Why did it take the Trib two years to write this:
Last week, special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald filed a brief that says Libby also leaked secret information from a CIA report on Iraq. According to this account, Libby says the vice president instructed him to tell a reporter that a key finding of a 2002 intelligence assessment was that Iraq was “vigorously trying to procure” uranium from Africa. The brief also says Libby was told by Cheney that President Bush had personally authorized the disclosure of this classified material.
The White House has not denied that allegation. In fact, it turns out that the president had ordered the intelligence estimate to be declassified. But whether the facts support what Libby reportedly says–or what Cheney purportedly told him–is yet to be established. A senior administration official told The New York Times that though Bush declassified the report, he did not tell anyone to discuss it with journalists.
So someone is lying. It could be that Libby acted on his own in leaking the information. It could be that Cheney told him to do so without the president’s approval. Or it could be that Bush was behind the leak. Those are questions that the Cheney ought to step forward and answer, along with questions about the unmasking of Plame.
One of the Appeals Court Judges pointed out this plot in his opinion in 2004. Some are applauding the Trib’s editorial today, but in Bob Dole vernacular, where was the outrage during the election?
True, the high comedy of the piece in suggesting Dick Cheney submit himself to the press corps does indicate some cheekiness, but why is Lawrence O’Donnel the guy who keeps getting these stories right while the regular press minus Murray Waas keeps taking the hand fed crap from this administration? Perhaps I’m biting the Editorial Boards’ hands as it finally gets it right, but the utter lack of pressure on this administration to come clean on these issues is astounding.
Even the left-leaning Washington Post realizes Joe Wilson is a liar. This is from an editorial Sunday:
The material that Mr. Bush ordered declassified established, as have several subsequent investigations, that Mr. Wilson was the one guilty of twisting the truth. In fact, his report supported the conclusion that Iraq had sought uranium.
So stop bashing the administration for defending itself against liars.
The entire argument that Wilson was lying is a bit bizarre given his report had the same results as an Army Colonel and the Ambassador to Niger–all of whom said it was possible that Iraq was interested in getting nuclear materials, but that it would be obvious if they had and there was no evidence that they had. And there was no credible evidence of a significant effort.
And Wilson was right as we now know, so how is he a liar? I’m baffled by this claim. It seems to have started with the strawman that he claimed Cheney sent him–which, of course, Wilson never claimed. What is it he lied about? His report was remarkable on in that it fit the consensus that the Niger forgeries (remember we know the documents are now forgeries) were not accurate–IOW, he agreed with everyone else, he just had the temerity to tell the world the truth about it.
His report said it was possible that Iraq might have been seeking uranium, but that is far different than some sort of serious effort which he said would be impossible as did the others who examined the claim.
Even more bizarre, the story was even further discredited when Libby went to leak it.
At best, the Administration was lying, at worst it was lying and breaking the law
What promises to be even more fascinating is the role of Italian intelligence in forging the documents in the first place.
What people are forgetting here is that the media went nuclear when Joe Wilson emerged. I was in Washington at the time and it was pages and pages of coverage every day. Uncritical coverage. Then the bi-partisan congressional committee showed that Wilson wasn’t telling the truth. The Washington Post, to its credit, made sure it corrected the record. Most other media outlets pretend that chapter never happened and they continue to resurrect Joe Wilson. The Bush administration — any administration — has the right to correct the record when a critic lies about it. I don’t know what you are talking about when you say the press has been uncritical of the Bush administration. The press has been bashing him endlessly since 2003.
Dan, how can you possibly think that WaPo is “left-leaning”? They’re still making up as many excuses as the right-wing ChiTrib for why they supported the conservatives’ war based on lies.
What part of Wilson’s story do you think was a lie? The part about Bush’s lies? Go figure.
Time to take your overly partisan rose-colored glasses off Dan. Reality is catching up to your Fantasyworld.
A little more for Dan who can’t seem to drop those crusty scales from his eyes.
The media went “nuclear” when Joe Wilson emerged? What planet are you from? The media went nuclear when Clinton got some oral pleasure from an intern. The Wilson thing was barely a blip compared to that.
Bush still got his war. And the media was truly uncritical in the lead-up to war.
Intelligence might be faulty? Who cares, conservatives want a war.
Neo-conservatives have been planning to invade Iraq since the late 90s? So what, the conservatives want a war.
Lies, distortions and hyperbole? Doesn’t matter, the conservatives want a war.
No planning for the post-invasion mop-up? The media just didn’t care, the conservatives wanted a war.
Dan, you’re just plain acting stupid. Honestly, are you that partisan that you can’t admit the media help Bush with his propaganda in the lead-up to war?
America has grown tired of your conservative BS.
If you don’t think the WaPost is left-leaning, you are living in Kos-land. What Joe Wilson told the CIA after his cocktail-sipping trip to Niger set up by his wife was quite different than what he wrote in the NYTimes. A bi-partisan congressional committee unanimously said he wasn’t telling the truth. It’s in the public record if you look beyond NY Times propaganda. The media didn’t report more aggressively pre-war because all the Democrats were for it and the intelligence said there was a threat. If some terrorist got some nuke material from Iraq and blew up Pittsburgh do you think the Left Wing would be kind to Bush for ignoring the obvious threat pointed out in the intelligence reports? And believe me, if GWBush was messing around with an intern and got caught, the coverage would make Lewinksy look like a minor news story.
===If you don’t think the WaPost is left-leaning, you are living in Kos-land. What Joe Wilson told the CIA after his cocktail-sipping trip to Niger set up by his wife was quite different than what he wrote in the NYTimes. A bi-partisan congressional committee unanimously said he wasn’t telling the truth. It’s in the public record if you look beyond NY Times propaganda.
That’s not what was said–it was said that his suggestion that Iraqis might have come to discuss uranium fit with the CIA’s other intelligence, which we know not to be true—the only other evidence was the forgeries and at the time Wilson went, transcriptions of those forgeries. IOW, anything that Wilson was supposedly supporting–was based on forgeries.
in fact, the Ambassador to Niger conducted a similar report as did a military Colonel who both reported back that there was no serious effort made–with the possibility that Iraq may have made preliminary inquiries.
The Senate Intelligence Report glosses over that Wilson found what two other reports found as well.
http://a257.g.akamaitech.net/7/257/2422/13jul20041400/www.gpoaccess.gov/serialset/creports/pdf/s108-301/sec2.pdf
The stunning thing about the attack on Wilson is that he was right. There was no way to pull off such a transaction since one mine was flooded and the French controlled the other mine.
That the CIA had someone who thought Wilson’s report agreed with other research doesn’t mean Wilson agreed or argued that–he clearly didn’t–he, along with most professionals thought the report of Niger uranium sales was bogus. They were correct and the CIA attempted to get the President to not say it in his State of Union speech or the Ohio speech. He still did.
He made a case for war based on bullshit. Doesn’t that bother you?
In terms of the Washington Post, the editorial board has been backing this administration and it’s folly from day one. Of course, at day one, I agreed with the administration, unlike them I have figured out that when the administration isn’t lying they are incompetent and in many cases, both. The Post has kept Steno Sue employed during this whole process even after they were shown she was getting basic facts wrong such as confusing Iraq and Iran in reporting on the Senate report.
Having had friends who did research in Niger–it’s not a hot vacation spot–Wilson didn’t go for the joy of it, he did it to vet an important issue.
‘Steno Sue’ and the WaPo turned on Wilson because he lied to them. It’s that simple. As I pointed out earlier, it was the WaPo that gave Wilson the most ink originally.
It’s the rest of the press, since then, that consistently underplays the conclusion of the Senate Intelligence Report.
Here’s from the WaPo article:
The report turns a harsh spotlight on what Wilson has said about his role in gathering prewar intelligence, most pointedly by asserting that his wife, CIA employee Valerie Plame, recommended him…
The report also said Wilson provided misleading information to The Washington Post last June. He said then that he concluded the Niger intelligence was based on documents that had clearly been forged because “the dates were wrong and the names were wrong.”
“Committee staff asked how the former ambassador could have come to the conclusion that the ‘dates were wrong and the names were wrong’ when he had never seen the CIA reports and had no knowledge of what names and dates were in the reports,” the Senate panel said. Wilson told the panel he may have been confused and may have “misspoken” to reporters. The documents — purported sales agreements between Niger and Iraq — were not in U.S. hands until eight months after Wilson made his trip to Niger…
Wilson’s reports to the CIA added to the evidence that Iraq may have tried to buy uranium in Niger, although officials at the State Department remained highly skeptical, the report said.
Wilson said that a former prime minister of Niger, Ibrahim Assane Mayaki, was unaware of any sales contract with Iraq, but said that in June 1999 a businessman approached him, insisting that he meet with an Iraqi delegation to discuss “expanding commercial relations” between Niger and Iraq — which Mayaki interpreted to mean they wanted to discuss yellowcake sales. A report CIA officials drafted after debriefing Wilson said that “although the meeting took place, Mayaki let the matter drop due to UN sanctions on Iraq.”
And for the record, what Bush said in the speech was 100 percent accurate. British intelligence believed and still believes the effort was made to obtain uranium. That was one instance the Bush administration buckled to media pressure and corrected something that didn’t need to be corrected.
The Left continually and shamefully misrepresents what was said just a few years ago. For God’s sake the former editor of the Christian Science Monitor just said this morning:
SALT LAKE CITY – Among the allegations leveled at President Bush by his critics, probably the most serious is that he took the United States to war in Iraq on false pretenses. He told the American people that Saddam Hussein had a collection of dangerous weapons of mass destruction when Mr. Hussein did not.
In retrospect it is clear that the weapons did not exist, although they had in the past, and Hussein had used them against his enemies. But what is also clear from captured documents now coming to light is that Mr. Bush had every reason to believe they still existed at the time he launched the military campaign in Iraq. Not only did US and allied intelligence agencies assert that the weapons were there, but Hussein himself played a dangerous game of convincing enemies such as Iran, and even his own generals, that he had such weapons, while protesting to United Nations inspectors that he did not.
While Bush may have been badly misled by his own intelligence and other sources, he did not lie. He believed, and had good reason to believe, that the weapons existed.
So stop trying to find some random piece of information and distort it. Look back at the President’s own words. He said in a world after 9/11, we can no longer sit back and wait for gathering threats to blossom. Read the words. He WAS upfront with people.
===’Steno Sue’ and the WaPo turned on Wilson because he lied to them. It’s that simple. As I pointed out earlier, it was the WaPo that gave Wilson the most ink originally.
He didn’t lie–he told them that his conclusion was that there was no merit to a serious effort. The report doesn’t say his report helped verify the finding, the report states that people processing his information felt it supported the idea that there was an attempt despite the fact that the conversation Wilson reported back on specifically didn’t discuss uranium or trade at all. Trying to say that Wilson thought there was a serious attempt flies in the face of the text of the report even which acknowledges Wilson didn’t argue such a thing.
===The report turns a harsh spotlight on what Wilson has said about his role in gathering prewar intelligence, most pointedly by asserting that his wife, CIA employee Valerie Plame, recommended him…
This is one of the greater distortions by Steno Sue and the Post–the conclusion that Plame sent him was only made by three Senators–it was not a part of the report that was agreed to unanimously.
More to the point, Niger, having had friends spend some time there, isn’t a place you go for a luxury vacation.
Regardless of whether he got the time wrong on the documents when talking to the Washington Post—the initial reports seem to have been created by those documents with the British getting the forgeries—his statement that the dates were wrong is correct–and in fact, is why he spoke to a former official—he would have been in power when the supposed deal was to take place.
The big crime everyone has tried to make of his statement regarding the forgeries is strange because that statement is what makes the forgeries so absurd in the first place. He had seen them by the time he talked to the Post and he had heard about them on his trip—while they CIA didn’t have copies or transcripts yet, they discussed the origins of the report. Confusing that issue doesn’t lend any credibility to the argument that he was wrong–in fact, he was correct about the forgeries and he was correct about his report, he just confused the details. Both findings are damning to the administration that continued to use that information well after it was discredited.
Bush wasn’t misled by the CIA on the issue–they tried to stop him from using it. Twice. He didn’t have good reason to believe a nuclear program existed–other than Saddam saying he had some sort of program there was no evidence of such an effort and Bush advisors knew it before the war started—if he was ignorant by that point–and given the recent memo from the British he wasn’t–he’s grossly incompetent to be the only guy in the administration who didn’t know the intelligence had fallen apart.