Why does Bob Somerby keep insisting on this point about the 16 Words?

[BurtWorm]

"Why the smear campaign against Wilson? Before we try to answer that question, we’ll note that we don’t understand Kevin’s answer. He says the State Department already knew, before Bush’s address, that the famous forged documents were, in fact, forged. “And that's what scared them ,” he says—“the possibility that someone was about to expose the story behind the forged documents. That would have blown the pre-war stories about ‘mushroom clouds’ and nuclear programs sky high, and that's what caused them to wildly overreact to Wilson's otherwise innocuous criticisms.” But we don’t understand that argument. The Brits keep saying—rightly or wrongly, in good faith or bad—that their claim isn’t based on the famous forged documents. If everyone had already known that those documents were a bad joke, we don’t see how that would have stopped Bush from citing the British intelligence."

http://www.dailyhowler.com/dh102705.shtml

Wasn't it established within the last couple of weeks or so definitively that the Brits were in fact trying to foist the same bad Niger "intelligence," manufactured in Rome, that Cheney got a woody over?

[endarkenment]

1. Yes - he is another lying media whore. eom.

[BurtWorm]

3. I disagree.

I think he has an idee fixe about this. He gets those once in a while. But do you have a link to a source that could clarify that point for me. I'd like to e-mail it to Somerby.

[endarkenment]

5. Sure

here ya go:
http://www.sundayherald.com/35264

Just google: niger documents british intelligence
have fun!

[BurtWorm]

6. Excellent!

Thank you.

:toast:

[endarkenment]

7. So here is how they played the game (my view)

The Brits and the Americans poofed up a lot of crappy intel and then fed it to each other and to the French Germans Italians etc. Then they (the Brits and us) would use each other as references for all the shitty intel they fed each other. it was a giant conspiracy of forged intel designed to essentially debase the intel 'currency'. Their cut out (spooks always have a cut out) is that they can finger point at will - 'the Brits said the same thing', 'the French confirmed that there were numerous reports of WMD programs', etc. etc. We got gamed. It was deliberate. It is treason.

[BurtWorm]

8. I just took your advice and Google led me to Sy Hersh's New Yorker piece

that rips Somerby's bizarre assumptions to shreds:

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?030331fa_fact1



The I.A.E.A. had first sought the documents last fall, shortly after the British government released its dossier. After months of pleading by the I.A.E.A., the United States turned them over to Jacques Baute, who is the director of the agency’s Iraq Nuclear Verification Office.

It took Baute’s team only a few hours to determine that the documents were fake. The agency had been given about a half-dozen letters and other communications between officials in Niger and Iraq, many of them written on letterheads of the Niger government. The problems were glaring. One letter, dated October 10, 2000, was signed with the name of Allele Habibou, a Niger Minister of Foreign Affairs and Coöperation, who had been out of office since 1989. Another letter, allegedly from Tandja Mamadou, the President of Niger, had a signature that had obviously been faked and a text with inaccuracies so egregious, the senior I.A.E.A. official said, that “they could be spotted by someone using Google on the Internet.”

The large quantity of uranium involved should have been another warning sign. Niger’s “yellow cake” comes from two uranium mines controlled by a French company, with its entire output presold to nuclear power companies in France, Japan, and Spain. “Five hundred tons can’t be siphoned off without anyone noticing,” another I.A.E.A. official told me.

This official told me that the I.A.E.A. has not been able to determine who actually prepared the documents. “It could be someone who intercepted faxes in Israel, or someone at the headquarters of the Niger Foreign Ministry, in Niamey. We just don’t know,” the official said. “Somebody got old letterheads and signatures, and cut and pasted.” Some I.A.E.A. investigators suspected that the inspiration for the documents was a trip that the Iraqi Ambassador to Italy took to several African countries, including Niger, in February, 1999. They also speculated that MI6—the branch of British intelligence responsible for foreign operations—had become involved, perhaps through contacts in Italy, after the Ambassador’s return to Rome....


So, nu, Bob Somerby? Sy Hersh is not credible enough a source for you? :wtf:

[bryant69]

9. Did Wilson ever Reference those Forgeries directly?

I dont' see anything in this article that ties Wilson directly to these forgeries. The article seems to assume that this story is entirely about Niger; but Bush said Africa, not Niger.

I agree with the substance of what Wilson has said, but I agree with Somersby that people have added additional weight to his testimony; going further than what he can actually claim to know. Some of that is Wilson's fault and some of that is the lazy ass media's fault.

Bryant
Check it out --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com
Big Contest at blog - To potentially win a subscription to Salon Magazine, visit this post --> http://politicalcomment.blogspot.com/2005/10/contest.html

[BurtWorm]

10. Wilson says accurately that he never saw the documents

but the point is the Niger story that the Brits shared is the same story the US embassy in Rome wired to the State Department in the fall of 2001, the same story Cheney wanted checked out (and that Wilson was sent to check out) in the winter of 2002, the same story the forged documents were supposed to "corroborate." It's all of a piece. It all goes back to Rome.

[bryant69]

12. How do you know?

Based on what we know now, how do you know the British intelligence referenced in Bush's address wasn't dealing with Morroco or something, or some other nation in Africa?

Let me make sure this is clear; Bush and company lied to us a lot to get us in Iraq. I think that; i'm fairly sure Somersby thinks that as well. The question is how rigourously are we going to analyze the proof that supports what we already think?

Bryant

[BurtWorm]

16. I have read two or three investigative pieces on the "African yellowcake"

story including Sy Hersh's New Yorker piece from just before the war, which I cite elsewhere in this thread, one by Laura Rozen of WarandPiece.com, I think, or Josh Marshall, and now the Sunday Herald piece, and they each say the same thing: the Brits got their story from Italian intelligence. Somerby cites some Guardian articles, which appeared right after Blair put his WMD document on-line in September 2002, that name Congo (implausibly, as Congo doesn't have yellowcake) and South Africa. But I've never seen anyone beside Somerby giving credit to those articles.

[endarkenment]

13. "but Bush said Africa, not Niger"

which, since it turns out he was referring to exactly the niger reports, indicates that TeamBush was deliberately engaged in both deception and deniability. in other words, this wording increases their culpability.

Of course you do understand that just a few weeks BEFORE the SOTU address with the 16 famous words, the CIA had demanded a retraction of the yellowcaked-bullshit from a Bush speech on the grounds that the yellowcaked-bullshit was unsubstantiated bullshit. This is why the SOTU refers to the Brits - the CIA had vetoed the domestic source. And once again it establishes guilt, foreknowledge, deliberation, intention.

[BurtWorm]

17. bryant69 seems to think the Brits were referring to some other country

but that's not the case, according to multiple sources.

[endarkenment]

20. indeed.

Bryant69 seems to have folded from the discussion as well. Damn facts keep getting in the way of a good spin.

[Bob3]

2. I don't know - Somerby has been close to willfully obtuse

about this whole matter - I'm not sure why.

[BurtWorm]

4. Willfully obtuse

is an excellent description. It sure looks that way to me. I think he's clung to some old news stories as gospel. Weird for him.

[On the Road]

11. One of Somerby's Weaknesses

has been that he doesn't take into account external information or previous quotations from a source that would substantiate a point or put the story in a better light.

It's perfectly true that showing the Niger documents to be forgeries does not answer the question of whether Saddam tried to get uranium on other occasions with other African countries. If such evidence exists, he is correct.

However, Joe Wilson has consistently said that the administration had used these documents and only these documents as evidence. That's the basis for his denying the entire African uranium claim.

Anyone who claims there is additional intelligence to support Bush's sixteen words needs to support that position. Otherwise, it's just another unsubstantiated charge. IMO, Joe Wilson should be given the benefit of the doubt unless someone -- anyone -- can show something else the sixteen words could have been based on.

[BurtWorm]

18. But I think there's stronger evidence than Somerby seems to know about

or acknowledge that the Brits were in fact talking about "intelligence" they acquired from Rome referring to Niger. Somerby seems to think the British intelligence referred to something else entirely.

[On the Road]

21. That's What I Don't Get

Somerby parses words well -- that's his strength. But he doesn't always tie them into actual events very well.

Were you talking about some specific evidence that the Niger document was the sole source of the claim? I didn't know there was such a thing.

[BurtWorm]

22. Read Sy Hersh's piece from just before the war.

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?030331fa_fact1

...The I.A.E.A. had first sought the documents last fall, shortly after the British government released its dossier. After months of pleading by the I.A.E.A., the United States turned them over to Jacques Baute, who is the director of the agency’s Iraq Nuclear Verification Office.

It took Baute’s team only a few hours to determine that the documents were fake. The agency had been given about a half-dozen letters and other communications between officials in Niger and Iraq, many of them written on letterheads of the Niger government. The problems were glaring. One letter, dated October 10, 2000, was signed with the name of Allele Habibou, a Niger Minister of Foreign Affairs and Coöperation, who had been out of office since 1989. Another letter, allegedly from Tandja Mamadou, the President of Niger, had a signature that had obviously been faked and a text with inaccuracies so egregious, the senior I.A.E.A. official said, that “they could be spotted by someone using Google on the Internet.”

The large quantity of uranium involved should have been another warning sign. Niger’s “yellow cake” comes from two uranium mines controlled by a French company, with its entire output presold to nuclear power companies in France, Japan, and Spain. “Five hundred tons can’t be siphoned off without anyone noticing,” another I.A.E.A. official told me.

This official told me that the I.A.E.A. has not been able to determine who actually prepared the documents. “It could be someone who intercepted faxes in Israel, or someone at the headquarters of the Niger Foreign Ministry, in Niamey. We just don’t know,” the official said. “Somebody got old letterheads and signatures, and cut and pasted.” Some I.A.E.A. investigators suspected that the inspiration for the documents was a trip that the Iraqi Ambassador to Italy took to several African countries, including Niger, in February, 1999. They also speculated that MI6—the branch of British intelligence responsible for foreign operations—had become involved, perhaps through contacts in Italy, after the Ambassador’s return to Rome....

[On the Road]

26. That Much I Get

What's at issue here is that Somerby is using statements from the British that there was other evidence of Saddam seeking uranium in Afica, perhaps from some other country like the Congo. Wilson says it isn't so, and that the Niger document is the only basis for the sixteen words. I just don't think the other claims should be given that much weight unless their supporters can pony up some evidence.

[BurtWorm]

27. I agree with you.

I've only seen the stories that came out in the British press within a day of Blair's WMD report to Parliament that had any mention of the Congo and SA. Makes you suspect a leak of bad info. There was a lot of that going around in the fall of 2002.

[hfojvt]

14. I have not followed him since the election

but I thought his original defense of Bush was kinda lame. He allowed that Bush said Africa which did not necessarily mean Niger, but then it took them about three days to name some other countries that they could have been talking about, and the whole "British intelligence" preface sounds like their usual careful splitting of hairs so they can tell a lie, which is technically true, and what assurance do we have that British intelligence has not been told, by Blair, to cover Bush's a$$?
I think he is into debunking a Wilson-as-icon script, and he sees errors in Wilson's NYT piece which have never been acknowledged by Wilsonians.

[BurtWorm]

23. I think you're right about that.

He seems to have taken a personal dislike to Wilson.

I used to credit Somerby on this story--too much. I think he's blind to some crucial pieces of information that vindicate Wilson's basic story--including that the British intel had its provenance in Rome.

[stopbush]

15. Somersby has been almost ignoring Plamegate,

focusing on school test scores like it's some international crisis.

I think he's pissed off that no one cares about what he thinks is a very important issue. I'd say it's important but about #2361 on today's political to-do chart.

[BurtWorm]

19. He dipped his toe back in the water today.

He does seem to be in a snit. It's very disappointing.

[bluedawg12]

24. The CIA passed judgement on the forged notes and said pull it

from the speech- but DarthCheney allegedly had it put back in.

[BurtWorm]

25. The clue to Somerby that he's wrong on this

ought to be the tell-tale reaction to Wilson's leaked stories--to Pincus and Kristof--in May 2003 before Wilson's signed op-ed piece in July. Did anyone in the administration start squawking about how those words were about something else? No! Rice and Hadley did a mea culpa, saying it shouldn't have gone in--and then Hadley started digging into Wilson's trip.