Lost in all the excitement and bloodlust as the media and democrats gleefully pronounce their disapproval of a member of the Bush administration "outing" a CIA operative is the story of how she was "outed". It is a story of either gross incompetence at the CIA or a covert op to get the Bush administration. The facts speak for themselves: 1. Why was Valarie Plame's husband sent to Niger when he had no experience of expertese in the area of WMD's? 2.Why was Mr. Wilson not required to sign the standard confidentiality agreement for anyone working for the CIA? 3.Why was Mr. Wilson never required to file a written report? Furthermore, why was his oral report not given to the president or the vice president? 4. Why was Mr. Wilson allowed to write an article about his findings in the New York times without bringing his proposed op-ed before the CIA's Prepublication Review Board as is standard practice for situations such as this? 5. If the CIA wanted to keep Ms. Plame's identity secret, why allow her husband to write the afforementioned editorial regarding a foreign mission about a volatile political issue that focused on her expertise? 6. Why did the CIA raise only the mildest of objections regarding the release of Ms. Plame's name when Mr Novac called to confirm her employment? 7. Why was an agent in "deep cover" allowed to make political contributions in her own name? These issues are discussed at length here:http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110007508
1. He knew people in the governments of both Niger and Iraq anddid know some things about WMD. 2. Joseph Wilson was never a CIA agent. Wlison was not paid for his trip. He gave his time because he is a patriot. He was paid for his airfare and hotel but I found no credible source for what branch of the US government paid for those things. The trip seemed to have been a collaboration between the CIA and the vice presidents office but that does not mean that some other agency like the NSC was not incharge of the trip. 3. Says who. "Before I left Niger, I briefed the ambassador on my findings, which were consistent with her own. I also shared my conclusions with members of her staff. In early March, I arrived in Washington and promptly provided a detailed briefing to the C.I.A. I later shared my conclusions with the State Department African Affairs Bureau. There was nothing secret or earth-shattering in my report, just as there was nothing secret about my trip." Though I did not file a written report, there should be at least four documents in United States government archives confirming my mission. The documents should include the ambassador's report of my debriefing in Niamey, a separate report written by the embassy staff, a C.I.A. report summing up my trip, and a specific answer from the agency to the office of the vice president (this may have been delivered orally). While I have not seen any of these reports, I have spent enough time in government to know that this is standard operating procedure. See the rest of the article at bottom. 4. Because he was not a CIA agent and because he wrote after the invasion his writing affected nothing but US domestic politics. If undermining support for the war is a crime he committed a crime but if Lying to America to get us into a war was a crime then Wilson aided and abetted George Bush's crime by not going public prior to the invasion. 5. The CIA had no authority there. Joseph Wilson risked outing his wife when he wrote the story. How Bush got us into Iraq is more important than Plames cover. If we keep on allowing these "Gulf of Tonkin hoax" type of lies to get us into wars then we may not be a democracy. If American voters are not allowed to know what they are voting for then is America really a democracy. Thank You Joseph Wilson you are a true patriot. 6. A says who? Who speaks for the CIA? Isn't it somebody that Bush can fire. The CIA has always understood that they work for the president. If they don't like what the president is doing they have two choices, Quit, or kill the president. I hear they are quitting in big numbers. 7. Making political contributions does not blow her cover. Did her cover require that she not be known as Joseph Wilson's wife? From: http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/archives/individual/2005_10/007350.php "One thing we know is that Valerie Wilson used her maiden name only inside the CIA. This suggests a CIA source, and Jeralyn Merritt reminds us that this was Novak's original story too, though he later backtracked on it." Walter Pincus has been known to be the CIA's writer for decades. If you want the CIA's feelings he is the best guy to read. At the link below you can find Bill Harlow 's of the CIA's version of Novak 's call to him at the CIA to confirm Plame's employment. Novak if he ever claimed that he had permission from the CIA to use Plames's name. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/26/AR2005072602069_pf.html The CIA does not cofirm or deny the names of covert opperatives. The article you linked to was weak and deceptive. Now the information here is much stronger than that article. http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2004/07/16/wilson_letter/index.html Editor's note: Last week, the Senate Intelligence Committee released its report on the U.S. intelligence community's prewar assessments on Iraq. An appendix discusses the role taken by former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson in determining whether Iraq had obtained uranium from Niger. The following is Wilson's letter to the Senate Intelligence Committee pointing to errors in the Republican senators' additional comments to the report and demanding corrections. 'Joseph Wilson Responds' The Senate's Bad Intelligence Salon.com Thursday 16 July 2004 Former Ambassador Joseph Wilson demands that Republican members of the Senate Intelligence Committee set the record straight. July 15, 2004 The Hon. Pat Roberts, Chairman, Senate Select Committee on Intelligence The Hon. Jay Rockefeller, Vice Chairman, Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Dear Sen. Roberts and Sen. Rockefeller, I read with great surprise and consternation the Niger portion of Sens. Roberts, Bond and Hatch's additional comments to the Senate Select Intelligence Committee's Report on the U.S. Intelligence Community's Prewar Assessment on Iraq. I am taking this opportunity to clarify some of the issues raised in these comments. First conclusion: "The plan to send the former ambassador to Niger was suggested by the former ambassador's wife, a CIA employee." That is not true. The conclusion is apparently based on one anodyne quote from a memo Valerie Plame, my wife, sent to her superiors that says, "My husband has good relations with the PM [prime minister] and the former Minister of Mines (not to mention lots of French contacts), both of whom could possibly shed light on this sort of activity." There is no suggestion or recommendation in that statement that I be sent on the trip. Indeed it is little more than a recitation of my contacts and bona fides. The conclusion is reinforced by comments in the body of the report that a CPD [Counterproliferation Division] reports officer stated that "the former ambassador's wife 'offered up his name'" (page 39) and a State Department intelligence and research officer stated that the "meeting was 'apparently convened by [the former ambassador's] wife who had the idea to dispatch him to use his contacts to sort out the Iraq-Niger uranium issue." In fact, Valerie was not in the meeting at which the subject of my trip was raised. Neither was the CPD reports officer. After having escorted me into the room, she [Valerie] departed the meeting to avoid even the appearance of conflict of interest. It was at that meeting where the question of my traveling to Niger was broached with me for the first time and came only after a thorough discussion of what the participants did and did not know about the subject. My bona fides justifying the invitation to the meeting were the trip I had previously taken to Niger to look at other uranium-related questions as well as 20 years living and working in Africa, and personal contacts throughout the Niger government. Neither the CPD reports officer nor the State analyst were in the chain of command to know who, or how, the decision was made. The interpretations attributed to them are not the full story. In fact, it is my understanding that the reports officer has a different conclusion about Valerie's role than the one offered in the "additional comments." I urge the committee to reinterview the officer and publicly publish his statement. It is unfortunate that the report failed to include the CIA's position on this matter. If the staff had done so it would undoubtedly have been given the same evidence as provided to Newsday reporters Tim Phelps and Knut Royce in July 2003. They reported on July 22 that: "A senior intelligence officer confirmed that Plame was a Directorate of Operations undercover officer who worked 'alongside' the operations officers who asked her husband to travel to Niger. But he said she did not recommend her husband to undertake the Niger assignment. 'They [the officers who did ask Wilson to check the uranium story] were aware of who she was married to, which is not surprising,' he said. 'There are people elsewhere in government who are trying to make her look like she was the one who was cooking this up, for some reason,' he said. 'I can't figure out what it could be.' 'We paid his [Wilson's] airfare. But to go to Niger is not exactly a benefit. Most people you'd have to pay big bucks to go there,' the senior intelligence official said. Wilson said he was reimbursed only for expenses." (Newsday article "Columnist Blows CIA Agent's Cover," dated July 22, 2003). In fact, on July 13 of this year, David Ensor, the CNN correspondent, did call the CIA for a statement of its position and reported that a senior CIA official confirmed my account that Valerie did not propose me for the trip: "'She did not propose me,' he [Wilson] said - others at the CIA did so. A senior CIA official said that is his understanding too." Second conclusion: "Rather than speaking publicly about his actual experiences during his inquiry of the Niger issue, the former ambassador seems to have included information he learned from press accounts and from his beliefs about how the Intelligence Community would have or should have handled the information he provided." This conclusion states that I told the committee staff that I "may have become confused about my own recollection after the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported that the names and dates on the documents were not correct." At the time that I was asked that question, I was not afforded the opportunity to review the articles to which the staff was referring. I have now done so. On March 7, 2003, the director general of the IAEA reported to the U.N. Security Council that the documents that had been given to him were "not authentic." His deputy, Jacques Baute, was even more direct, pointing out that the forgeries were so obvious that a quick Google search would have exposed their flaws. A State Department spokesman was quoted the next day as saying about the forgeries, "We fell for it." From that time on the details surrounding the documents became public knowledge and were widely reported. I was not the source of information regarding the forensic analysis of the documents in question; the IAEA was. The first time I spoke publicly about the Niger issue was in response to the State Department's disclaimer. On CNN a few days later, in response to a question, I replied that I believed the U.S. government knew more about the issue than the State Department spokesman had let on and that he had misspoken. I did not speak of my trip. My first public statement was in my article of July 6 published in the New York Times, written only after it became apparent that the administration was not going to deal with the Niger question unless it was forced to. I wrote the article because I believed then, and I believe now, that it was important to correct the record on the statement in the president's State of the Union address which lent credence to the charge that Iraq was actively reconstituting its nuclear weapons program. I believed that the record should reflect the facts as the U.S. government had known them for over a year. The contents of my article do not appear in the body of the report and it is not quoted in the "additional comments." In that article, I state clearly that "as for the actual memorandum, I never saw it. But news accounts have pointed out that the documents had glaring errors - they were signed, for example, by officials who were no longer in government - and were probably forged. (And then there's the fact that Niger formally denied the charges.)" The first time I actually saw what were represented as the documents was when Andrea Mitchell, the NBC correspondent, handed them to me in an interview on July 21. I was not wearing my glasses and could not read them. I have to this day not read them. I would have absolutely no reason to claim to have done so. My mission was to look into whether such a transaction took place or could take place. It had not and could not. By definition that makes the documents bogus. The text of the "additional comments" also asserts that "during Mr. Wilson's media blitz, he appeared on more than thirty television shows including entertainment venues. Time and again, Joe Wilson told anyone who would listen that the President had lied to the American people, that the Vice President had lied, and that he had 'debunked' the claim that Iraq was seeking uranium from Africa." My article in the New York Times makes clear that I attributed to myself "a small role in the effort to verify information about Africa's suspected link to Iraq's nonconventional weapons programs." After it became public that there were then-Ambassador to Niger Barbro Owens-Kirkpatrick's report and the report from a four-star Marine Corps general, Carleton Fulford, in the files of the U.S. government, I went to great lengths to point out that mine was but one of three reports on the subject. I never claimed to have "debunked" the allegation that Iraq was seeking uranium from Africa. I claimed only that the transaction described in the documents that turned out to be forgeries could not have occurred and did not occur. I did not speak out on the subject until several months after it became evident that what underpinned the assertion in the State of the Union address were those documents, reports of which had sparked Vice President Cheney's original question that led to my trip. The White House must have agreed. The day after my article appeared in the Times a spokesman for the president told the Washington Post that "the sixteen words did not rise to the level of inclusion in the State of the Union." I have been very careful to say that while I believe that the use of the 16 words in the State of the Union address was a deliberate attempt to deceive the Congress of the United States, I do not know what role the president may have had other than he has accepted responsibility for the words he spoke. I have also said on many occasions that I believe the president has proven to be far more protective of his senior staff than they have been to him. The "additional comments" also assert: "The Committee found that, for most analysts, the former ambassador's report lent more credibility, not less, to the reported Niger-Iraq uranium deal." In fact, the body of the Senate report suggests the exact opposite: In August 2002, a CIA NESA [Office of Near Eastern and South Asian Analysis] report on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction capabilities did not include the alleged Iraq-Niger uranium information. (page 48) In September 2002, during coordination of a speech with an NSC staff member, the CIA analyst suggested the reference to Iraqi attempts to acquire uranium from Africa be removed. The CIA analyst said the NSC staff member said that would leave the British "flapping in the wind." (page 50) The uranium text was included in the body of the NIE [National Intelligence Estimate] but not in the key judgments. When someone suggested that the uranium information be included as another sign of reconstitution, the INR [State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research] Iraq nuclear analyst spoke up and said the he did not agree with the uranium reporting and that INR would be including text indicating their disagreement in their footnote on nuclear reconstitution. The NIO [national intelligence officer] said he did not recall anyone really supporting including the uranium issue as part of the judgment that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear program, so he suggested that the uranium information did not need to be part of the key judgments. He told committee staff that he suggested, "We'll leave it in the paper for completeness. Nobody can say we didn't connect the dots. But we don't have to put that dot in the key judgments." (page 53) On Oct. 2, 2002, the Deputy DCI [director of central intelligence] testified before the SSCI [Senate Select Committee on Intelligence]. Sen. Jon Kyl asked the Deputy DCI whether he had read the British White Paper and whether he disagreed with anything in the report. The Deputy DCI testified that "the one thing where I think they stretched a little bit beyond where we would stretch is on the points about Iraq seeking uranium from various African locations." (page 54) On Oct. 4, 2002, the NIO for Strategic and Nuclear Programs testified that "there is some information on attempts ... there's a question about those attempts because of the control of the material in those countries ... For us it's more the concern that they [Iraq] have uranium in-country now." (page 54) On Oct. 5, 2002, the ADDI [associate deputy director for intelligence] said an Iraqi nuclear analyst - he could not remember who - raised concerns about the sourcing and some of the facts of the Niger reporting, specifically that the control of the mines in Niger would have made it very difficult to get yellowcake to Iraq. (page 55) Based on the analyst's comments, the ADDI faxed a memo to the deputy national security advisor that said, "Remove the sentence because the amount is in dispute and it is debatable whether it can be acquired from this source. We told Congress that the Brits have exaggerated this issue. Finally, the Iraqis already have 550 metric tons of uranium oxide in their inventory." (page 56) On Oct. 6, 2002, the DCI called the deputy national security advisor directly to outline the CIA's concerns. The DCI testified to the SSCI on July 16, 2003, that he told the deputy national security advisor that the "President should not be a fact witness on this issue," because his analysts had told him the "reporting was weak." (page 56) On Oct. 6, 2002, the CIA sent a second fax to the White House that said, "More on why we recommend removing the sentence about procuring uranium oxide from Africa: Three points (1) The evidence is weak. One of the two mines cited by the source as the location of the uranium oxide is flooded. The other mine cited by the source is under the control of the French authorities. (2) The procurement is not particularly significant to Iraq's nuclear ambitions because the Iraqis already have a large stock of uranium oxide in their inventory. And (3) we have shared points one and two with Congress, telling them that the Africa story is overblown and telling them this is one of the two issues where we differed with the British." (page 56) On March 8, 2003, the intelligence report on my trip was disseminated within the U.S. government, according to the Senate report (page 43). Further, the Senate report states that "in early March, the Vice President asked his morning briefer for an update on the Niger uranium issue." That update from the CIA "also noted that the CIA would be debriefing a source who may have information related to the alleged sale on March 5." The report then states the "DO officials also said they alerted WINPAC [Center for Weapons Intelligence, Nonproliferation and Arms Control] analysts when the report was being disseminated because they knew the high priority of the issue." The report notes that the CIA briefer did not brief the vice president on the report. (page 46) It is clear from the body of the Senate report that the intelligence community, including the DCI himself, made several attempts to ensure that the president did not become a "fact witness" on an allegation that was so weak. A thorough reading of the report substantiates the claim made in my opinion piece in the New York Times and in subsequent interviews I have given on the subject. The 16 words should never have been in the State of the Union address, as the White House now acknowledges. I undertook this mission at the request of my government in response to a legitimate concern that Saddam Hussein was attempting to reconstitute his nuclear weapons program. This was a national security issue that has concerned me since I was the deputy chief of mission in the U.S. Embassy in Iraq before and during the first Gulf War. At the time of my trip I was in private business and had not offered my views publicly on the policy we should adopt toward Iraq. Indeed, throughout the debate in the run-up to the war, I took the position that the U.S. be firm with Saddam Hussein on the question of weapons of mass destruction programs, including backing tough diplomacy with the credible threat of force. In that debate I never mentioned my trip to Niger. I did not share the details of my trip until May 2003, after the war was over, and then only when it became clear that the administration was not going to address the issue of the State of the Union statement. It is essential that the errors and distortions in the additional comments be corrected for the public record. Nothing could be more important for the American people than to have an accurate picture of the events that led to the decision to bring the United States into war in Iraq. The Senate Intelligence Committee has an obligation to present to the American people the factual basis of that process. I hope that this letter is helpful in that effort. I look forward to your further "additional comments." Sincerely, Joseph C. Wilson IV, Washington, D.C. ............................................................................................................... From: http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0706-02.htm Published on Sunday, July 6, 2003 by the New York Times What I Didn't Find in Africa by Joseph C. Wilson 4th Did the Bush administration manipulate intelligence about Saddam Hussein's weapons programs to justify an invasion of Iraq? Based on my experience with the administration in the months leading up to the war, I have little choice but to conclude that some of the intelligence related to Iraq's nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat. For 23 years, from 1976 to 1998, I was a career foreign service officer and ambassador. In 1990, as chargé d'affaires in Baghdad, I was the last American diplomat to meet with Saddam Hussein. (I was also a forceful advocate for his removal from Kuwait.) After Iraq, I was President George H. W. Bush's ambassador to Gabon and São Tomé and Príncipe; under President Bill Clinton, I helped direct Africa policy for the National Security Council. It was my experience in Africa that led me to play a small role in the effort to verify information about Africa's suspected link to Iraq's nonconventional weapons programs. Those news stories about that unnamed former envoy who went to Niger? That's me. In February 2002, I was informed by officials at the Central Intelligence Agency that Vice President Dick Cheney's office had questions about a particular intelligence report. While I never saw the report, I was told that it referred to a memorandum of agreement that documented the sale of uranium yellowcake — a form of lightly processed ore — by Niger to Iraq in the late 1990's. The agency officials asked if I would travel to Niger to check out the story so they could provide a response to the vice president's office. After consulting with the State Department's African Affairs Bureau (and through it with Barbro Owens-Kirkpatrick, the United States ambassador to Niger), I agreed to make the trip. The mission I undertook was discreet but by no means secret. While the C.I.A. paid my expenses (my time was offered pro bono), I made it abundantly clear to everyone I met that I was acting on behalf of the United States government. In late February 2002, I arrived in Niger's capital, Niamey, where I had been a diplomat in the mid-70's and visited as a National Security Council official in the late 90's. The city was much as I remembered it. Seasonal winds had clogged the air with dust and sand. Through the haze, I could see camel caravans crossing the Niger River (over the John F. Kennedy bridge), the setting sun behind them. Most people had wrapped scarves around their faces to protect against the grit, leaving only their eyes visible. The next morning, I met with Ambassador Owens-Kirkpatrick at the embassy. For reasons that are understandable, the embassy staff has always kept a close eye on Niger's uranium business. I was not surprised, then, when the ambassador told me that she knew about the allegations of uranium sales to Iraq — and that she felt she had already debunked them in her reports to Washington. Nevertheless, she and I agreed that my time would be best spent interviewing people who had been in government when the deal supposedly took place, which was before her arrival. I spent the next eight days drinking sweet mint tea and meeting with dozens of people: current government officials, former government officials, people associated with the country's uranium business. It did not take long to conclude that it was highly doubtful that any such transaction had ever taken place. Given the structure of the consortiums that operated the mines, it would be exceedingly difficult for Niger to transfer uranium to Iraq. Niger's uranium business consists of two mines, Somair and Cominak, which are run by French, Spanish, Japanese, German and Nigerian interests. If the government wanted to remove uranium from a mine, it would have to notify the consortium, which in turn is strictly monitored by the International Atomic Energy Agency. Moreover, because the two mines are closely regulated, quasi-governmental entities, selling uranium would require the approval of the minister of mines, the prime minister and probably the president. In short, there's simply too much oversight over too small an industry for a sale to have transpired. (As for the actual memorandum, I never saw it. But news accounts have pointed out that the documents had glaring errors — they were signed, for example, by officials who were no longer in government — and were probably forged. And then there's the fact that Niger formally denied the charges.) Before I left Niger, I briefed the ambassador on my findings, which were consistent with her own. I also shared my conclusions with members of her staff. In early March, I arrived in Washington and promptly provided a detailed briefing to the C.I.A. I later shared my conclusions with the State Department African Affairs Bureau. There was nothing secret or earth-shattering in my report, just as there was nothing secret about my trip. Though I did not file a written report, there should be at least four documents in United States government archives confirming my mission. The documents should include the ambassador's report of my debriefing in Niamey, a separate report written by the embassy staff, a C.I.A. report summing up my trip, and a specific answer from the agency to the office of the vice president (this may have been delivered orally). While I have not seen any of these reports, I have spent enough time in government to know that this is standard operating procedure. I thought the Niger matter was settled and went back to my life. (I did take part in the Iraq debate, arguing that a strict containment regime backed by the threat of force was preferable to an invasion.) In September 2002, however, Niger re-emerged. The British government published a "white paper" asserting that Saddam Hussein and his unconventional arms posed an immediate danger. As evidence, the report cited Iraq's attempts to purchase uranium from an African country. Then, in January, President Bush, citing the British dossier, repeated the charges about Iraqi efforts to buy uranium from Africa. The next day, I reminded a friend at the State Department of my trip and suggested that if the president had been referring to Niger, then his conclusion was not borne out by the facts as I understood them. He replied that perhaps the president was speaking about one of the other three African countries that produce uranium: Gabon, South Africa or Namibia. At the time, I accepted the explanation. I didn't know that in December, a month before the president's address, the State Department had published a fact sheet that mentioned the Niger case. Those are the facts surrounding my efforts. The vice president's office asked a serious question. I was asked to help formulate the answer. I did so, and I have every confidence that the answer I provided was circulated to the appropriate officials within our government. The question now is how that answer was or was not used by our political leadership. If my information was deemed inaccurate, I understand (though I would be very interested to know why). If, however, the information was ignored because it did not fit certain preconceptions about Iraq, then a legitimate argument can be made that we went to war under false pretenses. (It's worth remembering that in his March "Meet the Press" appearance, Mr. Cheney said that Saddam Hussein was "trying once again to produce nuclear weapons.") At a minimum, Congress, which authorized the use of military force at the president's behest, should want to know if the assertions about Iraq were warranted. I was convinced before the war that the threat of weapons of mass destruction in the hands of Saddam Hussein required a vigorous and sustained international response to disarm him. Iraq possessed and had used chemical weapons; it had an active biological weapons program and quite possibly a nuclear research program — all of which were in violation of United Nations resolutions. Having encountered Mr. Hussein and his thugs in the run-up to the Persian Gulf war of 1991, I was only too aware of the dangers he posed. But were these dangers the same ones the administration told us about? We have to find out. America's foreign policy depends on the sanctity of its information. For this reason, questioning the selective use of intelligence to justify the war in Iraq is neither idle sniping nor "revisionist history," as Mr. Bush has suggested. The act of war is the last option of a democracy, taken when there is a grave threat to our national security. More than 200 American soldiers have lost their lives in Iraq already. We have a duty to ensure that their sacrifice came for the right reasons. Joseph C. Wilson 4th, United States ambassador to Gabon from 1992 to 1995, is an international business consultant. Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company ### Printer Friendly Version E-Mail This Article FAIR USE NOTICE This site contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available in our efforts to advance understanding of environmental, political, human rights, economic, democracy, scientific, and social justice issues, etc. We believe this constitutes a 'fair use' of any such copyrighted material as provided for in section 107 of the US Copyright Law. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. 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