Here you go St. Chuck, more information for you to refute. You should consider changing your moniker to ST. CHUCKLEHEAD!
Scooter and Joe: If only both had been under oath
Manchester Union Leader ^ | November 1, 2005 | Editorial
Posted on 11/01/2005 4:32:06 AM PST by billorites
LYING TO a grand jury to protect your own skin is never acceptable. If the charges against Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby are true — that he is guilty of perjury, obstruction of justice, and false statement — then he should be dealt with accordingly. Funny, though, that Libby is charged with lying in an attempt to cover up an attempt to expose the lies of former ambassador Joe Wilson.
Wilson wrote in his memoir that his wife, Valerie Wilson, aka Valerie Plame, "had nothing to do with" sending him to Niger. Yet the Senate Intelligence Committee found that Plame suggested her husband for the trip.
In June 2003, Wilson claimed he knew that documents claiming that Saddam Hussein had sought uranium in Niger were false because "the dates were wrong and the names were wrong." But the Senate Intelligence Committee discovered that Wilson had never seen the documents. He later admitted this.
Wilson also claimed that his trip to Niger proved that Iraq never sought nuclear material from that country. But the Senate Intelligence Committee found that the CIA had concluded that Wilson's trip did not disprove the charge.
We find it interesting that so many press reports about this saga never mention Wilson's series of falsehoods.
The charges against Libby are serious. So were the charges Wilson made against the Bush administration. It's a shame Wilson wasn't under oath when he made them.
Document Details Intelligence Meeting On Iraq-Niger Reports
By DAVID S. CLOUD
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
WASHINGTON -- An internal government memo addresses some of the mysteries at the center of the White House leak investigation and could help investigators in the search for who disclosed the identity of a Central Intelligence Agency operative, according to two people familiar with the memo.
The memo, prepared by U.S. intelligence personnel, details a meeting in early 2002 where CIA officer Valerie Plame and other intelligence officials gathered to brainstorm about how to verify reports that Iraq had sought uranium yellowcake from Niger.
Ms. Plame, a member of the agency's clandestine service working on Iraqi weapons issues, suggested at the meeting that her husband, Africa expert and former U.S. diplomat Joseph Wilson, could be sent to Niger to investigate the reports, according to current and former government officials familiar with the meeting at the CIA's Virginia headquarters. Soon after, midlevel CIA officials decided to send him, say intelligence officials.
Classified memos, like the one describing Ms. Plame's role, have limited circulation and investigators are likely to question all those known to have received it. Intelligence officials haven't denied Ms. Plame was involved in the decision to send Mr. Wilson, but they have said she was not "responsible" for the decision.
snip
Mr. Wilson has told reporters repeatedly that his wife wasn't involved in his selection, and accused the White House of leaking his wife's name to punish him by ending her career as a clandestine operative. He said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal Thursday that he is unaware of any role played by his wife. "My wife knows of my particular experience with Niger. If there was such a meeting, I have no knowledge of it. It would be perfectly appropriate, though." He said that he hasn't asked his wife if she did suggest him for the mission because of the restrictions imposed by her job at the CIA.
Mr. Wilson did not tell any lies in his July 6, 2003 essay that asked whether the Bush administration had purposefully overlooked the intelligence acquired by his trip to Niger. Yet a week later Mr. Novak wrote about his wife. Obviously, certain white house officials were concerned enough about the contents of Mr. Wilson's essay to spend some time looking into his background. It begs the question as to why they would be concerned by what is really an innocuous episode that most government officals were willing to admit pointed to an error in their justification for the case to invade Iraq. Yet, as we know now, at least a couple of white house figures were interested enough in Mr. Wilson to discover the identity of his wife and chat about him with reporters. They seemed to be concerned about something, and describing Mrs. Wilson as "fair game", as attributed to Karl Rove by Chris Matthews seems quite extraordinary. Why would anyone be game? Was this just business as usual with this bunch? That anyone that contradicted or opposed the administration's policies was to be trashed?
The outing of Valarie Plame, I believe, may have just been an incidental and nonintentional consequence of some kind of overzealous concern or possible damage control on the part of the politicos in the white house. But it does raise the question about what they may have been so concerned about, and now, if the indictment of Mr. Libby has any basis in truth, begs the question: what was he covering up that he needed to lie about it?
All this other stuff about possible inconsistencies in later publications of Mr. Wilson are really collateral issues and have nothing to do with the events that occurred in early July of 2003. It doesn't serve conservatives well to focus on the man and build an army of strawmen when the issue is really simple and straightforward.
My wife sometimes comes to see what I am doing. She was quite amused by your chucklehead quip.