TIME: A War On Wilson?

[tinnypriv]

A War On Wilson?
* Inside the Bush Administration's feud with the diplomat who poured cold water on the Iraq-uranium connection *

Has the Bush Administration declared war on a former ambassador who conducted a fact-finding mission to probe possible Iraqi interest in African uranium? Former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson raised the Administration's ire with an op-ed piece in The New York Times on July 6 charging that the Administration had "twisted" intelligence to "exaggerate" the Iraqi threat. Since then Administration officials have taken public and private whacks at Wilson, charging that his 2002 report, made at the behest of U.S. intelligence, was faulty and that his mission was a scheme cooked up by mid-level operatives. Some government officials, noting that Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, is a CIA official who monitors the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, intimate that she was involved in his being dispatched Niger to investigate reports that Saddam Hussein's government had sought to purchase large quantities of uranium ore, sometimes referred to as yellow cake, for the purposes of building nuclear devices.

Wilson is fighting back. In an interview with TIME, Wilson, who served as an ambassador to Gabon and as a senior American diplomat in Baghdad under the current president's father, angrily said that his wife had nothing to do with his trip to Africa. "That is bulls__t. That is absolutely not the case," Wilson told TIME. "I met with between six and eight analysts and operators from CIA and elsewhere . None of the people in that meeting did I know, and they took the decision to send me. This is a smear job."

...

White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer told reporters last week, a few days before he left his post to join the private sector. "Wilson's own report, the very man who was on television saying Niger denies it...reports himself that officials in Niger said that Iraq was seeking to contact officials in Niger about sales."

Wilson's version of the story has a crucial difference. He says the official in question was contacted by an Algerian-Nigerien intermediary who inquired if the official would meet with an Iraqi about "commercial" sales — an offer he declined. Wilson dismissed the suggestion, included in CIA Director George Tenet's own mea culpa last week, that this validates what the President claimed in this State of the Union address: "That then translates into an Iraqi effort to import a significant quantity of uranium as the President alleged? These guys really need to get serious."

...

In an exclusive interview, the Vice President's Chief of Staff Lewis Libby, told TIME: "The Vice President heard about the possibility of Iraq trying to acquire uranium from Niger in February 2002. As part of his regular intelligence briefing, the Vice President asked a question about the implication of the report. During the course of a year, the Vice President asked many such questions and the agency responded within a day or two saying that they had reporting suggesting the possibility of such a transaction. But the agency noted that the reporting lacked detail. The agency pointed out that Iraq already had 500 tons of uranium, portions of which came from Niger, according to the International Atomic Energy Administration (IAEA). The Vice President was unaware of the trip by Ambassador Wilson and didn't know about it until this year when it became public in the last month or so." Other senior Administration officials, including National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, have also claimed that they had not heard of Wilson's report until recently.

...

http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,465137,00.html (my emphasis)

[indictrichardperle]

1. You know,

Bunker Dick and Condi, shouldnt go on the record with TRANSPARENT LIES.

Once your credibility is below Joe Isuzu's, its only going to get worse. Hadley, Condi's assistant ? Hes going to be called up to testify.....CIA is on the record as having informed him. Scooter Libby is going testify.....ALOT.

[The Magistrate]

2. Cheney Lies Through His Teeth

Amb. Wilson's article in the times made clear that the mission he was sent on was a result of a request from Cheney's own underlings. It is nonsense to suppose its results were not reported back to the reptile.

The more thay continue in this vein, the more traction this matter will achieve, and the deeper it wil penetrate into the mind of the people. People understand forged documents and lies, and despise above all else being frightened falsely.

"LET'S GO GET THOSE BUSH BASTARDS!"

[nadinbrzezinski]

3. Ah Watergate

They need a copy of the President's men, they are making
the same mistakes....

Condy shame on you, PhD and all you should know better.

Rummy, you were there... you should know better.

Dubya... well he is the Puppet/

[JNelson6563]

5. PhD in what though?

Considering her PhD is to do with the Soviet Union why wouldn't she think lies and propaganda would work?

Julie

[J B]

8. There were no good Sovietologists.

... I keep saying this... her rep as a good Sovietologist was uh, well, there were no good Sovietologists, so that shows how good she is...

[Tandalayo_Scheisskopf]

4. This whole Wison thing...

Is starting to become the flash point for this whole thing. This man and his wife may, by virtue of their honesty, be the team that takes this administration down.

They give this thing a very centralized human element.

[Sushi_lover]

6. Very true. We were hoping for a Woodward and Berstein.

So maybe an honest diplomat instead of a brave journalist.

[Eloriel]

7. Well, I guess they didn't feel like they could

actually take anyone out, them being in the White House and all. So they put her life in danger (assuming she's a CIA agent) via other means.

Yes, it's meant as intimidation. And revenge. I am horrified. These people will stop at nothing.

I hope they both live through this.

Eloriel

[RainDog]

9. The Nation mentions Wilson's wife

...and apparently White House staffers, in trying to blame her, may be guilty of a felon.

got this from a GenDisc thread (and had posted it earlier myself.)

"The sources for Novak's assertion about Wilson's wife appear to be "two senior administration officials." If so, a pair of top Bush officials told a reporter the name of a CIA operative who apparently has worked under what's known as "nonofficial cover" and who has had the dicey and difficult mission of tracking parties trying to buy or sell weapons of mass destruction or WMD material. If Wilson's wife is such a person--and the CIA is unlikely to have many employees like her--her career has been destroyed by the Bush administration. (Assuming she did not tell friends and family about her real job, these Bush officials have also damaged her personal life.) Without acknowledging whether she is a deep-cover CIA employee, Wilson says, "Naming her this way would have compromised every operation, every relationship, every network with which she had been associated in her entire career. This is the stuff of Kim Philby and Aldrich Ames." If she is not a CIA employee and Novak is reporting accurately, then the White House has wrongly branded a woman known to friends as an energy analyst for a private firm as a CIA officer. That would not likely do her much good.
This is not only a possible breach of national security; it is a potential violation of law. Under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982, it is a crime for anyone who has access to classified information to disclose intentionally information identifying a covert agent. The punishment for such an offense is a fine of up to $50,000 and/or up to ten years in prison. Journalists are protected from prosecution, unless they engage in a "pattern of activities" to name agents in order to impair US intelligence activities. So Novak need not worry. "

[David Zephyr]

10. The Story Has Risen to the Level of Time Magazine.

Bush and Cheney are finished.