quote:
Senate Intel Report Discredits Wilson's Claims About Iraq, Niger
By Jeff Gannon
Talon News
July 13, 2004
WASHINGTON (Talon News) -- While the report issued by the Senate Intelligence Committee on Friday delivered stinging criticism of the CIA, it also refuted a number of claims made by former Ambassador Joseph Wilson. The agency sent Wilson to Niger in 2002 to investigate reports that Iraq tried to buy "yellowcake" uranium from the African nation.
Both Wilson and his report received little notice until President Bush uttered the infamous "16 words" in his 2003 State of the Union Address: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."
Wilson went public in early July 2003, writing an article for the New York Times in which he said that his investigation did not discover any evidence to substantiate Bush's assertion, even though the president cited British intelligence in his remarks. The ambassador's challenge resulted in the administration backing off from the claim and added pressure to Congress to look into the use of pre-war intelligence.
British intelligence continues to maintain that Saddam Hussein sought uranium in Africa.
The Senate Intelligence Committee concluded that CIA analysts didn't brief Vice President Cheney about Wilson's report because they believed it didn't add any new information or clarify the Iraq-Niger uranium issue. Wilson was emphatic in his belief that any such deal was never consummated, but offered little proof that no overtures were made.
Some documents provided to Italian intelligence about such a deal were later determined to be forgeries, but not all agencies based their assumptions on them. The Financial Times recently cited independent reports of intermediaries making inquiries on behalf of Iraq.
"European intelligence officers have now revealed that three years before the fake documents became public, human and electronic intelligence sources from a number of countries picked up repeated discussion of an illicit trade in uranium from Niger," the Financial Times reported. "One of the customers discussed by the traders was Iraq."
Wilson was chastised by the Senate Intelligence Committee for informing it that he was the source of a Washington Post article 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.'"
In fact, the ambassador had never seen the CIA reports and had no knowledge of what names and dates were in the reports. Wilson said he may have "misspoken" to the reporter when he said he concluded the documents were "forged."
A week following the publication of Wilson's New York Times piece, Robert Novak wrote in his column that a member of the administration told him the ambassador was chosen for the Niger mission because his wife was a CIA employee. He identified Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, by name and referred to her as an "operative" specializing in weapons of mass destruction. The CIA requested an investigation into the source of the leak, suggesting that Plame was a covert agent and publication of her name blew her cover.
The Justice Department began its inquiry last September, interviewing members of the administration and issuing subpoenas for White House communications with about a dozen journalists. U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald questioned both Bush and Cheney about the leak.
Wilson denied that his wife played a role in his selection for the mission when questioned by Talon News during an October 2003 interview. He repeated those denials in his book, "The Politics of Truth."
But the Senate Intelligence Committee discovered a memo from Plame dated February 12, 2002 to the Deputy Chief of the Counterproliferation Division (CPD) that "offered up his name." It was also revealed that Wilson traveled to Niger for the CIA in 1999 on a mission whose details are redacted from the report.
In October 2003, Talon News reported on an internal government memo prepared by U.S. intelligence personnel that detailed a meeting where Plame suggested Wilson be sent to Niger. Wilson claimed to have never been in a meeting with his wife, but a State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) analyst's notes indicated that a meeting was "apparently convened" by Plame who had proposed her husband go on the mission. Plame told the committee that she only attended the meeting to introduce her husband and left after about three minutes.
A CIA source told the Washington Post in December 2003 that the INR memo was still classified and disputed its contents. As a result of asking Wilson about the memo during an October 2003 interview, FBI agents questioned Talon News under the guise of the leak probe to discover the source of the memo that refuted the assertions of the agency and Wilson about the circumstances by which he was chosen for the trip.
The Senate Intelligence Committee report may have a significant impact on the leak probe. Loss of confidence in the agency and its attempts to discredit evidence that suggests alternate motivations by sub-groups within it may serve to undermine the case. The INR memorandum may have revealed Plame's identity prior to Novak's column and therefore any statements by the administration might only qualify as simple gossip.
Even if that is not the case, the federal statute requires that the exposure of Plame would have had to be deliberate and malicious, a threshold that may not be reached by the investigation, particularly in light of new information revealed by the Committee report.
Copyright © 2004 Talon News -- All rights reserved.
