Joe Wilson Lied According to a Bipartisan Committee

Did Cheney Lie? Did Libby Lie? No, Wilson Did!

Some seem to forget, conveniently, that the only person that lied in the Wilson case was, well, Wilson. Libby “lied” about when he found out Joe Wilson’s wife worked for the CIA. She wasn’t “covert,” nor did he leak the name to the press. Libby simply forgot when he first found out about her CIA job and testimony showed that he talked about that fact before he said he talked about that fact. That’s the facts.

Yet after two years of investigation, Mr. Fitzgerald charged no one with a crime for leaking Ms. Plame's name. In fact, he learned early on that Mr. Novak's primary source was former deputy secretary of state Richard L. Armitage, an unlikely tool of the White House. The trial has provided convincing evidence that there was no conspiracy to punish Mr. Wilson by leaking Ms. Plame's identity -- and no evidence that she was, in fact, covert….

Washington Post, Wednesday, March 7, 2007; Page A16

I could defend Libby further here, but I have already done that (just click the Libby “tag” below). This is not the purview of this post. This post is to clearly show that Joe Wilson lied. I do need to -- however -- settle one other area here before we go any further, that is the “Yellowcake” ruse the Left often use.

You may want to watch an NPR liberal, a NYT's lefty, one neo-con, and one Reaganite go at it on this very topic:

FactCheck.org says this: Both the Butler report and the Senate Intelligence Committee report make clear that Bush's 16 words weren't based on the fake documents. The British didn't even see them until after issuing the reports -- based on other sources -- that Bush quoted in his 16 words.

Bush’s “sixteen word” statement in his State of the Union speech has been shown to be correct. People keep speaking about forged documents, however no one in the Bush administration or in print uses these forged documents as their source to say Iraq was looking to purchase yellowcake uranium. Sheeeesh! The British have consistently stood by that conclusion. In September 2003, an independent British parliamentary committee looked into the matter and determined that the claim made by British intelligence was "reasonable" (the media forgot to cover that one too). Indeed, Britain's spies stand by their claim to this day. Interestingly, French intelligence also reported an Iraqi attempt to procure uranium from Niger.

Yes, there were fake documents relating to Niger-Iraq sales. But no, those forgeries were not the evidence that convinced British intelligence that Saddam may have been shopping for "yellowcake" uranium. But that's not all. The Butler report, yet another British government inquiry, also concluded that British intelligence was correct to say that Saddam sought uranium from Niger. The Financial Times has reported that illicit sales of uranium from Niger were indeed being negotiated with Iraq, as well as with four other states.

According to the FT: "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. One of the customers discussed by the traders was Iraq."

There's still more: As Susan Schmidt reported in the Washington Post: "Contrary to Wilson's assertions and even the government's previous statements, the CIA did not tell the White House it had qualms about the reliability of the Africa intelligence." She goes on to report that the bi-partisan Senate Intelligence “panel found that the CIA has not fully investigated possible efforts by Iraq to buy uranium in Niger to this day, citing reports from a foreign service and the U.S. Navy about uranium from Niger destined for Iraq and stored in a warehouse in Benin.”

Score ONE for radioactive material, ZERO for the Liberal bloggers out there who cannot see past there MoveOn.org/Keith Olbermann/Nancy Pelosi brown stained noses.

Now watch two NPR Liberals (side note, you will never see a conservative NPR rep... great use of tax-payer money!), a Neo-Con, and a Reaganite discuss who the leak was:

Okay, on we trudge.

After a whirl of TV and radio appearances during which he received high-fives and hearty hugs from producers and hosts (I was in some green rooms with him so this is eyewitness reporting), and a wet-kiss profile in Vanity Fair, he gave birth to a quickie book sporting his dapper self on the cover, and verbosely entitled The Politics of Truth: Inside the Lies that Led to War and Betrayed My Wife's CIA Identity: A Diplomat's Memoir.

The book jacket talks of his "fearless insight" (whatever that's supposed to mean) and "disarming candor" (which does not extend to telling readers for whom he has been working since retiring early from the Foreign Service).

The biographical blurb describes him as a "political centrist" who received a prize for "Truth-Telling," though a careful reader might notice that the award came in part from a group associated with The Nation magazine — which only Michael Moore would consider a centrist publication.

Unfortunately for Wilson, the bipartisan Senate intelligence committee report concluded that it is he who was telling lies.

Wilson claimed quite clearly in the press and in his book that his wife, CIA employee Valerie Plame, was not the one who came up with the brilliant idea that the agency send him to Niger to investigate whether Saddam Hussein had been attempting to acquire uranium.

"Valerie had nothing to do with the matter," Wilson says in his book. "She definitely had not proposed that I make the trip." In fact, the Senate panel found, she was the one who got him that assignment. The panel even found a memo by her.

Here is the full Washington Post article

Plame's Input Is Cited on Niger Mission
Report Disputes Wilson's Claims on Trip, Wife's Role

By Susan Schmidt

Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, July 10, 2004; Page A09

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.

Wilson last year launched a public firestorm with his accusations that the administration had manipulated intelligence to build a case for war. He has said that his trip to Niger should have laid to rest any notion that Iraq sought uranium there and has said his findings were ignored by the White House.

Wilson's assertions -- both about what he found in Niger and what the Bush administration did with the information -- were undermined yesterday in a bipartisan Senate intelligence committee report.

The panel found that Wilson's report, rather than debunking intelligence about purported uranium sales to Iraq, as he has said, bolstered the case for most intelligence analysts. And contrary to Wilson's assertions and even the government's previous statements, the CIA did not tell the White House it had qualms about the reliability of the Africa intelligence that made its way into 16 fateful words in President Bush's January 2003 State of the Union address.

Yesterday's report said that whether Iraq sought to buy lightly enriched "yellowcake" uranium from Niger is one of the few bits of prewar intelligence that remains an open question. Much of the rest of the intelligence suggesting a buildup of weapons of mass destruction was unfounded, the report said.

The report turns a harsh spotlight on what Wilson has said about his role in gathering prewar intelligence, most pointedly by asserting that his wife, CIA employee Valerie Plame, recommended him.

Plame's role could be significant in an ongoing investigation into whether a crime was committed when her name and employment were disclosed to reporters last summer.

Administration officials told columnist Robert D. Novak then that Wilson, a partisan critic of Bush's foreign policy, was sent to Niger at the suggestion of Plame, who worked in the nonproliferation unit at CIA. The disclosure of Plame's identity, which was classified, led to an investigation into who leaked her name.

The report may bolster the rationale that administration officials provided the information not to intentionally expose an undercover CIA employee, but to call into question Wilson's bona fides as an investigator into trafficking of weapons of mass destruction. To charge anyone with a crime, prosecutors need evidence that exposure of a covert officer was intentional.

The report states that a CIA official told the Senate committee that Plame "offered up" Wilson's name for the Niger trip, then on Feb. 12, 2002, sent a memo to a deputy chief in the CIA's Directorate of Operations saying her husband "has good relations with both 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." The next day, the operations official cabled an overseas officer seeking concurrence with the idea of sending Wilson, the report said.

Wilson has asserted that his wife was not involved in the decision to send him to Niger.

"Valerie had nothing to do with the matter," Wilson wrote in a memoir published this year. "She definitely had not proposed that I make the trip."

Wilson stood by his assertion in an interview yesterday, saying Plame was not the person who made the decision to send him. Of her memo, he said: "I don't see it as a recommendation to send me."

The report said Plame told committee staffers that she relayed the CIA's request to her husband, saying, "there's this crazy report" about a purported deal for Niger to sell uranium to Iraq. The committee found Wilson had made an earlier trip to Niger in 1999 for the CIA, also at his wife's suggestion.

The report also said Wilson provided misleading information to The Washington Post last June. He said then that he concluded the Niger intelligence was based on documents that had clearly 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 Senate panel said. Wilson told the panel he may have been confused and may have "misspoken" to reporters. The documents -- purported sales agreements between Niger and Iraq -- were not in U.S. hands until eight months after Wilson made his trip to Niger.

Wilson's reports to the CIA added to the evidence that Iraq may have tried to buy uranium in Niger, although officials at the State Department remained highly skeptical, the report said.

Wilson said that a former prime minister of Niger, Ibrahim Assane Mayaki, was unaware of any sales contract with Iraq, but said that in June 1999 a businessman approached him, insisting that he meet with an Iraqi delegation to discuss "expanding commercial relations" between Niger and Iraq -- which Mayaki interpreted to mean they wanted to discuss yellowcake sales. A report CIA officials drafted after debriefing Wilson said that "although the meeting took place, Mayaki let the matter drop due to UN sanctions on Iraq."

According to the former Niger mining minister, Wilson told his CIA contacts, Iraq tried to buy 400 tons of uranium in 1998.

Still, it was the CIA that bore the brunt of the criticism of the Niger intelligence. The panel found that the CIA has not fully investigated possible efforts by Iraq to buy uranium in Niger to this day, citing reports from a foreign service and the U.S. Navy about uranium from Niger destined for Iraq and stored in a warehouse in Benin.

The agency did not examine forged documents that have been widely cited as a reason to dismiss the purported effort by Iraq until months after it obtained them. The panel said it still has "not published an assessment to clarify or correct its position on whether or not Iraq was trying to purchase uranium from Africa."

So does Wilson lose his “truth telling” awards? No. Again, in case anyone missed it: 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.

FactCheck.org had this to say about Wilson’s report: The Intelligence Committee report said that "for most analysts" Wilson's trip to Niger "lent more credibility to the original Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) reports on the uranium deal."

What you have – in fact – is a Looney Left who affords murderers and terrorists the benefit of the doubt over a President they cannot stand. They choose Saddam over Bush, they support Afghanistan over America (yes, Democrats are starting to say get us out of Afghanistan as well). It was the same during the Reagan years as well. Reagan and the U.S. were the bad guys for putting ICBM’s along the borders of Western/Eastern Europe. The horrible things that were said about Reagan and the United States by Democrats and the left leaning media are well documented. The same would be true but for the increased platitudes.