Report: CIA Source on Niger Nuke Flap is a Bush-Hater (Wilson)

NewsMax.com ^ | 7/13/03 | Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com Staff

[kattracks]

The man who helped set off a media firestorm over President Bush's State of the Union reference to Iraq seeking uranium in Niger is actually a confirmed Bush-hater who opposed the war in Iraq and complained in March that Bush had led America into a period of "historical madness."

In his New York Times op-ed piece last Sunday, so-called career diplomat Joseph Wilson said he was tapped by the CIA to investigate whether there was any truth to the Niger uranium story. After traveling to the country and interviewing government and industry officials, Wilson said he couldn't find anyone who would confirm that Niger sold uranium to Iraq.

In fact, President Bush never claimed that the transaction had been completed, telling Congress instead, "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

Still, Wilson's inability to confirm something Bush hadn't claimed prompted him to write:

"I have little choice but to conclude that some of the intelligence related to Iraq's nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat."

Writing in the National Review Online, GOP consultant Cliff May reveals that media portrayals of Wilson as a disinterested career diplomat may be quite an exaggeration in and of themselves.

"He's a vehement opponent of the Bush administration," says May, noting that two weeks before the war Wilson was slamming Bush in the notoriously left-wing "Nation" magazine.

Arguing that the White House had "imperial ambitions," Wilson claimed that under Bush, "America has entered one of it periods of historical madness"

Adding to Wilson's partisan pedigree, May noted that the supposedly objective analyst "was an outspoken opponent of U.S. military intervention in Iraq" with a resume that includes a stint as an "adjunct scholar" at the pro-Saudi Middle East Institute.

Sounding like a disciple of Jane Fonda, Wilson complained in other writings that Bush's "new imperialists will not rest until governments that ape our world view are implanted throughout the region, a breathtakingly ambitious undertaking, smacking of hubris in the extreme."

According to Wilson, "neoconservatives" have "a stranglehold on the foreign policy of the Republican Party."

And there's more.

According to May, career diplomat Wilson was recently the keynote speaker for the Education for Peace in Iraq Center, a far-left group that opposed not only the U.S. military intervention in Iraq, but also the sanctions — and even the no-fly zones established after the first Gulf War.

"In other words," concluded May, "Wilson is no disinterested career diplomat — he's a pro-Saudi, leftist partisan with an ax to grind. And too many in the media are helping him and allies grind it."

Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:

Bush Administration
Media Bias
Saddam Hussein/Iraq

[Defender2]

CBS=Communists Bull Sh*t, NBC=Nothing But Communists, ABC=All Bullsh*t Communists, CNN=Communists News Network, BBC=Bill Bullsh*t Communists, C-SPAN-1=Communists Sh*t Peddling A**holes Network-1, C-SPAN-2=Communists Sh*t Peddling A**holes Network-2. Sean Hannity and The Mighty Maja Rushie, Rush Limbaugh RULES The Airwaves!!!! Fairweather Whichever Way The Wind Blows(including O'Reilly) FOX Sometimes Rocks, AND FREE REPUBLIC IS the BEST NEWS NETWORK!!!!:-)

[Pan_Yans Wife]

You like to post the same post over and over on the same threads? Have you seen the Merchant Seaman, lately? :)

[Mo1]

Wait a second. The Democrats are trying to say they voted to go to war against Iraq because of the State of the Union Address by Bush. They voted to go to war 3 months before the State of the Union Address.

What can I say .. the Dems aren't very bright

Did ya see Ann Coulter on Geraldo's show last night .. It was priceless .. *L*

[Defender2]

#42. Sorry, no I have'nt seen it.:-)

[Mo1]

Hmmmm? How come he didn't ask the Brits ...??

Better yet, how come he didn't bother to reas what our own CIA report?

[hflynn]

Did ya see Ann Coulter on Geraldo's show last night .. It was priceless .. *L*

Yes I did. I also know the name of one sarcastic pseudo-intellectual b**ch that didn't.

[Dont Mention the War]

That's only if the press can determine to pronounce it... NIGH-JER or KNEE-JAIR.

Someone opined a few days ago that those who pronounce it KNEE-JAIR are about ten times more likely to be major league elitist RATS.

[William McKinley]

Dick Cheney "tapped" this kook. He chose him on the reasonable grounds that he wanted an independent eye looking this situation over. (Cheney had doubts about the report.) So Cheney sent a skeptic.

Substantiate this, please. Tenet established that Cheney's office was interested in the Niger allegation. He did not specify if that meant Cheney was suspicious over it, or anything of the sort. Tenet said that people in his staff, on their own initiative, sought out someone outside of their realm (obviously, Wilson).

So where is it that you are coming up with that Cheney had doubts, and where are you coming up with that Cheney suggested someone unqualified for the task?

[Pan_Yans Wife]

The irony is Niger Innis pronounces his name Niger, like it should be pronounced. I doubt he is going to change his name to please the elitists.

Reminds me about the pronunciation of Qatar... Kah-tar or Gutter, you pick. The gov't of Qatar pronounces it Kah-tar, but they wouldn't know how to pronounce their nation's name, now would they?

[unspun]

You like to post the same post over and over on the same threads? Have you seen the Merchant Seaman, lately? :)

Stop posting different posts claiming we're posting the same posts on the same thread on other threads!

And don't talk to us about any of your exploits in the artificial insemination market, either!

[MJY1288]

I have looked into this guy Wilson quite a bit and the fact is he didn't geive a report in writing to the CIA, he says he gave a verbal report. I would like to see who actually sent this guy to Niger and was his mission actually to find this out.

If you do a GOOGLE search on Ambassador Joseph Wilson you can see that he was interviewed and gave several speeches before and after the SOTU address, the lead up to the war and during the war and NOWHERE does this guy talk about his mission to Niger, his first mention is the NYT's editorial and it's so vague it's unbelievable.

This guy also was a employee of Al Gore and one of his speeches before the war was titled "The Case Against Regime Change in Iraq", He sounds like another Scott Ritter to me

[Pan_Yans Wife]

FR is so much fun with you around!

[Once-Ler]

Now's the time to invest in companies offering package tours of Niger.

I would like to see the yellow cakes I've been hearing so much about please.

Drool smack slurp slurp...Mmmmmcake.

[Defender2]

#42.Actually, I forgot a couple, so here's the revised list:
CBS=Communists Bull Sh*t, NBC=Nothing But Communists, CNBC=Communists, Nothing But Communists, MSNBC= Matthews S*cks Nothing But Communists, ABC=All Bullsh*t Communists, CNN=Communists News Network, BBC=Bill Bullsh*t Communists, C-SPAN-1=Communists Sh*t Peddling A**holes Network-1, C-SPAN-2=Communists Sh*t Peddling A**holes Network-2, Democrats=DemoCommiecRATS. Sean Hannity and The Mighty Maja Rushie, Rush Limbaugh RULES The Airwaves!!!! Fairweather Whichever Way The Wind Blows(including O'Reilly) FOX Sometimes Rocks, AND FREE REPUBLIC IS the BEST NEWS NETWORK!!!!:-)

[zip]

my theory is that there is a Clintonista in the CIA

I have been screaming about the leftovers (notice that I didn't call them holdovers) in State and Justice Departments since Day One of W's administration. Now I guess I should add CIA to the short list. I honestly do not understand W/Ashcroft refusing to cleanse the leftists out of those Depts.

[genefromjersey]

Gee ! What a surprise !!!!!!!

[jagrmeister]

This is journalistic gold. The media-driven phony scandal over Bush's SOTU is actually driven by a leftist partisan in the CIA- an anti-Bush bureaucrat who leaked misleading and incomplete information in order to settle scores. The key is to get this story into the mainstream media- ideally, first through sources like the Washington Times and FoxNews, talk radio, and conservative commentators like Coulter. Then, try for more mainstream outlets like US News and World Report and Roll Call.

[jagrmeister]

By the end of a conservative PR campaign, Wilson should be seen by the American people as the equivalent of a spy- a Saddam sympathizer who tried to tarnish the President's name using his position and access in the CIA along with misleading leaks.

[1rudeboy]

Pro-Saudi, Bush-hating leftist complains of neo-conservative empire-building in The Nation. Film at eleven.

[AHerald]

You really need to read Tenet's statement on the matter, not merely a synopsis. It puts this whole non-scandal scandal to bed. Even better, it reveals that Wilson intentionally failed to mention in his op-ed that he had been approached in 1999 by Iraqi "businessmen" to help set up a meeting with Nigerian officials. Wilson himself later reported to the CIA that he believed this was an attempt by the Iraqis to buy uranium from Niger.

Ask yourself why Wilson would write an op-ed and not mention that fact that he was asked to be a middle-man in a Iraqi uranium purchase from Niger. He chose to omit this from his op-ed, obviously, because it would have bolstered the administration's case against Iraq.