Posted on 11/02/2005 9:54:29 AM PST by Dems_R_Losers
How could this story be BURIED by the MSM for two years?? This whole thing was a Kerry campaign plot! Wilson said N-O-T-H-I-N-G to anyone about his trip to Niger until he signed on with the Kerry campaign. The Kerry people make a very lame attempt in this story to spin that Wilson's "outrage" about Bush using the Niger story led him to Kerry - but if that's true, why was Wilson, clearly a fame-seeker, not pushing the story on his own as soon as the subject appeared in the State of the Union address? Wilson has NEVER been forced to answer this very simple question!
I believe that Joe Wilson clearly embellished his story to the Kerry camp, and Chris Lehane then shopped it to his pals at the NYT and WaPo. When these stories failed to ignite the media firestorm they hoped for, they decided to go public with Wilson in the NYT, knowing that then they could book him on all the TV talk shows and force the story onto the front pages.
It blew up in their faces with Novak's column, which outed Joe Wilson as a liar and fabulist. So Lehane then hatched the story that Karl Rove was behind a White House "conspiracy" to "out" Plame as punishment of Wilson's "whistleblowing." He thought he was going to nail his arch-nemesis, Karl Rove, right in the middle of the campaign! This was going to be his crowning political achievement at last. And all he had to do was dangle a future Secretary of State appointment at Joe Wilson to get him to play along. And have fellow Kerry strategist Mandy Grunwald get her husband to make the baiting phone call to Rove and get him on the record blabbing about Valerie Plame, then write his story about "the war on Wilson." By this time Lehane had already planted the info about Plame to so many reporters that none of them even knew where the information had come from. He was very good at this.
Unfortunately for Lehane and Wilson, Rove - in his own words - "didn't take the bait" when Cooper called him. But Cooper wrote the story anyway. And it was easy for Plame to get her superiors at the CIA to quickly ask for a Justice Department investigation of her "outing." Rove under investigation! What could be better in the middle of a campaign! He must resign! No Rove = Kerry wins!
Joe Wilson made a very high stakes gamble by going along with this plot. I believe he was suckered by Chris Lehane. He thought he would help Kerry win the election and he would be Secretary of State and a Democratic hero forever. When Kerry lost and Rove went nowhere he was facing oblivion. He had to keep the story going. He latched onto the Fitzgerald investigation as his last hope for continued relevance, fame, book sales, and huge speaking fees.
So Wilson's vendetta against Karl Rove continues. He has one shred of a chance left at permanent God status in liberal circles, and that is to nail Rove. Despite no indictment, no indication of one, and no evidence that Rove was even involved in any proactive discussion with reporters about him or his wife, Wilson seems determined to somehow bring him down. Last night he continued his campaign on Larry King, saying that he and Val went to the same church as Rove and his wife, so surely Rove knew who they were! Can you say "grasping at straws?"
I am also wondering why Chris Lehane has not been seen or heard of for months. A Google search on his name shows nothing since an ill-fated effort in late 2004 to do PR for Michael Moore. This guy was on TV all the time whenever there was something partisan being discussed. It's incredible that he has not appeared in any discussions of the Wilson/Plame affair since he was the top media guy for the Kerry campaign when Wilson's op-ed appeared, and he hates George Bush and Karl Rove. Now why would such a high-profile Democrat mouthpiece disappear?
Cement overshoes?
Pinging you to this, since you also believe the Kerry campaign was behind this whole thing. Here's the smoking gun!
Recall too that Kerry started talking about port security before that issue was public knowledge. We really dodged a bullet in 2002...
It is known through other articles that Wilson began work with the Kerry campaign before he wrote his NYTimes editorial. The MSM didn't push it because attention to it too obviously undermines Wilson's credibility.
But it was known.
How come Karl "the genius" Rove didn't push attention to it?
For over two years?
Because he isn't.
http://strata-sphere.com/blog/index.php/archives/category/uncategorized/
UPDATE:
Our Reader Lucky Bogey has found some possible confirmation of this theory here.
Highly-reliable sources within the Italian intelligence community have confirmed to this Service that the documents — subsequently demonstrated to have been forgeries — introduced by the US and UK governments showing a contact between the Nigerien and the Iraqi governments for the export of uranium were, in fact, produced by the Libyan Government. The documents were used in the State of the Union Address by US Pres. George W. Bush on January 28, 2003, and were widely interpreted as part of the casus belli underwhich the US-led Coalition attacked Iraq in March-April 2003.
…
Loftus: “I was told about this amazing wiretap where British Intelligence overheard a call from North Korea to Libya saying, ‘My god, if the Americans ever go into Iraq, they’re going to find out about our nuclear program. And who’s going to pay all the Iraqi nuclear scientists in Libya if Saddam falls?’”
Shawn: “You’re saying before the war there were Iraqi nuclear scientists working on a potential bomb in Libya before we launched this [war in Iraq]?”
This is a lot to get through, so more later
END UPDATE
Mac Ranger has been building a case that Joe Wilson’s relations to Niger and the need for him to get there in 2002 were due to some possible dubious CIA-Wilson activities. The details are here and here, but a quick overview is Wilson wanted to start his international trade company, playing on all his government contacts, and Val sent him to Niger in 1999 to get involved in something coordinated with some CIA dealings.
This was a bit of a jump for me so I was not posting on this yet. But I did trip over this interesting detail about the Niger documents - and who might want to make it look like Saddam was buying Uranium from Niger. The source, funny enough, come from this Bush-Cheney-Rumsfeld conspiracy theory posted at ex-CIA security agent Larry Johnson’s site. They led me to investigate the claim that the Financial Times had reported the source of the Niger documents claimed it was US and Italian governments which wanted the forgeries:
A French intelligence operation to safeguard Niger’s uranium industry and prevent weapons proliferation, inadvertently led to the forging of documents relating to an apparent clandestine uranium trade with Iraq, western intelligence officials say.
The operation, begun in 1999, reflected concern among several intelligence services that rogue states may have been trying to procure uranium. France was also concerned about the security of its own uranium supplies from Niger, as well as the security of the two French companies that control Niger’s uranium industry. Rocco Martino, an Italian businessman who has admitted that he has made a career out of “selling information”, has held regular meetings with French intelligence officials in Brussels since at least 1999.
Coincidentally, this is the same time Valerie got Joe his first gig to Niger to help start his fledgling business JC Wilson International Ventures (which this blogger sniffed out a while ago). But back to the Financial Times article - which provides clear proof these were not the work of the Bush administration:
According to senior intelligence officials, the forged documents were produced with the involvement of people familiar with Niger, and were created in 2000.
OK, either Bush knew he was going to win the election, 9-11 would happen and he would need one more marginal bit of information beyond the 1999 intel to make the case to go to war in Iraq…
Or the democrats are heading for a political disaster. Shhhh - no one tell them about this article! They just shut down the senate so they could bring up the forged Niger documents.
Anyway, back to the Wilsons. So the forger has this alibi
Mr Martino said the Italian foreign intelligence service, the SISMI, had forged the documents and had arranged for them to be passed to him by an official of Niger’s embassy in Rome.
Yeah, right. Which was what the ex-CIA nutcases were pointing at for proof the pentagon forged the documents (in 2000). BTW, it was the Niger Embassy in Rome which was broken into and had documents stolen which were the basis of the forgeries. Interesting how Martino picked that Niger embassy for his alibi.
Anyway, back to Mac Ranger. He believes we have an ex-diplomat trying to make money in 1998 and 1999, and one of his key market niches is doing business with Niger - which has one real product. And there are indications that the French are concerned about the uranium and whether it is being tracked correctly in 1999 as well. There is also Valerie, now working at a front company for the CIA with an abysmally weak cover (so international intelligence resources can confirm it is a cover easily?) which is charged with monitoring the trade in things like uranium…
If there needed to be forgeries in 1999 and 2000 to implicate Saddam, would they be to make the case for a war in 2003 or to divert attention to Saddam from some other destination and activity? Pre 9-11, pointing to Saddam as a buyer of missing uranium would mean covering your tracks and putting the hounds onto Saddam. So what could possibly need to be covered that the CIA knew about?
Let’s look at the Senate Iraq report for a possible clue [page 59]:
On November 25, 2002, The Naval [REDACTED] issued a very brief report {Alleged Storage of Uranium Destined for Iraq [REDACTED] that a large quantity of uranium from Niger was being stored in a warehouse in Cotonou, Benin. The uranium was reportedly sold to Iraq by Niger’s President. The report provided the name and telephone numbers for the individual, a West African businessman, who was responsible for coordinating the alleged uranium transaction and indicated that he was willing to provide information about the transaction. CIA’s DO told Committee staff that the businessman has never been contacted and the DO has not made an effort to determine whether this individual had any useful information. The DO told Committee staff that they saw no reason to contact him and noted that “no one even thought to do that.”
Let me try and remember again who was establishing a business of trade in Africa, specifically Niger? Ah, yes - Joe Wilson. And who was in Niger in early 2002? Joe Wilson. And all of a sudden this report comes into the CIA about uranium in a warehouse for Saddam, but the CIA never follows up. We are going to war, the VP is at the CIA asking questions – and a load of uranium in a warehouse is ‘misplaced’.
OK, if - and this is all speculation here folks - Wilson was assisting folks in Pakistan, Libya and the AQ Kahn network in acquiring uranium, and the French were getting close to finding the deal out - some forged documents in 1999 pointing to Saddam would throw them off the trail real nicely. And again, in 2002, when the forgeries were out and there was the build up to war, maybe Wilson went to Niger to establish another cover (shipments to Iraq) or do something else. It would explain why Wilson never gets agitated about the build up to the war until after December of 2002, when the uninvestigated lead shifts attention away from uranium shipments out of Niger and onto something heading to Iraq. The financial Times article gives the impression there were legitimate monitor and control concerns in 1999. That means there could have been something going on for real.
AQ Kahn was still in business in 2001 and 2002 - only to finally be shutdown in late 2003 and early 2004. Why did the CIA miss AQ Kahn for so many years? What was Valerie’s CPD group doing all this time? Was Niger uranium going to North Korea? And when things got dicey why wouldn’t these people pointed the finger at Saddam Hussein?
Is that why Valerie was pushing Wilson to go to Niger the minute the ‘crazy report’ and questions began hitting the CIA about Niger uranium?
He doesn’t want to talk about how the very day that Vice President Cheney’s office asked for more information on a report Saddam was trying to buy nuke bomb fuel from Niger, on that very day, Wilson’s wife wrote a note to her boss saying her husband — Wilson — would be perfect to go to Africa to investigate what she called “this crazy report.”
Was Wilson quiet about Niger forgeries until the coast was clear - and then got the idea to throw everybody of his trail by using them himself to bash Bush? Did a gullible press get used again?
Interesting theory. And absolutely nothing to back it up!
Now this: AJ. This was posted over at CQ this morning….
Defense & Foreign Affairs Daily, July 29, 2003
Niger-Iraq Uranium Reports Involve Ongoing Libyan Deception Ops
http://128.121.186.47/ISSA/reports/Iraq/Sep0804.htm
Highly-reliable sources within the Italian intelligence community have confirmed to this Service that the documents — subsequently demonstrated to have been forgeries — introduced by the US and UK governments showing a contact between the Nigerien and the Iraqi governments for the export of uranium were, in fact, produced by the Libyan Government. The documents were used in the State of the Union Address by US Pres. George W. Bush on January 28, 2003, and were widely interpreted as part of the casus belli underwhich the US-led Coalition attacked Iraq in March-April 2003…….
Loftus: “I was told about this amazing wiretap where British Intelligence overheard a call from North Korea to Libya saying, ‘My god, if the Americans ever go into Iraq, they’re going to find out about our nuclear program. And who’s going to pay all the Iraqi nuclear scientists in Libya if Saddam falls?’”
Shawn: “You’re saying before the war there were Iraqi nuclear scientists working on a potential bomb in Libya before we launched this [war in Iraq]?”
Loftus:”Yeah. This was a treaty signed by a man called Ali Sobree. He was the Foreign Minister of Iraq. And he went to [Libyan leader Mu’ammar al-] Qadhafi and they worked out a whole protocol. Qadhafi would donate a hollowed out mountain in Libya; Iraq would provide the nuclear scientists, and North Korea would provide the uranium……..
And This: AJ
DID YOU HIT A NERVE???
Larry C. Johnson just removed his blog!!!!!!!
I just searched, previous searches and they come up only cached in type
Left by mary mapes on November 2nd, 2005
The main site is all white . But the article about the Niger forgery that AJ linked is still there. Save it to your desktops ASAP
http://noquarter.typepad.com/my_weblog/2005/11/more_on_the_nig.html
All the information about Wilson’s business dealings is not a surprise to me. All you have do is read what this guy writes. He is so sanctimonious and hypocritical.
Ambassador Joseph Wilson reminds me of that Ambassador Joseph Davies we had in Moscow during Stalin. He never noticed the purges and the government-orchestrated famines because he was able to buy art the communists stole from the Czar, the churches and people at bargain-basement prices.
If Wilson turns out to be tied-in to the trafficking of uranium or to the forged documents, that’s going to be a real shocker.
Saddam bought lots of media, officials and politicans in other countries. I expect he had a few American turncoats in his pockets as well.
"two sides see politics"
Yeah, but only the Republican side is correct.
"At best, that's a really sloppily drafted sentence."
Yes, it is bad and I doubt Wilson told anyone about his wife's involvement. His ego demands his centrality and undiminished importance to his fantastical stories.
"Saddam bought lots of media, officials and politicans in other countries. I expect he had a few American turncoats in his pockets as well."
True, we haven't heard about any of Saddam's American oil voucher groupies yet.
"I expect he had a few American turncoats in his pockets as well."
Jack Kemp, for one.
Good research.
"he and Val went to the same church as Rove and his wife, so surely Rove knew who they were"
One of those people who goes to church for purely social and business reasons.
No religious reason at all, Wilson is scum! I know a bunch of real estate people like that!
I have had the exact same ideas as you about Joe Wilson possibly being involved himself in illicit uranium trafficking, and using his CIA trips to cover his tracks and warn his associates in Niger to start shredding the documents. I'm quite sure those trips were used more for Wilson's business than CIA business. That's why he had no intention of ever talking about them to anyone, until he hooked up with the Kerry campaign and they helped him see how he could concoct a fairy tale about his trips and make himself a household name. The truth about his real business dealings, if known, is surely highly classified to this day. And nobody who knows the truth will tell, because they wanted to nail Scooter Libby anyway and are enjoying the show. Wilson knows this and so he can keep spinning and making stuff up till the cows come home.
Didn't Novak say something to the effect that everyone would be quite surprised at who his source really was?
Maybe some of your contacts in Hollywood have some info on Chris Lehane - that's where he was last seen publicly, trying to spin for Michael Moore.
Check out Powerlinblog.com and read the LA Times Article.
My theory (#42)is that this was a collaborative effort by the French and CIA coordinated by Wilson. Jacqueline, (Joe's 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.
Therefore, Wilson did not lie when he said he saw the documents.
Per a thread by Fedora:
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 Niger 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.
What Wilson Didn’t Say About Africa
Also, Rocco only "procured" the documents, he did not forge them. Fitzgerald went to Italy to investigate the Niger Embassy (in Rome) burglary...where the letterhead and seals for the forgeries were stolen. Ex-CIA agent (and coincidentally, an advisor to the Vatican in Rome),Vincent Cannistraro has stated that Alan Wolf and Duane Clarridge were the actual forgers, but his account is the only one available that I can find on the subject. He has also pointed the finger at Michael Ledeen, but Ledeen has publicly made a statement that he had nothing to do with it and demanded an apology from Cannistraro.
In addition, despite what the MSM is reporting, the Italians released a press report yesterday saying they had nothing to do with the forgeries:
Italy denies role in fake documents on Iraq
This was also backed up by Rocco here
Cannistraro's "theory" falls apart when you consider that he:
1) blamed SISME (the Italians), which has proven to be wrong
2) bases his assumptions on a Dec 2001 Ledeen meeting, when Cannistraro himself was in Rome in Nov 2001, which would make him just as suspect.
I also discovered that Cannistraro worked directly with Clarridge during Iran Contra, so he has alot of nerve bringing that up in connection to Ledeen. Another interesting tidbit (#47) that I discovered is that Wolf and Clarridge worked with Aldrich Ames, who outed Plame to the Russians in the 90's. Coincidence? I think not. Cannistraro trying to kill two birds with one stone to cover his own carcass seems to be the more likely answer. Equally suspicious is the Hersch article, where Cannistraro and another unnamed agent state the exact route the documents took and Cannistraro actually admits that he called the CIA about the documents before they were proven to be false. This begs the question...just how did Cannistraro know about the documents before they were vetted? Sounds a whole lot like Wilson's slip-up about seeing the documents.
Hersch also claims in the above linked article:
Another explanation was provided by a former senior C.I.A. officer. He had begun talking to me about the Niger papers in March, when I first wrote about the forgery, and said, “Somebody deliberately let something false get in there.” He became more forthcoming in subsequent months, eventually saying that a small group of disgruntled retired C.I.A. clandestine operators had banded together in the late summer of last year and drafted the fraudulent documents themselves.A more reliable source, Joe diGenova claims it was a possible CIA coup as well. As does James Lewis in two articles, here and here
Two other names just crept into this...Niger Ambassador Adamou Chekou, who was in charge at the Embassy when the break-in and forgeries occurred and Wissam al-Zahawiah, Iraqi Ambassador to the Holy See. Seems Italian Intelligence was eavesdropping on these two and discovered their "hotline".
Did you read that carefully. Holy See? As in Vatican? Where Vincent Cannistraro is the security advisor?
Also take into consideration:
Wilson (as Ambassador to Gabon) had/has connections to the Gabon Chief of State, Omar Bongo, who was the chief African ally of the French oil company TotalFinaElf, a major beneficiary of the Oil-for-Food bribes. Prior to the Iraq War, they had a contract with Saddam's regime worth an estimated 12.5 to 27.0 billion barrels of oil reserves. Also he had connections via the Middle East Institute and Rock Creek, both of which are Saudi controlled.
Wilson's wife Jacqueline was also apparently a lobbyist for Bongo and it seems Wilson was pretty chummy with Saddam's weapons buyer, having dinner with him on the eve that Kuwait was invaded in 1990. She is now an advisor to Bongo, her picture from a 2005 conference can be found here That makes it very clear that there are connections to oil-for-food. No wonder Wilson can afford his lifestyle.
..anybody check Fort Marcy Park?
Doogle
This is not about that.
This is about the CIA, and one particular area of the CIA, being out to lunch, for years.
From the Robb-Silberman report...
In March 2001, intelligence reporting indicated that Iraq was seeking high-strength tubes made of 7075 T6 aluminum alloy. 24 The Intelligence Community obtained samples of the tubes when a shipment bound for Iraq was seized overseas . 25
At this point, a debate began within the Intelligence Community about the reason why Iraq had procured the tubes. The CIA assessed that the tubes were most likely for gas centrifuges for enriching uranium and believed that the tubes provided compelling evidence that Iraq had renewed its gas centrifuge uranium enrichment program. 26 CIA subsequently identified possible non-nuclear applications for the tubes, 27 but continued to judge that the tubes were destined for use in Iraqi gas centrifuges 28 --even while acknowledging that the Intelligence Community had very little information on Iraq's WMD programs to corroborate this assessment. 29
32 The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) agreed with DOE's assessment, concluding that the tubes were usable in a gas centrifuge application but that they were not directly suited to that use. 33
Despite this disagreement, the CIA informed senior policymakers that it believed the tubes were destined for use in Iraqi gas centrifuges. 34 While noting that there was disagreement within the Intelligence Community concerning the most likely use for the tubes, the CIA pointed out that there was also interagency consensus that the tubes could be used for centrifuge enrichment. 35 This consensus on capability led many analysts at both CIA and DIA to think that the tubes supplied the evidence that Iraq was starting to "reconstitute" its nuclear program. 36
In the months before the October 2002 NIE, the CIA continued to assess that the tubes were intended for use in gas centrifuges, albeit with slight variations in the strength of that formulation, pointing out that Iraq's interest in the tubes was "key" to the assessment that Iraq was "reconstituting its centrifuge program." 40 CIA presented this view in an Intelligence Assessment, entitled Iraq's Hunt for Aluminum Tubes: Evidence of a Renewed Uranium Enrichment Program, in which CIA concluded that the aluminum tubes "are most likely for gas centrifuges for enriching uranium" and that Iraq's pursuit of such tubes provided "compelling evidence that Iraq has renewed its gas centrifuge uranium enrichment program." 41 The assessment noted that "some" in the Intelligence Community believed conventional armament applications, such as multiple rocket launchers, were "more likely end-uses," but the assessment noted that NGIC, the "national experts on conventional military systems," had found such uses "highly unlikely." 42 At the same time, DOE disseminated a separate assessment arguing that, while the tubes could be modified for use as centrifuge rotors, "other conventional military uses [we]re more plausible."
At CIA, those responsible would be the CPD. COunter Proliferations Divisions. Valerie Plame et al... The Very intel that Wilson is saying Bush/Cheney exaggerated, came across his wifes desk.
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