Joseph Wilson, Who Challenged Iraq War Narrative, Dies at 69
Source: New York Times
Joseph C. Wilson, the long-serving American diplomat whose clash with the administration of President George W. Bush in 2003 led to the unmasking of his wife at the time, Valerie Plame, as a C.I.A. agent, resulting in accusations that the revelation was political payback, died on Friday at his home in Santa Fe, N.M. He was 69.
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Mr. Wilson served in numerous posts, many in Africa, in a 23-year diplomatic career that began in 1976. One posting had been to Niger, and in 2002, by then a private citizen, he was asked by the C.I.A. to travel to that country to try to verify reports that Niger had sold a nuclear material, uranium yellowcake, to Iraq in the 1990s. At the time, the Bush administration was building to a crisis point with Iraq and its leader, Saddam Hussein, and among the issues was whether Iraq had or was developing nuclear weapons.
Ambassador Wilson concluded from his trip that the reports of a Niger-Iraq deal were false. After President Bush, in his State of the Union Message in January 2003, said that “the British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa,” and then ordered an invasion of Iraq seven weeks later, Mr. Wilson felt the record needed to be corrected.
On July 6, 2003, he wrote an Op-Ed article in The New York Times titled, “What I Didn’t Find in Africa.”
Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/27/us/joseph-wilson-who-challenged-iraq-war-narrative-dies-at-69.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share
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Poor Valerie. They have twins. They truly seemed the perfect couple...
Boy, this saddens me today
Unfortunately, not many were listening to him.
And his wife is running for office.
A grateful nation thanks you
Peace
Still...this seems so young to have passed.
Safe crossing Ambassador.
not to mention his then-wife, covert CIA operative Valerie Plame
RIP .
courage when it mattered.
69 yo is much too young these days.
RIP with our grateful thanks.
You were right.
At a time when another whistle blower is in the news, the ultimate whistle blower shuffles off his mortal coil. He was a great man. My most sincere condolences to his family, Valerie most of all. He was a rock.
We are grateful for the fullness of your service and the depth of your patriotism.
He was one of the few that stood against the bloodlusting Neo-Cons.
You fought an honorable and good fight
Gone to soon ...
