Posted on 11/01/2005 11:29:35 AM PST by kedshouse
Something is very rotten, and mostly unreported in the Wilson/Plame leak case. Stephen Hayes has written three very fine articles about Joe Wilson, his lack of credibility and the CIA's hypocrisy and what would seem obvious role in the leak investigation. http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/006/281pokap.asp http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/006/266weygj.asp http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/006/244chpdw.asp
Now, to what's rotten: Before we all move on or get too narrowly focused, and I know it's not part of the indictment, however, two aspects of the whole affair (which I think are critically important) that have gotten short shrift by all reporters are these:
1. Why was there no written report from Wilson upon his return from Niger, only an oral debriefing? Is this (can this be) standard operating procedure? Only the debriefers notes evidently were somewhat passed up the chain.
Reporters should have been asking or at least reporting: 1. Is this CIA standard practice on what was apparently a serious matter? 2. How often does the CIA send someone on a fact finding mission and not require written observations? This type of sloppy procedure should have set off alarm bells that something was afoot!
2. Why and how often does the CIA send anyone on a "fact-finding" mission and not require some sort of written non-disclosure agreement? Wouldn't this type of trip have been classified? Per the narrative in the Senate Intelligence Committee report, although the matters themselves were classified (the whole Iraq/Niger potential relationship), the CIA assured Wilson it would keep his role (working for it) secret, yet the CIA did not require that Wilson sign non-disclosure, confidentiality agreements. How does this make any sense!: The area of interest is classified, we will keep your involvement with us secret, but you are free, evidently, to talk and write about the classified issues and your involvement with us! And nobody in the oh so vaunted media picks up on this? In whose world does this make any sense!
Are we to assume that the lead foreign intelligence agency, the CIA, requires no written documentation of its agents and representatives, when dealing with foreign nations? In a town like DC where it appears every little meeting and phone conversation is written down, how is this possible? How can anyone else independently verify an oral report?
Or does that give the game away? A written report can't be used against someone, so his verbal statements can fluctuate depending on circumstances at his choosing.
These questions get to the heart of the Wilson trip and its intent and suggest that from the CIA's perspective the Wilson trip and his willingness to talk about it and lie about it fit the CIA's bill: point the fingers away from the CIA (where they most definitely were in 2001 and 2002) and at anyone else ... the WH was as good as anyone else.
This is the real story, because if this shoddiness and rogue behavior is the rule and not the exception for the CIA, it should be disbanded! Every thing else is a deliberate political misdirection!
The UN was pissed that we took it out of Iraq and didn't get their permission. I can't remember if they had already run out of Iraq with their tails between their legs at that point.
Great points. The specific factual question that Porter Goss and John Negroponte should have asked long before now, the answer to which MUST be made public is this:
How many times in the past decade (or ever) has the CIA sent a non-employee on such a highly sensitive 'mission' with no non-disclosure signed, no written report submitted, and no agency control over the public dissemination of the supposed 'findings' of that mission???
I'd be willing to bet a healthy sum that nothing like it has ever happened before.... if the CIA has done any other informal missions with non-employees I'll bet they were very tightly controlled, but it's seriously doubtful that the CIA has ever operated in this way. Everything about Joe Wilson's mission stinks......
I believe this happened, but how do we get it exposed? Why is it that 5 years into a Republican presidency, with (nominal) Republican majorities in both houses of Congress, we cannot drag sordid scandals like the political subversion of our intel agenices into the sunlight?????
bookmark bump
I believe this was the 1999 trip. Wilson was going to Niger on personal business.
The trip now in question was Feb. 2002.
Correct me if I am wrong.
I'm new here and I'm trying to get up to speed on this topic. I found this link and this quote attributed to Wilson.
http://uspolitics.about.com/od/politicalcommentary/a/plame_timeline.htm
"Though I did not file a written report, there should be at least four documents in United States government archives confirming my mission. The documents should include the ambassador's report of my debriefing in Niamey, a separate report written by the embassy staff, a C.I.A. report summing up my trip, and a specific answer from the agency to the office of the vice president (this may have been delivered orally). While I have not seen any of these reports, I have spent enough time in government to know that this is standard operating procedure."
Is anyone aware of any of these reports being made public?
Paraphrased: 'The media didn't pick up on this?'
I'm sure they did, but it doesn't fit into their agenda of selling fear to keep the viewer glued to the TV.
Recall the so called "scandal" of Bush leaving the military before his end of active service? It's because he accrued leave days and didn't take vacation until the end of his commitment. The military calls it "terminal leave". Just about every serviceman leaving the military knows about it. Why didn't the public have this SCREAMING IN THEIR FACES from the media from the beginning?
There was nothing to educate the rest of the public with what almost every former military man and woman knows. If any of the media ENTERTAINERS had told the public from the beginning, then the entire story would have deflated and disappeared. Instead the freakin' dog and pony show dragged on and on.
Not even conservative media or blogs punctuated this simple fact. I even informed FOX news about terminal leave...no response. Here's an idea for improving the most watched news network: stick to headline news and then give regular "media watch" explanations. For example: first 15 minutes of the top of the hour and half hour is breaking and top news stories; next 10 minutes explain why CNN, MSNBC, CSB, and other leftist channels and liberal rags have are all wrong about communist socialism, homosexuality, abortion, etc.; last 5 minutes show how the local fireman saves a cat out of a tree. Most of the FOX studs and studettes already do this, but why is it taking so long for them to unravel the bull?
It's a big chain and attention starved studios are pulling as hard as they can to keep us enslaved to their shrilled voices of fear, anxiety, urgency, sense of doom and gloom...GLOOM AND DOOM!
So, yeah, Joe Wilson...a nobody of an intelligence asset goes all the way over to Africa to play an American double "o" agent...and the media doesn't pick up on it? The lack of professionalism and ZERO protocol of his reporting? But if they did that from the beginning, there would have never been a story from the start! How does the public think these guys stay in business?
THEY'RE ONLY REPORTING EACH OTHER'S GOSSIP!
And another thing...the Cold War has long since been over. Those politicized CIA agents trying to effect an election must have gotten rusty, or they were newbies with no real heavy hitting challenges. But hey, it was the 90s! The president hits the bong and it's cool to be a slob. Seems like they played a covert smear campaign that rates only a 3rd world level of quality. Maybe that sort of effort would have worked against a nation on a different continent, but I doubt it would even have worked in this Hemisphere. People are much more sophisticated and can easily see through such a blithering barrage of bull squat. Still, even a child can sense danger, and these leftists clowns come straight out of a Steven King novel.
As far removed from the rest of the industrialized world they were, the Russians knew that the ruling Soviets were mere intellectually lazy thugs. The unfortunate situation for Russians is that the Soviets were horrendously well armed thugs with a network of terror and an evil will to enforce their culture of death. We've got similarly poisoned intellectual enemies on our own soil. Their oppression ended when Clinton left office. The culture of death should never be given power again.
So now "Scooter" is facing an indictment because of an interview he screwed up? What is this? Did he forget to say "excuse me" after he burped or something? Whatever crap is thrown at Libby will be catapulted right back into the liberal leftists' faces. Not even a decade ago we had an admitted pot smoking president who perjured himself in front of Congress and lived up to his Billy "BJ" initials with his wife in shouting distance. Where do Democrats and the media think this "scandal" is going to go?
Yes, this is definitely all about Cheney and the neocons. It's an organized disinformation campaign cooked up by Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, VIPS, to make sure Cheney and the neocons wouldn't be back at the White House. It's a very pro-Palestinian group of people who feel Cheney and friends orchestrated the Iraq war to secure Israel.
All the quotes coming out in the past three years from former intelligence professionals from various agencies--all the same people. The Wilsons are associated with that group. He started by doing what everyone else in the group was doing--providing anonymous sourcing for quotes alleging cooked intelligence and pressure from the VP to cook it.
The SOTU claim was never based on the Niger documents. But the administration was in a tough spot to defend itself because it was based on intelligence they weren't supposed to have seen--intelligence held by the UK from a third party that wouldn't give authorization for us to see it. Supposedly, we did see it, that's what the claim was based on, but we couldn't say so when Wilson came out with his Niger op-ed.
Your points about the media are right on the mark. It strikes me that, in many cases, the media either deliberatly leaves out facts inconvenient to their agenda or doesn't have enough intelligence to understand the depths of most subjects. Couple that with the fact that most of the media is lazy; they'll take a story presented to them, they won't invest the leg work to get it.
About the only newsmen who attempt to fill out stories with what most have left out are Brit Hume and John Gibson (occasionally Major Garrett, particularly re: New Orleans)
It strikes me that if news reporters spent only an hour a day surfing reputable blog sights, the quality of their broadcasts (assuming that matters) would improve measurably. However, my sense is that many rely on staffers and producers to filter e-mails and to gather the news for short 5 minute segments.
As is readily seen by reading the Stephen Hayes articles, to name only a few, a fuller more meaningful account of the Wilson/Niger business is out there. Sadly, few are apparently interested in breaking away from the herd and choose to believe the spin lines that most swallow.
Unfortunately, most Congressman I've seen have no better of an understanding than the reporters (Peter King of NY is the notable exception) which is why it is discouraging to watch them flounder on shows such as Hardball.
Not too long ago, Bubba said: (In my own words):If they could get rid of Rove, they could get the Whitehouse back.
Did Wilson join the Kerry campaign in 2003 or 2004? Was he associated with the campaign when he first started leaking his Niger story to reporters? Is that when it started? About a year passed between his trip and when his story got into the press, and I'm wondering if that coincided with his joining the Kerry campaign.
Here is my question:
Is it standard practice for the CIA to accept without question a wife's nomination of her husband to investigate national security claims?
What were Joe's special qualifications? Did anyone look for a better qualified alternative? If a CIA employee recommends his wife be hired for CIA work, doesn't anyone worry about the husband's bias?
I know if I recommended my wife for a job, folks would scutinize her qualifications pretty carefully.
My local newspaper the Santa Maria Times, had a timeline for all this and the first entry went something like this:
Feb 2002
The Bush Administration asks Joseph Wilson to travel to Niger to investigate the purchase of uranium by Saddam Hussien.
No one is disputing that; the side issue is whether Wilson had already planned a business trip to Niger, and that the uranium investigation was an add-on at the suggestion of his wife.
ON THE 11th, Cooper called Rove's office and was able to bypass Rove's phone log by calling the Whitehouse and having the call transferred.
How come no one else called the Whitehouse when it hit the wire on the 11th?? OR did Cooper's call come before it hit the wire? I wonder where Cooper was calling from?
Anyways, after Valerie was supposedly outed, Kerry added the outing to his campagin. Wilson remained on Kerry's campaign until July 27+-of 2004. Why he was let go then, I don't know. Berger's "firing" from the Kerry campaign had occurred only a few days before.
By the way, I believe Berger's first burglary occurred May or June of 2003.
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