Posted on 07/14/2003 5:58:16 PM PDT by Wolfstar
Only that Iraq had tried to buy uranium from Niger as it had in the past.
Niger is a former French colony and a French company runs the mines. The French interfered with MI6's giving intel to CIA.
File photo of Unnamed Source Terrance J. Wilkinson, former CIA analyst.
I remember seeing Joseph Wilson on the Phil Donahue show and he acted no different than Terry McAulliffe with his attacks on President Bush, he is hardly a nuetral figure. This guy Wilson must be exposed, it will bring down the RATS and this smear campaign
Wilson says he spent eight days in Niger "drinking sweet mint tea and meeting with dozens of people" hardly what a competent spy, detective, or even reporter would call an in-depth investigation. Nevertheless, let's give Wilson the benefit of the doubt and stipulate that he was correct when he reported back to the CIA that he believed it was "highly doubtful that any such transaction ever took place. "
But, again, because it was "doubtful" that Saddam actually acquired yellowcake from Niger, it does not follow that he never sought it there or elsewhere in Africa, which is all the president suggested based on what the British said and still say.
And how does Wilson leap from there to the conclusion that Vice President Cheney and his boss "twisted" intelligence to "exaggerate the Iraqi threat"? Wilson hasn't the foggiest idea what other intelligence the president and vice president had access to.
It also would have been useful for the New York Times and others seeking Wilson's words of wisdom to have provided a little background on him. For example:
He was an outspoken opponent of U.S. military intervention in Iraq.
He's an "adjunct scholar" at the Middle East Institute which advocates for Saudi interests. The March 1, 2002 issue of the Saudi government-weekly Ain-Al Yaqeen lists the MEI as an "Islamic research institutes supported by the Kingdom."
He's a vehement opponent of the Bush administration which, he wrote in the March 3, 2003 edition of the left-wing Nation magazine, has "imperial ambitions." Under President Bush, he added, the world worries that "America has entered one of it periods of historical madness."
He also wrote that "neoconservatives" have "a stranglehold on the foreign policy of the Republican Party." He said that "the new imperialists will not rest until governments that ape our world view are implanted throughout the region, a breathtakingly ambitious undertaking, smacking of hubris in the extreme."
He was recently the keynote speaker for the Education for Peace in Iraq Center, a far-left group that opposed not only the U.S. military intervention in Iraq but also the sanctions and even the no-fly zones that protected hundreds of thousands of Iraqi Kurds and Shias from being slaughtered by Saddam.
And consider this: Prior to the U.S. invasion of Iraq, Wilson did believe that Saddam had biological weapons of mass destruction. But he raised that possibility only to argue against toppling Saddam, warning ABC's Dave Marash that if American troops were sent into Iraq, Saddam might "use a biological weapon in a battle that we might have. For example, if we're taking Baghdad or we're trying to take, in ground-to-ground, hand-to-hand combat." He added that Saddam also might attempt to take revenge by unleashing "some sort of a biological assault on an American city, not unlike the anthrax, attacks that we had last year."
In other words, Wilson is no disinterested career diplomat he's a pro-Saudi, leftist partisan with an ax to grind. And too many in the media are helping him and allies grind it.
Clifford D. May, a former New York Times foreign correspondent, is president of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies, a policy institute focusing on terrorism.
Without going to check again I'll go by memory about the ambassador appointment: It was in May 1992 to Gabon, I believe.
As to Cheney sending Wilson. He did NOT. Tenet gave a statement on Friday. He said a CIA unit ON THEIR OWN INITIATIVE selected Wilson. I believe it was because Wilson was in fact familiar with the area and had been approached in 1999 (per Jack Straw, something Wilson omitted in his NY Times op-ed) by agents about opening trade between Iraq and Niger. My own opinion is that incident led to his selection by that unit.
Also please note that Tenet says in his statement that what Wilson had to say upon his return was NOT briefed to the president, the VICE PRESIDENT, or any senior officials. This indicates to me that Cheney had nothing to do with sending Wilson on his errand, else why wouldn't they share the findings with him? BTW, Tenet also says Wilson's "report" was inconclusive on the whole situation anyway.
I personally think he turned drastically partisan during the clinton years, and he is anti-Bush 43. Not merely neutral and informing as an expert would, but giving inconsistant statements for months culminating in the NY Times a week ago last Sunday.
Greta research Wolfstar.
Thank you for the update on who sent him to check out the rumor. As I said in my first post, someone (can't be sure who, since the pace was fast and furious on Hannity) stated it was VP Cheney who asked him to go, hence my question/comment.
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