Footnotes

WSJ / Senate Report Clouds Leak Investigation

Senate Report Clouds Leak Investigation

Sparring Over Veracity Of CIA Operative's Husband
Could Delay Indictments Past Election
By DAVID S. CLOUD and GARY FIELDS
Staff Reporters of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
July 19, 2004; Page A4

WASHINGTON -- A long-running Justice Department investigation into which Bush-administration official leaked CIA operative Valerie Plame's name is back where it started: Her husband, former diplomat Joseph Wilson, is finding his credibility under severe assault. And that could have implications for how the leak case is resolved.

A Senate Intelligence Committee report released this month, citing internal Central Intelligence Agency e-mails and interviews, says Ms. Plame suggested that her CIA superiors use Mr. Wilson for a 2002 mission to Niger to investigate now-discredited reports about prewar attempts by Iraq to purchase uranium "yellowcake." That contradicts Mr. Wilson's repeated claim that his wife played no part in the decision to send him on the trip. The report also portrayed Mr. Wilson as embellishing the role he played in investigating the Niger story. Mr. Wilson hit back on Friday with a six-page rebuttal, accusing the committee of "errors and distortions."

Yet the sparring about Mr. Wilson's veracity could give the Justice Department an excuse to back away from indictments, at least until after the November presidential election. Even if charges are brought, the details in the Senate report about Mr. Wilson give the White House more ammunition to use against him, blunting the blow if someone in the administration is accused of being behind the leak.

Mr. Wilson says the question of whether his wife suggested him for the trip "is absolutely irrelevant" to the decision on bringing charges against whoever leaked her name. In his letter to the committee last week, he argued that his wife simply recited his credentials to CIA officials making the choice.

Yet Republican Party officials have seized on the Senate Intelligence Committee's findings in an effort to counteract the damage done to President Bush from the leak affair and, more broadly, from Mr. Wilson's criticism in dozens of speeches and television appearances over the past year of Mr. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney. Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie in a statement calls Mr. Wilson "a liar" who has made "allegations against the president that have now been proven false." On CBS's "Face the Nation" yesterday, Mr. Gillespie said that Mr. Wilson "is an adviser to the Kerry campaign" who has been "entirely discredited."

That overstates the report's findings about Mr. Wilson. But whether it damages him or not, the report, in strictly legal terms, shouldn't have any effect on Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation into whether the White House violated a law that makes it a crime to disclose the name of a clandestine intelligence officer. At the same time, Mr. Fitzgerald must weigh whether to push his case all the way to its potentially messy end -- namely, indicting administration officials before the election.

Whatever action Mr. Fitzgerald takes will have political implications. "I think this [Senate report] was an effort on behalf of the Republicans to discredit Mr. Wilson by showing why the White House outed his wife and maybe head off an indictment. Nice try, but the law says you don't out a clandestine operative no matter what the reason," says Larry Johnson, one of a group of former CIA officers that has pushed for indictments in the case.

Mr. Bush started the whole affair in his 2003 State of the Union speech before invading Iraq. "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa," he said. His statement was based in part on documents purportedly from Niger recounting Iraqi attempts to purchase uranium; the documents are now considered to be forgeries and the White House later acknowledged the sentence shouldn't have been included in the speech.

The Senate report and a similar one by British authorities released this month make clear that the question of whether Iraq sought uranium in Africa is a murky one that may never be fully resolved. The reports show that intelligence agencies from both countries have multiple unconfirmed reports that Iraq made such an attempt in Niger and elsewhere. French and British intelligence separately told the U.S. about possible Iraqi attempts to buy uranium in Niger, the U.S. report said. There were other unverified reports as well. As a result, the 511-page British report backed the U.K. government's claim that it had intelligence that Iraq had sought uranium in Africa, and said Mr. Bush's claim on the subject and a similar one by British Prime Minister Tony Blair were "well-founded."

But the U.S. report criticizes the CIA for "inconsistent and at times contradictory" reports to policy-makers on the uranium issue. It says it was reasonable for the agency to think the Niger purchase attempt may have occurred until October 2002, when the U.S. government received documents purporting to describe Iraqi purchase attempts but which were clearly forgeries. Even so, the report says, the CIA didn't warn Mr. Bush against raising the issue in his State of the Union speech. Only later, on June 17, 2003, did the agency conclude in an internal memo that "We no longer believe there is sufficient other reporting to conclude that Iraq pursued uranium from abroad."

A former U.S. ambassador to Gabon and National Security Council Africa expert, Mr. Wilson was sent to Niger to check out reports that Iraq had sought to buy yellowcake, which is milled uranium oxide that is refined to make nuclear-weapons material. A year later, after the U.S. invasion, Mr. Wilson wrote a newspaper opinion piece asserting that the intelligence on Iraq and yellowcake had been "twisted" to exaggerate the Iraq threat.

Eight days after Mr. Wilson's piece appeared, conservative newspaper columnist Robert Novak wrote a column naming Ms. Plame, and saying he had been told by administration officials that she was the one who "suggested sending [Mr. Wilson] to Niger," implying he hadn't gotten the job on his merits.

Disclosure of Ms. Plame's identity prompted former CIA Director George Tenet to ask for a Justice Department investigation. Federal law makes it a crime to knowingly disclose the identity of a covert intelligence officer with the intention of damaging national security. It is also a felony for any U.S. official with a security clearance to disclose an intelligence officer's identity to anyone not authorized to receive such information.

Prosecutors are still trying to determine who leaked Ms. Plame's identity and why. The question, says a law-enforcement official, is whether the individual had a security clearance that gave him or her access to Ms. Plame's identity -- and also leaked her name to damage national security. "We still have to prove that, and it's not easy to do," the official says. "That's why nothing ever happens with these cases."

Dozens of White House employees, including the president and vice president, have been interviewed. Most recently, several reporters have been subpoenaed to appear before a grand jury. Mr. Novak has repeatedly declined to say whether he has been subpoenaed.

Under Justice Department guidelines, prosecutors must show they have pursued nearly all other means of obtaining information before calling a reporter before a grand jury, a Justice Department official says. Because it is considered a last resort, sending subpoenas to journalists may indicate the investigation is winding down, Justice Department and FBI lawyers say.

Joe Wilson with Andrea Mitchell, July 6, 2003

MEET THE PRESS / July 6, 2003 (This, with his NY Times op-ed, was Wilson's public debut as something other than an anonymous source.

From the Joe Wilson website:

MS. ANDREA MITCHELL: Our issues this Sunday: In order for there to be peace and stability in Liberia, Charles Taylor needs to leave now. As U.S. troops prepare to take on a dangerous peacekeeping mission in Liberia, the fighting in Iraq continues; more U.S. soldiers killed. Are we still at war? How long will it take to restore peace? And where is Saddam Hussein? Our guests, just back from a three- day fact-finding trip to Iraq, the chairman and ranking member of the Armed Services Committee, Senator John Warner of Virginia and Senator Carl Levin of Michigan.

Then: How will the situation in Iraq, rising unemployment numbers and a potential fight over gay marriage play in the presidential campaign? Insights and analysis from William Safire and Elisabeth Bumiller of The New York Times, David Broder of The Washington Post and Robert Novak of the Chicago Sun-Times.

But first: Did the Bush administration exaggerate some of the intelligence on Saddam’s weapons program in order to justify war with Iraq? This man, former U.S. ambassador to the West African country of Gabon, Joseph Wilson, says yes. He’s disclosed publicly for the first time this morning in a New York Times op-ed that he was sent by the CIA to Niger in February of 2002 to investigate reports of a sale of uranium by Niger to Iraq in the late 1990s. Up until now, he’s been referred to in many news reports as an unnamed former envoy and he joins us exclusively this morning.

Ambassador Wilson, welcome. Thanks for coming in.

AMB. JOSEPH WILSON: Good morning, Andrea.

MS. MITCHELL: Let’s put this in context for our viewers. Let’s take a look at what the president said about this issue in the State of the Union address:

(Videotape, January 28):

PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.

(End videotape)

MS. MITCHELL: Now, we only learned later when U.N. inspectors first looked at the documents, this was a year later, that, in fact, these documents were fraudulent, a year after your first trip. What did you think when you first saw the president making that comment in the State of the Union?

AMB. WILSON: Well, first of all, Andrea, when the president made the comment, he was referring to a British White Paper Report that came out in September of the previous year, September 2002; again, referring to uranium sales from an African country to Iraq. Now, there are four African countries that produce uranium or have uranium stockpiles: South Africa, Namibia, Gabon and Niger. So throughout this, whenever the British and then the president were mentioning Africa, I assumed that they were talking about one of the other countries and not Niger since we had, I believed, at the time effectively debunked the Niger arms uranium sale.

MS. MITCHELL: But, in fact, many officials, including the president, the vice president, Donald Rumsfeld, were referring to the Niger issue as though it were fact, as though it were true and they were told by the CIA, this information was passed on in the national intelligence estimate, I’ve been told, with a caveat from the State Department that it was highly dubious based on your trip but that that caveat was buried in a footnote, in the appendix. So was the White House misled? Were they not properly briefed on the fact that you had the previous February been there and that it wasn’t true?

AMB. WILSON: No. No. In actual fact, in my judgment, I have not seen the estimate either, but there were reports based upon my trip that were submitted to the appropriate officials. The question was asked of the CIA by the office of the vice president. The office of the vice president, I am absolutely convinced, received a very specific response to the question it asked and that response was based upon my trip out there.

MS. MITCHELL: So they knew months and months before they passed on these allegations that, in fact, that particular charge was not true. Do you think, based on all of this, that the intelligence was hyped?

AMB. WILSON: My judgment on this is that if they were referring to Niger when they were referring to uranium sales from Africa to Iraq, that information was erroneous and that they knew about it well ahead of both the publication of the British White Paper and the president’s State of the Union address.

MS. MITCHELL: What do you think was going on here? Was this the politicization of intelligence in order to justify a war?

AMB. WILSON: Well, I think there’s two things. One, either the administration has some information that it has not shared with the public or, yes, they were using the selective use of facts and intelligence to bolster a decision in the case that had already been made, a decision that had been made to go war.

MS. MITCHELL: Now, you write that you “have every confidence that the answer I provided was circulated to the appropriate officials within our government.” Yet there are people still in the White House who were saying months and months later that it was not circulated. Last month Tim Russert had national security adviser Condoleezza Rice on this program, and asked her point blank about how that line got into the State of the Union address. Let’s take a look at what she said to Tim:

(Videotape, June 8):

DR. CONDOLEEZZA RICE: The president quoted a British paper. We did not know at the time, no one knew at the time in our circles, maybe someone knew down in the bowels of the agency, but no one in our circles knew that there were doubts and suspicions that this might be a forgery.

(End videotape)

MS. MITCHELL: “The bowels of the agency”? You’ve just said that, in fact, it was passed along to the vice president’s office.

AMB. WILSON: Andrea, when I was in the National Security Council, I was senior director for African affairs, and subsequent to that, when I wrote this article, I checked with members of the then-vice president’s staff, senior members, as well as other senior members of the NSC staff, to refresh my own memory. And standard operating procedure has always been if you are senior enough to ask the question, you will get a very specific response. And if you are in the vice president’s office, or you’re a senior director at the National Security Council, you are senior enough to ask the question, you will get a specific response, unless the operating procedures have changed, which would be a shame.

MS. MITCHELL: One the things that a lot of people don’t understand is why did it take more than a year for someone to even look for the documentation? Because a year later, after the—a month after the State of the Union address, finally somebody turned this issue over to the U.N. inspectors. They looked at the documents, and noticed right away on the face of it that they were frauds.

AMB. WILSON: I can’t answer that except I would fully suspect that if there was any importance attached to the documentation that there would have been a serious effort to get ahold of it. When I came back from Niger, and debriefed, I had not, of course, seen the documents, but one of the points that I made was if these documents did not contain certain signatures—specifically, the signature of the Minister of Energy and mine and the prime minister—then they could not be authentic.

MS. MITCHELL: The State Department, as I said, said it was highly dubious. Yet, all of this information kept into the system. It was not used by Colin Powell so he clearly knew that it was dubious. It was not used when he went to the U.N. Security Council, although he used other information that has since come into question. But do you think that there was simply a train going down the track here, that we needed to find enough evidence or at least claim it was evidence in order to justify a war?

AMB. WILSON: Well, I think that’s a question that we need to ask. Had we decided upon going to war, and were we using the grave and gathering danger argument, the imminent threat to our national security posed by Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction programs, as justification for a war that we had already decided to go to. And I would add that that is a trivialization of the weapons of mass destruction problem.

There is no greater threat that we face as a nation going forward than the threat of weapons of mass destruction in the hands of non-state actors or international terrorists. And if we’ve prosecuted a war for reasons other than that, using weapons of mass destruction as cover for that, then I think we’ve done a grave disservice to the weapons of mass destruction threat. The bar will be set much, much higher internationally, and in Congress, when the next administration, or another administration, has a true WMD problem, and has to go to get that sort of authority.

MS. MITCHELL: And, before I let you go, you were the last American diplomat in Baghdad before we broke relations because of Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait back in 1990. What is your assessment? Did Saddam Hussein actually have a weapons program at this late date, or do you think it was a weapons program that goes back to the ’90s, the late ’80s and ’90s?

AMB. WILSON: I wrote extensively and appeared on numerous programs in the run-up to the war arguing that the weapons of mass destruction programs that Saddam Hussein possess, and was suspected of possessing, well-merited an international response. The summoning again of the international will to do exactly what we did in 1441, with intrusive inspections and the credible threat of force, was exactly the right thing. When Colin Powell went to the United Nations and said, effectively, “We’ve got him surrounded, we’re watching everything he does, we’re listening to everything he says,” we had achieved a large measure of success. Disruption of those programs was precisely what we wanted to do and the next step was the highest risk, lowest reward option we could have possibly imagined, the invasion, conquest, and now occupation scenario.

MS. MITCHELL: Thank you very much for joining us this morning, Ambassador Wilson.

AMB. WILSON: My pleasure.

ALL QUOTES OR EXCERPTS ARE FROM THE NBC TELEVISION PROGRAM "NBC NEWS' MEET THE PRESS.”

 

Joe Wilson's Letter to the SSCI

Extracted from Salon:

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.

[BEGIN EXCERPT]

July 15, 2004

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.

salon.com

[END EXCERPT

John Edwards / Imus Excerpt

From MSNBC:

IMUS: Senator Edwards, either you or Senator Kerry can answer this. The president is saying—claiming, rather, that the Iraq war has made us safer, and some people think that that may be the pivotal election question, and it would be fair that it’s been coming up on three years, and thank God we haven’t been attacked again in this country. Is the president right, or have we just been lucky, or what?

EDWARDS: Well, first of all, Saddam being gone is good, and John and I both believe that. But it’s the problem is what’s happened to our relationships around the world has made it incredibly difficult for us to get to a lot of these terrorist cells, where they’re operating. And one of the things that both of us have talked about way back then, when the resolution was voted on, is how important it was for us to have strong coalitions, to have strong relationships with our friends and allies.

And just as a practical matter, if we’re going to get—the president talks about the war on terrorism, but if we’re going to get at these terrorists outside our borders in order to be effective at doing that, we’re going to have to go where they are. And to go where they are, we’re going to have to have relationships with the countries that work with us cooperatively.

The Joseph Wilson / Valerie Plame Timeline

I intend to put the key elements of the story in one place, and update as necessary, with brief commentary.

These are meant to be in chronological order. I welcome suggestions for new links in the comments section; I discourage Dick Cheney style suggestions.

This post adds material and updates links from Alex Parker and a previous post of mine.

This is *mostly* original source material; I have included some commentary to provide perspective. If you are struck by a suddden tone-shift around Sept 30, 2003, it is because I "excerpted" a big chunk of Alex Parker's work there. He has retired from Bloggerdom, and if his site goes, I don't want to lose this material.

That said, the casual reader will quickly notice that I am not Joe Wilson's biggest booster. Mark Kleiman is not exactly a Wilson booster either, but he is a Bush critic who brings a useful alternative perspective to this; his library of links and commentary can be found here.  Diana Smith has played no role in this, but we thank her anyway.

The Espionage Act
This law prohibits the disclosure of "classified material" that damages national security; it is not as often metioned as the Intelligence Identities Protection Act in relation to this case, but may be applicable.

The Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982 or here for a definition of "covert":
This is the law which could convict the leakers; it was enacted in response to rebel agent Philip Agee's publication of several CIA agents' identities. (Note: the law's defenses, and its definitions---of special note is the clause stating that a covert agent must have been in operation outside of the U.S. during the last five years in order to applicable.)

March 7: IAEA March 7, 2003 Security Council presentation (or here): discusses forgeries, dismisses trade delegation theory. (MUCH later, see Butler report for follow-up).

May 6, 2003: "Missing in Action: Truth", The New York Times, Nicholas Kristof: This column was the first to reveal the Feb. 2002 Niger trip; it doesn't mention Wilson, but we later learn (WaPo, Oct 12, 2003) he was a source. (See also Vanity Fair, Jan 17, 2004)

June 12, 2003: "CIA Did Not Share Doubt on Iraq Data", The Washington Post, Walter Pincus (or WaPo link): The Washington Post elaborates on Kristof's column, describes what happened with the CIA report; Wilson was also a source on this piece, which will get mentioned in the Senate Intelligence report.

June 13, 2003: "White House in Denial", Nick Kristof
Condoleezza Rice was asked on "Meet the Press" on Sunday about a column of mine from May 6 regarding President Bush's reliance on forged documents to claim that Iraq had sought uranium in Africa. That was not just a case of hyping intelligence, but of asserting something that had already been flatly discredited by an envoy investigating at the behest of the office of Vice President Dick Cheney.

Oooh, that didn't stand up to the final Senate report. My commentary.

June 19, 2003 - The New Republic article by John Judis and Spencer Ackerman recounts the Iraq nuclear story and includes this:

One year earlier, Cheney's office had received from the British, via the Italians, documents purporting to show Iraq's purchase of uranium from Niger. Cheney had given the information to the CIA, which in turn asked a prominent diplomat, who had served as ambassador to three African countries, to investigate. He returned after a visit to Niger in February 2002 and reported to the State Department and the CIA that the documents were forgeries. The CIA circulated the ambassador's report to the vice president's office, the ambassador confirms to TNR. But, after a British dossier was released in September detailing the purported uranium purchase, administration officials began citing it anyway, culminating in its inclusion in the State of the Union. "They knew the Niger story was a flat-out lie," the former ambassador tells TNR. "They were unpersuasive about aluminum tubes and added this to make their case more persuasive."

July 6, 2003: Enough prequel! The article that started it all: Ambassador Wilson, "What I Didn't Find in Africa".

July 6, 2003: Joe Wilson also speaks (again) to Walter Pincus of the Washington Post in "Ex-Envoy: Nuclear Report Ignored".  Note that Messrs. Pincus and Leiby are wrong on just what allegation Wilson "debunked" - did Wilson prove that Iraq had not "tried to obtain uranium there for nuclear weapons", as they put it?  Or did Wilson prove that Iraq had not *succeeded* in purchasing 500 tons of yellowcake, as Wilson wrote in his op-ed?  Sorry, rhetorical question, you know the answer.

July 11: George Tenet, Director of the CIA, comments on "The Wilson Report", among other things. Key points - Tenet describes the content of the Wilson report differently from Wilson's July 6 account; and Tenet describes the selection of Wilson as having been a CIA idea.

British Foreign Secretary Jack Straw describes the Wilson report here.

July 12, 2003: Press Gaggle with Ari Fleischer, The National Hospital, Abuja, Nigeria : Mr. Fleischer backs off of the "16 Words":

"So what we have said is it should not have risen to the level of a presidential speech. People cannot conclude that the information was necessarily false.

That went well.

July 13: Condi Rice w/ Wolf Blitzer. They discuss the "16 Words", and Joe Wilson. A flavor of Wilson's early impact on the press coverage is here:

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.

July 14: Robert Novak "outs" Ms. Wilson, aka Valerie Plame, in "Mission to Niger". The fateful sentences, with emphasis added for sources. Note the absence of a specific source in the first sentence:

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.

July 16: David Corn writes about the Novak column in "The Nation".

His question:

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.

His key excerpt from Novak drops the third sentence beginning "The CIA says...":

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.

Wilson caused problems for the White House, and his wife was outed as an undercover CIA officer.

July 17/22: TIME magazine, "The War On Wilson", since revised, dated July 17, 2003. I noticed the revision on July 22.

...some government officials have noted to TIME in interviews, (as well as to syndicated columnist Robert Novak) that Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, is a CIA official who monitors the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. These officials have suggested that she was involved in her husband's being dispatched Niger to investigate...

Notes: First, the parenthetical information that TIME's sources also talked to Novak was added in a revision. Secondly, TIME seems to distinguish, in the rest of the story, between "Administration officials", and "government officials". I mention this, because Professor Krugman will, eventually, misrepresent the TIME reporting in his own column. And, David Corn will (July 23) write a follow-up arguing (pretending?) that TIME's "government" equals Novak's "senior administration". TIME may tell. And TIME may be on my side!

July 18, 2003: White House briefing explaining the "16 Words" process.

July 18: Howard Dean puts this question at number four of "16 Questions" as the "scandal" gets a bit of attention.

July 22: Prof. Krugman calls attention to the charges and mis-states the TIME reporting in "Who's Unpatriotic Now?".

July 22: Newsday provides "Intelligence officials" who confirm that Ms. Wilson had a clandestine role at the CIA. This increases the stakes, since identifying a covert agent can be a felony, as noted by Mr. Corn. It also (eventually) wins these two reporters a subpoena.

July 22: A non-responsive Scott McClellan provides a White House press non-briefing. Word search down for "Novak".

July 23: Newsday: Probes Expected in ID of CIA Officer

Durbin (D), Rockefeller (D), and Hatch (R). But Hatch is unimpressed with the allegations.

July 23: David Corn of "The Nation" writes again. Little new info, which suggests that people are not talking. He does conflate Novak's "senior administration officials" with TIME's "government officials", and I hope TIME is on my side here, as mentioned on July 17. We extract this:

July 23: White House Press Briefing: Another brick in the stonewall. But Ms. Wilson was the first question! It is interesting watching the press try to ask the question in a way that does not provoke a response of "I answered that already." Without new food supplies, the pack will starve, or move on.

July 23: Don Luskin speaks to some "Washington contacts", and thinks this is big, the White House is involved, and it is not going away.

July 23: Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post notes the Newsday story.

July 24: Wilson on the talk show circuit. "Today Show w/ Katie Couric";
The Ambassador will be caught with dangerously over-inflated hypotheticals, as noted here.

July 24: Sen. Charles Schumer calls for an investigation, and reminds us that we did this just one year ago. Since the shoe was on the other foot, all roles reverse.

July 25: Sen. Schumer gets results! From Newsday:

Susan Whitson, an FBI spokeswoman, said the agency would "look at the issue and make determinations about whether there is an investigation that is warranted."

July 29: Jonathon E. Kaplan writes in The Hill. Good coverage, many lawmakers quoted.

July 30: Josh Marshall in The Hill. His description of Ms. Plame's role is (roughly) confirmed by Nick Kristof on October 11.

Aug 4: Ambassador Wilson appears on "Late Edition" with Wolf Blitzer, and recycles old hypotheticals.

Aug 8: NY Times, Douglas Jehl: Good Wilson quotes.

Aug 10: St. Petersburg Times:

[Ambassador Wilson] said he believes that political operatives in the White House gave his wife's name to Novak, and he thinks he knows who they are. But he's "not ready, yet" to name them. He hopes an investigation - by the FBI, Congress or both - will take care of that.

He does not know who they.

Aug 15: John Dean, Nixon's former counsel, on the law; more David Corn on the process. Briefly, Corn's argument: until the CIA decides there was a security compromise, no investigation occurs. Tenet will be loyal to Bush, game over.

Aug 26: Mark Kleiman excerpts Wilson at an event:

"At the end of the day, it's of keen interest to me to see whether or not we can get Karl Rove frog-marched out of the White House in handcuffs. And trust me, when I use that name, I measure my words." Stay Tuned!

Sept 17 - Slate - Surprise! Ambassador Wilson tells Slate that Rove was a metonym for "senior WH official". Also, a WH reporter asks WH press sec'y McClellan directly, "was it Karl Rove?". McClellan won't answer.

Sept 18/24: Josh Marshall's two part interview with Ambassador Wilson.

BIG BREAKTHROUGH IN MEDIA - we switch to Alex Parker.

Sept 26, 2003: "CIA seeks probe of White House", MSNBC.com [or TruthOut], Alex Johnson and Andrea Mitchell:
Reports the CIA's request of a Justice Department probe, which means that the CIA admits that she is an undercover employee, and that a crime may have been committed.

The CIA has asked the Justice Department to investigate allegations that the White House broke federal laws by revealing the identity of one of its undercover employees in retaliation against the woman's husband, a former ambassador who publicly criticized President Bush's since-discredited claim that Iraq had sought weapons-grade uranium from Africa, NBC News has learned.

"Bush Administration Is Focus of Inquiry," The Washington Post, Mike Allen and Dana Priest, 9/28/03 (alternate - scroll down)
The story that made the scandal. It reported a senior administration official as stating that Novak's sources had called 6 other reports before the story broke, and that their motives had been either to smear him or for revenge. The Sr. Official modifies his story as to motive in a subsequent WaPo appearance (DATE? Pincus/Allen, Oct 12).

At CIA Director George J. Tenet's request, the Justice Department is looking into an allegation that administration officials leaked the name of an undercover CIA officer to a journalist, government sources said yesterday.

The operative's identity was published in July after her husband, former U.S. ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, publicly challenged President Bush's claim that Iraq had tried to buy "yellowcake" uranium ore from Africa for possible use in nuclear weapons. Bush later backed away from the claim.

Sept 29, 2003: "Bush Aides Say They'll Cooperate With Probe Into Intelligence Leak", The Washington Post, Mike Allen:
This article quotes Joseph Wilson as claiming that several reporters called him to tell him that they were contacted by admin. officials about his wife---later, he would clarify that they called him after Novak column ran. It also reports that Plame was "a case officer in the CIA's Clandestine Service," which apparently came from a senior intelligence official, or the administration source from its earlier article.

Sept 29, 2003: "Spy Games," The National Review Online, Clifford May:
May claims that Plame was well-known in Washington circles to be a CIA officer---says he learnt of her position in July from "someone who formerly worked in the government."

Sept 29: Via PBS Newshour, Brokaw denies Mitchell received leak:

TOM BROKAW: NBC News correspondent Andrea Mitchell has been identified   by some as one of the recipients of a leak about the undercover agent.       But tonight, Mitchell said that was not the case, that her first discussion    with an administration official about the matter was after the Robert           Novak column was published. And that discussion, she said, was off the record.

Sept 30, 2003: "Bush Vows Action if Aides Had Role in Leak", The Washington Post, Mike Allen and Dana Milbank (alternate):

President Bush's chief spokesman said Monday that the allegation that administration officials leaked the name of a CIA operative is "a very serious matter" and vowed that Bush would fire anybody responsible for such actions.

The vow came as numerous Democratic leaders demanded the administration appoint a special counsel to investigate the charges that a CIA operative's name was divulged in an effort to discredit her husband, a prominent critic of Bush's Iraq policy. The White House rejected those calls, also saying it has no evidence of wrongdoing by Bush adviser Karl Rove or others and therefore no reason to begin an internal investigation.

This article continues to cover the events, reports that an anonymous journalist claims to have received Plame's name from an administration source before the Novak column.

Sept 30, 2003: Message from White House Counsel Alberto R. Gonzales to the White House Staff
The White House counsel directed WH employees to turn over all evidence relating to the case, although Democrats said there was an improper delay in the counsel's request. Oddly, the message tells staffers to turn over any documentation of Newsday reporters Knut Royce and Timothy M. Phelps, who did not disclose Plame's position until after Novak had written his column.

Sept 30, 2003: Transcript of PBS Newshour
Larry Johnson, a former CIA officer, is the first CIA-affiliated person to openly reveal his association with Plame in this interview. He claims she worked for the CIA during "three decades," and that leaking her name could potentially harm all of her former contacts.

Oct 1, 2003: "The CIA Leak," syndicated column, Robert Novak
Novak backpedals furiously, claims that he did not receive a planted leak, but rather that it was an "off-the-cuff remark;" he also claims that he erred in calling her an operative, because she was in fact described as an analyst. He also states that when he went to the CIA for confirmation, they never stated that anyone's life would be in danger from her disclosure:

During a long conversation with a senior administration official, I asked why Wilson was assigned the mission to Niger. He said Wilson had been sent by the CIA's counterproliferation section at the suggestion of one of its employees, his wife. It was an offhand revelation from this official, who is no partisan gunslinger. When I called another official for confirmation, he said: "Oh, you know about it." The published report that somebody in the White House failed to plant this story with six reporters and finally found me as a willing pawn is simply untrue.

Oct 1, 2003: "Justice Dept. Launches Criminal Probe of Leak," The Washington Post, Dana Milbank and Susan Schmidt
The story continues to chronicle the developments---mentions that the CIA answered an 11-question form from the Justice department which confirmed that Plame's position with the CIA was classified information. (An MSNBC story from 9/29 also mentioned this, but I have been unable to find it---anyone who could e-mail me a link to the story, or to the questionaire itself?)

October 2, 2003: "The Plame Game", Howard Fineman. Originaly titled "Victoria's Secret" (Ooops!), this lays out a motivation for the leak - a CIA/Admin tug of war over Iraq policy.

October 2, 2003: "The Spy Who Loved Him," The New York Times, Maureen Dowd
Reveals, through an interview with Wilson, that Plame revealed to Wilson her CIA position "somewhere around their first kiss," leading others to speculate that she wasn't keeping her identity secret, as is required by the law in question, even though, in the column, Wilson remarks that "I had security clearance."

Oct 2, 2003: "Robert Novak's desperate damage control," Salon.com, Eric Boehlert
This is one example of many articles which cite an intelligence source confirmation of Plame's status as an undercover operator.

Oct. 4, 2003: "The Wilsons for Gore," syndicated column, Robert Novak, 10/4/03
In a follow-up column, Novak reveals that in 1999 Plame gave $1,000 to the Gore campaign, and that according to FEC records she listed her occupation as an "energy analyst" for Brewster-Jennings, which does not seem to have really existed and thus is probably a CIA front.

Oct. 4, 2003: "The Spin is Not Holding," The Nation, David Corn
This mostly repeats the Newsweek 10/6 piece but also gives more clues as to the the senior intelligence aide's identity, describing him or her as a "National Security Council staffer," and also claiming that he thinks he knows who this official is, but will not say because he or she might still be undercover.

Oct 6, 2003: "Secrets and Leaks," Newsweek, Evan Thomas and Michael Isikoff, 10/6?/2003
This piece sums up the events to that point and makes a few more revelations: two sources claim that Karl Rove called television commentator Chris Matthews after the 7/14 leak, and told him that he thought Plame's position with the CIA was relevant; also, it reports that a senior intelligence aide worked closely with Plame in the past.

Oct 8, 2003: "The Spy Next Door," The Washington Post, Richard Leiby and Dana Priest
This is a human-interest story about Joseph Wilson and Valerie Plame; implies that she traveled on "business trips" during the last five years.

Oct 8, 2003: Oct 8, 2003: "Criminal or Just Plain Stupid?" Newsweek web exclusive, Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball
This story reports that some "close to the events" believe that the initial Robert Novak leak was a misstep by one official, and that the other phone calls reported were by White House operatives after they had read Novak's piece.

Oct 10, 2003: "Leak of CIA officers leaves trail of damage," Knight-Ridder, Warren B. Strobel
Strobel gives more background on Plame, reports that address records indicate she may have worked with a European embassy at that time, although the State Department records do not show her name.

October 10, 2003: Boston Globe, "Apparent CIA front didn't offer much cover": Chill on the Brewster-Jennings revelation -

Plame's exposure as an intelligence operative has become a major controversy in Washington. Former intelligence officials confirmed Plame's cover was an invention and that she used other false identities and affiliations when working overseas. "All it was was a telephone and a post office box," said one former intelligence official who asked not to be identified. "When she was abroad she had a more viable cover."

Oct 11, 2003: "Secrets of the Scandal," The New York Times, Nicholas Kristof
Kristof makes several revelations: Plame's identity may already have been compromised by Aldrich Ames in 1994; Plame was steadily moving from non-official cover to official cover from the State Department; it was somewhat known in Washington that Plame had CIA connections, but her exact position was a well-guarded secret.

Oct 12, 2003: "Probe Focuses on Month Before Leak to Reporters," The Washington Post, Walter Pincus and Mike Allen
This article reveals that Wilson was a source for the Kristof 5/6 piece and the Post's 6/12 piece, also reveals that a Post reporter was contacted by administration officials about Plame on 7/12, and the anonymous source from the Post's 9/28 piece re-confirms his statements. Also mentions that investigators are looking into the NSC staffer who might have known of Plame's connection to Wilson.

Eventually, this story will be one of the reasons Pincus gets subpoenaed - he mentions an Admin source that gave info about the leaker on Jul 12.

Oct 17, 2003: "Memo May Aid Leak Probe," The Wall Street Journal, David S. Cloud
This article claims that an an internal CIA memo reveals Plame's connection to Wilson's Niger trip; it also reveals that Plame was involved with the clandestine network which monitors Iraq.

Oct 27, 2003: "NOC, NOC. Who's There? A Special Kind of Agent," TIME Magazine, Michael Duffy and Timothy J. Burger
This article reveals a few more tidbits about Plame: She only revealed her position to Wilson after several months of dating a thorough background check, and it confirms that she had non-deep non-official cover, (meaning that her background info was not elaborately designed), and she worked under official cover in a European city in the early 90s, and that her non-official cover was beginning to unravel due to her high-profile marriage.

Oct 27, 2003: "The Stovepipe", New Yorker, Seymour Hersh. Important for flavor. More on the forgeries, the handling of intelligence (some of which stood up), and Wild CIA Conspiracy theory - rogue CIA planted the forgeries. Vigorously debunked in "Seymour Hersh’s Pipedream" by Dennis Hans.

Oct 31, 2003: "Unfair Game / Joseph Wilson on the cost of telling the truth in Washington", LA Weekly, Ben Ehrenreich

Excerpt: Q: Do you think it’s possible that the president himself did not know the information that you brought back from Niger before he gave the State of the Union speech?

WILSON: I think it’s highly likely that the truth was kept from him. The question for me is who so betrayed the president as to allow this lie to get into the State of the Union address? It wasn’t me. It was somebody from his own staff. It was a manipulation of intelligence, a twisting of intelligence, the selective use of facts or fiction to bolster a political decision that had already been made.

Dec 3, 2003: Whopper: Joseph Wilson. Tim Noah, formerly sympathetic, turns on Wilson viciously. But hysterically!

Feb 10, 2004: One x Two x Six: The NY Times "Top Bush Aide Is Questioned in C.I.A. Leak", David Johnston; and the Washington Post, "Bush Aides Testify in Leak Probe", Mike Allen and Susan Schmidt.

These two stories need to be read side by side to capture the true hall-of-mirrors aspect of the scandal, which has devolved into the press covering the attempts by the prosecutor to learn what the press already knows - who leaked?

Great detail from the Times, near the end:

...But more recently, prosecutors have focused on a Sept. 28, 2003, article in The Washington Post, which said the newspaper had been told that "yesterday, a senior administration official said that before Novak's column ran, two top White House officials called at least six Washington journalists and disclosed the identity and occupation of Wilson's wife."

The Sept. 28 WaPo article is featured above, and carries Mike Allen's byline. Mr. Allen also wrote the Feb 10 piece updating the investigation. However, WaPo readers were not informed that the investigators were pursuing leads generated by the WaPo reporter. Is thathow big-time reportes cover a story?

January 17, 2004: Vanity Fair profile, which confirms his leak to Kristof:
In early May, Wilson and Plame attended a conference sponsored by the Senate Democratic Policy Committee, at which Wilson spoke about Iraq; one of the other panelists was the New York Times journalist Nicholas Kristof. Over breakfast the next morning with Kristof and his wife, Wilson told about his trip to Niger and said Kristof could write about it, but not name him.

May 3, 2004: Joe Wilson on Larry King Live to promote his book. An excerpt to aid future Google searches:
WILSON: They didn't. As the story started circulating Dr. Condoleezza Rice, national security adviser, was interviewed on "Meet the Press" in June and she said that well, maybe someone in the bowels of the agency, referring to the CIA, might have known something about this but no one in my circle. That was simply not true. As it turns out, not only by what I knew then, but as it turns out in the aftermath of the article that I published.

May 23, 2004: "Don't Tread on Joseph Wilson", John Dean's review of Wilson's book in the NY Times. Dean has articles sympathetic to Wilson cited above.

July 9, 2004: Senate Intelligence report. A section devoted to Niger provides lots of news on Wilson.

July 10, 2004: Washington Post, Susan Schmidt, "Plame's Input Is Cited on Niger Mission"

July 10, 2004: A vicious, self-indulgent reprise by yours truly.

July 10, 2004: Pejman rounds up some links.

July 13, 2004: "Will Nick Kristof Come In From The Cold?":
My commentary pulling together earlier stories and the new Senate report.

July 14, 2004: NY Times: How Niger Uranium Story Defied Wide Skepticism; By James Risen
The RSS perma-link is not available, so here is an excerpt from their Wilson coverage:

Instead of assigning a trained intelligence officer to the Niger case, though, the C.I.A. sent a former American ambassador, Joseph Wilson, to talk to former Niger officials. His wife, Valerie Plame, was an officer in the counterproliferation division, and she had suggested that he be sent to Niger, according to the Senate report.

That finding contradicts previous statements by Mr. Wilson, who publicly criticized the Bush administration last year for using the Niger evidence to help justify the war in Iraq. After his wife's identity as a C.I.A. officer was leaked to the news media, Mr. Wilson said she had not played a role in his assignment, and argued that her C.I.A. employment had been disclosed to punish him. The F.B.I. is investigating the source of the leak about Ms. Plame, which was classified information.

More excerpts here.

July 15, 2004: Wall Street Journal, "The Yellowcake Con": The Wilson-Plame "scandal" was political pulp fiction. [Excerpts, my commentary]

July 15, 2004: LA Times, "Merit Seen in Claims That Iraq Sought Uranium"
Reprises Joe Wilson's saga; my excerpts, commentary.

July 16, 2004: Joe Wilson responds: "The Senate's bad intelligence", Salon (Back-up here, or here.)
Commentary from Jonah Goldberg; Capt. Ed Morrissey, yours truly, Memeorandum.

July 16, 2004: Joe Wilson's letter to the Washington Post. Bob Somerby comments on this.

July 18: Mark Steyn, "How a serial liar suckered Dems and the media"
An amusing tirade that makes the political connection to Kerry.

July 18, 2004: "New Reports Again Question Whether Iraq Sought Uranium in Niger", Richard W. Stevenson and David Johnston, NY Times.
My commentary.

July 18, 2004: The Wilson-Plame Affair (Cont'd)
Michael Getler, the WaPo ombudsman, responds to Wilson's letter to Post.
...Wilson, in his letter, refers to "the Republican-written" report. It is a bipartisan report. Wilson says "the decision to send me to Niger was not made, and could not be made, by Valerie." Neither the report, nor the story, says she made "the decision."

July 18, 2004: CNN Late Edition, Wolf Blitzer. Wilson reviews the allegations against him.
BLITZER: So when the committee says that you told them you had misspoken, what did you misspeak?

WILSON: Well, actually, what I misspoke was, when I misspoke to the committee, when I spoke to the staff -- this interview took place 15 months after The Washington Post article appeared. I did not have a chance to review the article. They did not show me the article.

They threw it out there, and the question I took as being a rather generic question: Could you have misspoken? Yes, I am male, I'm over 50. By definition, I can misspeak. I have gone back since and taken a look at this particular article. It refers to an unidentified former government official. If it is referring to me, it is a misattribution, of facts that were already in the public domain and had been so since March.

My first public statement on this, in my own words, was on July 6th.

July 19, 2004: Weekly Standard, "A Little Literary Flair", Matthew Continetti
Lots of media clips catching Joe in action. A Lexis-Nexis bonanza!
Kristof, the first of Wilson's many journalistic victims, accepted Wilson's claims at face value. "I do know from talking to people directly involved in the Niger deal that information did go to the vice president's office and did go to the national security staff in the White House and went to the top of the CIA," he told an NPR interviewer on June 25, 2003.

July 19, 2004: "Defending Joe Wilson", David Corn, The Nation

July 19, 2004: Paula Zahn interviews Joe Wilson, who explains his press problem - they all misquoted me!
ZAHN: I want you to respond to that very specific allegation in the addendum to the Senate report, which basically says that your public comments not only are incorrect, but have no basis in fact.

WILSON: Well, I'm not exactly sure what public comments they're referring to. If they're referring to leaks or sources, unidentified government sources in articles that appeared before my article in "The New York Times" appeared, those are either misquotes or misattributions if they're attributed to me.

July 20, 2004: Bob Somerby, The Daily Howler. A lefty media critic buries Wilson. For language and content , rated "R" - Democratic reader discretion advised.

July 24, 2004: Weekly Standard, "Dupes R Us", Matthew Continetti
Follows up with Pincus, Kristof, and The New Republic on Continetti's July 19 piece.

OVER THE LAST FEW DAYS, ever since Ambassador Joseph Wilson's credibility was thrown into question by the Senate Select Committee's report on prewar Iraq intelligence, the ambassador has taken to the airwaves to defend himself. How do you respond, he's been asked, to charges that, in numerous conversations with reporters over the last year, you inflated your role in "debunking" foreign government intelligence reporting which suggested Saddam Hussein's Iraq sought uranium from Africa? And Wilson gave his answer. He blamed the reporters he had snookered only months before.

Thing is, the reporters don't seem to mind.

Related commentary re Paula Zahn/Joe Wilson

Aug 10 - VPW - Reporters Subpoenaed

Aug 13, 2003: VPW - Judith Miller Of the NY Times Subpoenaed in Plame Investigation

Sep 16 - Post Source Reveals Identity to Leak Probers; Susan Schmidt. The Baseball Crank has a summary.

Nov 26 - The When and How of Leak Being Probed; Susan Schmidt, WaPo. 

Editor and Publisher follows up: New Twist in Plame Game: When Did Novak Column Move on the Wires?

From the WaPo: "While Novak's column did not run until Monday, July 14, it could have been seen by people in the White House or the media as early as Friday, July 11, when the Creators Syndicate distributed it over the Associated Press wire."

For an alternative perspective: The Mark Kleiman Archive - a collection of commentary and links from the left.

More left-friendly links here.

Butler Report Excerpt on Uranium

Top of p. 121

6.4 URANIUM FROM AFRICA
490. There has been significant controversy surrounding the reliability of Government statements about Iraqi attempts to buy uranium from Africa. We have therefore studied this issue in detail.

491. Natural uranium is the necessary starting point for all nuclear developments (whether for weapons or civil power). In the late 1970s, Iraq obtained large quantities of uranium ore from Niger, Portugal and Brazil. By the mid-1980s, however, Iraq had become selfsuf ficient in uranium ore, which was a by-product of indigenous phosphate mines at

Top of p. 122

Akashat and purifying plants at Al Qaim and Al Jazira which extracted and purified the uranium ore for subsequent use in nuclear enrichment processes.

492. In the course of the first Gulf war, the facilities involved in this indigenous route were severely damaged. Subsequently, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) supervised the dismantlement of all the facilities that Iraq had built to process, enrich and fabricate uranium, and removed all potentially fissile material. Some unprocessed uranium ore was left in country, but under IAEA safeguards and subject to regular inspections. Iraq would therefore have had to seek imports of uranium or uranium ore if it
wished to restart its nuclear programme covertly.

493. In early 1999, Iraqi officials visited a number of African countries, including Niger. The visit (footnote 2, not presented) was detected by intelligence, and some details were subsequently confirmed by Iraq. The purpose of the visit was not immediately known. But uranium ore accounts for almost three-quarters of Niger’s exports. Putting this together with past Iraqi purchases of uranium ore from Niger, the limitations faced by the Iraq regime on access to indigenous uranium ore and other evidence of Iraq seeking to restart its nuclear programme, the JIC judged that Iraqi purchase of uranium ore could have been the subject of discussions and
noted in an assessment in December 2000 that:

. . . unconfirmed intelligence indicates Iraqi interest in acquiring uranium.

[JIC, 1 December 2000]

494. There was further and separate intelligence that in 1999 the Iraqi regime had also made inquiries about the purchase of uranium ore in the Democratic Republic of Congo. In this case, there was some evidence that by 2002 an agreement for a sale had been reached.

495. During 2002, the UK received further intelligence from additional sources which identified the purpose of the visit to Niger as having been to negotiate the purchase of uranium ore, though there was disagreement as to whether a sale had been agreed and uranium shipped.

496. This evidence underlay the statement in the Executive Summary of the Government’s dossier of September 2002 that:

As a result of the intelligence we judge that Iraq has:

- tried covertly to acquire technology and materials which could be used in the production of nuclear weapons;

- sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa, despite having no active civil nuclear power programme that could require it

and in Chapter 3 of Part 1 of the Government’s dossier that:

The main conclusions are that:

Top of p. 123

- Saddam continues to attach great importance to the possession of weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles which he regards as being the basis for Iraq’s regional power. He is determined to retain these capabilities;

- Iraq continues to work on developing nuclear weapons, in breach of its obligations under the Non-Proliferation Treaty and in breach of UNSCR 687. Uranium has been sought from Africa that has no civil nuclear application in Iraq.

and:

Iraq’s known holdings of processed uranium are under IAEA supervision. But there is intelligence that Iraq has sought the supply of significant quantities of uranium from Africa. Iraq has no active civil nuclear power programme or nuclear power plants and therefore has no legitimate reason to acquire uranium.

497. In preparing the dossier, the UK consulted the US. The CIA advised caution about any suggestion that Iraq had succeeded in acquiring uranium from Africa, but agreed that there was evidence that it had been sought.

498. The range of evidence described above underlay the relevant passage in the Prime Minister’s statement in the House of Commons on 24 September 2002 that:

In addition, we know that Saddam has been trying to buy significant quantities of uranium from Africa, although we do not know whether he has been successful.

499. We conclude that, on the basis of the intelligence assessments at the time, covering both Niger and the Democratic Republic of Congo, the statements on Iraqi attempts to buy uranium from Africa in the Government’s dossier, and by the Prime Minister in the House of Commons, were well-founded. By extension, we conclude also that the statement in President Bush’s State of the Union Address of 28 January 2003 that:

The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.

was well-founded.

500. We also note that, because the intelligence evidence was inconclusive, neither the Government’s dossier nor the Prime Minister went on to say that a deal between the Governments of Iraq and Niger for the supply of uranium had been signed, or uranium shipped.

501. We have been told that it was not until early 2003 that the British Government became aware that the US (and other states) had received from a journalistic source a number of documents alleged to cover the Iraqi procurement of uranium from Niger. Those documents were passed to the IAEA, which in its update report to the United Nations Security Council in March 2003 determined that the papers were forgeries:

Top of p. 124

The investigation was centred on documents provided by a number of States that pointed to an agreement between Niger and Iraq for the sale of uranium to Iraq between 1999 and 2001. The IAEA has discussed these reports with the Governments of Iraq and Niger,both of which have denied that any such activity took
place. For its part, Iraq has provided the IAEA with a comprehensive explanation of its relations with Niger,and has described a visit by an Iraqi official to a number of African countries,including Niger, in February 1999,which Iraq thought might have given rise to the reports. The IAEA was able to review correspondence coming from various bodies of the Government of Niger,and to compare the form, format,
contents and signatures of that correspondence with those of the alleged procurement-related documentation. Based on thorough analysis,the IAEA has concluded,with the concurrence of outside experts,that these documents,which formed the basis for the reports of recent uranium transactions between Iraq and Niger,are in fact not authentic. We have therefore concluded that these specific
allegations are unfounded.

[IAEA GOV/INF/2003/10 Annex of 7 March 2003]

502. We have asked the IAEA what were their grounds for concluding that the visit paid by an Iraqi official to Africa was not for the purpose of acquiring uranium. The IAEA said:

. . . the Director General explained in his report dated 7 March 2004 [sic] to the UN Security Council that Iraq ”described the visit by an Iraqi official to a number of African countries,including Niger, in February 1999,which Iraq thought might have given rise to the reports”. On a number of occasions in early 2003,includin g in a letter dated 1 February 2003,the IAEA requested Iraq to provide details of all
meetings held between Iraqi officials and officials from Niger around the year 2000.

The Director of Iraq’s National Monitoring Directorate responded in a letter of 7 February 2003 to the Director of the IAEA’s Iraq Nuclear Verification Office. (It should be noted that at the time of Iraq’s response Iraq had not been provided by the IAEA with any details contained in documents alleging the existence of a uranium contract.)

The Iraqi response referred to above explained that, on 8 February 1999, Mr. Wissam Al Zahawie, Iraq’s then Ambassador to the Holy See, as part of a trip to four African countries, visited Niger as an envoy of the then President of Iraq to Mr. Ibrahim Bare, the then President of Niger,in order to deliver an official invitation for a visit to Iraq, planned for 20 to 30 April 1999. (N.B. Mr. Bare passed away on 9 April 1999.)
According to the Iraqi information,no such presidential visit from Niger to Iraq took place before 2003.

The Iraqi authorities provided the IAEA with excerpts from Mr. Al Zahawie’s travel report to Niger. These excerpts support the above explanation by the Ambassador regarding the purpose of his visit to Niger and do not contain any references to discussions about uranium supply from Niger. In order to further clarify the matter,the IAEA interviewed Mr. Al Zahawie on 12 February 2003. The information provided by the Ambassador about details about his 1999 trip to Africa also supported the information obtained previously by the

Top of p. 125

Agency on this visit. The demeanour of the Ambassador and the general tone of the interview did not suggest that he was under particular pressure to hide or fabricate information. Notwithstanding the information summarized above, and in view of the fact that the IAEA so far has not obtained any other related information than the forged documents, the IAEA is not in the position to demonstrate that Iraq never sought to import uranium in the past. This is the reason why the IAEA only concluded that it
had ”no indication that Iraq attempted to import uranium since 1990” but it would ”follow up any additional evidence,if it emerges,relevant to efforts by Iraq to illicitly import nuclear materials”. So far no such additional information has been obtained by the Agency.

503. From our examination of the intelligence and other material on Iraqi attempts to buy uranium from Africa, we have concluded that:

a. It is accepted by all parties that Iraqi officials visited Niger in 1999.

b. The British Government had intelligence from several different sources indicating that this visit was for the purpose of acquiring uranium. Since uranium constitutes almost three-quarters of Niger’s exports, the intelligence was credible.

c. The evidence was not conclusive that Iraq actually purchased, as opposed to having sought, uranium and the British Government did not claim this.

d. The forged documents were not available to the British Government at the time its assessment was made, and so the fact of the forgery does not undermine it.

NY Times transcript of Kerry/Edwards Interview

Complete Transcript of Interview with the Democratic Candidates

ollowing is an interview on Friday with Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts and Senator John Edwards of North Carolina aboard Mr. Kerry's campaign plane, on a flight from Beaver, Pa., to Albuquerque.

Q.Knowing what you have seen or read about the Senate Intelligence Committee report that came out today - and Senator Rockefeller said that he thought that most Democrats would probably not have voted for the war had they known about the quality of the intelligence - about weapons of mass destruction, would you now, knowing what you know, have voted for that resolution? Do you think the American people and Congress were misled? Senator Edwards?

EDWARDS: I think what we know from the intelligence report, there are several things. One is that the al Qaeda-Hussein connection was not there. I believed that at the time, I continued to believe it in the interim, and I believe it now. I believe it was not there. I did not believe there was a strong al Qaeda-Saddam Hussein connection, I never believed that. My view is that what George Bush has done in Iraq, both in the leadup to the war and more importantly his planning for winning the peace, has cost America dearly, and cost the possibility of success dearly. And I think that's our focus, for purposes of the Kerry-Edwards administration, is what we would do, given the situation that we're now in. If you listen to what we've talked about both on the campaign trail, and what we will talk about going forward, and what the American people want to know from us is, what would you do given the situation we're in in Iraq now, how will you lead differently, how will you build coalitions differently, how will you provide security or help the Iraqis provide security for themselves differently than this administration, and that's what I think people are looking for. So trying to go back and reevaluate what we would have done, had we had, hypothetically, had this information or that information, is not useful to us now. What people want to know from us is what we can do to lead. Based on the situation we're now in. That's exactly what we've been talking about, it's what we'll continue to talk about.

Q.You said you never thought there was a connection between al Qaeda and Hussein. Is there anything in the intelligence report that has changed your view on anything, from what your view was when you took the vote to what your view is now of the situation?

EDWARDS: Yes. They didn't find eapons of mass destruction. We were provided evidence before the war began indicating that there were or had been weapons of mass destruction.

Q.Was that your main rationale for voting for the war?

EDWARDS: It was one of the things. I'm not going to go back and answer hypothetical questions about what I would have done had I known this, had I known that thing at the time. My job is to talk about what I will do going forward.

Q.What if the vote were today?

KERRY: Look, the vote is not today and that's it. I agree completely with Senator Edwards. It's a waste of time. It's not what this is about. We voted the way we voted based on the information in front of us, based on that moment in time. And it was the right vote at that time based on that information. Period. And this president not only abused the intelligence and the information, for which he is responsible, not just Mr. Tenet - not just the vice president, not Secretary Rumsfeld - the president. You know, Harry Truman's sign didn't say, "The buck stops at the Pentagon," or "The buck stops at the intelligence agency," and the fact is that we authorized the president to use force in a responsible way, and I have said for months, you know, I have said it to you, I have said it across the country: this president abused the authority that he was given, by abusing his own promises to the country as to how he would build a coalition and how he would go to war.

Q.Did he mislead you, did he mislead Congress, you, and the American people?

KERRY: Over a period of time, there were a number of misleading statements made by the president. He certainly misled America about nuclear involvement. And he misled America about the types of weapons that were there, and he misled America about how he would go about using the authority he was given. "Going to war as a last resort" means something to me. The president did not go to war as a last resort, period. Moreover it's the responsibility of a president, if you are going to go to war, having said we're going to do all that's necessary, to do all that's necessary. He didn't. Because he had no plan for winning the peace. It is utterly extraordinary the level of miscalculation of this administration, as to what they would find in Iraq and what was going to be necessary. They discarded their own professional military evaluations, from General Shinseki and others, they disrespected professional military careers, turned their backs on their own State Department's plans, and arrogantly believed. . . . And they were wrong. And soldiers lost their lives because they were wrong. And America's paying -billions of dollars because they were wrong, and allies are not with us because they were wrong. I think there is no greater responsibility of the president of the United States.

Q.You're both products of Vietnam, in different ways. Do you think this experience has undercut Americans'-faith in government the way that Vietnam did for a lot of us in the 1960's?

KERRY: I think there is a new level of cynicism and lack of credibility towards government among young people in our country, I think you're seeing it on campuses, I think you're seeing it in the reflection of, ah -

EDWARDS: I think equally important, we can change that, we can change that. The damage is not irreparable with a new administration. That's exactly for people in this country who have lost some of their faith, who feel that cynicism that John's talking about, to have a president who has been through what he's been through, in Vietnam, what the men around him describe about his leadership, his vision, and more, what he's made of, inside, will go a long way and to have a president who tells the American people the truth will go a long way toward restoring that confidence. One of the reasons, one of the reasons, that this election is so important, I mean, it is important for so many reasons, and this is one. Another, which we talked about consistently on the campaign trail over the last few days that I believe deeply, is, people, there is a hunger and a thirst, at a gut level, for feeling good about things, feeling good about America. Being Americans, the way America's viewed around the world, how their families are going to be tomorrow, and the next day, and the next day. That's what we believe a Kerry-Edwards administration can give people. And it's a dramatic contrast with this administration. I mean, by any measure, if you listen to us over the last few days, and John over a longer period of time, and you listen to them, I mean there can't be any serious question about who can give the American people hope and optimism again.

KERRY: And I believe if you talk with Warren Hoge or you talk to David Sanger, you talk to other people around the world, they will confirm to you, I believe, that it may well take a new president to restore America's credibility on a global basis so that we can deal with other countries and bring people back into alliances. The credibility of this country has been tarnished by this president. We can restore it. We will restore it.

Q.In your discussions since March, Senator Kerry, what have you learned from Senator Edwards that has affected or expanded your position on how you win the war in Iraq or homeland security. What are things that Senator Edwards told you that changed or modified?

KERRY: They haven't changed or modified. Senator Edwards and I have been an echo chamber over the course of the last months. With respect to Iraq, we have the same position. We both voted the same way with respect to the $87 billion, we've both been talking about international cooperation, we've both been articulating the need for diplomacy and statesmanship, and that's one of the reasons why I'm so comfortable is I've looked at the records, I looked at the proposals of the campaign, and the creativity and the thoughtfulness that went into thinking about, for instance, the intelligence community. John had a very thoughtful proposal in the course of the campaign about how we do it. We had a very similar proposal. You look at the proposals on health care, they weren't very far apart. So there was a general comfort level with the vision that we both wanted to articulate to the country.

EDWARDS: If I could add one little thing to what he just said. And if you listen, people have talked a lot about my "Two Americas, building one America" speech. But he was talking about exactly the same thing, in different words. I mean, he talked at length during the campaign about middle class squeeze, about the effect on working people of the cost of health care and the loss of health care coverage, what we should do about college tuition, how do we make our school system one public school system that works for everybody. It really is very much the same thing.

Q.Not so much differences. During this whole process, did you talk about where does this country go, where would you as president, as vice president ?

KERRY: We've had discussions, obviously we talked about our shared vision.

EDWARDS: Things like the middle class tax cuts

KERRY: Of course we talked about those things. But the most important thing because I had exhaustive research done on a number of people. And I spent a long time reading through those issues of each person I was considering and evaluating. So we didn't need to spend a heck of a lot of time talking about how many forums did we do? 31 debates? The conversations are really about a relationship, about a mutual understanding of the role of the presidency and how we can be a team, and about values, about what matters to us personally. It was more a question of coming together in that regard.

EDWARDS: And coming to the conclusion that we believe in each other.

Q.Senator Edwards, what was the hardest question he asked you?

KERRY: Oh, I wouldn't -

EDWARDS: Well, first of all, I don't even know the answer to that question. And if I knew the answer, I wouldn't tell you.

Q.Senator Kerry, what was the best answer? What was a turning point where he said something and you thought, "This is the guy''?

KERRY: Here's the deal. I said I was going to keep that process personal and private up until the point that I announced who I'm running with, and I did.

Q.Now we're after that point.

KERRY: Yup. And we're talking about what we're going to do as president.

Q.In a poll we did recently, we found that a majority of Americans thought that because of the administration policy onIraq, the chance of a terrorist attack had grown. Do you guys agree with that?

KERRY: I believe that the overall conduct of this administration's foreign policy the war included, the management of Afghanistan, the diversion from Afghanistan, away from Al Qaeda, the lack of cooperation with other countries, the lack of adequate attention on homeland security, all together -- has not made America as safe as we ought to be given the options available to us in the aftermath of 9/11.

Q.That's too mushy. Are we more or less vulnerable to a terrorist attack?

KERRY: Look, because I didn't answer your question the way you want me to doesn't mean my answer is too mushy. What I said is very clear. That there are a whole series of events that have not made America safer.

Q.Not that part. The other part. Is America more vulnerable to attack?

KERRY: Iraq itself has become more of a focus of terrorism. And I'm confident that certain things that they have done in Iraq have increased the recruitment of terrorists.

EDWARDS: I agree with that. I want to go back to what he just said. The question, I can't remember exactly how you phrased it say it again.

Q.Has his policy in Iraq - I'll grant you all the other foreign policy points - made us more vulnerable to terrorist attack?

EDWARDS: The way he answered that question, the way John just answered that question, is the way the question should be answered. Because things don't fit into boxes in this world. Any more than the things that affect American families here at home fit in boxes. You know, it's not health care, and then in another box, jobs, and then in another box, tuition. They all come together to affect the lives of Americans. It's also true that when you're evaluating what the effect has been of this administration, you can't look at Iraq in isolation, because Iraq acts in concert with what's happening in Afghanistan, what's happening with the war on terrorism in general, what's happening with the deterioration of our relationships around the world all those things go together in order to evaluate what the impact is.

Q.Have all those things together made us more vulnerable to terrorist attack?

EDWARDS: I do not believe we are as safe as we can be, that's what I believe.

KERRY: Can I tell you why? The fact that what's happened in Iraq may have created more terrorists doesn't mean they've gotten to the United States, doesn't mean they have the ability to attack us. Those are very - that would require the briefing that I'm waiting to get this weekend, for me to ask a lot of questions. The likelihood is, yes. It certainly has increased the recruitment of terrorists and the focus on the United States as a target.

Q.Do you think the warning Thursday from the White House was trying to use fear to manipulate the electorate? Is there a "crying wolf" danger with all these warnings?

EDWARDS: I would say two things about that. First, we are committed to crushing terrorist cells, to getting them out of the United States, and to winning the war on terrorism. Completely committed to that. Using all of the resources of the United States to accomplish that goal. We both believe that there is more than can be done. We talk about a positive vision for the country. This is one of the areas where we believe we have a positive vision about other things that can be done. Just for example, stronger alliances. Both of us know, from our work in the Senate, and our work on the Intelligence Committee - which John served on for, what, eight years? - that you cannot get to these terrorist cells without effective, cooperative relationships with the countries where they're located. You just can't do it. I talked about and he talked about - before September 11, when the administration was focused on missile defense - about the danger of terrorism, the danger of Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations. So the bottom line is, we are committed to stopping terrorism, this is an area where the safety and security of the American people are at stake, that's where we're focused. And we believe we have a vision and a set of ideas that will keep this country safe.

Q.Do you believe the White House manipulated the public by using these warnings?

KERRY: I can't speculate and I'm not going to. What I'm going to do is guarantee that we, like John just said - what's important is what we can do to make Americans safer. I don't think people want political talk about this, I think they want to know that we have a plan.

Q.Have you talked about this, about what you would do differently?

KERRY: No, we have not talked about that. What we have talked about is making America safer.

Q.What would you do differently in regard to that?

KERRY: Significantly.

EDWARDS: So many ways

KERRY: Significantly. First of all, Homeland Security left ports unsecured. They haven't pushed the kind of port container inspection we ought to have. They haven't asked people in the foxholes facross the country about emergency planning capacity and catastrophic response capacity. We don't have the nuclear chemical plant, physical preparation that's been taking place, firehouses are understaffed, cops are being cut. Drive around and talk to mayors around the country as we have. They'll tell you how they're struggling with Homeland Security. Second, second, the cooperative effort with other countries cannot be overstated in terms of its importance to us. Your intelligence staff, the only way to improve it is with indigenous assets, the only way to have indigenous assets is to have good cooperative relationships when you're in the country and capable of building them. And in the absence of indigenous assets belonging to us, you've got to use other people's. That means you have to have the best cooperation. Everybody understands this administration doesn't have that. They've left relationships in tatters. And the fact is we can do a much better job of providing security to this country by repairing alliances around the world. Third, we have a set of other global issues that are available to us to help bring countries, to sort of build up the well of good will, if you will, so that when you need a vote at to the UN, or you're trying to get people to cooperate, there's more of a relationship to build on, and I'm talking about North Korea, AIDS, Africa, African development, global warming, loose nuclear materials in Russia, there are a series of involvements in Latin America, there are all kinds of things, that if we had a more proactive, sensitive, thoughtful, strategic, engaged foreign policy, we will strengthen our ability to wage the war on terror. Third

EDWARDS: Fourth. You already did third.

KERRY: That's why he's good. This administration has done a really poor job of public diplomacy that is critical to our building up an understanding in the world about the true nature of Islam. The real potential for a dialogue so that we isolate extremists, not have extremists isolate America. I think we can create a climate wherein the Arab world is more prepared to stand up for what is right than they are today given the dynamics this administration has created. So, there are many ways for us to be able to make America safer.

EDWARDS: Intelligence reform.

KERRY: And I have proposed, we both proposed, that the intelligence community reform. You know we've got this broad array of agencies that still are stovepipe, they don't talk to each other. There's not one single leader responsible, there's not one single budget responsible. We've both proposed, independently and) to bring that together with a unitary command and a greater structure. So there's, you know, I think this administration has been talk. As they say in Texas, all hat, no cattle.

Q.Do you think Dick Cheney is too powerful a vice president?

EDWARDS: I'm focused on what our relationship's going to be I'm not interested in talking about theirs.

Q.Who are your role models for vice president or, tell us three vice presidents and some aspect of how they did the job that you want to emulate.

EDWARDS: Well the most recent example is the relationship between President Clinton and Vice President Gore. Which from the beginning was a relationship where they were close, they talked often, they consulted on a whole range of issues that affected the country. And the vice president was given responsibility, Vice President Gore, was given responsibility for particular areas. The reality is that both of us trust each other. And you asked earlier, both of you asked earlier, about what the result of our conversations has been. Let me tell you what from my perspective what the result has been. They have done nothing but intensify my belief of what kind of a man John Kerry is, what kind of president he will be, and my faith in him. And the result of that is that our relationship is evolving. You know it will continue to evolve. I mean, he picked me Tuesday.

Q.(To Mr. Edwards) Did you do a lot of reading about vice presidents?

KERRY: Can I comment, just quickly, if I may. . The reason I'm going to comment is because John and I talked about this, specifically, and the truth is that the vice presidency prior to Walter Mondale and Jimmy Carter was almost, you know, non-existent as a relationship. That was the first time the vice president was moved into the West Wing. Literally, every presidency since then, the vice presidency has been evolving. John and I talked very specifically about our wanting it to evolve to a stronger and most effective relationship that has existed to date. But I particularly find fault in the relationship between this vice president and president, particularly, and that will not be our model.

Q.Did you call Vice President Mondale before you got picked to talk to him about the job?

EDWARDS: No, not that I remember.

Q.Did you do any reading of history about other vice presidents?

EDWARDS: I have followed and read about other vice presidential relationships, some in the past, some more recently. And I will say this: I went to Minnesota, for you, at the convention I just remember being in Minnesota and he said very nice things about us being there, And I consider him a terrific, terrific person.

Q.Anything particular that you've read about vice presidents?

KERRY: Nobody wrote anything about vice presidents.

Q.So what have you guys been doing up here at the front of the plane? Has Senator Kerry been playing guitar for you?

EDWARDS: He played some guitar for me. I'm not sure I want him to play it again.

Q.Are you going to take up some instrument and have a band?

EDWARDS: No, we have no band, unfortunately I'm not blessed with musical talent like him, like my pal here.

KERRY: I'm not blessed with it either.

Q.Play cards?

EDWARDS: We haven't played any cards. We've talked a lot. An awful lot.

KERRY: We've been busy, we've been moving pretty fast.

EDWARDS: It's been good.

If I Could Turn Back Time...

If we can believe a Newsmax summary of a Ted Koppel radio broadcast, Johns Kerry and Edwards are loking like The Lonely Guys with their nuanced remorse about their vote to support the the war:

Hillary, Top Dems Still Would Have Voted for War

...Koppel reported: "We wanted to see whether the conclusions reached by the Intelligence Committee would have made any difference to the other senators who voted to authorize the war in Iraq, so we called them.

"Of the 42 we reached, only three said they would have changed their minds had they known then 'what they know now.'

"Among those who say they would not have changed their minds, a number of prominent Democrats, including Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden, Chuck Schumer and Tom Daschle."

And what about Kerry and Edwards? What, indeed? The LA Times is brutalizing him in an editorial. (Relax, they will endorse him in due course). John Podhoretz attacks their still-exposed right flank from the Right Coast. And Tall John is still waiting for his briefing. Bring it on, John!

Excerpt - Senate Intelligence Report

The following was typed by "the Kid" from the Senate Intelligence report, and left in my comments section:

On February 19, 2002, CPD hosted a meeting with the former ambassador, intelligence analysts from both the CIA and INR, and several individuals from the DO’s Africa and CPD divisions. The purpose of the meeting was to discuss the merits of the former ambassador traveling to Niger. An INR analyst’s notes indicated 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.” The former ambassador’s wife told Committee staff that she only attended the meeting to introduce her husband and left after about three minutes.

At the bottom of page 44, the report reads:

When the former ambassador spoke to Committee staff, his description of his findings differed from the DO intelligence report and his account of information provided to him by the CIA differed from the CIA officials’ accounts in some respects. First, the former ambassador described his findings to Committee staff as more directly related to Iraq and, specifically, as refuting both the possibility that Niger could have sold uranium to Iraq and that Iraq approached Niger to purchase uranium. The intelligence report described how the structure of Niger’s uranium mines would make it difficult, if not impossible, for Niger to sell uranium to rouge nations, and noted that Nigerien officials denied knowledge of any deals to ell uranium to any rouge states, but did not refute the possibility that Iraq had approached Niger to purchase uranium. Second, the former ambassador said that he discussed with his CIA contacts which names and signatures should have appeared on any documentation of a legitimate uranium transaction. In fact, the intelligence report made no mention of the alleged Iraq-Niger uranium deal or signatures that should have appeared on any documentation of such a deal. The only mention of Iraq in the report pertained to the meeting between the Iraqi delegation and former Prime Minister Mayaki. Third, the former ambassador noted that his CIA contacts told him there were documents pertaining to the alleged Iraq-Niger uranium transaction and that the source of the information was the XXXX intelligence service. The DO reports officer told Committee staff that he did not provide the former ambassador with any information about the source or details of the original reporting as it would have required sharing classified information and, noted that there were no “documents” circulating in the IC at the time of the former ambassador’s trip, only intelligence reports from XXX intelligence regarding an alleged Iraq-Niger uranium deal. Meeting notes and other correspondence show that detail of the reporting were discussed at the February 19, 2002 meeting, but none of the meeting participants recall telling the former ambassador the source of the report XXXXX.

The next paragraph reads as follows:

The former ambassador also told Committee staff that he was the source of a Washington Post article (“CIA Did Not Share Doubt on Iraq Data: Bush Used Report of Uranium Bid,” June 12, 2003) which said, “among the Envoy’s conclusions was that the documents may have 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 former ambassador said that he may have “misspoken” to the reporter when he said he concluded that the documents were “forged.” He also said he may have become confused about his own recollection after the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported in March 2003 that the names and dates on the documents were not correct and may have thought he had seen the names himself. The former ambassador reiterated that he had been able to collect the names of the government officials which should have been on the documents.

The report goes on to say that the operations folks graded Wilson’s report as “good,” which is a 3 on their 1-5 scale. DIA and CIA analysts were not surprised to find Nigerien denial of a uranium deal, but did “find it interesting that the former Nigerien Prime Minister said an Iraqi delegation had visited Niger for what he believed was to discuss uranium sales.” (page 46) And on page 47 the reports says there were not real inconsistencies with names or dates in the foreign government report as Wilson told the WaPo.

OK, and thank you, Kid.

Now, this is what I see on p. 47:

On March 25, 2002, the Do issued a third and final intelligence report from the same "(foreign) government service". The report said that the 2000 agreement by Niger to provide uranium to Iraq specified that 500 tons of uranium per year would be delivered in XXX...

As in the two previous reports, the government service was not identified as the foreign government service. the foreign government service did not provide the DO with information about its source and the DO, to date, remains uncertain as tohow the foreign government service collected the information in the three intelligence reports. There were no obvious inconsistencies in the names of officials mentioned or the dates of the transactions in any of the three reports. Of the seven names mentioned in the reporting, two were former high ranking officials who were the individuals in the positions described in the reports at the time described and five were lower ranking officials. Of the five lower ranking, two were not the individuals in the positions described in the reports, however, those do not appear to be names or positions with which intelligence analysts would have been familiar. For example, an INR analyst who had recently returned from a position as Deputy Chief of Mission at teh US Embassy in Niger told Committee staff that they did not notice any inconsistencies with the names of the officials mentioned. The only mistake in any of the reports regarding dates, is that one date, July 7, is said tobe a Wednesday in the report, but was actually a Friday.

So - presumably these reports were not inspired by the forgeries, which may tie in to the fact that the Brits are alleged to be standing by their story (I write this pre-Butler). And one does wonder, if these were the reports that inspired the Wilson trip, just what inconsistencies the Ambassador may have spotted.

MORE: OK the 500 ton intel report 9second report) is mentioned as triggering debate on p. 38 of the report, and eventually prompting the Ambassador's trip. But if we are following the text above, those documents were not obvious forgeries.