Wilson-Gate - Bigger than we thought?

[radfringe]

Gut feeling tells me that there is more to this than we know....

- Info reaches CIA/White House about Saddam buying yellow cake from Niger
- Italian Embassy receives/discovers documents as to the Saddam-Niger Connection
- A British Intelligence report also surfaces

- White House/CIA decides to investigate/confirm the Saddam-Niger Connection

- Reportedly, Mrs. Wilson suggests sending her husband
*Someone other than Mrs. Wilson had to gie the ok for Ambassador Wilson to go to Niger and check this out. Who?

- Wilson goes to Niger, finds no Saddam-Niger connection, returns to the US and gives his report.
* Who did he give his report to? Where did it go from there? What happened to that report?

- Saddam-Niger connection stricken from a Bush speech in the fall of 2002
Why was it stricken?

- Jan. 2003 - Bush cites British Intelligence as the source of the Saddam-Niger connection info.
*Why cite British Intelligence as source? Why couldn't the CIA confirm the information? By citing British Intelligence as the source - could the Bush Administration have been building in some plausible denial? Blame the British for "faulty" information if these "28 words" become a problem? Built-in Scape goat?

- Powell goes to the UN to make the case for invading Iraq but doesn't mention the Saddam-Niger connection.
Why?

- International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reviews the "Italian documents" that show a connection between Saddam and Niger. After 1 hour, they determine that the documents were forged. Names of Niger officials and dates did not correspond to each other. They cited several places where the Niger official "signing" the document couldn't have done so because that official was not in office at that time.
If it only took the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) only 1 hour to spot the forgery - why couldn't the CIA do the same? Or did the CIA figure out the documents were forged and that bit of information was buried?

- Wilson comes out and states that he found that there was no connection between Niger and Saddam

- The White House/GOPer spin begins by down playing the "28 little words", 3-4 people including George Tenent fall on their swords. Bush finally admits to being responsible for his speech. Spin continues with "..statement was 'technically' true..."

- July 2003: Novak and 5 other journalists were contacted by a "senior administration official" and told that Wilson's wife was CIA. Novak was the only one to write about it.
Why didn't the other journalists write about it?

- Now: Rove is implicated, Justice Dept is investigating, White House is in denial. The Spin: Mrs. Wilson is just an analyst, not an operative. No Story here, move along
If Mrs. Wilson is just an analyst then why would a SENIOR administration official out her? Isn't this like outing my neighbor's wife as the night manager at Wendy's? If it's no story then why print it? What's the GAIN in outing her if she were just an analyst?

----------------

More questions need to be asked. My gut feeling is that the "outing" story is just a smoke screen to hide something bigger. It's throwing chum in the water to divert attention from something more.

[radfringe]

1. kick n/t

[Brucey]

2. I like your thinking, and I too wonder.

Could this be the tip of an iceberg? Will the media inform the public about other cases in which chimpy and friends have intimidated people? Will the story have legs and dig up new dirt? I hope so.

[Warpy]

6. I doubt the story itself will instigate digging.

However, the people the Bush crime gang have leaned heavily upon should start to gain more courage as the whole sordid story comes to light. If a few other people, even anonymously, start to disclose the heavy-handed intimidation they've been subjected to by this gang, the whole thing will start to snowball.

This bunch rules by threat and fear. All it will take is a few more brave souls to tell the world what happened to them, and the whole thing will deteriorate into an exercise dedicated more toward minimizing the damage than to intimidating more people.

The press has simply forgotten how to dig for information. It has to drop into its lap. My gut feeling is that it will start to happen.

[displacedtexan]

3. i'm waiting for

the announcement that shredding has already taken place. 10 weeks is a long time.

[Brian Sweat]

4. Comments,

Why was it stricken?

It was sticken on advice from the CIA. This has been reported.

could the Bush Administration have been building in some plausible denial? Blame the British for "faulty" information if these "28 words" become a problem? Built-in Scape goat?

Of course they were establishing plausible deniability. They knew it was bullshit, but they crafted a lie. They knew the evidence that the British had was BS, because they gave it to them.

- Powell goes to the UN to make the case for invading Iraq but doesn't mention the Saddam-Niger connection.
Why?

Because they knew it was BS and they knew that it would not fly at the UN.

If it only took the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) only 1 hour to spot the forgery - why couldn't the CIA do the same? Or did the CIA figure out the documents were forged and that bit of information was buried?

Word out of Washington is that the CIA knew it was BS and sent Wilson as a formality.

If Mrs. Wilson is just an analyst then why would a SENIOR administration official out her?

I think they a playing semantics games here. I think that Mrs. Wilson was on operative for some time, but when she became a mother she switched to being an anaylsts. So when they say she is just an analysts, they are technically correct. Just like when they say everyone knew. I think people may have known she is an analysts, but they did not know she used to be an operative.

[Jackpine Radical]

10. Correct. She was an ex-operative

temporarily functioning as an analyst but maintaining her cover on the expectation that she would return to undercover work.

[PATRICK]

5. interesting

Could be people in the CIA were trying to insert honesty into the deck stacking or it appears that way and the WH just went nuts feeling Wilson was part of a doublecross. So it explains a bit more why his wife was outed. They blame her as much as her husband.

But I have yto say parts of the CIA comproimised heavily by the Bush people, some working for his campaign, are the dirty types who undercut the best. The CIA coming out openly or even staging this truth check maneouver is not the best(worst) they can do. As to dumping presidents the old way, that is a horror that still needs to be exposed and crushed, but those people or types of people ARE Bushco until sanity prevails.

[sybylla]

7. Dude, you pegged it.

I have felt for the last couple of days that there is more to this story than the outing of Plame. I'm glad you've had the time to put it down on paper because I haven't.

I'm with you on this one and eagerly await the steady drip, drip, drip from the CIA, a kind of water-torture for the misadminstration, as they try to wriggle out from under it.

[Must_B_Free]

8. commment

- Wilson goes to Niger, finds no Saddam-Niger connection, returns to the US and gives his report.
* Who did he give his report to? Where did it go from there? What happened to that report?


He said he had to travel the next day so an CIA agent came to WIlson and Wilson breifed him on the findings. Standard Practice according to Wilson.
This was from Nightline last night.

[skip fox]

9. Fine Post!!! Purpose of outing:

I keep pushing my pet purpose, but let me lay out the four commonly referred to:

1. Revenge on Wilson.

2. Warning to any others with similar information or gripes.

3. To indicate nepotism, and thus discredit Wilson.

4. To imply the trip was self-initiated (Wilson got wife to send him) and thus discredit Wilson.


These are not, as is often pointed out, mutually exclusive. But the primary one is #4. If the
administration could show that Wilson was chomping at the bit to get to Niger, they could paint him
and his investigation as partisan. The story would run: Here's Wilson yelling about the false
information in the President's speech, but no one could really believe his investigation in Niger was
objective since he was a Clinton man, got himself assigned to Niger the previous fall, then found
what he WANTED, and reported to the CIA. It is little wonder that the President gave no credence to
Wilson's report. We've seen him as a maverick all along.

The nepotism "take" (3) was thick-headed Novak's, who simply didn't "read" the leak in the manner
intended.

#1-2 are side benefits, only, not the primary reasons IMHO.

Once we see #4 as primary, we see another kind of mind working. One which is intelligent, cold and
dispassionately calculating, trying to substitute one narrative to undercut another. Not a mind given
to firebombing opponents (like Rove?), but one which tries to quickly and surely relegate Wilson to
the junkpile of history. Nothing personal; he's just gone. No credibility. No more editorials. Nada.

To my mind, this places it in Cheney's lap.


#1-2 (revenge and warning) make better stories, but they might draw us away from the true
leakers.

IMHO

But I just heard another that makes sense. Everyone said Wilson was sent by Cheney's office. By saying that "his wife (CIA) sent him" and that is CENTRAL to the discussion--they could be trying to distance Cheney for Wilson at the same time.

[IMayBeWrongBut]

12. I agree sounds like cheney may have been

one of those leakers

[skip fox]

13. Or his Chief of Staff: Scooter Libby

:toast:

[Ramsey]

11. I think I answered some of these questions

In this article that I wrote for my website:

http://www.literalpolitics.com/RamseyRants/hypocrisystupid.htm

[Stephanie]

14. Note: 16 Words / 28 Pages

I keep making the same mistake.

16 lying words in the SOTU (unless you want to count all the other lies)

28 pages censored from the Congressional 9/11 report by the guilty Bush gang.