perfidy

First, there was a breakdown in the vetting process.

A "breakdown in the vetting process" seems to be a fairly frivolous complaint considering that the claim was, in fact, true.

First, there was a breakdown in the vetting process. At the point of the state of the union, it was known that the deal didn't happen, and the documents were forged (this doesn't mean that Iraq didn't seek uranium -- only that the deal hadn't happened).

It was known (supposedly) that the deal outlined in the Niger forgery hadn't happened. There still remains the little matter of the British intelligence finding (which was not about "Niger" but Africa). Moreover, Bush's claim was not Saddam "got" but that he "sought". I think what's going on is that antiwar folks (understandably..) were a bit underwhelmed by hearing that - "so what if Sought? we still against the war!" - so they kind of mentally replaced it with something more scary ("got") to debunk. Don't know why they did that... I suppose a generous interpretation might be: They were afraid the American people would hear the word "nuclear" and go ape****, so they wanted to fight against that claim as much as possible.

Ironically, it seems to me that the only reason "the explosive nuclear claim" became such a big deal in the first place was due to these complaints about it from anti-war quarters.

Wilson felt at the time (and others did as well), that the uranium information "didn't make it to the level" of a presidential speech, based on his trip.

That's a very fascinating opinion for Joe Wilson to have and all. Everyone's entitled to their opinion of what "makes it to the level of a Presidential speech", I suppose. However, to go around crying Liar based on that subjective judgment, is pretty low.

Had Bush known that the central piece of intelligence underlying that line of the speech was bogus (or had his speechwriters known), it wouldn't have made it in the speech.

Argh. On the face of it, the central piece of intelligence underlying a line beginning "British intelligence has learned.." is whatever intelligence British intelligence has gathered. This is NOT the Niger document that Wilson supposedly investigated and British intelligence still stands by theirs! Why are you still pretending that the 16 words were based exclusively, or even at all, on the Niger document?

One other note. Let's assume for sake of argument that the claim WAS based entirely on the fact set surrounding the Niger document, Wilson's trip spurred by the Niger document, and Wilson's findings. (We kind of have to ignore the phrase "British intelligence has learned" but whatever.)

You're saying that because Wilson proved (supposedly) that no transaction occurred, this fact set contained nothing worth mentioning in a state of the union address. But, evidently Bush disagreed. (s'that ok?) To whatever extent Wilson disproved "got", he also at the same time, perhaps inadvertently or by accident, PROVED "sought"! It's somewhat akin to a situation where the cops get a tip that someone is making bombs in their house, search the house, they find no bombs but they *do* find stolen stereo equipment... should they say "well he's not a thief because our bomb info is bad"?

So, Bush admin could have (I don't know that they did..but hey) looked at this fact set and thought "Ok. There was a document. Turns out to be a forgery. Wilson proved no transaction took place. However, looky what we have here: Wilson's report also, AT THE SAME TIME buttresses a lesser but still important issue which we know about from other (British) sources: the notion that Saddam is seeking uranium. We think that's important, so let's put it in."

I gather that you do not think it's important, in and of itself. That's fine and that's your right. However, it's no kind of basis upon which to call someone a liar or complain about their "vetting" or "using bad info". Especially when the info ("sought" - not "got", and not "the Niger document") isn't even bad in the first place!

I am really sick of conservatives who pass things off on the British, the CIA, and who ever else they can. Your arguments become elliptical and hyperbolic.

Bush should have grasped the problems that intellegence posed rather than ignored them. HE MUST LOOK BEYOND THE SUMMARIES AND COVER LETTERS TO FIND THE TRUTH. Bush went after Schroedinger's Cat, and to his satisfaction, found it. But he did not consider that it was also not there.

The Niger documents were the most compelling information with respect to Hussein not just having, but also seeking, nuclear materials. Complicating that information is the fact that there was little verifiable information that Hussein was working toward nuclear capabilities in other areas.

Claims of Wilson's mendacity are related to a bit more than what he wouldn't say:

From Tuesday's OpinionJournal">http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=110005347]OpinionJournal Best of the Web:

...Wilson, in a Sept. 16, 2003, interview with Marshall, denied it (link in PDF; quote on pp. 19-20):

For those who would assert that somehow she was involved in this, it just defies logic. At the time, she was the mother of two-year-old twins. Therefore, sort of sending her husband off on an eight-day trip leaves her with full responsibility for taking care of two screaming two-year-olds without help, and anybody who is a parent would understand what that means. Anybody who is a mother would understand it even far better. Secondly, I mean, the notion somehow that this was some nepotism, that I was being sent on an eight-day, all-expense-paid--no salary, mind you--trip to the Sahara Desert. This is not Nassau we're talking about. This is not the Bahamas. It wasn't Maui. This was the Sahara Desert. And then, the only other thing that I can think of is the assertion that she wanted me out of the way for eight days because she, you know, had a lover or something, which is, you don't take lovers when you have two-year-old kids at home. So, there's no logic in it.

Claiming there's no logic in it is one way of trying not to speak about it. Repeatedly claiming there's no logic in it is a deliberate attempt to mislead. And remember - these statements were all made after Plame's name became known, so secrecy wasn't the issue. I've always been taught that when you don't want to comment, you avoid comment. You don't try to leave an impression while saying nothing.

Does this make him a liar? No. Does it make him a sneaky weasel who can't just shut up when he should? Perhaps. Has Wilson claimed Bush is a liar (at a Democratic rally)? Yes. Does THAT make Wilson a liar? It appears that it might, but only if he really knew better.

To the larger point "is there a middle ground"; I don't know that there is, but under the circumstances, you've done a yeoman's job at trying to find it. If, however, the disclosure of Plame's name might have been inadvertent, as you allow, it could not have been done to "get back" at Wilson, could it?

Let's play a little game.

Which is worse?

Wilson's mixed message on the involvement of his wife in his selection, or the "outing" of her as a CIA operative by the administration?

OK - I'll play.

That depends. Are you now removing the allowance that perhaps there was no malice in her being named?

If so, then the "outing" as a get-back maneuver would be pretty crass, and surely worse than Wilson's mealy-mouthedness.

Think about it, however: What's the practical effect of this "outing" to which you'd then be referring? Would it be done to keep her from ever working covertly again? No - she's got young twins and home and is out of the game. Would it be to embarrass her? No - what's embarrassing about everyone knowing what everyone already knew? Nothing.

I don't fall for the payback premise. The only nuance to be found here is that "Mint Tea" Wilson was chosen for nepotism, which, without regard to his wife's future status at CIA, is germane to the story. Particularly given how wrong his conclusions turned out to be.

And that seems less sinister to me than does Joe talking out the side of his mouth.

So in your opinion Wilson was unqualified to do this work?

As for conclusions, there's two parts -- the "official" conclusion was that no deal for uranium had taken place in Niger. This was correct.

After the fact, as a political conclusion, he felt that the Niger-Iraq uranium information should not have been in the state of the union, based on what he knew. Given the Senate report, that seems like a logical conclusion for someone in his position.

The administration may have had other information that bolstered the statement. Ari's July 9 press gaggle (thoughtfully removed from the White House site) indicated that without the specific knowledge of an existing deal, the statement would not have made it into the state of the union. He also noted that the President's statement was still literally correct, which is also true.

I am not one of the "Bush Lies" people. I've characterized what I think went wrong with the administration in other posts, but out-and-out lying isn't a part of it. In fact, I think they've been rather incredibly careful _not_ to lie. Tell part of the story, yes, but lie, no.

Back to Wilson -- I just don't see where the entire right gets off with naming Wilson an incompetent. His resume is pretty stunning, and is highly relevant to the work that needed to be done.

A charge of nepotism is, I think, the specific thing that Wilson was defending his wife against. It still doesn't look like she did anything more than throw his name in the hat (along with who knows who else), tell him about it, and walk him into the meeting.

One thing that does strike me is that the SR tells us February 12 was an interesting day. In the morning Cheney asks for more detail. That afternoon Plame was involved with the response, with others. She is pretty close to the top on these issues.

The SR also tells us that there were only two suitable candidates for the mission -- Wilson and one other unnamed individual. Can't remember right now, but there was a reason why the other guy couldn't do it...

Novak">http://www.townhall.com/columnists/robertnovak/rn20040715.shtml]Novak speaks

And, golly, his quotatins from the Senate report make Mr. Wilson look none-too-good.

Valerie Plame apparently did far more than throw his name into the hat, and Wilson's conduct upon his return, loudly claiming that Bush lied, and fudging his reports based on information in the press post-trip, makes the man look bad, without regard for his resume.

part 1.

What I Didn't Find in Africa
by Joseph C. Wilson 4th

Did the Bush administration manipulate intelligence about Saddam Hussein's weapons programs to justify an invasion of Iraq?

Based on my experience with the administration in the months leading up to the war, I have little choice but to conclude that some of the intelligence related to Iraq's nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat.

For 23 years, from 1976 to 1998, I was a career foreign service officer and ambassador. In 1990, as chargé d'affaires in Baghdad, I was the last American diplomat to meet with Saddam Hussein. (I was also a forceful advocate for his removal from Kuwait.) After Iraq, I was President George H. W. Bush's ambassador to Gabon and São Tomé and Príncipe; under President Bill Clinton, I helped direct Africa policy for the National Security Council.

It was my experience in Africa that led me to play a small role in the effort to verify information about Africa's suspected link to Iraq's nonconventional weapons programs. Those news stories about that unnamed former envoy who went to Niger? That's me.

In February 2002, I was informed by officials at the Central Intelligence Agency that Vice President Dick Cheney's office had questions about a particular intelligence report. While I never saw the report, I was told that it referred to a memorandum of agreement that documented the sale of uranium yellowcake — a form of lightly processed ore — by Niger to Iraq in the late 1990's. The agency officials asked if I would travel to Niger to check out the story so they could provide a response to the vice president's office.

After consulting with the State Department's African Affairs Bureau (and through it with Barbro Owens-Kirkpatrick, the United States ambassador to Niger), I agreed to make the trip. The mission I undertook was discreet but by no means secret. While the C.I.A. paid my expenses (my time was offered pro bono), I made it abundantly clear to everyone I met that I was acting on behalf of the United States government.

In late February 2002, I arrived in Niger's capital, Niamey, where I had been a diplomat in the mid-70's and visited as a National Security Council official in the late 90's. The city was much as I remembered it. Seasonal winds had clogged the air with dust and sand. Through the haze, I could see camel caravans crossing the Niger River (over the John F. Kennedy bridge), the setting sun behind them. Most people had wrapped scarves around their faces to protect against the grit, leaving only their eyes visible.

The next morning, I met with Ambassador Owens-Kirkpatrick at the embassy. For reasons that are understandable, the embassy staff has always kept a close eye on Niger's uranium business. I was not surprised, then, when the ambassador told me that she knew about the allegations of uranium sales to Iraq — and that she felt she had already debunked them in her reports to Washington. Nevertheless, she and I agreed that my time would be best spent interviewing people who had been in government when the deal supposedly took place, which was before her arrival.

I spent the next eight days drinking sweet mint tea and meeting with dozens of people: current government officials, former government officials, people associated with the country's uranium business. It did not take long to conclude that it was highly doubtful that any such transaction had ever taken place.

Given the structure of the consortiums that operated the mines, it would be exceedingly difficult for Niger to transfer uranium to Iraq. Niger's uranium business consists of two mines, Somair and Cominak, which are run by French, Spanish, Japanese, German and Nigerian interests. If the government wanted to remove uranium from a mine, it would have to notify the consortium, which in turn is strictly monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Moreover, because the two mines are closely regulated, quasi-governmental entities, selling uranium would require the approval of the minister of mines, the prime minister and probably the president. In short, there's simply too much oversight over too small an industry for a sale to have transpired.

(As for the actual memorandum, I never saw it. But news accounts have pointed out that the documents had glaring errors — they were signed, for example, by officials who were no longer in government — and were probably forged. And then there's the fact that Niger formally denied the charges.)

Part 2.

Before I left Niger, I briefed the ambassador on my findings, which were consistent with her own. I also shared my conclusions with members of her staff. In early March, I arrived in Washington and promptly provided a detailed briefing to the C.I.A. I later shared my conclusions with the State Department African Affairs Bureau. There was nothing secret or earth-shattering in my report, just as there was nothing secret about my trip.

Though I did not file a written report, there should be at least four documents in United States government archives confirming my mission. The documents should include the ambassador's report of my debriefing in Niamey, a separate report written by the embassy staff, a C.I.A. report summing up my trip, and a specific answer from the agency to the office of the vice president (this may have been delivered orally). While I have not seen any of these reports, I have spent enough time in government to know that this is standard operating procedure.

I thought the Niger matter was settled and went back to my life. (I did take part in the Iraq debate, arguing that a strict containment regime backed by the threat of force was preferable to an invasion.) In September 2002, however, Niger re-emerged. The British government published a "white paper" asserting that Saddam Hussein and his unconventional arms posed an immediate danger. As evidence, the report cited Iraq's attempts to purchase uranium from an African country.

Then, in 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. He replied that perhaps the president was speaking about one of the other three African countries that produce uranium: Gabon, South Africa or Namibia. At the time, I accepted the explanation. I didn't know that in December, a month before the president's address, the State Department had published a fact sheet that mentioned the Niger case.

Those are the facts surrounding my efforts. The vice president's office asked a serious question. I was asked to help formulate the answer. I did so, and I have every confidence that the answer I provided was circulated to the appropriate officials within our government.

The question now is how that answer was or was not used by our political leadership. If my information was deemed inaccurate, I understand (though I would be very interested to know why). If, however, the information was ignored because it did not fit certain preconceptions about Iraq, then a legitimate argument can be made that we went to war under false pretenses. (It's worth remembering that in his March "Meet the Press" appearance, Mr. Cheney said that Saddam Hussein was "trying once again to produce nuclear weapons.") At a minimum, Congress, which authorized the use of military force at the president's behest, should want to know if the assertions about Iraq were warranted.

I was convinced before the war that the threat of weapons of mass destruction in the hands of Saddam Hussein required a vigorous and sustained international response to disarm him. Iraq possessed and had used chemical weapons; it had an active biological weapons program and quite possibly a nuclear research program — all of which were in violation of United Nations resolutions. Having encountered Mr. Hussein and his thugs in the run-up to the Persian Gulf war of 1991, I was only too aware of the dangers he posed.

But were these dangers the same ones the administration told us about? We have to find out. America's foreign policy depends on the sanctity of its information. For this reason, questioning the selective use of intelligence to justify the war in Iraq is neither idle sniping nor "revisionist history," as Mr. Bush has suggested. The act of war is the last option of a democracy, taken when there is a grave threat to our national security. More than 200 American soldiers have lost their lives in Iraq already. We have a duty to ensure that their sacrifice came for the right reasons.

Joseph C. Wilson 4th, United States ambassador to Gabon from 1992 to 1995, is an international business consultant.

"conduct upon his return"? the editorial that started all of this was written a year after he returned. It's useful to read it, so I've posted it above.

"If my information was deemed inaccurate, I understand (though I would be very interested to know why). If, however, the information was ignored because it did not fit certain preconceptions about Iraq, then a legitimate argument can be made that we went to war under false pretenses."

"Fudging his reports"? Did he submit new reports, changing the old ones?

Because it's crazy fun to argue about all of this, here's Wilson's response to the Senate report (part 1):

The Hon. Pat Roberts, Chairman, Senate Select Committee on Intelligence

The Hon. Jay Rockefeller, Vice Chairman, Senate Select Committee on Intelligence

Dear Sen. Roberts and Sen. Rockefeller,

I read with great surprise and consternation the Niger portion of Sens. Roberts, Bond and Hatch's additional comments to the Senate Select Intelligence Committee's Report on the U.S. Intelligence Community's Prewar Assessment on Iraq. I am taking this opportunity to clarify some of the issues raised in these comments.

First conclusion: "The plan to send the former ambassador to Niger was suggested by the former ambassador's wife, a CIA employee."

That is not true. The conclusion is apparently based on one anodyne quote from a memo Valerie Plame, my wife, sent to her superiors that says, "My husband has good relations with 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." There is no suggestion or recommendation in that statement that I be sent on the trip. Indeed it is little more than a recitation of my contacts and bona fides. The conclusion is reinforced by comments in the body of the report that a CPD [Counterproliferation Division] reports officer stated that "the former ambassador's wife 'offered up his name'" (page 39) and a State Department intelligence and research officer stated that the "meeting was 'apparently convened by [the former ambassador's] wife who had the idea to dispatch him to use his contacts to sort out the Iraq-Niger uranium issue."

In fact, Valerie was not in the meeting at which the subject of my trip was raised. Neither was the CPD reports officer. After having escorted me into the room, she [Valerie] departed the meeting to avoid even the appearance of conflict of interest. It was at that meeting where the question of my traveling to Niger was broached with me for the first time and came only after a thorough discussion of what the participants did and did not know about the subject. My bona fides justifying the invitation to the meeting were the trip I had previously taken to Niger to look at other uranium-related questions as well as 20 years living and working in Africa, and personal contacts throughout the Niger government. Neither the CPD reports officer nor the State analyst were in the chain of command to know who, or how, the decision was made. The interpretations attributed to them are not the full story. In fact, it is my understanding that the reports officer has a different conclusion about Valerie's role than the one offered in the "additional comments." I urge the committee to reinterview the officer and publicly publish his statement.

It is unfortunate that the report failed to include the CIA's position on this matter. If the staff had done so it would undoubtedly have been given the same evidence as provided to Newsday reporters Tim Phelps and Knut Royce in July 2003. They reported on July 22 that:

"A senior intelligence officer confirmed that Plame was a Directorate of Operations undercover officer who worked 'alongside' the operations officers who asked her husband to travel to Niger. But he said she did not recommend her husband to undertake the Niger assignment. 'They [the officers who did ask Wilson to check the uranium story] were aware of who she was married to, which is not surprising,' he said. 'There are people elsewhere in government who are trying to make her look like she was the one who was cooking this up, for some reason,' he said. 'I can't figure out what it could be.' 'We paid his [Wilson's] airfare. But to go to Niger is not exactly a benefit. Most people you'd have to pay big bucks to go there,' the senior intelligence official said. Wilson said he was reimbursed only for expenses." (Newsday article "Columnist Blows CIA Agent's Cover," dated July 22, 2003).

In fact, on July 13 of this year, David Ensor, the CNN correspondent, did call the CIA for a statement of its position and reported that a senior CIA official confirmed my account that Valerie did not propose me for the trip:

Wilson part 2:

"'She did not propose me,' he [Wilson] said -- others at the CIA did so. A senior CIA official said that is his understanding too."

Second conclusion: "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."

This conclusion states that I told the committee staff that I "may have become confused about my own recollection after the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported that the names and dates on the documents were not correct." At the time that I was asked that question, I was not afforded the opportunity to review the articles to which the staff was referring. I have now done so.

On March 7, 2003, the director general of the IAEA reported to the U.N. Security Council that the documents that had been given to him were "not authentic." His deputy, Jacques Baute, was even more direct, pointing out that the forgeries were so obvious that a quick Google search would have exposed their flaws. A State Department spokesman was quoted the next day as saying about the forgeries, "We fell for it." From that time on the details surrounding the documents became public knowledge and were widely reported. I was not the source of information regarding the forensic analysis of the documents in question; the IAEA was.

The first time I spoke publicly about the Niger issue was in response to the State Department's disclaimer. On CNN a few days later, in response to a question, I replied that I believed the U.S. government knew more about the issue than the State Department spokesman had let on and that he had misspoken. I did not speak of my trip.

My first public statement was in my article of July 6 published in the New York Times, written only after it became apparent that the administration was not going to deal with the Niger question unless it was forced to. I wrote the article because I believed then, and I believe now, that it was important to correct the record on the statement in the president's State of the Union address which lent credence to the charge that Iraq was actively reconstituting its nuclear weapons program. I believed that the record should reflect the facts as the U.S. government had known them for over a year. The contents of my article do not appear in the body of the report and it is not quoted in the "additional comments." In that article, I state clearly that "as for the actual memorandum, I never saw it. But news accounts have pointed out that the documents had glaring errors -- they were signed, for example, by officials who were no longer in government -- and were probably forged. (And then there's the fact that Niger formally denied the charges.)"

The first time I actually saw what were represented as the documents was when Andrea Mitchell, the NBC correspondent, handed them to me in an interview on July 21. I was not wearing my glasses and could not read them. I have to this day not read them. I would have absolutely no reason to claim to have done so. My mission was to look into whether such a transaction took place or could take place. It had not and could not. By definition that makes the documents bogus.

The text of the "additional comments" also asserts that "during Mr. Wilson's media blitz, he appeared on more than thirty television shows including entertainment venues. 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."

Wilson part 2:

My article in the New York Times makes clear that I attributed to myself "a small role in the effort to verify information about Africa's suspected link to Iraq's nonconventional weapons programs." After it became public that there were then-Ambassador to Niger Barbro Owens-Kirkpatrick's report and the report from a four-star Marine Corps general, Carleton Fulford, in the files of the U.S. government, I went to great lengths to point out that mine was but one of three reports on the subject. I never claimed to have "debunked" the allegation that Iraq was seeking uranium from Africa. I claimed only that the transaction described in the documents that turned out to be forgeries could not have occurred and did not occur. I did not speak out on the subject until several months after it became evident that what underpinned the assertion in the State of the Union address were those documents, reports of which had sparked Vice President Cheney's original question that led to my trip. The White House must have agreed. The day after my article appeared in the Times a spokesman for the president told the Washington Post that "the sixteen words did not rise to the level of inclusion in the State of the Union."

I have been very careful to say that while I believe that the use of the 16 words in the State of the Union address was a deliberate attempt to deceive the Congress of the United States, I do not know what role the president may have had other than he has accepted responsibility for the words he spoke. I have also said on many occasions that I believe the president has proven to be far more protective of his senior staff than they have been to him.

The "additional comments" also assert: "The Committee found that, for most analysts, the former ambassador's report lent more credibility, not less, to the reported Niger-Iraq uranium deal." In fact, the body of the Senate report suggests the exact opposite:

In August 2002, a CIA NESA [Office of Near Eastern and South Asian Analysis] report on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction capabilities did not include the alleged Iraq-Niger uranium information. (page 48)

In September 2002, during coordination of a speech with an NSC staff member, the CIA analyst suggested the reference to Iraqi attempts to acquire uranium from Africa be removed. The CIA analyst said the NSC staff member said that would leave the British "flapping in the wind." (page 50)

Wilson part 3:

The uranium text was included in the body of the NIE [National Intelligence Estimate] but not in the key judgments. When someone suggested that the uranium information be included as another sign of reconstitution, the INR [State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research] Iraq nuclear analyst spoke up and said the he did not agree with the uranium reporting and that INR would be including text indicating their disagreement in their footnote on nuclear reconstitution. The NIO [national intelligence officer] said he did not recall anyone really supporting including the uranium issue as part of the judgment that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear program, so he suggested that the uranium information did not need to be part of the key judgments. He told committee staff that he suggested, "We'll leave it in the paper for completeness. Nobody can say we didn't connect the dots. But we don't have to put that dot in the key judgments." (page 53)

On Oct. 2, 2002, the Deputy DCI [director of central intelligence] testified before the SSCI [Senate Select Committee on Intelligence]. Sen. Jon Kyl asked the Deputy DCI whether he had read the British White Paper and whether he disagreed with anything in the report. The Deputy DCI testified that "the one thing where I think they stretched a little bit beyond where we would stretch is on the points about Iraq seeking uranium from various African locations." (page 54)

On Oct. 4, 2002, the NIO for Strategic and Nuclear Programs testified that "there is some information on attempts ... there's a question about those attempts because of the control of the material in those countries ... For us it's more the concern that they [Iraq] have uranium in-country now." (page 54)

On Oct. 5, 2002, the ADDI [associate deputy director for intelligence] said an Iraqi nuclear analyst -- he could not remember who -- raised concerns about the sourcing and some of the facts of the Niger reporting, specifically that the control of the mines in Niger would have made it very difficult to get yellowcake to Iraq. (page 55)

Based on the analyst's comments, the ADDI faxed a memo to the deputy national security advisor that said, "Remove the sentence because the amount is in dispute and it is debatable whether it can be acquired from this source. We told Congress that the Brits have exaggerated this issue. Finally, the Iraqis already have 550 metric tons of uranium oxide in their inventory." (page 56)

On Oct. 6, 2002, the DCI called the deputy national security advisor directly to outline the CIA's concerns. The DCI testified to the SSCI on July 16, 2003, that he told the deputy national security advisor that the "President should not be a fact witness on this issue," because his analysts had told him the "reporting was weak." (page 56)

On Oct. 6, 2002, the CIA sent a second fax to the White House that said, "More on why we recommend removing the sentence about procuring uranium oxide from Africa: Three points (1) The evidence is weak. One of the two mines cited by the source as the location of the uranium oxide is flooded. The other mine cited by the source is under the control of the French authorities. (2) 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. And (3) we have shared points one and two with Congress, telling them that the Africa story is overblown and telling them this is one of the two issues where we differed with the British." (page 56)

Wilson part 4:

On March 8, 2003, the intelligence report on my trip was disseminated within the U.S. government, according to the Senate report (page 43). Further, the Senate report states that "in early March, the Vice President asked his morning briefer for an update on the Niger uranium issue." That update from the CIA "also noted that the CIA would be debriefing a source who may have information related to the alleged sale on March 5." The report then states the "DO officials also said they alerted WINPAC [Center for Weapons Intelligence, Nonproliferation and Arms Control] analysts when the report was being disseminated because they knew the high priority of the issue." The report notes that the CIA briefer did not brief the vice president on the report. (page 46)

It is clear from the body of the Senate report that the intelligence community, including the DCI himself, made several attempts to ensure that the president did not become a "fact witness" on an allegation that was so weak. A thorough reading of the report substantiates the claim made in my opinion piece in the New York Times and in subsequent interviews I have given on the subject. The 16 words should never have been in the State of the Union address, as the White House now acknowledges.

I undertook this mission at the request of my government in response to a legitimate concern that Saddam Hussein was attempting to reconstitute his nuclear weapons program. This was a national security issue that has concerned me since I was the deputy chief of mission in the U.S. Embassy in Iraq before and during the first Gulf War.

At the time of my trip I was in private business and had not offered my views publicly on the policy we should adopt toward Iraq. Indeed, throughout the debate in the run-up to the war, I took the position that the U.S. be firm with Saddam Hussein on the question of weapons of mass destruction programs, including backing tough diplomacy with the credible threat of force. In that debate I never mentioned my trip to Niger. I did not share the details of my trip until May 2003, after the war was over, and then only when it became clear that the administration was not going to address the issue of the State of the Union statement.

It is essential that the errors and distortions in the additional comments be corrected for the public record. Nothing could be more important for the American people than to have an accurate picture of the events that led to the decision to bring the United States into war in Iraq. The Senate Intelligence Committee has an obligation to present to the American people the factual basis of that process. I hope that this letter is helpful in that effort. I look forward to your further "additional comments."

Sincerely,

Joseph C. Wilson IV, Washington, D.C.

...only when it became clear that the administration was not going to address the issue of the State of the Union statement.

I believe what we have here is check and mate. Of remaining issues with the supposedly fateful 16 words, as is the case with JC Wilson's credibility, there is nothing much left. Really, it's all about damage control and denial now.

For an interesting take on the matter, which take you may have already seen, visit the">http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh071204.shtml]the Daily Howler.

Sometimes I think we just live on different planets. I am looking at the "only when it became clear" sentence, and I completely fail to understand how this undermines Wilson's credibility in any way.

Are you saying he lost all credibility the moment he decided to criticize the administration?

More precisely, exactly _when_, in your opinion, was his credibility gone? Was it when he wrote, in the NY Times:

"The question now is how that answer was or was not used by our political leadership. If my information was deemed inaccurate, I understand (though I would be very interested to know why). If, however, the information was ignored because it did not fit certain preconceptions about Iraq, then a legitimate argument can be made that we went to war under false pretenses."

Good grief, no! He had all sorts of credibility (with me, anyway) when he initially criticized the administration. Contrary to possible perception, I'm not a stooge for Bush.

What lost it was his endless trumpeting of his supposed facts, his preemptive blameshifting vis a vis his wife and her supposed secret identity, his loudly repeated claims that, based on his work, Bush had been proven a liar, his wondering out loud who was to be cast for the movie of the life of the Wilson Patriots.

And, against the advice that when you find yourself in a hole, you just stop digging, Wilson continues to tilt against this disproven windmill, to the utter silence of all those who used to support him, when he was the darling of the ABB crowd. More telling than their lack of support, in my opinion, is their lack of apology for having listened so credulously to his "non-partisan" partisanship.

Gotcha...so the initial editorial is not a problem for you, based on its wording.

Endless trumpeting refers, I guess, to the interviews and so forth that he gave; that's a pretty subjective measure, but you're completely entitled to it.

On the "she didn't send me" issue -- because we don't have actual quoted testimony in the Senate Report I don't see how you can call it a lie. In the letter to the Senate, published yesterday, Wilson clearly outlines his wife's involvement. We have no context other than a brief mention of him in a memo. We don't know what conversations were had; we don't know who said what, what they really said, or anything else, for that matter. You're relying completely on a partisan staffer's summarization of unquoted testimony from personnel who weren't even at the initial meeting. Is that sufficient to call him a liar? Is this the standard you would like applied to the President.

If you say Wilson called Bush a liar, I think you better go back that up with an actual quote, or something he actually wrote. Otherwise we're just repeating what other people say other people have said.

Can't say much about the movie comment...other than get a sense of humor, dude... :)

Overall the timeline looks like this:

Jan 28 2003 - Bush gives pro-war SOTU, including mention of "sought quantities" of uranium.

July 6, 2003 - Wilson publishes op ed.

July 7, 2003 - Fleischer says "Well, there is zero, nada, nothing new here. Ambassador Wilson, other than the fact that now people know his name, has said all this before. But the fact of the matter is in his statements about the Vice President -- the Vice President's office did not request the mission to Niger. The Vice President's office was not informed of his mission and he was not aware of Mr. Wilson's mission until recent press accounts -- press reports accounted for it.

So this was something that the CIA undertook as part of their regular review of events, where they sent him. But they sent him on their own volition, and the Vice President's office did not request it. Now, we've long acknowledged -- and this is old news, we've said this repeatedly -- that the information on yellow cake did, indeed, turn out to be incorrect. "

July 9, 2003 : Fleischer says "It was based on the national intelligence estimate; it was based on contemporaneous reporting leading up to the speech, which with the advantage of hindsight we now know that the yellow cake ties to Niger were not accurate. "

It's crystal clear that the "16 words" were included based on the presumption of an _actual deal_; Ari flat out says that it would not have been in the speech had they known the documents were forged. This does not mean the words were untrue. Fair enough; no harm no foul on either side.

I'm not sure where you're supposed to stop when you're defending your honor.

I think I may pull out that SOTU and see how supportable it is if we pull out the 16 word issue.

"Sometimes I think we just live on different planets."

The "she didn't send me" goes beyond his "it defies all logic" non-denials. He has specifically said that his wife had NOTHING to do with sending him. Nothing. From Thursday's">http://www.opinionjournal.com/editorial/feature.html?id=110005354]Thurs… WSJ:

To that end, he has repeatedly denied that his wife played a role in his selection for the mission. "Valerie had nothing to do with the matter," he wrote in his book "The Politics of Truth." "She definitely had not proposed that I make the trip."

Because, you see, without the "nothing", he's got no case for her having been outed as some evil payback. Turns out, his story">http://www.nationalreview.com/thecorner/04_07_11_corner-archive.asp#035… has changed. He now allows only that his wife couldn't have made the decision to send him. Quite not-the-same as having nothing to do with it, eh?

As for Wilson's repeated claims that Bush lied, let's start with Novak's">http://www.townhall.com/columnists/robertnovak/rn20040715.shtml]Novak's column, last week, in which he quoted Pat Roberts, of the Intelligence Committee:

The normally mild Pat Roberts is harsh in his condemnation: "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." Roberts called it "important" for the Intelligence Committee to declare much of what Wilson said "had no basis in fact." In response, Democrats were silent.

And, in the man's own words, from "his" website:[quote">http://www.restorehonesty.com/]website[/url]:[quote]"...I wasn't ready to keep quiet when this President misled the nation in his State of the Union Address..."[/quote]When do you stop defending your honor? When it's all gone, of course.

It's not at all crystal clear that the 16 words were based on the presumption of anything. Quite the opposite, in fact. Here are the words:

"The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

That's a declarative sentence, which has the added grace of being true. What other items of truth do you think should be pulled out of the SOTU, after which it should then be tested for supportability?

I am struggling to understand your logic. With respect to Plame, are you saying that it is not a federal crime to reveal the identity of a covert CIA officer if her husband makes a contested claim about her activities, after she's outed? Are you arguing that Plame can and should have been outed in the normal course of events?

I ask for actual quotes and you provide one mild "real" quote from Wilson, and then provide quotes from a GOP politician.

Please explain to my why Ari Fleischer, in the days following Wilson's initial criticisms, said that the statement should not have been included, and that it did not rise to the level necessary for a state of the union speech. Was Ari wrong in that assessment?

I don't think so. Fleischer said it because he knew that particular statement made it into the SOTU based on the assessment that actual deals to get uranium were taking place; without that kind of support they would have gone with something else.