Posted on 10/25/2005 11:39:50 AM PDT by Wuli
You can be sure Wilson had been in Africa many times from the 1970s to 2002, just read:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1256475/posts
What Joe Wilson Doesn't Say About Africa
June 14, 2003 - Wilson speaks at a forum sponsored by the Education for Peace in Iraq Center
(EPIC). Wilson does not tell his audience that he was the source for stories about "the
ambassador's" trip to Africa, but his comments, like the following, reveal intimate knowledge of
the mission.
" 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.
June 14, 2003 - Wilson speaks at a forum sponsored by the Education for Peace in Iraq Center (EPIC). Wilson does not tell his audience that he was the source for stories about "the ambassador's" trip to Africa, but his comments, like the following, reveal intimate knowledge of the mission.
" 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.
I just reposted my post in #82 in #83 with better formatting. Sorry about #82.
Now bookmarked along with two other threads that provide the ultimate Plamegate Reader.
Set up? Anatomy of the contrived Wilson "scandal", by Wolfstar (10/2/03)
Joseph Wilson, Niger, Uranium and Bush’s Famous Sixteen Words: Evolution of a Confused Story, by Shermy (4/16/04)
It is clear to any who might read these threads that FReepers have invested more effort in trying to untangle Plamegate and have more knowledge of the case than has anybody in the MSM.
Recall that, post Gulf War, Iraq was under a weapons inspection regime. The IAEA knew where the 500 T of yellowcake were stored and had placed their seal on each container. It couldn't be tampered with without the knowledge and approval of the IAEA.
A fresh supply of smuggled yellowcake would, however, be available for exploitation in any way that the Hussein regime deemed fit.
January 22, 2003 -- At about the same time as the President delivers his "sixteen words" in the SOTU, Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV is giving a lecture at his alma mater, University of California at Santa Barbara, in which he essentially agrees with the President!
In this speech and in a "recent" op-ed in the San Jose Mercury-News, Joe Wilson is claiming that there are two reasons NOT to go to war with Iraq:
1. Saddam Hussein has WMD.
2. He will use them.
See Former Diplomat To Give Views On Possible War With Iraq at UCSB, a UCSB Press Release promoting a 1/22/03 lecture (and referencing a “recent” San Jose Mercury News opinion piece by Wilson), January 16, 2003.
So, eleven months after his trip to Niger, Wilson believes Saddam has WMD and will use them. There is no record of a 180 degree reversal until May -- when he starts his campaign of leaks by breakfasting with Nicholas Kristof and after he has joined the Kerry campaign!
July 2, 2003 -- The BBC publishes a story promoting the mysterious "anonymous American diplomat who went to Niger and discovered that Bush's 'sixteen words' in the State of the Union address had no basis in fact".
The Beeb's source was listed as "a CIA employee". Larry Johnson? Miss Valerie?
July 8, 2003 -- Doug Thompson of Capitol Hill Blue prints an incendiary piece -- "White House admits Bush lied about Iraqi nukes" -- which goes much further than Wilson's July 6 op-ed for the New York Times. His source for this melodrama was "a CIA operative" named Terrance J. Wilkinson.
Subsequently, Thompson is forced to withdraw his claims and modify his position, thanks to research by the FReeper William McKinley who proves that the person described as Terrance J. Wilkinson never existed (well, after all, he was "CIA"). The story is withdrawn from the CHB archives and Thompson writes a mea culpa -- Conned Big Time, Doug Thompson, Capitol Hill Blue, July 9, 2003.
"Wilkinson" or whoever it was that sourced the story to Thompson is obviously in cahoots with Wilson (Larry Johnson?), given the timeline and corroborative material provided. We have a conspiracy...
For a more complete discussion of this event, see Fedora's #247.
I submit that the true identity of "Terrance J. Wilkinson" -- apparently a fiction based on fact -- would provide another link in a conspiracy cynically designed to use the media to discredit the President of the United States.
There are chicken tracks all over Plamegate. Most of them left by the vaunted CIA...
Very handy guide for slamming the libs foaming at the mouths hysteria. Good Job.
That's a solid point, at least until they kicked out the inspectors.
Consequently, even after November, 1998, Hussein would have found it advisable to leave the existing yellowcake intact and acquire new, unaccountable stocks to support any nuclear program.
Further, we now know that there was a yellowcake smuggling racket going on -- out of Niger to so-called "rogue nations". Libya's yellowcake, for example, was traced to Niger's mines.
It's not a long stretch to figure that Iraq and the contraband yellowcake sources in Niger would find each other...
Thanks for the ping, okie. Superb information that helps to fill in the gaps. Who the heck knows what Fitzgerald will do, but if he hasn't figure out the truth after two years, I would have to say he never tried to. If he indicts people on process technicalities for trying to protect the presidency from the Wilson-Plame, et. al., treachery, it would be among the worst miscarriages of justice in our nation's history.
Thanks!
I was googling posts on FR and found this post by CyberAnt talking about the exact same thing.
here's the url: CyberAnts post is number 59
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1293203/posts?q=1&&page=51
Here's what CyberAnt said
>It was during one of these trips to London, where Bill Clinton >told Blair that he better dump Bush because if Blair didn't, it >could cost Blair his job. And .. I believe it was shortly after >that statement that the Wilson mess exploded in the media (which >is why I have always believed Hillary was involved in it). >Thank GOD Blair did not buy the threat.
I am still searching for the article of that encounter but others have thought of it too so there is something to it I think.
Some more from Cyberant
Here's the thread url.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1441701/posts
Here's what CyberAnt said.
ok found some more.
here's the url.
http://freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/939862/posts
BOOT BUSH, TONY (says Sidney Blumenthal)
Daily Mirror (U.K.) ^ | 07/03/03 | Oonagh Blackman
PM warned he will be election 'target'
TONY Blair has been told he must distance himself from President Bush.
The prime minister was given the warning yesterday at a meeting with Sidney Blumenthal, an aide to former US president Bill Clinton.
A vicious battle between Democrats and Republicans is predicted in the next presidential election and Mr Blumenthal said the PM would suffer from his close relationship with Mr Bush.
He said: "The US is about to enter a very contentious political phase as our presidential campaign hots up. Bush intends to exploit 9/11 and that is going to be used against him.
"It is going to become intense to the extent that any foreign leader who associated himself with Bush's political goals will become an object of controversy. He will be an indirect target."
Mr Blumenthal also said Mr Blair, dubbed a "poodle" for backing the American-led war in Iraq, was in more trouble over the failure to uncover evidence of weapons of mass destruction.
He said: "Two-thirds of Americans believe the war took place because of al-Qaeda and 9/11, and that Saddam Hussein was developing nuclear weapons and there was an imminent threat. The view is Blair is in more trouble on this than Bush."
Mr Blumenthal also warned the Government against getting bogged down in "distractions". An adviser to President Clinton between 1997 and 2001, he said Mr Blair was being battered by "right-wing conspirators" in the way the president was in the run-up to the Monica Lewinsky scandal.
He said: "The Blair government is not going through a crisis even though some think it is.
"With Clinton the right-wing was always trying to undermine him. Part of it involved a Conservative press that infected the atmosphere. Some of that exists here in Britain."
Mr Blair will meet his political soulmate Bill Clinton next week. He is visiting London with wife Hillary, who is being urged to stand as a presidential candidate in the 2008 election.
Thanks for the really great additions.
My timeline was not so much a research project as it was a personal need of mine to get a very long article on the subject, by Stephen Hayes from the weekly standard, into a view where I could see everything in a timeline.
I redacted, edited as well as deleted a few things from that material, put it in a strict timeline and added my comments at points where I thought the material, up to those points, jumped out with questions or revelations.
Others in this thread have been noting how the material begs the question of rogue CIA people, or a CIA conspiracy
(how does Deputy CIA Dir McLaughlin enter a congressional hearing and essentially dispute the agressive Iraq-Africa-uranium language, when in every instance prior to that day, including a major CIA paper on the subject just the day before, the CIA is using, and vetting for public use, the same agressive language McLaughlin discounts as over-reaching, only then to have the CIA continue vetting that agressive language for public use)
or what was the role of outsiders obtaining information from CIA people who wanted to leak things to damage the administration - particularly CIA people who, in my view, may have known less than they thought they knew.
If I were the "CIA leak" prosecutor, and I looked at the timeline of Joe Wilson's lies, my investigation would now be expanding into finding who in the CIA was officially or unofficially working a scam on the WMD intelligence in a conspiracy to embarass the administration.
Supposedly there is an FBI investigation into the origins of the forged documents delivered to the US Emabassy in Rome eight months after Wilson's trip. But no one is talking about or even asking where is that investigation.
To the American people, that is more important than asking when did Scooter Libby talk to Judith Miller and what did he tell her and why.
If, as everyone believes is true, Plame could not have been covered by the 1982 "outing law", and given the lies and misrepresentations of Wilson and the bogus assignment of him for the trip to begin with, then where was any crime committed in the admin's response to put out the facts to counter Wilson's lies? There was none.
So the current "prosecution" is another Martha Stewart case. No crime committed but we'll get them to trip up somewhere when we talk to them and then they'll committ a crime by not having been 100% straight with us.
These type of prosecutorial actions appear Stalinist to me.
Like we want to make someone a criminal; so if we find the charge we start with will not work, because it is not true, then let's find some other way; just as long as at the end of the day we have a "conviction".
Lenin and Stalin would be proud of us.
Thanks again.
Later today or tonight, I am going to add material to my timeline from the links in your two posts.
I probably should not send the whole new thing in.
Maybe Jim can find a way to let me replace the original with a new one and then just give a new notice and link to it.
I am more cynical and maybe even more pessimistic about the Lame Stream Media than you are. My perception is that some in the LSM know many damaging parts of the Wilson lie timeline and would never intentionally point out that knowledge and recognition to anyone publicly, because they are as ideologically motivated as Joe Wilson and in agreement with his motivations.
Personally, my view is that if there was any "plan" and if Clinton had any role in it, it was just that, a role. I do not see him as an architect. Clinton is a public face for a lot of people that the public never sees and I think his major contribution is that public face, not as an architect.
To the American people, that is more important than asking when did Scooter Libby talk to Judith Miller and what did he tell her and why.
You make a very good point.
If Fitzgerald isn't going to get to the bottom of this affair, but is simply going to roil the surface, the American people are being ill-served.
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