What Is Happening At The WaPo?

If an editorial can induce aneurysms, the Washington Post may have killed or wounded a significant slice of left-leaning America with their effort on Sunday - in "A Good Leak" they both defend Libby's leak of the NIE to Judy Miller and beat on Joe Wilson.  Since they also buried a seemingly-significant story about who at the White House knew what and when on the Niger-uranium question, we wonder if there has been a Ben Domenech-inspired coup at the WaPo.  [A more serious defense of the WaPo is here - basically, Woodward, Pincus, and the editors have insider knowledge about who leaked and why.]

First, their praise of the leak, with emphasis added:

A Good Leak
President Bush declassified some of the intelligence he used to decide on war in Iraq. Is that a scandal?

PRESIDENT BUSH was right to approve the declassification of parts of a National Intelligence Estimate about Iraq three years ago in order to make clear why he had believed that Saddam Hussein was seeking nuclear weapons. Presidents are authorized to declassify sensitive material, and the public benefits when they do. But the administration handled the release clumsily, exposing Mr. Bush to the hyperbolic charges of misconduct and hypocrisy that Democrats are leveling.

...There was nothing illegal or even particularly unusual about that; nor is this presidentially authorized leak necessarily comparable to other, unauthorized disclosures that the president believes, rightly or wrongly, compromise national security. Nevertheless, Mr. Cheney's tactics make Mr. Bush look foolish for having subsequently denounced a different leak in the same controversy and vowing to "get to the bottom" of it.

Wow.  Of course, these are presumably the same editors hyping the "punish Wilson" excerpt from the Fitzgerald filing, so go figure.

LOTS of reaction at Memeorandum; I may scout a few lefty sites to perform a body count, but let me try to anticipate their outrage on the Wilson segment.  To do that I have to take the unaccustomed role of Joe Wilson apologist, but here we go:

Mr. Wilson originally claimed in a 2003 New York Times op-ed and in conversations with numerous reporters that he had debunked a report that Iraq was seeking to purchase uranium from Niger and that Mr. Bush's subsequent inclusion of that allegation in his State of the Union address showed that he had deliberately "twisted" intelligence "to exaggerate the Iraq threat."  The material that Mr. Bush ordered declassified established, as have several subsequent investigations, that Mr. Wilson was the one guilty of twisting the truth. In fact, his report supported the conclusion that Iraq had sought uranium.

Well, per the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence report from July 2004, it is true that there were aspects of his report that supported that conclusion, since Wilson noted an Iraqi overture from 1999 that may have been related to uranium.  However, his report was considered inconclusive.  From the report:

Conclusion 13. The report on the former ambassador's trip to Niger, disseminated in March 2002, did not change any analysts' assessments of the Iraq-Niger uranium deal. For most analysts, the information in the report lent more credibility to the original Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) reports on the uranium deal, but State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) analysts believed that the report supported their assessment that Niger was unlikely to be willing or able to sell uranium to Iraq.

Let's go back to the editorial:

Mr. Wilson subsequently claimed that the White House set out to punish him for his supposed whistle-blowing by deliberately blowing the cover of his wife, Valerie Plame, who he said was an undercover CIA operative. This prompted the investigation by Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald. After more than 2 1/2 years of investigation, Mr. Fitzgerald has reported no evidence to support Mr. Wilson's charge.

As much as I agree, this editorial is appearing in the very same paper that reported this on Saturday, in the lead:

As he drew back the curtain this week on the evidence against Vice President Cheney's former top aide, Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald for the first time described a "concerted action" by "multiple people in the White House" -- using classified information -- to "discredit, punish or seek revenge against" a critic of President Bush's war in Iraq.

And this was in the Friday edition:

Fitzgerald's brief uses unusually strong language to rebut this claim. In light of the grand jury testimony, the prosecutor said, "it is hard to conceive of what evidence there could be that would disprove the existence of White House efforts to 'punish' Wilson."

My goodness, regular readers of the WaPo risk whiplash.  [That said, the WaPo editors surely know who Bob Woodward's source is for his Plame leak; they also must know Walter Pincus' source.  So they may have unpublished reasons to be skeptical of the "punishment" theory.]  Let's press on:

Mr. Libby's motive in allegedly disclosing her name to reporters, Mr. Fitzgerald said, was to disprove yet another false assertion, that Mr. Wilson had been dispatched to Niger by Mr. Cheney. In fact Mr. Wilson was recommended for the trip by his wife.

Devoted Wilso-philes will swoon at the notion that Libby's motive may have been to correct the record.  As to the idea that it is a "fact" that Wilson's wife recommended him for the trip, stand back! 

Wilson's position has shown admirable flexibility in the face of new facts; here he is chatting with TIME in the famous Matt Cooper article:

In an interview with TIME, Wilson, who served as an ambassador to Gabon and as a senior American diplomat in Baghdad under the current president's father, angrily said that his wife had nothing to do with his trip to Africa. "That is bulls__t. That is absolutely not the case," Wilson told TIME. "I met with between six and eight analysts and operators from CIA and elsewhere [before the Feb 2002 trip]. None of the people in that meeting did I know, and they took the decision to send me. This is a smear job."

The Senate report told a different story - here is Susan Schmidt of the WaPo from July 2004:

Former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, dispatched by the CIA in February 2002 to investigate reports that Iraq sought to reconstitute its nuclear weapons program with uranium from Africa, was specifically recommended for the mission by his wife, a CIA employee, contrary to what he has said publicly.

Can't fault the WaPo editors for lack of consistency.  Joe Wilson fired back, and it is fair to say this has been a point of contention (some of my thoughts here).

In any case, both Wilson's position and the coverage at TIME have been evolving - here is a TIME account from August 2005:

...That means Wilson was also shading the story:  "Valerie had nothing to do with the matter," he wrote in his 2004 book The Politics of Truth.  "She definitely had not proposed that I make the trip."  When asked last week by TIME if he still denies that she was the origin of his involvement in the trip, he avoided answering.  But he has maintained all along that Administration officials conducted a "smear job" on him and outed his wife in revenge.

Time to survey the battlefield.

MORE:  Odd - Joe Wilson emails SusanG at the Daily Kos, but skips past the spousal question to focus on the schizophrenia at the WaPo.  Joe and I, thinking as one - that ought to make at least one of us uncomfortable.

Brad DeLong uses the one of my favorite phrases to describe the WaPo.

ERiposte and ThinkProgress make me look concise, but add some points.  I am going to dispute Think Progress on this:

CLAIM: Wilson said Cheney sent him to Africa “Mr. Libby’s motive in allegedly disclosing her name to reporters, Mr. Fitzgerald said, was to disprove yet another false assertion, that Mr. Wilson had been dispatched to Niger by Mr. Cheney.” [Washington Post, 4/9/06]

FACT:

Wilson never said that Cheney sent him, only that the vice president’s office had questions about an intelligence report that referred to the sale of uranium yellowcake to Iraq from Niger. Wilson, in his New York Times article, said CIA officials were informed of Cheney’s questions. [Bloomberg, 7/14/05]

Groan - Nick Kristof is hazy on who said it or how it got started, but *someone* asserted that Wilson was sent "at the behest" (Kristof's phrase) of the office of the Vice President, and the White House certainly felt pressured to rebut it.  Here, for example, is the fact-proof Chris Matthews insisting repeatedly that Wilson was sent "at the behest" of the VP's office.  Perhaps the WaPo editors should have separated the office from the man, but to pretend that the idea was not out there (following, we should note, the Kristof columns (May 6, 2003; June 13, 2003) with Wilson as an anonymous source) is not reasonable.

MORE:  And if Wilson did not say Cheney sent him, he ought to ask his publicist to correct his current on-line bio.  or maybe the WaPo made their mistake by reading his bio, which says this:

Wilson is now at the center of a major political maelstrom involving the White House, the C.I.A. and the second gulf war in Iraq. In 2002, at the request of Vice President Dick Cheney, Wilson was assigned by the C.I.A. to investigate claims that Saddam Hussein was seeking to acquire uranium from Niger for the purpose of advancing his nuclear program. When his investigation turned up nothing, Wilson reported back to officials in Washington that there was no basis for the claims.

Hat tip to Maybee.

Comments

[topsecretk9]

I may scout a few lefty sites to perform a body count, but let me try to anticipate their outrage on the Wilson segment.

Not happy. Make sure to check Jeff Goldstein, he received a veiled sort of threat? Or something in his comment section.

[Beto Ochoa]

They're talkin' revoloution this week Top.
No Bullshit.

[MayBee]

I'm guessing the Jane Hamsher post was a joke.

Why does Joe never email TM? I want an email from Joe, dangnabbit!

[topsecretk9]

What a great day for a...for a....let me see...um, oh I don't know...WAPO Post Blog Comment jihad! It's been a while.

[Foo Bar]

With the help of blood pressure medication, I seem to have fended off an aneurysm so far. Regarding the editorial's claim that there was "nothing unusual" about what Libby did, note that on page 23 of the Fitz filing it says

Defendant testified that this July 8th meeting was the only time he recalled in his government experience when he disclosed a document to a reporter that was effectively declassified by virtue of the President’s authorization that it be declassified

Maybe Libby was not so experienced in these matters (in which case that wouldn't mean much) but it seems worth noting.

[Foo Bar]

Ah, my comment is now redundant given TM's link to ThinkProgress in his update...

[SteveMG]

The next Leonard Downie online chat should be quite interesting.

While the boldness, if you will, of the editorial was suprising, the Post editorial board has been generally critical of the whole Bush manipulated pre-war intelligence accusations.

So, this was not completely a lightning bolt out of a clear sky.

Good luck on that reconnaissance mission there TM; if anything happens we'll disavow any knowledge of ever having known you before.

Not very plausible, granted; but it's at least a denial.

And you have our complete approval to use anything we've posted here in support of your mission.

SMG

[Jake - but not the one]

Yes, I encourage TM to use anything I posted here as he wades through the fever swamp of the progressive blogs.

Go for it, Tom!

Jake

[TM]

Hey, glad to see Foo Bar and Jake not Neo are still with us and survived the experience.

[MayBee]

Just because I must:

Let's don't forget that when Joe had his chance to be his most forthright (EPIC), he said:
"I just want to assure you that that American ambassador who has been cited in reports in the New York Times and in the Washington Post, and now in the Guardian over in London, who actually went over to Niger on behalf of the government--not of the CIA but of the government--"

He is not exactly a dispeller of falsely-reported behesting notions in that statement.

[SteveMG]

I encourage TM to use anything I posted here as he wades through the fever swamp of the progressive blogs

Pardon me if I question your sincerity there Jake.

I mean, if he quotes some of your stuff they'll trace his IP address and force him to read James Wolcott (ahem) columns until he breaks.

SMG

[clarice]

SMG, I expect you to follow TM with a flashlight and a shiv--You are your brother's keepter.
The TAC Goddess hadith spoken..

[Joe Wilson]

Hi MayBee,are you as cute as your name?

[Rick Ballard]

Good lord, Tom. Set up a tip jar immediately. The cost of the Hazmat suits are going to break you. Don't forget to change the charcoal filters every twenty minutes or you're finished. Don't forget to disrobe in the garage and use appropriate air tight containers to dispose of the used suits either. Otherwise you'll never get the stink out of the house.

[MayBee]

Hi MayBee,are you as cute as your name?

Posted by: Joe Wilson |

****swoon****

[Jor]

Does any of this really matter? Even if the most ardent kos-diary-claim was proven (about the Niger debacle) beyond any TM far-flung scenario -- nothing would change. It would be excused -- "must have been done, etc. etc., national security". End of Story. This whole thing is one big circle jerk. Even if they deliberatily lied about all this crap, it doesnt really matter, because the lies all had "good intent".

[Rick Ballard]

MayBee,

Don't forget, he's a semimarried man.

[topsecretk9]

I see Joe Joe Mojo is making good on his Florida speech.

See SMG!

[SteveMG]

Clarice:
SMG, I expect you to follow TM with a flashlight and a shiv--You are your brother's keepter.

If you've ever seen TM in action over at the lefty sites, believe me I'd just be in the way.

I'd have to give the shiv to the lefty just to give him or her a fighting chance.

They'd still lose.

SMG

[Deagle]

Hey, there is no doubt that the Post is bipolar. This occurs only because the N.Y. Times pushes them further to the right... Ah, the bliss of left wing media...

[Rick Ballard]

"Even if they deliberatily lied about all this crap"

You need to pin that down a little tighter Jor. Which "all this crap" are you referring to? What Libby stands accused of has absolutely nothing to do with Ambasador Munchausen's fantasy. It has to do with recollections of conversations with reporters and investigators and a prosecutors seeming inability to ask a direct question.

'Cause twenty direct questions to twenty people could have wrapped this sucker up in two weeks had the investigation been other than a witch hunt.

[MayBee]

Hilarious!

[Jake - but not the one]

Survived, Tom? Flourished is closer to the truth.

You know how it is when you plant roses in piles of .....

NM

Jake

[Jake - but not the one]

Steve, I am sincere, but I don't expect anything to come of my offer.

Actually, I have no idea. TM remains his own person, and I don't think we see all of him here.

Jake

[clarice]

OT:The BBC reports that reducing air pollution cuases--ta da--global warming. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4880328.stm:lol1

Save the planet drive your SUV over a greenie

[Rick Ballard]

Roses don't do that well in cesspool Jacuzzi's, though. Maybe it's an aeration thing.

[SteveMG]

Jake:
Steve, I am sincere, but I don't expect anything to come of my offer.

I'm sure you were.

Twas' my tongue talking, firmly in cheek.

SMG

[Rick Ballard]

"Save the planet drive your SUV over a greenie"

I'm thinking of forming a consortium to develop 'Soylent Green Gas'. It involves the direct conversion of certain noxious carbon based and CO2 emitting life forms into a clean burning alternative fuel. It's guaranteed to reduce the carbon footprint of the human species, too.

There are a few legal technicalities involved in the involuntary aspects of the conversion process but, overall the planet will be a cleaner, healthier and less boring place if we can get this going.

[clarice]

I', glad that you're being very circumspect about this project...but I can read between the lines..I think the legal technicalities may be overwhelming in the absence of appropriate hadiths and compliant populations.

[Jake - but not the one]

Having no experience with cesspool jaccuzzis, Rick, I defer to your obviously superior experience.

Though why anybody would fool around with such a thing is beyond me.

Jake

[Rick Ballard]

Clarice,

What a spoilsport. Think of the marketing potential for 'Goregas - he's gone but you're still goin'.

It could be a real winner.

Pardon me, Tom, but this Rich Galen piece. although off topic has to be the best example I have seen to date of Arlie K. Evors "Acme Plan for Victory" working a little differently than the Wily E. Coyotes at the DNC had envisioned.

As Jeff said, "Just wait 'til you see what's ahead."

[Rick Ballard]

Weak, Jake, but if you would like a limited forum in which to discuss your ideas concerning Churchill and Iran, I would be, if not pleased, at least amenable, to hosting your thoughts at YARGB/Flares. I can guarantee that I will not slip into ad hominem in rebuttal (I only do that in threadjackings) but I cannot guarantee a warm reception from my fellow contributors.

[clarice]

So the DNC has scratched The Culture of Corruption and their neato defensive policy "First, we kill OBL", what's next? Where is R/S/S when we need him?

[Jake - but not the one]

Rick, is this a one-time offer, or may I think about it?

Jake

[Rick Ballard]

Nope, not a one time offer. Not even a one piece offer. If you can sustain yourself we'll try it for a couple of weeks. Click my name here and my name on the contributors list there and send me a word.doc. I'll publish without editing and be almost respectful in comments. I guarantee no ad homs from me and I will strongly suggest that contributors refrain from same. I can't speak for others, obviously. Can't really guarantee the contributors either.

[JJ]

Just in to the new Chairman of the Obvious (that would be moi, by default) --

From Mr. T's evil twin:

"I love it when a plan comes apart!"

And to think I got it before RAW STORY...

[Seixon]

I already tried to get the point across to eriposte that there was reason for Cheney and Libby to rebut the allegation that they sent Wilson, namely because the WaPo journalists screwed up (or did they really misquote Wilson? Wilson was nice and vague in his op-ed...) about that matter.

Chris Matthews repeating it certainly must have gotten their attention, as Libby called up Tim Russert to talk about something on MSNBC...

So yes, pretending that the notion that Wilson was sent by Cheney not being out there is rewriting history. Whose fault it is will have to be resolved by Wilson and Kristof.

However, Wilson said in his op-ed that he was pretty sure that Cheney would have gotten to know about his report on Niger.

Wilson was trying to implicate Cheney as having direct knowledge of his mission, in one way or another. That was the whole point of him babbling about the whole matter. If he hadn't made that a point, then he could not allege that Bush and Cheney were twisting intelligence.

Swoosh.

[clarice]

Correct. Why do you think the editors have finally come clean? (Actually when they obviously forced Pincus into a 2 1/2 year late correction, they first tried a walk back. But today's editorial is the clincher. Is it as simple as Woodward putting his foot down?))

[Rick Ballard]

Clarice,

Unless 'something big' happens this will be a very low turnout election. The economy is purring like a kitten and consumer confidence makes the second quarter look better than the first. Investor confidence is doing fine and the Fed is just playing at the margin.

The Iranians may kick things up in Iraq but they are too late - the Iraqi forces are going to take the brunt of any hits and they are going to make the Sunnis wish that they were facing Americans.

Barring something spectacular this is a 40% (at most) turnout election - and that ain't good for a left led Dem contingent.

[clarice]

Are you saying the WaPo figures it is beter to be on a winning side than to continue lying for the oppo which writes its slogans with big crayons and abandons them after a week or so when everyone has doubled over laughing at the stupidity of their offerings?

[Neo]

In 2002, the CIA sent Wilson to the African nation of Niger to investigate claims that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein had tried to buy uranium there. The agency asked Wilson to make the trip
after Cheney asked for more information about the Niger claims. WaPo 5-Jun-2004

It was in the newspaper so it must be true.

[clarice]

It didn't mean that Cheney wanted them to send in a clown who was not required to sign a non disclosure agreement . It doesn't mean Cheny ever knew of his report which curiously was oral and not made known to anyone above the group which sent him. (The beauty of this Gambit was there is virtually not a single document except for his check expenses in the agency files.)

[MayBee]

You know what I think? I think the WaPo- Woodward, Pincus, and Bradlee- got tired of letting other publications frame the story that should be theirs.
In the recent Vanity Fair, you see Pincus trying to distance himself from the hullabaloo. And Bradlee can't have enjoyed getting kind of half-quoted about Woodward's source, even though the fact that UGO is unnamed and uncharged seems to blow right past people (see Lewis, Robert, and 1,Be The)

Vanity Fair, April 2006:
Pincus started by calling a source at the CIA...It was a given that all the calls were on background, that the information PIncus would get was on the basis of trust. "Nobody knew who the ambassador wwas," Pincus later said. "Whoever had brought in this guy was not at the top of the agency."
...
Pincus..believed that the process by which he had learned of [te Plame matter] was not a criminal act. "I thought it was damage control. My source had been trying to get me to stop writing about Joe Wilson. I believed that the Democrats were too woulnd up thinking that a crime had been committed."

---
I think the key players at the WaPo share the same feelings about the Plame story.

[sid]

If my boss wanted more info on a report I had given him, I would NOT find a co-worker's spouse who didn't have background in my industry, and send him out to find additional info. I would provide my boss with more in-depth documentation on the report. My boss should fire me if I gave him a report and then had to get more raw data before I could back-up the report!

In other words, Joe wasn't sent to provide more information on the report that already had been given to Cheney. Sending him was not actually responsive to Cheney's question as he knew nothing about the report Cheney had already been given. While his report confirmed the previous report, he could not (and did not) provide "more invormation on the claim" that had already been made.

[PaulV]

Woodward has files on everybody inside the beltway and knows where the skeletons are buried. He is this generation J. Edgar Hoover

[topsecretk9]

after Cheney asked for more information

What's up with that? Why did Cheney assume the CIA of all places would be able to supply him with *information*?

I'm sure the notion that a trip needed to be orchestrated in order to supply *information* contributed to the "boondoggle" view.

[Rick Ballard]

Sid,

You don't work for the DNC, do you? 'Cause, if you did, Ambassador Munchausen's African Odyssey would make all the sense in the world - at least the peddlin' of it after the fact would.

[topsecretk9]

Oh, Sid sort of said that too.

[Rick Ballard]

TS,

Yes he did. Plus anyone thinking that Joe's Odyssey was more than nepotism at its most scurrilous is smoking something that they should share.

Someday that stink is going to make everyone hold their nose. Not yet though.

[sid]

I couldn't get in the door of the DNC. Thus, neither Munchy's nor Fritz's positions make any sense at all!

[MayBee]

Patriotism check!
I'm afraid some of you on this thread are not sounding patriotic enough.

TM- We need a patriotism check on thread 1.

[Rick Ballard]

MayBee,

We haven't heard back from Tom for hours. Last seen he was headed into a place from whence few return with sanity and mental health intact.

Perhaps we should reflect on the level of sacrifice entailed in such a venture and make a suitable contribution to TAC?

In deepest respect,

KGB

[Neo]

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

DR. CONDOLEEZZA RICE, NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER: I didn't know Joe Wilson was going to Niger. And if you look in Director Tenet's statement, it says that counter-proliferation experts, on their own initiative, sent Joe Wilson. So, I don't know...

BLITZER: Who sent him?

RICE: Well, it was certainly not at a level that had anything to do with the White House.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

BLITZER: Is that true?

WILSON: Well, look, it's absolutely true that neither the vice president nor Dr. Rice nor even George Tenet knew that I was traveling to Niger.

What they did, what the office of the vice president did, and, in fact, I believe now from Mr. Libby's statement, it was probably the vice president himself...

BLITZER: Scooter Libby is the chief of staff for the vice president.

WILSON: Scooter Libby.

They asked essentially that we follow up on this report -- that the agency follow up on the report. So it was a question that went to the CIA briefer from the Office of the Vice President. The CIA, at the operational level, made a determination that the best way to answer this serious question was to send somebody out there who knew something about both the uranium business and those Niger officials that were in office at the time these reported documents were executed.
CNN LATE EDITION WITH WOLF BLITZER August 3, 2003 - 12:00 ET

[topsecretk9]

Maybee

I think

1- Fitgerald said he all relevant information of this investigation is accessible via the public record. He also has indicated Wilson is a "whistleblower"... they chose Fitz's favorite method of communication to inform him

2- WAPO - DC...NYT's - NYC with DC Bureau...which is not to say that NYT's DC Bureau is not big and influential...but WPost is all DC

3- WAPO has smelling salts in high places and they are using them. They're getting, pretending this Wilson business is vital to our way of life and not just DC SOP is a dumb position for new organs to be striking

4- A glimmer of - should we go down in a blaze of glory for this guy too? Nope and no one should either.

I sense a pushback in the same fashion the WH and OVP needed to do. Wilson sullied their good name too.

[topsecretk9]

BLITZER: But the other argument that's been made against you is that you've sought to capitalize on this extravaganza, having that photo shoot with your wife, who was a clandestine officer of the CIA, and that you've tried to enrich yourself writing this book and all of that.
What do you make of those accusations, which are serious accusations, as you know, that have been leveled against you.

WILSON: My wife was not a clandestine officer the day that Bob Novak blew her identity.

BLITZER: But she hadn't been a clandestine officer for some time before that?

WILSON: That's not anything that I can talk about. And, indeed, I'll go back to what I said earlier, the CIA believed that a possible crime had been committed, and that's why they referred it to the Justice Department.

She was not a clandestine officer at the time that that article in Vanity Fair appeared. And I have every right to have the American public know who I am and not to have myself defined by those who would write the sorts of things that are coming out, being spewed out of the mouths of the RNC...

CNN WOLF BLITZER REPORTS Aired July 14, 2005 - 17:00 ET

[Seixon]

Look, if both Plame and Wilson were leaking to Kristof, he could have just looked up Plame and found out she was Wilson's wife.

Regardless, Kristof's columns was the basis of the push-back from Cheney's office. The Wilsons had Kristof pushing a false story about Wilson figuring out that the documents were forged and the report being sent directly to the VP.

Of course the VP had to deny that and correct that BS. Just read the two Kristof columns. Almost none of what is written in them turned out to be correct, even by Wilson's own belated admissions publicly and to the SSCI.

I think there is something much more nasty at the whole core of this. I think Plame and some CIA spooks were collaborating with French intelligence to spike intelligence on Niger so that the Bush administration would get their ass handed to them, which is exactly what happened.

From the early Kristof columns, it almost seems as if Wilson got to know about the forged documents from his wife, unless they were just lying about the whole thing. The only way Valerie would have known about the documents was when they arrived to the CIA in October 2002, which would have been too late. Thus, if she really did know they were fake in February 2002, then she must have been part of the group that forged them.

Enter Rocco Martino, working for French intelligence, and we have ourselves an odd mystery. Not to mention Valerie Plame's group sitting on the forgeries when they got sent from the embassy in Rome to the CIA. Not to mention the flurry of intelligence reports about Niger coming from France right before the SOTU.

There is definitely something stanky stank about all of this. And no, I don't think that SISMI cooked up some pathetic forgeries to pass off as real ones. That's ridiculous. The forgeries were made poor to be blown out of the water. Which the IAEA did by using GOOGLE! Come on, you can't expect me to believe that the forgers actually thought they were convincing.

[clarice]

Well, lots of hypotheses. Here's more (for all of which add the fact that they consider Wilson a liar):
1. The editors found out something about Wilson not yet known which is about to blow the story to smithereens.
2. The "leak" story is so absurd that if they do not walk back from it they will get no backgrounders from anyone.
3. They know the NYT's is going to sink on this and the NSA leak stories and are positoning themselves to be number one.
4. There is someone really ethical in the editorial office who is appalled at this witch hunt and wants to stop it.
5. They know something about the Gambit(maybe the forgeries, maybe the plot) no one else does and that it is going to explode soon, causing lots of collateral damage and they don't want to be part of the damage.

[Seixon]

Let's not forget that Seymour Hersh reported at some time in 2003 that there was rumors going around the CIA that someone had pulled off the forgery of the Niger documents and were pretty proud of it... I guess maybe that's why Joshua Marshall and CBS stopped exploring the story - it wasn't the story they were looking for.

[clarice]

Seixon, my spidey sense is tingling, too.

[Seixon]

I wonder, did Woodward write the editorial?? Hehehe.

[Seixon]

Oh, also... The Times in London came out with a story about who forged the Niger documents on the same day as the WaPo comes out with this editorial. Coincidence?

[clarice]

Yes. That, too.

[Rick Ballard]

Seixon,

Change the tempo of disclosure and see what happens. Speed it up a tad and the French whores and their Dem operatives have a shot at stopping the invasion.

Put ElBaradei's denunciation 2months earlier and the tranzis would give him two Nobels. The lying sack of Arabist crap.

[Joe Mealyus]

I'm wondering what's going on, because JOM doesn't point out that SusanG of DailyKos is making obvious errors in the following (as quoted at Delong):

First she has "total validation of Mr. Wilson's charges of persecution" based on Fitzgerald's "discredit, punish or seek revenge against" language - but that seems like Andrew Sullivan level reading comprehension to me - she must be missing the "or" and turning it into an "and." (An attempt to "discredit" does not at all necessarily imply "persecution," does it?)

(And besides, Fitzgerald tacitly admits he has no proof that there was any effort to punish Wilson when he said "it is hard" (i.e., not impossible) "to conceive of what evidence there could be that would disprove the existence of White House efforts to 'punish' Wilson.")

And then she says the "news story confirms that there was 'no support for charges that Iraq tried to buy uranium there' - in direct contradiction to the editorial's claim that Wilson's report supported the purchase effort." But here she has the debunking reversed - the news story seems to be confirming something we know to be untrue - or doesn't she?

[Seixon]

See, that's just the thing. They weren't interested in stopping the invasion. Everyone wanted to nail Saddam Hussein. Kerry and all the Democrats wanted to do it. Of course now they can browbeat Bush about any little mistake at all, because it's not their ass on the line.

So basically they get Bush to do the dirty work, bash him continously for it, make up a bunch of lies to substantiate their political platform for 2004 of "Bush misled us into war", and then try to win the presidency and take credit for whatever positive will come from the Iraq war.

Only thing that backfired was that Bush won the election.

I think the State Department gave the IAEA the documents in early February, yet for some reason, they didn't determine them forgeries until the first week of March. Why? (unless I have gotten my dates mixed up... I do need to get some sleep!)

By that time, State and the CIA already knew they were forgeries. In other words, they knowingly gave forged documents to the IAEA to have them blow the Bush administration out of the water on them. Doesn't that seem a bit strange? Why not just say, oh crap, these are forged, nevermind? Or just say, oh, well, we withdraw that claim?

Nope. The State Department gave the IAEA documents they knew were forged. The same State Department that most likely leaked about Plame. Where Wilson used to work for Clinton.....

[clarice]

Szady's connection with this case was reportedly the investigation of the forgeries.

Now we know there were two sets:One by employees of the Niger Embassy and one by Martino/French intel.
We also know that Joe told at least 4 different reporters and the SSCI he'd seen the forgeries and warned the Administration about them. But the forgeries he described were not the ones we got.
His last explanation was that the only ones he saw were copies Mitchell showed him before his MTP appearance when he didn't have his reading glasses and may have misread them.

Now, he could have just been puffing the story and his role in it. Or he might have seen a set earlier, a set different than the one we received in Rome and passed on to the IAEA.

Fedora is beginning to think that the first set is related to his two prior trips to Niger for the CIA during the Clinton Administration, but neither he nor I can quite pull this together.

[JJ]

clarice,

Now that some small breezes may clear off at least a part of the dust that the Left has been kicking up around the Libby/NIE/Wilson story, I look forward to your work (and JOM's!) on what is actually happening in the nuts and bolts of the court case.

For example, the subpoenas recently handed out to several prominent journalists. They were requests for written material, true?

Also, the requests are now at the place where they can be rejected by these journalists or their employers, I believe you have said. "Quashed." Interesting stuff, but obviously one step in many before they actually get to the ballpark for the big show.

I mention this as an example because those of us who are non-legal types would surely enjoy a time-line scorecard similar to what TM did way back when at the beginning of the Plame thing. (April 5 -- Subpoenas issued to x, y and z for written information. Subject to quashing. Significance: Only the first of many preliminary steps in pre-trial discovery...)

As someone noted somewhere, in these legal cases the defense usually first starts throwing everything it can into the mix -- including the kitchen sink. The judge apparently expects this and lawyers, I suppose, know all the dance steps.

Just a suggestion...

[clarice]

Here is fedora original posting and his latest thoughts on the forgeries:

Thank you for the ping. Here is what I wrote a while back on the embassy break-in:
Wilsongate: Motive, Means, and Opportunity

France’s role in creating the Niger forgeries is currently a matter of speculation and debate. It is possible that Rocco Martino, the Italian-French double agent who distributed the forgeries in October 2002, was motivated by profit rather than political goals, which appears to be the current opinion of FBI investigators.66 Among theories proposing a political motivation, some have argued that the forgeries were intended to help Italian intelligence support Berlusconi and Bush’s case for war. This theory faces several difficulties, such as explaining why the resources available to Italian intelligence were unable to design a forgery more convincing than one that was immediately suspected by even journalists who viewed it--as one French agent interviewed put it, “Niger is a French-speaking place and we know how things are there. But nobody would have confused one minister with another they way they did in that useless piece of garbage.”67 Alternative theories propose that the forgeries were intended to help French intelligence discredit Bush and his allies by making their case for war appear to rest on fabricated evidence.68 This theory is plausible as an explanation for how the forgeries were eventually put to use after they were created, a topic which will be discussed more in later paragraphs. But as an explanation for the origin of the forgeries, it faces the issue that according to Martino and intelligence sources interviewed by journalists, he initially tried to sell his forgeries to France, rather than to proponents of war against Iraq. It also faces the chronological issue that Martino first began manufacturing forgeries following a staged break-in to Niger’s embassy in Rome on January 1, 2001, which was significantly before the Iraq debate between the US and France became heated (though it is unclear whether the specific forgeries Martino distributed in October 2002 were created at this time or later, as Martino is known to have distributed a number of different documents at different times, some authentic and some forged). These considerations seem to make the simplest hypothetical scenario one where Martino and his accomplices initially began creating forgeries for profit in early 2001, and someone only decided to use some of his forgeries as a political weapon after the debate over Iraq heated up in late 2002. Again this is only offered as a hypothetical scenario based on what is currently known, which is limited. The FBI’s basis for its position has not yet been shared with the public.

Since writing this my general line of thought is essentially the same, but I would amend one bit, which is that I've come to think whatever the motive for the original break-in and forgeries was has some relationship to Wilson's earlier, less-publicized Niger trips during the Clinton administration, rather than relating to the controversy over Bush's Iraqi policy. I mention this also to address this point raised by the author of the article: "I have always found the “blame the French argument” suspicious. It has been put to me on a number of occasions and I have never used it, or indeed believed it. Certainly the break-ins took place long before any of the controversy over Iraqi WMD. Bush was barely in office in January 2001." Also he makes another point I have wondered about before that I feel is important to bear in mind: "some of the alleged Martino documents published in the Italian press appear to be different in a number of respects to the ones that were passed to the US embassy in Rome and eventually to the International Atomic Energy Authority which denounced them as fakes." I feel this is important to emphasize because some writers on the subject have tended to equate Martino's original documents with the ones he was trying to pass in fall 2002 and draw deductions from this premise, which is not necessarily a sound assumption.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1611858/posts?page=7#7

[topsecretk9]

Seixon

--The only way Valerie would have known about the documents was when they arrived to the CIA in October 2002, which would have been too late. Thus, if she really did know they were fake in February 2002, then she must have been part of the group that forged them.--

You know, now that Nigerien's have been found to have forged the documents (and forgive me if someone has said this) seems to me the next question is --why would they want to do something like that?

Wouldn't be so the CIA could do fact finding and then the Nigerien's could debunk them?

No, no way would we sell yellow-cake to Saddam. Our yellowcake is strictly controlled by France and those shipments would be impossible to pull off with their strict control and the names and DATES on those documents you(US) DON'T HAVE YET? They are all wrong.

[clarice]

jj, There is nothing much more to report on the subpoenas (yes, for documents) on the reporters until they either produce the material or move to quash or modify the subpoenas. As soon as there is, if there is anything interesting (and public) to report, I will try my hand at it.

[clarice]

ts--even without the CIA..isn't is possible that there was an illegal sale (to Libya for example or even Iraq) and the Nigeriens forged these docs to deflect from that? I mean all these sets of forgeries seem designed for whatever reason to be discovered to be fake. (If you were forging money, would you bother forging a $7 bill? Not if you were doing it for the usuak reasons.)

[JJ]

Tanks, c!

For emphasis, I repeat/plea:

"...would surely enjoy a time-line scorecard similar to what TM did way back when at the beginning of the Plame thing. (April 5 -- Subpoenas issued to x, y and z for written information. Subject to quashing. Significance: Only the first of many preliminary steps in pre-trial discovery...)"

[MayBee]

CLAIM: Wilson said Cheney sent him to Africa “Mr. Libby’s motive in allegedly disclosing her name to reporters, Mr. Fitzgerald said, was to disprove yet another false assertion, that Mr. Wilson had been dispatched to Niger by Mr. Cheney.”

I just realized the WaPo never says Wilson made the assertion that Cheney sent him. Only that the assertion had been made. And it had been.

[BritAm]

Seixon: Come on, you can't expect me to believe that the forgers actually thought they were convincing.

Why not. Rather and Mapes and all of Koslandia are still convinced by the pseudo-TANG memos.

[clarice]

Brit, you have to consider the nature of the documents. There were certain to be subjected to more scrutiny by experts than CBS imagined the TANG memos would ever be.

[MayBee]

re: the forgeries.
It could have been any of those things.
I also wonder if maybe, Plame being mentioned as potential Rome beareau chief and all, if these forgeries were going to be her big break. Look what Joe and I could do in Rome!
Could it also have been a way for someone to track where information they put out was going? You know, like how Jennifer Lopez discovered it was her makeup artist selling gossip about her by telling everyone she suspected a different (fake) story. When one story appeared somewhere, she could figure out the pipeline.

OK, I'm taking my inane guessing and going grocery shopping.

[clarice]

MayBee we are all engaged in speculation. Putting up what facts have been reported and trying to guess what's up..In fact, we have no idea that the WaPo editorial has anything to do with this either,,just one possibility.

[topsecretk9]

Clarice

I didn't say it well, but *deflection* was exactly my point.

Also, I didn't say this well either, but isn't it interesting that Wilson said he debunked the Docs because the "names were wrong, the dates were wrong"

but that in order for he to have debunked them as Seixon points out, he would have had to know about them before even the US did

AND

That Niger would be DEBUNKING for Wilson DOCS the US didn't even HAVE YET!

[clarice]

Yes. That has always been his Achilles Heel.

[MayBee]

clarice- thanks, you are always kind. However, I did feel I needed to make some sort of acknowledgement that I had just thrown in a JLo-gossip-psyops theory into the thread.

TM- have you seen this from Jay Rosen:
"Tom Maguire has the same reaction: wow. You can sample the other wows at Memeorandum. Feels like this one is going to make a very loud noise in the blogosphere. Dumb editorial. Make that willfully dumb."

Is that a fair characterization (accurate paraphrase?) of your reaction? I didn't get the feeling you were on board the willfully dumb editorial train at all.

[topsecretk9]

this is more for my own weird need but,

That Niger would be DEBUNKING for Wilson DOCS the US didn't even HAVE YET!

WHY didn't it seem strange to Wilson (who clarified he never saw the docs) that Niger had the ability and desire to *debunk* documents the US (and he, because he hadn't seen them right?) did not HAVE?

This confounds me. That in order for Wilson to have debunked them --Niger had to debunk them --and since we didn't have them at the same time -- A- Wilson is lying B-He's not, but his wife and/or her colleagues had knowledge official CIA did not C-He's not, but his wife and/or her colleagues LEAKED CLASSIFIED official CIA knowledge

[topsecretk9]

Maybee

Make that willfully dumb.

Isn't Rosen a college journo professor?

Isn't it odd that he consistently strikes a Jane Hamsher pose on all things media, but promotes objective jouno-ing? She is decisively partisan. Is he agenda Journo 101? I don't get it.

[larwyn]

ts & neo
used these:
CNN WOLF BLITZER REPORTS Aired July 14, 2005 - 17:00 ET
CNN LATE EDITION WITH WOLF BLITZER August 3, 2003 - 12:00 ET
both after the July 11th Tenet statement

Gateway Pundit has a very clear timeline begining in late Feb 2002 that
some can also pretend not to understand. But I submit:

Media Appalled that George Bush Dare Defend Himself

This rather refutes the fact that it ONLY WMD - but Lefties have no memory of what they themselves have written.

** January 31, 2003
E.J. Dionne, Jr. Washington Post Writer's Group
"Bush still has a problem that goes beyond style: We don't know if this war is primarily about (1) taking weapons of mass destruction out of Saddam's Hussein's hands, or (2) removing Saddam from power, or (3) bringing democracy to Iraq and revolutionizing the politics of the Middle East."
(via Instapundit)

** July 11, 2003
CNN fails to mention here that George Tenet exposes Joe Wilson as a liar in this report:

Tenet did rebut one of Wilson's lies at the time Wilson originally made them in the Spring of '03. Five days after Wilson's NYT op-ed, Tenet put out a statement describing how the person the CIA sent to check out the Niger story found that the Iraqis had indeed tried to open up trade talks, which were interpreted by government officials in Niger as an attempt to purchase uranium ore. Tenet left the name of the person the CIA sent to Niger out of his statement, possibly to avoid running afoul of secrecy laws, but since Wilson had already outed himself as the person the CIA sent to Niger, it was perfectly clear who Tenet was talking about. I link to Tenet's statement near the top of a post I wrote Wednesday about Wilson's Tuesday speech at the National Press Club speech (a scandal in itself): "Wilson lies, press club laughs."

Jim has done a very nice job on this timeline - worth a read.

[clarice]

ts-I have to get to bed--traveling tomorrow.
Add to the curiousity mix, the forged docs we did get were found locked in a safe in Plame's office for 6 months (SSCI). The story is that one of the recipients in the office was out when it was distributed, someone put it in the safe and forgot about it..

[topsecretk9]

Thanks Larwyn

I used the :CNN WOLF BLITZER REPORTS Aired July 14, 2005 - 17:00 ET

to illustrate to Neo that "quoting" the questionable source in question is "grain of salt* or "not" ==i.e. unreliable

[MayBee]

Isn't it odd that he consistently strikes a Jane Hamsher pose on all things media, but promotes objective jouno-ing? She is decisively partisan. Is he agenda Journo 101? I don't get it.

He seems to be of the belief that the only objective conclusion is that Bush is a liar. From his blog, regarding who the WaPo could hire to replace the RedState guy:

Brady should have looked for a bred-in-the-bone conservative who is anti-Bush, disgusted with the intellectual dishonesty of the Adminstration, and fearful of what a radical our President is. That would have been interesting. Most conservatives sold their soul to the guy; Bush's mendacity became their own. (Though they comforted themselves with their conviction that the left was worse.) Find one with soul who didn't, and if she, he could actually write, then... you've got something.

So he is being objective by being able to see that Bush is objectively horrible. Bush backers are the ones with the agenda.

And, you know, Jane Hamsher is really pretty.

[topsecretk9]

And, you know, Jane Hamsher is really pretty.

Maybee

My mother taught me...beuaty is on the inside. Hamsher may be pretty...interesting that she can boldly and no qualms fling out some major *personal* ugliness, but wilts when she's taken to task.

[topsecretk9]

beuaty = beauty

[MayBee]

From Wilson' current http://www.greatertalent.com/biography.php?id=258> online bio at his speaker's bureau:

Wilson is now at the center of a major political maelstrom involving the White House, the C.I.A. and the second gulf war in Iraq. In 2002, at the request of Vice President Dick Cheney, Wilson was assigned by the C.I.A. to investigate claims that Saddam Hussein was seeking to acquire uranium from Niger for the purpose of advancing his nuclear program. When his investigation turned up nothing, Wilson reported back to officials in Washington that there was no basis for the claims.

[Patton]

I would think some of the secets of Saddams Nuclear program were discovered in Libya.

I HAVE ALWAYS WONDERED WHY KHADAFI WAS SO QUICK TO GIVE UP ALL OF HIS PROGRAM WHEN SADDAM WAS OVERTHROWN.

SADDAM HAD BIG BUCKS TO SPEND, BUT WAS STYMIED AT HOME DUE TO SANCTIONS, BUT HAVING LIBYA DEVELOP HIS NUCLEAR PROGRAM ON LIBYAN SOIL WITH SADDAM BILLIONS MAKES SENSE, SINCE LIBYA HAD BEEN USED IN THE PAST TO GET AROUND EXPORT CONTROLS, INSPECTIONS, ETC.

Perhaps Khadafi lost his benefactor when Saddam was overthrown and saw no reason to
hold onto those assets.

[MayBee]

http://www.mepc.org/forums_chcs/30.asp> This is also interesting.
It's from Oct 9, 2002 when Joe was a Strategic Advisor for something called Rock Creek Corporation (when did he start JCWilson Int'l?).
It's after he's gone to Nigeria, right? But in the question and answer period, the panel is asked about nukes, and the guy ahead of him discusses the possibility and dangers of Iraq working on Nukes, and Joe answers the question but mentions nothing about nukes. He certainly doesn't correct him that Saddam isn't looking for nuclear material.

[MayBee]

Toppy- you are correct that beauty is as beauty does. I think it is all too easy to become bewitched by a lovely face, however, and do foolish things (like blogswarm the Post week after week).

Patton- I think they are tied together as well.

OH HEY! That link I gave is his CURRENT online bio. Check out the wording and tell me Wilson is trying to dispel the idea that Cheney sent him to Niger. HA!

[Patton]

I always thought that Fitz's point (and Jeff by the way) was that Libby was involved in a conspiracy and was protecting th VP. Now all of them say, Libby fingered the VP in his orginal testimony.

SO WHICH IS IT?

If Libby was protecting the VP, why didn't Libby make up more stories to avoid implicating the VP?

And did Val ever tell Joe......Hey Joe, if you print that OP-ED, my career is over. I got you sent and now your blabbing all over town. I vouched for you and now your doing Sunday morning interviews. The agency doesn't like blabber-mouthed operatives, nor the people who recruit them.

[kim]

I really would like to get inside Val's head. Joe's is an open book; her's is occult.
================================

[kim]

I suspect Jay has wasted his essence discoursing with the idolatrous.
===============================

[TM]

Good catch on the bio.

[kim]

May Bee you didn't notice Jay Rosen's slick use of syntax. He's actually only stated that Tom had the same 'wow' reaction as he and others did. Then he slips in his own opinion that it was dumb. It is misleading use of Tom's name however, and I'm pretty sure that whatever internet weapon Jay chooses, Tom is more adept. Jay is timid, hypocritical, forked tongued, precious, well you get the message. Now that's how to use an ad hom Jay, not your weaselly way.
==================================

[kim]

Yes, bio, hubba hubba. Should I let Be the Unknowing in on the secret?
=================================

[Spiker555]

Paraphrased: "Joe Wilson appeared on ABC’s This Week, and I paraphrase ` Only the selected portions of the NIE report that SUPPORTED the president’s plan to attack Iraq were released. The portions that DID NOT SUPPORT the president’s position were NOT de-classified."

Was he ever a classified employee? If so, if he 's no longer doing classified work, wouldn't he have signed a non-disclosure agreement saying that he was not allowed to discuss any part of the NIE materials that remain classified?

If he was never a classified employee, how does he know what's in the NIE classified materials? Did Valerie Plame tell him? If so, wasn't that a clear violation on Valerie's part to reveal that much to him?

Sounds like an attempt of diversion on his part.

What's wrong with Joe's statements? First, the NIE declassified materials simply refuted and disproved his report. And what about the classified portion of the NIE materials that did not support Bush's position?

Doesn't make sense but someone should hone in on that interview for increased public awareness and knowledgement along with more discredibility on Joe's part. JMHO

[kim]

S555, you've clipped the heel, here. The more Joe is allowed to trumpet his charge, the shabbier everyone involved becomes. This is such a gem.
================================