A New Watergate?

[Pat Speer]

Pat not everyone knows their neighbors well.

As I stated, Fitzgerald said he made no determination if Plame indeed fit the covert status under the Espionage Act.

Do you have reason to dispute the statement by the Newsweek editor that Wilson often introduced his wife as a CIA agent?

And your claim that Kerry said Iraq had WMD because Bush told him so is ridiculous. Clinton and Albright were saying the same thing during the Clinton presidency.

Do you claim that Clinton and Albright got their information from then Governor Bush?

And WMD or not it cannot be disputed that Iraq and its neighboring countries are far better with Hussein out of power. His trial should reveal the evil butcher that he was. He killed thousands of his own countrymen with biological agents. The US wants a stable democracy in Iraq, it does not want to rule Iraq or stay in Iraq for any lengthy period of time. But creating a democracy in a country without democratic traditions is not neccessarily an easy task. Look how long it took Gen. MacArthur in Japan. But look where Japan is now, thanks to the fact that the US defeated it.

I am starting to question your sanity. Yes, Clinton etc. thought Saddam had WMD, but that was based on the current intelligence. By the time Bush was saying it, the current intelligence was that he did not. The only sources saying he had were tied to Chalabi. Bush MAY NOT have told a deliberate lie, but he should have known better. It's his JOB to know better.

As for your blind assertion that a hundred thousand dead is a small price to pay for a Starbucks on every corner, I seem to remember another group who believed the ends justifies the means no matter how many fall. They were called the Khmer Rouge. Maybe you should move to Iraq and show them some Christian "love."

[Bill Grote]

Pat not everyone knows their neighbors well.

As I stated, Fitzgerald said he made no determination if Plame indeed fit the covert status under the Espionage Act.

Do you have reason to dispute the statement by the Newsweek editor that Wilson often introduced his wife as a CIA agent?

And your claim that Kerry said Iraq had WMD because Bush told him so is ridiculous. Clinton and Albright were saying the same thing during the Clinton presidency.

Do you claim that Clinton and Albright got their information from then Governor Bush?

And WMD or not it cannot be disputed that Iraq and its neighboring countries are far better with Hussein out of power. His trial should reveal the evil butcher that he was. He killed thousands of his own countrymen with biological agents. The US wants a stable democracy in Iraq, it does not want to rule Iraq or stay in Iraq for any lengthy period of time. But creating a democracy in a country without democratic traditions is not neccessarily an easy task. Look how long it took Gen. MacArthur in Japan. But look where Japan is now, thanks to the fact that the US defeated it.

[Tim Gratz]

Pat please state your proof that current intelligence available to Bush said Iraq had no WMD.

That is certainly news to me.

[Pat Speer]

Pat please state your proof that current intelligence available to Bush said Iraq had no WMD.

That is certainly news to me.

Tim, the yellowcake story was discredited by the CIA. Bush knowingly said that British intelligence had evidence so he could get around that ours did not.

Please state your proof that Bush had non Chalabi/Cheney orchestrated intelligence saying there was WMD.

[Tim Carroll]

Please state your proof that Bush had non Chalabi/Cheney orchestrated intelligence saying there was WMD.

It's one thing to take Chalabi with more than a few grains of salt, knowing that he was ambitious for Saddam's job, but to find he was backed by Iran and the Shiites - that we got played by our real enemies, is very distressing.

Tim

[Tim Gratz]

Does anyone dispute the statement I heard on television this aftyernoon (by a Charles Gasparino of Newsweek) that Wilson regularly introduced his wife as a CIA agent? If this report is true, perhaps Fitzgerald should be prosecuting Wilson for violation of the Espionage Act! This would also explain why Fitzgerald could not prosecute any Bush official for "outing" Plame (assuming a Bush official did so).

[Tim Gratz]

Pat wrote:

By the time Bush was saying it, the current intelligence was that he did not.

Pat, respectfully, I think the burden is on you to show that Bush had intelligence that was different from that available to Clinton. Are you stating that there is publicy available information that states that there were reports given to Bush that said the current analysis was that Iraq did not have WMD?

[Pat Speer]

Pat wrote:

By the time Bush was saying it, the current intelligence was that he did not.

Pat, respectfully, I think the burden is on you to show that Bush had intelligence that was different from that available to Clinton. Are you stating that there is publicy available information that states that there were reports given to Bush that said the current analysis was that Iraq did not have WMD?

My understanding is that that was the reason they sent Wilson to Niger, to find out. Both Clinton and Bush suspected Hussein was trying to build WMD-remember Hans Blix, (I think that was his name)-the U.N. inspector? The only source that told us that he HAD the damn things was the Chalabi network. By the way, intelligence changes with the seasons; it would be ludicrous to think Clinton and Bush had the same exact intelligence... There is a reason, however, that the Bush White House jumped on this misinfo when the Clinton White House did not. I'll give you a hint. It has something to do with someone's daddy.

[Tim Gratz]

Well, Pat, if you think Bush II wanted to get Hussein because Hussein tried to "get" assassinate Bush I, you might be right! And do I think the US ought to "get" a brutal dictator who has attempted to assassinate a POTUS? Darn right I do! The leader of any country who even thinks of assassinating a POTUS ought to know what will happen to him.

And, interestingly enough, is there not a parallel with the Kennedy case? (See, John was right to put this thread in the Assassination Debate.) If Bush II would go after Hussein because Hussein tried to kill his father, might not Castro, similarly, have gone after JFK because the US had tried, and was continuing to try to, kill him?

The point is simply that countries cannot tolerate assassination attempts against their leaders. And the only way to stop this may be to retaliate.

After Johnson saw what happened to Kennedy, if he was not part of it, and he thought Castro had killed Kennedy, do you really suppose he would have decided to continue the assassination efforts against Castro? Somehow I think he may have gotten Castro's message of September 7, 1963. If Castro was involved in the assassination, he demonstrated on Nov. 22nd that he really meant what he said on September 7th. Essentially, he said to the US, if you keep trying to kill me, your leaders will not be safe.

It comes down to this: countries cannot allow assassinations to become an instrument of their foreign policy.

My thoughts on the WMD issue later.

Edited November 4, 2005 by Tim Gratz

[Tim Gratz]

wORTHWHILE ARTICLE FROM NATIONAL REVIEW ONLINE:

Senate Democrats are suffering intelligence failure. They have closed down the Senate and called for an investigation into prewar estimates of Iraq’s weapons-of-mass-destruction program. But their inspection teams have failed thus far to locate a mammoth July 2004 report on this very topic, the result of 13 months of effort by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence. The report was approved unanimously by the committee, supported by for example Senators Levin, Feinstein, and Edwards (a few weeks before he was selected as John Kerry’s running mate).

Meanwhile, former President Jimmy Carter has decried the manipulation of Iraq intelligence to deceive the American people into going to war. But this question had been covered exhaustively by the bipartisan Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction, which released its report last March. It found “no indication that the Intelligence Community distorted the evidence regarding Iraq's weapons of mass destruction,” and that “the Intelligence Community did not make or change any analytic judgments in response to political pressure to reach a particular conclusion.” Mr. Carter should follow the news a little more closely.

What’s at issue now is “Phase Two” of the original Senate report, in which statements by administration officials are being compared to prewar intelligence to see if the American people were being given the straight story. The Democrats hope that they will be able to find some examples of statements at extreme variance with the admittedly flawed intelligence reports. They submitted 300 such cherry picked statements for review, and the GOP added another 150 from both sides of the aisle in Congress just to be fair.

One would think that this would be an exercise best left to the blogosphere, which has already parsed and dissected every public statement made by the administration on the topic of WMDs. If there were a “smoking gun,” determined bloggers would have found it by now. But the White House has always been careful not to overstep reports. For example those who mocked the president for his statement in the 2004 State of the Union address that weapons inspectors has uncovered “dozens of weapons of mass destruction-related program activities” should have consulted the Iraq Survey Group interim progress report, from which he was quoting directly. The phrase was a bit clunky, but if the president had characterized what was found in any other way, those same critics would now be charging high crimes and misdemeanors.

Somehow this is all being linked to the Scooter Libby indictment, and Joe Wilson has been fanning those flames in his usual unassuming, low-key way. But since Wilson is reluctantly back in the limelight it is a good opportunity to revisit his 2002 trip to Niger to investigate whether the Iraqi government was seeking to reopen its long-standing Uranium trading relationship. Wilson went public about his mission in July 2003 to denounce the president’s assertion in the 2003 SOTU address that Saddam’s government had “recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.” Wilson claimed his investigation turned up no such evidence, at least not in Niger. From this he concluded that the administration was twisting the facts.

However, former Nigerien Prime Minister Ibrahim Mayaki had admitted that in June 1999 he was approached by intermediaries requesting he meet with an Iraqi delegation to discuss “expanding commercial relations” between Niger and Iraq, which Mayaki interpreted to mean renewing yellowcake uranium sales. I suppose you could quibble about the meaning of the word “recently,” but not about Saddam’s intention to restart his nuclear program at first opportunity, which was also the finding of the fall 2004 Duelfer Report. So if someone was lying it certainly was not President Bush. [Emphasis supplied.]

When Wilson was questioned by the Senate Intelligence Committee he exaggerated the significance of his findings beyond what the CIA had concluded, and also admitted that he had passed false information — i.e., had “mis-spoken” — to the press. Wilson has since made a number of conflicting statements in various venues, often with the intention of inflating his own importance. The Agency in fact gave his information only a middling grade, saying that it “did not provide substantial new information.” The CIA noted that the people Wilson spoke to knew that he was working for the U.S. government, and so naturally they would not admit to any illegal activities. (Can’t quite see them saying, “O.K. Joe, you got us, we’re the guys dealing with Saddam. Your country can invade us now.”) The only nugget to come out of the mission that the Agency considered valuable was the information about Mayaki’s perception of the June 1999 meeting, which actually supported the administration’s position.

I never understood the link between “outing” Wilson’s wife as a CIA employee and the notion that this would discredit him, unless of course it was the matter of nepotism. The CIA described Wilson as “a contact with excellent access who does not have an established reporting record,” an amateur who could possibly come up with something useful if he was lucky, but who would never be relied on as the sole source for dispositive proof on any question, as Wilson has since represented himself. One wouldn’t say he suffers from deficient vanity. Considering the vast array of intelligence assets available to the U.S. government, someone like Wilson is obviously a bit player, and the more grandiose his claims become the less credibility he has. The best way to discredit Wilson is to let him keep talking and do the job himself. A few more sickeningly self-important photo spreads wouldn’t hurt either.

[Pat Speer]

Meanwhile, former President Jimmy Carter has decried the manipulation of Iraq intelligence to deceive the American people into going to war. But this question had been covered exhaustively by the bipartisan Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction, which released its report last March. It found “no indication that the Intelligence Community distorted the evidence regarding Iraq's weapons of mass destruction,” and that “the Intelligence Community did not make or change any analytic judgments in response to political pressure to reach a particular conclusion.” Mr. Carter should follow the news a little more closely.

Tim, what's key here is that "the Intelligence Community" did not manipulate its information, but the White House did. It's well-known (no, I won't go back and cite all the articles, as you should already know this) that Cheney created his own intelligence unit to get around the CIA. (I believe this was the subject of Seymour Hersh's lasyt book.) This Special Ops division was overseen by Libby and employed true believers only. Since they told Bush what he wanted to hear, they were accepted by Bush as having more cred than the CIA. there's no paper trail. No accountability. The modern day equivalent of the "plumbers". Congress knows they can't investigate this because that would mean investiigating Cheney, whose shown them he's bullet-proof by holding off the public on those Enron meetings.

[Tim Gratz]

Pat, would you agree that if there are two differing intelligence estimates and President Bush decides to credit one over another (the one claiming there are WMD in Iraq), that Bush did not then lie in stating to the American people that he believed there were WMD in Iraq?

Would you also agree that if the group that said that Iraq had WMD was not followed, and it turned out to be correct, that that error in judgment could have resulted in one or more terrorist incidents in the US that would have made 9-11 pale in comparison?

Would it not be better for the president to error on the side of safety and protect this country? In other words, look at the potential tragedy for millions of Americans (the right WMD could have destroyed a large American city e.g. New York) if Bush had followed the group that said Iraq had no WMD and that estimate (which is all it was) had turned out to be wrong?

Let me make an analogy. Let me assume you have a minor daughter and a registered sex offendor/pedophile moves into your neighborhood. Now the police believe the offendor, who has undergone therapy, may be cured and no longer pose any danger. So the local police have two choices. It can act on the estimate (guess) that the offendor is no longer a threat and leave him alone. But if that decision turns out to be wrong, it could mean the rape or murder of your daughter. Or the police can act conservatively and keep a close watch on the offendor. Which would be the prudent course for the police to follow?

My point is that if Bush's intelligence estimates said only that there was a realistic possibilty that Hussein had or was developing WMD, a possibility that could not be ruled out due to Hussein's unwillingness to permit full inspections, Bush had a responsibility to the people of this country to act conservatively (no pun intended) by crediting the estimate that Hussein had WMD.

I would also point out that Wilson's report did nothing to exclude the possibilty that Iraq had WMD. If Wilson had confirmed that Hussein was trying to acquire uranium from Niger, that would be solid evidence that Iraq was developing WMD. But when Wilson concluded Hussein had not done so, that did not by any means "clear" Hussein. He could have obtained uranium from other sources. Or he could have had biological WMD. In other words, Wilson's report could have confirmed that Hussein HAD WMD, but there was no way his report could have confirmed that Hussein did NOT have WMD.

I always sleep better when there is a Republican in the White House.

Edited November 5, 2005 by Tim Gratz

[John Simkin]

Tim, as I have already pointed out, William Buckley is a long-time CIA operative and the National Review has probably relied on CIA money over the years to survive.

A far more objective account can be found from this article by Daniel Schoor. He was the journalist who upset the CIA by leaking the Pike Report.

Daniel Schorr, Christian Science Monitor (15th July, 2005)

Let me remind you that the underlying issue in the Karl Rove controversy is not a leak, but a war and how America was misled into that war.

In 2002 President Bush, having decided to invade Iraq, was casting about for a casus belli. The weapons of mass destruction theme was not yielding very much until a dubious Italian intelligence report, based partly on forged documents (it later turned out), provided reason to speculate that Iraq might be trying to buy so-called yellowcake uranium from the African country of Niger. It did not seem to matter that the CIA advised that the Italian information was "fragmentary and lacked detail."

Prodded by Vice President Dick Cheney and in the hope of getting more conclusive information, the CIA sent Joseph Wilson, an old Africa hand, to Niger to investigate. Mr. Wilson spent eight days talking to everyone in Niger possibly involved and came back to report no sign of an Iraqi bid for uranium and, anyway, Niger's uranium was committed to other countries for many years to come.

No news is bad news for an administration gearing up for war. Ignoring Wilson's report, Cheney talked on TV about Iraq's nuclear potential. And the president himself, in his 2003 State of the Union address no less, pronounced: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

Wilson declined to maintain a discreet silence. He told various people that the president was at least mistaken, at most telling an untruth. Finally Wilson directly challenged the administration with a July 6, 2003 New York Times op-ed headlined, "What I didn't find in Africa," and making clear his belief that the president deliberately manipulated intelligence in order to justify an invasion.

One can imagine the fury in the White House. We now know from the e-mail traffic of Time's correspondent Matt Cooper that five days after the op-ed appeared, he advised his bureau chief of a super secret conversation with Karl Rove who alerted him to the fact that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA and may have recommended him for the Niger assignment. Three days later, Bob Novak's column appeared giving Wilson's wife's name, Valerie Plame, and the fact she was an undercover CIA officer. Mr. Novak has yet to say, in public, whether Mr. Rove was his source. Enough is known to surmise that the leaks of Rove, or others deputized by him, amounted to retaliation against someone who had the temerity to challenge the president of the United States when he was striving to find some plausible reason for invading Iraq.

The role of Rove and associates added up to a small incident in a very large scandal - the effort to delude America into thinking it faced a threat dire enough to justify a war.

[Tim Gratz]

John, you cannot refute the logic of my argument that while an attempt by Iraq to buy yellowcake would be (presumably) (if true) irrefutable evidence that Iraq was attempting to create nuclear WMD, should it turn out that Iraq had not (as suspected or reported) been trying to purchase yellowcake from Niger) that fact sheds little liight on whether Iraw had WMD. For instance, it has no relevance whatsoever to whether Iraq had biological WMD.

I think too many people are assuming that if the Niger documents were frauds that proves Iraq did not have WMD. There is simply no logic to that proposition.

[Tim Gratz]

John wrote:

Tim, as I have already pointed out, William Buckley is a long-time CIA operative .

John, you are now being investigated by Patrick Fitzgerald for "outing" William F. Buckley, Jr., who had always claimed he only worked for the CIA for a brief time.

Fitzgerald will ask you to identify your source that Buckley remained a CIA operative (as I do now).

Edited November 6, 2005 by Tim Gratz