Posted on 02/07/2007 5:38:03 AM PST by livesbygrace
For the last two weeks, a number of Republicans in Washington — in the administration, on Capitol Hill, and in the intelligence community — have been watching closely as the perjury and obstruction of justice trial of Lewis Libby unfolds in federal court. In particular, those Republicans have been poring over dozens of documents released as evidence in the case. Much of what they’ve seen is old stuff, things they’ve known about for years. But two documents are new, to most eyes at least, and they may significantly change our understanding of how the entire Joseph Wilson-Valerie Plame Wilson-Niger affair began.
The accepted version of events is that Vice President Dick Cheney got things started when he asked for information about possible Iraqi attempts to purchase uranium in Africa. After that request, CIA employee Valerie Plame Wilson suggested sending her husband to look into the question, and after that, the CIA flew Joseph Wilson to Niger to investigate. But the new documents suggest that Mrs. Wilson suggested her husband for the trip before the vice president made his request. In other words, Joseph Wilson’s visit to Niger, which everyone believes was undertaken at the behest of the vice president, was actually in the works before Dick Cheney asked his now-famous question. And if that is true, our current understanding of the chronology of events is wrong.
The story is contained in two exhibits, known in court as DX 66.2 and DX 66.3, entered into evidence by Libby’s defense team. The first is a CIA document headlined, “Briefer’s Tasking for Richard Cheney on 02/13/2002.” It begins:
Briefer: David D. Terry Briefing Date: 02/13/2002 Principal: Richard Cheney
Tasking: The VP was shown an assessment (he thought from [the Defense Intelligence Agency]) that Iraq is purchasing uranium from Africa. He would like our assessment of that transaction and its implications for Iraq’s nuclear program. A memo for tomorrow’s brief would be great.
The document doesn’t seem particularly newsworthy until it is viewed alongside a memo first revealed by the Senate Intelligence Committee in its report on the African uranium matter, released in July 2004. That report cited an e-mail written by Valerie Plame Wilson to her boss, the deputy chief of the CIA’s Counterproliferation Division, in which she suggested her husband for the fact-finding mission to Niger. A CIA official told the committee that Mrs. Wilson “offered up [Joseph Wilson’s] name” for the job, and the Senate report quoted the e-mail written by Mrs. Wilson saying, “my husband has good relations with both the PM [prime minister] and the former Minister of Mines (not to mention lots of French contacts), both of whom could possibly shed light on this sort of activity.”
According to the Senate report, Valerie Plame Wilson sent her e-mail on February 12, 2002 — the day before the vice president was briefed on the African uranium matter. The discrepancy between the two dates seems glaring, but was not included in the Senate report. That is because, according to a source familiar with the committee’s investigation, the CIA did not include the document in the materials it turned over to the committee. Senate investigators apparently never knew the exact date of the vice president’s request, so they never knew it came after Plame’s e-mail.
What does the new information mean? On February 12, 2002, the Defense Intelligence Agency released — inside the government, not publicly — a report covering the Africa uranium issue; its title said that Niger had “signed an agreement to sell 500 tons of uranium a year to Baghdad.” CIA officials told Senate investigators the report spurred requests for information from both the State Department and the Department of Defense. Knowledgeable sources speculate — and they stress, they are speculating — that those inquiries from State and Defense were made on the 12th, the day the Defense Intelligence Agency report was sent around, and that Valerie Plame Wilson, in suggesting her husband be sent to investigate, was reacting to those requests, and not to the vice president’s question, which came the next day. In this new version of events, Dick Cheney was the last guy to request more information, not the first; the notion that his request started the whole affair seems wrong.
The other new document entered into evidence in the trial is another CIA memo, this one headlined “Memorandum for the Vice President” and dated February 14, 2002. That memo appears to begin — it’s not possible to say for sure because it is blacked out — with a discussion of the uranium issue, followed by this statement:
We have tasked our clandestine source[s] with ties to the Nigerien Government and consortium officials to seek additional information on the contract. We also are working with the Embassy and the defense attaché’s office in Niamey [Niger] to verify their reports.
It is not clear from the poorly-defined copies released as evidence whether the memo refers to a “clandestine source” or “clandestine sources.” But from everything that we know about the case, Joseph Wilson was the person who was given the assignment to check out the Niger uranium story. Embassy officials were also told about it, as the memo indicates, but Wilson was the CIA’s man with ties to the Nigerien government.
If the timing spelled out in the new document is accurate — if Wilson had already been picked for the task by February 14 — the new evidence sheds a different light on the version of events given by Wilson himself in his book The Politics of Truth. In that, Wilson wrote about a meeting with CIA officials — a meeting that took place on February 19, 2002 — at which “I was asked if I would be willing to travel to Niger to check out the report in question.” Perhaps Wilson was indeed asked to go to Niger at that meeting, but the newly-released CIA document suggests the agency settled on Wilson several days earlier.
The source familiar with the Senate Intelligence Committee’s investigation says the committee was never given the second document, either.
Perhaps it will turn out that there is some mistake in the memos, or in the interpretation of them, and that the generally-accepted version of the story remains accurate. But if the story told in the newly-public memos is correct, our entire understanding of how the CIA leak affair began will have to change.
BTTT !!!!
Chris(tine) Matthews was already on TV this morning lying about this. Claimed that Cheney sent Wilson, Cheney knew there was no threat, didn't inform president. Shameless baldface lying.
I wish Chaney had just taken the Wilsons duck hunting.
So, why didn't the CIA produce the documents earlier?
bump
Amazing. Put Joe Wilson on the stand. If anyone has perjored himself, it's him.
Maybe it had something to do with the loyalties of George "Slam Dunk" Tenent?
Somebody didn't like Porter Goss
"So, why didn't the CIA produce the documents earlier?"
Ask yourself what government agency requested a special investigation of what it knew was not a crime (CIA knew damn well V. Plame didn't meet any of the several criteria for protection as a "secret agent") when they knew damn well who had revealed her identity (Richard Armitage). Also ask yourself what special prosecutor knew by the afternoon of his appointment that no crime had been commited, and by whom it was not committed, and told the person who was guilty of committing the non-crime to cover it up.
Then ask yourself why.
Then start looking at who is responsible for putting all these shadowy figures in place.
Hillary Clinton is the dark force behind all these machinations, you can bet your last dollar on it.
Classic CIA was the annual estimation of the Soviet economy that always showed the it at about 50% of the American economy and gaining on us at around 10% per year, all the way back to the beginning of the agency. If the Soviets were at half the level of the US in 1950 they would have surpassed us by Reagan's time, given their relative rate of improvement as "measured" by the CIA. After The Fall it became apparent that the USSR was never close to 50% of the US and the gap was growing larger every year. But the mindset at the CIA is socialist/Harvard and the facts must be massaged or replaced to fit the story line. With the reality of Civil Service this problem cannot be fixed by any president. He can change the boss but he cannot weed out all the moles and rats in the field and primarily at the desks. Reagan was aware, bypassed CIA and prevailed. Bush trusted and got burned. I am not sure he even understands whence the scars.
Solution: scrap the CIA.
BTTT
We've been fed a bunch of BS by the MSM again. Anything that doesn't fit the Bush/Cheney did it template is discarded. And nobody questions the actions of the various "journalists" involved. We are in sad shape if we let these politicos masquerading as journalists run the country.
That has to be done by Congress which has too many of its own interests involved.
Surely, that can't be!
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