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 The story is withdrawn from the CHB archives and Thompson writes a mea culpa -- Conned Big Time, Doug Thompson, Capitol Hill Blue, July 9, 2003.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...
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!
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.