George, you are either tragically misinformed or an inveterate
dissembler.
http://www.alternet.org/waroniraq/19270/
Defending Joe Wilson
By David Corn, The Nation
July 19, 2004.
Republicans are using the Senate Intelligence Committee report to
settle scores with former Ambassador for embarrassing the President.
That he is also John Kerry's foreign policy advisor doesn't hurt.
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The Senate intelligence committee's report on prewar intelligence
demonstrates that George W. Bush launched a war predicated on false
assertions about weapons of mass destruction and misled the country
when he claimed Saddam Hussein was in cahoots in al Qaeda. But what
has caused outrage within conservative quarters? Passages in the
report that they claim undermine the credibility of former Ambassador
Joseph Wilson.
Wilson, if you need to be reminded, embarrassed the Bush
administration a year ago when he revealed that he had traveled to
Niger in February 2002 to check out the allegation that Hussein had
been shopping for uranium there. In his 2003 State of the Union
address, Bush had referred to Iraq's supposed attempt to obtain
uranium in Africa to suggest Hussein was close to possessing a nuclear
weapon. When Bush's use of this allegation become a matter of
controversy last summer, Wilson went public with a New York Times
op-ed in which he noted his private mission to Niger which he had
taken on behalf of the CIA had led him to conclude the allegation
was highly unlikely. After Wilson's article appeared, the White House
conceded that Bush should not have included this charge in his speech.
A week later, Wilson received the payback. Conservative columnist
Robert Novak, quoting two unnamed administration sources, reported
that Wilson's wife, Valerie Wilson (nee Plame), was a CIA operative
working in the counterproliferation field. Novak revealed her identity
to suggest that Wilson had been sent to Niger due to nepotism not his
experience. The point of Novak's column was to call Wilson's trip and
his findings into question.
The real story was that Novak's sources presumably White House
officials might have violated the law prohibiting government
officials from identifying a covert officer of the United States
government. Outing Valerie Wilson was a possible felony and to boot
compromised national security. Two months later, the news broke that
the CIA had asked the Justice Department to investigate the Wilson
leak. And a US attorney named Patrick Fitzgerald has been on the case
since the start of this year, leading an investigation that has
included questioning Bush.
But now Wilson's detractors on the right claim the critical issue is
Wilson's credibility on two points: whether his wife was involved in
the decision to send him to Niger and whether he accurately portrayed
his findings regarding his Niger trip. And they have made use of the
Senate intelligence report particularly additional comments filed by
committee chairman Pat Roberts and two other Republican members of the
committee, Kit Bond and Orrin Hatch to pound Wilson. But not only
does the get-Wilson crusade ignore the main question did White House
officials break the law and damage national security to take a swing
at a critic? it overstates and manipulates the material in the
Senate report.
The first shot at Wilson actually came from The Washington Post . The
day after the Senate report was released, Post reporter Susan Schmidt
did an entire piece on the portion of the report related to the Niger
episode. (By the way, the Post devoted more space to the Wilson affair
than to the report's conclusion that there was no intelligence to back
up Bush's assertion that Iraq and al Qaeda had maintained a working
relationship.) In this story, Schmidt claimed that Wilson was
"specifically recommended for the [Niger] mission by his wife, a CIA
employee, contrary to what he has said publicly." She also reported
that the intelligence committee "found that Wilson's report, rather
than debunking intelligence about purported uranium sales to Iraq, as
he has said, bolstered the case for most intelligence analysts."
Schmidt added, "The report may bolster the rationale that
administration officials provided the information not to intentionally
expose an undercover CIA employee, but to call into question Wilson's
bona fides as an investigator into trafficking of weapons of mass
destruction."
Within days, Tim Graham, an analyst at the conservative Media Research
Center, wrote a piece for The National Review pointing to the Schmidt
article and decrying the "truth-telling problems" of Wilson, whose
recent best-selling book is titled "The Politics of Truth ." Then
Novak, returning to the scene of the (possible) crime, cited the
committee report and the Republicans' additional comments to prove
that he had been right to report in his original column that Wilson's
wife had been behind the move to send Wilson to Niger. And Novak
approvingly quoted Senator Roberts blast at Wilson: "Rather than
speaking publicly about his actual experiences during his inquiry of
the Niger issue, the former ambassador seems to have included
information he learned from press accounts and from his beliefs about
how the Intelligence Community would have or should have handled the
information he provided ... Time and again, Joe Wilson told anyone who
would listen that the president had lied to the American people, that
the vice president had lied, and that he had 'debunked' the claim that
Iraq was seeking uranium from Africa. . . . [N]ot only did he NOT
'debunk' the claim, he actually gave some intelligence analysts even
more reason to believe that it may be true." (In this column, Novak
did not explore the ethics or legality of White House officials
identifying CIA officers.) And then, of course, The Wall Street
Journal's editorial page piled on. So did the Republican National
Committee.
Wilson has written a response to Roberts that addresses many of the
criticisms being hurled at him. But let's sort out some of the various
claims.
First, what the report says about Valerie Wilson's role in this
business. In his book, Wilson writes,
"Apart from being the conduit for a message from a colleague in her
office asking if I would be willing to have a conversation about
Niger's uranium industry [with CIA counterproliferation experts],
Valerie had had nothing to do with the matter. Though she worked on
weapons of mass destruction issues, she was not at the meeting I
attended where the subject of Niger's uranium was discussed, when the
possibility of my actually traveling to the country was broached. She
definitely had not proposed that I make the trip."
So what if she had? A week in Niamey for no pay was hardly a junket.
What would have been wrong with a CIA officer telling another CIA
officer, hey my husband, a former ambassador, is an Africa expert with
experience in Niger, perhaps you should send him to Niger to see what
he can learn? But because Wilson is on record saying it did not happen
this way, the question is whether he has been truthful.
The intelligence committee report says, "Some [CIA
Counterproliferation Division] officials could not recall how the
office decided to contact the former ambassador, however, interviews
and documents provided to the Committee indicate that his wife, a CPD
employee, suggested his name for the trip. The CPD reports officer
told Committee staff that the former ambassador's wife 'offered up his
name' and a memorandum to the Deputy Chief of the CPD on February 12,
2002, from [Valerie Wilson] says, 'my 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 former ambassador's wife told
Committee staff that when CPD decided it would like to send the former
ambassador to Niger, she approached her husband on behalf of the CIA."
The report also notes, "On February 19, 2002, CPD hosted a meeting
with the former ambassador, intelligence analysts from both the CIA
and INR [the State Department's intelligence unit], and several
individuals from the [Directorate of Operations'] Africa and CPD
divisions. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the merits of
[Wilson] traveling to Niger. An INR analyst's notes indicate that the
meeting was 'apparently convened by [Wilson's] wife who had the idea
to dispatch [him] to use his contacts to sort out the Iraq-Niger
uranium issue. The former ambassador's wife told Committee staff that
she only attended the meeting to introduce her husband and left after
about three minutes."
This is not what ex-CIA chief George Tenet would call a slam-dunk case
against Wilson. Sure, some of the evidence seems to contradict his
account. But Valerie Wilson could have "offered up" his name as a
handy person to contact about allegations concerning Niger's uranium
trade without suggesting he get on a plane to Niger. And it is
certainly imaginable that an INR analyst sitting in a meeting in which
there is talk of dispatching a CIA officer's husband to Africa could
have received the impression that his wife had initiated the mission.
But if that was the case, why did Valerie Wilson attend for only a few
minutes? If Valerie Wilson's account of this meeting is not accurate,
where are the contradicting accounts from the other participants? Why
does the report not quote them on this topic? Since only a week
elapsed between the time Valerie Wilson "offered up" her husband and a
meeting was held to consider sending him to Niger, it is possible that
someone participating in the matter might have thought that Valerie
Wilson's original advice talk to my husband was related to
question of sending an unofficial envoy to Niger to seek out
additional information.
When Wilson returned from Niger two CIA officers debriefed him. "The
debriefing," the Senate report says, "took place in the former
ambassador's home and although his wife was there, according to the
reports officer, she acted as a hostess and did not participate in the
debrief." If Valerie Wilson had played a key role in sending Joseph
Wilson to Niger, would she have skipped out on this debriefing?
Perhaps. But this scene reinforces Wilson's claim that she was not
deeply involved in his Niger trip.
It may be that in some of his public remarks, Wilson underplayed his
wife's involvement in his trip. After all, according to the Senate
intelligence committee's report, she did write at least one memo on
the subject. But it is not clear from the report that she specifically
advocated he be sent to Niger. Again, it makes little difference or
it should make little difference whether Valerie Wilson said to her
CIA colleagues "contact my husband" or said to them "you should put
him on a plane to Niamey immediately." The report notes that the CIA
people in charge of investigating the Niger allegation deliberated
over what to do and then reached the decision to ask Wilson to perform
a pro bono act of public service. And he said yes. He had the
experience for the job. His trip was not a boondoggle arranged by his
wife for his or their benefit.
Now on to the claim that Wilson's report to the CIA actually provided
more reason to believe Iraq had been seeking yellowcake uranium. In
his debriefing Wilson reported that former Nigerian Prime Minister
Ibrahim Mayaki had told him that in 1999 he had been asked to meet
with an Iraqi delegation to discuss "expanding commercial relations"
between Niger and Iraq. Mayaki said he assumed the delegation wanted
to discuss uranium sales. But he said that although he had met with
the delegation he had not been interested in pursuing any commercial
dealings with Iraq. The intelligence report based on Wilson's
debriefing also noted that the former minister of mines explained to
Wilson that given the tight controls maintained by the French
consortium in charge of uranium mining in Niger, it would be
difficult, if not impossible, to arrange a shipment of uranium to a
pariah state.
What did this report mean to the intelligence community? A CIA reports
officer told the Senate intelligence committee that he took it as
indirect confirmation of the allegation since Nigerian officials had
admitted that an Iraqi delegation had traveled there in 1999 and since
the former prime minister had said he believed Iraq was interested in
purchasing uranium. But an INR analyst said that he considered the
report to be corroboration of INR's position, which was that the
allegation was "highly suspect" because Niger would be unlikely to
engage in such a transaction and unable to transfer uranium to Iraq
due to the strict controls maintained by the French consortium. But
the INR analyst added, the "report could be read in different ways."
Wilson's work was thrown into the stew. The CIA continued to
disseminate a report noting that a foreign intelligence service had
told US intelligence that Niger had agreed to supply Iraq with
hundreds of tons of uranium. And in the National Intelligence Estimate
produced in October 2002, the intelligence community reported that
Iraq had been trying to strike a uranium deal with Niger in 2001. But
the NIE noted that INR strongly disagreed with this assessment. And
when the National Security Council drafted a speech for Bush in
October 2002 the CIA recommended the address not include the Niger
allegation because it was "debatable" whether the yellowcake could be
obtained from Niger. In a follow-up fax to the NSC, the CIA said "the
evidence is weak" and "the procurement is not particularly significant
to Iraq's nuclear ambitions because the Iraqis already have a large
stock of uranium oxide in their inventory." Still, in late January
2003 after the INR's Iraq analyst had concluded that papers recently
obtained by US intelligence related to the supposed Iraqi-Niger
uranium deal were "clearly a forgery" Bush went ahead and accused
Iraq of seeking uranium in Africa.
But on Apr. 5, 2003, the National Intelligence Council issued a memo
that noted, "we judge it highly unlikely that Niamey has sold uranium
yellowcake to Baghdad in recent years." It added that the government
of Niger was unlikely to proceed with such a deal. And on June 17,
2003, the CIA produced a memo that said, "since learning that the
Iraq-Niger uranium deal was based on false documents earlier this
spring, we no longer believe that there is sufficient other reporting
to conclude that Iraq pursued uranium from aboard."
So Wilson's assessment ended up being accepted by the CIA. His
reporting may not have been conclusive. But as we have been told
repeatedly this past week, such is often the case in intelligence
collection. After coming back from Niger, Wilson's view which he did
not express publicly for nearly a year and a half was different from
that held by CIA analysts. Yet his conclusion that the Niger
allegation was probably bunk was in line with the thinking of the
State Department's lead analyst on this matter. And Wilson's reasoning
came to prevail and to be shared by the intelligence community. For
some reason, Novak does not mention this in his recent column.
Finally, let's address Schmidt's claim that the Senate intelligence
committee's report "may bolster" the defense of the leakers whoever
they are. Whether their motivation was to punish Wilson for speaking
out or to try to undermine his credibility by suggesting his only bona
fides for the Niger trip was his marriage license, blowing Valerie
Wilson's cover still was a possible crime and an odious act. The law
does not allow a government official to reveal a CIA officer and
jeopardizing the officer, her contacts, and her operations to score
political points.
What Wilson told his CIA contacts, what he told reporters, what he
said in public accurate or not did not justify disclosing Valerie
Wilson's identity. Nor did it justify the subsequent White House
effort to encourage other reporters to pursue the Valerie Wilson
story. The leak was thuggish and possibly felonious. And the Wilsons
and others are waiting to see what comes from Fitzgerald's
investigation. (NBC News reported recently that the probe had expanded
to examine possible acts of perjury and lying to investigators.) There
is no telling if the investigation will end with indictments or
whitewashing. It has been a mostly leak-free probe, and even senior
people at the Justice Department say they have no idea where
Fitzgerald is heading if anywhere.
Whatever Fitzgerald's criminal investigation produces, the Wilsons
were wronged. And Bush and his White House crew did nothing to seek
out or punish the Novak-enabled leakers who placed politics ahead of
national security and decency. Instead, White House officials peddled
the leak further to discredit Wilson, and GOPers have been seeking to
blast him ever since.
Roberts and other Republicans are using the intelligence committee's
report to whack Wilson, a prominent opponent of the Iraq war and a
foreign policy adviser to Senator John Kerry, the presumptive
Democratic presidential nominee. If only Roberts' committee had
applied as much time and energy into investigating the Wilson leak
(and how the White House reacted to the leak) as it did to the actions
of Valerie Wilson. But the leak is a subject that, for some odd
reason, has escaped the attention of Roberts' investigators. And
Roberts and his ideological comrades are exploiting the release of the
committee's report to blame the victims of the leak. They are far more
angered by alleged (or trumped-up) inconsistencies in Wilson's account
than by Bush's misrepresentation of the prewar intelligence. Talk
about overstating a problem.
To learn more about Joe Wilson's defense, read his letter to the
Senate Committe on Intelligence and also his original New York Times
op-ed that exposed President's Bush's claims about Iraq's attempts to
buy uranium from Niger.