Plame's Input Is Cited on Niger Mission

[spotbird]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A39834-2004Jul9.html

Former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, dispatched by the CIA in February 2002 to investigate reports that Iraq sought to reconstitute its nuclear weapons program with uranium from Africa, was specifically recommended for the mission by his wife, a CIA employee, contrary to what he has said publicly.

**more**

It looks like a red herring to distract from the fact that Plame's outing was a crime.

[hedda_foil]

1. HUGE red herring.

Looks like Rove pulled this out of the report and spun it back to the press.

[Eloriel]

2. I don't recall he's said that publicly

In fact, in my recollection (which could be wrong, of course), he said just that -- that she had mentioned his name and the CIA adopted her suggestion.

He didn't get paid anything, for heaven's sake. So what's the point?

[Rose Siding]

7. That's how I recall it but they have this-

"Valerie had nothing to do with the matter," Wilson wrote in a memoir published this year. "She definitely had not proposed that I make the trip."
--------------------------
"Nothing to do with the final decision" would have been more accurate.

This makes me more optimistic that indictments are coming. I think.

[bemildred]

3. Would not Mr. Wilson naming his wife publicly be a crime too? nt

[Media_Lies_Daily]

11. Huh??

[Rose Siding]

12. He wouldn't directly confirm or deny her work

when I heard him at the first 'frog march' speech in Seattle.

I forget how he put it exactly, but mostly, then, he used theoreticals.

[bemildred]

18. That's what I would expect, that he would not be able speak freely.

Hence it is perverse to bash him for not speaking freely, that is
for doing as he is required by law to do.

[Rose Siding]

4. This lame accusation of nepotism is made by *this* admin?

Bush, son of Bush, who hired Cheney, daughter of Cheney, and Rhenquist, daughter of Rhenquist, and McClellan, brother of McClellan ETCETERA ETCETERA ETCETERA!!!!!!!!!

[peacetalksforall]

23. And John Ellis - never let us forget Ellis - first cousin of the Bush boys

who while working for Fox called the election for Bush after it had called Gore the winner.

Nice thing about the documentary - when you see the face with the name, you sure can retain the name with more assurance.

John Ellis
John Ellis

[sundancekid]

5. Mayberry Macchiavellis Excavate New Item for Revisionist History

... like they wouldn't have "told" us that back in the Novak "outing" days about a year ago!!!!

Mantra to self:

Plame indictments are coming
Plame indictments are coming
Plame indictments are coming

[radfringe]

6. yup -- red herring

assuming IF she did recommend Wilson -- so what?

I'm sure that her superiors know who she was married to and if they saw this as any conflict of interest would have recommending sending somebody else.

meanwhile - what does have to do with someone in the WH committing treason by disclosing her identity?

[Lugnut]

14. Exactly!

So what is right! He was obviously well qualified for such a mission and doesn't alter the fact that the WH claim was bogus. It also doesn't alter the fact that somebody divulged Ms Plame's identity. :grr:

[peacetalksforall]

24. She was the one under cover. He wasn't. What the heck is bugging

them - a look into the future? Do they thing she used subterfuge, broke a law, broke a principal, broke their bank?

[Eloriel]

8. This is patently ridiculous

No, make that PROPAGANDA. From the article (among other ridiculous statements):

Yesterday's report said that whether Iraq sought to buy lightly enriched "yellowcake" uranium from Niger is one of the few bits of prewar intelligence that remains an open question.

An open question? Oh, please. I'd like to see the documentation on that.

Ridiculous, in a ridiculous article. Who wrote it? Susan Schmidt -- the Post's Judith Miller, I take it. Unbelievable. The article certainly confirms what I had suspected, that the Senate Intelligence Committee is doing cover-up for Bush. Surprise, surprise.

[Generator]

29. That's exactly what I thought

one big coverup piece. I guess once again if they say the sky is polka dots, then come back and say, it's not, then come back and say it is and the previous statement of them saying it's not never existed, we are supposed to believe them? I am to the point that I trust nothing that comes out of this mis-adminstration. As my letter from my senator confirmed, the committee for the Iraq Intelligence failings was all HAND PICKED by Bushco.

We have the chickens living in the henhouse.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

9. Susan Schmidt has been a tool of the rightwing GOP since the...

...very beginning of Clinton's first presidency.

Here are some links you might find interesting:

<http://www.needlenose.com/pMachineFree2.2.1/weblog.php?id=P1184>

Excerpt:

"The essence of genius, though, is that it refuses to be bound by such mundane conventions, and precisely this kind of mastery is displayed by the Washington Post. How could the Post top breaking the first news of Wilson's book near the end of its political gossip column(!), rather than on the front page? Easy -- they hand the task to supreme spinmeister Susan Schmidt, best known lately for inventing the Jessica Lynch-as-Rambo fable but whose fame in biased reporting stretches at least as far back as the days of Bill Clinton and the Whitewater 'scandal' in 1993."
==========================================

<http://www.needlenose.com/pMachineFree2.2.1/weblog.php?id=P135>

Excerpt:

"Bonus analysis for Clinton-scandal fans: Susan Schmidt, the co-author of the 'initial account,' was often criticized by defenders of Bill Clinton during the Whitewater/Lewinsky investigations for writing overhyped stories based on questionable leaks from anonymous sources.

A quick search suggests that this was the only Iraq/war-related story Schmidt has been involved in -- unlike Vernon Loeb, who has been reporting consistently and with seeming accuracy on the war -- and virtually all of the melodramatic (and, now, apparently false) details in the article come from a single anonymous government official. Wouldn't it be interesting to know who this official was, and whether he or she sought out Schmidt as a gullible PR conduit?"
===================================

<http://health-books-online.net/0060194855.html>

Don't be fooled by the title of the website...this is definitely a rightwing site! You'll understand when you read this book review on:

"Truth at Any Cost: Ken Starr & the Unmaking of Bill Clinton
Written by Susan Schmidt , Michael Weisskopf
Published by HarperCollins Publishers (April 2000)"

Excerpt from book review:

"So Bill Clinton had his men muscle poor Ken Starr who did a fabulous job exposing this infidel. Clinton was disbarred and impeached but still allowed to finish his term, hand out pardons to criminals, steal furniture from the white house and take the economy right down the toilet. I gues that saying about the golden rule: 'the man with gold makes the rules' is very true. Another reason why I am glad that I am no longer a democrat. Or is that democ(rat)."
======================================

Lots more here in this Google search on "Susan Schmidt Clinton"...

<http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=Susan+Schmidt+Clinton&btnG=Google+Search>

[Rose Siding]

10. And this!

snip>
The report also said Wilson provided misleading information to The Washington Post last June. He said then that he concluded the Niger intelligence was based on documents that had clearly been forged because "the dates were wrong and the names were wrong."

"Committee staff asked how the former ambassador could have come to the conclusion that the 'dates were wrong and the names were wrong' when he had never seen the CIA reports and had no knowledge of what names and dates were in the reports," the Senate panel said. Wilson told the panel he may have been confused and may have "misspoken" to reporters. The documents -- purported sales agreements between Niger and Iraq -- were not in U.S. hands until eight months after Wilson made his trip to Niger.
--------------------------

This conclusion is totally screwy. Even if he hadn't seen the CIA rpt, they would have told him what to be LOOKING for, wouldn't they? Of COURSE he knew that a doc that had an officials name who wasn't in office at the time cited on the forgery meant that the "the dates were wrong and the names were wrong."

[Media_Lies_Daily]

13. If he had been told or shown ANY classified information he was....

...bound legally not to reveal what it was, when he saw it, or where he got it. That automatically puts him in a bad poisition when responding to ANY questions from the commission.

[Snazzy]

15. Helpful to visit Hersh

Wilson told me he was informed at the time that the mission had come about because the Vice-President’s office was interested in the Italian intelligence report. Before his departure, he was summoned to a meeting at the C.I.A. with a group of government experts on Iraq, Niger, and uranium. He was shown no documents but was told, he said, that the C.I.A. “was responding to a report that was recently received of a purported memorandum of agreement”—between Iraq and Niger—“that our boys had gotten.” He added, “It was never clear to me, or to the people who were briefing me, whether our guys had actually seen the agreement, or the purported text of an agreement.” Wilson’s trip to Niger, which lasted eight days, produced nothing. He learned that any memorandum of understanding to sell yellowcake would have required the signatures of Niger’s Prime Minister, Foreign Minister, and Minister of Mines. “I saw everybody out there,” Wilson said, and no one had signed such a document. “If a document purporting to be about the sale contained those signatures, it would not be authentic.” Wilson also learned that there was no uranium available to sell: it had all been pre-sold to Niger’s Japanese and European consortium partners.


http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?031027fa_fact

[Media_Lies_Daily]

16. Bingo. Good recall!!

[Rose Siding]

17. There ya go

Very helpful visit

[lostnfound]

19. Spin alert! And probably Plame couldn't tell her husband about it anyway..

Even if it's true that she specifically recommended him, it doesn't follow that Joseph Wilson KNEW that she had. It's likely that she (as an undercover op) makes it a habit to NEVER reveal her discussions at work to her husband.

[Barrett808]

20. Ex-ambassador didn't 'debunk' Iraq-Niger deal (Senate report)

Ex-ambassador didn't 'debunk' Iraq-Niger deal
Information boosted CIA findings on Iraqi plans to buy uranium, Senate report finds.
By James Kuhnhenn
Knight Ridder Newspapers
July 10, 2004

WASHINGTON -- The Senate's report into intelligence failures about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq disputes a key war critic's assertion that he had "debunked" suspicions that Iraq attempted to buy uranium from the African country of Niger.

The report contends that former ambassador Joseph Wilson, who traveled to Niger in early 2002 at the CIA's request to inquire about the uranium allegation, "did not change any analysts' assessment of the Iraq-Niger uranium deal."

The committee concluded that the CIA's October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate overstated what was known about Iraq's efforts to obtain uranium. But it also said Wilson's information, instead of steering the CIA away, "lent more credibility to the original Central Intelligence Agency reports."

The committee also reported that the British and the French told U.S. officials that Iraq tried to buy uranium from Niger.

By challenging Wilson, the Senate Intelligence Committee's report opened the door for renewed Republican attacks on Wilson's credibility in one of the most contentious side issues of the Iraq war controversy.

...

"Time and again, Joe Wilson told anyone who would listen that the president had lied to the American people, that the vice president had lied and that he had 'debunked' the claim that Iraq was seeking uranium from Africa," committee Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kan., said in a statement of "additional views" signed by two other Republican senators.

(more)


http://www.indystar.com/articles/2/161408-4092-010.html

[Rose Siding]

21. Media malfunction alert

Roberts (R), Bond (R) and Hatch (R) made the conclusion but we can't tell what it's based on.

from Holden at Atrios-

http://atrios.blogspot.com/
You can find what the committee said on pages 72-83 of the PDF version of the report.

As roughly 75% of those 12 pages have been redacted by the CIA, I don't understand how anyone outside of the committee can make a definitive statement about whether or not Joseph Wilson lied. The report does state (on pg. 73) that "State Department Bureau of
Intelligence and Research (INR) analysts believed that the report supported their assessment that Niger was unlikely to be willing or able to sell uranium to Iraq."

The few paragraphs that escaped the CIA's censors make no mention of Ms. Plame recommending her husband for the Niger trip.

Those within the committee who do claim that Ambassador Wilson lied include Chairman Pat Roberts joined by Senator Christopher S. Bond, Senator Orrin G. Hatch, in what can be fairly described as a partisan rant on pp. 442-445. Note that fellow republicans Mike DeWine, Trent Lott, Olympia Snowe, Chuck Hagel, Saxby Chambliss, and John Warner chose not to support this conclusion, nor did any of the eight democrats on the committee.

Look for yourself, then decide if you think there is enough evidence upon which to base a decision.

None of this in any way detracts from the fact that two senior administration officials disclosed Ms. Plame's identity to Robert Novak in violation of federal law.
-----------------------

Here's a link to the report-

http://web.mit.edu/simsong/www/iraqreport2-textunder.pdf

[TheWesson]

25. Joe Wilson and the SSCI report

I read the relevant sections.

An Iraqi envoy (Iraq's Vatican ambassador) did visit four African countries, including Niger.

Joe Wilson reported that
1) Niger officials denied any official connection to Iraq
2) They admitted unofficial transactions would be possible
3) But unlikely given that the mines were under French control
4) A Nigerian minister said that the Iraqi envoy had visited, and wanted to extend trade relations, which the *minister* took to mean the possibility of yellowcake export.

So Joe Wilson felt that he had debunked the Iraq/Niger story, but apparently some people took (4) and ran with it.

The CIA *did* repeatedly warn the Administration that the Niger story was shaky, and of course State was strongly dismissive of it.

There was a forged Italian memo about "500 tons" of yellowcake from Niger to Iraq, which is what brought about Joe Wilson's trip, but Joe Wilson did not know at the time of this memo.

A Financial Times article indicates that European intelligence sources may have had *other* indications of uranium-purchase-contacts between Iraq and Niger - which may be why the claim remained in the British dossier - but we don't know what they are. Josh Marshall promised to say more about this in a few days.

In any case, the stupidity of the whole thing is that Saddam already had way more than enough yellowcake to build many bombs AND the CIA and the IAEA already knew it.

The difficulty in building a U-235 bomb is primarily in purifying the 1% of U-235 out from the yellowcake. This was first done with centrifuges in 1945 - it takes quite a number of high-speed centrifuges running for a long time. The evidence that Saddam had or was trying to get the aluminum tubes for these centrifuges was very weak - nuclear engineers didn't think they were very suitable and they were the same as previously ordered rocket parts - and there was no evidence of the purchase of the other centrifuge parts that would be needed.

So the "yellowcake from Niger" story is weak and irrelevant to a WMD story.

However, Joe Wilson seems to be rather full of himself in claiming that an 8-day visit to Niger, talking to officials, really "debunks" uranium-from-Niger either. But he is not a spy or CIA analyst so perhaps he really did think his visit put the subject to a rest, and I'm sure he was unpleasantly surprised when the Niger/Iraq connection came up in the State of the Union.

I ascribe the whole snafu not so much to Bush lying as just to ideologically driven incompetence and callow disregard for analysis - which is more scary in a way. Because such incompetence cannot even be counted on to do the right thing for self-preservation. It makes the Administration accountable to no one and no force - not even its own well being.

the wesson

[Tellurian]

30. This means the "spin" in that article is meant to Tar and Feather Wilson..

"Time and again, Joe Wilson told anyone who would listen that the president had lied to the American people, that the vice president had lied and that he had 'debunked' the claim that Iraq was seeking uranium from Africa," committee Chairman Pat Roberts, R-Kan., said in a statement of "additional views" signed by two other Republican senators."

Absolutely correct! Folks, we're witnessing revisionist history!

[0007]

22. This is such a lame defense I laughed non-stop for 30 minutes

[Hekate]

26. They lied. Wilson clarified. They lied again.

The clarification I recall: Joe Wilson did not say that his wife did not recommend him for the job. He DID list all of his bona fides for being a qualified person to do the job. Apparently the ambassador had some fairly extensive hands-on experience in Niger, Nigeria, and other parts of Africa.

The Bush admin, with abundant help from the "news" media, has tried from the start to minimize and trivialize Wilson's qualifications and contributions. They had me half-convinced that he had no particular qualifications and was just someone's retired husband at loose ends and available to be sent as an errand-boy. I appreciated hearing his version, needless to say. Considering the Bush admin's record so far, I'm inclined to believe Joe Wilson.

Hekate

[gulliver]

27. The Bush administration, upon seeing what they considered ...

... outrageous nepotism did the only thing they could do. They outed a covert CIA agent in retaliation. "Fair's fair," argued a senior administration official who asked not to be identified. "It was nepotism. Of course we responded by committing treason! What is all the fuss?"

[peacetalksforall]

28. This cabal is vile and doel not tolerate non-believers of

their stories. They become more vile when challenged. There is no symbol, animal, viper, or mythological figure that can represent them - except spoiled, undeveloped frightening children.