Joseph Wilson EPIC Lecture 6/14/2003 Outline/Transcript

The following outline and transcript, created by the poster, are based on an audio recording of Joseph Wilson's evening keynote lecture to the Education for Peace in Iraq Center (EPIC) on June 14, 2003, delivered several weeks prior to Wilson's New York Times op-ed of 7/6/2003 which preceded the controversial Robert Novak article mentioning Valerie Plame's CIA background. Wilson's speech was immediately preceded by that of the other keynote speaker, Ray McGovern of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. After their individual speeches Wilson and McGovern held a joint question-and-answer session. Other participants in the forum and their respective topics of discussion included (biographical summaries are my abbreviations of original; see original link for additional details):

Introduction: Erik Gustafson, Gulf War veteran and EPIC founder; Zaid Albanna, Iraqi native and EPIC board member.

The Future of the Kurds in Post-War Iraq: Nijyar Shemdin, United States representative of the Kurdistan Regional Government and member of Iraqi National Congress of the Kurdistan Democratic Party; Mohammed Sabir Ismail, Iraqi-born physicist and PUK representative; Tanya Gilly, member of the Board of Directors of the Kurdish foundation and Women for a Free Iraq and participant in US State Department Future of Iraq project.

A Short History of Western Imperialism in Iraq: Judith Yaphe, Senior Research Fellow with the Institute for National Strategic Studies at the National Defense University.

Religious Politics & Emerging Political Movements in Iraq: Juan Cole, Professor of Modern Middle East and South Asian History at the University of Michigan; Phebe Marr, senior fellow in the Institute for National Strategic Studies at National Defense University.

Human Rights and Humanitarian Concerns: Sermid D. Al-Sarraf, Esq., Iraqi-American attorney from Los Angeles who works with the Iraqi Jurist's Association; George Devendorf, Director of Emergency Operations for Mercy Corps; Bill Frelick, director of Amnesty International USA's Refugee Program; Marc Garlasco, Senior Military Analyst for Human Rights Watch.

Consequences of War & Occupation: Stephen Zunes, Middle East editor for the Foreign Policy in Focus Project, political analyst for National Public Radio, Pacifica Radio, the BBC, and MSNBC; Alistair Millar, Director of the Washington, DC office of the Fourth Freedom Forum; Glen Rangwala, lecturer in politics at Cambridge University, UK, coordinator of the Campaign against Sanctions on Iraq, originator of allegation that a major British intelligence dossier on Iraq issued by the Blair government had been plagiarized from a PhD student's thesis; Nathaniel Hurd, independent consultant on Iraq policy.

Iraqi Views on the Aftermath & Post-Conflict Resolution: Sam Kubba, Iraqi immigrant to US, Democratic Party member, FCDC Steering Committee Chair, Chairman and CEO of American Iraqi Chamber of Commerce, founding member of Iraqi American Alliance; Anas Shallal, co-founder of The Peace Cafe, a venue promoting dialogue among Jews and Arabs; Rahman Al-Jebouri, Iraqi native, coordinator of the Iraq Foundation; Jawad Al-Amiri, Iraqi immigrant to US active on Iraqi American Council; Tanya Gilly (see above on Gilly).

Outline and transcript notes: Due to the length of the lecture, only some select quotations are transcribed in full, with the outline indicating the general structure of Wilson's lecture and where the quoted comments fall in that structure. Digital numbers indicate minutes and seconds into audio where quoted statements occur. Passages in quotation marks are transcriptions of Wilson's original. The audio was transcribed in August 2004 and the transcript does not reflect any changes to the EPIC website which may have been made since that time. For the original audio see EPIC's website.

[1:25: "Let me just start out by saying, as a preface to what I really want to talk about, to those of you who are going out and lobbying tomorrow, I just want to assure you that that American ambassador who has been cited in reports in the New York Times and in the Washington Post, and now in the Guardian over in London, who actually went over to Niger on behalf of the government--not of the CIA but of the government--and came back in February of 2002 and told the government that there was nothing to this story, later called the government after the British white paper was published and said you all need to do some fact-checking and make sure the Brits aren't using bad information in the publication of the white paper, and who called both the CIA and the State Department after the President's State of the Union and said to them you need to worry about the political manipulation of intelligence if, in fact, the President is talking about Niger when he mentions Africa. That person was told by the State Department that, well, you know, there's four countries that export uranium. That person had served in three of those countries, so he knew a little bit about what he was talking about when he said you really need to worry about this. But I can assure you that that retired American ambassador to Africa, as Nick Kristof called him in his article, is also pissed off, and has every intention of ensuring that this story has legs. And I think it does have legs. It may not have legs over the next two or three months, but when you see American casualties moving from one to five or to ten per day, and you see Tony Blair's government fall because in the U.K. it is a big story, there will be some ramifications, I think, here in the United States, so I hope that you will do everything you can to keep the pressure on. Because it is absolutely bogus for us to have gone to war the way we did."]

[Includes statements: 5:13: "Now here in the United States on September 11, 2001, we suffered the lost of two buildings in New York and severe damage to one building in Washington and we suffered the loss of roughly 3,000 lives. In Iraq during the Shock and Awe bombing campaign, we now know that over 3,000 Iraqis were killed. . .and Lord knows how many buildings in downtown Baghdad and elsewhere were destroyed. . .how can we possibly assume that the anger that we felt when 3,000 of our fellow citizens were killed is not going to be felt in spades--not just in Iraq where 3,000 deaths represents to the relative population 10 times the number of deaths we suffered in our terrorist attack; or throughout the rest of the world. . .Of course we didn't find any terrorists when we got to Iraq, just as we haven't yet found any weapons of mass destruction, though on that score I remain of the view that we will find chemical and biological weapons, and we may well find something that indicates that Saddam's regime maintained an interest in nuclear weapons--not surprising if you live in a part of the world where you do have a nuclear-armed country, an enemy of yours, which is just a country away from you.". . .]

[Includes statements: 14:05: "But I do know. . .that in order to have a liberation strategy, you have to have people who are willing to fight for their own liberation. Otherwise you will never get that liberation bounce that Ken Adelman promised us--that Richard Perle promised us, when he said that Iraqis would be cheering us from the rooftops at our marching in there." 15:52: "Evidence of that can be found in the Habbaniya gold market today. The price of gold jewelry in Habbaniya is cheaper than it is anywhere else in the world. And that is because the middle class has had to liquidate all their assets. In Iraq, like in many other parts of the world, people keep their assets, their wealth, in gold. . ."

[Includes statements: 19:00: "And even our military--and I speak to a lot of them; I used to be the political advisor to the commander in chief of US Armed Forces, Europe and I still have contacts in the command--even some of our military officers were absolutely dismayed at the slaughter they were inflicting upon poorly-trained, poorly-equipped Iraqi conscripts on the way up there."]

[Includes statements: 19:46: "The real agenda in all this, of course, was to redraw the political map of the Middle East. Now that is code, whether you like it or not, but it is code for putting into place the strategy memorandum which was done by Richard Perle and his study group in the mid-90s, which was called 'A Clean Break: A New Strategy for the Realm'. And what it is, cut to the quick, is if you take out some of these countries, or some of these governments, that are antagonistic to Israel, then you provide the Israeli government with greater wherewithal to impose its terms and conditions on the Palestinian people. . .But that is the real agenda. You can put weapons of mass destruction out there, you can put terrorism out there, you can put liberation out there. Weapons of mass destruction got hard-headed realists on board, through a bunch of lies. . ."

B. Three questions taken for McGovern and Wilson: Regular cash payments to Iraqis? Importance of Iraqi middle class to creating democracy? How would Wilson suggest supporters go about implementing his proposals for Iraqi reconstruction?

C. Four questions taken for McGovern and Wilson: Risks to whistleblowers? Geopolitical agenda behind Iraq war to fill power vacuum left by fall of Soviet Union? Recommended talking points for talking to representatives? What do whistleblowers need to do to wake the public up?

8:05: In response to the question about risks to whistleblowers, Wilson refers to self as "the retired American ambassador to Africa who has been talking to the New York Times and the Washington Post".

11:08: In response to the question about what whistleblowers need to do to wake the public up, wherein the questioner mentions that, "You know, the documents are out there, thanks to Mr. [Glen] Rangwala and others, it was out there that this was all a lie, even before the war", McGovern replies that of all the administration's "lies", "the forgery of course is the most flagrant", and then Wilson adds, "on the last one [i.e. on the last question about what whistelblowers need to do], the administration was very careful about only talking, on the forgery, only talking at the Presidential level about uranium sales from Africa, until such time as it came out that they were talking about Niger, and then that was subsequently denied by the State Department, it was difficult to sort of make the case, although I think some of the people inside could have probably talked about it a little bit more openly ahead of time. The real problem with this is how this intelligence was used once it got in the hands of the policymakers, and clearly this was emphasized--the rumor part of it, the RUMINT was emphasized, and the debunking of it was just set aside. I think it probably has legs, too, because of the course the press operates on profits, and if they can make a scandal out of this they'll do it, you know, that'll be great. And you already hear people talking about the 'i' word."

13:33: In response to the question about the geopolitical agenda behind the Iraq war, Wilson replies, "On the other ones, the geopolitical situation, I think there are a number of issues at play; there's a number of competing agendas. One is the remaking of the map of the Middle East for Israeli security, and my fear is that when it becomes increasingly apparent that this was all done to make Sharon's life easier and that American soldiers are dying in order to enable Sharon to impose his terms upon the Palestinians that people will wonder why it is American boys and girls are dying for Israel and that will undercut a strategic relationship and a moral obligation that we've had towards Israel for 55 years. I think it's a terribly flawed strategy."

From my files...in reference to Vince Cannistraro, one of the VIPS members...

On January 2nd, 2001, police discover that the Nigerien Embassy [in Rome] has been broken into and documents and files were stolen. Italian investigators now believe that the breakin is related to the Niger forgeries.

Elisabetta Burba, a journalist for Panorama, receives a telephone call from Rocco Martoni telling her about the Niger documents, offering to sell them to here for ten thousand dollars. She meets with him and he gives her photocopies. She asks how they could be authenticated and he shows her a photocopy of the codebook from the Niger Embassy.

Italian authorities believe the codebook was obtained in the breakin of the Niger Embassy in 2001.

Daily Kos {Ugh}, while trying to blame Ledeen

Fedora found this:

During the next few weeks a documentary will be released in the US in which, alongside American diplomats that have served in Niger, a number of ex-CIA agents appear. The common objective that unites them is an attempt to demonstrate the role and responsibility of Bush in the dirty affair. No small coincidence this: those involved, as we have already indicated, are the movers and shakers behind a strategy put in place to favour the rise of JF Kerry. Amongst those involved is Vincent Cannistraro, ex-CIA and subsequently a security advisor to the Vatican. Its rather odd that Cannistraro, who in public conferences tried to convince the Americans of the dangers of the Iraqi nuclear threat, is now placing the blame for the false documents on the Italians.

Post #162

Was Cannistraro in Rome when the break-in happened? Inquiring minds would like to know...

Thanks, I was thinking of that 2001 break-in and the suspected relationship to forging the Niger uranium documents as another reason it's unlikely that Joe Wilson was involved in planning this back to 1999; I think Wilson was drawn in by his wife and/or other CIA-related people once they became concerned to block Bush from moving toward war with Iraq. Probably late 2001 or early 2002.

The possible connections with a French intel operation and his 2nd wife are also intriguing. As discussed on other threads, Joe Wilson is close to a variety of current and ex- government officials from France (also Turkey and Saudi Arabia) who certainly do not have US interests at heart!! He may be an unwitting dupe (he is a dupe) or he may have seen a convergence of interests between his anti-Bush anti-neocon jihad and the work of French operatives.

As for Ghorbanifar, if he's connected that could make things murky, but he's also an easy scapegoat since the CIA has been trashing him for years (probably with justification). Any cabal of VIPS-type CIA people could easily set Ghorbanifar up as a fall guy if anything went wrong - his reputation is already trash and he cannot possibly defend himself to the CIA or most in US government and media. The question is motive: why on earth would a guy who's supposed to loath the Mullahs want to UNDERMINE a US war on Iraq (with a crappy set of forgeries which would easily be revealed as such) when such a war would put the US into a much stronger position to overthrow the Mullahs? (that's how it would have appeared in 1999-2001, though now it seems much less likely that the US will be ready for any new adventures soon)..... Ghorbanifar would seem to have every motive to want the US to succeed in Iraq. Ghorbanifar's also been alleged (by CIA types) to be behind the series of faxes that Curt Weldon received from another Iranian emigre that led to the book Weldon published this summer. Some CIA officials told Weldon he'd been 'had' by Ghorbanifar..... Don't know about that.

"I have been "data-mining" Able Danger style, all day long running links between names familiar in this "story". So far I find it amazing, at how many of the names - linked to this case, run back to a very familiar Billionaire financier, George Soros.
The dots aren't completed yet, but the picture is becoming very clear. Again, within the agency, and even now outside there are people who know what happened and don't like it."

********* Thanks for efforts in attempt to establish some facts. Luckily as I have waded through these threads and then gotten to your post and read:
McGovern has compared the Iraq war to Vietnam, even saying that it could lead to nuclear war. He has charged that if WMDs are found in Iraq, they may well have been planted.
Luckily I was not drinking coffee or something or surely my keyboard and monitor would be soaken wet at this point. Idiots begat idiots. What else can I say. And I shall continue to wonder, just where those 500 tons of yellow cake found at the nuclear research center of Al-Tuwaitha, originated from. If it was not mined from the Al Anbar uranium pits then where did it come from. There where not that many companies that mine/sell yellow cake, willing to deal directly with Iraq between 1980 to 2003. There is no way around it. And we well know the French where up to their as$holes with Iraq during that period of time to help them build up their nuclear program. And we know that French and Russian advisors of all types had to quickly get out just prior to the invasion. Wilson was probably so deeply involved in deals that yet will be uncovered as to how he gained in personal wealth, either directly at the time or by future agreements for paybacks that he had every reason to try to cloud his path. And if this is true, then he really can be found to be a real idiot. He should have shut his mouth and played along with the powers that be. The best set plans to cover ones tracks are often thwarted in todays world of information exchange. The references to his affilation with the French companies outlined in these threads come to mind. As for Soros. It would be strange if he where not involved. At any rate don't feel obligated to respond to my respond, clearly I offer nothing of value to the hunt for the truth in these matters.

On Canninstraro, it is also notable that he had inserted himself into the WMD controversy at least by October 2002, when he was talking to Julian Borger of The Guardian, who would later obtain an exclusive interview with Joseph Wilson:

Julian Borger, "White House 'exaggerating Iraqi threat': Bush's televised address attacked by US intelligence", The Guardian, 10/9/2002

"Basically, cooked information is working its way into high-level pronouncements and there's a lot of unhappiness about it in intelligence, especially among analysts at the CIA," said Vincent Cannistraro, the CIA's former head of counter-intelligence.

This may or may not be relevant to the type of scenario postulated in #78. I regard this as a possible motive for Wilson's trip; however, it's also possible he was initially motivated by potential profit for his consulting business and either during the trip or after was persuaded, bribed, blackmailed, or otherwise influenced into becoming part of an operation previously initiated by others. At the time Wilson's NYT op-ed came out, the British were pursuing an investigation into whether French intelligence had tried to use the Niger forgeries to discredit British and US claims of Iraq possessing WMDs. At the time there were some leaks to the press that the British were keeping the details on the French role classified to avoid embarrassing a foreign government; some of the declassified information on the parallel US investigation likewise refers to an unnamed foreign government. Later some information was released, though I imagine what was released is quite incomplete:

French Probe Led to 'Fake Niger Uranium Papers'

Here is something for him to read....this may or may not have been posted elsewhere. If it has, forgive me. This was written by Larry Johnson 10/06/05 as the "certain" indictment of Rove was hitting the news again.
I was going to excerpt it, but as I said, it all makes my head spin. He offers his version of a timeline.

http://www.freddevan.com/blog/archives/00007704.html

10/06/2005: "A Case Of Treason" Larry Johnson

The investigation into who in the Bush administration leaked the fact that Valerie Plame, wife of former US Ambassador Joseph Wilson, was a CIA undercover operative, is nearing completion. Virtually lost in the recent spurt of press reporting is the fact that the compromise of Ms. Plame (and, as night follows the day her carefully cultivated network of spies) was unconscionable. Ms. Plame, a very gifted case officer, was a close colleague of mine at CIA. Her dedication and courage were clear in her willingness to assume the risks of an agent under non-official cover—meaning that if you get caught, too bad, you’re on your own; the US government never heard of you.

The supreme irony is that Plame’s network was reporting on the priority-one issue—weapons of mass destruction. Thus, it was made abundantly clear to all, including potential intelligence sources abroad, that even when priority-one intelligence targets are involved, Bush administration officials will not shrink from exposing such sources for petty political purpose. The harm to CIA and its efforts to recruit spies willing to take risks to provide intelligence information is immense.

Shortly after the invasion of Iraq, Ambassador Wilson publicly exposed an important lie, and the president as liar, when he debunked the report that Iraq was seeking uranium in the African country of Niger. Still, as Wilson himself has suggested, the primary objective of leaking his wife’s employment at CIA was not to retaliate against him personally, but rather to issue a stark warning to others privy to administration lies on the war not to speak out. Administration officials felt they needed to provide an object lesson of what truth tellers can expect in the way of swift retaliation.

All Based On A Forgery

Indictments or no, the mainstream media will continue to play down this key aspect of the story, and—equally important—prescind completely from the event that started the whole business—the forging of documents to feed the spurious report that Iraq was seeking uranium in Niger for its (non-existent) nuclear weapons program. Together with other circumstantial evidence, the neuralgic reaction of Vice President Dick Cheney to press reports that he was point man for promoting the bogus report suggests that he may also have been its founding father, so to speak. We do not rule out the possibility that he and his chief of staff Lewis Libby may have had a hand in commissioning the forgery, as a way to come up with an “intelligence report” with “mushroom cloud” written all over it, in order to deceive Congress into approving an unnecessary war.

These are the key neglected issues underneath the superficial who-said-what-to-whom-when press reportage. Small wonder that many of those following this story are missing the forest for the trees. It is important that a fuller story be available to citizens of this country, to enable us all to judge the enormity and significance of what happened. Accordingly, my Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) colleagues and I thought it would be useful to boil down some key facts in digestible form:

Feb. 13, 2002: According to the Senate Intelligence Committee’s “Report on the U.S. Intelligence Community’s Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq” of July 2004 (pp 38-39), Vice President Cheney asked his CIA morning briefer for the Agency’s analysis of a report he had seen in a Defense Intelligence Agency publication that Iraq was trying to acquire uranium from Niger. In response, the Director of Central Intelligence's Center for Weapons Intelligence, Nonproliferation, and Arms Control (WINPAC) issued an intelligence assessment with limited distribution. It said, “Information on the alleged uranium contract between Iraq and Niger comes exclusively from a foreign government service report that lacks crucial details, and we are working to clarify the information and to determine whether it can be corroborated.” The assessment also noted, “Some of the information in the report contradicts reporting from the U.S. Embassy in Niamey. U.S. diplomats say the French Government-led consortium that operates Niger's two uranium mines maintains complete control over uranium mining and yellowcake production." The CIA sent a separate version of the assessment to the Vice President’s office, which differed only in that it named the foreign government service. Officials from the CIA's Directorate of Operations (DO) told the Senate Intelligence Committee that, in response to questions from the Vice President's Office and also the Departments of State and Defense on the alleged Iraq-Niger uranium deal, all were told that the Agency would look into it further.

Feb. 19: CIA operations managers—not Valerie Plame—decide to send Joseph Wilson to Niger to make immediate inquiries, according to CIA officials. Wilson, who was acting ambassador in Baghdad when the 1991 Gulf War began, had also served in Niger before becoming ambassador to Gabon. After meeting with DO managers and other intelligence community officials at CIA headquarters on Feb. 19, Wilson was commissioned to go to Niger and investigate.

Feb. 26: Ambassador Wilson arrives in Niger. He determined during the course of his visit that there was no substance to the allegation that Iraq was trying to procure uranium in Niger. The U.S. Ambassador to Niger told the Senate Committee that Ambassador Wilson’s conclusion was the same as that reached earlier by the U.S. embassy in Niger.

Early March: Vice President Cheney asks his CIA briefer for an update on the Niger issue: According to the Senate report on intelligence prewar performance, Cheney had not forgotten his original request. And so CIA officers immediately debriefed Ambassador Wilson on the results of his trip, wrote up his report, and disseminated the report on 8 March (p. 42 of the Senate report).

Fall of 2002: CIA officials repeatedly warn Administration and Congressional officials not to accept as fact the claim that Iraq was trying to acquire uranium: According to the Senate report (p. 54), the Deputy Director of the Central Intelligence Agency told Senator Kyl that the CIA did not agree with the British view that Iraq was trying to acquire uranium. On Oct. 6, 2002, CIA Director Tenet called Deputy National Security Advisor Hadley and warned him not to use the information in a presidential speech the next day (three days before Congress voted to authorize war). Hadley removed the passage from the speech (p. 56).

Jan. 28, 2003: In his State of the Union Address, the President includes the (in)famous bogus “16 words.” The President says, “The British government has learned (sic) that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.”

May 23: Vice President Cheney’s office reacts neurologically to May 23 report by New York Times columnist Nick Kristof regarding the mission of a “former US ambassador” to Niger, and in particular to Kristof’s assertion that the Vice President had instigated the trip: According to former senior CIA officials, Cheney’s aides were ”very uptight about the vice president being tagged that way.”

June: The White House, with the participation of Karl Rove and Lewis Libby (and, according to one recent report, of the president and vice president themselves), conceives and then executes a plan to discredit Ambassador Wilson. A variety of reports from journalists and others show that as early as the end of May, White House officials were trying to dig up dirt on Ambassador Wilson. And the State Department reportedly drafted a top-secret memorandum that identified Valerie Plame by her maiden name and made the connection.

July 13 : Robert Novak, citing two Administration sources, identified Valerie Plame by name as a CIA operative. Plame was still undercover when Novak published her name and thus compromised not only Plame, but also the many agents she had recruited—to provide information on weapons of mass destruction, for example. She had conducted several overseas missions as part of her cover job.

Betrayal. There is no other word for it. Except, some might call it treason.

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