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Plame Out - The ridiculous end to the scandal that distracted Washington.
www.slate.com ^ | Aug. 29, 2006 | Christopher Hitchens

Posted on 08/29/2006 2:36:26 PM PDT by neverdem

fighting words
Plame Out
The ridiculous end to the scandal that distracted Washington.
By Christopher Hitchens
Posted Tuesday, Aug. 29, 2006, at 1:02 PM ET

I had a feeling that I might slightly regret the title ("Case Closed") of my July 25 column on the Niger uranium story. I have now presented thousands of words of evidence and argument to the effect that, yes, the Saddam Hussein regime did send an important Iraqi nuclear diplomat to Niger in early 1999. And I have not so far received any rebuttal from any source on this crucial point of contention. But there was always another layer to the Joseph Wilson fantasy. Easy enough as it was to prove that he had completely missed the West African evidence that was staring him in the face, there remained the charge that his nonreport on a real threat had led to a government-sponsored vendetta against him and his wife, Valerie Plame.

In his July 12 column in the Washington Post, Robert Novak had already partly exposed this paranoid myth by stating plainly that nobody had leaked anything, or outed anyone, to him. On the contrary, it was he who approached sources within the administration and the CIA and not the other way around. But now we have the final word on who did disclose the name and occupation of Valerie Plame, and it turns out to be someone whose opposition to the Bush policy in Iraq has—like Robert Novak's—long been a byword in Washington.

(Excerpt) Read more at slate.com ...


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Editorial; Foreign Affairs; Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections; US: District of Columbia; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: armitage; cialeak; hitchens; indicted; jcwilson; joewilson; josephwilson; plame; rove2bindicted; scooter; valerieplame; yellowcake
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To: nopardons

Thanks for the ping!


61 posted on 08/29/2006 4:02:10 PM PDT by Fedora
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To: mkjessup
Thank you Christopher Hitchens for REMINDING all of us about the Weakest Link, George TENET!!! Does Hitchens HINT that he thinks it really may be George Tenet???

Notice how ALL these anti-Bush people are NOT in the govt anymore...POWELL...Armitage and TENET.....co-cabalists!!

62 posted on 08/29/2006 4:03:19 PM PDT by Suzy Quzy ("When Cabals Go Kabooms"....upcoming book on Mary McCarthy's Coup-Plotters.)
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To: neverdem

Anyone know who left first, Powell or Armitage??? And also Tenet....who was first??


63 posted on 08/29/2006 4:04:04 PM PDT by Suzy Quzy ("When Cabals Go Kabooms"....upcoming book on Mary McCarthy's Coup-Plotters.)
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To: billhilly

Well, as Dennis Prager so eloquently puts it: "Clarity over agreement." And to put it not so eloquently...it's a free country.


64 posted on 08/29/2006 4:05:08 PM PDT by pollyannaish
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To: neverdem

His company is named "J.C. Wilson, International"

http://www.americanthinker.com/comments.php?comments_id=3608

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1517550/posts

http://www.sweetness-light.com/archive/wilson-wants-woodward-frog-marched



http://www.dailypundit.com/2005/11/off_topic_and_general_interest_49.php


"...broker what I believe were ongoing sales of Uranium from Niger to other rogue nations including Iraq. Of course detractors note that since France controlled the mines, this would be impossible, but the findings of the Oil for Food Scandal are shedding a differing light on COGEMA.In essence, what you had was a "cake" laundering operation, and the "washing machine" was the cache located at Al Tuwaitha. So long as the amount remained the same, no one would ever know. This is so simple (crooked cops do it with cocaine in the evidence room), etc.Of course there would be one caveat and this is key and not surprising. The IAEA would have had to have "blinked" once in a while. Scandelous? Yes, but that the IAEA might not have been so suspect if frustratated by the Bush Administration killing the Golden Goose, they showed their hand in October of 2004 by leaking the story of missing munitions at Al-Qaqaa. Make no mistake, the move was to defeat Bush and thus, get the 'heat off" as a Kerry Administration would have canned any further scrutiny into the Oil for Food Scandal.

While there is little public information yet on Wilson's company, JC Wilson International, Mac notes that he found that

"Wilson's company was headquartered out of the offices of an investment company, Rock Creek Corporation, which was run by Mohammed Alamoudi who helped him gain access to markets in Africa 'for his business'. "

He reminds us that

Alamoudi you might remember is the dirt bag who banks "with Al Qeada".



http://www.floppingaces.net/2005/11/03/hide-the-cake/

In a previous post I noted the strange coincidence that the Niger Forgeries were possibly made in the 1999-2000 timeframe (before Bush was even elected), which was also coincidental with the Iraqi trade commission trip to Niger, and Joe Wilson?s first trip to Niger for the CIA. Joe Wilson had just left the US government and started JCWilson International Ventures, Inc - which specialized in trade with African countries.

Countries including Niger, which only had one real product to export: uranium.

In that post I postulated that the Niger Forgeries would be a real good way to divert western intelligence services away from any nefarious activities by pointing them at international bad guy Saddam Hussein. I speculated that if - and this is a big if - Joe Wilson was working with rogue CIA elements to make some money on the side, covered by Valerie?s cover employer supposedly chartered to keep an eye on this kind of WMD trade, then the Niger Forgeries would be a classic CIA method of diversion away from an illegal money making scheme.

Some of this speculation was confirmed when these reports surfaced claiming that the Niger Forgeries were created by Libya to divert suspicions from a Libya-Iraq-Egypt alliance, where Libya purchased the yellowcake for Saddam and others.

[..]The Financial Times has now learnt that three European intelligence services were aware of possible illicit trade in uranium from Niger between 1999 and 2001. Human intelligence gathered in Italy and Africa more than three years before the Iraq war had shown Niger officials referring to possible illicit uranium deals with at least five countries, including Iraq.

This intelligence provided clues about plans by Libya and Iran to develop their undeclared nuclear programs. Niger officials were also discussing sales to North Korea and China of uranium ore or the “yellow cake” refined from it: the raw materials that can be progressively enriched to make nuclear bombs.

The raw intelligence on the negotiations included indications that Libya was investing in Niger’s uranium industry to prop it up at a time when demand had fallen, and that sales to Iraq were just a part of the clandestine export plan. These secret exports would allow countries with undeclared nuclear programs to build up uranium stockpiles.

One nuclear counter-proliferation expert told the Financial Times: “If I am going to make a bomb, I am not going to use the uranium that I have declared. I am going to use what I acquire clandestinely, if I am going to keep the program hidden.”

This may have been the method being used by Libya before it agreed last December to abandon its secret nuclear program. According to the IAEA, there are 2,600 tons of refined uranium ore-”yellow cake”-in Libya. However, less than 1,500 tons of it is accounted for in Niger records, even though Niger was Libya’s main supplier.



http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/9/5/152456/7365



http://blog.washingtonpost.com/earlywarning/2006/02/its_all_about_the_secrets.html

NOTE THE ARTICLES HERE ABOUT FEINSTEIN and her HUSBAND. The REAL REASON the DEMS are PROTECTING JOE WILSON.



http://southpaw.goodshow.net/archives/2006_06.html

"In which wikipedia makes my hair stand on end"


_______________________
Here is info on J.C. Wilson, International.


http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Joseph_C._Wilson


http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1442848/posts

http://www.politicalfriendster.com/showPerson.php?id=2478&name=JC-Wilson-Intl-Ventures


Here are CONTRIBUTIONS from JC W. Intl to DEMS CAMPAIGNS.

http://conservativeeyes.blogspot.com/2005/07/update-on-wilson-campaign.html



HERE'S ONE on REP. JEFFERSON (MONEY IN THE FRIDGE) and JOE WILSON. EVERYONE MISSED THIS.

http://www.americanthinker.com/articles.php?article_id=5702



LAST ONE, I'm TIRED.

http://msutoday.msu.edu/news/index.php3?article=04Nov2005-7



NOW YOU CAN SEE FOR YOURSELF WHY ALL THE DEMS ARE PROTECTING JOE WILSON.


65 posted on 08/29/2006 4:06:32 PM PDT by UCANSEE2 (PARTY LIKE IT's August 21, 2006 !!!)
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To: neverdem

Hitch can be very good. Very few leftists have his writing capability, or his honesty.


66 posted on 08/29/2006 4:07:10 PM PDT by pissant
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To: Armigerous

PING.


67 posted on 08/29/2006 4:08:17 PM PDT by UCANSEE2 (PARTY LIKE IT's August 21, 2006 !!!)
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To: Robert A. Cook, PE

Wilson's OWN company's OFFICE was in the same office as some terrorist sympathizer...I can't remember the name.


68 posted on 08/29/2006 4:09:11 PM PDT by Suzy Quzy ("When Cabals Go Kabooms"....upcoming book on Mary McCarthy's Coup-Plotters.)
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To: ThomasPaine2000

"What did Winston Churchill say about "young liberals" and "old conservatives"??? I think it applies to Hitch..."

Yessir. By the way, I never tire of Churchill's obvious wisdom. In my youth I often sat by a coal burning stove, near my uncle who had two sons in WWII, as he read aloud from the paper about the war. Those stories sometimes described battles that were days old, but they were followed, as were letters from the soldiers and sailors, with an eye for nuance. Words on the battery operated radio that came from Churchill, or FDR, or the old radio broadcaster, whose name I seem to remember was Stover, who signed off with "Good evening Mr. and Mrs. American, and all you ships at sea" were a comfort to all of us.


69 posted on 08/29/2006 4:09:58 PM PDT by billhilly
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To: liberallarry
Hitchens is truly good to have unearthed this stuff. I never imagined it would turn out this way.

Kudos for an open mind. Your statement confirms my belief that some liberals are worth saving...

But...

I always thought Wilson's report, confirming those of our amabassador to Niger and the General the CIA also sent, was ok...and the Bush administration was responsible for bringing Plame's name into this...and that it was mistaken for doing so.

...jeez, I always thought you were smarter than that...!!!

70 posted on 08/29/2006 4:10:41 PM PDT by okie01 (The Mainstream Media: IGNORANCE ON PARADE)
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To: UCANSEE2
OMG!!!! What a WEALTH of info!!! Alamoudi was the name I was just looking for!!

Is there ANY writer that can put this in BOOK form???? Any who can follow the money????

71 posted on 08/29/2006 4:12:12 PM PDT by Suzy Quzy ("When Cabals Go Kabooms"....upcoming book on Mary McCarthy's Coup-Plotters.)
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To: WhistlingPastTheGraveyard

I don't expect the Republican leadership to attack the Democrats over this--someone might call them a bad name. Anyway, it turns out that the two key figures were anti-Bush Republicans--Armitage and Powell, both of them now apparently working for septuagenarian John McCain's 2008 Presidential bid.


72 posted on 08/29/2006 4:13:04 PM PDT by Verginius Rufus
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To: neverdem
Image hosted by Photobucket.com

HA ha...
and the RATS take another one in the...

73 posted on 08/29/2006 4:14:21 PM PDT by Chode (American Hedonist ©®)
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To: neverdem


"Told ya so" referance PING


74 posted on 08/29/2006 4:14:43 PM PDT by Para-Ord.45
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To: pollyannaish; billhilly

I must say...I know he has been a lib...a Soviet lover and all that...

But when I heard him DEMOLISH Geoge Galloway in a debate, I was in my car saying "YES! YES! YES""

He may be a lib, but he has the war on terror and the battle for Iraq framed perfectly. And both this article about Plame, and the Niger Yellowcake article he linked to are just brilliant.


75 posted on 08/29/2006 4:16:23 PM PDT by rlmorel (Islamofacism: It is all fun and games until someone puts an eye out. Or chops off a head.)
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To: billhilly

Boy, am I showing my age. Smoky Stover is what came to my mind, and he was a cartoon character. It was Walter Wenchell, I now believe, who broadcast all of those great radio programs in the 1940's.


76 posted on 08/29/2006 4:18:03 PM PDT by billhilly
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To: billhilly
My God. From that picture I'd say she was from the Calvery.

Nah...just a lot of time riding Bond, James Bond.

77 posted on 08/29/2006 4:19:32 PM PDT by AmusedBystander (Republicans - doing the work that Democrats won't do since 1854.)
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To: r9etb

Well I don't mean to be tacky, but she looks bowlegged in that picture. Meow!


78 posted on 08/29/2006 4:23:32 PM PDT by pepperdog
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To: kinghorse

... or Oui.


79 posted on 08/29/2006 4:24:17 PM PDT by Trajan88 (www.bullittclub.com)
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To: WhistlingPastTheGraveyard

*ping!*


80 posted on 08/29/2006 4:24:45 PM PDT by cgk (I don't see myself as a conservative. I see myself as a religious, right-wing, wacko extremist.)
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