Posted on 07/13/2004 3:43:10 PM PDT by swilhelm73
When President Bush made his surprise visit to the troops in Baghdad last Thanksgiving, he stood in the serving line and helped serve the soldiers their meals before joining them for Thanksgiving dinner. The trip boosted the President's popularitiy because of its daring and the fact that it highlighted Bush's concern for the troops, and their affection for him. This photo of President Bush in the Baghdad dining hall with a Thanksgiving turkey was widely circulated:
Anxious to undercut the Baghdad trip's impact with the public, liberal journalists began circulating the false story that the bird Bush had been photographed holding was a fake. This claim was endlessly retailed; John Kerry and Michael Moore repeated it, which should have been recognized as proof that it wasn't true, but so did many more respectable journalists. Other journalists more committed to accuracy, like Tim Blair, patiently corrected these misrepresentations time after time.
On July 4, the New York Times, slow on the uptake as usual, repeated the long-discredited fake turkey meme in an article about political surprises. What's really interesting, though, was the Times' acknowledgement of the significance of the myth itself:
There are also the manufactured surprises, like Mr. Bush's cloak-and-dagger Thanksgiving trip to Baghdad, which drew praise even from Democrats. (The public relations bonanza fizzled after the press reported that Mr. Bush had posed with a mouth-watering - but fake - turkey.) So the Times admits that the press successfully destroyed the public relations value of the President's Baghdad trip by endlessly repeating the false claim that the turkey was a fake.
This morning, the Times' Corrections section acknowledged the error:
An article last Sunday about surprises in politics referred incorrectly to the turkey carried by President Bush during his unannounced visit to American troops in Baghdad over Thanksgiving. It was real, not fake. What the Times didn't acknowledge was its motive, and the motive of others in the press, for spreading the seemingly inconsequential lie about the turkey. Sunday, July 11, 2004
JOSEPH WILSON, LIAR
One of the most stunning revelations contained in the Senate Intelligence Committee report on the CIA is that virtually everything Joseph Wilson has said about his trip to Niger, and the report that Iraq tried to buy uranium from Niger, is a lie.
First, contrary to what Wilson has said publicly, his wife, CIA employee Valerie Plame, did recommend him for the Niger investigation:
The report states that a CIA official told the Senate committee that Plame "offered up" Wilson's name for the Niger trip, then on Feb. 12, 2002, sent a memo to a deputy chief in the CIA's Directorate of Operations saying her husband "has good relations with both the PM [prime minister] and the former Minister of Mines (not to mention lots of French contacts), both of whom could possibly shed light on this sort of activity." The next day, the operations official cabled an overseas officer seeking concurrence with the idea of sending Wilson, the report said. Confronted yesterday with the Senate report, Wilson could only offer a non sequitur and a lame denial:
Wilson stood by his assertion in an interview yesterday, saying Plame was not the person who made the decision to send him. Of her memo, he said: "I don't see it as a recommendation to send me." Further, the Senate report indicates that Plame and Wilson, from the beginning, had an absurdly biased view of the subject Wilson was supposed to be investigating: "The report said Plame told committee staffers that she relayed the CIA's request to her husband, saying, 'there's this crazy report' about a purported deal for Niger to sell uranium to Iraq."
As has been widely reported, Wilson conducted a half-baked investigation into the uanium report. But here is the most astonishing fact uncovered by the Senate Intelligence Committee: in his book and in countless interviews and op-ed pieces over the past year, Wilson has been lying about the contents of his own report to the CIA!:
The report also said Wilson provided misleading information to The Washington Post last June. He said then that he concluded the Niger intelligence was based on documents that had clearly been forged because "the dates were wrong and the names were wrong." "Committee staff asked how the former ambassador could have come to the conclusion that the 'dates were wrong and the names were wrong' when he had never seen the CIA reports and had no knowledge of what names and dates were in the reports," the Senate panel said. Wilson told the panel he may have been confused and may have "misspoken" to reporters. The documents -- purported sales agreements between Niger and Iraq -- were not in U.S. hands until eight months after Wilson made his trip to Niger.
Wilson's reports to the CIA added to the evidence that Iraq may have tried to buy uranium in Niger, although officials at the State Department remained highly skeptical, the report said.
Wilson said that a former prime minister of Niger, Ibrahim Assane Mayaki, was unaware of any sales contract with Iraq, but said that in June 1999 a businessman approached him, insisting that he meet with an Iraqi delegation to discuss "expanding commercial relations" between Niger and Iraq -- which Mayaki interpreted to mean they wanted to discuss yellowcake sales. A report CIA officials drafted after debriefing Wilson said that "although the meeting took place, Mayaki let the matter drop due to UN sanctions on Iraq."
According to the former Niger mining minister, Wilson told his CIA contacts, Iraq tried to buy 400 tons of uranium in 1998.
So: what Wilson actually told the CIA, contrary to his own oft-repeated claims, is that he was told by the former mining minister of Niger that in 1998, Iraq had tried to buy 400 tons of uranium from that country, and that Iraq's overture was renewed the following year. What Wilson reported to the CIA was exactly the same as what President Bush said in his 2003 State of the Union address: there was evidence that Iraq had tried to buy uranium in Africa.
Recall Wilson's famous op-ed in the New York Times, published on July 6, 2003, which ignited the whole firestorm over the famous "sixteen words" in Bush's State of the Union speech. In that op-ed, Wilson identified himself as the formerly-unnamed person who had gone to Niger to investigate rumors of a possible uranium deal between Iraq and Niger. Here are the key words in Wilson's article:
[I]n January, President Bush, citing the British dossier, repeated the charges about Iraqi efforts to buy uranium from Africa. The next day, I reminded a friend at the State Department of my trip and suggested that if the president had been referring to Niger, then his conclusion was not borne out by the facts as I understood them. It was this flat-out lie about what Wilson learned in Niger, and what he reported to the CIA upon his return, that fueled the "sixteen words" controversy and led to the publication of Wilson's best-selling account, titled, ironically, The Politics of Truth.
One can only conclude that Joseph Wilson has perpetrated one of the most astonishing hoaxes in American history. But here is what I really don't get: didn't the administration have access to all of this information about Wilson's report? And if so, why didn't they use it when Wilson was dominating the news cycle with his lies? Saturday, July 10, 2004
They knew the truth would eventually come out?
Because Bush has his eye on the item of true importance - the election.
Not responding lets all the scumbags self-identify and give them enough rope to hang themselves. It will be used against them. Credibility is being destroyed for many news organization, the NYT being foremost. When they say "Bush lied" they will end up being looked at like most people look at Howard Dean supporters.
I think the term is "Rope-A-Dope". Bush is giving them so damn much rope to hang themselves with, that they are hanging OTHER people also!!! STATEGERY in MOTION!!
There's some other crap too: CIA reported Uranium mines were shut down, or otherwise inaccessible. Day before yesterday 8 or 9 Congolese died(AFP,Reuters) as result of a cave-in at one of the "shut-down" mines. It seems they have been working these mines for years-on the sly-mostly for the cobalt that's mixed with the uranium ore. The uranium ore is exceptionally rich in U-235,and doesn't require as much work to bring it up to bomb-grade.The Congolese have been selling this stuff by the ton-to anyone who wants it.
Their government-essentially Stalinist- looks the other way,for a wee dip o' the beak.
Bush is a good poker player then and I guess it's time
for a little rope-a-dope...
BUMP for later!
I'm not sure I'd want to play W in poker, for money...I would, however, want to be at a BBQ with he and others at his ranch, sipping a cold non-alc.
Just a down home guy from Texas, who knows how to treat people, and just happens to be (properly so) the ELECTED leader (my daily chance to drive leftists crazy) of the greatest country in the world. Someone who doesn't need to mention the word "Vietnam" in every sentence, or as an answer to every question.
Well, I guess that my chances to see him at his re-inaugural festivities (or the FReeper equivalent) are a bit greater than my chances to "hang out" with him at a BBQ, at his ranch. Let's see..."hang chili" with the CIC once, or have him (and his Administration) in office, continuing to lead this nation with strength and character for four more years.
One time BBQ...Four more years.
Tough call... (/sarcasm, this line only)
Because they're 'pubbies?
I spotted this Plame quote the other day and pointed out it demonstrates where she (and he, of course) are coming from. Plus, doesn't sound like Mata Hari.
Do you think the CIA is going to giving the Senate memos from an undercover agent? No.
Indeed. They know there's an investigation. And I've opined since the start that it is NOT about who leaked her name, but if the Wilsons have committed a crime here.
That's IMHO.
Any late news on the investigation into who leaked Plame's name to the press?
Was Wilson still CIA when he talked about the intel? Wouldn't that create serious problems, when an existing employee knowing violates the code of conduct of the CIA?
Something about "enough rope". That and the notion that it's better that the truth come out now, rather than months and months ago.
He wasn't an employee, but just a "contract" worker. His wife however was, they say, an employee.
ping.
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