Joe Wilson In A Bind

Last week I had the privilege of being lied to personally by Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, who spoke here at Stanford last Monday.

The fact that Joe Wilson is economical with the truth probably won't surprise many Spectator readers.

Nonetheless I assure you the horse I am beating, although it may be lying in the op-ed pages of the Los Angeles Times, is far from dead.

But this week there's new evidence of his lies to flog him with. When the indictment of Scooter Libby was unsealed on Friday, it finally placed one of Wilson's oft-repeated fabrications beyond the most hopeful partisan's credibility.

First the lie: In the Q&A after his talk last Monday, Wilson answered a question of mine with essentially the same statement about the origin of his mission to Niger that he relates in his L.A. Times op-ed:

Valerie was an innocent in this whole affair. Although there were suggestions that she was behind the decision to send me to Niger, the CIA told Newsday just a week after the Novak article appeared that "she did not recommend her husband to undertake the Niger assignment." The CIA repeated the same statement to every reporter thereafter.

A senior intelligence official confirmed that Plame was a Directorate of Operations undercover officer who worked "alongside" the operations officers who asked her husband to travel to Niger.

But he said she did not recommend her husband to undertake the Niger assignment. "They [the officers who did ask Wilson to check the uranium story] were aware of who she was married to, which is not surprising," he said. "There are people elsewhere in government who are trying to make her look like she was the one who was cooking this up, for some reason," he said. "I can't figure out what it could be."

This has been Wilson's story ever since the issue came up: he maintains his wife had nothing to do the CIA's decision to send him. It's important to his narrative that "outing" his wife was a bolt from the blue designed to intimidate and punish him.

The more plausible explanation is that the information came out because it cast Wilson's mission and his credibility in a new light. Evidence supports this interpretation. While the CIA may back Wilson's account to reporters, it has now twice contradicted him when the chips were down and the threat of perjury loomed.

The first contradiction, of course, occurred back in July 2004, the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence devoted a few pages of its report on WMD intelligence failures to point out that Valerie Plame came up with the idea of sending her husband to Niger. Both a memorandum Plame wrote and the testimony of a CIA officer show that Wilson's trip was her idea. (The report can be downloaded here, and the relevant sections are on page 39, 40, and 72.)

That should have put an end to Joe Wilson's credibility, but it wasn't good enough for the diehard Wilson fans, like most of the audience at Stanford last week, or the editorial staff of the L.A. Times. But now the indictment of Scooter Libby has proved yet again that Wilson is full of it.

In order to claim that Libby had perjured himself and obstructed justice, the grand jury goes to great lengths to show how and when he had actually learned about the origin of Wilson's trip. To do so, they refer on page 4 of the indictment to a conversation between Libby and a "senior officer of the CIA" on June 11, 2003:

[Libby] was advised by the CIA officer that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA and was believed to be responsible for sending Wilson on the trip.

[Libby] was informed by a senior CIA officer that Wilson's wife was employed by the CIA and that the idea of sending him to Niger originated with her.

This puts Wilson's fan club in a bind: either Wilson is lying, or the indictment is. Which is it? If it's the latter, then perhaps Scooter Libby didn't know what the indictment said he knew, and the indictment ought to be thrown out or at least amended.

Alas, most of the world sees it's the former. Wilson's lie, of course, wouldn't excuse any crime Libby might have committed, but it ought to be enough to prevent Wilson from ever being taken seriously again.

Clinton W. Taylor (clinton_w_taylor@hotmail.com) is a lawyer and a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science at Stanford.

This may have some answers re: the 1999 trip and maybe raise a few more questions.

Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV
“A Conversation between a Military Strategist and a U.S. Ambassador on Post-War Developments in Iraq”
October 31, 2003
http://www.virginia.edu/uvanewsmakers/newsmakers/wilson.html

....I went and undertook this trip in February of 2002, just to refresh everyone’s memory. It was long before I ever contributed to John Kerry’s campaign....

Perhaps, but these are the contributions he did make prior to his trip. Pay attention to who got money in Feb., 2002:

RANGEL, CHARLES B VIA RANGEL FOR CONGRESS 02/10/2000 500.00
ROYCE, ED MR VIA ED ROYCE FOR CONGRESS 06/25/2000 500.00 (R)
KENNEDY, EDWARD MOORE SENATOR VIA KENNEDY FOR SENATE 2000 05/13/1999 1000.00
BUSH, GEORGE W VIA BUSH FOR PRESIDENT INC. 05/20/1999 1000.00
GORE, AL VIA GORE 2000 INC 03/26/1999 2000.00
HILL PAC 02/13/2002 1000.00
GORE, AL VIA GORE 2000 INC 04/22/1999 -1000.00
ROYCE, ED MR VIA ED ROYCE FOR CONGRESS 06/28/2001 500.00
NADER, RALPH VIA NADER 2000 PRIMARY COMMITTEE INC 06/05/2000 250.00

...In fact after the President [of Niger], the military dictator had been assassinated*[April 1999; see footnote], I went to see his successor and at the request of some of my friends there and some of the colleagues with whom I had been working, I went to see the new military dictator and I told him in no uncertain terms, that the only way he was going to get out of this mess, not just alive, but perhaps with a chance to restore his own personal honor, and the honor of his organization, the Presidential guard that had been responsible for the assassination of his predecessor. The only chance he had was to get out and effect a change back to democratic rule as quickly as possible. I told him, I said, that you need to understand from my experience in Africa that your successor president probably will not be very comfortable with you standing watching his back after you have effected the transition. After all, your organization was responsible for the assassination of your predecessor shooting him in the back. Therefore, I said to him, I think that you probably ought to leave the country for a while. Those are pretty strong words to walk into a military barracks and tell a guy who has assassinated his predecessor and has assumed responsibility for his country....

....I came back a year later [2000;see footnote] during the course of the transition and the president met me at the airport. He was on his way to Nigeria. He was still present as the transition had not taken place although the elections had taken place. He called me into the Presidential Suite while all the other diplomats were out there having their canopies and cocktails. He called me into the Presidential Suite which made the hair on the neck of the Liberian Ambassador stand up. He said to me, “Remember that conversation we had last year?” I said, you bet, sure do. He told me that he had done everything that I had suggested that he do. I told him yes and that I was proud of him for having done it. Then he told me that he was off to Nigeria on this official visit, but he wanted me to know that he was also picking up the keys to his new house down there because ["]I will be moving there for that decent interval to allow my new successor to get established and get his new regime established, his administration established without fear that somehow my presidential guard organization with me at the head of it will come back and do to him what happened to his predecessor.["]

So he made a total of 3 trips? 1999 and 2000 Is this the trip that Who are the friends that asked him to go? Was the first at the request of the CIA (IIRC recommended by his wife)?

...So, that is the level of confidence that I enjoyed with the group of people who were accused of having signed this document which was purported to be the sale of uranium to Iraq. ...

..Now, I went out there and I spent eight days out there and I talked to everybody who knows anything about the business. I looked at two pieces of this. I looked at how the uranium business operates. Could it happen? I found that there is a consortium of international partners. The managing partner of this is the French and that means the French own the product from the time that it is in the ground until the time that it gets to the consumer. Nothing could happen in this regard without the French knowing and abetting it. ....

...There were two other reports that were done at the same time as mine. One was the Ambassadors on the scene report and one was a report made by a fourth star marine corps general who made his way down to Niger and had taken a look at it. All three of us had concluded the same thing. It did not happen. We have information to the contrary. It cannot be authentic unless it contains three signatures. None of which were on those documents....

Do we know who the Four Star MArine Corps General is? Have these 2 other reports been verified? Do they exsist? Were they written reports?

===============================

[Footnote Niger History 1987-2004
Timeline for 1999 trip

http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/section/niger_history.asp

...Kountché died in 1987 and was succeeded by Gen. Ali Seybou as head of state. Seybou vowed to dismantle the ruling Supreme Military Council and introduce civilian rule. In 1991, a 1,204-member national conference suspended the constitution and dissolved the government. A transitional civilian government ruled until 1993, when Mahamane Ousmane was elected president in free elections. However, an opposition coalition subsequently won control of the legislature, leading to a protracted stalemate. Conflict between the government and the Tuareg in the early 1990s subsided with the signing of a peace accord in 1995....

In Jan., 1996, the government was ousted in a coup led by Col. Ibrahim Baré Mainassara. Presidential elections held in July, 1996, were won by Mainassara, who replaced the independent electoral commission with a handpicked one during the two-day poll. Mainassara was assassinated by members of his presidential guard in Apr., 1999, and Maj. Daouda Malam Wanké became head of state. France, the country's major aid donor, suspended aid following the coup. In Nov., 1999, elections were held for a new president and parliament; a retired colonel, Tandja Mamadou, was elected president. Tandja, whose first term was marked by relative stability, was reelected in Dec., 2004.... ]

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.