who really sent Wilson to Niger?

[garybeck]

part of Rove's defense is that he was just correcting a reporter from writing something incorrect. they were going to say that Cheney sent Wilson, but Rove claims this whole thing is about the fact that Plame hand picked her husband to go down there.

i seem to remember Wilson saying in Conyers' hearings that it was totally untrue that Plame picked him. But the Rovebots are still saying she did.

do we know the facts on this?

[htuttle]

1. It's as relevant as the color of John Dillinger's socks

Who cares?

Wilson was assigned a task by the government. He completed that task, but came up with an answer the administration didn't like. Then the Bush administration exposed the fact that his wife was a clandestine CIA agent in the press.

What bearing does 'who sent him to Niger' have on ANYTHING?

[The_Casual_Observer]

5. 'who sent him to Niger' - Is their answer to "Why did you out

the CIA agent" the old ploy of answering a question with an unrelated question. This is all very old fashioned unsophisticated stuff, rove's stock in trade.

[LondonReign2]

13. Me

But don't tell anyone, 'cause I'm undercover. :)

Actually, why does it matter? I'm not trying take anything away from your question, but it really doesn't matter who sent him -- his findings where correct, and ChimpCo was lying about the yellowcake.

[aint_no_life_nowhere]

20. It's even more irrelevant than that

They're arguing over what Wilson "SAID" about who sent him to Niger, not about what actually happened or who sent him. They don't seem to care about who actually sent Wilson but only whether Wilson was wrong in saying Cheney sent him. That's their basis for calling Wilson a liar and therefore trying to discredit everything else associated with him. The fact is Cheney wanted someone to go check out the story about the yellow cake and Wilson went as a result.

In other words, as the French would say, <<ils enculent des mouches>> ("they're sodomizing flies") and are descending into meaningless trivia of no relevance whatsoever.

What matters is the fact that Karl Rove blew the cover of a CIA Agent.

[Norquist Nemesis]

2. Read this

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/truth/interviews/wilson.html

It clarifies a lot of things. For one thing, Wilson said "the Vice-President's office" made an inquiry to the CIA to check out a report. The noise machine has twisted this to being Wilson said Cheney. Untrue.

"Did they say where these concerns came from, what part of the government they came from?

They did, yes. They said that the office of the vice president had raised questions about this report, and they'd asked them to look into it.


But you had no contact with the vice president's office?

No.


So the vice president had made an inquiry to the CIA to investigate, and the CIA called you.

I think even "to investigate" is probably a little bit stronger than what the vice president probably said.


But he asked some questions.

What happens is the vice president and other senior officials of the White House are briefed on a regular basis by the CIA and by other intelligence agencies on information that comes across their desk and on analyses that they have done. It was during the course of this briefing, we later found out, that the vice president turned to the briefer and said, "Gee, this is an interesting report. Can you tell me any more about it?"

takes that question back to the agency. Had the information come through defense intelligence channels, it would have been the DIA briefer, Defense Intelligence Agency briefer. Had it come through State Department channels, it would have been the State Department briefer who would have been asked that question. But the question was, "Look, this is an interesting report. Is there anything more you can tell me about it?" Something like that.

The CIA briefer then goes back. That question goes down as a tasking, requiring a response to the operational level of the CIA. The CIA then decides, "How best are we going to answer this question?" Step one, in this case, to answer the question was to invite me, perhaps others -- I don't know -- in to talk to them about the business as we know it, the government as we know it, and the likelihood that such a thing could happen. …"

[H2O Man]

3. Yes.

The CIA sent Wilson to Niger, as a result of pressure that Cheney & Libby put on the agency to investigate the yellow cake documents. Wilson did not say Cheney sent him. He did say the CIA sent him. The republicans keep trying to distract from the focus, and insert lies in the discussion. A thimble half-full of common sense should be used: Wilson went to Niger for the CIA.

[Me.]

11. Yes

and why are there continuing questions about Wilson's credibility on this forum? He did not lie us into war, he is the one who said the the case for war was bogus. He was right, they're the ones who lied then and keep on lying. His credibility is not the issue. Questions about him are a misdirection of the eye put about by the WH.

[BurtWorm]

4. The nonproliferation group at the CIA picked Wilson.

Did *Valerie Wilson* send him? Of course not. But did she have nothing to do with sending him? She seems to have at least introduced him to the group. According to the Senate Intelligence Committee report, someone in the the State Dept working with the group had in his or her notes that she may have suggested her husband for the mission, seeing as he was a former ambassador to Gabon who knew the region and the governments there well.

[H2O Man]

10. That's simple.

Of course she introduced him. They asked her to ask him if he would go. She agreed he was qualified, and to ask him. He agreed to go. He accompanied her to a meeting with those who were planning his mission. She introduced him.

She did not bring him in to the CIA on her own. The notes from the person from State are without value, as they express an opinion that is not supported by fact.

[BurtWorm]

14. It's true that they reflect the person's opinion.

But what difference does it make if his wife brought him in, beside contradicting what he has said since? Forget about what it means for Wilson's integrity. What difference does it really make if she brought him in? Is the issue nepotism? Was she a known anti-Bushist?

The interesting thing about Wilson's and the CIA's involvement is that they were inclined to be open to the possible veracity of what turned out to be phony documents. They were more in sync with DIA than with State on the question. At least according to the Senate committee's report. And Wilson, again accorfing to the report, actually found something to corroborate that Iraqis had contacted Niger, and that the Nigerien they contacted thought it might have been to get yellowcake, although he found no evidence contradicting State's conclusion that no deal could have taken place.

[Cocoa]

6. Wilson is not the issue

though the RNC is trying to make Wilson the issue, Rove is the issue.

And Wilson wasn't the issue when he blew the whistle. Bush's lies were the issue, and Rove's trying to make Wilson the issue started this whole thing.

[BurtWorm]

8. Now THAT I totally agree with.

And that should be among the Dems talking points.

[kentuck]

7. Certainly not a pencil pusher..

Which is what they say about Plame. She would not have had the authority to approve such an adventure. But, a good question.

[Dhalgren]

9. Well, regardless of who recommended Wilson to go to Niger,

it seems very clear that Plame was not in the position to initiate the mission. Someone higher up than Plame initiated the request to send someone to Niger; she would have had no reason to send anyone on an official, public, fact-finding mission. What would have been her motivation and why would anyone in power positions in the CIA or the administration have gone along with it? I can't even see why Plame would get involved in any of this, at all, given her covert position. Having her husband go on a public fact-finding mission dealing with the spread of WMD, while she is heading up a covert network of CIA spooks doing the same thing would seem to me to be too risky unless the whole thing were out of her hands and above her pay-grade. Just my opinion...

[LSK]

12. Wilson never said Cheney sent him

They claim that Wilson was saying everywhere that Cheney sent him, but there is NOT ONE PLACE where this has ever happened. Wilson never claimed Cheney sent him.

The 2nd part is that they claimed the Senate Report shows Plame sent Wilson, which is also false. The Senate Report only says Plame recommended Wilson to meet with CIA officials because of his background in Africa. Plame was not present at the meeting where it was decided for him to go to Africa.

These are the facts.

Thank you for asking because it is important that we all know the truth to fight the RNC lying machine.

[kittenpants]

15. EXACTLY, also, is Plame a pencil-pusher as some claim or a powerful

decision-maker who can send her husband on official missions to refute the president's evidence for war. It doesn't seem that she can be both!

[garybeck]

21. ya, Franken just discussed this on the radio

he read the transcript from CNN. he did say the vice president's office requested the CIA to look into it, he did not in any way say it was Cheney.

as an observer I have to ask the question - does someone's "office" ask for something without the person knowing?

and where is Cheney anyway?

[kodi]

16. the devil is in the details here.

The first distortion is that Wilson’s wife selected (or even recommended) her husband to go to Niger. Regardless of the Right's unability to accept it, Plame did not “recommend” or “select” her husband go to Niger, further, there are differences between one who suggests or recommends and one who selects something. I might “suggest” or “recommend” that you should be given a Nobel Prize, but I am not the one who selects you for the prize.

The evidence that the Right proportedly uses in its accusations of Wilson lying about whether to not his wife “selected” him to go to Niger appears in the "Additional View" of an addendum to the main SIC report states:

see linked passage of Senate Intelligence report:

From an appendix to the actual Report, entitled “Additional View” There are nine “Additional Views” sign by from one to six Senators. This one is signed by three Senators.

http://a257.g.akamaitech.net/7/257/2422/13jul20041400/www.gpoaccess.gov/serialset/creports/pdf/s108-301/roberts.pdf

http://www.gpoaccess.gov/serialset/creports/iraq.html

Despite our hard and successhl work to deliver a unanimous report, however,
there were two issues on which the Republicans and Democrats could not agree: 1)
whether the Committee should conclude that former Ambassador Joseph Wilson’s public
statements were not based on knowledge he actually possessed, and 2) whether the
Committee should conclude that it was the former ambassador’swife who recommended
him for his trip to Niger.
Niger
The Committee began its review of prewar intelligence on Iraq by examining the
Intelligence Community’s sharing of intelligence information with the UNMOVIC
inspection teams. (The Committee’s findings on that topic can be found in the section of
the report titled, “The Intelligence Community’s Sharing of Intelligence on Iraqi Suspect
WMD Sites with UN Inspectors.”) Shortly thereafter, we expanded the review when
former Ambassador Joseph Wilson began speaking publicly about his role in exploring
the possibility that Iraq was seeking or may have acquired uranium yellowcake from
- 442 -
Africa. Ambassador Wilson’s emergence was precipitated by a passage in President
Bush’s January 2003 State of the Union address which is now referred to as “the sixteen
words.” President Bush stated, “. . .the British government has learned that Saddam
Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.” The details of the
Committee’s findings and conclusions on this issue can be found in the Niger section of
the report. What cannot be found, however, are two conclusions upon which the
Committee’s Democrats would not agree. While there was no dispute with the
underlying facts, my Democrat colleagues rehsed to allow the following conclusions to
appear in the report:
Conclusion: The plan to send the former ambassador to Niger was
suggested by the former ambassador’s wife, a CIA employee.
The former ambassador’s wife suggested her husband for the trip
to Niger in February 2002. The former ambassador had traveled
previously to Niger on behalf of the CIA, also at the suggestion of his
wife, to look into another matter not related to Iraq. On February 12,
2002, the former ambassador’swife sent a memorandum to a Deputy
Chief of a division in the CIA’SDirectorate of Operations which said,
“ 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.’ This was just
one day before the same Directorate of Operations division sent a cable to
one of its overseas stations requesting concurrence with the division’s idea
to send the former ambassador to Niger.
Conclusion: Rather than speaking publicly about his actual
experiences during his inquiry of the Niger issue, the former
ambassador seems to have included information he learned from
press accounts and from his beliefs about how the Intelligence
Community would have or should have handled the information he
provided.
At the time the former ambassador traveled to Niger, the
Intelligence Community did not have in its possession any actual
documents on the alleged Niger-Iraq uranium deal, only second hand
reporting of the deal. The former ambassador’s comments to reporters that
the Niger-Iraq uranium documents “may have been forged because ‘the
dates were wrong and the names were ~ o n g , ” ’ could not have been based
on the forrner ambassador’s actual experiences because the Intelligence
Community did not have the documents at the time of the ambassador’s
trip. In addition, nothing in the report from the former ambassador’strip
said anything about documents having been forged or the names or dates
- 443 -
in the reports having been incorrect. The former ambassador told
Committee staff that he, in fact, did not have access to any of the names
and dates in the CIA’s reports and said he may have become confbsed
about his own recollection after the International Atomic Energy Agency
(IAEA) reported in March 2003 that the names and dates on the
documents were not correct. Of note, the names and dates in the
documents that the IAEA found to be incorrect were not names or dates
included in the CIA reports.
Following the Vice President’s review of an intelligence report
regarding a possible uranium deal, he asked his briefer for the CIA’s
analysis of the issue. It was this request which generated Mr. Wilson’s trip
to Niger. The former ambassador’s public comments suggesting that the
Vice President had been briefed on the information gathered during his
trip is not correct, however. While the CIA responded to the Vice
President’s request for the Agency’s analysis, they never provided the
information gathered by the former Ambassador. The former ambassador,
in an NBC Meet the Press interview on July 6,2003, said, “The office of
the Vice President, I am absolutely convinced, received a very specific
response to the question it asked and that response was based upon my trip
out there.” The former ambassador was speaking on the basis of what he
believed should have happened based on his former government
experience, but he had no knowledge that this did happen.
These and other public comments from the former ambassador,
such as comments that his report “debunked” the Niger-Iraq uranium
story, were incorrect and have led to a distortion in the press and in the
public’s understanding of the facts surrounding the Niger-Iraq uranium
story. The Committee found that, for most analysts, the former
ambassador’s report lent more credibility, not less, to the reported Niger-
Iraq uranium deal.
During Mr. Wilson’s media blitz, he appeared on more than thirty television
shows including entertainment venues. Time and again, Joe Wilson told anyone who
would listen that the President had lied to the American people, that the Vice President
had lied, and that he had “debunked” the claim that Iraq was seeking uranium from
Africa. As discussed in the Niger section of the report, not only did he NOT “debunk”
the claim, he actually gave some intelligence analysts even more reason to believe that it
may be true. I believed very strongly that it was important for the Committee to conclude
publicly that many of the statements made by Ambassador Wilson were not only
incorrect, but had no basis in fact.
- 444 -
In an interview with Committee staff, Mr. Wilson was asked how he knew some
of the things he was stating publicly with such confidence. On at least two occasions he
admitted that he had no direct knowledge to support some of his claims and that he was
drawing on either unrelated past experiences or no information at all. For example, when
asked how he “knew” that the Intelligence Community had rejected the possibility of a
Niger-Iraq uranium deal, as he wrote in his book, he told Committee staff that his
assertion may have involved “a little literary flair.”
The former Ambassador, either by design or though ignorance, gave the
American people and, for that matter, the world a version of events that was inaccurate,
unsubstantiated, and misleading. Surely, the Senate Intelligence Committee, which has
unique access to all of the facts, should have been able to agree on a conclusion that
would correct the public record. Unfortunately, we were unable to do so.



The implication is that Plame‘s reference to her husband’s credentials (cited in the “Additional View” addendum of the SIC Report), means that she had “something to do” and recommended him for the Niger trip. Actually, the reference cited by the Senate Intelligence Committee showed clearly that her reference was to a summary of Wilson’s contacts and knowledge of West Africa. There is no reference to her suggesting that he go there.

however a Wall Steet Journal editorial appearing in summer of 2004 continued charging that:

"Mr. Wilson had been denying any involvement at all on Ms. Plame's part, in order to suggest that her identity was disclosed by a still-unknown Administration official out of pure malice. If instead an Administration official cited nepotism truthfully in order to explain the oddity of Mr. Wilson's selection for the Niger mission, then there was no underlying crime. Motive is crucial under the controlling statute."

The people at CIA who actually made that decision said that she did not make a recommendation, nor was she involved with the decision to send her husband to Niger, they did.

The charge of “nepotism” is also a lie.

Newsday reporters Tim Phelps and Knut Royce on July 2003 Newsday article "Columnist Blows CIA Agent's Cover," (dated July 22, 2003).
reported that:

"A senior intelligence officer confirmed that Plame was a Directorate of Operations undercover officer who worked 'alongside' the operations officers who asked her husband to travel to Niger. But he said she did not recommend her husband to undertake the Niger assignment. 'They were aware of who she was married to, which is not surprising,' he said. 'There are people elsewhere in government who are trying to make her look like she was the one who was cooking this up, for some reason,' he said. 'I can't figure out what it could be.' 'We paid his airfare. But to go to Niger is not exactly a benefit. Most people you'd have to pay big bucks to go there,' the senior intelligence official said. Wilson said he was reimbursed only for expenses."

Wilson himself reponded in his reply to the attacks on his veracity:

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2004/07/16/wilson_letter/index_np.htm

"That is not true. The conclusion is apparently based on one anodyne quote from a memo Valerie Plame, my wife, sent to her superiors that says, "My husband has good relations with the PM 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." There is no suggestion or recommendation in that statement that I be sent on the trip. Indeed it is little more than a recitation of my contacts and bona fides. The conclusion is reinforced by comments in the body of the report that a CPD reports officer stated that "the former ambassador's wife 'offered up his name'" (page 39) and a State Department intelligence and research officer stated that the "meeting was 'apparently convened by wife who had the idea to dispatch him to use his contacts to sort out the Iraq-Niger uranium issue."

In fact, Valerie was not in the meeting at which the subject of my trip was raised. Neither was the CPD reports officer. After having escorted me into the room, she departed the meeting to avoid even the appearance of conflict of interest. It was at that meeting where the question of my traveling to Niger was broached with me for the first time and came only after a thorough discussion of what the participants did and did not know about the subject. My bona fides justifying the invitation to the meeting were the trip I had previously taken to Niger to look at other uranium-related questions as well as 20 years living and working in Africa, and personal contacts throughout the Niger government. Neither the CPD reports officer nor the State analyst were in the chain of command to know who, or how, the decision was made."

[dogday]

17. Cheney ask the CIA to look into it

The CIA dept of WMD's where Valerie Plame worked talked to her and she recommended her husband. The CIA then met with and directed Joe Wilson to go to Niger.

So in a way Cheney inadvertently sent Wilson.....

[ernstbass]

18. Andrea Mitchell told Imus that Wilson was accompanied

by a three star general and an ambassador, both of whom were in agreement on the conclusions reached. I'd like to hear more about this since the repugs never mention anyone else.

[Jane Austin]

19. I didn't hear Imus, but

didn't those other two go to Niger at other times rather than with Wilson?