Posted on 07/14/2005 7:56:52 AM PDT by paltz
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Thursday, July 14, 2005
Joe Wilson's Top Ten Worst Inaccuracies And Misstatements
1.) Wilson Insisted That The Vice President’s Office Sent Him To Niger: Wilson Said He Traveled To Niger At CIA Request To Help Provide Response To Vice President’s Office. “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. … 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.” (Joseph C. Wilson, Op-Ed, “What I Didn’t Find In Africa,” The New York Times, 7/6/03)
Vice President Cheney: “I Don’t Know Joe Wilson. I’ve Never Met Joe Wilson. … And Joe Wilson - I Don’t [Know] Who Sent Joe Wilson. He Never Submitted A Report That I Ever Saw When He Came Back.” (NBC’s “Meet The Press,” 9/14/03) CIA Director George Tenet: “In An Effort To Inquire About Certain Reports Involving Niger, CIA’s Counter-Proliferation Experts, On Their Own Initiative, Asked An Individual With Ties To The Region To Make A Visit To See What He Could Learn.” (Central Intelligence Agency, “Statement By George J. Tenet, Director Of Central Intelligence,” Press Release, 7/11/03) 2.) Wilson Claimed The Vice President And Other Senior White House Officials Were Briefed On His Niger Report: “[Wilson] Believed That [His Report] Would Have Been Distributed To The White House And That The Vice President Received A Direct Response To His Question About The Possible Uranium Deal.” (Senate Select Committee On Intelligence, “Report On The U.S. Intelligence Community’s Prewar Assessments On Iraq,” 7/7/04) The Senate Select Committee On Intelligence Reported That The Vice President Was Not Briefed On Wilson’s Report. “Conclusion 14. The Central Intelligence Agency should have told the Vice President and other senior policymakers that it had sent someone to Niger to look into the alleged Iraq-Niger uranium deal and it should have briefed the Vice President on the former ambassador’s findings.” (Senate Select Committee On Intelligence, “Report On The U.S. Intelligence Community’s Prewar Assessments On Iraq,” 7/7/04) CIA Director George Tenet: “Because This Report, In Our View, Did Not Resolve Whether Iraq Was Or Was Not Seeking Uranium From Abroad, It Was Given A Normal And Wide Distribution, But We Did Not Brief It To The President, Vice-President Or Other Senior Administration Officials.” (Central Intelligence Agency, “Statement By George J. Tenet, Director Of Central Intelligence,” Press Release, 7/11/03) 3.) Wilson Has Claimed His Niger Report Was Conclusive And Significant Wilson Claims His Trip Proved There Was Nothing To The Uranium “Allegations.” “I knew that [Dr. Rice] had fundamentally misstated the facts. In fact, she had lied about it. I had gone out and I had undertaken this study. I had come back and said that this was not feasible. … This government knew that there was nothing to these allegations.” (NBC’s, “Meet The Press,” 5/2/04) Officials Said Evidence In Wilson’s Niger Report Was “Thin” And His “Homework Was Shoddy.” (Michael Duffy, “Leaking With A Vengeance,” Time, 10/13/03) Senate Select Committee On Intelligence Unanimous Report: “Conclusion 13. The Report On The Former Ambassador’s Trip To Niger, Disseminated In March 2002, Did Not Change Any Analysts’ Assessments Of The Iraq-Niger Uranium Deal.” (Senate Select Committee On Intelligence, “Report On The U.S. Intelligence Community’s Prewar Assessments On Iraq,” 7/7/04)
CIA Said Wilson’s Findings Did Not Resolve The Issue. “Because [Wilson’s] report, in our view, did not resolve whether Iraq was or was not seeking uranium from abroad, it was given a normal and wide distribution, but we did not brief it to the president, vice president or other senior administration officials. We also had to consider that the former Nigerien officials knew that what they were saying would reach the U.S. government and that this might have influenced what they said.” (Central Intelligence Agency, “Statement By George J. Tenet, Director Of Central Intelligence,” Press Release 7/11/03) The Butler Report Claimed That The President’s State Of the Union Statement On Uranium From Africa, “Was Well-Founded.” “We conclude that, on the basis of the intelligence assessments at the time, covering both Niger and the Democratic Republic of Congo, the statements on Iraqi attempts to buy uranium from Africa in the Government’s dossier, and by the Prime Minister in the House of Commons, were well-founded. By extension, we conclude also that the statement in President Bush’s State of the Union Address of 28 January 2003 that: ‘The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.’ was well-founded.” (The Rt. Hon. The Lord Butler Of Brockwell, “Review Of Intelligence, On Weapons Of Mass Destruction,” 7/14/04) 4.) Wilson Denied His Wife Suggested He Travel To Niger In 2002: Wilson Claimed His Wife Did Not Suggest He Travel To Niger To Investigate Reports Of Uranium Deal; Instead, Wilson Claims It Came Out Of Meeting With CIA. CNN’s Wolf Blitzer: “Among other things, you had always said, always maintained, still maintain your wife, Valerie Plame, a CIA officer, had nothing to do with the decision to send to you Niger to inspect reports that uranium might be sold from Niger to Iraq. … Did Valerie Plame, your wife, come up with the idea to send you to Niger?” Joe Wilson: “No. My wife served as a conduit, as I put in my book. When her supervisors asked her to contact me for the purposes of coming into the CIA to discuss all the issues surrounding this allegation of Niger selling uranium to Iraq.” (CNN’s “Late Edition,” 7/18/04)
5.) Wilson Has Claimed His 1999 Trip To Niger Was Not Suggested By His Wife: Wilson Claims CIA Thought To Ask Him To Make Trip Because He Had Previously Made Trip For Them In 1999, Not Because Of His Wife’s Suggestion. CNN’s Wolf Blitzer: “Who first raised your name, then, based on what you know? Who came up with the idea to send you there?” Joe Wilson: “The CIA knew my name from a trip, and it’s in the report, that I had taken in 1999 related to uranium activities but not related to Iraq. I had served for 23 years in government including as Bill Clinton’s Senior Director for African Affairs at the National Security Council. I had done a lot of work with the Niger government during a period punctuated by a military coup and a subsequent assassination of a president. So I knew all the people there.” (CNN’s “Late Edition,” 7/18/04) In Fact, His Wife Suggested Him For 1999 Trip, As Well. “The former ambassador had traveled previously to Niger on the CIA’s behalf … The former ambassador was selected for the 1999 trip after his wife mentioned to her supervisors that her husband was planning a business trip to Niger in the near future and might be willing to use his contacts in the region …” (Select Committee On Intelligence, “Report On The U.S. Intelligence Community’s Prewar Intelligence Assessments On Iraq,” U.S. Senate, 7/7/04) 6.) Wilson Claimed He Was A Victim Of A Partisan Smear Campaign Joe Wilson: “Well, I Don’t Know. Obviously, There’s Been This Orchestrated Campaign, This Smear Campaign. I Happen To Think That It’s Because The RNC, The Republican National Committee’s Been Involved In This In A Big Way …” CNN’s Wolf Blitzer: “But They Weren’t Involved In The Senate Intelligence Committee Report.” Wilson: “No, They Weren’t.” (CNN’s “Late Edition,” 7/18/04) Senate Intelligence Committee Unanimously Concluded That Wilson’s Report “Lent More Credibility” For Most Analysts “To The Original Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Reports.” “Conclusion 13. The report on the former ambassador’s trip to Niger, disseminated in March 2002, did not change any analysts’ assessments of the Iraq-Niger uranium deal. For most analysts, the information in the report lent more credibility to the original Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) reports on the uranium deal, but the 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.” (Select Committee On Intelligence, “Report On The U.S. Intelligence Community’s Prewar Intelligence Assessments On Iraq,” U.S. Senate, 7/7/04) Members Of The Senate Select Committee On Intelligence That Wrote The Unanimous “Report On The U.S. Intelligence Community’s Prewar Intelligence Assessments On Iraq”: Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI) Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) Sen. Richard Durbin (D-IL) Sen. Evan Bayh (D-IN) Sen. John Edwards (D-NC) Sen. Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS) Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) Sen. Mike DeWine (R-OH) Sen. Christopher Bond (R-MO) Sen. Trent Lott (R-MS) Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE) Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA) Sen. John Warner (R-VA) (Select Committee On Intelligence, “Report On The U.S. Intelligence Community’s Prewar Intelligence Assessments On Iraq,” U.S. Senate, 7/7/04) 7.) A Month Before The Bob Novak And Matthew Cooper Articles Ever Came Out, Wilson Told The Washington Post That Previous Intelligence Reports About Niger Were Based On Forged Documents: In June Of 2003, Wilson Told The Washington Post “The Niger Intelligence Was Based On Documents That Had Clearly Been Forged Because ‘The Dates Were Wrong And The Names Were Wrong.’” (Susan Schmidt, “Plame’s Input Is Cited On Niger Mission,” The Washington Post, 7/10/04) However, “The [Senate Select Committee On Intelligence] Report … Said Wilson Provided Misleading Information To The Washington Post Last June [12th, 2003].” (Susan Schmidt, “Plame’s Input Is Cited On Niger Mission,” The Washington Post, 7/10/04)
8.) Wilson Claimed His Book Would Enrich Debate: NBC’s Katie Couric: “What Do You Hope The Whole Point Of This Book Will Be? Joe Wilson: “Well, I - I Hope, One, It Will Tell - It Tries To Tell An Interesting Story. Two, I Hope That It Enriches The Debate In A Year In Which We Are All Called Upon As Americans To Elect Our Leaders. And Three, … That [It] Says That This Is A Great Democracy That Is Worthy Of Our Taking Our Responsibilities As Stewards Seriously.” (NBC’s “Today Show,” 5/3/04) Wilson Admits In His Book That He Had Been Involved In “A Little Literary Flair” When Talking To Reporters. “[Wilson] wrote in his book, he told Committee staff that his assertion may have involved ‘a little literary flair.’” (Matthew Continetti, “‘A Little Literary Flair’” The Weekly Standard, 7/26/04) Wilson’s Book The Politics Of Truth: Inside The Lies That Put The White House On Trial And Betrayed My Wife’s CIA Identity Has Been Panned In Numerous Reviews For Its Inaccuracies:
9.) Wilson Claimed The CIA Provided Him With Information Related To The Iraq-Niger Uranium Transaction: “The Former Ambassador Noted That His CIA Contacts Told Him There Were Documents Pertaining To The Alleged Iraq-Niger Uranium Transaction And That The Source Of The Information Was The [Redacted] Intelligence Service.” (Senate Select Committee On Intelligence, “Report On The U.S. Intelligence Community’s Prewar Assessments On Iraq,” 7/7/04)
10.) Wilson Claimed He Is A Non-Partisan “Centrist”:Recently, Joe Wilson Refused To Admit He Is A Registered Democrat. NBC’s Jamie Gangel: “You are a Democrat?” Joe Wilson: “I exercise my rights as a citizen of this country to participate in the selection of my leaders and I am proud to do so. I did so in the election in 2000 by contributing not just to Al Gore's campaign, but also to the Bush-Cheney campaign.” (NBC’s “Today Show,” 7/14/05) “[Wilson] Insist[s] He Remained A Centrist At Heart.” (Scott Shane, “Private Spy And Public Spouse Live At Center Of Leak Case,” The New York Times, 7/5/05)
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“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. … 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.”
That's the quote you posted, edited though it may be. IS THERE ANYTHING IN THAT STATEMENT THAT IS NOT TRUE?
Where in the world does he say that? He specifically says the CIA sent him.
Tag for later
No. When did I say there was?
Are you on crack or something, dude? You are pissing and moaning about the SUBJECT LINE of the #1 item on that RNC list.
Tell you what--FORGET that line.
Now you tell me: IS THERE ANYTHING IN ITEM #1 THAT IS NOT TRUE?
A War on Wilson?
Inside the Bush Administration's feud with the diplomat who poured cold water on the Iraq-uranium connection
By MATTHEW COOPER, MASSIMO CALABRESI AND JOHN F. DICKERSON
SUBSCRIBE TO TIMEPRINTE-MAILMORE BY AUTHOR
Posted Thursday, Jul. 17, 2003
Has the Bush Administration declared war on a former ambassador who conducted a fact-finding mission to probe possible Iraqi interest in African uranium? Perhaps.
Former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson raised the Administration's ire with an op-ed piece in The New York Times on July 6 saying that the Administration had "twisted" intelligence to "exaggerate" the Iraqi threat. Since then Administration officials have taken public and private whacks at Wilson, charging that his 2002 report, made at the behest of U.S. intelligence, was faulty and that his mission was a scheme cooked up by mid-level operatives. George Tenet, the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, took a shot at Wilson last week as did ex-White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer. Both contended that Wilson's report on an alleged Iraqi effort to purchase uranium from Niger, far from undermining the president's claim in his State of the Union address that Iraq sought uranium in Africa, as Wilson had said, actually strengthened it. And some government officials have noted to TIME in interviews, (as well as to syndicated columnist Robert Novak) that Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, is a CIA official who monitors the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. These officials have suggested that she was involved in her husband's being dispatched Niger to investigate reports that Saddam Hussein's government had sought to purchase large quantities of uranium ore, sometimes referred to as yellow cake, which is used to build nuclear devices.
In an interview with TIME, Wilson, who served as an ambassador to Gabon and as a senior American diplomat in Baghdad under the current president's father, angrily said that his wife had nothing to do with his trip to Africa. "That is bulls__t. That is absolutely not the case," Wilson told TIME. "I met with between six and eight analysts and operators from CIA and elsewhere [before the Feb 2002 trip]. None of the people in that meeting did I know, and they took the decision to send me. This is a smear job."
Government officials are not only privately disputing the genesis of Wilson's trip, but publicly contesting what he found. Last week Bush Administration officials said that Wilson's report reinforced the president's claim that Iraq had sought uranium from Africa. They say that when Wilson returned from Africa in Feb. 2002, he included in his report to the CIA an encounter with a former Nigerien government official who told him that Iraq had approached him in June 1999, expressing interest in expanding commercial relations between Iraq and Niger. The Administration claims Wilson reported that the former Nigerien official interpreted the overture as an attempt to discuss uranium sales.
"This is in Wilson's report back to the CIA," White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer told reporters last week, a few days before he left his post to join the private sector. "Wilson's own report, the very man who was on television saying Niger denies it...reports himself that officials in Niger said that Iraq was seeking to contact officials in Niger about sales."
Wilson tells the story differently and in a crucial respect. He says the official in question was contacted by an Algerian-Nigerien intermediary who inquired if the official would meet with an Iraqi about "commercial" sales — an offer he declined. Wilson dismisses CIA Director George Tenet's suggestion in his own mea culpa last week that the meeting validates the President's State of the Union claim: "That then translates into an Iraqi effort to import a significant quantity of uranium as the president alleged? These guys really need to get serious."
Government officials also chide Wilson for not delving into the details of the now infamous forged papers that pointed to a sale of uranium to Iraq. When Tenet issued his I-take-the-blame statement on the alleged Iraq-Niger uranium connection last week, he took a none-too-subtle jab at Wilson's report. "There was no mention in the report of forged documents — or any suggestion of the existence of documents at all," Tenet wrote. For his part Wilson says he did not deal with the forgeries explicitly in his report because he never saw them. However, Wilson says he refuted the forgeries' central allegation that Niger had been negotiating a sale of uranium to Iraq. Wilson says he explained in the report that several Nigerien government signatures would be required to permit such a sale — signatures that were either absent or clearly botched in the forged documents.
Administration officials also claim that Wilson took at face value the claims of Nigerien officials that they had not sold uranium ore to Saddam Hussein. (Such sales would have been forbidden under then-existing United Nations sanctions on Iraq.) "He spent eight days in Niger and he concluded that Niger denied the allegation." Fleischer told reporters last week. "Well, typically nations don't admit to going around nuclear nonproliferation,"
For his part, Wilson says that the Administration conflated the prior report of the American ambassador to Niger with his own. Wilson says a report by Barbro Owens-Kirkpatrick, the American ambassador to Niger, addresses the issue of Nigerien government officials disputing the allegation. Wilson says that he never made the naïve argument that if Nigerien officials denied the sales, then their claims must be believed.
A source close to the matter says that Wilson was dispatched to Niger because Vice President Dick Cheney had questions about an intelligence report about Iraq seeking uranium and that he asked that the CIA get back to him with answers. Cheney's staff has adamantly denied and Tenet has reinforced the claim that the Vice President had anything to do with initiating the Wilson mission. They say the Vice President merely asked routine questions at an intelligence briefing and that mid-level CIA officials, on their own, chose to dispatch Wilson.
In an exclusive interview Lewis Libby, the Vice President's Chief of Staff, told TIME: "The Vice President heard about the possibility of Iraq trying to acquire uranium from Niger in February 2002. As part of his regular intelligence briefing, the Vice President asked a question about the implication of the report. During the course of a year, the Vice President asked many such questions and the agency responded within a day or two saying that they had reporting suggesting the possibility of such a transaction. But the agency noted that the reporting lacked detail. The agency pointed out that Iraq already had 500 tons of uranium, portions of which came from Niger, according to the International Atomic Energy Administration (IAEA). The Vice President was unaware of the trip by Ambassador Wilson and didn't know about it until this year when it became public in the last month or so. " Other senior Administration officials, including National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, have also claimed that they had not heard of Wilson's report until recently.
After he submitted his report in March 2002, Wilson says, his interest in the topic lay dormant until the State of the Union address in January 2003. In his speech, the President cited a British report claiming that Hussein's government had sought uranium in Africa. Afterward, Wilson says, he called a friend at the Africa bureau of the State Department and asked if the reference had been to Niger. The friend said that he didn't know but, says Wilson, allowed the possibility that Bush was referring to some other country on the continent. Wilson says he let the matter drop until he saw State Department spokesman Richard Boucher say a few months later that the U.S. had been fooled by bad intelligence. It was then that Wilson says he realized that his report had been overlooked, ignored, or buried. Wilson told TIME that he considers the matter settled now that the White House has admitted the Bush reference to Iraq and African uranium should not have been in the State of the Union address.
I guess he decided it's no longer settled.
http://dailyhowler.com/dh072004.shtml
I never claimed to debunk Bush’s claim, Wilson says.
(excerpt)
I went to great lengths to point out that mine was but one of three reports on the subject. I never claimed to have “debunked” the allegation that Iraq was seeking uranium from Africa. I claimed only that the transaction described in the documents that turned out to be forgeries could not have occurred and did not occur.
Amazing, isn’t it? I never claimed to have “debunked” the allegation that Iraq was seeking uranium from Africa! Readers, what has the last year been about if Wilson didn’t claim to debunk Bush’s claim? (Think hard—we know you’ll come up with something.) Let’s compare two important statements—Bush’s famous 16 words, and Wilson’s amazing new admission:
BUSH: The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.
WILSON: I never claimed to have “debunked” the allegation that Iraq was seeking uranium from Africa.
Finally! This is what we’ve always told you—Wilson had no way of knowing if the 16-word statement was right or wrong. He had no way to debunk it! But throughout his thrilling and best-selling book, he calls this statement a “lie-lie-lie-lie,” over and over and over again. But then, grinding overstatement like that has been the problem with Wilson all along (as the three senators correctly note). And now, alas, Dems will start to pay a price for investing so much in his presentations. (END EXCERPT)
The answer to your question is YES - it is flatly untrue that "Wilson Insisted The Vice-President's office Sent Him To Niger," and that the quoted statements support such a claim.
You seem to be completely missing the point. The issue is whether Cheney (or his office) sent him or someone within CIA sent him. It is clearly the latter, and Wilson has never claimed otherwise.
"There's so much smoke Joe and Val MUST be trying to hide something.....Wonder what it is?"
Can you say backfire? Boomerang? INCOMING!! Everybody duck!!
At the behest of the VP's office--which gave him "credibility" because he was not on some partisan maneuver--which he clearly was.
You are picking at the tiniest, most inconsequential elements of this for the sake of some weird argument.
Wilson was attempting to imply that he was an "insider"--he has said most of his friends are Republicans, he supported the first Gulf War, etc. And that what led to him going to Niger was the VP's office--OBVIOUSLY implying that the VP believed in him.
You don't get that? You don't see that Wilson was trying to say--without explicitly saying it--"Hey, I'm no hack--I'm an INSIDER who innocently went ot Niger and found out the Administration was WRONG! And they ignored me, ME! And insider sent by the VP's office!"
If you are so easily duped, good luck to you--you have a hard life ahead. But the rest of us who can think know what someone is trying to do with language. Or are you going to argue that Wilson is some innocent who doesn't understand diplo-speak?
Go ahead and be willingly duped, for whatever reason you want to believe Wilson. But your whole argument here is a prissy obsession about the phrasing of a subject line, whereas the actual item is 100% true by your own admission.
The question is not about who ordered his tickets or who made his hotel reservation or who paid his travel voucher. The question is about whether anyone in the White House knew about Wilson's report before purposely ignoring his "facts" and sexing up the State of the Union address with those 16 words. That's why Wilson claims the Office of the Vice President knew of his trip and his trip was to answer whether those words were correct or not as least in his view. Wilson clearly believes that the Office of the VP initiated the chain of events that led to his trip and by inference it received his oral report afterward debunking any Niger sales of uranium to Iraq. When intelligence analysts got Wilson's report they thought it supported the contention that Iraq sought to purchase uranium from Niger. Whether or not that was briefed directly to Cheney we do not know, but Wilson believes he debunked any memo purporting to show Iraq actually purchased uranium in Niger. He thinks he was selected at the CIA to answer that question and he did so, but was purposely ignored at the White House so they could sex up the SOTU address. He's wrong.
My, you are a hack, aren't you?
Do you know what Wilson was doing during Desert Shield? Do you know what word President Bush used to describe his actions in Iraq? Yes, that's right - 'hero'.
I guess ol' Joe was just makin' all that up, too. It was all part of his plan to eventually set up the President's son.
Have some more Kool-Aid.
The question isn't whether he is wrong about things he doesn't know one way or the other (i.e. the VP being briefed on his visit). The question is whether he lied - as charged. Nothing in your post points to a lie.
If you know so much about Joe Wilson, please tell us why he was in the uranium business and what he was doing taking business trips to Niger when Americans were being warned to stay out of the country. And tell us why he was apparently fired from the State Department.
Now go back to DU--your Kool-Aid is getting warm.
bump
Even you should have enough sense to figure that out.
When confronted with facts you can't dispute, go straight for the personal attack.
Do you know what Wilson was doing during Desert Shield? Do you know what word President Bush used to describe his actions in Iraq? Yes, that's right - 'hero'.
Do YOU know what he was doing during Desert Shield? basically running the canteen at the embassy.
But it's a nice diversion, since you can't bear to answer the post I made--go off on a tangent, you guys have to when you can't admit "OK, I was wrong."
And yes, he called him a hero--so what? For doing what? Go ahead, look up the specific "heroic" acts he did and post them, I'm sure you have them in your DNC talking points.
I guess ol' Joe was just makin' all that up, too. It was all part of his plan to eventually set up the President's son.
Never said any such thing, but you go on and make stuff up--you're good at it.
Wow, I didn't think you'd crumble THAT fast! What a crybaby.
I've never been to DU. And I've been here a heck of a lot longer than you. So I'll decline your invitation.
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