California Conservative

After watching Tuesday night’s Hardball with Chris Matthews (something I’ll attempt not to do again), I felt compelled to deconstruct and destroy his Joe Wilson, modern-day-martyr argument.

I did this in an email to him. Here’s a copy of it:

—– Original Message —–
Chris, It’s amazing that you get paid so much to be wrong about so many things. Let me explain to you what’s going on in reality in the Plamegate investigation. I’ll start with the premise that Libby & Rove were justified in attacking Joe Wilson’s credibility. That isn’t just my opinion but it’s beared out with verifiable proof.

1. Factcheck.org is the definitive source on how Wilson lied. Here’s what they said about Bush’s famous “16 words”:

The famous “16 words” in President Bush’s Jan. 28, 2003 State of the Union address turn out to have a basis in fact after all, according to two recently released investigations in the US and Britain.

Bush said then, “The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.” Some of his critics called that a lie, but the new evidence shows Bush had reason to say what he did.

• A British intelligence review released July 14 calls Bush’s 16 words “well founded.”
• A separate report by the US Senate Intelligence Committee said July 7 that the US also had similar information from “a number of intelligence reports,” a fact that was classified at the time Bush spoke.
• Ironically, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who later called Bush’s 16 words a “lie”, supplied information that the Central Intelligence Agency took as confirmation that Iraq may indeed have been seeking uranium from Niger.

Both the US and British investigations make clear that some forged Italian documents, exposed as fakes soon after Bush spoke, were not the basis for the British intelligence Bush cited, or the CIA’s conclusion that Iraq was trying to get uranium.
None of the new information suggests Iraq ever nailed down a deal to buy uranium, and the Senate report makes clear that US intelligence analysts have come to doubt whether Iraq was even trying to buy the stuff. In fact, both the White House and the CIA long ago conceded that the 16 words shouldn’t have been part of Bush’s speech.

Some things are noteworthy here: (a) President Bush didn’t say that Iraq had bought yellowcake, just that they’d tried to buy it; (b) Wilson’s findings strengthened President Bush’s claims in the CIA’s minds, not weaken it; and (c) The Senate Intelligence Committee said that they had multiple sources to verify President Bush’s “16 Words” statement.

2. Let’s not stop there, though. Let’s hear what the Butler Report in England said about this issue:

The Butler report said British intelligence had “credible” information, from several sources, that a 1999 visit by Iraqi officials to Niger was for the purpose of buying uranium:

Butler Report:

It is accepted by all parties that Iraqi officials visited Niger in 1999. The British Government had intelligence from several different sources indicating that this visit was for the purpose of acquiring uranium. Since uranium constitutes almost three-quarters of Niger’s exports, the intelligence was credible.

The Butler Report affirmed what the British government had said about the Niger uranium story back in 2003, and specifically endorsed what Bush said as well.

Butler Report:

By extension, we conclude also that the statement in President Bush’s State of the Union Address of 28 January 2003 that “The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa” was well-founded.

In the Butler report and the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report, we have two reports that shoot down Wilson’s claim that the President lied in his State of the Union Address. Based on these reports, we can directly conclude that Wilson lied, not President Bush.

3. But let’s not stop there. Let’s see what the Senate Intelligence Committee’s report said:

The U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence reported July 7, 2004 that the CIA had received reports from a foreign government (not named, but probably Britain) that Iraq had actually concluded a deal with Niger to supply 500 tons a year of partially processed uranium ore, or “yellowcake.” That is potentially enough to produce 50 nuclear warheads. The Senate report said the CIA then asked a “former ambassador” to go to Niger and report. That is a reference to Joseph Wilson, who later became a vocal critic of the President’s 16 words. The Senate report said Wilson brought back denials of any Niger-Iraq uranium sale, and argued that such a sale wasn’t likely to happen. But the Intelligence Committee report also reveals that Wilson brought back something else as well, evidence that Iraq may well have wanted to buy uranium.

Wilson reported that he had met with Niger’s former Prime Minister Ibrahim Mayaki, who said that in June 1999 he was asked to meet with a delegation from Iraq to discuss “expanding commercial relations” between the two countries.
Based on what Wilson told them, CIA analysts wrote an intelligence report saying former Prime Minister Mayki “interpreted ‘expanding commercial relations’ to mean that the (Iraqi) delegation wanted to discuss uranium yellowcake sales.”

In fact, 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.”

The subject of uranium sales never actually came up in the meeting, according to what Wilson later told the Senate Intelligence Committee staff. He quoted Mayaki as saying that when he met with the Iraqis he was wary of discussing any trade issues at all because Iraq remained under United Nations sanctions. According to Wilson, Mayaki steered the conversation away from any discussion of trade.

Here’s what the State Department says about Niger’s exports:

Exports (freight on board–f.o.b.)–$387 million. Types–uranium, livestock, cowpeas, and onions.

Chris, What are the odds that an Iraqi trade delegation visited Niger to buy livestock, cowpeas, and onions? Would you put it at less than 1%? I would. That leaves uranium as the other item on the Iraqi shopping list. Given that Saddam wanted to at least attempt to build a nuclear weapon, what’s the odds that that’s what was on the Iraqi shopping list? Upwards of 99 percent? I’d bet the ranch on that, wouldn’t you?

In other words, information gathered from Wilson’s trip strengthened the President’s “16 Words” statement, not weakened it. Why the disconnect then?

Wilson’s op-ed is the key. In that NY Times op-ed, Wilson said that Bush lied in saying that Iraq had purchased yellowcake uranium. The flaw with that is that President Bush didn’t say that Iraq had bought yellowcake, just that they’d tried to.

Let’s not just stop there. Let’s look at the Tuesday Washington Post article said about Wilson:

Wilson has maintained that Plame was merely “a conduit,” telling CNN last year that “her supervisors asked her to contact me.”

But the Senate committee found that “interviews and documents provided to the committee indicate that his wife…suggested his name for the trip.” The committee also noted a memorandum from Plame saying Wilson “has good relations” with Niger officials who “could possibly shed light on this sort of activity.” In addition, notes on a State Department document surmised that Plame “had the idea to dispatch him” to Niger.

Possessed of a flamboyant style and a love for the camera lens, Wilson helped propel the unmasking of his wife’s identity as a CIA operative into a sprawling, two-year legal probe that climaxes this week with the possible indictment of key White House officials. He also turned an arcane matter involving the Intelligence Identities Protection Act into a proxy fight over the administration’s credibility and its case for war in Iraq.

Chris, Why do you suppose the Washington Post would run an article subtitled “Wilson’s Credibility Debated as Charges In Probe Considered” at this juncture? Might it be that they’re telling Fitzgerald that defense attorneys would have a field day on cross with Wilson? That certainly seems probable.

Also, let’s look at other things you’ve neglected to think about in your usual hyperventillating ‘reporting’ of this issue.

Pat Buchanan raised a great question tonight in asking why Scooter Libby would hand over a document that says that he learned Valerie Wilson’s name from Dick Cheney but then testified that he learned it from a reporter.

What you didn’t glean from that exchange is this: Pat doesn’t believe that this document exists & that he’s challenging the NY Times’ reporting. While you accept the NYT reports as Gospel fact, I & other conservatives don’t. We’ve learned not to trust the Times after their Jayson Blair scandal & their op-ed inaccuracies, mainly from Mo Dowd’s loudmouthed & ill-informed columns to Frank Rich’s & Paul Krugman’s weekly tirades against anything pro-Bush to their anti-war activism & reporting.

The reality is that I don’t believe the Times’ article that Libby testified to one thing after giving them a document that would contradict him. I think that this story is built on pure speculation. The only other options are that Libby admitted in public that he lied under oath or the special prosecutor illegally leaked grand jury testimony. I’d put at less than 1% the likelihood that Libby exited the courthouse & told reporters that he lied under oath, don’t you? As for Fitzgerald leaking grand jury testimony, I’d think that that’s possible but not that likely, maybe a 10% chance of that happening. What’s the odds that the Times made things up, using speculation to fuel the story? Upward of 75% in my opinion.

There are many, many other innacuracies to your hyperventillating ‘reporting’ that I could destroy with this email but I’ll save it for another day. But rest assured of this: I will make this case my mission until American knows the truth about it.

Rest assured of another thing: I’d love taking your arguments apart face-to-face but I doubt that you’ve got the guts to take on a man with the facts on his side.

Cross-posted at BoxerWatch

This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 26th, 2005 at 9:54 am and is filed under Author: Gary Gross, Liberals, Media, Op-Ed. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.