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October 05, 2003 THE REAL SCANDAL....Warning: there's a bit of a long post ahead. Sorry, but I couldn't manage to cut it down to a more manageable size. Since the Valerie Plame affair broke open last weekend, the most popular meme that's emerged among the "slime and defend" crowd has been that the outing of a CIA agent isn't the real scandal. Rather, as the Wall Street Journal put it, "The real intelligence scandal is how an open opponent of the U.S. war on terror such as Mr. Wilson was allowed to become one of that policy's investigators." How indeed? Why on earth did the CIA pick a guy like Joseph Wilson to visit Niger to check up on possible uranium sales to Iraq? Were they crazy? The obvious answer, of course, is to look at his qualifications: 23 years in the diplomatic service, most of it in African countries such as Togo, South Africa, Gabon, Sao Tome and Principe, and, of course, Niger. He was well respected by George Bush Sr. and had served as our last ambassador to Iraq before the Gulf War. So as one of the very few people in the world with expertise in Africa and a firsthand knowledge of Iraq and Saddam Hussein's regime, he must have seemed like an ideal choice. Still, he was an outspoken opponent of the war. Why would the CIA send such a person on a sensitive mission? Were they deliberately trying to undermine the president? Good question. But although Wilson is certainly an outspoken opponent of the war now, was he one back in February 2002, when he took his trip to Niger? Here's how he describes his attitude then:
So he was basically a Bush Sr. foreign policy realist. He thought military intervention was a bad idea, but he was just beginning to be concerned about it in early 2002 and didn't say anything publicly until mid-year. He was not an opponent of the president at the time the CIA sent him to Niger. And even when he did start getting more worried about our Iraqi policy, what did he say about it? It turns out that, just as you'd expect from someone who spent time in Iraq, he was pretty realistic about Saddam Hussein and advocated something he called "muscular disarmament." Here's an interview he gave just before the war started:
By this time — a year after the CIA had sent him to Niger — Wilson had become seriously concerned about the neoconservative influence on our Iraq policy, but even then he still expressed mostly a principled disagreement on means. He was under no illusions about the danger that Saddam Hussein presented and had no aversion to the use of force per se. Several things are clear from this:
So was sending Joe Wilson to Niger — as one part of the CIA investigation of uranium sales — a scandal? Hardly — unless you think that hiring a guy who voted for Al Gore is ipso facto a scandal. Rather, it's just a trumped up smokescreen from the folks who want to divert your attention from the real scandal: one of the president's top aides exposed a covert CIA agent in order to gain revenge on someone who had become a political nuisance to them. That's a scandal. Posted by Kevin Drum at October 5, 2003 07:05 PM | TrackBackComments
I don't know what you've been eating these last few weeks but I want some. You have gotten better and better. And you were pretty good to begin with. I suspect if you interviewed Krugman today he'd admit you've moved to the "must read every day" category. Posted by: GT at October 5, 2003 07:13 PM | PERMALINKI concur. Great post, Kevin. We need to see this kind of rational, fact-based analysis in the mainstream press. And we will. When donkeys fly. Posted by: jsaro at October 5, 2003 07:21 PM | PERMALINKGreat post, Kevin; unfortunately, I think it's the equivalent of hitting a mosquito with a small nuclear bomb. I had always thought of the "Joseph Wilson is a rabid anti-war Communist" as some lunatic slogan Administration apologists in the blogosphere and a few op-ed pages used as a way to get to sleep at night. I think the slippage of time and lack of exposure will erode the national will to find out what exactly happened, not lame brain droppings from the pages of the WSJ. However, it does highlight what a radical departure that the new foreign policy (if you can call it that) represents, in that it clearly produced a schism in the Republican establishment. Remember all of the Bush I veterans that were questioning the wisdom of pre-emptive war in late 2002/early 2003? Posted by: Norbizness at October 5, 2003 07:21 PM | PERMALINKYou know, half the time I agree with you, Norbizness. They just bring up this kind of stuff to confuse the issue, and spending time swatting down all their idiotic memes is just playing into their hands. But then I get energized and realize that someone has to do it. You just can't let all these things go unanswered, especially the ones that become popular. They design them to give their own side ammunition, and our side needs to have ammunition too. So I'm manic depressive about this stuff. Luckily, you guys only see the manic side. Posted by: Kevin Drum at October 5, 2003 07:31 PM | PERMALINKBTW, I should point out that although the Plame affair and a few other things have energized me lately, at core I'm really still a moderate, DLC style liberal. I'm ardently opposed to Bush, but I'm not in any danger of becoming a wild eyed lefty. Posted by: Kevin Drum at October 5, 2003 07:33 PM | PERMALINKExcellent deconstruction of Ambassador Wilson's progression over the last few months (and that of many other people in DC, in my experience) toward an anti-Iraq War stance. Simplistic ideologues can't comprehend that not everyone starts out 'just believing' whatever it is they believe without altering their views in light of increased understanding of what's happening. I haven't decided yet if that makes them weaker or stronger - so far, it seems to work for them, doesn't it? Posted by: Lynda at October 5, 2003 07:36 PM | PERMALINKNot that this is the point of your post, but judging by the Moyers interview, Wilson is a knucklehead. "Coercive inspections?" Yeah, great, and when Saddam rolls up tanks to defend a given site, whaddya have then? A war fought on the enemies terms. Sheesh. This of course has nothing to do with whether what you and others are alleging with regard to Ms. Plame happened. If it happened (I'm still waiting for confirmation) the offending party needs to be fired, and if a law was broken, prosecuted. Posted by: spc67 at October 5, 2003 07:36 PM | PERMALINKBTW, not to be snarky, but Niamey is the capital of Niger. "If it happened?" Unless you think Novak is psychic, it happened. I don't think that's even a question. Posted by: Lynda at October 5, 2003 07:39 PM | PERMALINKOf course all this diverts us from the real issue, and that is that it shouldn't matter whether Wilson favored the war at the time he was chosen to check out the Niger allegations. By making such a fuss about how Wilson's ideological purity makes him unsuitable for such a mission, the smear architects in the White House are implicitly telling us that the purpose of intelligence shouldn't be to gather the truth. Instead, your job as an investigator is to tell us that what we already know is true. Krugman said it best. This is not a White House that creates policy to solve problems. It merely takes advantage of problems to do what it wants to do anyway. They are collectively drunk on their own propaganda. Posted by: MillionthMonkey at October 5, 2003 07:39 PM | PERMALINKspc67: "Yeah, great, and when Saddam rolls up tanks to defend a given site, whaddya have then? A war fought on the enemies terms." Then give the inspectors some laser target designation gear, and keep B-52s in the air overhead ready to drop ordinance on said tanks at a moment's notice. Posted by: Jon H at October 5, 2003 07:40 PM | PERMALINKVery interesting post, Kevin. Here's what I noticed that perhaps you can investigate: The think tank link you gave noted that "Wilson is married to the former Valerie Plame and..." Was this there before the scandal broke? And if so, why? I thought Plame was her codename overseas - any Joe Ukraine or Joe Iran with google could've found this information when searching about Plame. So how did it end up here? Posted by: cure at October 5, 2003 07:43 PM | PERMALINKExcellent post. I'll just add that Wilson's Niger analysis was proven accurate. That's the only test of his ability that makes any sense. Posted by: Sven at October 5, 2003 07:43 PM | PERMALINKThe thing is, that's basically what we were doing for the last decade - he's not proposing anything radical or different. And glory be, if the current lack of WMD is any indicator, it worked. Posted by: Lynda at October 5, 2003 07:44 PM | PERMALINKWord. I've been looking for Wilson qoutes or columns or speaches from before 2002 and they are hard to find. Posted by: Wes at October 5, 2003 07:46 PM | PERMALINKIf Saddam rolls out his tanks to defend suspect sites, I don't think the result is likely to be "a war on Saddam's terms." It seems likelier that what you have is a case for war that a broad coalition can rally around, and a war in which the US has a excellent chance of getting significant military and financial support. Posted by: JakeV at October 5, 2003 07:54 PM | PERMALINKOne thing to remember about the lead up to the war: a number of people saw the Bush administration's interest in going to the UN to get a resolution to put inspectors in was a sign of flexibility and that Bush still had not made up his mind about what to do. However, from November to March, it became increasingly clear to anyone watching the administration and their shifting rationales for war and their propensity for "spinning" was starting to freak out a whole bunch of people who had thought that the Bush administration would operate rationally. All you have to do is to look at the resignations in the State department (including Brady Kiesling) and the statements from people like Greg Thielmann from that time to start to be very worried about the Bush claims. It is one thing to believe that Saddam is a threat and we must be serious in our dealing with him. (This indeed was the stance that Jessica Mathews of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace held.) It is another to lie so you can take the country to war preemptively because you decided in July of 2002 that you were going to take out Saddam. (Or right after 9/11 if other reports can be believed.) The Bushies made a mistake in going after the CIA and Joseph Wilson. This is one tornado they will have to ride out. And Kevin, thanks for staying on top of this very important story. Posted by: Mary at October 5, 2003 07:56 PM | PERMALINKYeah, nice that Wilson's got character is airtight. Novak sure is a fool because if it weren't for Novak taking the bait that the senior administration guys gave him, those 16 words may well have drifted down the dusty hole of forgotten memory. Now Wilson's filed a lawsuit besides that of the DoJ - like John Dean told him too. So there's NO way this sucker is going to dry up anytime soon. Posted by: Cheryl at October 5, 2003 07:56 PM | PERMALINKKevin: I hope (for both your sakes) that your wife isn't a CIA operative. Posted by: Sovereign Eye at October 5, 2003 07:57 PM | PERMALINKThe fact that the Bush administration let a Democrat be involved in any policy is nothing short of treason. And that includes Alberto Gonzalez. Posted by: Kaus Hackula at October 5, 2003 08:00 PM | PERMALINKBravo! Really, what more can I say. Bravo Kevin, Bravo! Posted by: Rook at October 5, 2003 08:01 PM | PERMALINKAnd while I'm here (and speaking as a sick hearted Giants fan), permit me to congratulate Dusty Baker and the Chicago Cubs for their win tonight. May they go on to accomplish what Dusty and the Giants fell one game shy of doing last year. Posted by: Sovereign Eye at October 5, 2003 08:05 PM | PERMALINKGood post. I suspect the weakness is that you are posing a strawman argument - the question is not whether Wilson was anti-war, anti-Bush in 2002. The question is whether he was sympathetic to the CIA factions that had been downplaying the Iraq situation for most of the previous decade. It is not as if Saddam only became a problem in Feb 2002, after all. Still, the post certainly works defending even that point. Time will tell! And I wonder whether its necessary for the big finsh, "we are right, the other guys are lying"?, which you phrased as: "it's just a trumped up smokescreen from the folks who want to divert your attention from the real scandal: one of the president's top aides exposed a covert CIA agent in order to gain revenge on someone who had become a political nuisance to them." I don't think there is any serious dispute as to the point that the CIA and the White House have been at odds over the CIAs capabilities and conclusions. In which case, the motive of the leakers may very well be something other than revenge. Posted by: Tom Maguire at October 5, 2003 08:25 PM | PERMALINKTom, the issue of the cia "downplaying" is a relative one. It appears that on the facts, Wilson was right, unless you have elves telling you otherwise. But, regardless, at this point Wilson could be a north korean spy and it would be absolutely irrelevant to this story. Posted by: Atrios at October 5, 2003 08:28 PM | PERMALINKExactly Tom. The war was between Bush I realists and Bush II neo-cons, at least as far as I understand it. There is no doubt, as you say that Wilson was a Bush I realist. The question is, why would an neo-conservative administration send a Bush I realist who believed Saddam could be contained indefinitely, and would be hostile to any move to remove Saddam by force? Posted by: Reg at October 5, 2003 08:31 PM | PERMALINKNew neocon spin: the CIA has been so incompetent these past few decades, they're responsible for Hussein's WMD programs. Therefore outing a CIA agent can't do any harm, because she must have been terribly incompetent. And the leak was probably from the CIA to embarrass the White House. I wonder if the CIA's connections to George Sr. and Tenet's friendship with George Jr. are the only things keeping the agency from being drop-kicked by the administration. Posted by: Librul at October 5, 2003 08:34 PM | PERMALINKMellifluous: Thanks, I fixed it. You know, I had never heard of that country before, but I figured I was just stupid.... spc67: I'm not entirely sure I agree with Wilson about the efficacy of coercive inspections myself. However, it's not obviously stupid. It worked for 12 years, and if you think the diplomatic will is there to keep it up (which I had doubts about), it's entirely arguable that it could keep working. Cure: His wife's name has always been there. However, there's nothing unusual about that and it doesn't expose her as CIA. It just exposes her as Joe Wilson's wife, which isn't necessarily suspicious. Sovereign Eye: I'm married to the former Marian R--um, er, I mean, no, she's not CIA. What gave you that idea? Tom: Oh, you have to allow me my snarky finishes sometimes. It's part of what makes blogging fun. (Besides, I think you make a serious point. Is simply being associated with the Bush Sr. camp enough to disqualify someone from ever doing work for the CIA? Really, that's pretty scary. And I don't think leaking Plame's name really does anything to help the bigger war against the CIA, so I really doubt that was the motive. Hitting back at Wilson was almost certainly the motive.) Posted by: Kevin Drum at October 5, 2003 08:37 PM | PERMALINKLet's not overlook the precise language of that utterly dishonest WSJ quote: "The real intelligence scandal is how an open opponent of the U.S. war on terror such as Mr. Wilson was allowed to become one of that policy's investigators." Yes, the cultists who wrote this are accusing Wilson of opposing the entire war on terror -- not just the unilateral invasion & occupation of Iraq. The Republican Right, as you know, long ago abandoned principled, rational argument in favor of manipulating public perception through political marketing. One of the fundamental deceptions of their Iraq war sales pitch is that invading & occupying Iraq is a major part of the post-Sept. 11 war on terrorism (the other is that Saddam's weapons posed an imminent security threat). It must be publicly challenged and debunked at every turn. Yes, it might be an odd choice to send a true opponent of the war on terrorism to investigate intelligence needed to fight the war on terrorism. But invading Iraq had nothing to do with the war on terrorism, and Wilson obviously does not oppose the real war on terrorism. Indeed, one of the most powerful arguments against invading Iraq was --and is-- that it would detract from fighting al Qaeda and dealing with Iran, Saudi Arabia and North Korea. 'Just shows how much the administration and their allies will lie and spin to keep the truth from seeing the light of day. I thought Plame was her codename overseas - any Joe Ukraine or Joe Iran with google could've found this information when searching about Plame. This confusion is understandable, I guess, because one of the newspaper articles that first broke this story (was it the Post article?) threw in a sentence like "Novak printed her maiden name, Valerie Plame, which she uses overseas." That was unfortunate, because it's really just a red herring. I don't think the reporter thought it through very well. Anyway, that's the source of all the confusion (both unintentional and intentional) on that issue. The only important point is that Novak revealed that Wilson's wife was CIA. That information was not available pre-Novak, and it was the only fact Novak needed to reveal in order to damage our intelligence. Once he let that cat out of the bag, it didn't matter whether Novak called her Valerie Wilson, Valerie Plame, or didn't give her name at all. Posted by: JP at October 5, 2003 08:56 PM | PERMALINKLook, the Administration was clearly on notice of Plame's outing as of Novak's column, or very shortly thereafter. For the Administration to be ignorant about the outing of a covert CIA agent until weeks after the public knew about it would be negligence and incompetance on an unimaginable scale. Unimaginable. Posted by: grytpype at October 5, 2003 09:00 PM | PERMALINKFifteen days before the Moyers interview, Wilson wrote this for The Nation, which is basically the same old tired leftist litany that the U.S. is an imperialist hegemon blah blah blah. It comes across less as "principled disagreement on means" and more as leftist temper tantrum. His penchant for publicity and ego-stroking are readily apparent. Of course, this takes nothing away from outing of his wife. The leaker should be prosecuted fully. Posted by: Bird Dog at October 5, 2003 09:06 PM | PERMALINKHere's a choice quote from the article, date Feb 13, 2004 "The upcoming military operation also has one objective, though different from the several offered by the Bush Administration. This war is not about weapons of mass destruction. The intrusive inspections are disrupting Saddam's programs, as even the Administration has acknowledged. Nor is it about terrorism. Virtually all agree war will spawn more terrorism, not less. " Soooo, basically the CIA sent somebody who had already decided what the results of his investigation would be. Heads should roll at the CIA for this. Posted by: Bill at October 5, 2003 09:17 PM | PERMALINKReg: Wilson wasn't being asked to determine whether to go to war with
Saddam, he was being asked to determine if uranium had been shipped from
Niger to Iraq. The question might be: Geez, there are all sorts of people who were much more opposed to the war than Wilson was, who would have jumped firmly into the war camp if there was in fact evidence of a uranium trade. Does anyone honestly think that someone who was ambivalent about the war would do a half-assed job of searching for such information, or would bury it if it was presented to him? Posted by: Keith at October 5, 2003 09:24 PM | PERMALINKThanks, Kevin. I'd like to make a couple of points about this. First, the obvious: Wilson's opposition to admin policy wouldn't have mattered a whit if he hadn't gone public. Plenty of people in lots of agencies don't agree with it, but they don't run op-eds, and who cares if people mutter? Seeing someone of his stature and street cred in print was the problem. Second, trying to smear him as a partisan Dem could only work *if the leaker knew that Wilson's wife was not only CIA but was in the WMD proliferation area*. Then you can try to spin a coordinated plot to sabotage the heroic mission-- you know, insidious Dems subvert the CIA. I think *that* was the line they were constructing. It's the line Novak would respond to because he thinks Dems capable of any dirty trick. So they knew *exactly* who she was. They must have called in all the files on everyone Wilson had ever associated with. In the heat of the moment, the CIA was supposed to be off the hook because they'd been gamed by those insidious Dems. Too bad Tenet doesn't seem to see it that way. Posted by: Altoid at October 5, 2003 09:24 PM | PERMALINK"Does being a Bush-1 realist mean that Wilson would be uninterested in finding a Niger-Iraq uranium connection?!" Not necessarily, but when the guy holds views like the ones he expressed in the Nation article, it makes me skeptical that he do much to aid "american imperialism". Posted by: Reg at October 5, 2003 09:35 PM | PERMALINKHere's a choice quote from the article, date Feb 13, 2004 The article clearly says Feb 13, 2003. Soooo, basically the CIA sent somebody who had already decided what the results of his investigation would be. Heads should roll at the CIA for this. Wilson's trip to Niger took place in the spring of 2002. 2002. The article was written in 2003. Maybe you and General Wesley Clark would like to get together and talk about time travel sometime? Posted by: MillionthMonkey at October 5, 2003 09:36 PM | PERMALINKThis is beautiful. My fellow partners-in-hack have their eyes on the ball. Wilson can be right on the facts, yet wrong in ideology, and that's what's important. Our faith based initiative says Saddam consumed four tons of yellowcake. Fat Saddam! ha ha! Posted by: Kaus Hackula at October 5, 2003 09:38 PM | PERMALINKBill: When he says, "This war is not about weapons of mass destruction," he's saying what the administration itself has been saying for the past couple of months. And when he adds, "Nor is it about terrorism. Virtually all agree war will spawn more terrorism, not less" he may actually be correct. Many people have argued that the war will spawn more terrorism. We'll see whether that turns out to be correct. Please explain why conclusions he reached a year after making his inspection and filing a report that was subsequently ignored means that heads should roll at the CIA. I'm afraid I don't see the causal connection. Posted by: Keith at October 5, 2003 09:48 PM | PERMALINKJP and Kevin...thanks for the clarification. It's late after all, and I'm still in a haze from the Sox and the Cubs winning. Plame = not secret, but her being the CIA = secret. Makes perfect sense upon second glance. Keep up the good work and I'll be interested to see whether Plame or "those reds in China stealing our jobs" (or launching a man to space, as they will any day now) will be the critical election issue. Posted by: cure at October 5, 2003 09:51 PM | PERMALINKReg: Whether or not you think Wilson or anyone else should aid American imperialism, the views expressed in an article written a year after his investigation was ignored can't logically be used to call into question his qualifications at the time. Posted by: Keith at October 5, 2003 10:00 PM | PERMALINKMan, Kevin, if you'd gone on for another 394,858,574 words I would have thought Den Beste had hacked into your site and rewritten your post. Except that it's about the Bush administration's illegal jeapordizing of national security to punish a whistleblower, which is something that Den Beste has been steadfastly avoiding since it went big about a week ago. Posted by: renaldus minimus at October 5, 2003 10:10 PM | PERMALINKSome folks seem to be really missing the major point here. Wilson was not sent to justify a war in Iraq -- he was sent to investigate the validity of the claims that Iraq had attempted to purchase uranium from Niger. Nothing more, nothing less. He was also sent to do this significantly before the war drums really started to beat loudly. If a respected career politician, with considerable expertise in the given region, and absolutely nothing to mar his job record, can't be trusted to honesetly investigate the simple question above, then this country is doomed. The fact that we are even talking about this is evidence of how bankrupt American politics have become. As Atrios state differently above, Wilson could be the illegitimate child of Saddam, and it would be irrelavent. The law was broken -- CIA agents live were endangered. That is the only issue here. Posted by: Timothy Klein at October 5, 2003 10:14 PM | PERMALINK>unless you think that hiring a guy who voted for Al Gore is ipso facto a scandal. There are 90 million people in this country who would more or less subscribe to this proposition. In the New America, you don't have the right to be wrong. Welcome to the One-Party State. Posted by: Davis X, Machina at October 5, 2003 10:41 PM | PERMALINKTimothy: Right you are! Good comment. But, I think you probably meant to say that Wilson wasn't a career politician ... he was a career diplomat. Big difference between those two words. Otherwise your comment was excellent, and it is not alone. This thread really contains a LOT of thoughtful points from numerous posters. Not, however, from all. What is astonishing is reading Kevin's posting and THEN reading some of the comments that plainly do not grok what he was saying ... literally, they seem to not have read his posting at all. Kevin makes it plainly clear that (a) Wilson WAS a highly-qualified, highly-trusted individual who was asked to do a particular job and, it appears, did it as honorably and well as he knew how; (b) He was NOT an opponent of GwB's policies at the time of his assignment. He had some minor concerns, nothing more, but had been assured by others in his circle that those would not prove significant; (c) In any case, none of that matters -- the only issue is the leaking of a CIA operative's identity; (d) yet, nonetheless, the Bushites are now trying to defame Wilson, desperately trying to question his motives as (it would seem) a way to divert attention from the perverse and traitorous leak. Kevin's timeline makes clear how impoverished this is, even on its own terms, nevermind that it is irrelevent to the true scandal. So what do we find in the comments? Reg and Tom saying, "Yeah, yeah, but the REAL issue is why the Bush Administration assigned an OPPONENT of unilateral war against Iraq to this job." In other words: Kevin just proved to them three ways to Sunday that 2 + 2 = 4, and these BushBots promptly reply, "Yeah, yeah, that's right dude, only the really BIG question is why 2 + 2 = 22." I mean, if they'd said, "You're wrong Kevin. Wilson's views DO matter," and then offered some coherent reason why his views might matter ... well, we might not agree, but at least it would be a point of rational debate. But all they do is mindlessly REGURGITATE the rightwing talking point: "Wilson wasn't a Bush loyalist, and THAT'S the issue." They really are dense, aren't they? Posted by: Marsman at October 5, 2003 11:14 PM | PERMALINKKevin- The same Wall Street Journal was accusing John Dean of trying to take down the President as a personal vendetta and that Dean cooked up the whole Watergate breakin on his own. Nobody I've read is reporting or quoting the WSJ as anything worth noting when it goes off the very deep end to accuse the CIA of being politically motivated to undermine the President. In fact, the very WSJ quote you use states "open opponent of the US war on terror". Terror? There's that buzz word again. Opposed to the war on terror as if the war in Iraq was a war on terror. We can debate all we want, but I believe most folks ( like yourself)who are knowledgeable about the events leading up to the decision to invade Iraq clearly understand that "terror" was not the reason for this war. It was used as bait. It is still being used as bait to WSJ readers. Wilson was not opposed to the war on terror. He was opposed to misinforming the public in a state of the union address by the president. That's not a scandal. That's just his American right and personal civic duty to speak out. The scandal still remains the felony act committed by two White House officials outing of a covert CIA agent in retaliation for outing the President's State of the Union address as being filled with false information. Posted by: Pancho & Lefty at October 6, 2003 01:15 AM | PERMALINK.....in other words, he's playing the part of Daniel Ellsberg in this war. Posted by: Jason McCullough at October 6, 2003 01:40 AM | PERMALINKI would like to post a question I posted on a previous thread... Sorry for the double, but I didn't realize, until later, that the thread i was enjoying so much was a little old... Here it is...with some tweaking and fine tuning... What if the "senior administration official" who started the most recent flurry of media squeaking, and revealed the facts we are running with at the moment: 1) Val Plame was indeed a NOC operative deeply engaged in a special weapons operation -- a fact that has now been confirmed by at least 4, and possibly 5 or 6 (lost count) well-connected CIA vets, as well as by a "senior administration official in the Pincus and Priest pieces... 2) Two senior administration officials leaked -- this is still based on Novak's original and the Pincus-Priest Papers... 3) They leaked deliberately, with revenge as a motive (revenge on Wilson, for sure, and perhaps revenge on Plame for being a "sticky wicket" in her capacity as an analyist AND as an operative involved deeply in the WMD paper chase...) -- this is based solely on the WaPo articles...but, given the history of those potentially involved (like, for example, the treatment of McCain in the SC primary), it is certainly not a stretch to imagine just that... 4) They "cold-called" 6 different reporters BEFORE the July 14th story broke -- supported by the repeated statements of the WaPo crew, and supported by various snippets and scuttlebutt (like the Borger piece, the outing of Matthews, Andrea Mitchell, and etc....) What if the "counter-leaker" was not Tenet, but was....Colin Powell? Is that possible? Tenet is sounding more and more (and has always seemed to be, in my book) a stooge... Powell has had a good rep, but seems to have slipped way off the rails in the last two years... Recall the image of Powell testifying in the UN, with Tenet right behind him...lying so blatantly...but WAIT! He refused to include the Uranium-Niger story in his testimony before the UN...why? Tenet was his backup guy....Why? He was reportedly enraged by the quality of evidence given him for his speech at the UN...throwing it in the air and refusing to use such "Bullshit".... And, there has been a concerted effort on the part of the Neocons, like Rummy, to get him out of the way (like leaking about his retirement...) And, there is now a near-legion of extremely angry former Generals (who I would imagine were closer to Powell than to Rummy or Cheney) who are lining up to critcize the war and the circumstances surrounding it...Zinni, Clark, Hoar, Shinseki, and more... Is it possible that there is a concerted effort on the part of the Military Brass and the Intel Community (including DIA of course), acting through Powell, trying to (finally) rein in this reign? Posted by: Dan at October 6, 2003 01:48 AM | PERMALINKMarsman, Reg's comments are so mindless that I'm beginning to wonder if Kevin wrote a RegBot just to stir up controversy on the Plame threads. ;-) Whether he's a 'bot or a real live person or a lawyer, he's not worth worrying about: he never responds to anything anyone says, just keeps repeating the standard Bush-worshipping line. I think you're wrong to lump Tom Maguire in with Reg: while he too is chasing the phantom "Can we blame Wilson?" he is actually responding to what Kevin wrote. Posted by: Jesurgislac at October 6, 2003 02:19 AM | PERMALINKHmm...a guy who uses terms like 'neocon' and 'american imperialism' just suddenly became anti-war in the last couple months? I've read what he's said and seen his interviews and this guy is either bipolar or a cipher. Furthermore, I find it hard to believe that someone using those terms is anything but a hardcore partisan, those terms come from deeply held beliefs. His investigation was a joke. His wife may well have broken nepotism laws and I think this thing is going to play out far differently than many of you think it will. Remember, the CIA grants covert status mostly for self-esteem reasons, its not as if the CIA has actually done much the last couple decades to justify having any covert agents at all. Posted by: Raymond at October 6, 2003 02:44 AM | PERMALINKTom Maguire had a good comment. I want to also congrat Kevin on a fine ending: "one of the president's top aides exposed a covert CIA agent in order to gain revenge on someone who had become a political nuisance to them." As I said in the comments of the prior post: the goal is to FIRE the (criminal) leakers. Accept that Iraqi liberation was good -- BUT the Bush WH is full of bad boys w/ out of control/ unaccountable power. Too much. They need to be more careful. We have humane way of dealing with this situation (in Czechoslovakia: we face them and say, you're fired, you're fired, you're fired; and then put dog poo-poo on their shoes. Oops wrong century) -- fire 'em. Posted by: Tom Grey at October 6, 2003 02:55 AM | PERMALINKUh, Raymond? I think you're completely full of shit. 1) Wilson is a smart, tough political operator who was capable of facing down Saddam at the height of the dictator's power...who has served at embassies in some of the nastiest places in the world to engage in politics.... Don't you think it possible that he could have (quite quickly) educated himself on the various players in the game, their name-tags and nicknames, and the relationships between the various factions? Given that he was Charge d'Affairs in the US embassy IN IRAQ during the first Gulf War that he knew the various personalities now dominating the political scene in DC? Cheney, Rummy, Perle, Wolfowitz, Abrams, Poindexter and so on...ALL were involved in Reagan and Bush Sr. administrations and their various constellations...And Wilson was a Reagan AND Bush appointee...It is his JOB to know who those people are and what their politics are. And he is a seasoned professional. If I, in 6 months, as a break from my job, on off hours, and at night, can educate myself as to the ins and outs of the various strands of conservatism and neoconservatism, neoliberalism, straussian machiavellians, the roots of the Neocons in the Trotskyite defections of the 50's and 60's (Podhoretz, Kristol, and etc)...then just imagine what a political player like Wilson could do, considering that he probably ALREADY KNOWS most of the major players... "His investigation was a joke." Bullshit. His investigation was RIGHT ON THE MONEY...there is no Nigerien Uranium in Iraq, and there NEVER was a request for any such deal, as corroborated by two separate (contemporaneous) investigations, and as subsequently CONFIRMED by 3 months of inspections, and a further 6 months of inspections post war. Ask David Kay...there WAS nothing to that claim, and Wilson got it right. "His wife may well have broken nepotism laws" His wife did NOT suggest his involvement...someone ELSE did, and she was asked to bring him into the game. Why was he asked? If you have to ask that question, then you need to stop posting and start reading, pronto. "and I think this thing is going to play out far differently than many of you think it will." You certainly really really really hope so...otherwise you and your fellow travelers and useful idiots on the right are going to look really stupid, some of you are going to jail, and your brand of politics will be forever tainted with the smell of rotten meat. "Remember, the CIA grants covert status mostly for self-esteem reasons" Uh huh...and that is why people like Phillip Agee, Robert Hanssen, and Aldrich Ames are so hated and reviled by patriots...because they made some poor "xsecret agent" feel bad and have to go see their analyst twice a week instead of once, right? Moron. "its not as if the CIA has actually done much the last couple decades to justify having any covert agents at all." You really are full of shit, aren't you? Posted by: Dan at October 6, 2003 03:04 AM | PERMALINK"Accept that Iraqi liberation was good" Tom, I will accept that the philosophical concept of Iraqi Liberation is a good one. Has Iraq been "liberated"? Liberated from what to what? At what cost? I do not think that Iraq has experienced anything we would consider remotely resembling liberation as yet. Unless we are using the term in the context of "Liberated from life, property, prosperity, safety, order, and anything else decent." Or "liberated from the frying pan, only to discover the fire underneath"... I think that being "liberated into protracted occupation, looting, corporate predation, forced privatization, guerrilla war, and impending civil war once the US has been forced onto the sidelines" would really really bother you, if you had experienced it. The Russians "Liberated" Czechoslovakia from the Nazis...in retrospect, do you think that was a Liberation, or merely a change in overseers? Posted by: Dan at October 6, 2003 03:08 AM | PERMALINKFurther, Tom, The objective in my mind is not necessarily to fire, or to jail, it is to shame, publicly humiliate, and forever cement the political flavor "Neocon" with such a bad taste and bad association that NONE of their ilk can ever grab the reigns again...ever. I care not how that happens. Posted by: Dan at October 6, 2003 03:14 AM | PERMALINKIs there any truly credible way to examine Wilson's report? Claiming that his report was worthless or biased seems ridiculous without being able to make a substantive review of it. Secondly, the entire notion that Wilson's report is invalidated by the subsequent revelations (of his political opinions) on a prima facie basis is also a little on the 'ridiculously presumptive' side. Career civil servants - similar to lawyers or other types of professional personnel - would as a matter of function almost certainly be expected to act in a highly nonpartisan matter *when doing their job*. People are actually able to do this as a matter of everyday function, otherwise we wouldn't get people acting as legal counsel in a lot of situations. Posted by: Downunder at October 6, 2003 03:15 AM | PERMALINKDownunder, The entire notion that Wilson's report was invalidated AT ALL is bogus. Wilson indicates that he did not take notes or write a written report, except to jot down incomprehensible (except to himself) short hand....he then dictated his findings to someone at the CIA. However, if we take him at his word (based on the NYTimes op-ed), his report indicated that there was no obvious connection between Iraq and Niger, and that the structure and operations of the Niger Uranium mining and refining industry was such that a sale of such magnitude as was being suggested would have to have been orchestrated across continents with the express participation of at least three governments and several major corporations. In short, REGADLESS of his partisan leanings or opinions about the war or the people pushing for the war, or the reasons for those people pushing for war, his report (as we understand its content, anyway) has been born out by events and investigations. Posted by: Dan at October 6, 2003 03:20 AM | PERMALINKWell, in that case the issue isn't the report itself, it becomes the manner in which his research was conducted. For what it's worth I'm on your side, and I believe Wilson to be credible (if somewhat unwisely bellicose and prone to hyperbole, especially given the situation). However, that doesn't mean that the more desperate partisans who are groping for a talking point won't be able to say as such. It doesn't make them *wrong* (since it's still not impossible for Wilson to have arrived at the right conclusion in the wrong way), just very desperate to avoid the issue. That said I think Wilson was very, very foolish to make such outlandish statements to The Nation. It doesn't even matter if one believes they're substantively correct, but Wilson was being very foolish for a man with as many years within the system as he has - the rhetoric wasn't neccessary to make the points he was making. I don't blame him for being the target of an illegal and unpatriotic act of idiocy from the Administration, but I do wish he'd couched his objections in better terms. Posted by: Downunder at October 6, 2003 03:37 AM | PERMALINKWilson's article in the Nation Written on Feb 13, 2003, well AFTER his trip to Niger, and immediately BEFORE the war was, very clearly, his response to the PNAC strategy as espoused in the documents easily found and read on the "New American Century" website. Point by point: As the senior American diplomat in Baghdad during Desert Shield, I.e. Cheney lied on MTP in July when he claime to have never met nor heard of Joe Wilson. Cheney was SecDef at the time, and Wilson was senior diplomat in Iraq. GHWBush called Wilson a "true American hero" when he introduced Wilson to the wartime Cabinet, including Cheney. I advocated a muscular US response to Saddam's brutal annexation of Kuwait in flagrant violation of the United Nations charter. Only the credible threat of force could hope to reverse his invasion. Hardly a radical, or even liberal stance there...and hardly foolish or outlandish. The upcoming military operation also has one objective, though different from the several offered by the Bush Administration. Indeed, the Bush administration used just about EVERY rational and claimed almost ANY objective other than that which was driving the issue - that which was published by PNAC, under the auspices of Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle, Bolton and Libby, among others in the founding circle of the Project for a New American Century. This war is not about weapons of mass destruction. As we now know full well based on Blix, Ritter, Kay, Wilson, and Wolfowitz himself, who said as much in a recent interview. The intrusive inspections are disrupting Saddam's programs, as even the Administration has acknowledged. Indeed...the inspections were working, which was the reason why the invasion was rushed. Nor is it about terrorism. Virtually all agree war will spawn more terrorism, not less. As has come to pass. It is not even about liberation of an oppressed people. Killing innocent Iraqi civilians in a full frontal assault is hardly the only or best way to liberate a people. Indeed...as we are now learning via the painful lessons imparted daily in an ongoing and spreading guerrilla war. The underlying objective of this war is the imposition of a Pax Americana on the region and installation of vassal regimes that will control restive populations. As is explicitly stated in the PNAC doctrines, opinions, position pieces, and strategic writings. They even use the phrase "Pax Americana"... International will to disarm Iraq will not wane as it did in the 1990s, for the simple reason that George W. Bush keeps challenging the organization [theUN] to remain relevant by keeping pressure on Saddam. Praise for Bush's tough stance? How outlandish! How foolish! Then what's the point of this new American imperialism? The neoconservatives with a stranglehold on the foreign policy of the Republican Party, a party that traditionally eschewed foreign military adventures, want to go beyond expanding US global influence to force revolutionary change on the region. Indeed, another direct quote from PNAC, and a paraphrase of Paul Wolfowitz's "democratic dominoes" and other phrases indicating that Iraq, to the Neocons, represented the keystone in the current structure of the mideast, and the point they felt had the best leverage with which to effect large scale change in the entire region. There is a huge risk of overreach in this tack. As we are now seeing. The projection of influence and power through the use of force will breed resistance in the Arab world that will sorely test our political will and stamina. And it is...and it is also sorely testing our military strucure and our long and short-term budgetary outlook. Passion for independence is as great in the Arab world as it is elsewhere. The hawks compare this mission to Japan and Germany after World War II. It could easily look like Lebanon, Somalia and Northern Ireland instead. Indeed...more foolishness from a loudmouth? Or an excellent example of a rational prediction based on current data and long experience? Our global leadership will be undermined as fear gives way to resentment and strategies to weaken our stranglehold. American businessmen already complain about hostility when overseas, and Arabs speak openly of boycotting American products. Foreign capital is fleeing American stocks and bonds; the United States is no longer a friendly destination for international investors. For a borrow-and-spend Administration, as this one is, the effects on our economic growth will be felt for a long time to come. Essential trust has been seriously damaged and will be difficult to repair. Indeed, again. Here he has very presciently nailed the Iraqi response, the Arab response, and world response...look at the state of the world 6 months on...who was more right, Joe WIlson or Ken "Cakewalk" Adelman and his "Flower Parade, Liberation, and Adulation" colleagues? the would-be imperialists have achieved much of what they sought, some of it good. "Some of it good"??? What a brash and irresponsibly partisan horn blower!!! But the upcoming battle for Baghdad and the lengthy occupation of Iraq will utterly undermine any steps forward. And with the costs to our military, our treasury and our international standing, we will be forced to learn whether our republican roots and traditions can accommodate the Administration's imperial ambitions. It may be a bitter lesson. As prescient, cogent, and currently relevant string of three sentences you will find anywhere. All published before the war, after his trip to Niger, and after his determination, apparently based on reading through the pile of PDFs at PNAC, that this war was a costly, irresponsible, foolish, and entirely avoidable clusterfuck being entered into under false pretenses by a bunch of delusional hacks with bad attitudes and no clue. Hardly foolish, definitely not outlandish, and far closer (in terms of predictions) to the real turn of events than most every other pundit or op-ed columnist, or retired military/political analyst cashing a check from CNN, FOX, or NBC. Posted by: Dan at October 6, 2003 04:03 AM | PERMALINKSorry to go on at length...but your characterization of the Nation article is unfair and inaccurate... Posted by: Dan at October 6, 2003 04:06 AM | PERMALINKKevin, fantastic post! Downunder: I don't see that Wilson's "rhetoric" was unnecessary, or even that it was rhetoric. He simply called a spade a spade. The things that tick off the bushbots (words like imperialism and etc...) are, I believe, more or less embraced by PNAC and the neo-cons just as mCarthy has been embraced by Ann Coulter. Its only the innocently not-paying-attention citizens who are shocked to find out that our government actively supports positions that they theoretically reject. I can't fault Wilson for having paid attention all those years to the players and their scorecards. The interesting thing to me is that I, like everyone else, saw this play out over the months running up to the war and because of my strong position on the utter corruption and incompetence of the Bush team I assumed any sane person would also be against the war "tout court." But now I'm finding out that people like Wilson, and Clark, were pro war, potentially, on very good grounds. I often said I could see a case for war if the facts warranted it, and that seems to be their stance too. But *the facts didn't warrant it* and when that became obvious--even or especially to people in the fact gathering buisness--then their attitude changed towards the prospective (or, in Wilson's case "just concluded/mission accomplished " war). WHy isn't that wholly legitimate and the form of expression that opposition takes irrelevant? You seem to buy into some notion that the White House, PNAC and the neo-cons deserve not only our support in money and lives, but our unquestioning and even fawning support in essay form. Isn't that taking us straight to the one-party state? Their squeals of outrage that there could ever have been any individuals who were not lifelong republicans involved in any form of government affairs seems really, really, out of place to one (as someone said above) of the 90 million who voted for al gore.--aimai Posted by: aimai at October 6, 2003 04:20 AM | PERMALINKYou certainly really really really hope so...otherwise you and your fellow travelers and useful idiots on the right are going to look really stupid, some of you are going to jail, and your brand of politics will be forever tainted with the smell of rotten meat. Dan, the Rs are already the party of Watergate and Iran/Contra. And many of the same people from those are involved in this latest affair. How much more tainted can they get? The public doesn't care. Posted by: ChrisL at October 6, 2003 04:39 AM | PERMALINKI sometimes wish the White House/WSJ spin was true. It would make a great spy thriller. The CIA gets angry about politicization of intelligence, Halliburton-style corruption, and the misguided war on terror. Therefore they hire someone w/ impeccable credentials to "investigate" what is already known to be a bogus story, but is still being trotted out by the White House. In Hollywood fashion the investigator is married to a drop-dead gorgeous American spy. The trap is set when the investigator publishes his expose article. Finally, the White House, full of hubris and true to character, steps right in it. Then when the audience is about to leave feeling good about prison sentences for the bad guys the VP megalomaniac imposes martial law using rightwing paramilitary forces from Venezuela. The future is dark afterall. Hollywood always goes overboard. At least Governor Arnold won't be feeling any... err.. playing any parts in this movie. Posted by: dennisS at October 6, 2003 04:40 AM | PERMALINKthe Rs are already the party of Watergate Ancient history to most, and to those who did not or do not delve into the guts of the issue, an obscure and unapproachable legalistic/political mess. If they delved more deeply and realized the extent of the setup (Rehnquist appointment coupled with the attempt to subvert the two-party structure) they would be as outraged as you suggest. and Iran/Contra. Under the guise of "fighting communism" anything is permissable to some. Ollie North was seen as a "true patriot" doing his duty in the face of predictable bureaucracy...we all know it's a farce, but that's how it was spun out... And many of the same people from those are involved in this latest affair. Many are unaware of that. How much more tainted can they get? A lot. This is, on its face, and more and more in its details, a clear case of an administration who initiated a "War on Terror" and brought to the fore the dire danger posed by Rogue Nations and the potential proliferation of WMD to terrorists by those nations, who knowingly and for political, partisan, petty revenge and pure spite, revealed the identity of a woman and an entire operational structure that was, apparently, key to that entire battle, directly. Wategate, Iran Contra - those were bad, but were never seen as or portrayed as "treason"....here we have a case that, in the words of the President's father, himself a former Conservative President, himself a former spook and CIA chief...who has called such actions "insidious treachery"...here we have an admnistration who, when asked to reveal their "solid proof" that Hussein had WMD, refused to do so on the grounds that it would compromise the agents, operatives, contacts, and sources used to garner that so-called information who have now, blatantly, and crassly...compromised agents, operatives, contacts, and sources in that very same crucial war on dangerous proliferation to crazy people. If people don't see that (and they most certainly do, given the responses I have seen and heard in polls, in interviews, and in personal conversations with quite conservative friends and colleagues here in Japan)...then there really is no hope... But people see that...people love spy stories, charismatic heroes, and good looking operatives who risk their lives in our collective defense. People hate snitches and traitors. It is all too much like a spy thriller to ignore, and it is all much too obvious to spin away... Posted by: Dan at October 6, 2003 04:56 AM | PERMALINKLet us examine the juxtaposition of two propaganda points being peddled by Dear Leader's supporters: First, Wilson could not possibly have done a proper investigation of the Niger-yellowcake situation because he was anti-war and anti-Bush. He was biased, and therefore his investigation was irredeemably tainted. (Never mind that his conclusion turned out to be completely correct -- all that matters is that he was biased). Second, Dear Leader's Department of Justice is completely capable of conducting a fair and impartial investigation of the obvious evidence of several felonies committed by Dear Leader's top lieutenants. Any claim of bias by traitorous opponents of Dear Leader are irrelevant because competent goverment officials can do investigations without letting personal views cloud their judgment. Even the appearance of a conflict of interest should be ignored, because the whole notion of bias is just an evil slur against Dear Leader. There two points seem diametrically opposed. Either bias on the part of the investigator invalidates the result EVEN IT IF TURNS OUT TO BE CORRECT, or a clear conflict of interest that gives strong evidence of potential bias is irrelevant to a proper investigation because, because, uh, we say so. Look, Arnold! Posted by: jsaro at October 6, 2003 04:56 AM | PERMALINKJsaro, excellent post. I've been thinking the same thing with regard to
Kay's background (which, of course, is not being covered much in the
SCLM). And actually I've been thinking that there is, in fact, a world
of difference between the Republican smear of Wilson (he actually may
have belonged to the democratic party! He actually might have opposed
the war on Iraq!) and the facts on the ground about Kay (he pushed for
the war prior to most people having iraq on their radar, he stands to
benefit from the war monetarily). Even taking the repubs to task for
their dishonesty and their tactics doesn't mean that what they are doing
constitutes some tit for tat game in which our charges of corruption
are mirrored in some way by their charges of corruption, our charges of
conflict of interest are mirror images of their charges of conflict of
interest. Ours are objectively accurate, and theirs are objectively
false. Aimai, I'm not sure I understand your point. Kay's appearance of bias has been reported on, but there is no intoxicated rush to smear him on the part of war critics. If his report had trumped up evidence of WMD's where none existed, the howls and screams of bias would have grown much louder. Perhaps you are pointing out that biased investigators can be impartial, since the Kay report does not support BushCo's WMD claims, even though Powell and Bush say it does. Posted by: jsaro at October 6, 2003 05:24 AM | PERMALINKSomething to add to the validity of Wilson's credentials: As former ambassador to Gabon, one of the 4 uranium producing/exporting countires in Africa, Wilson also personally had to have exposure and familiarity with whatever is required to document/facilitate the exports of uranium from Niger. There are international structures in place which monitor and regulate those exports (ironically, in the case of the former French African colonies, of which both Niger and Gabon were, these structures are administered by France) and Wilson, by dint of his Gabon experience would be expected to have had an expertise in how this structure worked. It is interesting that the man's technical expertise is completely ignored in order to slime him for his supposed political leanings. Posted by: Andy X at October 6, 2003 06:31 AM | PERMALINKThanks for the link, BirdDog! If such tired leftist litany is wrong, I don't want to be right. (heh). It's pretty sad that rightwingers can't disengage themselves long enough to see that the Republican party has been hijacked . . . and that the policies of this administration will accomplish the very things that Republicans are supposed to be against - debt, big government, increased terrorism, and molester politicians. Posted by: Librul at October 6, 2003 06:51 AM | PERMALINKEarlier in this thread, I attacked a comment by Reg, and another by Tom McGuire, with what I think was a reasonably thoughtful rebuttal ... but which concluded by dismissing them both as "BushBots". Jesurgislac kindly pointed out that, perhaps, I was being a bit unfair to Tom McGuire. As Jesurgiaslac notes, McGuire might well still be trying to play the "blame Wilson" game, but he was at least responding to and discussing Kevin's posting. I've re-read Mr. McGuire's comment, and agree. Tom, sorry I lumped you in with Reg. I disagree with you, I think you are on a very wrong track, but your comments do constitute genuine debate, and are far above the "BushBot" level. -- Roger Posted by: Marsman at October 6, 2003 08:01 AM | PERMALINK"the views expressed in an article written a year after his investigation was ignored can't logically be used to call into question his qualifications at the time." Perhaps, as its true many people became much more anti-war as time passed, and we have no way of knowing whether he held the same views earlier or not. I'm assuming, perhaps wrongly, that anybody showing so much hostility to his boss and his policies only a year later must have had some hostility or at very least, basic disagreements with those policies a year earlier. Posted by: Reg at October 6, 2003 09:30 AM | PERMALINKI'm assuming, perhaps wrongly, that anybody showing so much hostility to his boss and his policies only a year later ... Wrongly, as usual. Bush wasn't his "boss", since he was retired from the State Dept. at the time of the trip. Since war wasn't announced "policy" at the time, there was nothing to be hostile to. But this is a distraction, since his assignment was to check facts. As far as anyone can tell, he did a competent job and his conclusion was correct, whatever his political opinions at the time. But that is also a distraction from the fact that someone in the Administration blew his wife's cover. It appears that a felony was commited and that the WH is trying to stonewall in order to protect the felons. Posted by: Roger Bigod at October 6, 2003 09:52 AM | PERMALINKTruly an amazing post demonstrating a willingness to ignore the many contradictions implicit in Wilson's use and the media willful misreporting of the facts through distorted quotes. Gee, Krugman is a model to be cited? Guess you'll use Clinton next as an authority on sexual harassment. One only review his comments on the Kay report to see exactly how far off his meds he was gone. Posted by: Thomas J. Jackson at October 6, 2003 10:13 AM | PERMALINK... a willingness to ignore the many contradictions implicit in Wilson's use ... " His "use" is irrelevant to whether he returned an accurate report. And even if the report was inaccurate, it doesn't justify compromising national security by blowing the cover of a CIA agent. Posted by: Roger Bigod at October 6, 2003 10:33 AM | PERMALINK"BTW, I should point out that although the Plame affair and a few other things have energized me lately, at core I'm really still a moderate, DLC style liberal. I'm ardently opposed to Bush, but I'm not in any danger of becoming a wild eyed lefty." I told Kevin to say that. I control his mind now, but it's not a good idea to let that out at this point. Posted by: Zizka at October 6, 2003 10:48 AM | PERMALINK"I've read what he's said and seen his interviews and this guy is either bipolar or a cipher. Furthermore, I find it hard to believe that someone using those terms is anything but a hardcore partisan, those terms come from deeply held beliefs." This is a guy who went to work with a noose for a necktie because Saddam threatend him directly with hanging. Raymond riminds me of some of the GOP apoligists I saw while tabling
for Dean this weekend. Anytime one of them would start asking us why we
hated america, my buddy Richard (a vietnam verean) I saw Wilson on MTP. He looks like a reasonable man who is unafraid because he knows he has truth on his side. Raymond sounds like a guy who wouldnt knopw the truth if it hit him with a 2 by 4. And a guy who has never served, never voluntered, and thinks the truth is for suckers. Posted by: Shaun at October 6, 2003 11:42 AM | PERMALINKKevin, one more item to add to your list is the actual description of Wilson's task. There seems to be a common assumption that his was supposed to be a full and comprehensive investigation. By that standard, his investigation could potentially be smeared as "cursory" or a "hack job," and Wilson could be discredited. This is precisely what we've seen from many conservative commentators, bloggers, pundits and politicians. However, that isn't really an accurate description of his mission. The original allegations were deemed to be less than credible. Wilson, along with two others, was assigned the task of performing a sanity check of the allegations to determine if a full-scale investigation was warranted. He was eminently qualified for this mission. Wilson quickly determined that the accusations in this case were not credible and that no full-scale followup investigation was warranted. This was confirmed by the other two investigating these allegations. That assessment has been further confirmed by what we have learned since. In short, Wilson did precisely what he was supposed to do, no more, no less, and carried out his mission credibly and well. The smears that have been directed at him since are unwarranted and disgusting. Posted by: PaulB at October 6, 2003 12:59 PM | PERMALINKPaulB: In other words, standard Rethuglican tactics. Posted by: Dark Avenger at October 6, 2003 01:40 PM | PERMALINKDan- Wow, so passionate and humorless. I stand by my assessment of the situation and respectfully disagree with you. Wilson's investigation, by his own admission, was socializing by a pool for a week. The neo-communists are making huge assumptions considering for all we know the leak came from a careerist in the state dept despite what novak and others are throwing around. This 'scandal' is about whether the CIA survives into Bushes' second term. From what I gather you're pro-saddam, and I want you to know that I feel you're pain. In terms of a long-term response to 9-11, I can see how creating a thriving, economically diverse Iraq would put fear in the neocommunists. This will ultimately be a 'non-scandal' and the CIA will continue to lose its credibility. Wilson himself turned this into a jerry springer episode, this is one scandal where I'm in favor of the central figure being given his own infomercials. Posted by: Raymond at October 6, 2003 02:13 PM | PERMALINK"Wilson's investigation, by his own admission, was socializing by a pool for a week." --From Josh Marshall's interview with Wilson: "What I did is I went over and I looked in some detail at how the uranium business operates. Who makes up the consortium? When do they meet to discuss production schedules? How often do they need to revise production schedules? Who makes the decisions on who gets what out of the production that's done every year? Who operates the mine? Who is the operating partner? In other words, who actually has their hands on the product from the time it comes out of the mine to the time it's delivered to the ultimate customer. I looked into the fact that the mine has been a money-losing proposition since the mid '80s when the market collapsed with the introduction of Canadian uranium into the international market. The decision on the part of the consortium partners to keep the mine open satisfied their own requirements-- TPM: Who are those partners? Who are those nationalities? WILSON: They're the French, the Japanese, the Germans, and the Spanish, as well as the Nigeriens. Nigeriens don't have a nuclear industry. They have not taken a draw in product since the mid '80s at least, since the collapse of the uranium market. That doesn't mean that they wouldn't some time in the future. But in order for that to be profitable, there would have to be a hefty profit placed on the sale of uranium. So I looked into the business side of it. And then I looked into the government bureaucracy side, specifically with those officials who had been in government at the time this document was purportedly signed. And it was much less a question of obtaining their denials, and much more a question of how would a government make a decision that would generate this report of a memorandum of agreement. TPM: And, just to be clear, at this time, you hadn't seen these documents that turned out to be forgeries? WILSON: No, I hadn't. I had just been briefed on a memorandum of agreement covering the sale. Now, my understanding is that there are all sorts of other documents that have since come to light and Andrea Mitchell showed me some documents which I had not seen and frankly, I did not have my glasses, so I didn't even get a chance to read them, and I have not seen them since. The uranium participation in this consortium is done through a parastatal, which means that the Niger government owns the corporate identity that is a member of the consortium. Therefore, if there is going to be a sale, the government itself would have to make a decision to authorize the parastatal to act on the government's behalf in this matter. That would require a cabinet-level meeting. And since this purported sale was between two sovereign governments, the minister of foreign affairs would have to be involved. Since this involved the sale of uranium, the minister of mines would have to be involved. Since it involved the government totally, the prime minister would be involved, speaking on behalf of the government in signing any particular document. It was also entirely possible, although I don't recall, that the president would also have to put his signature on a document as the supreme authority in the Niger regime. If this were to take place, it would be minuted in a council of ministers meeting, and it would be gazetted. Very much like--printed in their equivalent of the Federal Digest. And this is all very much as the French do it. It would be very difficult for a legitimate transaction undertaken by the government of Niger with the government of Iraq to be secret. Not impossible--and it's sort of worth trying to ask yourself whether or not the president, a coup leader, could do a side deal outside the context of the government, for his own account, or for the military. TPM: Because you had said, there was a great deal of instability in this country in the late nineties. WILSON: Well, that's right, and just because you had had the military coups, you had certain government behaviors that might have been skewed by the fact that you had a junta there. The problem with that--and I looked at that--the problem with that is that you still had to figure out a way to actually get the tonnage out of the mines and get it into barrels, and get it shipped several thousand miles across the Sahel, and down to the port, get it placed on ships, and get it sent, without anybody else knowing. And all that, would have involved the consortium. At a minimum, it would have involved the managing operating partner, which is Cogema, which is the French uranium company. TPM: So basically the point, just to clarify this, that sort of the operation--I mean, this is, it's in Niger, it is under their umbrella, but the operational control of this consortium--which is the whole industry--is, in essence, in foreign hands? WILSON: The operating partner is a French uranium company. The decision-making structure that covers production levels is made by the consortium. Niger is one of several partners within that consortium. And there are actually two mines and two consortia--two consortiums. The operating partner for each of the mines is the French uranium company. And the whole thing is set up in such a way that certain taxes paid that go into the treasury, the ministry of finance, there are export permits that are required--the whole thing is bureaucratically rather heavy to ensure some semblance of transparency. And it was all put together in the context of sort of the French system of doing this. But my point being that even if the two governments had decided they wanted to do a clandestine transfer of uranium from one country to the other then it would be very difficult to effect without an awful lot of people knowing. Now-- TPM: Particularly the French ... WILSON: Particularly the French. Of course, the French are going to know every step of the way. This was a French colony. The French had been part of every step of their development over the last 100 years. Even after decolonization in 1960 they were omnipresent. They were the operating partner in the consortium. And whatever you may think of the French, the French have a--nuclear energy is an important component of the French electrical power grid. They need uranium, they need to have a steady source of supply. They need to make sure that they're irreproachable in that, so they can continue to have a steady supply of uranium without running afoul of the IAEA or other international organizations." Posted by: rea at October 6, 2003 03:14 PM | PERMALINKInteresting grab, rea. While an out of context passage can be seen to mean any number of things, it does seem to suggest that Wilson was a clear-eyed realist in this case and not trying to engender a coup. Of course, again, that's not the point, is it? Posted by: Keith G at October 6, 2003 04:27 PM | PERMALINKKeith, It's not an out of context grab...it is a direct rebuttal to the charge "all Wilson did was sit by the pool and drink tea" Anyone who can lay out the structure, partnerships and corporate/governmental bureaucracy of a multi-national consortium-based uranium mine in the West African desert after visiting the place for a few days....is a good investigator. Posted by: Dan at October 6, 2003 05:17 PM | PERMALINKAll, I've been lurking for about a week now reading the posts on the
Wilson/Plame story. Most people seem to be really worked up over it and
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