The White House, the CIA, and the Wilsons

The Weekly Standard ^ | 10/24/05 | Stephen F. Hayes

[Bommer]

1) Plume was not a covert agent, no crime committed!
2) Plume was not overseas in 6 years so even if she was covert, theres no crime committed
3) Plume was already outted in "Who's Who back in 2000
4) Judy Miller went to jail, and it wasn't to protect anyone from the Bush administration! NYT loves to stab them in th eback
%) Wilson is a proven liar, and more than likely leaked his own wifes identity, hyped it up her identity to more than shes worth with Democraps to embarass the Bush Administration!

[sgtyork]

Or was it all a set up by some rogue CIA? How could the office responsible for WMD assessment get it so wrong.

As part of their screw up they dispatch the husband of someone in the office?

Reporters calling about welfare reform and changing topics to Joseph Wilson -- sounds like entrapment to me.

Who's in charge? The people that were elected by the American electorate or Valerie Plame/Judy Miller/Joseph Wilson/NYT/George Soros?

[BARLF]

The promised CIA follow-up came quickly. That same day officials at the agency's Counterproliferation Division discussed how they might investigate further.

An employee of the division, Valerie Wilson, suggested the agency send her husband, Joseph Wilson, a former U.S. ambassador to Gabon with experience in Niger, to Africa to make inquiries.

In a memo to the deputy director of the Counterproliferation Division, she wrote: "My husband has good relations with the PM [prime minister of Niger] and the former Minister of Mines (not to mention lots of French contacts), both of whom could possibly shed light on this sort of activity."

Mrs. Wilson would later say she asked her husband, on behalf of the CIA, if he would investigate "this crazy report" on a uranium deal between Iraq and Niger. Wilson agreed to go.

France and Joe

France and John Kerry

Joe and John.

[Cicero]

It's not clear whether Fitzgerald is still following up the charge that someone leaked the name of a covert agent, or whether he may have uncovered other wrongdoing involving the violation of completely different statutes.

This account makes it clear enough that Wilson deliberately lied, and also that Plame set the whole thing up, either on her own hook or at Wilson's instigation.

Well, there was one somewhat peripheral point which I think needs some attention:

"INR analysts also expressed doubt that the transaction could have taken place because the uranium mines in Niger are controlled by a French consortium, which would be reluctant to work with Saddam Hussein--an objection that seems naive with the benefit of hindsight."

In point of fact, "naive" seems too weak a word to describe this evaluation. It was surely known at the time that it was FRANCE that built Saddam's nuclear plant in the first place--the one that was bombed by Israel--and that Chirac was the point man in charge of setting it up. It was also known that Chirac was Saddam's bosom buddy. If us unlookers knew all this at the time, surely our intelligence agencies knew it.

It has also been suggested that French intelligence was responsible for planting the forged yellowcake documents, possibly in an effort to discredit the real story.

Another story recently posted here, conjectural at this point, says that CIA agents forged the yellowcake documents, with the intention of showing up the Bush administration which was refusing their "expert" advice.

Doesn't all this deserve further investigation?

[Bernard Marx]

Thanks for this post. Bump for later.

[pinz-n-needlez]

I'm beginning to wonder if there is a Briar Patch Scenario going on here. MSM, the Wilsons, certain people in the CIA scream for an investigation....

Rove says, "Go ahead, please, throw us into that Briar Patch."

May be the best way to really put an end to Wilson's lies, public posturing and perhaps treasonous collusion with foreign operatives.

Given their history, it would not come as a shock if it were shown that the Wilsons are spies/double agents.

I am looking forward to the SP's report, and am happy to have read this article in the meantime. :-)

Pinz

[prognostigaator]

cronyism.......plame gets wilson a job..

[Logophile]

Two events in the fall of 2002 seemed to enhance the credibility of the initial reporting on an Iraq-Niger deal. First, a French diplomat told the State Department that his government had received additional, credible reporting on the transaction and had concluded that the earlier reports were true. A second report, this one from the U.S. Navy, suggested that uranium being transferred from Niger to Iraq had been discovered in a warehouse in Cotonou, Benin. Although that report indicated that the broker for the deal was willing to talk about it, he was never contacted by the CIA or military intelligence.

This reflects badly on the competence of our intelligence services. What else are they missing?

[Dilbert56]

Another recommendation that came out of the Senate Select Committee was that, if the Vice President asks you to investigate something, you should give him an answer. Yes the CIA jumped right on giving Wilson his boondoggle but they never reported back to the VP.

This was another of Wilson's claims that was flat out wrong. He assumed the VP had been briefed on the findings of his "research". This was key in that Wilson claimed the White House ignored his results when, in fact, they weren't even sent.

Wilson has been positively Clintonian in his ability to string falsehoods together. It can take a full hour to document the lies he packs into one paragraph.

If you need a "slam-dunk" argument on Wilson's credibility, look to the Kerry campaign. Wilson was one of Kerry's advisors. The Kerry campaign website linked to Wilson's. Then the Senate report came out and Pal Joey was unplugged. No longer a campaign advisor. No longer linked. Telling.

[Ben Hecks]

...The CIA concluded that the reference had compromised Plame's undercover status and asked the Justice Department to investigate."

If the complaint and request for an investigation was initiated by Plame's supervisor (or at a relatively low, it could have passed through the various layers of the organization with relative ease. Supervisors/managers at each level might have been reluctant to question the request for fear that they would be accused of a cover-up so it flowed on to DoJ.

I still thing the fact that Wilson was not required to sign a confidentiality agreement is important. Who in their right mind would send someone on a sensitive (classified) mission without some formal and/or legal agreement? In my opinion, Wilson had no authority to release any information that he gained during the mission therefore his op ed compromised classified information.

[pinz-n-needlez]

I asked a couple of days ago if anyone had seen Scott Ritter connected to any of this reporting. With the hiding and moving of WMD that seems to have gone on during the Clinton years, and before this war, I wonder if the CIA has leaks that were benefitting Saddam.

Judith Miller wrote supportive articles in regards to the Bush administration's positions vis-a-vis WMD. I wonder if she may have found some of those leaks...

I wonder if the CIA PTB may have put a sting in place. Could Fitzpatrick be on the trail of a couple of CIA leakers? Their last names begin with W-i-l-s-o-n...

Or maybe I should just confine the use of tin foil to wrapping up fish for the grill... ;-)

Pinz

[CGVet58]

bttt

[ntnychik]

But there is one curious omission: July 7, 2004. On that date, the bipartisan Senate Select Intelligence Committee released a 511-page report on the intelligence that served as the foundation for the Bush administration's case for war in Iraq. The Senate report includes a 48-page section on Wilson that demonstrates, in painstaking detail, that virtually everything Joseph Wilson said publicly about his trip, from its origins to his conclusions, was false.

Gee, wonder why the New York times left this out?

[potlatch]

Wilson's lies have received very little publicity. This is when I get irritated with big name Republicans who will not speak out more.

[devolve]

You should have seen the odd way that Joe Wilson*s website pages were done - especially after they were purged of content and swapped to instant

[META HTTP-EQUIV="Refresh" CONTENT="1; URL="Elsewhere.com.html"]

- But the webpage was still online

They looked much like John Kerry webmaster website style

[devolve]

.

[tahoeblue]

The truth is - it was probably Dennis that gave away the Wilson's. After all he lived next door to them for a number of seasons and was always snooping on them. That darn kid just can't keep from stirring up trouble!

Yes - we learned a lot about Mr. Wilson - but ever notice how little we actually know about Mrs. Wilson? Coincidence? I think not.

[okie01]

There definitely was some poor ol' spy over there in Niger who'd gone to great risk to copy some "forged documents" in the files of the yellow-cake company, and he was "outed" and likely killed!

The holographs were purportedly prepared by a Belgian, working at the behest of the DGSE.

[Mo1]

later read

[bitt]

mark