Joseph Wilson EPIC Lecture 6/14/2003 Outline/Transcript

EPIC: Education for Peace in Iraq Center ^ | 6/14/2003 | Joseph Wilson as transcribed by Fedora

[kabar]

Thanks for the ping and the information. Wilson's anti-Israel and conspiratorial views are instructive. He drew attention to himself and was, by his own admission, talking freely to the MSM. I believe that once he became so public, he invited scrutiny by the press, which led to the "outing" of his wife. It was the media who went to the WH to confirm Wilson's allegations and his wife's connection to the CIA. The Dems allegations that the WH intentionally outed Plame to punish and discredit Wilson are false.

[mosquitobite]

Also from Wilson's book... WHO is the friend who just "happened" to bump into Novak on the street before Novak's article was even written. I think that "friend" is most likely the leaker Fitz is looking for... (jmho - a set up of sorts, or they stupidly tried using Plame's position to BOLSTER Wilson's claims)

[Glic]

things like this make me think that if fitz and co. go after a cheap shot press move , it will be very easy to crush it.

You're exactly right - more people should keep this in mind.

[mosquitobite]

Fedora, have you read TheLastHurrah (emptywheels) analysis? Pretty interesting, even if I don't agree with it. Judith Miller may have been backed into a corner on perjury charges... interesting on WHY...

[Fedora]

Thanks--I found the link you mean:

EPIC: Campaigns and Programs

Honor the Legacy was initiated by U.S. war veterans and the Education for Peace in Iraq Center (EPIC). The coalition also includes: Amnesty International USA, Oxfam America, the National Council of Churches of Christ, Physicians for Social Responsibility and Veterans for Common Sense.

This seems to refer specifically to the cosponsors of their Honor the Legacy program, but it's probably a good indicator of where their general funding originates. Several of the groups I see mentioned there were part of the Cold War CPUSA front funding network--the National of Council of Churches/World Council of Churches was one of their chief fundraising sources, along with some charities like the Rockefeller Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Stern Family Fund, the Rubin Foundation, etc. (for a more detailed list see the appendix to S. Stephen Powell, Covert Cadre). This network is now interlinked with the "Shadow Party" funding network largely subsidized through Soros, Peter Lewis, Jane Fonda, and Stephen Bing (I say "through" because they may be conduits for funds originating elsewhere).

[the Real fifi]

You're famous.October 10th, 2005 http://americanthinker.com/comments.php?comments_id=3345










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Joe Wilson's speech


A month before Robert Novak wrote his column supposedly outing Valerie Plame, Joseph Wilson gave a speech in which he talks in the third person about a person who is obviously himself, allows Valerie Plame to be identified as his wife, and discloses his intense opposition to the war in Iraq, as well as his anti-Israel sentiments. He makes clear that he is the source of the Kristoff/Pincus leaks about his mission. He even says that “this thing has legs,” that it will take two or three months, but it has legs – implying, perhaps, that he had already been working with the Kerry campaign to make this issue big – attacking the President's credibility on the war.

Clifford May noted this Wilson speech in July 2003, but only to show that Wilson wasn't credible because of the kind of groups to which he was speaking and how easy it was to find out from non-Administration people who his wife was and where she worked because he, in fact, had done so. He did not go into the substance of the speech or the important fact that his wife was already listed there on the website bio.

The speech was given at EPIC, the Education for Peace in Iraq Center, a left wing organization, which has, a least for the moment, an audio file of the speech on its website A poster at the Free Republic website named “Fedora” transcribed parts of the speech.

Here are some highlights:

"Let me just start out by saying, as a preface to what I really want to talk about, to those of you who are going out and lobbying tomorrow, I just want to assure you that that American ambassador who has been cited in reports in the New York Times and in the Washington Post, and now in the Guardian over in London, who actually went over to Niger on behalf of the government--not of the CIA but of the government--and came back in February of 2002 and told the government that there was nothing to this story, later called the government after the British white paper was published and said you all need to do some fact-checking and make sure the Brits aren't using bad information in the publication of the white paper, and who called both the CIA and the State Department after the President's State of the Union and said to them you need to worry about the political manipulation of intelligence if, in fact, the President is talking about Niger when he mentions Africa. That person was told by the State Department that, well, you know, there's four countries that export uranium. That person had served in three of those countries, so he knew a little bit about what he was talking about when he said you really need to worry about this. But I can assure you that that retired American ambassador to Africa, as Nick Kristof called him in his article, is also pissed off, and has every intention of ensuring that this story has legs. And I think it does have legs. It may not have legs over the next two or three months, but when you see American casualties moving from one to five or to ten per day, and you see Tony Blair's government fall because in the U.K. it is a big story, there will be some ramifications, I think, here in the United States, so I hope that you will do everything you can to keep the pressure on. Because it is absolutely bogus for us to have gone to war the way we did."

"I remain of the view that we will find chemical and biological weapons, and we may well find something that indicates that Saddam's regime maintained an interest in nuclear weapons--not surprising if you live in a part of the world where you do have a nuclear-armed country, an enemy of yours, which is just a country away from you...."

[snip]

"But I do know. . .that in order to have a liberation strategy, you have to have people who are willing to fight for their own liberation. Otherwise you will never get that liberation bounce that Ken Adelman promised us--that Richard Perle promised us, when he said that Iraqis would be cheering us from the rooftops at our marching in there."

[snip]

"Evidence of that can be found in the Habbaniya gold market today. The price of gold jewelry in Habbaniya is cheaper than it is anywhere else in the world. And that is because the middle class has had to liquidate all their assets. In Iraq, like in many other parts of the world, people keep their assets, their wealth, in gold...."

[snip]

"The real agenda in all this, of course, was to redraw the political map of the Middle East. Now that is code, whether you like it or not, but it is code for putting into place the strategy memorandum which was done by Richard Perle and his study group in the mid-90s, which was called 'A Clean Break: A New Strategy for the Realm'. And what it is, cut to the quick, is if you take out some of these countries, or some of these governments, that are antagonistic to Israel, then you provide the Israeli government with greater wherewithal to impose its terms and conditions on the Palestinian people. . .But that is the real agenda. You can put weapons of mass destruction out there, you can put terrorism out there, you can put liberation out there. Weapons of mass destruction got hard-headed realists on board, through a bunch of lies. . ."

And this is from the website about the program:

He is married to the former Valerie Plame and has four children.

Clarice Feldman 10 10 05




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[Fedora]

One aspect of that account I find striking: it seems odd that Plame didn't seem concerned about blowing her own cover to a virtual stranger while stationed overseas and concerned that she may have been compromised by Aldrich Ames, but once she came back to Washington and her husband publicly discussed his own work with the CIA, it suddenly became a big deal when Robert Novak mentioned it.

[Fedora]

I'm not sure at this point what charges Fitzgerald is pursuing, or against whom. But if he were trying to bring indictments against anyone who disclosed any details of Wilson's trip whatsoever, I think he'd have to indict Wilson himself, because Wilson's own NYT op-ed stated:

What I Didn't Find in Africa, 7/6/2003

In February 2002, I was informed by officials at the Central Intelligence Agency that Vice President Dick Cheney's office had questions about a particular intelligence report. While I never saw the report, I was told that it referred to a memorandum of agreement that documented the sale of uranium yellowcake — a form of lightly processed ore — by Niger to Iraq in the late 1990's. The agency officials asked if I would travel to Niger to check out the story so they could provide a response to the vice president's office.

After consulting with the State Department's African Affairs Bureau (and through it with Barbro Owens-Kirkpatrick, the United States ambassador to Niger), I agreed to make the trip. The mission I undertook was discreet but by no means secret. While the C.I.A. paid my expenses (my time was offered pro bono), I made it abundantly clear to everyone I met that I was acting on behalf of the United States government.

[Fedora]

He drew attention to himself and was, by his own admission, talking freely to the MSM. I believe that once he became so public, he invited scrutiny by the press, which led to the "outing" of his wife. It was the media who went to the WH to confirm Wilson's allegations and his wife's connection to the CIA.

A very relevant observation well put.

[Fedora]

Yes, the identity of Wilson and Novak's mutual friend is a vital missing piece of information. I'm surprised the press hasn't stampeded to identify the individual [insert sound of crickets chirping], who is surely known to other Washington reporters who know Wilson and Novak, and who has been questioned by Fitzgerald ("Prosecutors have questioned former CIA director George J. Tenet and deputy director John E. McLaughlin, former CIA spokesman Bill Harlow, State Department officials, and even a stranger who approached columnist Robert D. Novak on the street."--and here the source is described as a "stranger", which is not the impression I got from Wilson's book). Nor for that matter has Novak identified the individual, which is also curious because the individual is evidently not one of the two sources he was trying to protect, so citing the confidentiality of his sources would not explain his silence on the issue.

[Fedora]

I'm not sure I've seen that one--do you have a link for it? Thanks for mentioning that.

[Fedora]

You're famous.

LOL! Thanks for drawing my attention to that. Up 'til now I've only been accused of being infamous :-)

The author of that column--Clarice Feldman, it looks like--is astute in drawing attention to a point I didn't mention, which is that Wilson gave Plame's last name in the bio he provided to the website:

Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson, IV served as a member of the U.S. Diplomatic Service from 1976 until 1998. From 1988 to 1991, Ambassador Wilson served in Baghdad as Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy. As acting Ambassador during "Desert Shield," he was responsible for the negotiations that resulted in the release of several hundred American hostages. He was the last official American to meet with Saddam Hussein before the launching of "Desert Storm." Ambassador Wilson graduated from the University of California at Santa Barbara in 1972. He has been decorated as a Commander in the Order of the Equatorial Star by the Government of Gabon and as an Admiral in the El Paso Navy by the El Paso County Commissioners. He is married to the former Valerie Plame and has four children.

It would seem to be of relevance to Fitzgerald's inquiry to establish on what date Wilson provided this bio to EPIC, whether the information in the bio was distributed in printed form to participants in Wilson's lecture, and on what date it was posted online.

[the Real fifi]

It appears to me to be cached their Fedora..Doesn't it?

[Alamo-Girl]

Thanks for the ping!

[mosquitobite]

http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2005/10/how_fitzgerald_.html

It's time to make a confession. I've been obsessing about Judy and the Plame Affair non-stop for months, but I've never really taken a close look at the appeals judgement (PDF). Which is why I'm familiar with the bit everyone quotes...
seeking documents and testimony related to conversations between her and a specified government official “occurring from on or about July 6, 2003, to on or about July 13, 2003, . . . concerning Valerie Plame Wilson (whether referred to by name or by description as the wife of Ambassador Wilson)
..but not the bit that comes after that...
or concerning Iraqi efforts to obtain uranium.” [emphasis mine]

Note how this language differs from the language used in Cooper's subpoena:
“[a]ny and all documents . . . [relating to] conversations between Matthew Cooper and official source(s) prior to July 14, 2003, concerning in any way: former Ambassador Joseph Wilson; the 2002 trip by former Ambassador Wilson to Niger; Valerie Wilson Plame, a/k/a Valerie Wilson, a/k/a Valerie Plame (the wife of former Ambassador Wilson); and/or any affiliation between Valerie Wilson Plame and the CIA.”

Much as I hate to admit it, he does have a point there...

[Cautor]

Fedora, thanks for your hard work in providing this to us. It looks like the Plame story is heating up again.

[Fedora]

It appears to me to be cached their Fedora..Doesn't it?

I'm not sure I understand what you mean. You mean the site is cached on Google?

Regarding your other post, it sounds like Fitzgerald's interest in Miller may involve broader matters than his interest in Cooper did.

[Enchante]

Good point, and I note that he is the ONLY one of 23 speakers whose bio names a spouse, in other words it was quite gratuitous to throw in the name of his spouse and not anything required by the organizers. So if we can establish that this bio was public around the time of his EPIC talk that would show that a month before Novack's column Wilson was publicly referring to his CIA mission (though claiming it was for the 'government') and naming his wife as Valerie Plame. Thus, Wilson himself made it easy for every intel agency in the world that would do research on him after learning he was someone tasked by the CIA for a mission to Africa to know who his wife is!

[mosquitobite]

See my post #55...

[Fedora]

Whoops, I just noticed I got mixed up when posting my #57; this part was meant to be in response to your #55 (don't know how I managed to do that, I guess I was a little rushed this afternoon trying to catch up on posts after I went to bed and I got a brain cramp, LOL--sorry about that):

Regarding your other post, it sounds like Fitzgerald's interest in Miller may involve broader matters than his interest in Cooper did.

As I'm rereading here, I think I'm getting something completely different out of the quotation in question than emptywheels is getting out of it. I disagree with some of the sources they cite to support their "second forgery" theory, and I'm inclined to think Fitzgerald's interest in Miller's conversations about Iraqi efforts to obtain uranium involves something other than the hypothetical forgery being postulated. It may also be that Fitzgerald is wording things more generally with Miller not because he is seeking any specific item but because he wants to leave the parameters of the interrogation open in case her testimony raises areas of inquiry he'd like to pursue that are only indirectly related to the Plame leak. But of course that theory could be wrong as well. I have several theories as to what Fitzgerald might be after but I'm not really sold on any of them yet, though I'm tending to rule a few out based on what is known at this point--I think I have some idea what he's *not* after but what he's after remains an unknown to me, kind of like an X in an equation where you know some of the variables but you're still working out the answer, which is how I'm looking at it right now.