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Opportunity

The evidence considered so far verifies that:

1) With respect to motive, Wilson explicitly expressed an intent, motivated by disagreement over Middle Eastern and Iraq policy, to use the Niger forgery controversy to bring about Bush’s impeachment as well as Tony Blair’s downfall; and

2) With respect to means, Wilson had potential access to information from inside sources about the Niger forgeries, as well as actual access to media outlets to publicize this information.

Did Wilson also have actual opportunity to channel inside information? Data which help answer this question has already been assembled in the course of prior discussion, but it remains to address the question directly, and to address Wilson’s alibi.

1. Wilson’s original story before July 6, 2003

A review of Wilson’s statements prior to his July 6, 2003 New York Times article reveals no less than six occasions where Wilson or someone quoting him stated or implied he had inside knowledge of the Niger forgeries:

1) In his interview comments prompted by CNN’s David Ensor on March 8, 2003 (six days before Ensor interviewed VIPS’ Ray Close):

. . .I think it's safe to say that the U.S. government should have or did know that this report was a fake before Dr. ElBaradei mentioned it in his report at the U.N. yesterday.²⁰⁸

Wilson’s later recollection of these comments and their context is also worth repeating:

David Ensor, a CNN national security reporter, happened by. He was looking at the story with an eye out for the perpetrators of the forgeries and asked me what I knew about the Niger uranium business. . .

I told Ensor that I would be helpful in his efforts to ferret out the truth, and offered to answer a question or two on the air and to provide leads to him. While I was not willing at that stage to disclose my own involvement, it was not a difficult decision to make, to point others in the right direction. The essential information--the forged documents--was already in the public domain; the State Department spokesman had purposely deceived the public in his response, or else he himself had been deceived. Whichever the case, in my mind it was essential that the record be corrected.

When I went on the air, the CNN newscaster, prompted by Ensor, asked me about the “We fell for it” line. I replied that if the U.S. government checked its files, it would, I believed, discover that it knew more about the case than the spokesman was letting on.²⁰⁹

2) In comments quoted by Nicholas Kristof in the New York Times on May 6, 2003 (an article also referencing Seymour Hersh’s “Who Lied to Whom?” and quoting VIPS’ Patrick Lang):

I'm told by a person involved in the Niger caper that more than a year ago the vice president's office asked for an investigation of the uranium deal, so a former U.S. ambassador to Africa was dispatched to Niger. In February 2002, according to someone present at the meetings, that envoy reported to the C.I.A. and State Department that the information was unequivocally wrong and that the documents had been forged.

The envoy reported, for example, that a Niger minister whose signature was on one of the documents had in fact been out of office for more than a decade. In addition, the Niger mining program was structured so that the uranium diversion had been impossible. The envoy's debunking of the forgery was passed around the administration and seemed to be accepted--except that President Bush and the State Department kept citing it anyway.²¹⁰

3) In comments quoted by Walter Pincus in the Washington Post on June 12, 2003 and echoed in articles by Pincus on June 13 and June 22. Pincus reported on June 12:

Armed with information purportedly showing that Iraqi officials had been seeking to buy uranium in Niger one or two years earlier, the CIA in early February 2002 dispatched a retired U.S. ambassador to the country to investigate the claims, according to the senior U.S. officials and the former government official, who is familiar with the event. The sources spoke on condition of anonymity and on condition that the name of the former ambassador not be disclosed.

During his trip, the CIA's envoy spoke with the president of Niger and other Niger officials mentioned as being involved in the Iraqi effort, some of whose signatures purportedly appeared on the documents.

After returning to the United States, the envoy reported to the CIA that the uranium-purchase story was false, the sources said. Among the envoy's conclusions was that the documents may have been forged because the "dates were wrong and the names were wrong," the former U.S. government official said.

However, the CIA did not include details of the former ambassador's report and his identity as the source, which would have added to the credibility of his findings, in its intelligence reports that were shared with other government agencies. Instead, the CIA only said that Niger government officials had denied the attempted deal had taken place, a senior administration said.

"This gent made a visit to the region and chatted up his friends," a senior intelligence official said, describing the agency's view of the mission. "He relayed back to us that they said it was not true and that he believed them."

²¹¹

On June 22 Pincus said similarly:

Similar questions have been raised about Bush's statement in his State of the Union address last January that the British had reported Iraq was attempting to buy uranium in Africa, which the president used to back up his assertion that Iraq had a reconstituted nuclear weapons program. In that case, senior U.S. officials said, the CIA 10 months earlier sent a former senior American diplomat to visit Niger who reported that country's officials said they had not made any agreement to aid the sale of uranium to Iraq and indicated documents alleging that were forged.

²¹²

4) In his lecture to the EPIC Iraq Forum on June 14, 2003:

. . .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. . . [T]he administration was very careful about only talking, on the forgery, only talking at the Presidential level about uranium sales from Africa, until such time as it came out that they were talking about Niger, and then that was subsequently denied by the State Department, it was difficult to sort of make the case, although I think some of the people inside could have probably talked about it a little bit more openly ahead of time.²¹³

5) In comments quoted by John Judis and Spencer Ackerman in a New Republic article posted online June 19, 2003 and dated June 30, 2003:

One year earlier, Cheney's office had received from the British, via the Italians, documents purporting to show Iraq's purchase of uranium from Niger. Cheney had given the information to the CIA, which in turn asked a prominent diplomat, who had served as ambassador to three African countries, to investigate. He returned after a visit to Niger in February 2002 and reported to the State Department and the CIA that the documents were forgeries. The CIA circulated the ambassador's report to the vice president's office, the ambassador confirms to TNR. But, after a British dossier was released in September detailing the purported uranium purchase, administration officials began citing it anyway, culminating in its inclusion in the State of the Union. "They knew the Niger story was a flat-out lie," the former ambassador tells TNR. "They were unpersuasive about aluminum tubes and added this to make their case more persuasive."

. . .After a few weeks of traveling back and forth between Baghdad and Vienna, Baute sat down with the dozen or so pages of U.S. intelligence on Saddam's supposed nuclear procurements--the aluminum tubes, the Niger uranium, and the magnets. In the course of a day, Baute determined, like the ambassador before him, that the Niger document was fraudulent.²¹⁴

6) In comments quoted by Andrew Buncombe and Raymond Whitaker in the Independent on June 29, 2003:

The retired US ambassador said it was all but impossible that British intelligence had not received his report--drawn up by the CIA--which revealed that documents, purporting to show a deal between Iraq and the west African state of Niger, were forgeries. . .

. . . in his first interview on the issue, the former US diplomat told The Independent on Sunday: "It is hard for me to fathom, that as close as we are and [while] preparing for a war based on [claims about] weapons of mass destruction, that we did not share intelligence of this nature."

Asked if he felt his findings had been ignored for political reasons, he added: "It's an easy conclusion to draw." Though the official's identity is well-known in Washington--he was on the National Security Council under President Clinton--he asked that his name be withheld at this stage. . .

In February 2002, the former diplomat--who had served as an ambassador in Africa--was approached by the CIA to carry out a "discreet" task: to investigate if it was possible that Iraq was buying uranium from Niger. He said the CIA had been asked to find out in a direct request from the office of the Vice-President, Dick Cheney.

During eight days in Niger he discovered it was impossible for Iraq to have been buying the quantities of uranium alleged. "My report was very unequivocal," he said. He also learnt that the signatures of officials vital to any transaction were missing from the documents.

On his return he was debriefed by the CIA. One senior CIA official has told reporters the agency's findings were distributed to the Defence Intelligence Agency, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Justice Department, the FBI and the office of the Vice President on the same day in early March.

²¹⁵

Up through the June 29 Independent article, Wilson’s story consistently depicted him exposing the Niger documents as forgeries upon his return from his February 2002 trip, and Wilson consistently gave the impression he had inside knowledge that the government knew the documents were forgeries from that time. This impression was conveyed not only by inferences but also by direction quotations, such as Pincus’ quotation of Wilson saying that the "dates were wrong and the names were wrong", as reported in an article Wilson referenced in his June 14, 2003 EPIC lecture by alluding to “that American ambassador who has been cited in reports in the New York Times and in the Washington Post”.

2. How Wilson’s (and Pincus’) story changed after July 6, 2003

However, starting July 6, 2003, Wilson changed his story, now emphasizing that he never saw the Niger forgeries at the time of his February 2002 trip. His own New York Times article published that day mentioned:

In February 2002, I was informed by officials at the Central Intelligence Agency that Vice President Dick Cheney's office had questions about a particular intelligence report. While I never saw the report, I was told that it referred to a memorandum of agreement that documented the sale of uranium yellowcake--a form of lightly processed ore--by Niger to Iraq in the late 1990's. . .

(As for the actual memorandum, I never saw it. But news accounts have pointed out that the documents had glaring errors--they were signed, for example, by officials who were no longer in government--and were probably forged. And then there's the fact that Niger formally denied the charges.)

²¹⁶

Walter Pincus and his coauthor Richard Leiby kept step with Wilson’s about-face in a Washington Post article published the same day:

A senior administration official said yesterday that Wilson's mission originated within the CIA's clandestine service after Cheney aides raised questions during a briefing. "It was not orchestrated by the vice president," the official said. He added that it was reported in a routine way, did not mention Wilson's name and did not say anything about forgeries.

Wilson has been interviewed recently by the House and Senate intelligence committees, which are expected to focus on who in the National Security Council and the vice president's office had access to a CIA cable, sent March 9, 2002, that did not name Wilson but said Niger officials had denied the allegations.

Wilson said he went to Niger skeptical, knowing that the structure of the uranium industry--controlled by a consortium of French, Spanish, German and Japanese firms--made it highly unlikely that anyone would officially deal with Iraq because of U.N. sanctions. Wilson never saw the disputed documents but talked with officials whose signatures would have been required and concluded the allegations were almost certainly false.

²¹⁷

Wilson likewise told Andrea Mitchell that day:

When I came back from Niger, and debriefed, I had not, of course, seen the documents, but one of the points that I made was if these documents did not contain certain signatures--specifically, the signature of the Minister of Energy and mine and the prime minister--then they could not be authentic.

²¹⁸

Wilson later added in a letter to the Senate Select Intelligence Committee that he forwarded to a website for posting:

The first time I actually saw what were represented as the documents was when Andrea Mitchell, the NBC correspondent, handed them to me in an interview on July 21. I was not wearing my glasses and could not read them. I have to this day not read them. I would have absolutely no reason to claim to have done so. My mission was to look into whether such a transaction took place or could take place. It had not and could not. By definition that makes the documents bogus.

²¹⁹

3. Wilson’s dilemma

Why did Wilson change his story after July 6, 2003 to emphasize that he never saw the forgeries at the time of his Niger trip? As Pincus and Leiby mention, by July 6 Wilson had testified to the House and Senate intelligence committees, which had opened hearings the week of June 15 that Pincus had been following.²²⁰ When the Senate committee later reviewed prewar intelligence on Iraq, they asked Wilson about a discrepancy they had found between his public statements and their own investigation of government witnesses and documents, which indicated that not only did Wilson’s original report on his February 2002 Niger trip not mention anything about forgeries, but the US government did not even have the forgeries at that time, since Rocco Martino would not pass them on until October 2002. The body of the Senate’s report summarized Wilson’s response to this when questioned:

The former ambassador also told Committee staff that he was the source of a Washington Post article ("CIA Did Not Share Doubt on Iraq Data; Bush Used Report of Uranium Bid," June 12,2003) which said, "among the Envoy’s conclusions was that the documents may have been forged because ‘the dates were wrong and the names were wrong.'" Committee staff asked how the former ambassador could have come to the conclusion that the "dates were wrong and the names were wrong" when he had never seen the CIA reports and had no knowledge of what names and dates were in the reports. The former ambassador said that he may have "misspoken" to the reporter when he said he concluded the documents were "forged." He also said he may have become confused about his own recollection after the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported in March 2003 that the names and dates on the documents were not correct and may have thought he had seen the names himself. The former ambassador reiterated that he had been able to collect the names of the government officials which should have been on the documents.²²¹

Additional comments attached to the Senate report by its Republican members because the Democrats on the Intelligence Committee would not allow them in the body of the report elaborated:

Conclusion: Rather than speaking publicly about his actual experiences during his inquiry of the Niger issue, the former ambassador seems to have included information he learned from press accounts and from his beliefs about how the Intelligence Community would have or should have handled the information he provided.

At the time the former ambassador traveled to Niger, the intelligence community did not have in its possession any actual documents on the alleged Niger-Iraq uranium deal, only second hand reporting of the deal. The former ambassador’s comments to reporters that the Niger-Iraq uranium documents “may have been forged because ‘the dates were wrong and the names were wrong,’” could not have been based on the former ambassador’s actual experiences because the Intelligence Community did not have the documents at the time of the ambassador’s trip. In addition, nothing in the report from the former ambassador’s trip said anything about documents having been forged or the names or dates in the reports having been incorrect. . .Of note, the names and dates in the documents that the IAEA found to be incorrect were not names or dates included in the CIA reports. . .

These and other public comments from the former ambassador, such as his comments that his report “debunked” the Niger-Iraq uranium story, were incorrect and have led to a distortion in the press and in the public’s understanding of the facts surrounding the Niger-Iraq uranium story.²²²

4. Wilson’s alibi(s)

Wilson and his defenders have used several strategies to try to deflect criticisms raised by the Senate committee’s findings. Their counterarguments will now be considered.

Wilson’s supporter Joshua Marshall has tried to defend him by challenging the Senate committee’s findings, as well as the similar findings of Britain’s Butler Report.²²³ Marshall argues that British and US intelligence had received a summary of Martino’s forgeries from Italian intelligence by early 2002. To support this argument Marshall cites an article by Dana Priest and Karen DeYoung mentioning a “written summary” of the Niger forgeries.²²⁴ He equates this “written summary” with the first of a pair of reports British intelligence received in June 2002 and September 2002, mentioned in Parliamentary inquiry published before the Butler Report.²²⁵ He asserts that this “written summary” was “the same summary the Italians had earlier provided to the Americans, which the CIA used to brief Joe Wilson before they sent him off to Niger”.

Marshall seems to be assuming that the forgeries Martino passed on to Elisabetta Burba in October 2002 are identical to documents he had passed on to various intelligence agencies earlier, which is not clear, since it is known that he passed on more than one set of documents at different times to different parties, and likewise, that US intelligence received several different reports about alleged Iraq-Niger interaction, some more detailed than others, and not all based on Martino’s information. But this unsubstantiated assumption is not the most serious flaw in Martino’s argument. A bigger problem is that his theory does not attempt to explain how Wilson was briefed before his February 2002 trip on a written summary that, according to the Parlimentary inquiry Marshall cites, would not be received by British intelligence until June 2002. But even this is not the biggest problem with Marshall’s argument. The fatal flaw in his argument is that in the process of making it, he overlooks the evidence of the Priest and DeYoung article he links as his reference on the “written summary”. The article states:

U.S. intelligence officials said they had not even seen the actual evidence, consisting of supposed government documents from Niger, until last month. The source of their information, and their doubts, officials said, was a written summary provided more than six months ago by the Italian intelligence service, which first obtained the documents.²²⁶

This article is dated March 22, 2003, so “more than six months ago” means around September 22, 2002. Therefore this is not a reference to a document used to brief Wilson before his February 2002 trip. So Marshall’s defense does not get Wilson off the hook.

Wilson’s own self-defense while standing before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence took a meeker stance than Marshall’s attack on the SSCI’s facts. Instead Wilson suggested that perhaps he had confused his memory of his Niger trip with information that had become public knowledge after ElBaradei’s March 8, 2003 announcement, and perhaps he had misspoken to Pincus when he said he had concluded the documents were forged after his Niger trip. According to this defense, the fault lies with Wilson’s memory and his choice of words when speaking to reporters.

This sounds plausible in the abstract, but in the concrete it does not hold up against the actual evidence of government documents related to Wilson’s trip and his own statements to reporters. Wilson’s memory might be plausibly blamed if what he told reporters only diverged from the facts by miscellaneous errors of detail that could be traced to media reports, but in fact what he said was made up from whole cloth and cannot be explained by memory confusing his experience what the media was reporting.

Wilson was not sent to Niger because of any suspicions of forged documents raised by names and dates. Such suspicions could have been checked from public records without sending anyone to Niger, just as the IAEA later checked the forgeries with Google, and in fact all names mentioned in the intelligence at issue had already been checked out before Wilson was sent:

On February 18,2002, the embassy in Niger disseminated a cable which reported that the alleged Iraq-Niger uranium deal “provides sufficient detail to warrant another hard look at Niger’s uranium sales. The names of GON [government of Niger] officials cited in the report track closely with those we know to be in those, or closely-related positions. However, the purported 4,000-ton annual production listed is fully 1,000 tons more than the mining companies claim to have produced in 2001.”. . .The cable concluded that despite previous assurances from Nigerien officials that no uranium would be sold to rogue nations, “we should not dismiss out of hand the possibility that some scheme could be, or has been, underway to supply Iraq with yellowcake from here.” The cable also suggested raising the issue with the French, who control the uranium mines in Niger, despite France’s solid assurances that no uranium could be diverted to rogue states.

²²⁷

What prompted US intelligence to check into the report Wilson was sent to investigate was not names and dates. What was at issue were political and logistical considerations, due to the amount of uranium reported and the likelihood that such an increase in production would require the complicity of a French-controlled mining consortium and Nigerien government officials, and also due to the risk Iraq faced of being caught:

At the time, all IC analysts interviewed by Committee staff considered this initial report to be very limited and lacking needed detail. CIA, Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and Department of Energy (DOE) analysts considered the reporting to be "possible" while the Department of State’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) regarded the report as "highly suspect," primarily because INR analysts did not believe that Niger would be likely to engage in such a transaction and did not believe Niger would be able to transfer uranium to Iraq because a French consortium maintained control of the Nigerien uranium industry. . .

IC analysts at the CIA and the DIA were more impressed with the detail and substance of the second report. One analyst noted that the report provided much more information than they had seen previously in similar reporting about alleged uranium transactions to other countries. INR analysts continued to doubt the accuracy of the reporting, again because they thought Niger would be unwilling and unable to sell uranium to Iraq and because they thought Iraq would be unlikely to risk such a transaction when they were "bound to be caught.’’

²²⁸

Thus Wilson was not sent to check into any names and dates. Accordingly before he left for Niger his CIA briefing did not cover any suspect names and dates he was supposed to check into:

On February 20,2002, CPD provided the former ambassador with talking points for his use with contacts in Niger. The talking points were general, asking officials if Niger had been approached, conducted discussions, or entered into any agreements concerning uranium transfers with any "countries of concern" [1/2 line deleted]. The talking points also focused on whether any uranium might be missing from Niger or might have been transferred and asked how Niger accounts for all of its uranium each year. The talking points did not refer to the specific reporting on the alleged Iraq-Niger uranium deal, did not mention names or dates from the reporting, and did not mention that there was any such deal being reported in intelligence channels. ²²⁹

Likewise Wilson’s report back to the CIA upon his return did not discuss any forgeries or suspect names or dates:

. . .nothing in the report from the former ambassador’s trip said anything about documents having been forged or the names or dates in the reports having been incorrect. . . ²³⁰

So it is not as if there were any suspect documents, names, or dates involved in Wilson’s trip that his memory could have mixed up with what was reported after ElBaradei’s announcement. Bad memory does not explain why Wilson told CNN a day after ElBaradei’s statement, before there had been any significant reporting for his memory to get confused about, “I think it's safe to say that the U.S. government should have or did know that this report was a fake before Dr. ElBaradei mentioned it in his report at the U.N. yesterday.” It does not explain why Nicholas Kristof reported Wilson saying, “The envoy reported, for example, that a Niger minister whose signature was on one of the documents had in fact been out of office for more than a decade.” It does not explain why Walter Pincus quoted him saying, “the ‘dates were wrong and the names were wrong,’ the former U.S. government official said.” It does not explain why John Judis and Spencer Ackerman reported after interviewing him, “He returned after a visit to Niger in February 2002 and reported to the State Department and the CIA that the documents were forgeries.” It does not explain why Andrew Buncombe and Raymond Whitaker reported after interviewing him, “The retired US ambassador said it was all but impossible that British intelligence had not received his report. . .which revealed that documents. . .were forgeries. . . He also learnt that the signatures of officials vital to any transaction were missing from the documents.” Bad memory does not get Wilson off the hook, either. If he embellished his memories of his actual experience with information he had picked up from the news or other sources, it was not a result of bad memory.

Wilson’s defense that he “misspoke” does not work, either. No one “misspeaks” the same story to four different newspapers over a two-month period.

Away from the scrutiny of Senate cross-examination, Wilson has taken a more aggressive defense, accusing the reporters he spoke to of misquoting him. Asked by Paula Zahn to respond to criticisms based on the Senate committee’s findings, Wilson accused all reporters who quoted him prior to his own July 6, 2003 New York Times article of misquoting him:

I'm not exactly sure what public comments they're referring to. If they're referring to leaks or sources, unidentified government sources in articles that appeared before my article in "The New York Times" appeared, those are either misquotes or misattributions if they're attributed to me.²³¹

This of course is not credible. For one thing, Wilson’s claim that he was misquoted contradicts his admission to the Senate that he was Pincus’ source and his defense that he “misspoke”, which was an implicit admission that Pincus quoted him accurately. For another thing, four professional newspapers do not independently misquote someone exactly the same way, using direct quotations. The score is 4 to 1, and Wilson’s credibility loses that game.

But it is not necessary to rest the case on the already-weighty probability of four independent witnesses against one, because there is also the weight of Wilson’s own words to add to the case. When Wilson spoke to the EPIC Iraq Forum after Kristof and Pincus’ articles had already come out, he had an opportunity to correct the reporters he now alleges misquoted him. Instead he enthusiastically identified himself as the source quoted by those reporters and made no corrections to what they had quoted him saying:

. . .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. . .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.

Later in the same lecture’s follow-up question and answer session, as Ray McGovern was discussing the forgeries, Wilson added,

. . .the administration was very careful about only talking, on the forgery, only talking at the Presidential level about uranium sales from Africa, until such time as it came out that they were talking about Niger, and then that was subsequently denied by the State Department, it was difficult to sort of make the case, although I think some of the people inside could have probably talked about it a little bit more openly ahead of time.²³²

One wonders what “people inside” Wilson is referring to here. This was at least the second occasion when Wilson had implied inside knowledge about the forgeries. The first was his very first public comments on the forgeries to CNN. Wilson has tried to dissociate his CNN comments from later reporting on his Niger trip by emphasizing that he did not speak about his trip during the interview:

The first time I spoke publicly about the Niger issue was in response to the State Department's disclaimer. On CNN a few days later, in response to a question, I replied that I believed the US government knew more about the issue than the State Department spokesman had let on and that he had misspoken. I did not speak of my trip.²³³

Indeed, Wilson did not speak of his trip. He spoke about the subject he was prompted to speak on by CNN national security reporter David Ensor: the subject of the Niger forgeries (a subject Ensor, who Wilson says just “happened by”, just happened to be investigating, and just happened to interview VIPS’ Ray Close about a few days later). What Wilson said about that subject is quite interesting:

. . .I think it's safe to say that the U.S. government should have or did know that this report was a fake before Dr. ElBaradei mentioned it in his report at the U.N. yesterday.

Now what is so interesting about Wilson’s comment here is that until ElBaradei’s press conference day before, nobody knew about the forgeries outside a small circle in US intelligence and a few foreign intelligence agencies. Who was included in this circle? Seymour Hersh reported,

Vincent Cannistraro. . .told me that copies of the Burba documents were given to the American Embassy, which passed them on to the C.I.A.'s chief of station in Rome, who forwarded them to Washington. Months later, he said, he telephoned a contact at C.I.A. headquarters and was told that ‘the jury was still out on this’--that is, on the authenticity of the documents.”

²³⁴

According to Cannistraro’s account, he had to call a contact at CIA headquarters to get information about the forgeries. So how was it that a day after ElBaradei went public, in response to an inquiry about a Washington Post article asked by a CNN reporter who just “happened by” and just happened to be doing an investigation of the forgeries, Joseph Wilson just happened to be there at the scene suggesting, as he characterized his comments in his book, “that if the U.S. government checked its files, it would, I believed, discover that it knew more about the case than the spokesman was letting on”?²³⁵

And thus, in a twist of ironic justice, Wilson hangs himself with the first words out of his mouth.

[Fedora]

Notes

¹Robert Novak, “Mision to Niger”, Chicago Sun-Times, July 14, 2003, online at Townhall.com, http://www.townhall.com/columnists/robertnovak/rn20030714.shtml.

²Robert Novak, “The CIA Leak”, Chicago Sun-Times, October 1, 2003, online at Townhall.com, http://www.townhall.com/columnists/robertnovak/rn20031001.shtmll.

³Novak, “Mission to Niger”.

⁴Ambassador Joseph Wilson, The Politics of Truth: Inside the Lies that Led to War and Betrayed My Wife’s CIA Identity: A Diplomat’s Memoir, New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, 2004, 5, 6-7.

⁵United States Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, 108th Congress, Report on the U.S. Intelligence Community’s Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq, Washington, DC: U.S. Government Printing Office, 2004, Chapter 2, “Niger”, 39-47 (pdf pages 4-12) and “Additional Comments”, 443 (pdf page 3), online at GPO Access, http://www.gpoaccess.gov/serialset/creports/iraq.html.

⁶Wilson, “A Right-Wing Smear Is Gathering Steam: Ex-envoy says the GOP has Targeted him and his Wife”, Los Angeles Times, July 21, 2004, online at Common Dreams News Center, http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0721-06.htm.

⁷Letter, Joseph Wilson to Pat Roberts and J. Rockefeller, published at “Ambassador Joe Wilson's Letter to the Senate Select Intelligence Committee”, BuzzFlash, http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/05/07/con05233.html, July 15, 2005.

⁸Wilson, speaking on “The Politics of Truth: From Yellow to White”, May 13, 2004, audio online at Middle East Institute: MEI Publications: Transcripts and Speeches, http://www.mideasti.org/publications/publications_transcripts.html, quote begins at 25:54 into audio. Cf. Wilson on Meet the Press, October 5, 2003, transcript online at MSNBC: Meet the Press with Tim Russert, http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3131258/: “I have no idea what they were trying to suggest in this. I can only assume that it was nepotism. And I can tell you that when the decision was made, which was made after a briefing and after a gaming out at the agency with the intelligence community, there was nobody in the room when we went through this that I knew.”

⁹For instance: ”Any employee who has authority to take, direct others to take, recommend, or approve any personnel action, shall not, with respect to such authority. . .appoint, employ, promote, advance, or advocate for appointment, employment, promotion, or advancement, in or to a civilian position any individual who is a relative (as defined in section 3110(a)(3) of this title) of such employee if such position is in the agency in which such employee is serving as a public official (as defined in section 3110(a)(2) of this title) or over which such employee exercises jurisdiction or control as such an official. . .For the purpose of this section. . .'agency' means an Executive agency and the Government Printing Office, but does not include. . .the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Defense Intelligence Agency. . .and, as determined by the President, any Executive agency or unit thereof the principal function of which is the conduct of foreign intelligence or counterintelligence activities. . .": United States Code Title 5 Section 2302, “Prohibited personnel practices”, online at Office of the Law Revision Counsel, U.S. House of Representatives,http://uscode.house.gov/uscode-cgi/fastweb.exe?getdoc+uscview+t05t08+179+1++()%20%20AND%20((5)%20ADJ%20USC):CITE%20AND%20(USC%20w/10%20(2302)):CITE.

¹⁰Information on this subject in this section is derived primarily from records for "Gabon", United States Department of Justice Criminal Division: Foreign Agents Registration Unit (FARA), http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/fara/fara1st98/COUNTRY/GABON.HTM and related pages from the FARA website and corresponding Google caches. Also see ”Le Jackpot des Lobbyistes US?” (La Lettre du Continent, 328, June 5, 1999)”, BDP Gabon-Noveau, http://www.bdpgabon.org/ancien_site/bdp/revelationspol1.html; Jim Lobe, “African Governments Spend Millions in Lobbying”, CorpWatch, http://www.corpwatch.org/news/PND.jsp?articleid=98, May 20, 2001.

¹¹On this aspect of Wilson’s finances references may be found in my previous article “What Wilson Didn’t Say About Africa: Joseph Wilson’s Silent Partners”, FreeRepublic.com, http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1256475/posts, October 25, 2004.

¹²Walter Pincus and Mike Allen, “Leak of Agent's Name Causes Exposure of CIA Front Firm”, The Washington Post, October 4, 2003, Page A03, online at washingtonpost.com, http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A40012-2003Oct3?language=printer; Richard Leiby and Dana Priest, “The Spy Next Door: Valerie Wilson, Ideal Mom, Was Also the Ideal Cover”, The Washington Post, October 8, 2003, Page A01, online at washingtonpost.com, http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A58650-2003Oct7?language=printer; Phil Kuntz, “Unsolved Mystery: Is Brewster Jennings Linked to the CIA?”, The Wall Street Journal, October 8, 2003, online at Crytpome, http://cryptome.org/plame-brewster.htm; Michael C. Ruppert with Wayne Madsen, “COUP D'ETAT: The Real Reason Tenet and Pavitt Resigned from the CIA on June 3rd and 4th: Bush, Cheney Indictments in Plame Case Looming”, From the Wilderness Publications, http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/060804_coup_detat.html, June 8, 2004; Deborah Orin, “Report: Plame Gave Money to Anti-Bush Group”, FOXNews.com, http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,163777,00.html, July 27, 2005.

¹³Discovered by FReeper Verginius Rufus, citing Who’s Who in America, 1998: FReeper Paperjam, “Is this the “French Connection” we were looking for?”, FreeRepublic.com, http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1512059/posts, October 30, 2005, Post 57.

¹⁴Wilson, The Politics of Truth, 68-69.

¹⁵Vicky Ward, “Double Exposure”, Vanity Fair, January 17, 2004, online at “Standing up for truth amid a culture of lies”, Jim Gilliam, http://www.jimgilliam.com/2004/01/vanity_fairs_profile_on_joseph_wilson_and_valerie_plame.php .

¹⁶“FRANCE: The Colonel Who Riles a Minister", United Nations Interim Administration Mission in Kosovo: UNMIK, http://www.unmikonline.org/press/mon/mechain.html.

¹⁷”Embassy Deputy in Iraq, Unschooled as Diplomat, Plays the Top U.S. Role”, The New York Times, December 18, 1990, v140, pA7(N), p8(L), col 1 (22 col in).

¹⁸Wilson, The Politics of Truth, 68-69.

¹⁹Alain Lallemand, “The Field Marshal”, Center for Public Integrity, http://www.publicintegrity.org/bow/report.aspx?aid=155&sid=120.

²⁰Wilson, The Politics of Truth, 67-76, 205, 250-252, 271-272, 275-276.

²¹Howard W. French, "Competition Heats Up for West Africa's Oil Wealth," New York Times, March 7, 1998; “Chevron Group Produces New Angolan Oil Field Three Years Ahead of Schedule”, Chevron, http://www.chevron.com/news/archive/chevron_press/1996/96-2-5.asp, February 5, 1996; “Chevron and Partners Hit All Time High For Angola Offshore Production”, Chevron, http://www.chevron.com/news/archive/chevron_press/1998/98-12-14-1.asp, December 14, 1998.

²²Wilson, The Politics of Truth, 193-194, 196.

²³Philp M. Mobbs, “The Mineral Industry of Gabon”, U.S. Geological Survey: Mineral Resources Program, http://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/country/1994/9212094.pdf, 1994; French, "Competition Heats Up for West Africa's Oil Wealth"; “Changes in oil acreage in Gabon”, Alexander's Gas & Oil Connections, http://www.gasandoil.com/goc/company/cna75243.htm, Volume 2, Issue 28, December 22, 1997; “Le continente noir entre ancien et noveau monde: Washington a la conquete d’ ‘espaces vierges’ en Afrique”, Le Monde diplomatique, http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/1998/03/LEYMARIE/10153.html, March 1998, English edition online at http://mondediplo.com/1998/03/12africa.

²⁴Wilson, The Politics of Truth, 192, 199-205.

²⁵Wilson, The Politics of Truth, 205, 250-252.

²⁶”Equatorial Guinea”, Energy Information Administration: Country Analysis Briefs, http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/cabs/eqguinea.html; “Equatorial Guinea: Profile”, afrol News: Countries, http://www.afrol.com/Countries/Equatorial_Guinea/eqg_profile.htm.

²⁷“L’Affaire Elf: Les circuits financiers”, radiofrance internationale, http://www.rfi.fr/Fichiers/evenements/elf/circuits.asp; Lallemand; Tom Masland, “An African big man in trouble: six months on, Laurent Kabila's Congo is mired in graft--and he has double-crossed his neighbors.”, Newsweek, December 15, 1997, v130 n24 p37(3); French, "Competition Heats Up for West Africa's Oil Wealth”; “Congolese ex-leader guility of treason”, BBC, http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/1732822.stm, December 29, 2001.

²⁸For background on Clinton’s Africa trip see Frank Smyth, “A New Game: The Clinton Administration in Africa”, FrankSmyth.com, http://www.franksmyth.com/clients/franksmyth/frankS2.nsf/0/d6fa5c605a6992f385256b7b00790662?OpenDocument, Summer 1998; “Le continente noir entre ancien et noveau monde: Washington a la conquete d’ ‘espaces vierges’ en Afrique”, Le Monde diplomatique, http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/1998/03/LEYMARIE/10153.html, March 1998, English edition online at http://mondediplo.com/1998/03/12africa; “Leaders of Congo, Kenya expected at Clinton summit in Uganda”, CNN.com, http://www.cnn.com/WORLD/9803/18/africa.summit/, March 18, 1998; French, "Competition Heats Up for West Africa's Oil Wealth”.

²⁹The Corporate Council on Africa, http://www.africacncl.org/(3kunlp45qmhfm445v3teel55)/Default.aspx. For examples of the CCA’s financing see “1997 U.S.-Africa Business Summit: ‘Attracting Capital to Africa’: Sponsors”, http://www.africacncl.org/(vlzsp055zvxeqbms0w0ggg45)/CCA_Summits/1997_Sponsorship.asp: “Major Underwriters: HSBC Equator Bank, Mobil Africa; Underwriters: Amoco Overseas Exploration Company, Anadarko Petroleum Corporation, Archer Daniels Midland Company, CAMAC Holdings Inc., Caterpillar Inc., ENRON Corp, Exxon, General Motors, Lazare Kaplan, International Inc., Sooner Pipe & Supply Corporation, SBC Communications, The Coca-Cola Company, The M.W. Kellogg Company, UMC Petroleum Corporation; Sponsors: Chrysler Corporation, Goldman, Sachs & Co., IBM Corporation, Phillips Petroleum Corporation, Philip Morris International, Inc., ABB Lummus Global Inc., Bristol-Myers Squibb, Mr. Kevin Callwood, Chevron Corporation, CMS NOMECO Oil & Gas Company, DMS Ltd., Eli Lilly and Company, Ernst & Young LLP, Fluor Daniel, Louis Berger International, Inc., Moving Water Industries, Oracle”; “1999 U.S.-Africa Business Summit: 'Attracting Capital to Africa': Sponsors”, http://www.africacncl.org/(vlzsp055zvxeqbms0w0ggg45)/CCA_Summits/1999_Sponsorship.asp: “Major Underwriters: Amoco, CAMAC, Chevron, Citigroup, Continental Airlines, Enron, Exxon, General Motors, HSBC Equator, Lazare Kaplan International, Inc., Mobil, Ocean Energy, UNDP; Underwriters: Caterpillar, The Coca-Cola Company, CMS Energy, DaimlerChrysler, Eli Lilly and Company, General Electric, Sooner Pipe Supply Company”.

³⁰”Watch your wallet with this guy!”, Talking Proud!, http://www.talkingproud.us/Eagle100503.html, October 5, 2003, archived at http://web.archive.org/web/20031020110250/http://www.talkingproud.us/Eagle100503.html.

³¹”Le Jackpot des Lobbyistes US?” (La Lettre du Continent, 328, June 5, 1999)”, BDP Gabon-Noveau, http://www.bdpgabon.org/ancien_site/bdp/revelationspol1.html; "Gabon", United States Department of Justice Criminal Division: Foreign Agents Registration Unit (FARA), http://www.usdoj.gov/criminal/fara/fara1st98/COUNTRY/GABON.HTM.

³²Figures based on the estimate of a former federal government employee familiar with pay scales.

³³”JACQUELINE C WILSON, 55, 4612 CHARLESTON TER NW, WASHINGTON, DC 20007 (202) 3429888”: ”Eyeballing Valerie Plame and Joseph Wilson IV”, Cryptome, http://cryptome.quintessenz.at/mirror/plame-eyeball.htm, citing http://reunite.myfamily.com.

³⁴”CHARLESTON TER., 4612-Barry Zuckerman Properties to Joseph C. IV and Valerie E. Wilson, $735,000.”: The Washington Post, October 8, 1998.

³⁵Wilson, The Politics of Truth, 276.

³⁶Wilson, The Politics of Truth, 275-276.

³⁷Vicky Ward, “Double Exposure”, Vanity Fair, January 17, 2004, online at “Standing up for truth amid a culture of lies”, Jim Gilliam, http://www.jimgilliam.com/2004/01/vanity_fairs_profile_on_joseph_wilson_and_valerie_plame.php.

³⁸For a fuller elaboration see my “What Wilson Didn’t Say About Africa: Joseph Wilson’s Silent Partners”, FreeRepublic.com, http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1256475/posts, October 25, 2004.

³⁹On Westar see Westar Energy, http://www.westarenergy.com/; “Westar Group Inc”, Mbendi, http://www.mbendi.co.za/orgs/ct2i.htm; “Westar Energy Bribery Scandal”, Public Citizen, http://www.citizen.org/cmep/energy_enviro_nuclear/electricity/energybill/westar/.

⁴⁰”Al Amoudi’s African Strategy”, Africa Energy Intelligence, Number 318, March 13, 2002, online at African Intelligence, http://www.africaintelligence.com/ps/AN/Arch/AEM/AEM_318.asp; “Filings: Oromin Explorations. Ltd.”, June 3, 2005, EDGAR Online, http://sec.edgar-online.com/2005/06/03/0001176256-05-000213/Section2.asp.

⁴¹Dar Es Salaam, ”American Group Funds New Data Transmission Project”, TOMRIC News Agency, September 12, 2001, posted at Small Island Developing States Network, http://www.sidsnet.org/archive/other-newswire/2001/0612.html; ”Volunteers Seek To Build An IT Culture In Africa”, balancing act news update, http://www.balancingact-africa.com/news/back/balancing-act48b.html, Issue 48, 2001.

⁴²Groum Abate, “MIDROC Gold set up with half a billion BR capital”, Capital, http://www.capitalethiopia.com/archive/2003/aug/week3/MIDROC%20Gold%20set%20up%20with%20half%20a%20billion%20Br%20capital.htm, August 18, 2003; “MIDROC Gold Mine Launches New Exploration Projects”, Addis Tribune, http://www.addistribune.com/Archives/2004/01/06-02-04/MIDROC.htm, June 2, 2004.

⁴³For general information on the Middle East Institute see the group’s website at http://www.mideasti.org. On MEI’s Saudi ties see Robert G. Kaiser and David Ottaway, "Oil for Security Fueled Close Ties: But Major Differences Led to Tensions", The Washington Post, February 11, 2002, A01, reprinted online at Cornell University Library: Collection Development: Middle East & Islamic Studies Collection, http://www.library.cornell.edu/colldev/mideast/saudusxx.htm; Rod Dreher, "Their Men in Riyadh: Ex-U.S. ambassadors who stick with the Saudis", National Review, June 17, 2002, online at FindArticles, http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1282/is_11_54/ai_86481294; Clifford D. May, "Scandal! Bush’s enemies aren't telling the truth about what he said.", National Review Online, http://www.nationalreview.com/may/may071103.asp, July 11, 2003.

⁴⁴For general information on the American-Turkish Council see DEIK: Dis Ekonomik Iliskiler Kurulu, TAIK: Turk-Amerikan IS Konseyi: Turkish-American Business Council, http://www.turkey-now.net/Default.aspx, American-Turkish Council, http://www.americanturkishcouncil.org, “American Turkish Council”, SourceWatch, http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=American_Turkish_Council, “American-Turkish Council”, Right Web, http://rightweb.irc-online.org/profile/2874, and John Stanton, “Foreign Policy: John Stanton: 'BushCo front group creates a new EuroAsia': Inside the American Turkish Council”, posted at SmirkingChimp.com, http://www.smirkingchimp.com/article.php?sid=19921&mode=nested&order=0; on controversies associated with the ATC see David Rose, “An Inconvenient Patriot”, Vanity Fair, http://www.vanityfair.com/commentary/content/articles/050919roco03, September 2005.

⁴⁵Wilson, The Politics of Truth, 240-241.

⁴⁶Thomas R. Yager, “The Mineral Industries of Burkina Faso, Mali, Mauritania, and Niger”, Great West Gold, Inc., http://www.greatwestgold.com/pdfs/R_The_Mineral_Industries_of_Mali.pdf; Robert Harris and David Duncan, ”The Development of Niger’s First Gold Mine”, Etruscan Resources Inc., http://www.etruscan.com/i/pdf/SMEPaperNigerProject.pdf; Semafo, http://www.semafo.com/.

⁴⁷Wilson, The Politics of Truth, 23.

⁴⁸For general background see Mark Riebling, Wedge: The Secret War Between the FBI and CIA, New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1994, 447-452. On Lake and IPS see Tom Wells, Wild Man: The Life and Times of Daniel Ellsberg, New York: Palgrave, 2001, 280-281, 313-315, 407-408, 461-462, 479-480, 555; Walter Isaacson, Kissinger: A Biography, New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992, 212-227; Athan Theoharis and John Stuart Cox, The Boss: J. Edgar Hoover and the Great American Inquisition, Temple University, 1988; New York: Bantam Books, 1990; S. Steven Powell, Covert Cadre: Inside the Institute for Policy Studies, introduction by David Horowitz, Ottawa, Illinois: Green Hill Publishers, Inc., 1987, 13, 57, 216; William F. Jasper, “Security Risk for CIA: Plumbing the depths of Anthony Lake’s dubious past”, The New American, Volume 13, Number 2, January 20, 1997, http://www.thenewamerican.com/tna/1997/vo13no02/vo13no02_lake.htm; W. Raymond Wannall, “Undermining Counterintelligence Capability”, CI Centre, http://www.cicentre.com/Documents/DOC_Wannall_Undermining_Intel.htm.

⁴⁹”About the Advisers”, Secure America, http://www.secureamerica.us/html/about_advisers.html. On the Fourth Freedom Forum see Fourth Freedom Forum, http://www.fourthfreedom.org/Applications/cms.php?page_id=88; “Fourth Freedom Forum”, DiscovertheNetworks.org, http://www.discoverthenetwork.org/printgroupProfile.asp?grpid=6432.

⁵⁰Alexander Cockburn and Patrick Cockburn, Out of the Ashes: The Resurrection of Saddam Hussein, New York: HarperPerennial, 2000 (New York: HarperCollins Publishers, 1999), 31-57, 164-190, 211-230; Laurie Mylroie, “The United States and the Iraqi National Congress”, Middle East Intelligence Bulletin, http://www.meib.org/articles/0104_ir1.htm, Volume 3, Number 4, April 2001; David Ignatius, “The CIA And the Coup That Wasn’t”, The Washington Post, May 16, 2003, Page A29, online at http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A61979-2003May15&notFound=true.