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To: Fedora
That's the mea culpa alright. But I wonder if we can find the original article, wherein our mystical "Terrance J. Wilkinson, CIA agent" was purportedly leaking a major scandal to Thompson. It was taken down from the CHB site, but might still be somewhere here on FR.

With benefit of hindsight, I'd like to see how many points of connection we could make between the fictional Wilkinson and real Joseph C. Wilson IV. It had to be him...or somebody working closely with him.

239 posted on 07/14/2005 6:30:16 PM PDT by okie01 (The Mainstream Media: IGNORANCE ON PARADE)
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To: okie01
But I wonder if we can find the original article, wherein our mystical "Terrance J. Wilkinson, CIA agent" was purportedly leaking a major scandal to Thompson. It was taken down from the CHB site, but might still be somewhere here on FR.

I think I found the title and date and a summary, at least:

McKinley's America

On July 8th, Capitol Hill Blue published a story titled "White House Admits Bush Lied About Iraqi Nukes". The bold headline was backed by an equally assertive lead-in, which stated "After weeks of denial, the White House Monday finally admitted President Bush lied in his January State of the Union Address when he claimed Iraq had sought significant quantities of uranium in Africa." This assertion went far beyond what other news organizations were reporting, which was that the Bush administration had admitted that the claim made in the State of the Union Address was based on information the President later found to be unreliable. There were other eye-raising details in the story, however.

The article quoted a "CIA advisor" named Terrance J. Wilkinson, claiming he had been present at two White House briefings attended by the President. "The report had already been discredited," the story quoted Wilkinson as stating. "This point was clearly made when the president was in the room during at least two of the briefings" said Wilkinson, who claimed Bush responded in anger. "He said that if the current operatives working for the CIA couldn't prove the story was true, then the agency had better find some who could," the Capitol Hill Blue story continued Wilkinson's quote. "He said he knew the story was true and so would the world after American troops secured the country." Wilkinson claimed to have written "numerous memos" questioning the use of "intelligence information that we knew to be from dubious sources." While American troops continue to search Iraq for a smoking gun regarding weapons of mass destruction, these allegations, if true, would be the smoking gun the left wing of American politics has been searching for in their quest to discredit the Bush administration.

On Free Republic, a website where conservatives dissect and debate the news, some people (including this author) started to question the story. The White House admitted Bush lied? Where could such an admission be found? And who is Terrance J. Wilkinson? Searches using various Internet tools such as Google were coming up empty. Doug Thompson joined in the discussion to defend his work and his publication. "The use of the word 'lied' has also sparked some controversy on the Capitol Hill Blue forum as well. It was my decision to use the word. Wilkinson did not accuse the President of lying. I did, based on information from other sources (who would not go on the record) that Bush was told outright that the information had been discredited before the State of the Union address but that he chose to use it anyway. To me that was a lie and I chose to use it in the headline and the lead of the story." Thompson admitted that he chose such a strong accusation because "I'm mad. Bush didn't have to use a discredited claim to justify the war with Iraq." However, Thompson admitted, "The headline is technically incorrect because the White House made no such admission. I have edited the headline and the lead of the story to reflect that." Thompson republished the article with the word 'lied' changed to 'wrong' in the headline, and the lead-in changed similarly. But what about Terrance J. Wilkinson? Thompson stood by his man. "I've known Terry Wilkinson for 20+ years and his decision to go public was a painful one that I'm sure will bring recriminations."

The same article is apparently referenced with a different, less inflammatory title here:

I Protest Archive

Over a month ago I wrote an entry here called "The Bush psyche." Well, today Steve Gilliard at the Daily KOS wrote "Time to admit the obvious: there are no WMD," in which he quotes a story from Capitol Hill Blue, "White House admits Bush wrong about Iraqi nukes."

"The [Niger] report had already been discredited," said Terrance J. Wilkinson, a CIA advisor present at two White House briefings. "This point was clearly made when the President was in the room during at least two of the briefings."

Bush's response was anger, Wilkinson said.

"He said that if the current operatives working for the CIA couldn't prove the story was true, then the agency had better find some who could," Wilkinson said. "He said he knew the story was true and so would the world after American troops secured the country."

This link given seems to redirect to a sanitized archive version of the article where references to Wilkinson have been removed, along with Thompson's name:

"White House admits Bush wrong about Iraqi nukes", July 8, 2003

After weeks of denial, the White House Monday finally admitted President Bush was wrong in his January State of the Union Address when he claimed Iraq had sought significant quantities of uranium in Africa.

The acknowledgment came as a British parliamentary commission questioned the reliability of British intelligence about Saddam Hussein's efforts to obtain weapons of mass destruction in the run-up to the war in Iraq.

Bush said in his State of the Union address that the British government had learned that Saddam recently sought significant quantities of uranium in Africa.

The president's statement was incorrect because it was based on forged documents from the African nation of Niger, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer acknowledged.

A British parliamentary committee has also concluded that Prime Minister Tony Blair's government mishandled intelligence material on Iraqi weapons.

John Stanley, a Conservative member of the committee, said so far no evidence has been found in Iraq to substantiate four key claims, including that Iraq was seeking uranium in Africa as part of an effort to restart a nuclear weapons program.

The International Atomic Energy Agency told the United Nations in March that the information about uranium was based on forged documents.

I also tried searching Google for the link that redirects to the archived version, and they've pulled the original out of their cache as well:

http://www.capitolhillblue.com/artman/publish/article_2518.shtml

247 posted on 07/14/2005 7:08:48 PM PDT by Fedora
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