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Lies of Joe Wilson, Part V: Senior CIA Analyst Corrects the Record
CIA Press Release ^ | November 28, 2003 | Stu Cohen

Posted on 08/05/2005 10:20:31 PM PDT by Enchante

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 28 November 2003

--------------------------------------------------------

Iraq's WMD Programs: Culling Hard Facts from Soft Myths

The October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) has been dissected like no other product in the history of the US Intelligence Community. We have reexamined every phrase, line, sentence, judgment and alternative view in this 90-page document and have traced their genesis completely. I believed at the time the Estimate was approved for publication, and still believe now, that we were on solid ground in how we reached the judgments we made.

I remain convinced that no reasonable person could have viewed the totality of the information that the Intelligence Community had at its disposal—literally millions of pages—and reached any conclusions or alternative views that were profoundly different from those that we reached. The four National Intelligence Officers who oversaw the production of the NIE had over 100 years' collective work experience on weapons of mass destruction issues, and the hundreds of men and women from across the US Intelligence Community who supported this effort had thousands of man-years invested in studying these issues.

Let me be clear: The NIE judged with high confidence that Iraq had chemical and biological weapons as well as missiles with ranges in excess of the 150 km limit imposed by the UN Security Council, and with moderate confidence that Iraq did not have nuclear weapons. These judgments were essentially the same conclusions reached by the United Nations and by a wide array of intelligence services—friendly and unfriendly alike. The only government in the world that claimed that Iraq was not working on, and did not have, biological and chemical weapons or prohibited missile systems was in Baghdad. Moreover, in those cases where US intelligence agencies disagreed, particularly regarding whether Iraq was reconstituting a uranium enrichment effort for its nuclear weapons program, the alternative views were spelled out in detail. Despite all of this, ten myths have been confused with facts in the current media frenzy. A hard look at the facts of the NIE should dispel some popular myths making the media circuit.

Myth #1: The Estimate favored going to war: Intelligence judgments, including NIEs, are policy neutral. We do not propose policies and the Estimate in no way sought to sway policymakers toward a particular course of action. We described what we judged were Saddam's WMD programs and capabilities and how and when he might use them and left it to policymakers, as we always do, to determine the appropriate course of action.

Myth #2: Analysts were pressured to change judgments to meet the needs of the Bush Administration: The judgments presented in the October 2002 NIE were based on data acquired and analyzed over fifteen years. Any changes in judgments over that period were based on new evidence, including clandestinely collected information that led to new analysis. Our judgments were presented to three different Administrations. And the principal participants in the production of the NIE from across the entire US Intelligence Community have sworn to Congress, under oath, that they were NOT pressured to change their views on Iraq WMD or to conform to Administration positions on this issue. In my particular case, I was able to swear under oath that not only had no one pressured me to take a particular view but that I had not pressured anyone else working on the Estimate to change or alter their reading of the intelligence information.

Myth #3: NIE judgments were news to Congress: Over the past fifteen years our assessments on Iraq WMD issues have been presented routinely to six different congressional committees including the two oversight committees, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. To the best of my knowledge, prior to this NIE, these committees never came back to us with a concern of bias or an assertion that we had gotten it wrong.

Myth #4: We buried divergent views and concealed uncertainties: Diverse agency views, particularly on whether Baghdad was reconstituting its uranium enrichment effort and as a subset of that, the purposes of attempted Iraqi aluminum tube purchases, were fully vetted during the coordination process. Alternative views presented by the Bureau of Intelligence and Research at the Department of State, the Office of Intelligence in the Department of Energy, and by the US Air Force were showcased in the National Intelligence Estimate and were acknowledged in unclassified papers on the subject. Moreover, suggestions that their alternative views were buried as footnotes in the text are wrong. All agencies were fully exposed to these alternative views, and the heads of those organizations blessed the wording and placement of their alternative views. Uncertainties were highlighted in the Key Judgments and throughout the main text. Any reader would have had to read only as far as the second paragraph of the Key Judgments to know that as we said: "We lacked specific information on many key aspects of Iraq's WMD program."

Myth #5: Major NIE judgments were based on single sources: Overwhelmingly, major judgments in the NIE on WMD were based on multiple sources–often from human intelligence, satellite imagery, and communications intercepts. Not only is the allegation wrong, but it is also worth noting that it is not even a valid measure of the quality of intelligence performance. A single human source with direct access to a specific program and whose judgment and performance have proven reliable can provide the "crown jewels"; in the early 1960s Colonel Oleg Penkovskiy, who was then this country's only penetration of the Soviet high command, was just such a source. His information enabled President Kennedy to stare down a Soviet threat emanating from Cuba, and his information informed US intelligence analysis for more than two decades thereafter. In short, the charge is both wrong and meaningless.

Myth #6: We relied too much on United Nations reporting and were complacent after UN inspectors left in 1998: We never accepted UN reporting at face value. I know, because in the mid 1990s I was the coordinator for US intelligence support to UNSCOM and the IAEA. Their ability to see firsthand what was going on in Iraq, including inside facilities that we could only peer at from above, demanded that we pay attention to what they saw and that we support their efforts fully. Did we ever have all the information that we wanted or required? Of course not. Moreover, for virtually any critical intelligence issue that faces us the answer always will be "no." There is a reason that the October 2002 review of Iraq's WMD programs is called a National Intelligence ESTIMATE and not a National Intelligence FACTBOOK. On almost any issue of the day that we face, hard evidence will only take intelligence professionals so far. Our job is to fill in the gaps with informed analysis. And we sought to do that consistently and with vigor. The departure of UNSCOM inspectors in 1998 certainly did reduce our information about what was occurring in Iraq's WMD programs. But to say that we were blind after 1998 is wrong. Efforts to enhance collection were vigorous, creative, and productive. Intelligence collection after 1998, including information collected by friendly and allied intelligence services, painted a picture of Saddam's continuing efforts to develop WMD programs and weapons that reasonable people would have found compelling.

Myth # 7: We were fooled on the Niger "yellowcake" story—a major issue in the NIE: This was not one of the reasons underpinning our Key Judgment about nuclear reconstitution. In the body of the Estimate, after noting that Iraq had considerable low-enriched and other forms of uranium already in country—enough to produce roughly 100 nuclear weapons—we included the Niger issue with appropriate caveats, for the sake of completeness. Mentioning, with appropriate caveats, even unconfirmed reporting is standard practice in NIEs and other intelligence assessments; it helps consumers of the assessment understand the full range of possibly relevant intelligence.

Myth #8: We overcompensated for having underestimated the WMD threat in 1991: Our judgments were based on the evidence we acquired and the analysis we produced over a 15-year period. The NIE noted that we had underestimated key aspects of Saddam's WMD efforts in the 1990s. We were not alone in that regard: UNSCOM missed Iraq's BW program and the IAEA underestimated Baghdad's progress on nuclear weapons development. But, what we learned from the past was the difficulty we have had in detecting key Iraqi WMD activities. Consequently, the Estimate specified what we knew and what we believed but also warned policymakers that we might have underestimated important aspects of Saddam's program. But in no case were any of the judgments "hyped" to compensate for earlier underestimates.

Myth #9: We mistook rapid mobilization programs for actual weapons: There is practically no difference in threat between a standing chemical and biological weapons capability and one that could be mobilized quickly with little chance of detection. The Estimate acknowledged that Saddam was seeking rapid mobilization capabilities that he could invigorate on short notice. Those who find such programs to be less of a threat than actual weapons should understand that Iraqi denial and deception activities virtually would have ensured our inability to detect the activation of such efforts. Even with "only" rapid mobilization capabilities, Saddam would have been able to achieve production and stockpiling of chemical and biological weapons in the midst of a crisis, and the Intelligence Community would have had little, if any, chance of detecting this activity, particularly in the case of BW. In the case of chemical weapons, although we might have detected indicators of mobilization activity, we would have been hard pressed to accurately interpret such evidence. Those who conclude that no threat existed because actual weapons have not yet been found do not understand the significance posed by biological and chemical warfare programs in the hands of tyrants.

Myth #10: The NIE asserted that there were "large WMD stockpiles" and because we haven't found them, Baghdad had no WMD: From experience gained at the end of Desert Storm more than ten years ago, it was clear to us and should have been clear to our critics, that finding WMD in the aftermath of a conflict wouldn't be easy. We judged that Iraq probably possessed one hundred to five hundred metric tons of CW munitions fill. One hundred metric tons would fit in a backyard swimming pool; five hundred could be hidden in a small warehouse. We made no assessment of the size of Iraq's biological weapons holdings but a biological weapon can be carried in a small container. (And of course, we judged that Saddam did not have a nuclear weapon.) When the Iraq Survey Group (ISG), led by David Kay, issued its interim report in October, acknowledging that it had not found chemical or biological weapons, the inspectors had then visited only ten of the 130 major ammunition depots in Iraq; these ammunition dumps are huge, sometimes five miles by five miles on a side. Two depots alone are roughly the size of Manhattan. It is worth recalling that after Desert Storm, US forces unknowingly destroyed over 1,000 rounds of chemical-filled munitions at a facility called Al Kamissiyah. Baghdad sometimes had special markings for chemical and biological munitions and sometimes did not. In short, much remains to be done in the hunt for Iraq's WMD.

We do not know whether the ISG ultimately will be able to find physical evidence of Iraq's chemical and biological weapons or confirm the status of its WMD programs and its nuclear ambitions. The purposeful, apparently regime-directed, destruction of evidence pertaining to WMD from one end of Iraq to the other, which began even before the Coalition occupied Baghdad, and has continued since then, already has affected the ISG's work. Moreover, Iraqis who have been willing to talk to US intelligence officers are in great danger. Many have been threatened; some have been killed. The denial and deception efforts directed by the extraordinarily brutal, but very competent Iraqi Intelligence Services, which matured through ten years of inspections by various UN agencies, remain a formidable challenge. And finally, finding physically small but extraordinarily lethal weapons in a country that is larger than the state of California would be a daunting task even under far more hospitable circumstances. But now that we have our own eyes on the ground, David Kay and the ISG must be allowed to complete their work and other collection efforts we have under way also must be allowed to run their course. And even then, it will be necessary to integrate all the new information with intelligence and analyses produced over the past fifteen years before we can determine the status of Iraq's WMD efforts prior to the war.

Allegations about the quality of the US intelligence performance and the need to confront these charges have forced senior intelligence officials throughout US Intelligence to spend much of their time looking backwards. I worry about the opportunity costs of this sort of preoccupation, but I also worry that analysts laboring under a barrage of allegations will become more and more disinclined to make judgments that go beyond ironclad evidence—a scarce commodity in our business. If this is allowed to happen, the Nation will be poorly served by its Intelligence Community and ultimately much less secure. Fundamentally, the Intelligence Community increasingly will be in danger of not connecting the dots until the dots have become a straight line.

We must keep in mind that the search for WMD cannot and should not be about the reputation of US Intelligence or even just about finding weapons. At its core, men and women from across the Intelligence Community continue to focus on this issue because understanding the extent of Iraq's WMD efforts and finding and securing weapons and all of the key elements that make up Baghdad's WMD programs— before they fall into the wrong hands—is vital to our national security. If we eventually are proven wrong—that is, that there were no weapons of mass destruction and the WMD programs were dormant or abandoned—the American people will be told the truth; we would have it no other way.

-------------------------------------------------------- Stu Cohen is an intelligence professional with 30 years of service in the CIA. He was acting Chairman of the National Intelligence Council when the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction was published


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Foreign Affairs; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: alkamissiyah; barryzuckerman; bush; cia; cialeak; demlies; iraq; nie; niger; plame; rove; stucohen; uranium; wilson; wmd; zuckerman
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To: Cautor
Joey Wilson was intimate with this pro-Saudi cabal.

How could a retired State Dept wonk and a mid-level 70k a year analyst afford to buy a $750,000 house in 1999?

41 posted on 08/06/2005 5:17:29 PM PDT by FreedomCalls (It's the "Statue of Liberty," not the "Statue of Security.")
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To: FreedomCalls

Low mortgage rates?

It's not THAT far-fetched. The guy was a consultant. They make good money.


42 posted on 08/06/2005 5:20:18 PM PDT by nuffsenuff
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To: FreedomCalls

"How could a retired State Dept wonk and a mid-level 70k a year analyst afford to buy a $750,000 house in 1999?"

Let's see...he saved every penny while he was a civil servant? No doubt he had lots of friends with money who helped him out. How could a broken down lot like the Clinton's buy all those expensive houses in NY and Georgetown? {;o)


43 posted on 08/06/2005 5:30:16 PM PDT by Cautor
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To: Albertafriend
When was this put on the web?

It shows up in the Internet Archive on EPIC's pages on July 22, 2003. I can't find it on the June 24, 2003 capture. So clearly it was online sometime between June 24th and July 22nd, 2003.

44 posted on 08/06/2005 5:33:14 PM PDT by FreedomCalls (It's the "Statue of Liberty," not the "Statue of Security.")
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To: Cautor
How could a broken down lot like the Clinton's buy all those expensive houses in NY and Georgetown?

Clinton had a book deal.

45 posted on 08/06/2005 5:37:42 PM PDT by FreedomCalls (It's the "Statue of Liberty," not the "Statue of Security.")
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To: Enchante

Ping and bookmark.


46 posted on 08/06/2005 5:46:34 PM PDT by Big Giant Head (I should change my tagline to "Big Giant Pancake on my Head")
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To: FreedomCalls

My memory is that the NY house was bought, at least in part, with a loan from the good Terry McAwful. There was a book deal with a big advance.


47 posted on 08/06/2005 5:46:37 PM PDT by Cautor
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To: Fedora

The separate thread is a good idea IMO. Kudos for your effort. All this is curiouser and curiouser.


48 posted on 08/06/2005 6:32:38 PM PDT by Cautor
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To: Albertafriend

Try this for the Middle East Institute:

http://64.233.187.104/search?q=cache:_fHmSfsPtvwJ:www.fishkite.com/notes/ambassadorwilsonbio.htm+ambassador+joseph+wilson+%22fishkite.com%22&hl=en


49 posted on 08/06/2005 6:37:32 PM PDT by Cautor
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To: Cautor

Thanks. It is quite curious indeed.


50 posted on 08/06/2005 7:04:51 PM PDT by Fedora
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To: Fedora

I've been back there for the last hour or so going through all the links to all the publications, press releases, conferences etc. There are only two references to Wilson both of them in regard to annual conferences. The first is:
Oct. 23, 2003: The Middle East in US Presidential Elections

www.mideasti.org/articles/doc105.html

There is a transcript to his little speech. It's about our Iraq policy and he definitely sounds like a precursor to Kerry--"we have to internationalize this thing." He was one of a group of 4 speakers, appearing just before Zogby.

The other is May 2004: The Politics of Truth: From Yellowcake to White
This one requires Mp3 which I do not have.

Other than this I am pretty certain he is gonzo. The 2005 convention is not till Nov. 7-9 and they haven't listed the speakers yet. From taking a thorough look at their site it does not seem like his scholarly services were much in demand from them.


51 posted on 08/06/2005 8:14:13 PM PDT by Albertafriend
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To: Fedora

Wow, thanks for wading through that audio and providing us all with the transcript -- was it very painful to listen to such ranting? Clearly Wilson and Ray McGovern are very close to each other in their whole white-hot rage at "evil neo-cons are tricking the US into doing Sharon's dirty work" theme. Wilson is a man of strong opinions and little intellectual insight - he grabs hold of a slogan or gets talking points from his buddies in 'VIPS' and then just runs wild with it. If Sharon did not exist we would have the same reasons we have to oppose Islamo-fascism.

Thanks again for your great work, KUDOS!!


52 posted on 08/06/2005 8:26:34 PM PDT by Enchante (Kerry's mere nuisances: Marine Barracks '83, WTC '93, Khobar Towers, Embassy Bombs '98, USS Cole!!!)
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To: Cautor; FreedomCalls; Liz; Shermy; kabar
"How could a retired State Dept wonk and a mid-level 70k a year analyst afford to buy a $750,000 house in 1999?"

Apparently Wilson's brother is in real estate--from the Vanity Fair article on the Wilsons (which I believe we're not allowed to link, so I quote without the link):

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."

[Question: does the last sentence quoted above imply that the Wilsons were paying even more for rent before they moved into their $750,000 home?]

Some more miscellaneous notes on the Wilsons' home, summarizing some notes I collected last year: The Wilsons purchased their home from Barry Zuckerman Property (NOTE: There is also a Zuckerman real estate dynasty in California; cf. Wilson's mention above of his brother flying in from the West Coast, where the Wilson family is descended from a former Mayor of San Francisco and Governor of California, James "Sunny Jim" Rolph), which built some other real estate in the same neighborhood (though not Wilson's place). Zuckerman was found guilty of various infractions and fined $1,800:

District of Columbia Department of Health vs. Barry Zuckerman Property and Barry Zuckerman (NOTE: This is a pdf file, and it cannot be linked directly, but it is the first item that comes up if you go to http://doh.dc.gov/doh/site/default.asp and search on "Zuckerman")

The property next door to Wilson's (4618 Charleston Terrace) was purchased for $900,000 by Christopher Wolf, a lawyer with Proskauer Rose, LLP, who has legally advised Wilson and Plame since the Novak leak (Wolf states that before this he had only a neighborly relationship with them; on what may be a coincidental but interesting note, in 1995 Wolf defended The Washington Post and Richard Leiby in a suit filed by a Church of Scientology front). See below on another home in the same neighborhood (note the price on the 1993 market).

---

RTC Auction of Local Properties Brings in $2.08

Million:[FINAL Edition]

Jeanne Cooper. The Washington Post (pre-1997

Fulltext). Washington, D.C.: Oct 16, 1993. pg. E.02

Author(s): Jeanne Cooper

Section: REAL ESTATE

Publication title: The Washington Post (pre-1997 Fulltext). Washington, D.C.: Oct 16, 1993. pg. E.02

Source Type: Newspaper

ISSN/ISBN: 01908286

ProQuest document ID: 72194276

Text Word Count 604

A spacious, opulently modern house in the District's Foxhall neighborhood and 11 other properties have joined the growing list of assets auctioned off by the federal Resolution Trust Corp.

Last Saturday's RTC auction in Bethesda drew about 350 registered bidders and brought in $2.08 million, a figure an RTC official said met the agency's expectations.

Of the 14 commercial and residential properties on the auctioneer's block, the Foxhall home on Charleston Terrace NW brought in the highest bid, selling for $730,000. The five-bedroom, 4 1/2- bath house, built in 1987 with a wine cellar, central vacuum and security systems, was last assessed for $868,140, according to tax roll records provided by TRW REDI Inc.

Potential buyers of the house were required to show certified funds of $20,000 and about 15 began bidding at the opening price of $100,000, according to auctioneer David Kaufman of Chicago. He said the final price came close to his prediction.

"Before the auction I walked through that house in Foxhall and told the broker that was showing it for us, `Seven {hundred thousand},' and it went for $730,000. That's the market value," Kaufman said.

The RTC, which acquired the auction properties from failed savings and loan organizations. . .

SNIP

---

53 posted on 08/06/2005 10:17:25 PM PDT by Fedora
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To: Albertafriend

Thanks much for taking the time to look that up. Rather interesting he appeared with Zogby.


54 posted on 08/06/2005 10:19:24 PM PDT by Fedora
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To: Enchante
was it very painful to listen to such ranting?

Yes, very :-) And having to listen to it multiple times in order to transcribe it was even worse. A little Joseph Wilson goes a long way. . .

55 posted on 08/06/2005 10:20:31 PM PDT by Fedora
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To: Enchante

Thanks for the ping. I'm glad you are still pursuing many angles and not letting up. The giant squid analogy is very true. I hope we eventually find out who picked him, and why, considering his credentials as well as his connection to Plame were suspect. I still believe it was a setup meant to embarrass the WH/viceP, into butting out of CIA affairs that didn't "concern" them, and silencing the discussion about WMD.

It seems to have been pretty effective, if you notice.


56 posted on 08/06/2005 10:50:36 PM PDT by unsycophant
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To: unsycophant
I think it was a setup, too. Wilson mentions "a still unnamed friend" going up to Novak on the street....and prodding Novak about Wilson. This was before Novak published his article. The friend runs to Wilson. Wilson and friend write everything down. This was before Novak published his article.

Wilson calls Novak and more or less threatens him and says - Shut up about my wife. Novak remembers "the friend"....does a little research (Dem Contribution List) and publishes his article. He used the words "CIA Operative" to smoke Wilson out...and he did just that. What Novak meant by "Operative" was Dem Operative. Wilson took it to be CIA "Undercover Agent".

My best guess is that Novak knew Valerie from his DC social contacts...before she married Wilson...when she was just Plame old Valerie. It was hardly a "secret" marriage.

57 posted on 08/07/2005 5:23:29 AM PDT by Sacajaweau (God Bless Our Troops!!)
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To: Fedora
"How could a retired State Dept wonk and a mid-level 70k a year analyst afford to buy a $750,000 house in 1999?"

That is an intriguing question given the fact that Wilson had retired a year earlier. His State Department penison, based on 22 years of service times 2% times $125,000 (tops) for his high three equals $55,000 a year. Moreover, he had to pay child support from his previous marriage and his second wife (French) had a claim to part of his pension, i.e., they were married for more than 10 years. She would be entitled to about half Wilson's pension. Wilson's third wife, Valierie, could not have been making more than $100K a year. They would have needed a large down payment to qualify for a loan.

I have always questioned why Wilson left the Foreign Service at what should have been the peak of his career. Moreover, those were his peak earning years. I wonder what the incentive was to leave and/or the push by the State Department to have him retire.

As you have pointed out previously, Wilson had some shady contacts in the Middle East. One wonders if Wilson profited from those contacts after he left the Department. There is definitely something that needs to looked at by the USG. They should follow the money. Maybe Wilson is trying to insulate himself from any USG investigation by being anti-Bush. He can always claim that it is politically motivated.

58 posted on 08/07/2005 6:28:18 AM PDT by kabar
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To: kabar

One web source gives an address for Valerie Plame (presumably before she married Wilson) as living at 2700 Virginia Avenue NW in Washington, DC. This is the Watergate West apartment complex. I don't know what apartments sold for in the late 1990s, but they can be expensive now. For example, a recent sale of a 1300 sq. foot apartment indicated a sale price of $379,000. Ownership also involves a monthly fee of $912. which covers taxes, insurance, etc. Don't know where Wilson lived before. They might have raised down payments by sales of former residences.

The same link also mentions a jacqueline C. Wilson, 55, with the address 4612 Charleston Ter NW, which is where Joseph C. and Valerie now live. I don't understand this hit. If it's accurate, who is this 55 year old Jacqueline C. Wilson?


59 posted on 08/07/2005 2:23:33 PM PDT by Cautor
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To: Cautor; kabar; Fedora

Here is another interesting tidbit I found in case anyone thinks Wilson is making tons of money off book sales. It's from an article titled "Quest for Best Seller means Lots of Returned Books", June 3, 2005. (I'm sorry, I meant to write down the name of the author but I forgot. He's from the Wall Street Journal.)

"Even mid-size publishers sometimes reach for the brass ring.In April 2004, Avalon publishing Group Inc. issued "The Politics of Truth:Inside the Lies that led to War and Betrayed my Wife's CIA Identity," by former US Ambassador Joseph Wilson. At the time books about politics were selling well, and Avalon, eager to deliver as many copies as quickly as possible, printed a 100,000. Shortly before the publication date, April 30, it went back to the presses for an additional 25,000.
Just as the book was hitting the best-seller lists, public attention switched to allegations of abuse at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison. Although "The Politics of Truth" enjoyed good sales, Charles Winton, Avalon's CEO, says he's now sitting on 60,000 copies, including many that have been returned. The second printing cost at least $60,000, he says, none of which has yet recouped. Mr. Winton says he had to gamble: "You sell a lot of books, but there's also a lot of waste."

www.postgazette.com/pg/05154/515469.stm

This afternoon I have been trying very hard but unsuccessfully to track down a transcript for The Chris Matthew Show for July 17, 2005. My husband was sure Wilson was on that morning (or maybe July 24) and Matthews asked him how his book was doing. The response was something like "very well and it's going to get better." However according to the above only slightly more than half of those printed, 65,000 were sold--probably a lot of them to libraries. That dosn't sound very "good' to me. A big grocery chain I shop at put out a pile of them last summer before the election and a couple of months ago the amount did not look much different and now they are gone--not sold, just cleeared out and maybe sent back to Mr. Winton.

The Watergate is now being turned completely into condos and they are very expensive. I was trying to get some idea of how much rent would be for an apartment suite but I couldn't find anything to reference to the apartment complex before some company took over renovating the hotel last year I think. The hotel suites ran $6000-over $7000 a month according to the hotel's website--I can't imagine Valerie paying that kind of rent.

Isn't Jacqueline C. Wilson his second wife's name? The age seems about right. Why in the world would she be listed? Did she buy the house for them? That is very weird!


60 posted on 08/07/2005 5:12:34 PM PDT by Albertafriend
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