Posted on 10/21/2005 9:44:44 AM PDT by blogblogginaway
I wonder...
It could be possible.
The CIA missed every large historical mess/situation in the last 20 years. If we're paying them to play spook while they miss the stuff that matters, we're fools. What about the Bay of Pigs, 9/11, breakup of the USSR - the Cole, Muslim militants and their reach - I'm sure the list is as long as the disasters. It's time for them to get off the stage. Let the military run intelligence. People with some ethics beyond their big fat egos... If the only thing they're good at is dirty tricks against Republicans, then they're a waste of taxpayer money.
Jacqueline, (his second wife), was a French diplomat and may have provided the connections for Wilson to see the forged documents that were supplied by the French through the Italians. In other words it is possible that Wilson knew that the docs were forged because he was privy to the information that French wanted to discredit the British info on Saddam shopping for yellowcake and that Wilson's objective was the same. The French just happen to manage the yellowcake production in Niger.
IOW, he didn't lie...he saw them. It has been reported that she was a "cultural counselor" for the French Embassy, which some say is code for she was doing undercover work.
And Fedora has contributed this:
French intelligence soon began a campaign to discredit the US case for war against Iraq. In 1999, French intelligence had begun investigating the security of uranium supplies in Niger, where uranium production was controlled by a consortium led by the French mining company COGEMA, a division of the French state-owned nuclear energy firm AREVA. At that time, Italian businessman Rocco Martino provided French intelligence with genuine documents revealing that Iraq was planning to expand trade with Niger. French intelligence took an interest in the documents and asked Martino to provide more information. In 2000 he used a contact in the Nigerian embassy in Rome to provide French intelligence with documents purporting that Iraq had purchased uranium from Niger. These documents were later exposed as forgeries;
< snip >
Since it is now also known that French intelligence was trying to push Martino’s forgeries on US and British intelligence, as simultaneously the Democratic National Committee was planning to discredit President Bush’s Iraq policy by accusing his administration of manufacturing evidence against Hussein’s regime, heightened suspicion is cast on Wilson’s use of the Niger investigation to discredit the Bush administration’s case for war.
He was discussed a bit with an article on a thread a couple of years back.... he seemed quite innocuous, just her college sweetheart and their marriage didn't last very long, from what I recall. He seemed quite distant from all CIA and intel matters, unless he was putting out some "cover story"....it sounded like their relationship began to drift apart when she went into the CIA because he was much more of a "Joe regular" guy who didn't want to be around intel or government at all. That's how the article described him, anyway.
READ...
Set up? Anatomy of the contrived Wilson "scandal"
It is not just a CIA deal, but a media deal. Walter Pincus and David Corn have either been unknowing or knowing (probably) participants in this whole deal.
Tagline!
It was the Nigerian Embassy in Rome.
ping
Also, it's rarely pointed out that the CIA, including Valerie Plame's vaunted WMD unit, has totally botched virtually every significant development in WMD proliferation for decades. India and Pakistan going nuke, the whole Khan network including Libya and Iran and North Korea, everything about North Korea's nuke progress in the '90s, Iraq being within a year or less of having nukes at the time of the 1991 Gulf War, etc. etc. etc.
The CIA has been a total botch on WMD issues, so there was a lot more reason to be suspicious of than complacent about their pre-2003 assessments of Iraq. This is an important point that is almost never noticed. Every previous major WMD development for decades has been UNDER-estimated, not over-estimated, by our fabled CIA.
Well, 9/11 was the anti-terrorism crowd's Pearl Harbor. And to a certain extent, the CIA's Pearl Harbor. It should be obvious to all that ineptitude on such a scale can't be tolerated in the post-9/11 World. Now, there is a small group of former terrorism and CIA people who go around stirring it up against the Bush Administration. Far be it from me to name names, but you can pick your favorite. It's just possible that some of them are trying to save their reputations and their self-respect by putting all the blame on the Bush Administration.
YUP, mega-kudos to Wolfstar who did a better summary of this whole affair way back in Oct. 2003 than ANY msm dipstick has done before or since. Every MSM reporter should be required to read all the freeper threads on Wilson and pals before they dare to write one more story on this sordid affair. I sure do hope Fitzgerald has fully pursued avenues outside of the WH and not just followed the Joe Wilson talking points.
We're still missing the forger for Rathergate. Is forgery in or something?
There's an old movie with Vincent Price. He becomes a monk to get into an archives to alter a record. He has access to the original ink and parchment, changes the pages in the original archive and returns to America with his duplicate. His messup was that the person he was promoting as this "owner" of Arizona has a hidden past.
Who the hell is forging stuff to bring down the Whitehouse??
What has frustrated me since the beginning was that there wasn't any 'investigation' into whether there was a crime. The first question that should have been investigated was not who outed her, but was she actually outed. John Smith calls in a secret 'report' that x killed y. Well, before the prosecutor calls a bunch of 'witnesses' and x before the grand jury it is necessary and should be obvious, that he find out if y is still alive!
bttt
Looks like there's lots more house cleaning for Goss to do. There must be a huge nest of commies and the hate America crowd in the CIA. I want their heads on a platter.
The Butler Report affirmed what the British government had said about the Niger uranium story back in 2003, and specifically endorsed what Bush said as well.
By extension, we conclude also that the statement in President Bush’s State of the Union Address of 28 January 2003 that “The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa” was well-founded.
From the Senate Committee:
The U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence reported July 7, 2004 that the CIA had received reports from a foreign government (not named, but probably Britain) that Iraq had actually concluded a deal with Niger to supply 500 tons a year of partially processed uranium ore, or "yellowcake." That is potentially enough to produce 50 nuclear warheads.
The Senate report said the CIA then asked a "former ambassador" to go to Niger and report. That is a reference to Joseph Wilson -- who later became a vocal critic of the President's 16 words. The Senate report said Wilson brought back denials of any Niger-Iraq uranium sale, and argued that such a sale wasn't likely to happen. But the Intelligence Committee report also reveals that Wilson brought back something else as well -- evidence that Iraq may well have wanted to buy uranium.
Wilson reported that he had met with Niger's former Prime Minister Ibrahim Mayaki, who said that in June 1999 he was asked to meet with a delegation from Iraq to discuss "expanding commercial relations" between the two countries.
Based on what Wilson told them, CIA analysts wrote an intelligence report saying former Prime Minister Mayki "interpreted 'expanding commercial relations' to mean that the (Iraqi) delegation wanted to discuss uranium yellowcake sales." In fact, the Intelligence Committee report said that "for most analysts" Wilson's trip to Niger "lent more credibility to the original Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) reports on the uranium deal."
He (the intelligence officer) said he judged that the most important fact in the report was that the Nigerian officials admitted that the Iraqi delegation had traveled there in 1999, and that the Nigerian Prime Minister believed the Iraqis were interested in purchasing uranium, because this provided some confirmation of foreign government service reporting.
Both the US and British investigations make clear that some forged Italian documents, exposed as fakes soon after Bush spoke, were not the basis for the British intelligence Bush cited, or the CIA's conclusion that Iraq was trying to get uranium.
I think the title of this thread tells it all, I don't believe it is a question any longer. I just pray that Fitzgerald's interview with the Italian authorities in Rome was fruitful.
"It has been reported that she was a "cultural counselor" for the French Embassy, which some say is code for she was doing undercover work."
Well at the very least it is apparent that Mr Wilson is attracted to women with "interesting" careers. Anymore wives out there? I read where he indicated he had "too many wives to run for public office".
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