I watched some of Plame's testimony in the congressional hearing last spring. There was this tall, pink-clad transvestite looming behind her in the background the whole time I watched.
I can never think of Plame without that image coming to mind.
can't help but notice you ignored the rest of the story where they talk about the damage done by plame's outing.
Good point! Plame has a lot to answer for. Clearly it was terribly irresponsible for her to create conditions in which it was almost a certainty her identity would come to light.
What victim? The only person worse off after all this is Scooter Libby. Valerie's a millionaire, Joe has a best-seller, and both are prime candidates for senior positions in a Dem admin.
how was it a certainty that her identity would come to light?
Husband writing op-eds in the nation's largest newspaper based on a mission she sent him on? Meeting with Nick Kristof? It's hard to see what more she could have done to expose herself if she was deliberately trying. I guess she could have stripped naked and run across Washington shouting "I'M A SPY!! I'M A SPY!!"
So: what Wilson actually told the CIA, contrary to his own oft-repeated claims, is that he was told by the former mining minister of Niger that in 1998, Iraq had tried to buy 400 tons of uranium from that country, and that Iraq's overture was renewed the following year. What Wilson reported to the CIA was exactly the same as what President Bush said in his 2003 State of the Union address: there was evidence that Iraq had tried to buy uranium in Africa.
Recall Wilson's famous op-ed in the New York Times, published on July 6, 2003, which ignited the whole firestorm over the famous "sixteen words" in Bush's State of the Union speech. In that op-ed, Wilson identified himself as the formerly-unnamed person who had gone to Niger to investigate rumors of a possible uranium deal between Iraq and Niger. Here are the key words in Wilson's article:
[I]n January, President Bush, citing the British dossier, repeated the charges about Iraqi efforts to buy uranium from Africa. The next day, I reminded a friend at the State Department of my trip and suggested that if the president had been referring to Niger, then his conclusion was not borne out by the facts as I understood them.
It was this flat-out lie about what Wilson learned in Niger, and what he reported to the CIA upon his return, that fueled the "sixteen words" controversy and led to the publication of Wilson's best-selling account, titled, ironically, The Politics of Truth.
at the time it wasn't known that Wilson was sent by Plame, only that he was sent to Niger. It's not an unreasonable expectation for Plame to assume that no one would expose her ties to the CIA simply because her husband was contracted by the CIA to go to Niger.
It's not an unreasonable expectation for Plame to assume that no one would expose her ties to the CIA simply because her husband was contracted by the CIA to go to Niger.
It's extremely unreasonable for her to think anonymity is going to survive a NYT op-ed about a mission she sent him on, and a further interview with Kick Kristof about same.
The Wilsons were publicity-seeking wannabe celebrities, and her being outed was the best thing that ever happened to them. It let them play the victim for a crowd of gullible leftists who have never cared about the truth, and get rich and famous as the alleged victims of a wholly imaginary Bush admin campaign of revenge.
I mean, just stop and think for 2 seconds. The first question asked was "Why did the CIA send Joe Wilson?" The answer was "Because his wife works there, and recommended him." Cover blown.
Anyone who took the slightest glance at Plame would have known she was CIA. Her front company had a nonexistent address, and she drove to Langley in plain view of the whole world.
The minute Joe Wilson made himself a figure of national interest while at the same connecting himself to the CIA, Valerie's cover was dead.
Regardless of whether you think her outing was illegal (I do not), how was it that it didn't occur?
Well, first, as Dave points out, her cover was so flimsy as to be nonexistent. Sources have reported that many people in DC social circles knew she was CIA. If people in DC social circles knew it, then people in foreign intelligence knew it, including people in hostile foreign intelligence.
And second, by "outing", Ms. Plame invariably means "her identity maliciously revealed by the Administration as payback for what her husband wrote". That never happened. And to leave Mr. Armitage out of the discussion is to deliberately leave the false impression that she was targetted when she was not.
Did anyone anywhere ever think that someone else would want to investigate his claims, and that the investigation would reveal his CIA employed wife?
Please. Get real. That editorial wouldn't go anywhere? Why write it if it would be forgotten in the next ten minutes after writing it? Joe Wilson wanted people to look into the Bush administration's claims as he called them on it. And doing that involves looking into his mission, and that leads inevitably back to the missus.
Puh-lease. If an above-board reporter can find this out, then anyone who wants to dig slightly can.
If they wanted to keep this secret than Paris Hilton is still a virgin.
So: what Wilson actually told the CIA, contrary to his own oft-repeated claims, is that he was told by the former mining minister of Niger that in 1998, Iraq had tried to buy 400 tons of uranium from that country, and that Iraq's overture was renewed the following year. What Wilson reported to the CIA was exactly the same as what President Bush said in his 2003 State of the Union address: there was evidence that Iraq had tried to buy uranium in Africa.
This thread exists in an alternate reality totally disconnected from real world.
In reality, the Italian intelligence forwarded reports that Niger had signed a contract with Iraq to deliver 400 tons of uranium. The US ambassador to Niger and the CIA said this was not possible. Joe Wilson was sent to investigate. Everyone in Niger told Joe Wilson it was impossible for Niger to sell uranium to Iraq, and that is what he reported. He also reported that an Iraqi diplomat did go to Niger to invite them to a trade show in Baghdad that Iraq was organizing to try to break UN trade sanctions. The Niger officials were suspicious of Iraqi intentions, but the Iraqi diplomat never mentioned uranium.
Some time later an informant in Italy delivered a contract for the 400 tons of uranium to the US embassy. This contract turned out to be an obvious forgery. If there is a real contract that the original Italian intelligence reports were based upon, no one has ever come forward with them.
After the invasion of Iraq, absolutely no evidence was found to support the Niger uranium story. Iraq was making no effort to restart their nuclear program and they already had around 400 tons of uranium under IAEA seal before the invasion. They had absolutely no need for additional uranium. There was no documentation found of any effort to buy uranium. The diplomats who visited Niger denied that it had anything to do with uranium.
In short there is absolutely no evidence to support the claim that Iraq was trying to buy uranium from Niger in the late 1990’s.
Undeterred by this reality, the useful idiots continue to claim that the famous 16 words were absolutely true because the President was just quoting a mistaken British report and that Joe Wilson is a liar for suggesting that the US CIA had investigated these claims and found them to be untrue. The fact that CIA director George Tenet apologized and admitted it was a CIA mistake to allow the 16 words into the Presidents SOTU address is unimportant to the useful idiots. The fact that Iraq was not trying to buy uranium from Niger is not important to the useful idiots.
The more you repeat these bogus claims, the more obvious your partisan disconnection from reality becomes. No one takes anything seriously from someone so consumed with partisan delusions as to still be repeating this nonsense.
The more you repeat these bogus claims, the more obvious your partisan disconnection from reality becomes. No one takes anything seriously from someone so consumed with partisan delusions as to still be repeating this nonsense.
Come on. The CIA director publicly apologized for allowing the president to use those 16 words in the SOTU address. He did that because the words were not true and Joe Wilson was correct. The CIA knew they were not true, but allowed the president to include them in the SOTU address provided they were sourced to a British report that the CIA knew to be false.
After all these years there is still absolutely no evidence that Iraq every tried to buy uranium from Niger in the 1990s. None.
And your point is what John?
You have no point. Partisan ideology and name calling substitute for facts.
Mikeca, you're just parroting the left-wing drivel on this, and you are the one totally out of touch with reality.
Joe Wilson was sent to investigate. Everyone in Niger told Joe Wilson it was impossible for Niger to sell uranium to Iraq, and that is what he reported.
That's the left-wing narrative, but it misses the point -- Bush never said Iraq obtained uranium in Niger, or could. He said Iraq was trying to obtain uranium -- and CIA analysts said Wilson's trip corroborated that evidence.
Come on. The CIA director publicly apologized for allowing the president to use those 16 words in the SOTU address. He did that because the words were not true and Joe Wilson was correct.
Wrong! It was true, and still is. They said it was insufficiently sourced, after the media made it an issue, another regrettable olive branch to a bunch of raving lunatics who turned it into a rhetorical spear to attack Bush with. This is the same White House that actually reprinted and distributed those fake Rather memos, which once again had crazy lefties saying "Aha! It must be true!"
I swear, it is unbelieveable how delusional the left has become on this. It's disgusting that there are people out there claiming Wilson was some kind of noble whistleblower.
That's the left-wing narrative, but it misses the point -- Bush never said Iraq obtained uranium in Niger, or could. He said Iraq was trying to obtain uranium -- and CIA analysts said Wilson's trip corroborated that evidence.
That is precisely the point. There is absolutely no evidence that Iraq was trying to obtain uranium from Niger in the 1990s. The British report that they were was wrong. The US CIA knew that the British report was wrong or at least that there was no evidence to back it up. Today we know for certain that these reports were just wrong. Iraq was not making any effort to restart its nuclear weapons program. There are no documents and no Iraqis that have provided any support for this claim.
The partisan argument that has been put forward is that this statement was technically true because it was sourced to the British and the British intelligence at the time had not investigated the claim and had not realized that it was false yet. This claim was made by the President of the United States, not by the Prime Minister of England. The US CIA knew this claim was false at the time. That is why George Tenet apologized for letting the president say it.
Iraq was not trying to buy uranium from Niger or any other country in the 1990s. Grow up and get over it.
The Iraq Survey Group also found no evidence that Iraq sought uranium from abroad after 1991. With respect to the reports that Iraq sought uranium from Niger, ISG interviews with Ja'far Diya Ja'far, the head of Iraq's pre-1991 enrichment programs, indicated that Iraq had only two contacts with the Nigerien government after 1998--neither of which was related to uranium. One such contact was a visit to Niger by the Iraqi Ambassador to the Vatican Wissam Zahawie, the purpose of which Ja'far said was to invite the Nigerien President to visit Iraq (a story told publicly by Zahawie). The second contact was a visit to Iraq by a Nigerien minister to discuss Nigerien purchases of oil from Iraq--with no mention of "any kind of payment, quid pro quo, or offer to provide Iraq with uranium ore, other than cash in exchange for petroleum." The use of the last method of payment is supported by a crude oil contract, dated June 26, 2001, recovered by the ISG.
That is precisely the point. There is absolutely no evidence that Iraq was trying to obtain uranium from Niger in the 1990s.
Yes there is! That's exactly the sort of dishonest spew that proves leftists have zero interest in the truth.
Regardless of what Robb-Silbermann found years later (and they faulted CIA sloppiness, NOT Bush admin dishonesty), the fact was at the time Wilson's report bolstered the view that Iraq was seeking uranium. Joe Wilson lied.
Again:
So: what Wilson actually told the CIA, contrary to his own oft-repeated claims, is that he was told by the former mining minister of Niger that in 1998, Iraq had tried to buy 400 tons of uranium from that country, and that Iraq's overture was renewed the following year. What Wilson reported to the CIA was exactly the same as what President Bush said in his 2003 State of the Union address: there was evidence that Iraq had tried to buy uranium in Africa.
The US CIA knew this claim was false at the time. That is why George Tenet apologized for letting the president say it.
The CIA did not know that, and still doesn't (the Brits later investigated and upheld Bush's statement AGAIN). What they knew was that the docs were forgeries. There was conflicting evidence regarding the issue as a whole. To state otherwise is dishonest -- grow up and admit the truth.
It's absolutely disgusting how leftists have spun this national security issue in order to validate their paranoid fantasies about Bush. They don't care about whether Iraq was actually seeking uranium in Niger, or what Joe Wilson actually found in that regard. They only care about making cleverly misleading arguments that attack Bush and create confusion.
This is why it is impossible for me to support Democrats on national security -- while the GOP tries to find out what actually happened and bends over backwards apologizing for things they don't even need to, the Dems just attack and obfuscate.
Subsequently, Vice President Cheney requested follow-up information from CIA on this alleged deal. 196 CIA decided to contact the former U.S. ambassador to Gabon, Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who had been posted to Niger early in his career and maintained contacts there, to see if he would be amenable to traveling to Niger. Ambassador Wilson agreed to do so and, armed with CIA talking points, traveled to Niger in late February 2002 and met with former Nigerien officials. 197
Following the trip, CIA disseminated an intelligence report in March 2002 based on its debriefing of Ambassador Wilson. 198 The report carried the caveat that the individuals from whom the Ambassador obtained the information were aware that their remarks could reach the U.S. government and "may have intended to influence as well as to inform." 199 According to this report, the former Prime Minister of Niger said that he was not aware of any contracts for uranium that had been signed between Niger and any rogue states. He noted that if there had been such an agreement, he would have been aware of it. 200 He said, however, that in June 1999 he met with an Iraqi delegation to discuss "expanding commercial relations" between Niger and Iraq, which the Prime Minister interpreted as meaning the delegation wanted to discuss yellowcake sales. The Prime Minister let the matter drop, however, because of the United Nations sanctions on Iraq. 201
In other words... Iraq WAS SEEKING URANIUM IN AFRICA!!!! And Wilson's trip supported that conclusion!
At the time of the State of the Union speech, CIA analysts continued to believe that Iraq probably was seeking uranium from Africa, although there was growing concern among some CIA analysts that there were problems with the reporting.
Contrast that to Wilson's infamous misleading op-ed:
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.
...
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.
In other words, "Bush lied!!" Just what lefties wanted to hear. It was Joe's ticket to glory, fame, a bestselling book, the TV talk show circuit, and promises of a senior position in the Kerry admin.
Of course, to buy that ticket, he had to lie about his trip and sell out his wife's career by disclosing a classified CIA mission he had been sent on by her, creating conditions that virtually ensured her role would come out. But he made that work for him, too, once again alleging a sinister conspiracy that simply did not exist.
The Iraq Survey Group also found no evidence that Iraq sought uranium from abroad after 1991.
And again, this is another example of how misleading leftists have been. The ISG found no such evidence in Iraq. This has absolutely nothing to do with Joe Wilson's trip and bringing it up in this context is mendacity at its worst.
Two intelligence investigations show Bush had plenty of reason to believe what he said in his 2003 State of the Union Address.
Bush said then, “The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa .” Some of his critics called that a lie, but the new evidence shows Bush had reason to say what he did.
A British intelligence review released July 14 calls Bush’s 16 words “well founded.”
A separate report by the US Senate Intelligence Committee said July 7 that the US also had similar information from “a number of intelligence reports,” a fact that was classified at the time Bush spoke.
Ironically, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who later called Bush’s 16 words a “lie”, supplied information that the Central Intelligence Agency took as confirmation that Iraq may indeed have been seeking uranium from Niger.
Both the US and British investigations make clear that some forged Italian documents, exposed as fakes soon after Bush spoke, were not the basis for the British intelligence Bush cited, or the CIA's conclusion that Iraq was trying to get uranium.
In reality, the Italian intelligence forwarded reports that Niger had signed a contract with Iraq to deliver 400 tons of uranium. The US ambassador to Niger and the CIA said this was not possible
...
Some time later an informant in Italy delivered a contract for the 400 tons of uranium to the US embassy. This contract turned out to be an obvious forgery. If there is a real contract that the original Italian intelligence reports were based upon, no one has ever come forward with them.
Wilson's earlier claim to the Washington Post that, in the CIA reports and documents on the Niger case, "the dates were wrong and the names were wrong," was also false, according to the Senate report. The relevant papers were not in CIA hands until eight months after he made his trip. Wilson now lamely says he may have "misspoken" on this. (See Susan Schmidt's article in the July 10
Other than being a lair like your hero Joe Wilson.
It's all I needed to say. You assume too much in my motivations, accuse me of being partisan, when there is no party with my loyalty, as none of them match my views more than maybe 50% (being something of a part libertarian, some part Jeffersonian, some part liberal, and some part conservative). You've provided solid evidence in the past that you only see what you wish, not what exists, and Dave and Paul said everything I would have needed to say.
I don't think you are partisan in the slightest, from my observation you hug the edges of the extremes of the Democrats and identify yourself as separate from them, while maintaining a caricaturish subjective view of anyone centerward of that position. I do consider you to be willfully self-delusional in order to justify your positions, as I have yet see you take a stance anywhere within 179 degrees of objective reality. So the identification of your quote as ironic coming from you is accurate barring the word "partisan."
On October 2,2002, the Deputy DCI testified before the SSCI. Senator 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. We’ve looked at those reports and we don’t think they are very credible. It doesn’t diminish our conviction that he’s going for nuclear weapons, but I think they reached a little bit on that one point. Otherwise I think it’s very solid.”
Page 56-7:
Although the NSC had already removed the uranium reference from the speech, later on October 4,2002 the CIA sent a second fax to the White House which 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 71:
On June 17,2003, nearly five months after the President delivered the State of the Union address, the CIA produced a memorandum for the DCI which said, “since learning that the Iraq-Niger uranium deal was based on false documents earlier this spring, we no longer believe that there is sufficient other reporting to conclude that Iraq pursued uranium from abroad.” This memorandum was not distributed outside the CIA and the Committee has not been provided with any intelligence products in which the CIA published its corrected assessment on Iraq’s pursuit of uranium from Niger outside of the agency.
Page 75:
Conclusion 16. The language in the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate that “Iraq also began vigorously trying to procure uranium ore and yellowcake” overstated what the Intelligence Community knew about Iraq’s possible procurement attempts.
p54 and 56-7 are both irrelevant to Joe Wilson's trip, which CIA analysts said corroborated concerns Iraq was seeking uranium in Niger. We know there was dissent on the point of whether Iraq was seeking uranium; no one disputes that. There was some evidence pointing in diferent directions, and the NIE authors chose to go with the worst-case scenario.
The significant portion of p71 is nearly five months after the President delivered the State of the Union address, Again, that has nothing to do with Joe Wilson's trip or accusation that Bush manipulated the intel.
p75 again has nothing to do with Bush's preparation of the SOTU or Wilson's trip. Bush had to work with the NIE he had, not the NIE he might have wanted or had at a later date.
Again, you ignore the relevant facts and bring up irrelevant ones.
The famous “16 words” in President Bush’s Jan. 28, 2003 State of the Union address turn out to have a basis in fact after all, according to two recently released investigations in the US and Britain.
Bush said then, “The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa .” Some of his critics called that a lie, but the new evidence shows Bush had reason to say what he did.
A British intelligence review released July 14 calls Bush’s 16 words “well founded.”
A separate report by the US Senate Intelligence Committee said July 7 that the US also had similar information from “a number of intelligence reports,” a fact that was classified at the time Bush spoke.
Ironically, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who later called Bush’s 16 words a “lie”, supplied information that the Central Intelligence Agency took as confirmation that Iraq may indeed have been seeking uranium from Niger.
The Butler report said British intelligence had "credible" information -- from several sources -- that a 1999 visit by Iraqi officials to Niger was for the purpose of buying uranium:
Butler Report: It is accepted by all parties that Iraqi officials visited Niger in 1999. The British Government had intelligence from several different sources indicating that this visit was for the purpose of acquiring uranium. Since uranium constitutes almost three-quarters of Niger’s exports, the intelligence was credible.
The Butler Report affirmed what the British government had said about the Niger uranium story back in 2003, and specifically endorsed what Bush said as well.
Butler Report: By extension, we conclude also that the statement in President Bush’s State of the Union Address of 28 January 2003 that “The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa” was well-founded.
Wilson's earlier claim to the Washington Post that, in the CIA reports and documents on the Niger case, "the dates were wrong and the names were wrong," was also false, according to the Senate report. The relevant papers were not in CIA hands until eight months after he made his trip. Wilson now lamely says he may have "misspoken" on this. (See Susan Schmidt's article in the July 10
In June 2003 when Joe Wilson talked to the Washington Post it was public information that the Niger documents were forgeries and that "the dates were wrong and the names were wrong." The UN had examined the documents in March 2003 and announced that they were forgeries. What we know is that the story the Washington Post published was inaccurate in claiming that Joe Wilson had shown the documents were forgeries. At the time Joe Wilson talked to the Washington Post reporters both he and the reporter knew the documents were forgeries. It is easy to see how the reporter may have misunderstood what Joe Wilson said or how Joe Wilson might have misspoken.
What is true is that the documents were forgeries. The dates and names on the documents were wrong. There is no evidence that Iraq ever tried to buy uranium from Niger or any other African country after 1991. The British were wrong in their report. The president was wrong when he quoted their report. Joe Wilson’s NYT op-ed was true. He had gone to Niger. He had found no evidence that Niger was selling uranium to Iraq. In October 2007 no one has yet found any evidence that Iraq was trying to buy uranium from Niger since 1991.
The facts are so damning that no one can dispute them. Instead of disputing the facts, they run around and try to smear Joe Wilson and label him a liar based on trumped up claims like this Washington Post story.
Butler Report: It is accepted by all parties that Iraqi officials visited Niger in 1999. The British Government had intelligence from several different sources indicating that this visit was for the purpose of acquiring uranium. Since uranium constitutes almost three-quarters of Niger’s exports, the intelligence was credible.
The Butler Report affirmed what the British government had said about the Niger uranium story back in 2003, and specifically endorsed what Bush said as well.
Butler Report: By extension, we conclude also that the statement in President Bush’s State of the Union Address of 28 January 2003 that “The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa” was well-founded.
The Butler report is a triumph of bureaucratic obfuscation. Instead of clearly explaining the facts, it seeks to state the facts in such away as to confuse the reader and provide cover for British Intelligence services.
What the Butler report says is the British had some intelligence in 2002 that lead them to believe Iraq might be trying to buy uranium from Niger. Some of that intelligence was based on the forged documents and at least one piece of intelligence was not based on the forged documents. Therefore the British had at least one piece of non-forged intelligence in 2002 about this. Therefore there was a basis for their claim that Iraq was seeking uranium from Niger and for Bush to reference this claim in the SOTU address in January 2003.
What they leave out is
1) The British had made no effort to verify or investigate the intelligence they had. The US had the same intelligence the British had and had made an effort to investigate or verify it.
2) The Deputy Director of the CIA had told Congress on Oct 2, 2002 that the British intelligence on Iraq seeking uranium from Africa was not “very credible”.
3) The CIA had faxed the White House on Oct 4, 2002 indicating that the evidence was weak on Iraq seeking uranium from Africa and made no sense. If Iraq was restarting its nuclear program, it did not need any more uranium. Iraq already had enough uranium.
4) We now know that whatever piece of intelligence the British had was wrong.
So given the limited information that the British had, they viewed their intelligence as credible. The US CIA with more information believed this intelligence was not very credible, although clearly some analyst in the intelligence community continued to take these claims seriously.
We now know that the claims were incorrect. Iraq was not restarting its nuclear program and had made no attempt to obtain uranium from Niger or anyplace else after 1991.
It is easy to see how the reporter may have misunderstood what Joe Wilson said or how Joe Wilson might have misspoken.
Then perhaps Joe Wilson should have requested a correction to this article.
After returning to the United States, the envoy reported to the CIA that the uranium-purchase story was false, the sources said. Among the envoy's conclusions was that the documents may have been forged because the "dates were wrong and the names were wrong," the former U.S. government official said.
Or are you saying Joe Wilson did not read/review the article he anonymously contributed to?
In October 2007 no one has yet found any evidence that Iraq was trying to buy uranium from Niger since 1991.
In the late 1980s, the Iraqi representative to the International Atomic Energy Agency—Iraq's senior public envoy for nuclear matters, in effect—was a man named Wissam al-Zahawie. After the Kuwait war in 1991, when Rolf Ekeus arrived in Baghdad to begin the inspection and disarmament work of UNSCOM, he was greeted by Zahawie, who told him in a bitter manner that "now that you have come to take away our assets," the two men could no longer be friends. (They had known each other in earlier incarnations at the United Nations in New York.)
At a later 1995 U.N. special session on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Zahawie was the Iraqi delegate and spoke heatedly about the urgent need to counterbalance Israel's nuclear capacity. At the time, most democratic countries did not have full diplomatic relations with Saddam's regime, and there were few fully accredited Iraqi ambassadors overseas, Iraq's interests often being represented by the genocidal Islamist government of Sudan (incidentally, yet another example of collusion between "secular" Baathists and the fundamentalists who were sheltering Osama Bin Laden). There was one exception—an Iraqi "window" into the world of open diplomacy—namely the mutual recognition between the Baathist regime and the Vatican. To this very important and sensitive post in Rome, Zahawie was appointed in 1997, holding the job of Saddam's ambassador to the Holy See until 2000. Those who knew him at that time remember a man much given to anti-Jewish tirades, with a standing ticket for Wagner performances at Bayreuth. (Actually, as a fan of Das Rheingold and Götterdämmerung in particular, I find I can live with this. Hitler secretly preferred sickly kitsch like Franz Lehar.)
In February 1999, Zahawie left his Vatican office for a few days and paid an official visit to Niger, a country known for absolutely nothing except its vast deposits of uranium ore. It was from Niger that Iraq had originally acquired uranium in 1981, as confirmed in the Duelfer Report. In order to take the Joseph Wilson view of this Baathist ambassadorial initiative, you have to be able to believe that Saddam Hussein's long-term main man on nuclear issues was in Niger to talk about something other than the obvious. Italian intelligence (which first noticed the Zahawie trip from Rome) found it difficult to take this view and alerted French intelligence (which has better contacts in West Africa and a stronger interest in nuclear questions). In due time, the French tipped off the British, who in their cousinly way conveyed the suggestive information to Washington. As everyone now knows, the disclosure appeared in watered-down and secondhand form in the president's State of the Union address in January 2003.
If Iraq was restarting its nuclear program, it did not need any more uranium. Iraq already had enough uranium.
You can never have too much, especially when everyone knows about what you already have, and its under IAEA seal. If they could have obtained it clandestinely, they could used it in a clandestine program.
But this is the indisputable fact that liars and fools continue to ignore, because it destroys Wilson's credibility and the whole myth you've tried to build around him:
Ironically, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who later called Bush’s 16 words a “lie”, supplied information that the Central Intelligence Agency took as confirmation that Iraq may indeed have been seeking uranium from Niger.
And you think I have a problem being able to reason logically?
Yes! All you've done is raise a smokescreen of unrelated bullshit, most of from years after the fact, to pretend Wilson wasn't lying when he claimed his trip proved Iraq wasn't seeking uranium in Niger.
And again, you cannot escape the actual facts, much as you'd like to:
According to this report, the former Prime Minister of Niger said that he was not aware of any contracts for uranium that had been signed between Niger and any rogue states. He noted that if there had been such an agreement, he would have been aware of it. 200 He said, however, that in June 1999 he met with an Iraqi delegation to discuss "expanding commercial relations" between Niger and Iraq, which the Prime Minister interpreted as meaning the delegation wanted to discuss yellowcake sales.
The Iraq Survey Group also found no evidence that Iraq sought uranium from abroad after 1991. With respect to the reports that Iraq sought uranium from Niger, ISG interviews with Ja'far Diya Ja'far, the head of Iraq's pre-1991 enrichment programs, indicated that Iraq had only two contacts with the Nigerien government after 1998--neither of which was related to uranium. One such contact was a visit to Niger by the Iraqi Ambassador to the Vatican Wissam Zahawie, the purpose of which Ja'far said was to invite the Nigerien President to visit Iraq (a story told publicly by Zahawie). The second contact was a visit to Iraq by a Nigerien minister to discuss Nigerien purchases of oil from Iraq--with no mention of "any kind of payment, quid pro quo, or offer to provide Iraq with uranium ore, other than cash in exchange for petroleum." The use of the last method of payment is supported by a crude oil contract, dated June 26, 2001, recovered by the ISG.
There is no evidence that Zahawie's visit had anything to do with uranium. Christopher Hitchens is simply repeating a conspiracy theory which was long ago been proven false.
Al-Zahawie proclaims innocence of Niger's status as one of the world's largest exporters of yellowcake — despite the fact that the West African nation had been Iraq's principal supplier during the 1980s. "Frankly, I didn't know that Niger produced uranium at all," he claims
Even accepting this ludicrous idea that Zahawie was totally naive, you still can't avoid the fact Wilson's trip bolstered the uranium claim, and did not debunk it as he claimed.
Wilson is a liar, and only the delusional left could believe otherwise.
Bwahahahahaha! Zahawie was just inviting him over!!
And you wonder where the term "useful idiots" comes from.
Ah, so the Iraq Survey Group and the Robb – Silberman commission were just a bunch of useful idiots for believing this, but you and Christopher Hitchens are so much more knowledgeable on this that you know Zahawie was really after uranium.
And you guys also know more than the CIA does:
Report of the Select Committee on Intelligence on the U.S. Intelligence Community’s Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq, page 71:
On June 17,2003, nearly five months after the President delivered the State of the Union address, the CIA produced a memorandum for the DCI which said, “since learning that the Iraq-Niger uranium deal was based on false documents earlier this spring, we no longer believe that there is sufficient other reporting to conclude that Iraq pursued uranium from abroad.”
Nice try there, useful idiot, but the commission doesn't say they believed it, they just reported what he said. He also said he didn't even know Niger produced uranium. Totally credible witness, right?
You're the same kind of idiot that would have found Duranty's reporting Pulitzer-worthy.
And you still can't get around the fact Wilson's trip bolstered the uranium claim, and did not debunk it as he claimed.
Nice try there, useful idiot, but the commission doesn't say they believed it, they just reported what he said. He also said he didn't even know Niger produced uranium. Totally credible witness, right?
Did you read the first sentence of that quote from the Robb – Silberman report:
The Iraq Survey Group also found no evidence that Iraq sought uranium from abroad after 1991.
There were no documents found. They found no witnesses. Now you may choose to believe Christopher Hitchens’s conspiracy theories about Zahawie, but that is all they are. Just conspiracy theories with absolutely no evidence to back them up.
If you want to continue to pretend that you and Christopher Hitchens know more about Zahawie than the Iraq Survey Group, the Robb – Silberman commission or the CIA, then you are free to do so, but the fact remains that in the real world there is still no evidence that Iraq sought uranium from Africa after 1991.
And you still can't get around the fact Wilson's trip bolstered the uranium claim, and did not debunk it as he claimed.
Wilson’s report debunked the intelligence reports that Iraq had signed a contract with Niger and that Niger may have already started delivery of uranium to Iraq. That was the intelligence report that Wilson was sent to investigate.
The fact that some analysts at the CIA read his report as bolstering the idea that Iraq was interested in buying uranium from Niger is I think a symptom of what the problem with the pre-war WMD intelligence was at the CIA. The CIA already knew about Zahawie trip. The only new information that Wilson got about this was that the Prime Minister of Niger was suspicious about this trip too, but suspicions are not facts. Suspicions are just feelings, and Wilson uncovered no facts about that trip that supported the feelings of CIA analysts or the Prime Minster of Niger that Iraq wanted to buy uranium.
Wilson correctly stated that we should have known the intelligence was wrong. Even the Republican controlled Senate Intelligence committee concluded that the CIA had done a bad job of analysis:
Report of the Select Committee on Intelligence on the U.S. Intelligence Community’s Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq, page 75:
Conclusion 16. The language in the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate that “Iraq also began vigorously trying to procure uranium ore and yellowcake” overstated what the Intelligence Community knew about Iraq’s possible procurement attempts.
The CIA and the White House should have known the intelligence was very weak. That is what Wilson said in his OpEd.
Did you read the first sentence of that quote from the Robb – Silberman report:
Yes, and it only says Zawahie didn't admit to seeking uranium, which was the whole point of interviewing him. If Zawahie had admitted he was looking for uranium, that would have been evidence. Since he did NOT admit it, his statement was NOT evidence. They said nothing about believing him. Again, did you find Zawahie a credible witness?
That is what Wilson said in his OpEd.
No, what Wilson said was:
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.
...
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.
Wilson was no intelligence expert. He was just a diplomat who was sent to Niger by his wife, and that was the basis of his op-ed, not some conclusion in a report.
Wilson’s report debunked the intelligence reports that Iraq had signed a contract with Niger and that Niger may have already started delivery of uranium to Iraq. That was the intelligence report that Wilson was sent to investigate.
Again, misdirection. Nice try, useful idiot, but Bush's SOTU never said Iraq had a contract with Niger, so whether Joe's trip debunked it is irrelevant to his claim that the SOTU "was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat." What is relevant is that the CIA found that Joe's trip had supported the notion Iraq was seeking uranium in Niger, not debunked it as Joe claimed.
and Wilson uncovered no facts about that trip that supported the feelings of CIA analysts or the Prime Minster of Niger that Iraq wanted to buy uranium.
Well, again, that's irrelevant. Read what the CIA did. They created a report based on Wilson's trip that supported, not debunked, the notion Iraq was seeking uranium in Niger.
CIA disseminated an intelligence report in March 2002 based on its debriefing of Ambassador Wilson. 198 The report carried the caveat that the individuals from whom the Ambassador obtained the information were aware that their remarks could reach the U.S. government and "may have intended to influence as well as to inform." 199 According to this report, the former Prime Minister of Niger said that he was not aware of any contracts for uranium that had been signed between Niger and any rogue states. He noted that if there had been such an agreement, he would have been aware of it. 200 He said, however, that in June 1999 he met with an Iraqi delegation to discuss "expanding commercial relations" between Niger and Iraq, which the Prime Minister interpreted as meaning the delegation wanted to discuss yellowcake sales. The Prime Minister let the matter drop, however, because of the United Nations sanctions on Iraq. 201
Any more misleading chaff to throw up? Or are you going to admit Wilson lied?
Note that Wilson knew the debriefing was out there:
a C.I.A. report summing up my trip,
but apparently felt he could misrepresent the contents.
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.
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.
Which is clearly untrue, and Wilson should have known that. His information was not deemed inaccurate, it was used to substantiate the very line in the SOTU he objected to!
I suppose I should concede, in the interest of fairness, that it's possible Wilson was merely so incompetent that he did not understand the difference between "seeking uranium" and "a memorandum of agreement that documented the sale of uranium yellowcake," and did not realize his debriefing supported the SOTU. In that case, he's not a liar, but merely a fool who made extremely serious false charges against the POTUS, and thereby successfully cashed in on even more foolish antiwar lefties.
Instead of clearly explaining the facts, it seeks to state the facts in such away as to confuse the reader and provide cover for British Intelligence services.
Not true at all, it was quite critical:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butler_report
The review was published on 14 July 2004. Its main conclusion was that key intelligence used to justify the war with Iraq has been shown to be unreliable. It claims that the Secret Intelligence Service did not check its sources well enough and sometimes relied on third hand reports. It criticises the use of the 45 minute claim in the 2002 dossier as "unsubstantiated", and says that there was an over-reliance on Iraqi dissident sources. It also comments that warnings from the Joint Intelligence Committee on the limitations of the intelligence were not made clear. Overall it said that "more weight was placed on the intelligence than it could bear", and that judgements had stretched available intelligence "to the outer limits".
It says that information from another country's intelligence service on Iraqi production of chemical and biological weapons was "seriously flawed", without naming the country. It says that there was no recent intelligence to demonstrate that Iraq was a greater threat than other countries, and that the lack of any success in the UNMOVIC finding WMDs should have prompted a re-think. It states that Tony Blair's policy towards Iraq shifted because of the attacks of September 11, 2001, not because of Iraq's weapons programme, and that the government's language left the impression that there was "fuller and firmer intelligence" than was the case.
Except, of course, in the one area that American leftists really care about:
The report indicated that there was enough intelligence to make a “well-founded” judgment that Saddam Hussein was seeking, perhaps as late as 2002, to obtain uranium illegally from Niger and the Democratic Republic of Congo (6.4 para. 499). In particular, referring to a 1999 visit of Iraqi officials to Niger, the report states (6.4 para. 503): “The British government had intelligence from several different sources indicating that this visit was for the purpose of acquiring uranium. Since uranium constitutes almost three-quarters of Niger's exports, the intelligence was credible.”
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.
...
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.
Wilson was no intelligence expert. He was just a diplomat who was sent to Niger by his wife, and that was the basis of his op-ed, not some conclusion in a report.
The Republican controlled Senate Intelligence committee concluded that the CIA conclusions overstated what the intelligence community knew about Iraq’s attempts to acquire uranium:
Conclusion 16. The language in the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate that “Iraq also began vigorously trying to procure uranium ore and yellowcake” overstated what the Intelligence Community knew about Iraq’s possible procurement attempts.
Even the Republican controlled Senate Intelligence committee concluded that the NIE had twisted the intelligence to exaggerate the Iraqi attempts to procure uranium. Since the president said basically the same thing in the SOTU address, the only conclusion can be that was also an exaggeration of the available intelligence, which is what Joe Wilson said.
Again, misdirection. Nice try, useful idiot, but Bush's SOTU never said Iraq had a contract with Niger, so whether Joe's trip debunked it is irrelevant to his claim that the SOTU "was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat." What is relevant is that the CIA found that Joe's trip had supported the notion Iraq was seeking uranium in Niger, not debunked it as Joe claimed.
After the Niger contracts were shown to be forgeries, the so called “evidence” that Iraq was trying to acquire uranium from Niger basically amounted to suspicions. There was no hard evidence. The British claimed to have two pieces of intelligence. When the Niger contracts were shown to be forgeries, the British no longer believed one of those pieces of intelligence and in June 2003 the CIA concluded “since learning that the Iraq-Niger uranium deal was based on false documents earlier this spring, we no longer believe that there is sufficient other reporting to conclude that Iraq pursued uranium from abroad.”
While the president did not say that Iraq and Niger had signed a contract, the forged contract was a major part of the supporting evidence for his claim. The British stuck by the claim, even though they only had a single piece of intelligence left. The CIA concluded there was no longer enough other evidence to support this claim.
Well, again, that's irrelevant. Read what the CIA did. They created a report based on Wilson's trip that supported, not debunked, the notion Iraq was seeking uranium in Niger.
….
Which is clearly untrue, and Wilson should have known that. His information was not deemed inaccurate, it was used to substantiate the very line in the SOTU he objected to!
The CIA analysts you are referring to took the mere suspicions of the Niger Prime Minster and twisted them into evidence to support their suspicions. That is not intelligence analysis, and even the Republican controlled Senate Intelligence committee concluded that analysis overstated what the intelligence community knew. See above the quote from their report.
If Joe Wilson’s report substantiated the line in the SOTU, then why did the CIA in June 2003 issue a report saying: “since learning that the Iraq-Niger uranium deal was based on false documents earlier this spring, we no longer believe that there is sufficient other reporting to conclude that Iraq pursued uranium from abroad?” Clearly Joe Wilson’s report didn’t really make much of a case without the Iraq-Niger uranium deal documents.
By the way, while writing the above post, a magnitude 5.6 earthquake rattled the bay area. No damage at my house and I suspect only minor near the epicenter.
Typically, it means a fault line slipped, causing tremors which emanate outwards, felt on the surface as violent shaking.
Glad you're okay, though.
10.31.2007 12:40am
Commenting on Dean's World is a privilege, not a right. Dean is your host, you are his guest, and you should behave in that fashion. Dean is not your babysitter, nor is he your punching bag. Please remember this. In general, you are free to disagree with anyone on any subject you wish, but abusive behavior will not be tolerated.
Of course we all lose our tempers now and then. Dean freely admits to being imperfect in this regard, which is why regulars to this establishment will generally be cut more slack than people who we don't know very well.
Still: behave like an adult, or go find somewhere else to play. Thanks.
I can never think of Plame without that image coming to mind.
can't help but notice you ignored the rest of the story where they talk about the damage done by plame's outing.
Good point! Plame has a lot to answer for. Clearly it was terribly irresponsible for her to create conditions in which it was almost a certainty her identity would come to light.
I guess we're starting too far apart here. Regardless of whether you think her outing was illegal (I do not), how was it that it didn't occur?
Dave,
Blaming the victim? I don't get it, how was it a certainty that her identity would come to light?
This is the first tip off that this post exists in a fact free alternate reality.
What victim? The only person worse off after all this is Scooter Libby. Valerie's a millionaire, Joe has a best-seller, and both are prime candidates for senior positions in a Dem admin.
how was it a certainty that her identity would come to light?
Husband writing op-eds in the nation's largest newspaper based on a mission she sent him on? Meeting with Nick Kristof? It's hard to see what more she could have done to expose herself if she was deliberately trying. I guess she could have stripped naked and run across Washington shouting "I'M A SPY!! I'M A SPY!!"
Apparently you have no idea what you're talking about.
It's sad how delusional leftists are about this issue. They have no interest in the truth here.
So: what Wilson actually told the CIA, contrary to his own oft-repeated claims, is that he was told by the former mining minister of Niger that in 1998, Iraq had tried to buy 400 tons of uranium from that country, and that Iraq's overture was renewed the following year. What Wilson reported to the CIA was exactly the same as what President Bush said in his 2003 State of the Union address: there was evidence that Iraq had tried to buy uranium in Africa.
Recall Wilson's famous op-ed in the New York Times, published on July 6, 2003, which ignited the whole firestorm over the famous "sixteen words" in Bush's State of the Union speech. In that op-ed, Wilson identified himself as the formerly-unnamed person who had gone to Niger to investigate rumors of a possible uranium deal between Iraq and Niger. Here are the key words in Wilson's article:
[I]n January, President Bush, citing the British dossier, repeated the charges about Iraqi efforts to buy uranium from Africa. The next day, I reminded a friend at the State Department of my trip and suggested that if the president had been referring to Niger, then his conclusion was not borne out by the facts as I understood them.
It was this flat-out lie about what Wilson learned in Niger, and what he reported to the CIA upon his return, that fueled the "sixteen words" controversy and led to the publication of Wilson's best-selling account, titled, ironically, The Politics of Truth.
at the time it wasn't known that Wilson was sent by Plame, only that he was sent to Niger. It's not an unreasonable expectation for Plame to assume that no one would expose her ties to the CIA simply because her husband was contracted by the CIA to go to Niger.
It's extremely unreasonable for her to think anonymity is going to survive a NYT op-ed about a mission she sent him on, and a further interview with Kick Kristof about same.
The Wilsons were publicity-seeking wannabe celebrities, and her being outed was the best thing that ever happened to them. It let them play the victim for a crowd of gullible leftists who have never cared about the truth, and get rich and famous as the alleged victims of a wholly imaginary Bush admin campaign of revenge.
Anyone who took the slightest glance at Plame would have known she was CIA. Her front company had a nonexistent address, and she drove to Langley in plain view of the whole world.
The minute Joe Wilson made himself a figure of national interest while at the same connecting himself to the CIA, Valerie's cover was dead.
Well, first, as Dave points out, her cover was so flimsy as to be nonexistent. Sources have reported that many people in DC social circles knew she was CIA. If people in DC social circles knew it, then people in foreign intelligence knew it, including people in hostile foreign intelligence.
And second, by "outing", Ms. Plame invariably means "her identity maliciously revealed by the Administration as payback for what her husband wrote". That never happened. And to leave Mr. Armitage out of the discussion is to deliberately leave the false impression that she was targetted when she was not.
Did anyone anywhere ever think that someone else would want to investigate his claims, and that the investigation would reveal his CIA employed wife?
Please. Get real. That editorial wouldn't go anywhere? Why write it if it would be forgotten in the next ten minutes after writing it? Joe Wilson wanted people to look into the Bush administration's claims as he called them on it. And doing that involves looking into his mission, and that leads inevitably back to the missus.
Puh-lease. If an above-board reporter can find this out, then anyone who wants to dig slightly can.
If they wanted to keep this secret than Paris Hilton is still a virgin.
This thread exists in an alternate reality totally disconnected from real world.
In reality, the Italian intelligence forwarded reports that Niger had signed a contract with Iraq to deliver 400 tons of uranium. The US ambassador to Niger and the CIA said this was not possible. Joe Wilson was sent to investigate. Everyone in Niger told Joe Wilson it was impossible for Niger to sell uranium to Iraq, and that is what he reported. He also reported that an Iraqi diplomat did go to Niger to invite them to a trade show in Baghdad that Iraq was organizing to try to break UN trade sanctions. The Niger officials were suspicious of Iraqi intentions, but the Iraqi diplomat never mentioned uranium.
Some time later an informant in Italy delivered a contract for the 400 tons of uranium to the US embassy. This contract turned out to be an obvious forgery. If there is a real contract that the original Italian intelligence reports were based upon, no one has ever come forward with them.
After the invasion of Iraq, absolutely no evidence was found to support the Niger uranium story. Iraq was making no effort to restart their nuclear program and they already had around 400 tons of uranium under IAEA seal before the invasion. They had absolutely no need for additional uranium. There was no documentation found of any effort to buy uranium. The diplomats who visited Niger denied that it had anything to do with uranium.
In short there is absolutely no evidence to support the claim that Iraq was trying to buy uranium from Niger in the late 1990’s.
Undeterred by this reality, the useful idiots continue to claim that the famous 16 words were absolutely true because the President was just quoting a mistaken British report and that Joe Wilson is a liar for suggesting that the US CIA had investigated these claims and found them to be untrue. The fact that CIA director George Tenet apologized and admitted it was a CIA mistake to allow the 16 words into the Presidents SOTU address is unimportant to the useful idiots. The fact that Iraq was not trying to buy uranium from Niger is not important to the useful idiots.
The more you repeat these bogus claims, the more obvious your partisan disconnection from reality becomes. No one takes anything seriously from someone so consumed with partisan delusions as to still be repeating this nonsense.
Irony, thy name is mikeca.
That’s all you can say?
Come on. The CIA director publicly apologized for allowing the president to use those 16 words in the SOTU address. He did that because the words were not true and Joe Wilson was correct. The CIA knew they were not true, but allowed the president to include them in the SOTU address provided they were sourced to a British report that the CIA knew to be false.
After all these years there is still absolutely no evidence that Iraq every tried to buy uranium from Niger in the 1990s. None.
And your point is what John?
You have no point. Partisan ideology and name calling substitute for facts.
Joe Wilson was sent to investigate. Everyone in Niger told Joe Wilson it was impossible for Niger to sell uranium to Iraq, and that is what he reported.
That's the left-wing narrative, but it misses the point -- Bush never said Iraq obtained uranium in Niger, or could. He said Iraq was trying to obtain uranium -- and CIA analysts said Wilson's trip corroborated that evidence.
Come on. The CIA director publicly apologized for allowing the president to use those 16 words in the SOTU address. He did that because the words were not true and Joe Wilson was correct.
Wrong! It was true, and still is. They said it was insufficiently sourced, after the media made it an issue, another regrettable olive branch to a bunch of raving lunatics who turned it into a rhetorical spear to attack Bush with. This is the same White House that actually reprinted and distributed those fake Rather memos, which once again had crazy lefties saying "Aha! It must be true!"
I swear, it is unbelieveable how delusional the left has become on this. It's disgusting that there are people out there claiming Wilson was some kind of noble whistleblower.
That is precisely the point. There is absolutely no evidence that Iraq was trying to obtain uranium from Niger in the 1990s. The British report that they were was wrong. The US CIA knew that the British report was wrong or at least that there was no evidence to back it up. Today we know for certain that these reports were just wrong. Iraq was not making any effort to restart its nuclear weapons program. There are no documents and no Iraqis that have provided any support for this claim.
The partisan argument that has been put forward is that this statement was technically true because it was sourced to the British and the British intelligence at the time had not investigated the claim and had not realized that it was false yet. This claim was made by the President of the United States, not by the Prime Minister of England. The US CIA knew this claim was false at the time. That is why George Tenet apologized for letting the president say it.
Iraq was not trying to buy uranium from Niger or any other country in the 1990s. Grow up and get over it.
Joe Wilson CHOSE to engage in conduct (the op-ed) which had a foreseeable consequence of "outing" his wife. His wife chose her part in that conduct.
The whole thing is looking typical of her performance at the CIA. She's too clever by half.
Yes there is! That's exactly the sort of dishonest spew that proves leftists have zero interest in the truth.
Regardless of what Robb-Silbermann found years later (and they faulted CIA sloppiness, NOT Bush admin dishonesty), the fact was at the time Wilson's report bolstered the view that Iraq was seeking uranium. Joe Wilson lied.
Again:
So: what Wilson actually told the CIA, contrary to his own oft-repeated claims, is that he was told by the former mining minister of Niger that in 1998, Iraq had tried to buy 400 tons of uranium from that country, and that Iraq's overture was renewed the following year. What Wilson reported to the CIA was exactly the same as what President Bush said in his 2003 State of the Union address: there was evidence that Iraq had tried to buy uranium in Africa.
The US CIA knew this claim was false at the time. That is why George Tenet apologized for letting the president say it.
The CIA did not know that, and still doesn't (the Brits later investigated and upheld Bush's statement AGAIN). What they knew was that the docs were forgeries. There was conflicting evidence regarding the issue as a whole. To state otherwise is dishonest -- grow up and admit the truth.
It's absolutely disgusting how leftists have spun this national security issue in order to validate their paranoid fantasies about Bush. They don't care about whether Iraq was actually seeking uranium in Niger, or what Joe Wilson actually found in that regard. They only care about making cleverly misleading arguments that attack Bush and create confusion.
This is why it is impossible for me to support Democrats on national security -- while the GOP tries to find out what actually happened and bends over backwards apologizing for things they don't even need to, the Dems just attack and obfuscate.
Subsequently, Vice President Cheney requested follow-up information from CIA on this alleged deal. 196 CIA decided to contact the former U.S. ambassador to Gabon, Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who had been posted to Niger early in his career and maintained contacts there, to see if he would be amenable to traveling to Niger. Ambassador Wilson agreed to do so and, armed with CIA talking points, traveled to Niger in late February 2002 and met with former Nigerien officials. 197
Following the trip, CIA disseminated an intelligence report in March 2002 based on its debriefing of Ambassador Wilson. 198 The report carried the caveat that the individuals from whom the Ambassador obtained the information were aware that their remarks could reach the U.S. government and "may have intended to influence as well as to inform." 199 According to this report, the former Prime Minister of Niger said that he was not aware of any contracts for uranium that had been signed between Niger and any rogue states. He noted that if there had been such an agreement, he would have been aware of it. 200 He said, however, that in June 1999 he met with an Iraqi delegation to discuss "expanding commercial relations" between Niger and Iraq, which the Prime Minister interpreted as meaning the delegation wanted to discuss yellowcake sales. The Prime Minister let the matter drop, however, because of the United Nations sanctions on Iraq. 201
In other words... Iraq WAS SEEKING URANIUM IN AFRICA!!!! And Wilson's trip supported that conclusion!
At the time of the State of the Union speech, CIA analysts continued to believe that Iraq probably was seeking uranium from Africa, although there was growing concern among some CIA analysts that there were problems with the reporting.
Grow up, indeed.
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.
...
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.
In other words, "Bush lied!!" Just what lefties wanted to hear. It was Joe's ticket to glory, fame, a bestselling book, the TV talk show circuit, and promises of a senior position in the Kerry admin.
Of course, to buy that ticket, he had to lie about his trip and sell out his wife's career by disclosing a classified CIA mission he had been sent on by her, creating conditions that virtually ensured her role would come out. But he made that work for him, too, once again alleging a sinister conspiracy that simply did not exist.
And again, this is another example of how misleading leftists have been. The ISG found no such evidence in Iraq. This has absolutely nothing to do with Joe Wilson's trip and bringing it up in this context is mendacity at its worst.
http://www.factcheck.org/bushs_16_words_on_iraq_uranium.html
Two intelligence investigations show Bush had plenty of reason to believe what he said in his 2003 State of the Union Address.
Bush said then, “The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa .” Some of his critics called that a lie, but the new evidence shows Bush had reason to say what he did.
A British intelligence review released July 14 calls Bush’s 16 words “well founded.”
A separate report by the US Senate Intelligence Committee said July 7 that the US also had similar information from “a number of intelligence reports,” a fact that was classified at the time Bush spoke.
Ironically, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who later called Bush’s 16 words a “lie”, supplied information that the Central Intelligence Agency took as confirmation that Iraq may indeed have been seeking uranium from Niger.
Both the US and British investigations make clear that some forged Italian documents, exposed as fakes soon after Bush spoke, were not the basis for the British intelligence Bush cited, or the CIA's conclusion that Iraq was trying to get uranium.
How do you explain this.
Other than being a lair like your hero Joe Wilson.
It's all I needed to say. You assume too much in my motivations, accuse me of being partisan, when there is no party with my loyalty, as none of them match my views more than maybe 50% (being something of a part libertarian, some part Jeffersonian, some part liberal, and some part conservative). You've provided solid evidence in the past that you only see what you wish, not what exists, and Dave and Paul said everything I would have needed to say.
I don't think you are partisan in the slightest, from my observation you hug the edges of the extremes of the Democrats and identify yourself as separate from them, while maintaining a caricaturish subjective view of anyone centerward of that position. I do consider you to be willfully self-delusional in order to justify your positions, as I have yet see you take a stance anywhere within 179 degrees of objective reality. So the identification of your quote as ironic coming from you is accurate barring the word "partisan."
U.S. Intelligence Community’s Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq
Page 54:
Page 56-7:
Page 71:
Page 75:
Probably a lot of your information is based on the Additional Views of Chairman Pat Roberts joined by Senator Christopher S. Bond, Senator Orrin G. Hatch. This appendix is only signed by three Republican members of the committee and is basically a partisan campaign document for the 2004 election.
More irrelevant, mendacious obfuscation.
p54 and 56-7 are both irrelevant to Joe Wilson's trip, which CIA analysts said corroborated concerns Iraq was seeking uranium in Niger. We know there was dissent on the point of whether Iraq was seeking uranium; no one disputes that. There was some evidence pointing in diferent directions, and the NIE authors chose to go with the worst-case scenario.
The significant portion of p71 is nearly five months after the President delivered the State of the Union address, Again, that has nothing to do with Joe Wilson's trip or accusation that Bush manipulated the intel.
p75 again has nothing to do with Bush's preparation of the SOTU or Wilson's trip. Bush had to work with the NIE he had, not the NIE he might have wanted or had at a later date.
Again, you ignore the relevant facts and bring up irrelevant ones.
The famous “16 words” in President Bush’s Jan. 28, 2003 State of the Union address turn out to have a basis in fact after all, according to two recently released investigations in the US and Britain.
Bush said then, “The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa .” Some of his critics called that a lie, but the new evidence shows Bush had reason to say what he did.
A British intelligence review released July 14 calls Bush’s 16 words “well founded.”
A separate report by the US Senate Intelligence Committee said July 7 that the US also had similar information from “a number of intelligence reports,” a fact that was classified at the time Bush spoke.
Ironically, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who later called Bush’s 16 words a “lie”, supplied information that the Central Intelligence Agency took as confirmation that Iraq may indeed have been seeking uranium from Niger.
The Butler report said British intelligence had "credible" information -- from several sources -- that a 1999 visit by Iraqi officials to Niger was for the purpose of buying uranium:
Butler Report: It is accepted by all parties that Iraqi officials visited Niger in 1999. The British Government had intelligence from several different sources indicating that this visit was for the purpose of acquiring uranium. Since uranium constitutes almost three-quarters of Niger’s exports, the intelligence was credible.
The Butler Report affirmed what the British government had said about the Niger uranium story back in 2003, and specifically endorsed what Bush said as well.
Butler Report: By extension, we conclude also that the statement in President Bush’s State of the Union Address of 28 January 2003 that “The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa” was well-founded.
In June 2003 when Joe Wilson talked to the Washington Post it was public information that the Niger documents were forgeries and that "the dates were wrong and the names were wrong." The UN had examined the documents in March 2003 and announced that they were forgeries. What we know is that the story the Washington Post published was inaccurate in claiming that Joe Wilson had shown the documents were forgeries. At the time Joe Wilson talked to the Washington Post reporters both he and the reporter knew the documents were forgeries. It is easy to see how the reporter may have misunderstood what Joe Wilson said or how Joe Wilson might have misspoken.
What is true is that the documents were forgeries. The dates and names on the documents were wrong. There is no evidence that Iraq ever tried to buy uranium from Niger or any other African country after 1991. The British were wrong in their report. The president was wrong when he quoted their report. Joe Wilson’s NYT op-ed was true. He had gone to Niger. He had found no evidence that Niger was selling uranium to Iraq. In October 2007 no one has yet found any evidence that Iraq was trying to buy uranium from Niger since 1991.
The facts are so damning that no one can dispute them. Instead of disputing the facts, they run around and try to smear Joe Wilson and label him a liar based on trumped up claims like this Washington Post story.
The Butler report is a triumph of bureaucratic obfuscation. Instead of clearly explaining the facts, it seeks to state the facts in such away as to confuse the reader and provide cover for British Intelligence services.
What the Butler report says is the British had some intelligence in 2002 that lead them to believe Iraq might be trying to buy uranium from Niger. Some of that intelligence was based on the forged documents and at least one piece of intelligence was not based on the forged documents. Therefore the British had at least one piece of non-forged intelligence in 2002 about this. Therefore there was a basis for their claim that Iraq was seeking uranium from Niger and for Bush to reference this claim in the SOTU address in January 2003.
What they leave out is
1) The British had made no effort to verify or investigate the intelligence they had. The US had the same intelligence the British had and had made an effort to investigate or verify it.
2) The Deputy Director of the CIA had told Congress on Oct 2, 2002 that the British intelligence on Iraq seeking uranium from Africa was not “very credible”.
3) The CIA had faxed the White House on Oct 4, 2002 indicating that the evidence was weak on Iraq seeking uranium from Africa and made no sense. If Iraq was restarting its nuclear program, it did not need any more uranium. Iraq already had enough uranium.
4) We now know that whatever piece of intelligence the British had was wrong.
So given the limited information that the British had, they viewed their intelligence as credible. The US CIA with more information believed this intelligence was not very credible, although clearly some analyst in the intelligence community continued to take these claims seriously.
We now know that the claims were incorrect. Iraq was not restarting its nuclear program and had made no attempt to obtain uranium from Niger or anyplace else after 1991.
Then perhaps Joe Wilson should have requested a correction to this article.
Or are you saying Joe Wilson did not read/review the article he anonymously contributed to?
Wowie Zahawie
What a load of utter crap. You're ignoring the facts.
Lie:
1. A false statement deliberately presented as being true; a falsehood.
2. Something meant to deceive or give a wrong impression.
Now by your logic:
Not a liar: The person who incorrectly stated that Iraq was seeking to buy uranium from Africa.
Liar: The person who correctly stated that we should have known the intelligence was wrong.
And you think I have a problem being able to reason logically?
You are so blinded by the partisan smokescreen of misinformation on this issue that you don’t know what logic is anymore.
You can never have too much, especially when everyone knows about what you already have, and its under IAEA seal. If they could have obtained it clandestinely, they could used it in a clandestine program.
But this is the indisputable fact that liars and fools continue to ignore, because it destroys Wilson's credibility and the whole myth you've tried to build around him:
Ironically, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who later called Bush’s 16 words a “lie”, supplied information that the Central Intelligence Agency took as confirmation that Iraq may indeed have been seeking uranium from Niger.
Yes! All you've done is raise a smokescreen of unrelated bullshit, most of from years after the fact, to pretend Wilson wasn't lying when he claimed his trip proved Iraq wasn't seeking uranium in Niger.
You have to, because the facts prove you wrong.
Nice alternate reality you have there. What was Zahawie doing in Niger then?
According to this report, the former Prime Minister of Niger said that he was not aware of any contracts for uranium that had been signed between Niger and any rogue states. He noted that if there had been such an agreement, he would have been aware of it. 200 He said, however, that in June 1999 he met with an Iraqi delegation to discuss "expanding commercial relations" between Niger and Iraq, which the Prime Minister interpreted as meaning the delegation wanted to discuss yellowcake sales.
Perhaps you missed this from above, so I will bold it for you:
From the report of the Robb – Silberman Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction
There is no evidence that Zahawie's visit had anything to do with uranium. Christopher Hitchens is simply repeating a conspiracy theory which was long ago been proven false.
And you wonder where the term "useful idiots" comes from.
I bet you believed that, too..
Wilson is a liar, and only the delusional left could believe otherwise.
Ah, so the Iraq Survey Group and the Robb – Silberman commission were just a bunch of useful idiots for believing this, but you and Christopher Hitchens are so much more knowledgeable on this that you know Zahawie was really after uranium.
And you guys also know more than the CIA does:
Report of the Select Committee on Intelligence on the U.S. Intelligence Community’s Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq, page 71:
Now exactly who is the "useful idiot" here.
You're the same kind of idiot that would have found Duranty's reporting Pulitzer-worthy.
And you still can't get around the fact Wilson's trip bolstered the uranium claim, and did not debunk it as he claimed.
Did you read the first sentence of that quote from the Robb – Silberman report:
There were no documents found. They found no witnesses. Now you may choose to believe Christopher Hitchens’s conspiracy theories about Zahawie, but that is all they are. Just conspiracy theories with absolutely no evidence to back them up.
If you want to continue to pretend that you and Christopher Hitchens know more about Zahawie than the Iraq Survey Group, the Robb – Silberman commission or the CIA, then you are free to do so, but the fact remains that in the real world there is still no evidence that Iraq sought uranium from Africa after 1991.
Wilson’s report debunked the intelligence reports that Iraq had signed a contract with Niger and that Niger may have already started delivery of uranium to Iraq. That was the intelligence report that Wilson was sent to investigate.
The fact that some analysts at the CIA read his report as bolstering the idea that Iraq was interested in buying uranium from Niger is I think a symptom of what the problem with the pre-war WMD intelligence was at the CIA. The CIA already knew about Zahawie trip. The only new information that Wilson got about this was that the Prime Minister of Niger was suspicious about this trip too, but suspicions are not facts. Suspicions are just feelings, and Wilson uncovered no facts about that trip that supported the feelings of CIA analysts or the Prime Minster of Niger that Iraq wanted to buy uranium.
Wilson correctly stated that we should have known the intelligence was wrong. Even the Republican controlled Senate Intelligence committee concluded that the CIA had done a bad job of analysis:
Report of the Select Committee on Intelligence on the U.S. Intelligence Community’s Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq, page 75:
The CIA and the White House should have known the intelligence was very weak. That is what Wilson said in his OpEd.
Yes, and it only says Zawahie didn't admit to seeking uranium, which was the whole point of interviewing him. If Zawahie had admitted he was looking for uranium, that would have been evidence. Since he did NOT admit it, his statement was NOT evidence. They said nothing about believing him. Again, did you find Zawahie a credible witness?
That is what Wilson said in his OpEd.
No, what Wilson said was:
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.
...
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.
Wilson was no intelligence expert. He was just a diplomat who was sent to Niger by his wife, and that was the basis of his op-ed, not some conclusion in a report.
Wilson’s report debunked the intelligence reports that Iraq had signed a contract with Niger and that Niger may have already started delivery of uranium to Iraq. That was the intelligence report that Wilson was sent to investigate.
Again, misdirection. Nice try, useful idiot, but Bush's SOTU never said Iraq had a contract with Niger, so whether Joe's trip debunked it is irrelevant to his claim that the SOTU "was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat." What is relevant is that the CIA found that Joe's trip had supported the notion Iraq was seeking uranium in Niger, not debunked it as Joe claimed.
and Wilson uncovered no facts about that trip that supported the feelings of CIA analysts or the Prime Minster of Niger that Iraq wanted to buy uranium.
Well, again, that's irrelevant. Read what the CIA did. They created a report based on Wilson's trip that supported, not debunked, the notion Iraq was seeking uranium in Niger.
CIA disseminated an intelligence report in March 2002 based on its debriefing of Ambassador Wilson. 198 The report carried the caveat that the individuals from whom the Ambassador obtained the information were aware that their remarks could reach the U.S. government and "may have intended to influence as well as to inform." 199 According to this report, the former Prime Minister of Niger said that he was not aware of any contracts for uranium that had been signed between Niger and any rogue states. He noted that if there had been such an agreement, he would have been aware of it. 200 He said, however, that in June 1999 he met with an Iraqi delegation to discuss "expanding commercial relations" between Niger and Iraq, which the Prime Minister interpreted as meaning the delegation wanted to discuss yellowcake sales. The Prime Minister let the matter drop, however, because of the United Nations sanctions on Iraq. 201
Any more misleading chaff to throw up? Or are you going to admit Wilson lied?
a C.I.A. report summing up my trip,
but apparently felt he could misrepresent the contents.
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.
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.
Which is clearly untrue, and Wilson should have known that. His information was not deemed inaccurate, it was used to substantiate the very line in the SOTU he objected to!
I suppose I should concede, in the interest of fairness, that it's possible Wilson was merely so incompetent that he did not understand the difference between "seeking uranium" and "a memorandum of agreement that documented the sale of uranium yellowcake," and did not realize his debriefing supported the SOTU. In that case, he's not a liar, but merely a fool who made extremely serious false charges against the POTUS, and thereby successfully cashed in on even more foolish antiwar lefties.
Not true at all, it was quite critical:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Butler_report
The review was published on 14 July 2004. Its main conclusion was that key intelligence used to justify the war with Iraq has been shown to be unreliable. It claims that the Secret Intelligence Service did not check its sources well enough and sometimes relied on third hand reports. It criticises the use of the 45 minute claim in the 2002 dossier as "unsubstantiated", and says that there was an over-reliance on Iraqi dissident sources. It also comments that warnings from the Joint Intelligence Committee on the limitations of the intelligence were not made clear. Overall it said that "more weight was placed on the intelligence than it could bear", and that judgements had stretched available intelligence "to the outer limits".
It says that information from another country's intelligence service on Iraqi production of chemical and biological weapons was "seriously flawed", without naming the country. It says that there was no recent intelligence to demonstrate that Iraq was a greater threat than other countries, and that the lack of any success in the UNMOVIC finding WMDs should have prompted a re-think. It states that Tony Blair's policy towards Iraq shifted because of the attacks of September 11, 2001, not because of Iraq's weapons programme, and that the government's language left the impression that there was "fuller and firmer intelligence" than was the case.
Except, of course, in the one area that American leftists really care about:
The report indicated that there was enough intelligence to make a “well-founded” judgment that Saddam Hussein was seeking, perhaps as late as 2002, to obtain uranium illegally from Niger and the Democratic Republic of Congo (6.4 para. 499). In particular, referring to a 1999 visit of Iraqi officials to Niger, the report states (6.4 para. 503): “The British government had intelligence from several different sources indicating that this visit was for the purpose of acquiring uranium. Since uranium constitutes almost three-quarters of Niger's exports, the intelligence was credible.”
The Republican controlled Senate Intelligence committee concluded that the CIA conclusions overstated what the intelligence community knew about Iraq’s attempts to acquire uranium:
Even the Republican controlled Senate Intelligence committee concluded that the NIE had twisted the intelligence to exaggerate the Iraqi attempts to procure uranium. Since the president said basically the same thing in the SOTU address, the only conclusion can be that was also an exaggeration of the available intelligence, which is what Joe Wilson said.
After the Niger contracts were shown to be forgeries, the so called “evidence” that Iraq was trying to acquire uranium from Niger basically amounted to suspicions. There was no hard evidence. The British claimed to have two pieces of intelligence. When the Niger contracts were shown to be forgeries, the British no longer believed one of those pieces of intelligence and in June 2003 the CIA concluded “since learning that the Iraq-Niger uranium deal was based on false documents earlier this spring, we no longer believe that there is sufficient other reporting to conclude that Iraq pursued uranium from abroad.”
While the president did not say that Iraq and Niger had signed a contract, the forged contract was a major part of the supporting evidence for his claim. The British stuck by the claim, even though they only had a single piece of intelligence left. The CIA concluded there was no longer enough other evidence to support this claim.
The CIA analysts you are referring to took the mere suspicions of the Niger Prime Minster and twisted them into evidence to support their suspicions. That is not intelligence analysis, and even the Republican controlled Senate Intelligence committee concluded that analysis overstated what the intelligence community knew. See above the quote from their report.
If Joe Wilson’s report substantiated the line in the SOTU, then why did the CIA in June 2003 issue a report saying: “since learning that the Iraq-Niger uranium deal was based on false documents earlier this spring, we no longer believe that there is sufficient other reporting to conclude that Iraq pursued uranium from abroad?” Clearly Joe Wilson’s report didn’t really make much of a case without the Iraq-Niger uranium deal documents.
Not sure what, if anything, this means.
Typically, it means a fault line slipped, causing tremors which emanate outwards, felt on the surface as violent shaking.
Glad you're okay, though.
Of course we all lose our tempers now and then. Dean freely admits to being imperfect in this regard, which is why regulars to this establishment will generally be cut more slack than people who we don't know very well.
Still: behave like an adult, or go find somewhere else to play. Thanks.