JustOneMinute

How Great Is This? Bloggers

How Great Is This?

Bloggers have never had it so good. JeraLynn Merritt of TalkLeft is a total media rock star who, in her day job, is a defense attorney in Colorado. Naturally, she is all over the Kobe Bryant story. Some of her regular readers have questioned whether she is posting too often on this subject. Oh, please. In the land of "All OJ, all the time", this story will be even bigger, and who better to cover it than Ms. TalkLeft? More!

UPDATE: Shockingly sensible commentary, with interesting anecdotes, from Ethan J. Skolnick, my new go-to guy at the paper of record, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

Fans of "Peter Pan" Will

Fans of "Peter Pan" Will Get This

Armando Benitez, the fireballing relief pitcher with the egg-shell psyche, has left the Mets and joined the Yankees.

When he pitches with confidence, Armando can throw a steak past a hungry dog; when his confidence is gone, he can't get a pitch past my grandmother.

Last night, he made his Yankee debut. The Yanks had a big lead, there was no pressure, and he was excellent for two innings. Right now he can help the Yanks by providing a live arm and working some innings. However, we all wonder if he can help the team in a big game against the hated Red Sox in September.

Time will tell. But the Yankee players and coaches are all repeating one message - if we keep this guy's confidence up, he can help us win. Yankee fans, being smarter than Mets fans, have (mostly) figured this out as well. Booing Armando makes sense, based on his history, and may feel good, but it does not help the club win ball games.

Personally, if he could throw 95 miles per hour and keep his pitches low in the zone, I would cheer Bill Clinton in pinstripes. [NO, those aren't pinstripes! Looks good, though.]

Sorry. Re-focus. Peter Pan. Yes, as a kid, I vividly recall Tinkerbell's dramatic near-death, where only the enthusiastic clapping of the audience could keep her alive. You gotta believe! And every time, we would clap, and Tinkerbell would live. OK, one year I tried not clapping, and got a stern lecture from my mom about the problems with free-ridership. And I was never quite sure how it worked when Tinkerbell was on televison, but I figured it must be like ESP, or praying, or something. Fortunately, this was pre-VCR and DVD, so her near-death was not happening five times daily, as in my own household.

I had a point when I started. Oh, yes - Armando Benitez is Tinkerbell. Clap for him.

Two From TAPPED I agree

Two From TAPPED

I agree with this, and with this. Carville is a smart one.

The White House Strikes Back

The White House Strikes Back

The embattled White House, struggling with questions about uranium, intelligence, and "what did Bush know and when did Rice know it?", is planning a media counter-push aided by Mary Matalin.

And, being the connected kind of guy I am, I can provide a glimpse into what is, for the rest of you, still a double-super-top-secret media strategy.

Just a hint, though, as to how the White House will defend itself:

Q: Did you order the Code Red?

Bush: You're damn right I did.

Actually, the strategy is in effect! Bush did this yesterday, as Ms. Notes reminds us.

Good weekend, all

Closing The Circle The restless,

Closing The Circle

The restless, endless quest for truth, or at least plausible deniability, never stops. From the July 17 White House press briefing:

Q: ... Vice President Cheney said flatly at one point that Iraq is reconstituting it's nuclear weapons.

MR. McCLELLAN: He was referring to its nuclear weapons program. If you go back and look at that interview, I know which one you're citing. And repeatedly throughout that interview he was talking about reconstituting its nuclear weapons program. You're right about that one statement was said, but he was referring to reconstitution of a nuclear weapons program.

From the time vault, back in May.

Whose National Intelligence Estimate Is

Whose National Intelligence Estimate Is That, Again?

Did the Wall Street Journal get ahold of a phony NIE? We wonder. [Check the UPDATE to see how wrong I am]

Andrew Sullivan sends us off to the Wall Street Journal, which has gotten a source to tip it to the contents of the now famous NIE from last fall. YES, we are stuck on this uranium debacle, what else?

Let me clip the highlights from the WSJ, since not everyone is a subscriber:

We're reliably told that that now famous NIE, which is meant to be the best summary judgment of the intelligence community, isn't nearly as full of doubt about that yellowcake story as the critics assert or as even CIA director George Tenet has suggested. The section on Iraq's hunt for uranium, for example, asserts bluntly that "Iraq also began vigorously trying to procure uranium ore and yellowcake" and that "acquiring either would shorten the time Baghdad needs to produce nuclear weapons."

Regarding the supposedly discredited Niger story, the NIE says that "a foreign government service reported that as of early 2001 Niger planned to send several tons of 'pure uranium' (probably yellowcake) to Iraq. As of early 2001, Niger and Iraq reportedly were still working out arrangements for this deal, which could be for up to 500 tons of yellowcake. We do not know the status of this arrangement."

That foreign government service is of course the British, who still stand by their intelligence. In the next paragraph, the NIE goes on to say that "reports indicate Iraq also has sought uranium ore from Somalia and possibly the Democratic Republic of the Congo." It then adds that "we cannot confirm whether Iraq has succeeded in acquiring uranium ore and/or yellowcake from these sources."

I somehow suspect you are not laughing out loud. Yet. This is very cool, inside stuff - the straight dirt, as it were. Yet, you wonder why I am smiling.

I relent. Take a look at George Tenet's statement of July 11, when he took the fall for the 16 words. Every sentence in the WSJ piece appears in the Tenet statement, most of them word for word. A demo:

WSJ: The section on Iraq's hunt for uranium, for example, asserts bluntly that "Iraq also began vigorously trying to procure uranium ore and yellowcake" and that "acquiring either would shorten the time Baghdad needs to produce nuclear weapons."

Tenet: These paragraphs also cited reports that Iraq began "vigorously trying to procure" more uranium from Niger and two other African countries, which would shorten the time Baghdad needed to produce nuclear weapons.

WSJ: ...the NIE says that "a foreign government service reported that as of early 2001 Niger planned to send several tons of 'pure uranium' (probably yellowcake) to Iraq. As of early 2001, Niger and Iraq reportedly were still working out arrangements for this deal, which could be for up to 500 tons of yellowcake. We do not know the status of this arrangement."

Tenet: The NIE states: "A foreign government service reported that as of early 2001, Niger planned to send several tons of pure "uranium" (probably yellowcake) to Iraq. As of early 2001, Niger and Iraq reportedly were still working out the arrangements for this deal, which could be for up to 500 tons of yellowcake." The Estimate also states: "We do not know the status of this arrangement."

And so on. However, I stumble on this last bit from the Journal:

In the next paragraph, the NIE goes on to say that "reports indicate Iraq also has sought uranium ore from Somalia and possibly the Democratic Republic of the Congo." It then adds that "we cannot confirm whether Iraq has succeeded in acquiring uranium ore and/or yellowcake from these sources."

The best I can do from Tenet's statement is:

With regard to reports that Iraq had sought uranium from two other countries, the Estimate says: "We cannot confirm whether Iraq succeeded in acquiring uranium ore and/or yellowcake from these sources."

So, the Journal has evidently added something. Now, since the NIE is purported to mention Somalia and Democratic Republic of the Congo, perhaps this bit if trivia can be explained to me, as taken from the BBC:

Three countries in Africa are officially listed by the World Nuclear Association as uranium producing countries.

They are Niger, Namibia and South Africa.

But other sources say Algeria, DR Congo, Gabon, Malawi, Zambia and Zimbabwe also produce uranium.

It's late at night, I am tired, I could be wrong. But it looks like the WSJ got ahold of a recycled version of Tenet's statement, with a few fun science non-facts thrown in. The gist of their editorial does not change if we correct "Somalia". But who is pretending that they have a special peek at the NIE? Source check, please, gents.

UPDATE: OK, put Somalia back in the mix, and don't trust the BBC.

As to what is happening, the White House released excerpts from the NIE. Quite possibly, WSJ reporters got a sneak preview.

Let's Enjoy Some Popcorn It's

Let's Enjoy Some Popcorn

It's fun, fluffy, and insubstantial. And speaking of David Corn's recent piece in The Nation, it was a tour de force. With a Jayson Blair-flair that would make Maureen Dowd proud, he demonstrates that with selective excerpts, careful quotations, and dramatic hypotheticals, a mini-scandal can be generated from virtually nothing.

[Mini-update: The David Corn article has inspired the fourth of Howard Dean's 16 Questions, so this is quite topical].

[Breaking News, and my spin, here]

His charge? It's more of a question, really, but here it is:

Did senior Bush officials blow the cover of a US intelligence officer working covertly in a field of vital importance to national security--and break the law--in order to strike at a Bush administration critic and intimidate others?

It sure looks that way, if conservative journalist Bob Novak can be trusted.

Well, if a fellow begins with a question, you should probably ask yourself a question, too, namely, if he is not sure of his story, why should I be? And our sense of uncertainty only deepens as we progress.

Mr. Corn is discussing the case of former Ambassador Wilson, who went to Niger to investigate the possibility that Iraq was purchasing, or attempting to purchase, uranium. After providing background, Mr. Corn takes us to the critical bit:

Soon after Wilson disclosed his trip in the media and made the White House look bad. the payback came. [Robert] Novak's July 14, 2003, column presented the back-story on Wilson's mission and contained the following sentences: "Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction. Two senior administration officials told me Wilson's wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate" the allegation.

...So [Wilson] will neither confirm nor deny that his wife--who is the mother of three-year-old twins--works for the CIA. But let's assume she does. That would seem to mean that the Bush administration has screwed one of its own top-secret operatives in order to punish Wilson or to send a message to others who might challenge it.

The sources for Novak's assertion about Wilson's wife appear to be "two senior administration officials." If so, a pair of top Bush officials told a reporter the name of a CIA operative who apparently has worked under what's known as "nonofficial cover"...

Well, I know you want to see what Mr. Novak said.

"...Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction. Two senior administration officials told me Wilson's wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate the Italian report. The CIA says its counter-proliferation officials selected Wilson and asked his wife to contact him. "I will not answer any question about my wife," Wilson told me. "

OK, we recognize the first two sentences from Mr. Corn's excerpt. But does that third sentence really say "The CIA says..."? The CIA is the source for the news that Ms. Wilson is with the CIA?! Where did Mr. Corn pop the idea that the White House was the source? When Mr. Corn says that "The sources for Novak's assertion about Wilson's wife appear to be "two senior administration officials." , that appearance only develops because the third sentence is dropped.

Based on Mr. Novak's column, the CIA, at a minimum, confirmed that Ms. Wilson worked there. At a maximum, they were the only source for that tidbit. Here is what Mr. Novak attributed to "administration officials":

Two senior administration officials told me Wilson's wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate the Italian report.

Well, then, is it only the CIA that makes this sort of suggestion? Surely there are folks at the State Department, the Defense Department, or even the White House that might have input into this sort of decision.

Now, perhaps Mr. Novak is being a bit cute himself. His first sentence in this paragraph tells us, with no source, that Ms. Wilson is CIA. The second sentence mentions administration officials, but with no direct CIA link. The third clearly relies on CIA sources to describe her role. Might the White House people have mentioned her CIA connection? Sure. But Novak did not source it to them. If she really were some super-top-secret operative, would the CIA blithely confirm it? Of course not. Or, if the CIA is outing its own spies in a bitter in-house feud, then Mr. Corn really missed a story.

Does Mr. Corn have any evidence? He and Mr. Wilson engage in a flight of fancy, playing "what-if" to the question of how serious this is:

Without acknowledging whether she is a deep-cover CIA employee, Wilson says, "Naming her this way would have compromised every operation, every relationship, every network with which she had been associated in her entire career. This is the stuff of Kim Philby and Aldrich Ames."

Yes, and if I were Bill Gates blogging away here, I would pay one million dollars to the first ten folks to e-mail me! Live it up, make it ten million! But don't run out and spend it just yet.

And yes, I agree with Messrs. Wilson and Corn - if Ms. Wilson really was a top level spy, then it would be a disaster for the CIA to out her (Auto-out her?). Which sort of suggests, to me if not to Mr. Corn, that she is not a top level spy.

You are wondering about motive. OK, you are also wondering about your ten million, but don't - focus on motive for a moment. After Mr. Wilson presented a misleading account of his trip to Niger in the NY Times, the yellowcake hit the fan. Folks at the CIA and the White House were, no doubt, irked.

However, as some of us suspected, and TIME magazine confirmed, there were serious differences of opinion as to just what Mr. Wilson had (orally) reported. Mr. Wilson now has a new story about what he learned in Niger. However, I suspect that he would prefer to change the subject off of his selective memory and back to the Wicked White House. Hence, this attempt to depict himself as a victim.

A number of bloggers posted on this, with some mix of skepticism and other emotions. I will have to try my rebuttal out on the CalPundit, Mark Kleiman, Demosthenes, and Brad Delong. Well, I say that, but I have been warming up in their comments sections, so there are no surprises coming.

UPDATE: A careful look at the TIME article adds this:

...Some government officials, noting that Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, is a CIA official who monitors the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, intimate that she was involved in his being dispatched Niger...

At other points in the TIME story they mention "Administration officials". Since this is "government", it suggests that TIME at least, if not Mr. Novak as well, is getting this from the CIA rather than the White House.

And one more big link above.

UPDATE 2: Mark Kleiman has a fascinating follow up. I will excerpt just his intro:

LOOKS LIKE A BIG ONE

Most of the reasons I gave last night for doubting the Valerie Plame story have dissolved in the morning light.

We don't have to rely on the Nation and Novak; the Time story I linked to (but, obviously, hadn't read carefully enough) says that "officials" had identified Plame as "a CIA official who monitors the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction." So we still have only Novak's word on "senior officials," but that the information about Plame's status was revealed to the press as part of an Administration campaign to discredit her husband is no longer subject to reasonable doubt.

Moreover, the fact that the piece was in Time and there's been no denial so far from the White House is pretty conclusive. Whoever planted that story surely read it closely....

This just gets more interesting.

More On WMD Intelligence TIME

More On WMD Intelligence

TIME magazine presents Wilson II, Mr. Wilson's latest version of what he told the CIA. I took a long look at Wilson I here.

TIME magazine crushes the rest of the Bush intelligence effort.

Tom Brokaw interviews David Kay, the man leading the search for the smoking gun.

From the Kay interview, we get a sense of the timetable for presenting the case against Saddam:

Brokaw: How long is that going to take?

Kay: No longer than it takes.

Brokaw: Six months?

Kay: I think in six months from now, we値l have a considerable amount of evidence, and we値l be starting to reveal that evidence. Will we get to the bottom of the program? It took them over twelve years to build this program. This is a tough country to work in. They hid a lot. I think we値l probably still be finding stuff well beyond six months. I think we will have a substantial body of evidence before six months.

Well, "six months" was Mr. Brokaw's suggestion. However, six months from this interview is January 15. The Iowa caucuses are January 19, and the New Hampshire Primary is a week later. This timetable is going to cause outrage (or, I suppose, laughter) if it is actually achieved.

From Drudge: "Bill Would Put

From Drudge: "Bill Would Put Internet Song Swappers In Jail".

Darn that Clinton! The guy is practically a wife-swapper, and now he comes out with this? I need to follow the link...

Bob Graham And The Italian

Bob Graham And The Italian Job

It is easy to love Presidential candidate Bob Graham's resume - former Florida Governor, current Senator, former Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence - but he is not going to be nominated.

I went to his website with the idea that, with his intelligence background, he might be interesting on the subject of Iraq. I was not disappointed.

October 10, 2002 - Senate Vote Autorizing the Use of Force in Iraq

They say that passing this resolution is the equivalent of if the Alllies had declared war on Hitler. I disagree with that assessment of what this lesson of history means. In my judgment, passing this resolution tonight will be the equivalent of declaring war on Italy. That is not what we should be doing. We should not just be declaring war on Mussolini's Italy. We should be declaring war on Hitler's Germany.

Now, there are good reasons for considering attacking today's Italy, meaning Iraq. Saddam Hussein's regime has chemical and biological weapons and is trying to get nuclear capacity. But the briefings I have received have shown that trying to block him and any necessary nuclear materials have been largely successful, as evidenced by the recent intercept of centrifuge tubes. And he is years away from having nuclear capability. So why does it make sense to attack this era's Italy, and not Germany, especially when by attacking Italy, we are making Germany a more probable adversary?

Personally, I would pay extra to watch Graham debate Bush. After Graham declares war on Italy, Bush may invade the Bay of Pigs. Sorry. Anyway, the added emphasis was there to add emphasis to the bit about Saddam's nuclear capabilities and intentions.

January 28, 2003 - On Bush's SOTU Address

[Sen Bob Graham] said [Pres. Bush] had still not made the case for going to war with Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq.

“I think the President moved forward tonight and presented some new information. The test is going to be whether he is persuasive enough to cause a significant number of other countries to join us in an alliance. We don’t want to be in the situation of waging the military action alone, and then undertaking the reconstruction of Iraq alone,” Graham said.

Good point. But no comment on the famous 16 words relating to Africa and uranium, which would have been uncanny.

Febrary 5, 2003 - Comments on the Colin Powell UN Presentation

I applaud Secretary Powell for finally making available to the world the information on which this administration will base its actions against Iraq. In my judgement, the most significant information was the confirmation of a linkage between the shadowy networks of international terrorists and Saddam Hussein, the true coalition of evil.

“Since October, the American intelligence community has been warning us that, when Saddam Hussein is on the verge of being toppled, he will be the most dangerous, including striking out against Americans here in our homeland and abroad.

““In my opinion, this linkage of Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction and groups like al Qaeda and Hezbollah - with a substantial number of trained terrorist operatives placed inside the United States - represents the greatest danger to our people. I am outraged that four months have passed with little effort having been made to increase the security of our people.

Again, he talks about Saddam's links to terrorist groups other than al-Qaeda.

As former Chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Bob Graham could have been pounding the table about Administration manipulation of the intelligence and mismanagement of the intelligence community. Instead, silence.

Pretty Bright From the quaintly

Pretty Bright

From the quaintly faux-interactive "Letters to the Editor" at the NY Times:

To the Editor:

Though not a "bright" myself, I support Daniel C. Dennett's call for equal rights for his peers (Op-Ed, July 12).

I don't doubt that life can be uncomfortable for brights in ordinary civil society and in politics.

On the other hand, in intellectual and academic circles, brights usually feel free to make disparaging remarks about those with religious beliefs.

Mr. Dennett's equating of belief in ghosts, elves and the Easter Bunny with belief in God is not a bad example of the disdain that secular naturalists commonly show for religious believers.

I also don't doubt that brights are frequently the victims of arrogant religious bigots. But as arrogance goes, his remark that brights are "the moral backbone of the nation" sets a pretty high standard.

JOHN C. MOORE
Bloomington, Ind., July 13, 2003

Get this guy a blog.

And if the Brights are an oppressed minority, shouldn't they be welcome to give a speech at the Democratic National Convention next year? I am sure the RNC would be delighted to defray the cost.

Required Reading On the Fog

Required Reading On the Fog Of Intelligence

Alice in Wonderland is pretty helpful.

But I think that The Tailor of Panama, by John Le Carre, tells it all. This needs to be re-worked as "The Tailor of Niger", to explain the many and conflicting intelligence reports we are getting.

Josh Marshall Is A Dupe

Josh Marshall Is A Dupe

Or, he stands on the brink of a Pulitzer Prize. But there is a glaring inconsistency in his reporting surrounding Joseph Wilson's investigatory visit to Niger.

What caught my eye was Mr. Marshall's denunciation of Condoleeza Rice's performance in her July 13 appearance with Wolf Blitzer. From Mr. Marshall:

...Here [sic] presentation was incoherent, contradictory and filled with several more extremely misleading statements.

One in particular jumped out at me. I don't have the transcript of her remarks yet. But she said, essentially, that Joseph Wilson's report was comprised of official denials from Nigerien government officials and the suggestion that a private businessman acting as an intermediary for the Iraqis had made an overture to one of those officials about possible uranium sales.

I know on what I can only call extremely good authority that that is a woeful and wilful misrepresentation of what Wilson reported back to the CIA. That's just not what he told them. (See this earlier post for more details.) Has Rice still not tried to get a hold of Wilson's CIA debriefing?

Excerpting his earlier post, Mr. Marshall describes the Wilson report as follows:

...A number of administration officials have stated that Joseph Wilson's report from Niger was largely made up of Nigerien officials denying that their country had sold uranium to Iraq. My reporting tells me something different. Wilson's report went into great detail about how the uranium ore was processed, how the processing was regulated, and most particularly who had physical custody of the product from the time it was in the ground to the time it was delivered to the customer. Wilson adduced various findings relating to the custody, oversight and regulation of the state uranium mining industry which, in his view, made the alleged sale highly unlikely.

Mr. Marshall then suggests the possibility that officials are confusing the Wilson report with an earlier report prepared by a US military official.

Well, as the transcript makes clear, Ms. Rice was referring to the statement released on July 11 by DCI George Tenet describing the Wilson report. And what did Mr. Tenet say?

...In an effort to inquire about certain reports involving Niger, CIA's counter-proliferation experts, on their own initiative, asked an individual with ties to the region to make a visit to see what he could learn. He reported back to us that one of the former Nigerien officials he met stated that he was unaware of any contract being signed between Niger and rogue states for the sale of uranium during his tenure in office. The same former official also said that in June 1999 a businessman approached him and insisted that the former official meet with an Iraqi delegation to discuss "expanding commercial relations" between Iraq and Niger. The former official interpreted the overture as an attempt to discuss uranium sales. The former officials also offered details regarding Niger's processes for monitoring and transporting uranium that suggested it would be very unlikely that material could be illicitly diverted. There was no mention in the report of forged documents -- or any suggestion of the existence of documents at all.

This agrees quite closely with Ms. Rice's account, which at a minimum suggests that the cover story is being well-coordinated. It also overlaps with the Marshall Plan, as to there being lots of detail about the controls over Niger uranium. However, the Tenet account does differ from Mr. Marshall's reporting, and from the account provided by Mr. Wilson, who made no mention of Iraqi inquiries into uranium sales in his NY Times piece.

Another straw in the wind is provided by British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw, who described the Wilson report as follows:

We have now seen a detailed account of Ambassador Wilson's report. It does indeed describe the denials of Niger government officials in early 2002 that a contract had been concluded for the sale of yellowcake (uranium oxide) to Iraq.

"But, as CNN have reported, Ambassador Wilson's report also noted that in 1999 an Iraqi delegation sought the expansion of trade links with Niger -- and that former Niger government officials believed that this was in connection with the procurement of yellowcake.

"Uranium is Niger's main export. In other words, this element of Ambassador Wilson's report supports the statement in the government's dossier.

Mr. Straw is not referring here to the Tenet statement, but rather to the underlying report.

Finally, Ari Fleischer was asked about this in his last press briefing. Here we go:

MR. FLEISCHER: ...you know, if you take a look at Director Tenet's statement about Niger, there's some interesting information in there. Director Tenet, when he talks about the former ambassador's mission to Niger, and then he reported back to the CIA on what he found when he went there --

Q When was his mission?

MR. FLEISCHER: He reported -- when was his mission to Niger? I don't have the date when he went. But when the former ambassador went to Niger, he reported back that officials in Niger denied that they had any contracts with Iraq. They said they did not sign any contracts with Iraq. But in Director Tenet's statement, it also reads that the former official who the ambassador met with, the former Prime Minister of Niger, interpreted an Iraqi overture as an attempt to discuss uranium sales. So there still is reporting that they attempted to discuss -- that Iraqis attempted to discuss uranium sales in Niger.

Well, in his statement Mr. Tenet did not explicitly identify Wilson by name, or as a "former ambassador", so perhaps Mr. Fleischer is confirming the obvious here. Mr. Tenet also did not mention a former Prime Minister of Niger - did Mr. Fleischer break news with this?

The point is, the Administration has a unified description of the Wilson report based on the Tenet statement. Mr. Straw of Britain supports it, making reference no to the Tenet statement but to the underlying report.

It is worth remembering that Mr. Wilson did not file a written report - he underwent an oral de-briefing, and the CIA prepared a report of some sort. TIME is on my side here:

Wilson spent eight days sleuthing in Niger, meeting with current and former government officials and businessmen; he came away convinced that the allegations were untrue. Wilson never had access to the Italian documents and never filed a written report, he told TIME. When he returned to Washington in early March, Wilson gave an oral report about his trip to both CIA and State Department officials. On March 9 of last year, the CIA circulated a memo on the yellowcake story that was sent to the White House, summarizing Wilson's assessment.

OK, I would love to see that March 9 memo. Has Mr. Wilson seen it? Has Mr. Marshall's source actually seen the Wilson report? Mr. Marshall characterized Ms. Rice's statement as "a woeful and wilful misrepresentation of what Wilson reported back to the CIA." Does he still stand by that characterization?

I am open to suggestions here. Maybe the Wilson report, as originally circulated, is as Mr. Marshall's source described it, and Mr. Tenet is participating in a cover up, along with Ms. Rice and Mr. Fleischer. This should be a huge story, since we seem to have sent a doctored report on to the British as part of our pattern of deceit. A Pulitzer Prize awaits Mr. Marshall if he can document this.

Or, since Wilson never filed a written report, maybe there is a gap between what he remembers as important, and what the CIA de-briefers chose to emphasize. Might Mr. Wilson have dropped in a throw-away line about the former Prime Minister and the Iraqi trade mission, which the CIA seized on? In his NY Times account and his comments to TIME, Mr. Wilson does not mention Iraqi inquiries about uranium. Is he certain that he did not touch upon that subject with the CIA back in the spring of 2002?

Now, Mr. Marshall mentions the possibilty that several reports have been conflated into "The Wilson Report". If that is the case, then, unless Mr. Marshall's source has seen the memo, he doesn't have much. Mr. Wilson may think he remembers what he said, but he doesn't know what the CIA wrote.

Is the nation being manipulated and deceived? Is Mr. Marshall?

UPDATE: YES, this looks a lot like a re-cycling of an earlier post. I'm obsessing.

MORE: Background, and bio, on Joseph Wilson. This deserves lots of notice:

That's where Joe Wilson came in. His first public notice had come in 1991 after 15 years as a Foreign Service officer when, as U.S. charge in Baghdad, he risked his life to shelter in the embassy some 800 Americans from Saddam Hussein's wrath. My partner Rowland Evans reported from the Iraqi capital in our column that Wilson showed "the stuff of heroism."

BIG UPDATE: TIME has a follow-up chat with Mr. Wilson which reviews this extensively.

Government officials are not only disputing the genesis of Wilson's trip, but also what he found. Last week Bush Administration officials said that Wilson's report, far from undermining the President's claim in this year's State of the Union address that Iraq had sought uranium from Africa, had in fact reinforced it. They say that when Wilson returned from Africa in Feb. 2002, he included in his report an encounter with a former Nigerien government official who told him that Iraq had approached him in June 1999, expressing interest in expanding commercial relations between Iraq and Niger. The Administration claims that Wilson reported that the former Nigerien official interpreted the overture as an attempt to discuss uranium sales. "This is in Wilson's report back to the CIA," White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer told reporters last week, a few days before he left his post to join the private sector. "Wilson's own report, the very man who was on television saying Niger denies it...reports himself that officials in Niger said that Iraq was seeking to contact officials in Niger about sales."

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

So now Mr. Wilson is pooh-poohing something that he didn't mention at all last week? I eagerly await next week's revelations.

What Does Ken Pollack Think

What Does Ken Pollack Think Now?

Mr. Pollack, the former Clinton NSC member and author of "The Threatening Storm", wrote in the June 20 NY Times:

Where are Iraq's weapons of mass destruction? It's a good question, and unfortunately we don't yet have a good answer.... In any event, the mystery will be solved in good time; the search for Iraq's nonconventional weapons program has only just begun.

On the Iraqi nuclear program:

...it wasn't just the United States that was concerned about Iraq's efforts. By 2002, British, Israeli and German intelligence services had also concluded that Iraq was probably far enough along in its nuclear weapons program that it would be able to put together one or more bombs at some point in the second half of this decade. The Germans were actually the most fearful of all—in 2001 they leaked their estimate that Iraq might be able to develop its first workable nuclear device in 2004.

Nor was it just government agencies that were alarmed. In the summer of 2002 I attended a meeting with more than a dozen former weapons inspectors from half a dozen countries, along with another dozen experts on Iraq's weapons programs. Those present were asked whether they believed Iraq had a clandestine centrifuge lab operating somewhere; everyone did. Several even said they believed the Iraqis had a covert calutron program going as well. (Centrifuge and calutron operations allow a country to enrich uranium and produce the fissile material for a nuclear bomb.)

At no point before the war did the French, the Russians, the Chinese or any other country with an intelligence operation capable of collecting information in Iraq say it doubted that Baghdad was maintaining a clandestine weapons capability. All that these countries ever disagreed with the United States on was what to do about it.

Dedicated Bush partisans will want to stop there. However, pressing on, we find:

Which raises the real crux of the slanted-intelligence debate: the timing of the war. Why was it necessary to put aside all of our other foreign policy priorities to go to war with Iraq in the spring of 2003? It was always the hardest part of the Bush administration's argument to square with the evidence. And, distressingly, there seems to be more than a little truth to claims that some members of the administration skewed, exaggerated and even distorted raw intelligence to coax the American people and reluctant allies into going to war against Iraq this year.

Before the war, some administration officials clearly tended to emphasize in public only the most dire aspects of the intelligence agencies' predictions. For example, of greatest importance were the estimates of how close Iraq was to obtaining a nuclear weapon. The major Western intelligence services essentially agreed that Iraq could acquire one or more nuclear bombs within about four to six years. However, all also indicated that it was possible Baghdad might be able to do so in as few as one or two years if, and only if, it were able to acquire fissile material on the black market.

This latter prospect was not very likely. The Iraqis had been trying to buy fissile material since the 1970's and had never been able to do so. Nevertheless, some Bush administration officials chose to stress the one-to-two-year possibility rather than the more likely four-to-six year scenario....

Moreover, before the war I heard many complaints from friends still in government that some Bush officials were mounting a ruthless campaign over intelligence estimates. I was told that when government analysts wrote cautious assessments of Iraq's capabilities, they were grilled and forced to go to unusual lengths to defend their judgments, and some were chastized for failing to come to more alarming conclusions. None of this is illegal, but it was perceived as an attempt to browbeat analysts into either changing their estimates or shutting up and ceding the field to their more hawkish colleagues.

More damning than the claims of my former colleagues has been some of the investigative reporting done since the war. Particularly troubling are reports that the administration knew its contention that Iraq tried to purchase uranium from Niger was based on forged documents. If true, it would be a serious indictment of the administration's handling of the war.

As important as this debate is, what may ultimately turn out to be the biggest concern over the Iraqi weapons program is the question of whose hands it is now in....

Nor can we allow our consideration of weapons of mass destruction and politicized intelligence to be a distraction from the most important task at hand: rebuilding Iraq. History may forgive the United States if we don't find the arsenal we thought we would. No one will forgive us if we botch the reconstruction and leave Iraq a worse mess than we found it.

It's the sensible critics that are most troublesome.

Joseph Wilson On the Saddam

Joseph Wilson On the Saddam - Al Qaeda Connection

Mr. Wilson has become better known as the envoy who debunked the reports that Iraq had bought uranium from Niger. However, let's get his thoughts on the connection between Al Qaeda and Iraq:

"It does seem to me entirely possible and likely that Saddam's intelligence services may have had ties or may have had links or may have had contacts with al-Qaeda."

Oh, I can wear my Maureen Dowd button proudly. A more complete excerpt paints a somewhat different picture:

I discount to a certain extent the assertions that the links between al-Qaeda and Saddam's government are operational in nature. It does seem to me entirely possible and likely that Saddam's intelligence services may have had ties or may have had links or may have had contacts with al-Qaeda. That would be prudent. Most intelligence services that didn't have their hands tied behind their back would welcome the opportunity to have contact with enemies of their enemies so as to know what was being planned.

It does not stand to reason, however, that the operational links would have been such or any links would have been such as to be operational and particularly with respect to September 11th as was being asserted, as, in fact, was the first of the assertions that were made by the neo-conservative crazies, as Dr. Cordesman likes to call them.

Non-operational links. Does that mean we had nothing to worry about down the road? Interesting.

Al Sharpton Brings Props, And

Al Sharpton Brings Props, And Gets Some

From today's NY Times account of Monday's NAACP convention:

...it was Mr. Sharpton who brought the crowd to its feet. Mr. Sharpton compared the Democratic Party to the late Lester Maddox, the former governor of Georgia who in the 1960's chased black patrons from his restaurant with an ax handle.

"Any time we can give a party 92 percent of our vote and have to still beg some people to come talk to us, there is still an ax-handle mentality among some in the Democratic Party," he said, raising an ax handle. "I want to stop people from wanting our vote but not wanting to be seen with us in public, treating us like we are some political mistresses."

Better Than "Blame Canada" Blame

Better Than "Blame Canada"

Blame the French. The plot line for the Niger-uranium controversy becomes even more complex. Let's go to Michael Smith of the Daily Telegraph, a righty Brit paper:

The French secret service is believed to have refused to allow MI6 to give the Americans "credible" intelligence showing that Iraq was trying to buy uranium ore from Niger, US intelligence sources said yesterday.

MI6 had more than one "different and credible" piece of intelligence to show that Iraq was attempting to buy the ore, known as yellowcake, British officials insisted. But it was given to them by at least one and possibly two intelligence services and, under the rules governing cooperation, it could not be shared with anyone else without the originator's permission.

US intelligence sources believe that the most likely source of the MI6 intelligence was the French secret service, the DGSE. Niger is a former French colony and its uranium mines are run by a French company that comes under the control of the French Atomic Energy Commission.

A further factor in the refusal to hand over the information might have been concern that the US administration's willingness to publicise intelligence might lead to sources being inadvertently disclosed.

US sources also point out that the French government was vehemently opposed to the war with Iraq and so suggest that it would have been instinctively against the idea of passing on the intelligence.

Oh, boy. This is so damn clever, we hardly know where to begin. We'll start off slowly - Michael Smith is "a former intelligence officer, now a senior journalist for the London Daily Telegraph", and evidently quite knowledgeable. And whose side might he be on in this story, and what spin might he prefer? I have no idea. As a Le Carre fan, I am only certain that he is better at this than I am.

Now, can we connect this to the fact that the Brits are standing by their story? Yes, and I will have to backpedal to do so. A few days ago, I linked to a March 22 WaPo story which offered this:

British officials said they "stand behind" the original allegation. They note they never mentioned "Niger," the subject of the forged documents, and imply, but do not say, that there was other information, about another African country. But an informed U.N. official said the United States and Britain were repeatedly asked for all information they had to support the charge. Neither government, the official said, "ever indicated that they had any information on any other country."

My observation was that the Brits did not seem to have much. However, it is possible that the Brits were internally invoking the "sharing rule" mentioned above, and relying on the French, the Italians, or whoever, to separately approach the UN with supporting information.

Now, Tony Blair is coming to the US this week, and I expect we will have some answers during his visit. A few scenarios for the Bush/Blair press briefing occur to me:

-- The French gave the British intelligence which, in the cold light of day, we can now agree was flawed. Apologies all around.

-- The French gave the British some weak intelligence. As the UN process deteriorated and relations soured, they never gave the Brits a heads-up. Awkward.

-- The French gave the British great intel which we still believe. However, more we can not say - go ask the French. Let Chirac decide if he wants to cover for Bush and Blair. If Bush and Blair are exaggerating the quality of the intel, maybe Chirac will do them a favor and support them. Or, if Chirac doesn't support them, then we are left scratching our heads as to who we believe, and efforts to heal the trans-Atlantic rift collapse.

We may be headed for a situation where Bush and Blair say, in effect, the intel was good - you can trust us, and you can ask Chirac. Chirac will then support them. At that point, how we will know the "real" truth is anybody's guess.

This week could be the mousetrap for the Dems who had a great run attacking Bush on the Yellowcake-fake-gate. Max Sawicky will NOT be caught, however.

UPDATE: Jack Shafer of Slate provides a review of the forgery story, and a link to Tenet's statement.

UPDATE 2: Don't Blame The French. Well, that is for the record, anyway. Now.

Who Is Joseph Wilson?

The very short answer is that he was the former US Ambassador sent to Niger in early 2002 to investigate allegations that Iraq had attempted to purchase uranium from Niger, as he describes here.

So, a seemingly easy question - who sent him? According to Mr. Wilson,

In February 2002, I was informed by officials at the CIA that Vice President Dick Cheney's office had questions about a particular intelligence report.....

After consulting with the State Department (and through it with Barbro Owens-Kirkpatrick, the U.S. ambassador to Niger), I agreed to make the trip.

Fair enough. But Condoleeza Rice had this to say, when asked about this trip by Wolf Blitzer:

BLITZER: But 11 months earlier, you, the Bush administration, had sent Joe Wilson, a former U.S. ambassador to Niger, to find out whether it was true. He came back, reported to the CIA, reported to the State Department, it wasn't true, it was bogus. The whole issue was bogus. And supposedly, you never got word of his report.

RICE: Well, first of all, I didn't know Joe Wilson was going to Niger. And if you look at Director Tenet's statement, it says that counterproliferation experts on their own initiative sent Joe Wilson, so I don't know...

BLITZER: Who sent him?

RICE: Well, it was certainly not a level that had anything to do with the White House, and I do not believe at a level that had anything to do with the leadership of the CIA.

BLITZER: Supposedly, it came at the request of the vice president.

RICE: No, this is simply not true, and this is something that's been perpetuated that we simply have to straighten out.

The vice president did not ask that Joe Wilson go to Niger. The vice president did not know. I don't think he knew who Joe Wilson was, and he certainly didn't know that he was going.

The first that I heard of Joe Wilson mission was when I was doing a Sunday talk show and heard about it.

I think we score this in favor of Ms. Rice. Mr. Wilson does not say that VP Cheney asked him to go; he says that CIA folks asked him to go in response to a question posed by Cheney.

But now we get to a confusing bit. Let's cut to Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo, commenting on the Rice/Blitzer interview:

Here [sic] presentation was incoherent, contradictory and filled with several more extremely misleading statements.

One in particular jumped out at me. I don't have the transcript of her remarks yet. But she said, essentially, that Joseph Wilson's report was comprised of official denials from Nigerien government officials and the suggestion that a private businessman acting as an intermediary for the Iraqis had made an overture to one of those officials about possible uranium sales.

I know on what I can only call extremely good authority that that is a woeful and wilful misrepresentation of what Wilson reported back to the CIA. That's just not what he told them. (See this earlier post for more details.) Has Rice still not tried to get a hold of Wilson's CIA debriefing?

Well, here is the transcript, and here is what she said:

The other thing is that the reporting, at least, of what Ambassador Wilson told the CIA debriefers says that, yes, Niger denied that there had been such a deal made, that they had sold uranium to the Iraqis.

It also apparently says, according to this report, it also apparently says that one of the people who was meeting with the Iraqis thought that they might, in fact, be trying to use commercial activity to talk about yellow cake.

So what the director says in his statement is that they believed, when they looked at what was reported about the Wilson trip, that it was inconclusive. They therefore did not brief it to the president, the vice president or any senior officials.

So no, the Wilson trip was not sent by anyone at a high level. It wasn't briefed to anyone at high level. And it appears to have been inconclusive in what it found.

Well, Mr. Marshall seems unconvinced. However, today we had some comments from British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw:

We have now seen a detailed account of Ambassador Wilson's report. It does indeed describe the denials of Niger government officials in early 2002 that a contract had been concluded for the sale of yellowcake (uranium oxide) to Iraq.

"But, as CNN have reported, Ambassador Wilson's report also noted that in 1999 an Iraqi delegation sought the expansion of trade links with Niger -- and that former Niger government officials believed that this was in connection with the procurement of yellowcake.

"Uranium is Niger's main export. In other words, this element of Ambassador Wilson's report supports the statement in the government's dossier.

Pretty impressive cover-up. The National Security Advisor to Bush and the British Foreign Secretary both mis-representing the Wilson report? Let's go to the BBC for a third opinion:

The CIA sent fomer US diplomat Joseph Wilson to Niger, where he had once been based. He spoke to Niger officials who were in government when the deal allegedly took place. One said that he had been approached in June 1999 by a unnamed businessman about expanding trade between Niger and Iraq. This raised a suspicion that Iraq wanted to buy uranium ore since Niger has little else to offer.

Now, the BBC source for this may be Mr. Straw or Ms. Rice, but we are not finding support for Mr. Marshall's position here. As to the substance, however, the IAEA seems to address and dismiss this rumour in their March 2003 report.

That said, the account provided to the press by Mr. Wilson, as noted earlier, does not mention this incident at all.

[Mini-Update: From Ari Fleischer's last briefing on July 14, we learn that the Rice-Straw version was also in the statement released by CIA Director George Tenet.]

Leaving us where? Mr. Wilson makes it clear that he provided only an oral report to the CIA. He may know what he said, but he may only be able to guess at what they reported. If Ms. Rice and Mr. Straw are right, and Mr. Marshall is wrong, then the rest of the Rice argument - that the Wilson report was considered to be inconclusive - seems plausible.

UPDATE: Mr.Wilson discusses Saddam's "aggressive" attempt to acquire nuclear weapons on Hannity and Colmes.

Dean Asks; I Eagerly Await

Dean Asks; I Eagerly Await An Answer

On the question of Iraq, I nominate Howard Dean for the sound bite du jour. Buried in the Adam Nagourney story on p. 11 of the Dead Tree Times, titled "Democrats Attack Credibility of Bush", we find this attack by Dean on his rivals:

And the changing sentiments about the war have provided a new affirmation for the position taken by Howard Dean, the former Vermont governor whose opposition to the war has helped power him into the front tier of the Democratic competition. Dr. Dean said today that he foresaw the shortfalls of Mr. Bush's Iraq policy from his perch in the Vermont Statehouse last fall — and mockingly questioned why his opponents in Congress had failed to do so.

"I think they bear some responsibility here," Dr. Dean said. "If I as governor of Vermont can figure out the case is not there to invade Iraq, how can three senators and a congressman who claim to have authority in public affairs manage to give the president unilateral authority to attack Iraq?"

"It looks like my analysis was the correct one and theirs was the incorrect one," he continued. "It's going to be hard for them to make the case that I don't have the credentials on foreign policy after this."

At 20 on TradeSports, Dean is a buy. 30 by year end, 40 next spring. Minimum.

INSTANT UPDATE: Ooops, 20 was sooo yesterday. I see Dean is currently 20 bid, 25 offered, up 6 on a Monday morning. I seem to be late with the right idea.

Carnage From my dictionary, I

Carnage

From my dictionary, I get this definition: Massive slaughter, as in war; a massacre..

From Adam Nagourney of the NY Times, I get this:

Democratic presidential candidates offered a near-unified assault today on President Bush's credibility in his handling of the Iraq war, signaling a shift in the political winds by aggressively invoking arguments most had shunned since the fall of Baghdad.

...The shift in the debate from the Democratic side reflected a sudden confluence of events: the administration's admission of error regarding the State of the Union speech, the continuing carnage in Iraq and the failure of the United States to find the weapons that it used as a justification for invading Iraq.

OK, people aren't happy with the developments in Iraq, based on this poll. However, I also see that "At least 32 US soldiers have been killed in guerrilla attacks in Iraq since May 1, when the United States declared an end to major combat operations."

Which is 32 soldiers too many, but is it carnage? And I don't believe I have missed a headline about huge casualties amongst the Iraqi civilian population, either.

Get a thesarus, Mr. Nagourney. Off the top of my head, I would suggest dropping "carnage" and substituting "combat", "difficulties", or "killing".

Why The Uranium Doesn't Matter

Why The Uranium Doesn't Matter

The CalPundit explains "Why The Uranium Matters". My terse reply - time will tell. Unlike the Monica and Iran-Contra examples he cites, the Iraq story is still playing out. If, a year from now, the occupation of Iraq is going well (OK, better), and the road map seems to be taking us somewhere in Palestine, then this will be forgotten.

Conversely, if the Middle East is more of a mess a year from now, the uranium puzzle will be the least of our worries, and the credibility and judgement of the Bush team will be wide open to criticism.

That said, the Democrats are on the right track attacking this now, if only to put down some markers (self-query - can we work in an "Old Yellowstain" reference?).

UPDATE: My new best friend Tom Friedman is won to my viewpoint just a few days later!

Eyes on the prize, please. If we find W.M.D. in Iraq, but lose Iraq, Mr. Bush will not only go down as a failed president, but one who made the world even more dangerous for Americans. If we find no W.M.D., but build a better Iraq — one that proves that a multiethnic, multireligious Arab state can rule itself in a decent way — Mr. Bush will survive his hyping of the W.M.D. issue, and the world will be a more hospitable and safer place for all Americans.

The League Of Extraordinarily Sensitive

The League Of Extraordinarily Sensitive Gentlemen

The NAACP will have a candidates forum, aka, a cattle call, on Monday, giving delegates a chance to hear from the various Democratic Presidential candidates. As of Saturday, the Party of Extraordinary Racial Sensitivity can not quite seem to get it together;

The NAACP's top leadership lashed out Saturday at several of the major Democratic candidates for president, calling their intention to skip Monday's candidate forum an ''affront'' to the nation's oldest civil rights organization.

As many as four of the nine candidates have refused to participate in the forum, expressing reluctance to appear on stage with their rivals in a debate format, NAACP officials said.

As of late Saturday, Sens. John Edwards of North Carolina and Joseph Lieberman of Connecticut and Reps. Richard Gephardt of Missouri and Dennis Kucinich of Ohio were not expected to attend. Sen. Bob Graham of Florida was scheduled to attend, along with former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean, former Illinois Sen. Carol Moseley Braun and the Rev. Al Sharpton. Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry plans to go to the convention, but his campaign is pressing for a change in the debate format.

The actions drew outrage Saturday from NAACP President Kweisi Mfume and Chairman Julian Bond, who told The Herald that any candidate who skipped the forum would lose credibility with black voters.

''If you can't come to the nation's oldest and largest civil rights organization's national conference to lay out what you believe in and the direction you think our country should go in, you certainly have no legitimacy going into black communities asking for votes,'' said Mfume, as he prepared to welcome delegates to the NAACP's annual conference. ``If you can't do a forum where you're simply asked a question and asked to respond, the question is can you really lead?''

And what might the problem be? Candidates are citing scheduling conflicts, but there is another view:

[NAACP President] Mfume suggested a different theory for the candidates' reluctance: a fear of matching wits with Sharpton or Dean, whose lively style and support for positions backed by the NAACP are likely to win enthusiastic applause.

''If you're afraid to appear against Al Sharpton, then maybe you need to be running for another office,'' he said.

As Charles Barkley famously inquired about one of the 1992 Olympic Dream Team opponents, "Why don't ya'll take your ass-kickin' like men and go on home?"

UPDATE: Edwards and Kerry elect to take Barkley's advice.

For Punters Only

For Punters Only

The august NY Times (well, July 13 Week in Review, actually), directs us to TradeSports.com for a look at the betting odds on various Presidential candidates. I can't seem to create a direct link, but look at the menu on the right, and it should be there.

An interesting exercise would be to compare these prices with those in the Iowa Electronic Market, which are here.

With a quick glance, I see that Kerry is at 32 in TradeSports versus 29 in Iowa; Gephardt is 11 versus 17; Lieberman is 16 versus 10; and Ms. Clinton is at roughly 4 in each market. (Briefly, if Kerry wins the nomination, TradeSports contract holders collect 100, on a purchase price of 32; this implies a 32% probability of his winning the nomination.)

So, arbitrageurs need to get busy, although I can not promise that, after transactions costs and interest, the profit opportunity is significant.

For the general election, TradeSports has Bush at 67; Iowa does not seem to have a comparable contract.

UPDATE: Cool New Yorker article.

Tour De France Big day,

Tour De France

Big day, good web site.