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| "Our 27 Months of Hell" The CIA Leak According to Joseph Wilson IV | |||||
| 2005-10-29 | |||||
Between us, Valerie and I have served the United States for nearly 43 years. I was President George H.W. Bush's acting ambassador to Iraq in the run-up to the Persian Gulf War, and I served as ambassador to two African nations for him and President Clinton. Valerie worked undercover for the CIA in several overseas assignments and in areas related to terrorism and weapons of mass destruction. But on July 14, 2003, our lives were irrevocably changed. That was the day columnist Robert Novak identified Valerie as an operative, divulging a secret that had been known only to me, her parents and her brother.
It was payback — cheap political payback by the administration for an article I had written contradicting an assertion President Bush made in his 2003 State of the Union address. Payback not just to punish me but to intimidate other critics as well.
Going public was what was required to make them come clean. The day after I shared my conclusions in a New York Times opinion piece, the White House finally acknowledged that the now-infamous 16 words "did not rise to the level of inclusion in the State of the Union address." That should have been the end. But instead, the president's men — allegedly including Libby and at least one other (known only as "Official A") — were determined to defame and discredit Valerie and me. They used eager allies in Congress and the conservative media, beginning with Novak. Perhaps the most egregious of the attacks was New York GOP Rep. Peter King's odious suggestion that Valerie "got what she deserved." Valerie was an innocent in this whole affair. Although there were suggestions that she was behind the decision to send me to Niger, the CIA told Newsday just a week after the Novak article appeared that "she did not recommend her husband to undertake the Niger assignment." The CIA repeated the same statement to every reporter thereafter.
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| Posted by:Captain America |
| #22 Just About Enough, and other government 'burgers, thanks for your efforts. I'd have joined you in my youth but I have a low tolerance for exasperation and idiot managers. I'm glad you all can tolerate it all without a felony murder rap. |
| Posted by: Sheretle Sheaque1538 2005-10-29 20:41 |
| #21 When I hard this asstard Wilson and his wife were getting "threats" I had to ask myself You didn't think you would? He truly is a poor piece of work. |
| Posted by: Sock Puppet O´ Doom 2005-10-29 20:32 |
| #20 Like a number of people who comment from time to time in RB, I spend a lot of time working in government trying to find the little "brave lions of islam" who hide in the shadows and plot mass murder like the cowards they are, and who scurry like cockroaches when discovered and lie pathologically in the face of incontrovertable evidence. If happyman could look over my shoulder and see the way rules protecting the innocent are followed, and how hampered we are from being really efficient, he wouldn't dare utter such jackass nonsense. But he has lost trust in his own countrymen, a product of our media and educational systems, reflecting our failure to see the rot seeping in in the past 30 years. I pity his ignorance, he isn't worth excoriating, rather he should just be ignored! |
| Posted by: Just About Enough! 2005-10-29 20:24 |
| #19 I give BT a thumbs-up, too, Frank. Nice smart spot-on whack-a-dipshit. Simply the FACT (/LLL) that there has NEVER (ok, I had one more to go, lol) been a single verified abuse of the Patriot Act puts fuckwit Flappyman in the DUmmy dungeon. BT, you're too nice to 'em, my friend. They don't think, they regurgitate. |
| Posted by: .com 2005-10-29 19:20 |
| #18 :-) BT - that wasn't angry, that was smart....you've never seen me, or, even better, .com, in full "inflamed" mode LOL |
| Posted by: Frank G 2005-10-29 18:09 |
| #17 Happyman thinks: the patriot act is also the most invasive into personal privacy ever So, that would be a greater invasion of personal privacy than, say, the Alien and Sedition Acts? The McCarthy hearings? Or the criminalizing of contraception? More invasive than freakin' slavery? Of course, the sky is falling and its all Chimpy McBushitler's fault!!! It helps if you're historical perspective covers about the last twenty minutes. Your use of CAPITAL LETTERS suggests you are a HYSTERIC whose partisan blinders are augmented by a profound lack of actual knowledge. I must be getting tired of LLL's substituting PASSION for analysis. Say something smart, damn it! There are a lot of you out there; you must have some kind of point! The rest of us have to put up with Cindy Sheehan and Dick Durban and we're still waiting for something that makes some sense! Tell us again how Bush lied- I'm sure we've never heard that before. Or maybe you can explain how any of this relates in any way to the Libby charges. The country did not go to war because "Scooter" talked to a reporter about Joe Wilson's wife and told the FBI something different. Get a grip. /angry rant |
| Posted by: Baba Tutu 2005-10-29 17:50 |
| #16 Frankly, .com, I'd say your #5 "ROTFL" was true finesse -- ridicule in five easy letters. Sometimes one clean shot is as good as multiple stab wounds. Nice job |
| Posted by: Darrell 2005-10-29 16:49 |
| #15 Lol, bad. Flappyman was just too stupid to respond to seriously. You still have your kick-the-shit-out-of-the idjits energy, lol. I'm not inclined as much, these days... tired of explaining the easily-determined facts over and over and over, y'know? I'll leave it to you and the other clear-headed and well-informed folks to ridicule and stomp the shit out of 'em, lol. Only the hardcore blinded swallow-my-agenda-or-else asstards who are also vicious and personal, like Vlad, get my goat, now. :) |
| Posted by: .com 2005-10-29 16:36 |
| #14 sounds like Happyman's comfortable on his knees - and not just to drink the koolaid if ya get my drift. "newspaper of record" *SNORT* |
| Posted by: Frank G 2005-10-29 16:34 |
| #13 HappyMan: Drop to your knees and pray to Lord Jesus above .com didn't open up his can of Left Away on you. |
| Posted by: badanov 2005-10-29 16:07 |
| #12 For the record, Joe Wilson the Dilt IIII, is a proven liar. He stated that VP Cheney sent him to mint tea on his Niger trip, a lie; he stated in his fictional book that his wife had nothing to do with his being selected by the CIA to make the right, a bold-faced lie. This guy ranks right up with Cindy Shithan (no irreverance intended towards her brave son) for the number one slot of publicity whores. The nation would be so much better off without the likes of Joe Wilson, Richard Clarke, Cindy Sheehan, Al Franken, etc. |
| Posted by: Captain America 2005-10-29 15:56 |
| #11 We may fry like bacon, but the international community will like us and the budget will be balanced. D'zat about sum it up? |
| Posted by: .com 2005-10-29 15:49 |
| #10 Steve, HM sounds like a follower of Pat Buchanan to me. He doesn't give a shit about the freedom of little brown people. He prefers status quo. Yes, the same status quo that got us Khobar Towers, USS Cole, Kenya/Tanzania and, of course 9/11. Gosh, with a track record like that, who in their right mind would want to go into the heart of the problem and upset the apple cart. Idiots. I just don't understand those who push this isolationist line. It is the ostrich approach. Where do you think AlQ would have gone if we ignored Saddam? Who in their right mind cannot see that Iraq would have been used as a worldwide terrorist base. We've done the right thing. We are winning the war. The President has said many, many times that it would be long and costly. Happyman ought to grow a backbone. That said, I do agree with him on the spending issue. The President and the Republican-lead congress have done a horrible job on this front. |
| Posted by: Remoteman 2005-10-29 15:42 |
| #9 Mr. Happyman: if you go back to GWB's speeches (yeah, you'll do that), you'll see we had six main reasons to go to war with Iraq. One of them was WMD. GWB turned out to be wrong on that one, and unfortunately that's the one everyone remembers. Life is like that. But you might recall 1) Saddam was a threat to his neighbors, having gone to war with them twice 2) Saddam was flouting the 1991 ceasefire 3) Saddam was flouting the UN resolutions on inspections 4) Saddam was engaged in genocidal practices in his own country, and 5) the sanctions were not working (and with the Oil-for-Palaces scandal, now we know why). Yeah, yeah, you'll sneer -- that's what the Left does so well. But there are 24 million Iraqis today who have immeasurably more freedom than they did a few years ago. George W. Bush has liberated more people from fascism than any president since Harry Truman. That ought to count for something. |
| Posted by: Steve White 2005-10-29 15:30 |
| #8 hey happyboy go cry on your mother. she'll understand. /maybe |
| Posted by: Red Dog 2005-10-29 15:28 |
| #7 ROFL. |
| Posted by: .com 2005-10-29 15:03 |
| #6 It's no laughing matter ...these SOB's lied through their teeth to get support for this war...they even tried (apparently succesfully) to inject their propaganda into the "newspaper of record" in the US ..the NYT. And everybody bought it ....so much for fiscal conservatives this is the biggest goverment IN THE HISTORY OF THESE UNITED STATES..... BTW...the patriot act is also the most invasive into personal privacy ever...so if it fiscal consevativism and small government you want without them delving into your private lives ...the REPUBLICAN PARTY LEADERSHIP HAS TURNED THESE IDEAS UPSIDE-DOWN Who's winning this war on terror any way? ...the Arabs seem to be doing pretty well with the current price of oil ...thankyou "W" |
| Posted by: happyman 2005-10-29 14:53 |
| #5 ROFL. |
| Posted by: .com 2005-10-29 14:35 |
| #4 Thank you Mr. Wilson, you are true American patriot who was willing to stand up and be counted with your knowledge about the lies and deception that led us into this MAD war. Lets hope Fitzgerald has Roves' Indictment on his "to-do" list. |
| Posted by: happyman 2005-10-29 14:30 |
| #3 What a cheap, worthless little man. It's nice to know that he probably will never work for the United States ever again, in any capacity. I wonder if his wife is the one that "leaked" all those reports about "no WMDs". The entire CIA needs to be flushed of the political trash and hosed down. If that doesn't happen, one of these days we're going to be really hurt, and it will be because the CIA played political games, rather than doing their duty. |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2005-10-29 13:49 |
| #2 What a pile of crap this story is while our borders are open and the Minutemen are vilified. |
| Posted by: Bardo 2005-10-29 13:19 |
| #1 "Why did I write the article? Because I believe that citizens in a democracy are responsible for what government does and says in their name. I knew that the statement in Bush's speech — that Iraq had attempted to purchase significant quantities of uranium in Africa — was not true. I knew it was false from my own investigative trip to Africa (at the request of the CIA) and from two other similar intelligence reports. And I knew that the White House knew it." ********** Because you're a self-serving S.O.B. on the payroll of the Wahhabis and a partisan hack of the American antiwar Left. What a trope, what a trite pathetic effort by this dog who has a bestseller and a Vanity Fair cover story. Life in Hell my butt! |
| Posted by: Uleating Wheagum6743 2005-10-29 13:17 |