Posted on 10/07/2006 11:22:24 AM PDT by STARWISE
The publication of Hubris is filled with irony for David Corn, Washington editor of the left-wing Nation magazine. He was present at the creation of the Valerie Plame "scandal," which the enemies of George W. Bush hoped could bring down a president. Nobody was more responsible for bloating this episode. Yet Corn is coauthor of a book that has had the effect of killing the story.
Thanks to Corn's intrepid coauthor, Newsweek investigative reporter Michael Isikoff, Hubris definitively revealed then-Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage as my source that Joseph Wilson's wife, Valerie, worked for the CIA and suggested her husband's mission to Africa.
Armitage, an internal critic of the administration's Iraq policy, did not fit the left's theory of a conspiracy led by Karl Rove and "Scooter" Libby to discredit Wilson as a war critic. Nor did it fit the overriding theme of Isikoff and Corn in depicting "spin, scandal and the selling of the Iraq war."
As a result, Corn has been frantic--in the Nation, on his blog, and all over television--to depict an alternate course in which Rove, Libby, and Vice President Cheney attempted, by design and independently, to do what Armitage purportedly accomplished accidentally.
The introduction of Hubris states that Armitage's statement to me was (according to the deputy secretary's colleagues) "a slip-up by an inveterate gossip--but one that occurred alongside a concerted White House effort to undermine a critic of the war." This, the authors continue, "was a window into a much bigger scandal: the Bush administration's use of faulty intelligence and its fervent desire (after the [Iraq] invasion) to defend its prewar sales pitch."
I can only imagine the debates that must have taken place between coauthors to determine the direction of this book. The resulting product is some of the investigator Isikoff and a lot of the ideologue Corn. Hubris is not an unmitigated apologia for the Wilsons, but it comes close.
This desperate attempt to resuscitate a dubious conspiracy theory falls flat, and undermines what seems to be the real reason for writing Hubris.
While its reportorial tone gives the book a façade of objectivity, in fact it constitutes a broad assault on Bush, his administration, and his policies in the war against terrorism. That entails the retelling of manifold allegations of perfidy, so familiar that they grow tiresome. The book's only new element is what it reveals about the Plame case, and there they trumped their own ace by facilitating the source's exposure in advance of publication.
The book is also exceptional partly because its authors are so oddly matched.
Isikoff, who views himself as nonideological and nonpartisan, led reporters in tracking Bill Clinton's Monica Lewinsky affair (recorded in his Uncovering Clinton).
Corn is a stereotypical leftist activist without a nonideological bone in his body. His first book, Blond Ghost, was a vicious attack on the legendary CIA operative and Cold War hero Theodore Shackley, and the bias of his later work, The Lies of George W. Bush, is obvious from its title.
Corn telephoned me on July 16, 2003, two days after publication of my Valerie Plame column. He was neither a dispassionate reporter seeking information nor a former colleague on CNN's Crossfire, where we maintained a relatively friendly relationship when he was a substitute liberal cohost in 1997-98.
Instead, he was an impassioned, angry activist who accused me of "outing a CIA agent" and breaking the law. Since the Nation had never before been concerned with the protection of intelligence agents, I suspected political motives behind Corn's outrage. It was our final conversation. The last thing Corn wanted from me was additional information.
>>>>>>>>Rest at link.
And those Wilkerson rants remind me very much of Armitage and Thielman.
The Google caches were even erased. I don't think the stories even survived on the Wayback machine. If anyone finds them I'd appreciate it if they would freepmail me.
Excellent analysis.
The forged docs were used to gin up a scandal against Berlusconi at first.
Possibly related topic: Joby Warrick was the WaPo journalist who originated the anonymous "We fell for it quote" which Joseph Wilson (without citing a source for his information) attributed to State Department spokesman Richard Boucher. Warrick was also heavily involved in the aluminum tubes controversy before that. (More recently Warrick has started a new controversy related to the FBI's anthrax investigation.) According to Isikoff and Corn, there was also a *Thomas* Warrick in State who played a key role in the State-Pentagon rivalry during early 2003 over Chalabi's role in the post-Saddam regime. At CIA Paul Pillar was (by coincidence or design) on Warrick's side of this controversy, overseeing production of an NIE which advanced views similar to that Warrick was arguing at this time.
A week after Carter’s article, on September 11, 2002--the anniversary of 9/11--two Democrats with ties to Arab and Muslim lobbying groups, West Virginia Congressman Nick Rahall and former Senator James Abourezk, left for Iraq leading a US antiwar delegation calling itself “The Mission to Baghdad”.78 Mission organizer Rahall, who had worked as an assistant for West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd before being elected to Congress, had been active in legislation involving oil drilling, as well as lobbying for Palestinian rights in conjunction with groups such as the National Association of Arab Americans (NAAA). In 1997 he had travelled to the Middle East on an NAAA fact-finding mission in the company of Rock Creek’s Elias Aburdene, and since the 1996 elections his campaign contributors had included Aburdene, Occidental Petroleum’s Odeh Aburdene, convicted terrorist financier Abdurahman Alamoudi, and--on September 25, 2002--Joseph Wilson.79
SNIP
The group’s ostensible mission to encourage Saddam Hussein to accept renewed UN weapons inspections was endorsed by UN Secretary-General Kofi Annan, the Arab League, and former South African President Nelson Mandela. In Baghdad the delegation met with former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter, who had recently made the antiwar film In Shifting Sands, financed by Iraqi agent Shakir Al-Khafaji with Oil-for-Food vouchers. The delegation also met high-ranking Iraqi officials and attended the Sixth Iraq Solidarity Conference (aka Baghdad Peace Conference) on September 16. The conference was attended by 170 delegates from 80 countries, including Ritter; Vladimir Zhirinovsky of the Liberal Democratic Party of Russia, an Oil-for-Food beneficiary; George Galloway, a UK politician implicated in the Oil-for-Food scandal; and a delegation from the World Workers Party, the North Korean-linked group behind the antiwar fronts International Action Center (IAC) and ANSWER, headed by longtime Communist fellow traveller Ramsey Clark, who had led anti-sanctions trips to Iraq during the 1990s.82 Media contacts listed in IPA press releases for the Mission to Baghdad included former Oil-for-Food program head Denis Halliway; Scott Ritter; IPS’ Phyllis Bennis and Stephen Zunes; Detroit bishop Thomas Gumbleton, an IAC associate who had co-led Ramsey Clark’s trips to Iraq during the 1990s; and Kathy Kelly of Voices in the Wilderness, an anti-sanctions group founded in 1996 which also travelled to Iraq with IAC in the 1990s.83
SNIP
On the same day Kennedy made his statement, a second delegation of US Democratic Congressmen arrived in Iraq, consisting of Kucinich’s antiwar coalition ally McDermott, Michigan Congressman and former Democratic Whip David Bonior, and California Congressman Mike Thompson.91 McDermott had voted against the Gulf Waf, and had opposed sanctions against Iraq since travelling there in August 1991.92 Bonior, who had also voted against the Gulf War, was an early Congressional ally of Vietnam Veterans of America (VVA), cofounded by John Kerry in 1978 as an offshoot of the Communist Party-linked Vietnam Veterans Against the War (VVAW). He had become a pro-Muslim lobbyist in the 1990s, sponsoring bills for the repeal of anti-terrorism legislation, advocating the release of accused terrorist Sami Al-Arian’s associate Mazen Al-Najjar, and receiving campaign contributions from Al-Arian, Abdurahman Alamoudi, former Clinton Justice Department figure Jamie Gorelick, and Mission to Baghdad participant Harold Samhat.93 Accompanying the Congressmen to Baghdad was Iraqi agent Shakir Al-Khafaji, who later paid McDermott a check.94 Also travelling with the Congreessmen was the Church Council of Greater Seattle, an antiwar religious coalition, and joining them in Baghdad was a delegation led by Bert Sacks of Citizens Concerned for the People of Iraq, a Seattle-based affiliate of Voices in the Wilderness which had begun traveling to Iraq with Ramsey Clark’s IAC in the 1990s.95 IPA again handled media relations for the trip, issuing press releases listing media contacts that included Mission to Baghdad participant James Jennings as well as Sacks.96 During the trip, McDermott spoke live from Baghdad to ABC’s This Week on September 29 to comment on a statement he had previously made, “The President of the United States will lie to the American people in order to get us into this war.”97 After returning to the US McDermott elaborated his statement in an October 10 speech to Congress, in which he listed nine arguments against war, one of which denied evidence of Iraq possessing Weapons of Mass Destruction and included the insinuation that the US was responsible for Iraq’s noncompliance with UN weapons inspections:
There has been no solid information regarding Iraq's weapons of mass destruction since UNSCOM and IAEA arms inspectors left Iraq in December 1998 in advance of the U.S. Desert Fox bombing operation. . . Since that time, there have been no verifiable reports regarding Iraq's WMD programs. It is important to get inspectors back into Iraq, but U.S. threats for years made that virtually impossible by setting a "negative incentive" in place.”98
Within a week of McDermott’s September 29 statement, on October 3, Bonior’s Michigan Senate counterpart Carl Levin, a close associate of the far left and Muslim lobbies,99 began a campaign to replace Bush’s proposed war resolution with an alternate resolution that would only authorize the President to use force if the UN authorized military action.100
Now that's interesting- thanks for the reminder about Warrick.
2001 midyear - OCTOBER 2002 + : (TUBING AND OTHER EQUIPMENT HAVE BEEN SMUGGLED INTO IRAQ VIA JORDANIAN PORT OF AQABA; TWO SHIPMENTS SAID TO BE FROM CHINA HAVE BEEN INTERCEPTED IN JORDAN) Several companies believed to be front organizations for Saddam Hussein, including Al-Wasel & Babel, a joint-venture Iraqi construction and trading outfit, may be involved in procuring aluminum tubing, industry and intelligence sources told AMM. Al-Wasel & Babel is part of the Lootah Group based in the United Arab Emirates. Its Web site said Al-Wasel & Babel was established in 1999 and is "primarily involved in bidding for tenders in Iraq and operating in Baghdad and Basra." The company currently is working with the Iraqi government in the United Nations' "oil-for-food" program, according to the Web site.
Iraq is seeking to obtain more than 60,000 high-strength aluminum tubes to be used in its nuclear weapons program and apparently has succeeded in obtaining some of the tubing, thanks to shipments from China, Ukraine and possibly other countries via Jordan, sources said. The series 7075 aluminum tubes, which are widely available, are used in gas centrifuges to enrich uranium as part of Iraq's effort to build nuclear weapons, according to Bush administration officials.
The tubes, as well as other equipment destined for the Iraqi nuclear program, have been smuggled into the country over the past 14 months via the port of Aqaba, a free-trade zone in Jordan, sources said. At least two shipments said to be from China have been intercepted in Jordan (AMM, Sept. 23).
---- "Front groups may feed Iraq `nuclear' tubes." (front organizations for Saddam Hussein acquiring aluminum) American Metal Market, Oct 10, 2002, by Martyn Chase
[* My note: I suspect one of the other countries involved could include South Africa, which sold an tubing plant to China ]
A quick look at Fitz' most recent motions indicate to me that he's just going thru the motions now. He hasn't moved to dismiss but the govt's arguments on the classified docs are going nowhere and he simply keeps repeating them to a judge who has already rejected them.
Plame was reportedly (Isikoff and Corn, 39) one of the CIA agents tasked with investigating that shipment.
Really? I missed that one completely. That's very interesting.
In the summer of 2001, one CIA officer assigned to liaison work with the Jordanians regarding the tubes was Valerie Wilson. She traveled to Jordan. She saw the tubes, which were sitting at a storage yard, piled up and exposed to the elements. Samples had been sent to Langley.
Also mentioned here:
What Valerie Plame Really Did at the CIA
"We knew nothing about what was going on in Iraq," a CIA official recalled. "We were way behind the eight ball. We had to look under every rock." Wilson, too, occasionally flew overseas to monitor operations. She also went to Jordan to work with Jordanian intelligence officials who had intercepted a shipment of aluminum tubes heading to Iraq that CIA analysts were claiming--wrongly--were for a nuclear weapons program. (The analysts rolled over the government's top nuclear experts, who had concluded the tubes were not destined for a nuclear program.)
SEPTEMBER 2002 - JULY 2003 : (CAPITOL HILL BLUE'S DOUG THOMPSON USES "TERRANCE J. WILKERSON" AS A SOURCE IN SIX STORIES AS AN UNNAMED SOURCE, AS A NAMED SOURCE IN ONE OTHER)
May as well point out when A.N.S.W.E.R. got its start:
JULY 21, 2001 : (THE DOMAIN BEATBACKBUSH.ORG IS REGISTERED; LATER THIS BECAME INTERNATIONAL A.N.S.W.E.R. - IT IS ASSOCIATED WITH RAMSEY CLARK) However, the protest on September 29th [2001] was planned long ago, long before the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. The domain beatbackbush.org was registered July 21, 2001. According to their website, they were going to protest the Bush administration's policies regarding the IMF and World Bank, although the phrase "Beat Back The Bush Attack" seems more fitting for the protest of the war against terrorism.
The shifting focus of this protest shows that the people involved have one goal in mind, and it is not the stated intent, which has shifted from protesting the IMF and World Bank, to protesting President Bush's retaliation to the attacks, to now protesting racism and the coming war on terrorism. The real goal is disruption, as well as to gain publicity, and to put political pressure on the government of the United States to move away from capitalism.
The front page for both of these sites currently shows no link between their efforts and the International Action Center, merely showing Clark as the first of the "initial signers" for their declaration.
One can find who is the primary contact for an internet domain by performing a whois query against the domain names databases. A whois query on beatbackbush.org shows that the organization behind the website is called "World View", and is based in Jersey City, NJ, and lists an administrative contact of Sara Flounders Kramer. The email address given for the administrative contact is gery@riseup.net. A whois query for internationalanswer.org, though, shows the organization to be the IAC, and provides the same email address for the administrative contact. Sara Flounders (sans the Kramer surname) is listed as the administrative and billing contact for the IAC's website.
Both internationalanswer.org and beatbackbush.org are hosted on machines running in Boca Raton, Florida. The contact for riseup.net, as found using whois, is Elijah Saxon, who gives his email address as being from the ucsc.edu domain (University of California, Santa Cruz, where he is probably an alumni). Saxon also has registered revolt.org, which says it is part of Global Update, which also has a domain. globalupdate.org, riseup.net, and revolt.org all indicate that they operate out of Seattle, Washington.
What is riseup.net? They provide "Tech support for the revolution" according to their main page. The vanguard, it would seem, has gone high tech. riseup.net also provides hosting for "Direct Action Networks", which function like cells for activities promoting "radical social change" and "social justice", which are the new catchphrases used to hide the true nature of their activities, which is the promotion of Marxism.
Here is how riseup.net describes themselves: riseup.net is a project of the Red Cursor Collective, a 100% volunteer effort of activists using technology for radical social change. We provide training, web hosting, listservs, email accounts, and any kind of tech support needed by the activist community.
The riseup.net page says that, currently, their "costs greatly exceed the donations we have received". If donations do not currently meet costs, yet they are operating, from where are they currently getting their funding?
Many of the IAC's initiatives are funded by contributions from The People's Rights Fund, a 501c3 tax-exempt, non-profit organization. A google.com search on "Peoples Rights Fund" and Flounders (for Sara Flounders) shows that the contributions have been both frequent and varied in their purpose. Many of the contributions were directly to the IAC. Others were made to other organizations that tie back to the IAC and/or Clark.
Where does the People's Rights Fund get their money? Their website makes no mention. However, at least part of their funding comes from Fidelity Investment's Charitable Gift Fund. One can only wonder how well Fidelity has screened their recipients, if the money from this fund is being funneled to Marxist advocacy groups. One can only wonder who at Fidelity realizes that their fund was used as a conduit to funnel funds for the planning and execution of the massive demonstrations-turned-riots of November 1999 in Seattle, or the similar demonstrations in Washington, DC, of April 16, 2000 that were limited in their destructiveness by police raids the night before. These raids found riot gear, gas masks, staging locations, and involved the arrest of senior IAC members.
One can only wonder how Fidelity feels about their fund being used as a conduit to funnel funds for the planning and execution of the coming September 29th demonstration against the war on terror. One can only wonder how well Fidelity would react to this information becoming widespread public knowledge. - "September 29," by Gerry Daly, Daly's News Online, September 26, 2001 via FR post on 09/26/2001 1:28 PM PDT by Hugh Akston (*** Isn't Fidelity owned in part by Berger or Kerry's wife Heinz?)
Good point--the North Korean ties of WWP/ANSWER/Troops Out haven't received as much analysis as they probably should.
Thanks for the refresher on this thread. Reading it again, I'm struck anew by Corn's selective attitude towards criticism of the CIA: his book on Shackley was devoted to exposing the history of Shackley's operations, but he's upset at Novak for outing a CIA agent. Apparently the CIA is okay with Corn when it's attacking Bush, but when it's fighting Castro he has a problem with it.
(Wilson will be the featured attraction for the Nation's annual cruise in December.)
******
If I didn't think that Novak was writing a serious column, I would believe that I read the line above in The Onion or in a Mallard Fillmore cartoon.
What an attraction!!!
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