While we await news from the Djerejian Challenge, let's reflect (again) on Joseph Wilson's diminished credibility. Our subject - was his wife involved in getting him the trip to Niger for the CIA? In early chats, Wilson normally managed a Clintonian non-denial, as with Corn. However, he seems to have gone over the line in an interview with Josh Marshall:
WILSON: First of all, the Novak allegation is very interesting. If I recall the article correctly, he flatly asserts my wife is a CIA operative. And then he quotes senior administration officials as saying that she was somehow responsible for sending me out there. Now, I think I mentioned to you earlier the context in which my trip was initially discussed, and I will tell you that at the meetings it was discussed, and at the meeting where it was proposed that I go out there, there was nobody at that meeting that I knew. There were a couple of people who came up and introduced themselves and said to me that they had been at other briefings I had given in the past on other issues, but I could not name any of them. I couldn't tell you who they are today--would pass them on the streets without recognizing them. So that's really--the decision-making process involved nobody that I knew.
Emphasis added. Now, on page 40 of the Senate Intelligence report (p. 5 by the .pdf numbering), we find this -
(U) On February 19, 2002, CPD hosted a meeting with the former ambassador, intelligence analysts from both the CIA and INR, and several individuals from 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 indicate 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."
That is my typing, and my emphasis added.
So, his wife called the meeting, and introduced him, but, according to what the Ambassador told Dr. Marshall, he didn't know anyone in the room. Calling Mr. Wilson a liar seems too obvious, so we have other ideas:
(a) His wife was in her covert deep-cover disguise, and he didn't recognize her;
(b) She introduced him and left by way of a secret passageway through the bookcase before he entered the room - actually having him in the room for the intro would have been awkward for everyone.
(c) Wilson told larger truths about the evildoers in BushCo, so his minor, uhh, misrecollections are irrelevant.
As Josh Marshall contemplates the Djerejian Challenge, he may want to puzzle over how he feels, as a journalist, about having been, hmm, misinformed by an interviewee. Hey, it happens! My guess is that choice (c) will prevail, but let's not give up on (b).
Now, I am still not convinced that his wife's involvement is deeply significant, other than as a measure of Wilson's credibility. But saying her involvement is not a big deal is hardly reassuring - if it is not important, why is he lying, and what else might he be lying about? Sorry, why does he misremember so much, and what else did he misremember?
UPDATE: We are giving props to Tim Dunlop (and probably ruining his status in the left half of the blogosphere) for noticing that a person can doubt both Wilson and the Administration.
And a Good Job by the Poor Man, who actually reads the Chairman's separate report, unearthing this nugget:
Despite our hard and successful work to deliver a unanimous report, however, there were two issues on which the Republicans and Democrats could not agree: 1) whether the Committee should conclude that former Ambassador Joseph Wilson's public statements were based on knowledge he actually possessed, and 2) whether the Committee should conclude that it was the former ambassador's wife that recommended him for his trip to Niger.
Hmmm.
MORE: Josh Marshall is interesting on the forged documents, which inspired the French as well as the Italians. He might want to add this detail from p. 59 - on Nov 22, 2002, the French reported that they believed an Iraqi procurement attempt had been made, but that no uranium had been shipped. Apparently, this was based on the forgeries - the US got this bad news on March 4, 2003 (p 69).
More details - we have thanks to "The Kid", extended excerpts from the report right here. Wilson's trip seems to have been inspired in part by a report on 500 tons of uranium per year. However, the names and dates in that report did not show obvious inconsistencies, suggesting that something other than forgeries was driving this.
No, I have no idea why I did not put this in a separate post.
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