Posted on 2/2/2007, 8:01:41 AM by woofie
Why was the White House so nervous in the summer of 2003 about the CIA's reporting on alleged Iraqi attempts to buy uranium from Niger to build a nuclear bomb? That's the big question that runs through the many little details that have emerged in the perjury trial of Vice President Cheney's former top aide, Lewis "Scooter" Libby.
The trial record suggests a simple answer: The White House was worried that the CIA would reveal that it had been pressured in 2002 and early 2003 to support administration claims about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, and that in the Niger case, the CIA had tried hard to resist this pressure. The machinations of Cheney, Libby and others were an attempt to weave an alternative narrative that blamed the CIA.
The truth began to emerge on July 11, 2003, when CIA Director George Tenet issued a public statement disclosing that the agency had tried to warn the White House off the Niger allegations. In that sense, the Libby trial is about a cover-up that failed.
What helped start the whole brouhaha was a 2003 op-ed article by former ambassador Joseph Wilson, disclosing that his fact-finding trip to Niger the previous year had yielded no evidence of Iraqi uranium purchases. His piece opened with a devastating question: "Did the Bush administration manipulate intelligence about Saddam Hussein's weapons programs to justify an invasion of Iraq?" A frantic White House tried to rebut Wilson's criticism by leaking the fact that his wife, Valerie Plame, worked at the CIA and had suggested sending him to Niger -- as if the CIA connection somehow contaminated Wilson's allegations and made the White House less culpable.
To understand the Libby case, it's important to look at the documentary evidence, which has been usefully compiled by washingtonpost.com.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
I dont know where they are getting this stuff
Bald
Faced
Lie.
L
Still using Joe Wilson as a source, I see.
I think its all in code
Please help decipher
DNC talking points? It is the left-wing Washington Post, the RAT's whores.
I thought the question was being asked by reporters "Did Cheney send Wilson?"
"I dont know where they are getting this stuff"
Satan never sleeps, and he is endlessly inventive.
L
Then he goes on to talk about the pressure from the WH on the poor CIA....makes no sense
(ring.... ring....)
"Hello?"
"Yeah, hi, Mr. Novak? This is Dave (mumble) over at PowerMaxMindQuarters.com and I just got a strange email from somebody I don't know who says that Joe Wilson's wife is a desk jockey over at the CIA and it was her who arranged her husband's trip to Niger. Her name is Valerie Plame, and I was wondering if you happen to know her or know how I can get in touch with her to ask some questions. I tried calling the CIA, but you know how that goe, ha ha."
"Uhh...."
"Ooops, my cell phone is dying. Listen, I'll call you tomorr....."
Rinse and repeat with about five or six reporters.
For the love of Pete, isn't this the way it would be done, if in fact somebody wanted to get the word out about Plame and her role in the rogue CIA/State Department operation to smear Bush?
Or something...anyway, all that matters is it's Bush's fault, somehow.
Seems to me Ignatius got tangled in his own lies.
However,this is the opening drumbeat to start impeachment proceedings a la watergate. Perhaps Ignatius smells a Pulitzer, then a best seller LOL
OB
But Plame was not a covert agent as defined by the law in question. Even Barney Fife could have found that out with one phone call. The investigation went forward when there was no possibility that a law could have been broken no matter who told who what about Plame.
Either Fitzgerald is monumentally incompetent for not finding that out at the outset or he is completely corrupt. There is no middle ground on that.
So the WH was trying to defend itself from the lies coming from Joe Wilson? How DARE they?!
The same place they got that Valerie was a "covert" agent.
In this WP op-ed piece, we read this:
"But despite CIA warnings, Bush referred to uranium purchases from Africa in his SOTU speech, attributing it to British sources."
This is a bald faced LIE. Iraq, according to British AND U.S. sources, SOUGHT uranium. Bush never made the allegation that they actually purchased it.
"What helped start the whole brouhaha was a 2003 op-ed article by former ambassador Joseph Wilson, disclosing that his fact-finding trip to Niger the previous year had yielded no evidence of Iraqi uranium purchases."
Didn't the Senate Intelligence committee report conclude that Wilson was lying and that he actually had been told by the Niger government that Iraq had been seeking yellow cake uranium? The Brits and other European agencies had plenty of info that Iraq had been to Niger. There was one piece of intelligence (originating in Italy) that had been forged. The media keeps waving this around to confuse the issue. But the Brits have insisted that their original story was true.
You failed to issue a Barf Alert on this piece. My keyboard is a mess.
From Bill & Hill's "Payback's A Bitch" or "The Bush Impeachment Playbook".
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