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| Jed Babbin: Anomalies in the Wilson/Plame affair |
| 2003-10-07 |
| National Review Online. EFL; link in original. . . . While we occupy ourselves with the Plame name blame game, we are missing the most important elements of the Wilson affair: the anomalies. Everyone who works for the CIA in everything having to do with intelligence or foreign governments is required to sign a secrecy agreement that provides the Agency the right to approve and censor what the employee may wish to say or write for public consumption. In Wilson's famous July 6, 2003 NYT op-ed, he said, "The mission I undertook was discreet but by no means secret. While the CIA paid my expenses, (my time was offered pro bono), I made it abundantly clear to everyone I met that I was acting on behalf of the United States government." It is unheard of for anyone to not be required to sign a secrecy agreement. So did Wilson get that article approved by the CIA? I asked the CIA, and a very testy spokesperson refused to answer. I asked if Wilson ever signed a security agreement, and she sounded about to burst from stress, but she'd give no answer to that question either. Maybe she was just having a bad hair day. Or maybe the CIA is feeling some well-earned heat. A senior intelligence-community source told me that no one as vocal as Wilson could possibly be bound to the usual security agreement. So Wilson wasn't required to sign one. Why? The fact that he was paid only his expenses is no explanation. That's Anomaly Number 1. Why was Joe Wilson chosen for the Niger mission? A career foreign-service officer, he's no intelligence pro. He's not an expert on nuclear weapons, and he's sure no expert on covert purchase of WMD-related materials. He served as an "Africa expert" in the second Clinton administration, but hadn't been in Niger since he served as a flunky in our embassy there in the early '80s. He did serve — with courage — as acting ambassador in Baghdad in 1990. He had no unique or current knowledge of Niger, but he does have deeply felt political views which cannot have resulted from some recent epiphany. Wilson worked for Al Gore as a congressional fellow in the mid-Eighties, has given money to John Kerry's presidential campaign, and believes his mission in life is to "destroy" both "neoconservatives and religious conservatives." Anyone political — which means everyone in the White House and the CIA hierarchy — must have understood the risk the president took in stating WMD as the casus belli against Saddam. Though the nuclear part of the WMD equation was never a principal part of the case for war, it was part of it. Anomaly Number 2: Why was Wilson — uncredentialed in the critical areas, and devoted to a political agenda antithetical to the president's policy — chosen for such an apparently controversial mission? Wilson's "investigation" was patently inadequate. According to his op-ed, he made no effort to talk to the IAEA, Niger military or intelligence authorities. Dr. Hamza told me in considerable detail about a highly organized and well-financed black-market operation by Saddam's regime to buy every sort of nuclear weapons-related equipment and materials. It's not hard to suborn people with enough money, or to buy uranium and smuggle it out of places such as Niger. Over time, any amount could be smuggled out to Iraq. Anomaly Number 3: Why was Wilson's verbal report apparently taken at face value? No intelligence professional should have relied on it. Although it's not an anomaly, no one seems to know who hired Joe Wilson for the Niger job. Reports and sources all say George Tenet didn't, and that someone well below him did. One report says that Plame recommended him. To whom, we don't know. Who chose Wilson, and why? It's possible that Wilson's trip and report were a put-up job, intended to embarrass the president sooner or later. But that analysis overlooks Wilson's persona, his political loyalties, and his actions. I don't believe in conspiracies. But I don't believe in coincidences, either. If I were the president, I'd unambiguously support the leak investigation, and prosecute the leaker if he can be found. With equal urgency, I'd be working hard to find out why these anomalies exist. And wondering what other disagreeable surprises may be coming my way from the CIA in the next twelve months. |
| Posted by:Mike |
| #2 Read some more stuff on Wilson - once did a press conference while wearing a noose for a necktie to make a joke about Sadaam regime, while Wilson was still in Baghdad. Also he lived in France for a number of years and wears cufflinks. Could be mentally unhinged. |
| Posted by: Super Hose 2003-10-7 11:05:01 PM |
| #1 I did a google search yesterday on "Joseph Wilson" to see whether there were stories that included his wife's CIA connection prior to Novak's article. Reviewed the titles and dates of about half of the 2600 hits. Looks like the information wasn't in the public domain prior to the article. It was interesting to see the date spread on the hits with peaks being in early July, late July, Mid August then the tsurinami on the last couple days of September and in to October. Another interesting tidbit was that Joseph was a regular on American Morning with Paula Zauhn during the ramp up to the invasion. He seemed pretty even-handed about the "case for war" and didn't mention his trip to Niger. He was chosen as an expert for interviews in January and March because he was the Deputy Ambassador to Iraq prior to the Gulf War I - which I didn't know. He was the last American official to talk to Saddam before the war and heroically harborred Western civilians in the Embasssy - defying Sadaam. Why would you make television appearances a regular gig if your wife was a covert opperator? |
| Posted by: Superhose 2003-10-7 1:00:16 PM |