What Plame's memo failed to mention is that Wilson was formerly married to a French diplomatic staffer, who some folks believe was actually an intellligence agent. Also, that Wilson was a business consultant on African affairs, and so might have had a conflict of interest.
Did the CIA ask him about any of these things?
My point is that if Plame recommended her husband, knowing that he had been formerly married to a French diplomat, knowing he was a business consultant on Africa, and probably knowing that he was a Democrat partisan, then maybe it doesn't surprise that she is radioactive at the CIA.
Thank You Much!! What's CPD??
1. What was the purpose of Joe Wilson's 1999 trip to Niger on behalf of the CIA?
2. What "business" was Joe Wilson doing in Niger in 1999? He wrote in his book that he was trying to set up a gold mining operation in Niger. Has that ever been verified? What's the only other export from Niger? Isn't it possible that Joe Wilson was in the uranium business himself, and had a vested interest in not finding that the Nigeriens had ever done business with Saddam Hussein?
3. Wilson went to Niger in early 2002, where he supposedly learned that there was no evidence that Saddam Hussein had ever attempted to purchase uranium there. Yet he never said a word about this clearly momentous "finding," until he spoke anonymously to Nicholas Kristof at the New York Times in May of 2003. Why did he sit on this information for over a year? Why did he say nothing even after President Bush mentioned Saddam seeking uranium in Africa in his State of the Union address? Why did he say nothing before or immediately after the invasion of Iraq?
4. Who put Joe Wilson in touch with Nicholas Kristof and Walter Pincus at the Washington Post?
5. Is there any connection between Joe Wilson signing on as a foreign policy adviser to the John Kerry for President campaign in April of 2003 and Wilson's sudden desire to blab about his trip to Niger?
Isn't it plausible that Joe Wilson really went to Niger on personal business? Isn't it plausible that Wilson's sudden "truth-telling" was, in fact, an orchestrated campaign of lies and distortions planned and executed by the Kerry campaign? Remember that Chris Lehane, who was Kerry's chief media adviser at the time, had a long and deserved reputation as a hatchet man who could get almost any kind of damaging story into print. Remember that Lehane got the New York Times to run a front page story on the RNC's "Rats" ad during the 2000 campaign. Lehane got the Bush DUI story and held it until 5 days before the election. It would have been a piece of cake for Lehane to trot Joe Wilson around to the WaPo and NYT to tell his fabricated story about his trip to Niger. Oh yeah, Lehane was rather unceremonously fired by the Kerry campaign later in 2003 -- perhaps when the campaign realized he had failed once again with one of his "sure-fire" campaigns to get President Bush? Following the 2004 election, he has disappeared. Wouldn't he have been a key "talking head" on the Libby indictment? Why has he appeared on no TV talk shows lately?
btw, hardly anyone ever points out that Valerie Pflame's own words "there's this crazy report" gives the game away: far from any unbiased inquiry, she made it clear to her hubby right from the start what the results of his inquiry were supposed to be, what her cabal in the CIA wanted him to say. It's amazing that he even reported the evidence that Niger HAD been approached for 'trade' with Iraq in an approach that the former minister took to be about uranium, and that he dares to continue to assert that he conclusively disproved the "16 words" in the SOU address when obviously he did nothing of the kind! He's not very bright, but he is effective as a shameless demagogue who is never restrained by facts or concern for accuracy.