Correct. This is the reason why I stated that the reporters already knew the Wilson/Plame connection and were just trying to confirm the story of Wilson's trip. It was not a matter of Libby/Rove outing Plame or confirming that she worked for the CIA. That was really a given. The question was who sent Wilson to Niger and why. The reporters wanted to nail Cheney and Bush for putting out false information in the State of the Union address and manipulating the intelligence.
Exactly. Do you have any links to where Wilson says Cheney sent him..I'm trying to bookmark some of some of this stuff. Thanks!
This blogger (see below) 'Macsmind' writes of a scenario that several of us have thought about, that the reason Joe Wilson knew about the forged Niger uranium documents is that he had access to them through Valerie (or others in and around the CIA) and that his careless reference to them in relation to his 'report' unveiled that he was playing a dirty game with those such as the VIPS clowns to attack the administration. Details such as whether or not he saw them before his trip or how coordinated the entire plot may have been are less significant than the general point that whoever forged those documents is obviously playing a similar game to Joe Wilson; whether they worked together from the start or converged at some point is a separate issue from the fact that Wilson made an egregious blunder when he referred to the forged documents in explaining his report. Some interesting thoughts here:
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http://macsmind.blogspot.com/2005/10/plame-game-end-game.html
Plame Game - End Game
The noose around Joe Wilson and his co-horts necks in the most elaborate scheme ever devised against an Administration, is in fact tightening.
More will be coming in the next couple of days. The key is a familiar part of the story that has been before us all along:
From the Washington Post story recounting the Senate Report that began to knock down Wilson's house of cards last year:
"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."
No one has missed this, it is a bombshell admission (you can't "misspeak this"). The question I have been working on since that time is "How did Joe ...know?"
The fact - the inescapable fact - is that there is no way for Amb. Wilson to have known that UNLESS he KNEW that before he even made the trip because:
1. The docs were forged by rogue CIA (of which his wife played a part).
2. Joe went to Niger in an elaborate plan not to check the story, but provide cover for the story. (a trip his wife arraigned)
The only problem. Wilson and his own ego - and his big mouth.
UPDATE: In a previous post wherein I mentioned VIPS member Ray McGovern, here is some information, from 2003 on Ray and on VIPS connections you may not have heard of. Like walking in waste management plant, there is an unmistakeable stink in all this - you only have to follow the scent to get to the Plame Truth.
Here is an exerpt:
"VIPS does not seem to have a website, but its email is vips@counterpunch.org, and their open letter appears to have been published at CounterPunch (run by Alexander Cockburn, the Nation columnist), an outfit whose staple is stuff comparing Bush to Hitler. VIPS also published an open letter in opposition to the war at Common Dreams back in February. The spokesman for VIPS is Raymond McGovern, a retired CIA analyst. McGovern's email is also at CounterPunch. He is giving a briefing today with Rep. Dennis Kucinich. 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. He believes Tenet's job is safe because if Tenet were fired, he would reveal that the White House ignored intelligence warnings pre-9/11. McGovern has urged CIA analysts to illegally release (leak) classified documents to show what he believes to be true, specifically citing Daniel Ellsberg.
Another member of the VIPS steering committee is William Christison, who among other things believes that the Bush administration is attempting to colonize the Middle East, jointly with Israel. He believes that the war on terror is being used to turn the US into a military dictatorship. He is also a backer of the left-wing Urgent Call, along with people such as Noam Chomsky, Barbara Kingsolver, Julian Bond, and Jonathan Schell."
If you don't know some of those names, Google them to have the hair stand up on the back of your neck.
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.
UPDATE II: This post explains my preliminary take on the very important link between the two Wilson visits to Niger and how they might relate to the forgeries. Sorry to keep having to add older posts, search features on this "blogger blog" are a lot to be desired.