous CyberAlert
For the September 30 item in full: www.mediaresearch.org
This year, Today brought Wilson aboard twice in May to plug his book, The Politics of Truth: Inside the Lies that Led to War and Betrayed My Wife's CIA Identity. He appeared on the Saturday, May 1 edition and again on Monday, May 3 on which Katie Couric relayed: “Another book critical of the Bush administration hits stores today, this one by former Ambassador Joseph Wilson. He says he told the truth about the evidence against Iraq, and his wife paid the price.” She cued him up: “You claimed the White House misused intelligence, quote, 'to exaggerate the Iraqi threat.’ Shortly after that, your wife's name became public and her occupation. Why do you believe your wife was brought into this? Was it a simple payback, in your view, by the Bush administration for refuting claims that were made in the State of the Union Address?”
MSNBC’s Countdown with Keith Olbermann has yet to update its viewers, but its May 4 edition featured a segment with Wilson, which MSNBC’s announcer plugged at the time: "Next on Countdown: Blowing the cover of a CIA operative can be a deadly mistake. Joseph Wilson claims the White House did just that to his wife. Now, Keith goes one-on-one with him about his explosive new book where he points fingers and names names.”
About the only network show the MRC analysis team has seen mention how the Senate report undermines Wilson’s premises: An item which validated the “Stories you won’t find on any other Sunday show” title for a segment of Fox News Sunday. On the July 11 show, the MRC’s Megan McCormack observed, host Chris Wallace informed his viewers:
"Former ambassador Joe Wilson made a name for himself when he accused the Bush administration of misleading the nation about efforts by Iraq to buy uranium from Africa. Remember those famous sixteen words in the 2003 State of the Union address? Well, it turns out buried in the Senate intelligence report, is news that the issue of whether Iraq tried to buy the so-called yellowcake from Niger has not been discounted, but is still an open issue. Wilson also said his wife, CIA agent Valerie Plame, had nothing to do with him being sent to Africa in the first place. But the Senate report says it was Plame who pushed her husband for the assignment. Administration officials are now being investigated for leaking Plame's CIA connection to a reporter. The Senate report may bolster the argument the administration was trying to cast doubt on Wilson's expertise, not trying to out an undercover agent, which is a crime."
Another mention came on Tuesday’s Wolf Blitzer Reports, but in story about the status of the leak probe. David Ensor, however, ignored how the Senate report questioned the assumption that Iraq did not seek uranium in Africa, so only half credit to CNN:
“A reference in the recent Senate Intelligence Committee report to Ambassador Wilson and his wife has also created a flap in Washington. The report says that an unnamed CIA officer told the committee staff that the former ambassador's wife offered up his name to make a trip to the African nation of Niger for the CIA and to check out a report that Iraq might have been trying to buy raw uranium there. That report of course later turned out to be false. The suggestion contradicts Wilson's account of what happened. Wilson has declined to be interviewed on camera today, but told CNN he's outraged by the suggestion in the Senate report, which he said is false innuendo. 'She did not propose me,’ he said. 'Others at the CIA did so.’ And a senior CIA official told him that that is his understanding, too.”
Other than that, I believe FNC’s Special Report with Brit Hume has also mentioned the development (in a panel discussion), and MSNBC’s Scarborough Country may have too, but that’s about it even though conservative have picked up on it, including Rush Limbaugh on his show on Tuesday prompted by a National Review Online piece I’ve excerpted below.
But first, an excerpt from the top reporter Susan Schmidt’s overlooked July 10 article, “Plame's Input Is Cited on Niger Mission: Report Disputes Wilson's Claims on Trip, Wife's Role.” The excerpt:
Former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, dispatched by the CIA in February 2002 to investigate reports that Iraq sought to reconstitute its nuclear weapons program with uranium from Africa, was specifically recommended for the mission by his wife, a CIA employee, contrary to what he has said publicly.
Wilson last year launched a public firestorm with his accusations that the administration had manipulated intelligence to build a case for war. He has said that his trip to Niger should have laid to rest any notion that Iraq sought uranium there and has said his findings were ignored by the White House.
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.
Yesterday's report said that whether Iraq sought to buy lightly enriched "yellowcake" uranium from Niger is one of the few bits of prewar intelligence that remains an open question. Much of the rest of the intelligence suggesting a buildup of weapons of mass destruction was unfounded, the report said.
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.
Plame's role could be significant in an ongoing investigation into whether a crime was committed when her name and employment were disclosed to reporters last summer.
Administration officials told columnist Robert D. Novak then that Wilson, a partisan critic of Bush's foreign policy, was sent to Niger at the suggestion of Plame, who worked in the nonproliferation unit at CIA. The disclosure of Plame's identity, which was classified, led to an investigation into who leaked her name.
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....
The report also said Wilson provided misleading information to The Washington Post last June. He said then that he concluded the Niger intelligence was based on documents that had clearly been forged because "the dates were wrong and the names were wrong."
"Committee staff asked how the former ambassador could have come to the conclusion that the 'dates were wrong and the names were wrong' when he had never seen the CIA reports and had no knowledge of what names and dates were in the reports," the Senate panel said. Wilson told the panel he may have been confused and may have "misspoken" to reporters. The documents -- purported sales agreements between Niger and Iraq -- were not in U.S. hands until eight months after Wilson made his trip to Niger....
Wilson said that a former prime minister of Niger, Ibrahim Assane Mayaki, was unaware of any sales contract with Iraq, but said that in June 1999 a businessman approached him, insisting that he meet with an Iraqi delegation to discuss "expanding commercial relations" between Niger and Iraq -- which Mayaki interpreted to mean they wanted to discuss yellowcake sales. A report CIA officials drafted after debriefing Wilson said that "although the meeting took place, Mayaki let the matter drop due to UN sanctions on Iraq."
According to the former Niger mining minister, Wilson told his CIA contacts, Iraq tried to buy 400 tons of uranium in 1998....
END of Excerpt
For the Washington Post story in full: www.washingtonpost.com
On Monday, National Review Online posted a piece by Cliff May, “Out Man in Niger: Exposed and discredited, Joe Wilson might consider going back,” which does a good job of documenting Wilson’s pomposity and of summarizing the fairly complicated sequence of claims and how they have been discredited. See: www.nationalreview.com
FNC Picks Up on How Senate Report Affirms Iraq Help to al-Qaeda
FNC on Monday night explored another area of the report from the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that other media outlets have skipped: Saddam Hussein-controlled Iraq’s role in helping terrorists. On the July 12 Special Report with Brit Hume, Bret Baier reported how “sixty-six pages of the report fall under the heading 'Iraq's Links to Terrorism'” and in it, Baier related, “multiple, credible sources are cited that Iraq provided al-Qaeda with various kinds of training, combat, bomb-making, along with chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear training, backing up public and private statements by former CIA director George Tenet." Baier pointed out: “The details in the report seem to shoot down at least two of former White House counter-terrorism director Richard Clarke's bold claims.”
MRC analyst Megan McCormack noticed the story, which fill-in anchor Brian Wilson introduced: “There's been a lot of emphasis on the negative aspects of the Senate intelligence committee report on U.S. intelligence before the war in Iraq, the parts that show what the Senators believe the intelligence community got wrong. But there's another section of the report about the pre-war intelligence that was right. Fox News Pentagon correspondent Bret Baier reports."
Baier began: "Almost all of the media coverage on the Senate intelligence committee's report about pre-war assessments by the CIA has focused on how harshly critical it is on CIA analysts. However, Friday the acting director pointed to one positive view."
John McLaughlin: "They made the point that we had done very well at our assessment over the relationship between Saddam and al-Qaeda and other terrorists."
Baier: "Sixty-six pages of the report fall under the heading 'Iraq's Links to Terrorism.' While the conclusion reads that the CIA correctly assessed there was no hard evidence of Iraq's command and control over al-Qaeda or no hard evidence of an established formal relationship, the report lays out the extent of the informal ties. A January 2003 CIA assessment from reliable, clandestine sources states that quote 'direct meetings between senior Iraqi representatives and top al Qaeda operatives took place from the early 1990s to the present,' meaning all the way up to January 2003. Multiple, credible sources are cited that Iraq provided al-Qaeda with various kinds of training, combat, bomb-making, along with chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear training, backing up public and private statements by former CIA director George Tenet."
George Tenet: "Iraq has in the past provided training and document forgery and bomb-making to al-Qaeda. It has also provided training in poisons and gasses to two al-Qaeda associates."
Baier: "The report states that the CIA had multiple sources telling them that Saddam Hussein had issued a standing offer of safe haven to Osama bin Laden and his organization in 1999. The details in the report seem to shoot down at least two of former White House counter-terrorism director Richard Clarke's bold claims.
Clarke told 60 Minutes in March quote, 'There's absolutely no evidence that Iraq was supporting al Qaeda. Ever.'
Clarke also claimed that Iraq had not been involved in anti-U.S. terrorism since the failed 1993 plot to assassinate the first President Bush in Kuwait. But page 316 of the Senate report states that the CIA provided 78 reports from various sources that from 1996 to 2003, Saddam Hussein's regime was actively training Iraqi intelligence operatives for terrorist attacks against U.S. interests. Here's one particular reference, quote, 'Ten intelligence reports from multiple sources, indicated Iraqi Intelligence Service 'casing' operations against Radio Free Europe and Radio Liberty in Prague began in 1998 and continued into early 2003. The CIA assessed, based on the Prague casings and a variety of other reporting that throughout 2002, the IIS was becoming increasingly aggressive in planning attacks against U.S. interests.'
“The ranking member of the committee, Democratic Senator Jay Rockefeller, said on Fox News Sunday this weekend he still believes that political pressure was put on the CIA analysts by the Bush administration, despite the fact that the committee's report concluded that none of the analysts or other people interviewed said they were pressured to change their conclusions, and the committee did not find any changes in their analytical judgments."
Don’t count on seeing that kind of story elsewhere given how much the other networks have invested in the storyline that Iraq had nothing to do with al-Qaeda.
-- Brent Baker
Media Research Center-CyberAlert
- - - - - - - - - - -
Instapundit and its readers have discovered, however, that forgetfulness is far from complete. The campaign continues to host Wilson's own Web site, whose domain name, "RestoreHonesty" [stop laughing!] is registered to John Kerry for President, Inc. Oh, and it leads off with the disclaimer, "I'm not a politician and I'm not a political partisan."
It's rather obvious at this point that Joe Wilson is nothing but a political partisan. He saw a chance to damage the Bush Administration by lying about his Niger investigation, and he seized it. If the Right were as conspiracy-minded as the Left, conservatives would be speculating about whether this escalation of political guerilla warfare was an obscure ex-ambassador's lone brainstorm or one assault in a well-planned campaign. For the record, my answer is that it was Wilson's own lark, though I worry that he will inspire copycats.
(snip)
Addendum: Maybe Roger Simon overstates (emphasis in original), but not by a lot:
Wilson is no ordinary rat, the likes of which have abounded in virtually every political party since time immemorial. He is a deeply evil human being willing to lie and obfuscate for temporary political gain about a homicidal dictator's search for weapon's grade uranium. Think about that when you walk into your dining room tonight and sit down to dinner with your family. And think about this — John Kerry, The New York Times, even some bloggers are willing to soft-pedal this. And they call themselves "liberals." Puh-leeze!
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
WILSON: Well, first of all, the premise is not correct. If you go back and you look at the original article, it says very clearly it was the office of the vice president that expressed an interest, that led to the CIA sending me there. So that was the first lie in these RNC talking points. And if you can’t believe that, why should you believe everything else?
In actual fact, it wouldn’t make any difference at all whether my wife was involved in a trip that was essentially pro bono. But the fact is, as the CIA has said repeatedly since June 22 of 2003, she was not involved in the decision-making process.
= = = = = = = = On 7/14/2005 Joe Wilson was on the Today show where he was asked about his party afilliation.
Wilson replied:
I exercise my rights as a citizen of this country to participate in the selection of my leaders and I am proud to do so. I did so in the election in 2000 by contributing not just to Al Gore's campaign, but also to the Bush-Cheney campaign.
But here's the truth:
The District of Columbia voter registration database shows Mr. Wilson as a registered Democrat.
Joseph Wilson Has Donated Over $8,000 To Democrats Including $2,000 To John Kerry For President In 2003, $1,000 To Hillary Clinton’s (D-NY) HILLPAC In 2002 And $3,000 To Al Gore In 1999. from OpenSecrets web site.
Wilson Endorsed John Kerry For President In October 2003 And Advised The Kerry Campaign. AP story on 10/23/2003
[Wilson] Admits ‘It Will Be A Cold Day In Hell Before I Vote For A Republican, Even For Dog Catcher. New York Times
If he'd lie about something as easy to find out as this, what else is he lying about? You can find out by reading Joe Wilson's Top Ten Worst Inaccuracies And Misstatements.
Posted by: Reverend Scar
- - - - - - - Good Resource Rove/Plame Timeline
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THANK GOD FOR THE SWIFTIES!!!!
Yeah, like another cushy "ambassadorship".
A "Big Cat" With Nothing to Lose
(excerpt)
"There is now no incentive for Hussein to comply with the inspectors or to refrain from using weapons of mass destruction to defend himself if the United States comes after him."
"And he will use them; we should be under no illusion about that.
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