One should not pass without comment the continuing mendaciocity, regularly displayed by the editorial page of the WSJ in their efforts to create their own reality.
Shall we deconstruct the WSJ's editorial smear campaign against Wilson in light of the facts?
Quote:Number one: The winner of last year's Award for Truth Telling from the Nation magazine foundation didn't tell the truth when he wrote that his wife, CIA officer Valerie Plame, "had nothing to do with" his selection for the Niger mission. Mr. Wilson is now pretending there is some kind of important distinction between whether she "recommended" or "proposed" him for the trip.
Quote:Mr. Wilson had been denying any involvement at all on Ms. Plame's part, in order to suggest that her identity was disclosed by a still-unknown Administration official out of pure malice. If instead an Administration official cited nepotism truthfully in order to explain the oddity of Mr. Wilson's selection for the Niger mission, then there was no underlying crime. Motive is crucial under the controlling statute.
The WSJ reaches back in time, uses out of context what Wilson refused to say at the time of Novak's column outing his wife, and places in a later context to distort the situation. At that time Wilson refused publicly to talk about his wife's involvement in anything, not just her involvement in sending him to Niger. Doing so would have corroborated the column by Novak who outed her as a CIA covert operative. Unlike Novak did, Wilson was not going to out his own wife.
The people at CIA who actually made that decision said that she did not make a recommendation, nor was she involved with the decision to send her husband to Niger, they did.
The charge of "nepotism" is also a lie.
Newsday reporters Tim Phelps and Knut Royce on July 2003 Newsday article "Columnist Blows CIA Agent's Cover," (dated July 22, 2003).
reported that:
Quote:"A senior intelligence officer confirmed that Plame was a Directorate of Operations undercover officer who worked 'alongside' the operations officers who asked her husband to travel to Niger. But he said she did not recommend her husband to undertake the Niger assignment. 'They [the officers who did ask Wilson to check the uranium story] were aware of who she was married to, which is not surprising,' he said. 'There are people elsewhere in government who are trying to make her look like she was the one who was cooking this up, for some reason,' he said. 'I can't figure out what it could be.' 'We paid his [Wilson's] airfare. But to go to Niger is not exactly a benefit. Most people you'd have to pay big bucks to go there,' the senior intelligence official said. Wilson said he was reimbursed only for expenses."
One has to believe the WSJ that Plame wanted to send her husband on a trip to Niger, a place that even the CIA said was not a place people would want to go without cause.
Can the WSJ get any lamer here?
The Senate Intelligence Committee staffers interviewed neither people who were in the room when the decision was made, nor those parties who were involved in the decision-making process. It should be noted that instead of the comity usually shown by staff interviews, only Republican appointed staff members interviewed these people; the wrong people, btw. One could justifiably accuse the Republicans of doing this as part of a partisan effort to discredit Wilson.
Just as the WSJ has done in its editorial.
Quote:Number two: Joe Wilson didn't tell the truth about how he supposedly came to realize that it was "highly doubtful" there was anything to the story he'd been sent to Niger to investigate.
He was quite specific in this and the pertinent passage of Wilson's essay is quoted below.
http://www.politicsoftruth.com/editorials/africa.html
Actually, there were three reports that challenged the allegation that the Iraqis were attempting the purchase of Niger sourced uranium press cakes. Officials of both the State Dept. and the Defense Dept. made the other two reports that challenged the accusations, viz.,
U.S. Ambassador to Niger, Barbro Owens-Kirkpatrick, and Deputy Commander, European Command, Marine General Carlton Fulford
http://www.gpoaccess.gov/serialset/creports/iraq.html
@ Page 41 of the Niger section of the Senate Intelligence Committee Report. Linked
http://a257.g.akamaitech.net/7/257/2422/13jul20041400/www.gpoaccess.gov/serialset/creports/pdf/s108-301/sec2.pdf
Quote:"On February 24,2002, the U.S. Embassy in Niamey disseminated a cable (NIAMEY
000262) describing a meeting between the U.S. Ambassador to Niger, Barbro Owens-
Kirkpatrick, Deputy Commander, European Command, General Carlton Fulford, Niger's
President, Mamadou Tandja and Foreign Minister Kichatou Mindaoudou. General Fulford had previously scheduled a routine refueling stop and brief meeting with Nigerien officials at the request of Ambassador Owens-Kirkpatrick. Ambassador Owens-Kirkpatrick told Committee staff that she routinely encouraged visitors to Western Africa to make refueling stops in Niger.
"She said "when you are assigned to a place like Niger, which is not exactly the center of the universe . . .you take everything you can get. And I worked very hard to make Niger the best refueling stop in Africa." When the Iraq-Niger uranium reporting surfaced in early February, Ambassador Owens-Kirkpatrick decided to ask General Fulford to use the previously scheduled meeting to raise the uranium issue with Nigerien officials. Ambassador Owens-Kirkpatrick prepared talking points for General Fulford to use during his visit and the CIA coordinated on the talking points.
Page 42 of the Niger section of the senate intelligence committee report.
Quote:"Ambassador Owens-Kirkpatrick told Committee staff she recalled
the former ambassador saying "he had reached the same conclusions that the embassy had reached, that it was highly unlikely that anything was going on.''
Marine Gen. Carlton W. Fulford Jr
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A56336-2003Jul14¬Found=true
Quote:"A four-star general, who was asked to go to Niger last year to inquire about the security of Niger's uranium, told The Washington Post yesterday that he came away convinced the country's stocks were secure. The findings of Marine Gen. Carlton W. Fulford Jr. were passed up to Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff -- though it was unclear whether they reached officials in the White House..
"In an interview, Fulford said he came away "assured" that the supply of "yellowcake" was kept secure by a French consortium. Both Fulford, then deputy commander of the U.S. European Command and his commander, Air Force Gen. Joseph Ralston, said the issue did not surface again, although they were both routinely briefed on weapons proliferation in Africa. "I was convinced it was not an issue," Fulford said.
"Fulford was asked by the U.S. ambassador to Niger, BarbroOwens-Kirkpatrick, to join her at the meeting with Niger's President Mamadou Tandja on Feb. 24, 2002. "I was asked to impress upon the president the importance that the yellowcake in Niger be under control," Fulford said. "I did that. He assured me. He said the mining operations were handled through a French consortium" and therefore out of the Niger government's control. Owens-Kirkpatrick, reached by phone, declined to comment.
"Fulford's impressions, while not conclusive, were similar to those of former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson, who traveled to Niger for the CIA in February 2002 to interview Niger officials about the uranium claim and came away convinced it was not true."
It is clear that the US Government has in its possession
THREE reports, all from different sources that considered that allegations of an Iraqi purchase of Niger uranium press cakes to be unfounded. In addition, that they had this information fully 9 months before Bush SOTU speech where it was referenced.
Quote:He told everyone that he'd recognized as obvious forgeries the documents purporting to show an Iraq-Niger uranium deal. But the forged documents to which he referred didn't reach U.S. intelligence until eight months after his trip. Mr. Wilson has said that he "misspoke" -- multiple times, apparently -- on this issue.
Again, the WSJ takes words Wilson stated out of a temporal context. He said those things after the documents were released, but the WSJ is referencing its attack upon Wilson response to questions by the Senate Intelligence Committee staff interviews, and applies them to other, earlier times.
In his reply to accusations of lying in the Senate Intelligence addendum, "Additional view" the following:
http://www.politicsoftruth.com/editorials/africa.html
Quote: This conclusion states that I told the committee staff that I "may have become confused about my own recollection after the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported that the names and dates on the documents were not correct." At the time that I was asked that question, I was not afforded the opportunity to review the articles to which the staff was referring. I have now done so.
Quote:Number three: Joe Wilson was also not telling the truth when he said that his final report to the CIA had "debunked" the Niger story.quote]
Wilson claimed only that the transaction described in the documents that turned out to be forgeries could not have occurred and did not occur. The WSJ accusations of Wilson lying are that he referred to his report as debunking the "16 words" in contention of the Bush State of the Union speech of January 2003.
In his original essay in the NY Times of June 2003, Joe Wilson did not say that his report "debunked" the "16 words" in contention of the Bush State of the Union speech of January 2003. He was quite specific in this. He never claimed to have "debunked" the allegation that Iraq was seeking uranium from Africa. He claimed only that the transaction described in the documents that turned out to be forgeries could not have occurred and did not occur
It is clear that the US Government has in its possession
THREE reports, all from different sources that considered that allegations of an Iraqi purchase of Niger uranium press cakes to be unfounded. And that they had this information fully 9 months before Bush SOTU speech where thi was referenced.
Quote:The Senate Intelligence report -- again, the bipartisan portion of it -- says Mr. Wilson's debrief was interpreted as providing "some confirmation of foreign government service reporting" that Iraq had sought uranium in Niger. That's because Niger's former Prime Minister had told Mr. Wilson he interpreted a 1999 visit from an Iraqi trade delegation as showing an interest in uranium.
Well, this was already contradicted by the reports from U.S. Ambassador to Niger, Barbro Owens-Kirkpatrick and General Fulford's remarks above.
But actually, it merely did not change the opinion of any of the analysts minds, and the only ones who were correct were those who believed that Wilson's report supported them in saying that the allegation of an Iraqi attempt couild not have taken place.
Wilson has responded by referring to the details in the actual report and cited these things by page number. These things actually show that there was no confirmation of the foreign government service reports and pointed out that the Committee report conclusion was not an accurate portrayal of the documented evidence they placed in the record.
Quote:In August 2002, a CIA NESA [Office of Near Eastern and South Asian Analysis] report on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction capabilities did not include the alleged Iraq-Niger uranium information. (page 48)
In September 2002, during coordination of a speech with an NSC staff member, the CIA analyst suggested the reference to Iraqi attempts to acquire uranium from Africa be removed. The CIA analyst said the NSC staff member said that would leave the British "flapping in the wind." (page 50)
The uranium text was included in the body of the NIE [National Intelligence Estimate] but not in the key judgments. When someone suggested that the uranium information be included as another sign of reconstitution, the INR [State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research] Iraq nuclear analyst spoke up and said the he did not agree with the uranium reporting and that INR would be including text indicating their disagreement in their footnote on nuclear reconstitution. The NIO [national intelligence officer] said he did not recall anyone really supporting including the uranium issue as part of the judgment that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear program, so he suggested that the uranium information did not need to be part of the key judgments. He told committee staff that he suggested, "We'll leave it in the paper for completeness. Nobody can say we didn't connect the dots. But we don't have to put that dot in the key judgments." (page 53)
On Oct. 2, 2002, the Deputy DCI [director of central intelligence] testified before the SSCI [Senate Select Committee on Intelligence]. Sen. Jon Kyl asked the Deputy DCI whether he had read the British White Paper and whether he disagreed with anything in the report. The Deputy DCI testified that "the one thing where I think they stretched a little bit beyond where we would stretch is on the points about Iraq seeking uranium from various African locations." (page 54)
On Oct. 4, 2002, the NIO for Strategic and Nuclear Programs testified that "there is some information on attempts ... there's a question about those attempts because of the control of the material in those countries ... For us it's more the concern that they [Iraq] have uranium in-country now." (page 54)
On Oct. 5, 2002, the ADDI [associate deputy director for intelligence] said an Iraqi nuclear analyst -- he could not remember who -- raised concerns about the sourcing and some of the facts of the Niger reporting, specifically that the control of the mines in Niger would have made it very difficult to get yellowcake to Iraq. (page 55)
Based on the analyst's comments, the ADDI faxed a memo to the deputy national security advisor that said, "Remove the sentence because the amount is in dispute and it is debatable whether it can be acquired from this source. We told Congress that the Brits have exaggerated this issue. Finally, the Iraqis already have 550 metric tons of uranium oxide in their inventory." (page 56)
On Oct. 6, 2002, the DCI called the deputy national security advisor directly to outline the CIA's concerns. The DCI testified to the SSCI on July 16, 2003, that he told the deputy national security advisor that the "President should not be a fact witness on this issue," because his analysts had told him the "reporting was weak." (page 56)
On Oct. 6, 2002, the CIA sent a second fax to the White House that said, "More on why we recommend removing the sentence about procuring uranium oxide from Africa: Three points (1) The evidence is weak. One of the two mines cited by the source as the location of the uranium oxide is flooded. The other mine cited by the source is under the control of the French authorities. (2) The procurement is not particularly significant to Iraq's nuclear ambitions because the Iraqis already have a large stock of uranium oxide in their inventory. And (3) we have shared points one and two with Congress, telling them that the Africa story is overblown and telling them this is one of the two issues where we differed with the British." (page 56)
On March 8, 2003, the intelligence report on my trip was disseminated within the U.S. government, according to the Senate report (page 43). Further, the Senate report states that "in early March, the Vice President asked his morning briefer for an update on the Niger uranium issue." That update from the CIA "also noted that the CIA would be debriefing a source who may have information related to the alleged sale on March 5." The report then states the "DO officials also said they alerted WINPAC [Center for Weapons Intelligence, Nonproliferation and Arms Control] analysts when the report was being disseminated because they knew the high priority of the issue." The report notes that the CIA briefer did not brief the vice president on the report. (page 46)