So what was the deal with the YellowCake?

[lateo]

I know a right-wing clown who says that Joe Wilson is a tv whore and a liar and says these two reports prove it.

http://web.mit.edu/simsong/www/iraqreport2-textunder.pdf

http://www.archive2.official-documents.co.uk/document/deps/hc/hc898/898.pdf

[jojo54]

1. I suppose those are the "fixed" documents. n/t

[lateo]

2. Huh?

What are you talking about?

[jojo54]

3. Aren't these the documents that were fixed to refute Wilson's

original report about WMD's???

[lateo]

4. I wasn't aware of any fixing...

Is there a link to that?

[Name removed]

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[Name removed]

8. Deleted message

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[emulatorloo]

10. Somebody wrote a memo claiming to be at a meeting he wasn't at

and this memo claimed Plame sent Wilson. So this "memo" is bogus, as are the claims of your republican friend.

HOWEVER the repugicants who generated this endless document you want me to download made a big deal out of this memo, and there you have it.

Now -- remind your republican friend that:

Saddam didnt have any yellowcake and the docs saying he was trying to get it were forged.

I am citing this 12/26/03 Washington Post article:

<snip>

Sources said the CIA is angry about the circulation of a still-classified document to conservative news outlets suggesting Plame had a role in arranging her husband's trip to Africa for the CIA. The document, written by a State Department official who works for its Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), describes a meeting at the CIA where the Niger trip by Wilson was discussed, said a senior administration official who has seen it.

CIA officials have challenged the accuracy of the INR document, the official said, because the agency officer identified as talking about Plame's alleged role in arranging Wilson's trip could not have attended the meeting.

"It has been circulated around," one official said. CIA and State Department officials have refused to discuss the document.

<snip>

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A30842-2003Dec25¬Found=true

[lateo]

12. Thanks!

[emulatorloo]

14. Note that it was Gannon shopping this little tidbit around EOM

[BurtWorm]

5. He'll have to be more specific.

And so will you. You're asking us to comb through 800 pages to find out whatever the hell your right-wing buddy is talking about?

[lateo]

9. I'm not asking you to do antything you don't want to do.

I'm looking to see if anyone here might already know about this. If you don't that if fine...thanks for your time.

[BurtWorm]

16. Well this I know about the yellow cake.

Wilson was sent by a nonproliferation group at the CIA to find out what he could about Iraqi contacts with Nigerien officials about yellow cake uranium. The current Ambassador to Niger asked Wilson not to talk to current Niger officials because she was talking to them about the same thing, so Wilson restricted his conversations to former officials. He learned from a former PM that a group of Iraqi businessmen came to meet him in 1999, and it was clear to the PM that they wanted yellow-cake. How it was clear to the PM is not clear to me. It sounds as though they spoke in some kind of shorthand, as though they didn't even have to actually say the word. Nor did the PM have to spell out why they couldn't have it: one mine was flooded and inoperable, and another was controlled by the French at the behest of the IAEA. Furthermore, there was no way Niger was going to flout the UN endorsed sanctions.

So while Wilson did corroborate that Iraq didn't get yellow-cake from Niger, he also gave credence to the notion that Iraq "sought uranium from Africa." That might be what your clown-friend is talking about. He might also be talking about a report by British intelligence that Iraq allegedly sought uranium from Congo. Your friend's point may be that Wilson was off-base about the legitimacy of the 16 words, that in fact Iraq DID "seek uranium" from Africa.

And yet the bottom line is this: does the "fact" that Iraq sought uranium from Africa in and of itself justify the war? Is merely seeking uranium without actually procuring it (and there was no evidence that they procured it--in fact plenty of evidence that they DIDN'T procure it) sufficient cause to launch a preventive/preemptive war?

Furthermore, is Wilson's claim that it wasn't, even if based on an allegedly misleading history of his actions relevant to the question, justification for outing his wife's covert operations?

[dogday]

6. Your right wing clown is wrong

Discrediting Wilson and Cooper and even the CIA (I read in a paper today about the CIA are wrong) are the RW talking points because these poor bastards just don't want to face up to the fact that they finally got caught at their lies. To undermine the security of the American people is treason.

[lateo]

11. I agree...

I find it dubious too that this document was created in 2004...2 years after the story broke so it looks like a damage control piece.

[jojo54]

13. If you're in front of a tv, watch MSNBC right now.

Connected is doing a story on it.

[LSK]

15. the RNC lying points are this

1. Wilson is going around saying that Cheney sent him on the mission.

Actually he has never claimed this. He has always said that Cheney wanted the CIA to look into this and that the CIA sent him. The only proof the RNC has is a CNN interview TAKEN OUT OF CONTEXT.

2. Wilson was sent by his wife.

This is also bogus becuase she had no authority to do so. She suggested Wilson to CIA officials and brought Wilson into the CIA to meet with them. She did not attend those meetings.

3. They are claiming that Wilson says he knows Cheney saw his report.

Another play on words. Wilson only assumed that Cheney would see the report, which is common sense. If you wanted the CIA to look into something, would it be natural to assume that you read their results??


THOSE ARE THE FACTS.

Also it is an important note that Wilson was not on the media for over a year from the time he returned to Africa until he wrote his NY Times Op Ed. Within days after his NY Times piece Novak had written his article blowing Plames cover.

[melissinha]

17. Irony

While the CIA had not completed its investigation into the the yellow cak uranium contract, the White House found it acceptable to make qualified statements "during an ongoing investigation" in the State of the Union.

YET, when confronted with accusations of treason, the White House finds itself not be "commenting on an ongoing criminal investigation."

hypocrits.

[Garbo 2004]

18. Wilson's findings confirmed previous findings by the Ambassador to Niger

and a military guy (a general?) sent to look into it. Info is available on the web and here on DU regarding this. And as I recall in a Senate report also, where a minority opinion again tried to trash Wilson but as I recall did not refute his findings since they confirmed the previous reports.

But what does any of that have to do with WH officials blowing a CIA operative's cover and the CIA filing a crime report about it? Hmn???