Joe Wilson on PBS now, so let me get this straight the British have

[candy331]

conferred that the President was absolutely correct in his SOTU speech about the uranium Niger deal? Some Senator is on saying Iraq was seeking to get uranium and that is what the President said and was right and supported by the CIA. What the hell is this?

[LittleApple81]

1. Is this the NewsHour? n/t

[candy331]

8. Yes, NEWS HOUR with Jim Lehrer and Senator Bond

and Bond demanding that Wilson owes the President an apology for calling him a liar.

[leftist.]

16. same thing on hannity today

he and congressman jd hayworth from arizona were chatting about this.

hayworth makes the statement:

"... since we now know wilson LIED ..."

and then hannity repeats, AGAIN, the lie about the clinton speech and having bin laden.

is it the position of WABC radio that wilson is a liar?

[aquart]

2. You might want to check with TPM about that.

<http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/>

[trof]

3. Thanks for the heads up.

Comes on in 10 minutes central time.

[whistle]

4. Joe Wilson the ambassador who is married to Plame (CIA agent)....

...who BushCo betrayed along with Bob (Liver Lips) Novak is saying? Or is that a reThuglican spin and more thick blue smoke being put out there in the media?

[fearnobush]

5. THe British have not provided one shread of proof to back up their claim

[Gin]

6. he can handle himself....he knew when he outed these crooks he was in for

heat....as their backs are pushed against the wall...the big asses bite harder.

[LittleApple81]

10. HE HAS TO SUE. A lot of feces thrown at him. HE WILL NEVER CLEAR

his name if he does not sue.

[buycitgo]

7. that's simply how they try to rewrite history that they can't escape

check this from a WP story right after the whole thing broke

it covers most of the bases:

Since last Monday, the administration has offered changing explanations for that statement. At first, White House press secretary Ari Fleischer said the statement was simply wrong because it "was based and predicated on the yellowcake from Niger."

On Friday, Bush and top aides said the CIA approved the inclusion of those words, and CIA Director George J. Tenet took responsibility. Yet Bush aides have argued in recent days that the statement may, in fact, prove to be correct. Officials said Sunday the British had sources other than the forged documents, but they have declined to reveal them.

Yesterday Bush defended the charge as he fielded questions after a meeting in the Oval Office with U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan. "I think the intelligence I get is darn good intelligence," he said. "And the speeches I have given were backed by good intelligence. And I am absolutely convinced today, like I was convinced when I gave the speeches, that Saddam Hussein developed a program of weapons of mass destruction, and that our country made the right decision."

The president again noted that his speech was approved by the CIA and suggested that any doubts about the charge came after the speech. "The thing that's important to realize is that we're constantly gathering data," he said. "Subsequent to the speech, the CIA had some doubts. But when they talked about the speech and when they looked at the speech, it was cleared. Otherwise, I wouldn't have put it in the speech."

Bush's remarks added to contradictions that have been presented by administration officials as they have sought to explain the use of the uranium charge in the State of the Union speech.

Bush's communications director, Dan Bartlett, said last week that Bush was not angry to learn the charge was based on flawed information. Bush himself has voiced no regret or irritation in public.

But at his briefing yesterday, Fleischer described a displeased Bush. "I assure you, the president is not pleased," he said. "The president, of course, would not be pleased if he said something in the State of the Union that may or may not have been true and should not have risen to his level."

Also, Bartlett, discussing the State of the Union address, said last week that "there was no debate or questions with regard to that line when it was signed off on." But on Friday, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice said there was "discussion on that specific sentence, so that it reflected better what the CIA thought." Rice said "some specifics about amount and place were taken out." Tenet said Friday that CIA officials objected, and "the language was changed."

Fleischer said yesterday Rice was not referring to the State of the Union reference but to Bush's October speech given in Cincinnati -- even though Rice was not asked about that speech. Fleischer said that while the line cut from the October speech was based on the Niger allegations, he said the State of the Union claim was based on "additional reporting from the CIA, separate and apart from Niger, naming other countries where they believed it was possible that Saddam was seeking uranium."

But Fleischer's words yesterday contradicted his assertion a week earlier that the State of the Union charge was "based and predicated on the yellowcake from Niger." Rice was asked a month ago about Bush's State of the Union uranium claim on ABC's "This Week" and replied: "The intelligence community did not know at the time or at levels that got to us that there was serious questions about this report." But senior administration officials acknowledged over the weekend that Tenet argued personally to White House officials, including deputy national security adviser Stephen Hadley, that the allegation should not be used in the October speech, four months before the State of the Union address.

CIA officials raised doubts about the Niger claims, as Tenet outlined Friday. The last time was when "CIA officials reviewing the draft remarks" of the State of the Union "raised several concerns about the fragmentary nature of the intelligence with National Security Council colleagues," Tenet's statement said. "Some of the language was changed."

The change included using British intelligence as the source of the information. The CIA, however, continued to doubt the reliability of the British claim.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A56336-2003Jul14¬Found=true

nothing has changed from this story, and JMMarshall's response explains the circle jerk nature of the intel agencies' self fulfilling faux collaboration of each others' bogus info

[Hoping4Change]

11. David Corn totally slams the Post story.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/07/20/opinion/main630711.shtml

[Hoping4Change]

9. David Corn defends Wilson and BTW answers your question.

"In his debriefing Wilson reported that former Nigerian Prime Minister Ibrahim Mayaki had told him that in 1999 he had been asked to meet with an Iraqi delegation to discuss "expanding commercial relations" between Niger and Iraq.

Mayaki said not been interested in pursuing any commercial dealings with Iraq. The intelligence report based on Wilson's debriefing also noted that the former minister of mines explained to Wilson that given the tight controls maintained by the French consortium in charge of uranium mining in Niger, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to arrange a shipment of uranium to a pariah state.

What did this report mean to the intelligence community? A CIA reports officer told the Senate intelligence committee that he took it as indirect confirmation of the allegation...

BUT an INR analyst said that he considered the report to be corroboration of INR's position, which was that the allegation was "highly suspect" because Niger would be unlikely to engage in such a transaction and unable to transfer uranium to Iraq due to the strict controls maintained by the French consortium. But the INR analyst added, the "report could be read in different ways."

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/07/20/opinion/main630711.shtml

[Malva Zebrina]

12. I find this so sad

Bush is getting away with treason and murder. He is, you know.

There is no outrage, there is no interest in exposing his treason.

He will be given the blank check all the way around.

Bush was right to do all that he did, re Iraq. Yup


No one has provedn otherwise. No one has ever shown any propensity to do so. In fact, some seem to be finding excuses more and more as to why Bush did the right thing.


Even the Democrats seem to be saying he was right, because, well because they voted to let him.

I, for one, know it was not the right thing to do and I am ashamed of my country and I am ashamed of how this is playing out.

I don't believe a single one of them anymore. Not a one. They can all go pound salt.

[peacetalksforall]

14. Their solid base is 27-37 % only. These lies are probably being

bought by up to 60% with another 10 to 15% who are borderline. So how do you reach those between 27 and 75%? It seems it takes a documentary BECAUSE we DON'T HAVE AN HONEST mainstream press. We are no better off than the those who lived under the USSR when they suffered from a theft of truth and news for decades.

[librechik]

13. no--Josh Marshall has a good line on this--the British are basing their

reports (ultimately) on the same forged documents that Wilson investigated, only they came to the British through a different source. They are doing the same trick Shrub did when he sourced it to the British, only the British are insisting their source (the French) can't be named --if they did, everyone would find out it was the same forged documents (everyone will find out soon anyway--the coverup is being peeled away in the UK)

[Generator]

21. What??? the same documents?

This is precious. Our democracy going down in flames.

[mountainvue]

15. Some bullshit they started spewing

last night on Paula Zahn. The Rove flying shit machine is now cranked up to full gear.

[nefarious]

17. Any notice the similarity in appearance

Between venomous Missouri senator Kit Bond and *'s infamous attorney general?

[stickdog]

18. It's bullshit. The Butler Report was an obvious whitewash. Now the RW

is using its disingenuous "conclusions" to pretend the Niger uranium claims -- which were so bogus that they were withdrawn in embarrassment -- actually had merit.

And it's all the same bullshit circle jerk that it ever was. It's just got Lord Whitewash's seal of approval now.

[EndElectoral]

19. G&*^%$# IT- Why wont the media do thir G^%$# JOB!!!!

Now that I got the Cheney out of my system...How can they get away with just pretending these forged documents didn't happen? I can see them saying we were informed incorectly by the CIA, but they keep trying to push this LIE through with no corroboration..

It's offensive!

I'm jsut sick of the media ignoring the Allwai story, but picking up Berger, and this damn shit on the Iraq-African uranium connection with absolutely NO verifiable proof. What the hell are they going to say? Duh..national security. you peons can's be exposed to this information because it would put the naiton in jeopardy.

Folks, the shit is getting out of HAND!!

[stickdog]

20. Exactly. They keep saying, "Wilson lied. The Iraq-Niger uranium story

actually HAD some merit!"

But where is the evidence? What the fuck is this claim based on other than the same forgery circle jerk it was ALWAYS based on?

If there is some evidence, show it! Put up or shut up, whores!

[shraby]

22. It has no bearing on the real

problem here. That a CIA's identity was leaked and published. The rest is smoke and mirrors to take away from the crime.

[stickdog]

23. Correct. It is the REDDEST of herrings.

And what makes it even redder is the fact that there's still not a SHRED of evidence that Iraq tried to purchase yellowcake from Africa.

Not even the tiniest shred.

[kaitykaity]

24. This show was unbelievable.

Margaret Warner didn't even make a pretense of being
a neutral arbiter.

She tried "gotcha" after "gotcha" on Wilson, and she
smacked her around but good.

[durutti]

25. No.

It's a long story, but check out Talking Points Memo and Glen Rangwala's page.

[maggrwaggr]

26. what does any of this have to do with outing Valerie Plame?

Hello?

[coeur_de_lion]

27. transcript for the Jim Lehrer News Hour Wilson interview

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/middle_east/july-dec04/yellowcake_7-20.html