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Oh, I don't think you're suggesting anything or set on any one idea--I'm just thinking out loud and assume you are, too.

I had linked Wilson to VIPS through Foley. But Scowcroft is definitely a favorite of theirs, mentioned several times in their writings--remember that memo to the president where they asked for Scowcroft to head an investigation?

I hadn't paid much attention to what Wilson said in his book, just assumed it was all revisionist history. I'll look more into the Scowcroft angle.

RAY MCGOVERN: "We have indeed. There have been a few courageous people who have stood on principle at some personal cost. Ironically, we intelligence professionals, we, unfairly, we tend to dismiss foreign service officers as knee-jerk mouthpieces for the administration. Well, three such foreign service officers have stood on principle and have quit, some of them before the war ever started, and they have issued eloquent statements as to how their conscience would not permit them to have to tell these lies to folks, to try to rally support for an unjust US policy. There is Andrew Wilke in Australia, an incredible person whom Veterans Intelligence Professionals for Sanity had to this country. We all chipped in and paid for his fare. He spoke in Congress at one of the congressional hearings. Andrew quit the Office of National Assessments in Australia, which is the CIA counterpart, eight days before the war, because he could no longer countenance his country going into a war on the basis of intelligence that he saw to be bogus." -------- “The Crazies Are Back”: Bush Sr.’s CIA Briefer Discusses How Wolfowitz & Allies Falsely Led the U.S. To War," discussion, Wednesday, September 17th, 2003, http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=03/09/17/1543215 [leftwing wacko source]

I'm behind today, so I'll catch up on several posts at once here:

Wendy, yes, I remember VIPS asking for Scowcroft to head the investigation. They got a lot of propaganda mileage out of his editorial, also.

Thanks for the McGovern links. I notice he also cites Vincent Cannistraro, who would be a link to pre-VIPS propaganda agents. On previous threads we've discussed some indicators Lyndon LaRouche's organization is playing a role in coming up with some of the neocon conspiracy theories being disseminated by VIPS and like sources. I think that would fit in with the observation on the pro-Palestinian slant of VIPS.

You and piasa are both recalling different parts of what was reported on how Wilson met Plame: Wilson met her while receiving an American-Turkish Council award during a reception at the Turkish embassy in Washington, according to pp. 240-241 of his book.

On Wilkinson:

He said he had served in Vietnam with Army Special Force, worked for Air America, later for the FBI and as a consultant for the CIA.

Is there anyone he says he didn't work for?--LOL. He was probably Deep Throat's secret source, too :-)

Piasa, your point that they are also opposing the Office of Special Plans at the Pentagon is good to bear in mind as well. Basically, I think they're opposing anyone in any department whose Middle Eastern policies are at odds with their goals on Israeli-Palestinian relations and a few other key issues. They also seem to oppose anyone in CIA or its Middle Eastern assets linked to Woolsey, Chalabi, or Ghorbanifar (as far as I can tell--I'm still trying to figure out exactly what the deal with the latter two is). I think underlying this are some long-term dynamics within the intelligence community in the Middle East that trace back to the era of the Iran-Contra operation. My own suspicion is that the big players pulling Wilson's strings from behind the scenes are linked to the same group that was involved in compromising William Buckley, etc. Figuring into the Buckley kidnapping were the narcoterrorist networks of Imad Fayez Mugniyah and Monzer Al-Kassar, which is getting into the territory of BCCI and threatens to wander off into Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, but we can reign it in and bring it back within two degrees of Joseph Wilson through Wilson's Rock Creek associate Elias Aburdene. It seems to be a short skip from Rock Creek to BCCI.

Piasa, good observations on the convergence of events in July 2003. This seems to help explain the timing of Wilson's op-ed.

I wonder what Wilke was doing before he got involved with VIPS.