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Focus!
The well-meaning David Adesnik writes:
Frankly, I'm still confused as to why top-ranking administration officials were so eager to distance themselves from the 16 words if Wilson's accusations were so exaggerated.Okay. This is the thing everyone really, really, really needs to understand. The statements of Wilson's that now seem to be untrue pertain to things like Wilson's role in exposing the bogosity of the Niger claims, and how Wilson got the job that put him in a position to play a role. The reason top officials have been eager to distance themselves from the 16 words is that Wilson's op-ed helped bring to light the fact that the Intelligence Community believed, for a variety of reasons that don't have a great deal to do with Wilson, that the claim should not be made. What the SSCI Report debunks about Wilson is the notion that he personally played some sort of grand heroic role here, it confirms that US intelligence does not believe and has not believed for some time that there was sufficient evidence for thinking that Saddam sought uranium in Niger. Of all the different sources for that claim, all but one -- maybe, a British source that the Brits won't tell us about and that appears to have come from French intelligence that the French intelligence agencies don't believe in -- have been debunked. As a result, American intelligence, while not able to categorically state that this never happened, doesn't believe there's a real evidentiary basis for thinking it did happen. This is why the administration distanced itself from the claim. Joe Wilson just isn't very relevant.
July 20, 2004 | Permalink
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This is, of course, silly. Joe Wilson is relevent to the national conversation for two reasons. First, he contributed to the exposing of the dubiousness of a claim Mr. Bush made in his SOTU address about Iraq attempting to acquire Uranium in Africa. ... [Read More]
Tracked on Jul 20, 2004 11:38:49 AM
Comments
Joe Wilson isn't relevant? Apparently, you have not been reading Instapundit. Joe Wilson's lies validate everything this administration has ever done. If Joe Wilson lied, then clearly there were links between Iraq and Al-Qaeda. If Joe Wilson lied, then clearly Iraq was a greater threat to the United States than Iran. Exposing Joe Wilson's lies has resulted in dramatic job growth in the manufacturing and service sectors. Because Joe Wilson lied about getting the Niger job, the Medicare bill now costs $400 billion again instead of $530 billion. When my unemployment check arrived last week I got a special $200 Joe Wilson lied bonus. My daughter spoke her first words last week, they were "Joe Wilson lied." Joe Wilson's lies had a pinch-hit three-run homer to beat the Yankees last night. Joe Wilson's lies are the Alpha and the Omega. BOW TO JOE WILSON'S LIES. THEY WILL SET YOU FREE.
Posted by: Aaron | Jul 20, 2004 9:48:32 AM
you're wasting your breath.
the people feverishly stroking away at this Wilson=liar meme aren't interested. as long as they can get a little Ad Hominem action (which is good enough for the SCLM), they don't need to worry about the details.
Posted by: cleek | Jul 20, 2004 9:49:51 AM
"maybe, a British source "
Not "maybe". And it preceded the forgery. So Bush didn't lie. The "16 words" were true, and he ought to repeat it 16 times in the next damn state of the union speech. Oy.
--s
Posted by: j.scott barnard | Jul 20, 2004 10:04:54 AM
...and he ought to repeat it 16 times in the next damn state of the union speech
indeed he should. and then Kerry should make a commercial featuring W's 16-words (original and reprised) followed by clips of both Ari and Tenet saying "he shouldn't have used those 16 words".
Posted by: cleek | Jul 20, 2004 10:12:36 AM
"maybe, a British source that the Brits won't tell us about and that appears to have come from French intelligence that the French intelligence agencies don't believe in"
There was some indication that the French DGSE didn't want this Iraq-Niger intelligence, that it passed to Britain's M16, to be passed to the US. The French government distanced itself from this intelligence. I haven't seen reports that the "French intelligence agencies don't believe in" this intelligence they passed to Britain.
Posted by: Yamamoto | Jul 20, 2004 10:12:57 AM
j.scott barnard,
I hope Bush is sitting in front a tv bitterly mumbling over and over those 16 words during the next State of the Union.
Posted by: theCoach | Jul 20, 2004 10:13:31 AM
theCoach: Actually, he'll be standing...in front of teleprompters. --s
Posted by: j.scott barnard | Jul 20, 2004 10:16:23 AM
For your sake and mine, scott, I hope not. We shall see, though. We shall see.
Posted by: theCoach | Jul 20, 2004 10:24:40 AM
cleek is right.
And we can throw in clips of David Kay, Charles Duelfer, Hans Blix, and whassisname El Baradei admitting that Saddam had no nuke-ya-ler program to speak of.
But cling to those technically accurate 16 words, guys!
Posted by: praktike | Jul 20, 2004 10:52:29 AM
"The '16 words' were true"
Ah, so it was the White House's admission that they were NOT true which was the lie?
You people are so confusing, sometimes . . .
Posted by: rea | Jul 20, 2004 10:58:22 AM
Not "maybe". And it preceded the forgery. So Bush didn't lie.
How do you know? You haven't seen it. How did Bush know? He hadn't seen it, to our knowledge. The CIA hadn't seen it. And so the CIA and the Bush administration came out and said that it didn't meet the standards required of a SotU.
If the British had a source passed on which said that John Kerry was a shapeshifting lizard, would it be truthful to say 'the British have learned that John Kerry is a shapeshifting lizard'?
Please, Matthew, do an epistemology 101 post for j.scott canard and his ilk.
Posted by: nick | Jul 20, 2004 11:25:28 AM
What the SSCI Report debunks about Wilson is the notion that he personally played some sort of grand heroic role here, it confirms that US intelligence does not believe and has not believed for some time that there was sufficient evidence for thinking that Saddam sought uranium in Niger.
Why is it that left-wingers have such a hard time understanding that Niger =/= Africa???
The sixteen words WERE true. There is some reason to believe that Saddam sought yellowcake from Niger, including the secret British source AND Wilson's own account of the trade mission. There's a lot more reason to believe Saddam sought it from Congo and Somalia, both of which are ALSO in Africa.
The 16 Words are true. And Adesnik's question is a very good one.
Posted by: Al | Jul 20, 2004 11:26:30 AM
There is some reason to believe that Al has conjugal relations with goats, and that he made a factfinding trip to Niger (second-largest export: goats). It's true! It's true!
Posted by: ahem | Jul 20, 2004 11:29:03 AM
so where is all this nuclear material? Oh right. . they never got it. SOUGHT and GOT may sound alike, but are not the same kids. Wilson never stated that Iraq didnt want nuclear material, only that they never recived it from the sources that the bush admin claimed it did.
Whether the 16 words were true or not at the time of the presidents speech the state department believed they were untrue and so were, in fact, used as propaganda as opposed to fact.
Posted by: JasonDL | Jul 20, 2004 11:57:53 AM
Nick, I have no ilk.
All I'm sayin' is Bush didn't lie. --s
Posted by: j.scott barnard | Jul 20, 2004 12:06:55 PM
"that US intelligence does not believe and has not believed for some time that there was sufficient evidence for thinking that Saddam sought uranium in Niger."
You are having a serious tense problem here. The CIA did not believe at the time of the SOTU that it could indpendently confirm the British report. Unless the CIA is incredibly stupid, it does not NOW believe that there is insufficient evidence that Saddam sought uranium in Niger. Wilson himself NOW confirms that Baghadad Bob went on trade mission to Niger in 1999 which the Prime Minister of Niger interpreted as asking for uranium. We also know that the major export of Niger is uranium. We also know that Iraq did not in fact engage in extensive trade relations with Niger for non-uranium products.
What more would you expect in terms of evidence of a failed attempt to illegally secure uranium? Do you expect a note from Saddam saying: "I regret that you wouldn't illegally sell me the uranium that the UN doesn't want me to have more of, but please don't let that stop you from visiting me"?
Posted by: Sebastian Holsclaw | Jul 20, 2004 12:25:33 PM
so the iraqis might have SOUGHT yellowcake from somalia and congo? is there some damn evidence to support this claim?
j. scot,
you asked me to cite the law that compels the president to listen to the CIA rather than foreign intelligence agencies and i quoted the law extensively yesterday.
these are the relevant parts:
Sec 104(e) COORDINATION WITH FOREIGN GOVERNMENTS. - Under direction of the National Security Council and in a manner consistent with section 207 of the Foreign Service Act of 1980 (22 U.S.C. 3927), the Director shall coordinate the relationships between elements of the intelligence community and the intelligence or security services of foreign governments on all matters involving intelligence-related to the national security or involving intelligence acquired through clandestine
--------
so u see j. scott, the CIA is the point of contact between the US govt and any intelligence originating in foreign governments. in other words, bush is legally unaware of the existence of british intelligence unless the CIA is aware.
if the president believes foreign intelligence services over his own domestic intelligence services then there is supposed to be A DAMN GOOD REASON why! and i would think that you of all people would want to know why.
let's bring this question to sharp relief: if, during the cold war, some unknown party had forged intelligence saying that the Soviet Union was going to launch a satellite laden with offensive nuclear weapons and that they intended to launch these nukes as soon as possible, but the CIA believed this to be untrue and told the president as such, but then the president overrode their objections and went ahead to make a case for pre-emptive strikes on the soviet union...and then in the ensuing chaos NYC, DC, Boston, Atlanta, LA, Philly and Houston and Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kiev, Minsk, Novgorod, Odessa, etc, were all vaporised in a mushroom cloud, wouldn't you like to know why the president believed a foreign govt despite the misgivings of his own intelligence services? wouldn't you call him a liar if he had made his case under these circumstances?
Posted by: captainblak | Jul 20, 2004 12:38:47 PM
"j. scot,
you asked me to cite the law that compels the president to listen to the CIA rather than foreign intelligence agencies and i quoted the law extensively yesterday."
Did I ask that? I wonder if you've got me confused with another Scott.
As to whether Bush lied, you've got a non-partisan commission and a bi-partisan committee report, both of which exonerate the President. A continuing insistence on the "Bush Lied!" meme is just going to diminish the effectiveness of other more legitimate criticisms you may have about this administration's policies.
--s
Posted by: j.scott barnard | Jul 20, 2004 12:46:45 PM
This is all so damn surreal. We could argue about this two years ago -- did Saddam seek uranium?
American occupation of Iraq is now a reality. American owns the country. We've been searching it high and low. We know now that Saddam did not have a nuclear weapons program.
Back up and read that again, J. Scott.
In face of the fact that the only evidence we know of is debunked, and the other bit of 'evidence' is super-secret and gathered by foreign intelligence, it is really stupid that we are arguing over this. There is no logical reason for Saddam to have sought uranium -- what the hell would he have done with it?
We know now that Saddam did not have a nuclear program. So why are we still pretending that it is 2002 and that this crap might somehow be an open issue?
Posted by: Timothy Klein | Jul 20, 2004 12:47:22 PM
Unless the CIA is incredibly stupid, it does not NOW believe that there is insufficient evidence that Saddam sought uranium in Niger.
Can you show that with any degree of certainty? I haven't seen any revision of the CIA's position since the autumn of 2002. There's no indication that the CIA received the additional intelligence from the UK: in fact, Jack Straw said last summer that there was still good reason not to share it.
Again, can you show that the CIA has changed its assessment since 2002? Or that it has changed its assessment since December 2003, when Stu Cohen said:
In the body of the Estimate, after noting that Iraq had considerable low-enriched and other forms of uranium already in country—enough to produce roughly 100 nuclear weapons—we included the Niger issue with appropriate caveats, for the sake of completeness. Mentioning, with appropriate caveats, even unconfirmed reporting is standard practice in NIEs and other intelligence assessments; it helps consumers of the assessment understand the full range of possibly relevant intelligence.
Note that Cohen is saying, in December 2003, that the CIA wasn't 'fooled' on the Niger issue because it included caveats in the October 2002 NIE. Note that Cohen is not saying that the NIE was borne out by learning of other intelligence. To put it very very simple terms, the CIA was saying in December 2003
'We didn't fuck up because we said the intel wasn't cast iron in 2002.'
and NOT
'We didn't fuck up because we were ultimately proved right by evidence that emerged over the past year.'
Must we now assume that whenever Sebastian talks to a guy on the street, he's making a failed attempt to buy drugs?
Posted by: nick | Jul 20, 2004 1:48:50 PM
Sebastian writes:
You are having a serious tense problem here. The CIA did not believe at the time of the SOTU that it could indpendently confirm the British report. Unless the CIA is incredibly stupid, it does not NOW believe that there is insufficient evidence that Saddam sought uranium in Niger.
Actually, I believe it is Sebastian who is suffering from a tense problem.
The Butler report did not find that Iraq did try to buy uranium from Africa. Such a determination was far beyond its charter. As paragraph 499 of the report states, it merely found the Blair government made proper use of the intelligence available "at the time." (That is, fall 2002.)
As Timothy Klein points out, "at the time" we were not occupying Iraq, with access to its files and all its most important government and scientific figures in custody. So when Sebastian asks "What more would you expect in terms of evidence of a failed attempt to illegally secure uranium?" there are several simple answers:
1. Iraqi government officials, such as the ones who made the trip to Niger, confirming they were trying to buy uranium.
2. Iraqi nuclear scientists saying they would have had a use for any uranium purchased.
3. Iraqi government files with references to attempts to buy uranium.
Has any of this turned up? On the contrary.The Iraq Survey Group has "found no support for the report that Hussein was seeking uranium in Africa. In fact, [David] Kay said, the group found that the Iraqis had turned down an offer of uranium from a still-unidentified country."
This is not very complicated. If Iraq had indeed tried to buy lots of uranium from Africa, we would know it. We wouldn't have to rely on non-public, hazy reports from several years ago.
Posted by: Jon | Jul 20, 2004 2:28:19 PM
"There is now no incentive for Hussein to comply with the inspectors or to refrain from using weapons of mass destruction to defend himself if the United States comes after him. And he will use them; we should be under no illusion about that."--Joe Wilson 2/2003
(http://www.johnkerry.com/honesty/la_times.html)
Was Joe Wilson relying on some forged documents to make that claim?--s
Posted by: j.scott barnard | Jul 20, 2004 2:35:36 PM
J. Scott Barnard,
Uh... no. He was relying on the shoddy intelligence produced by the US government.
Why do you ask?
Posted by: Jon | Jul 20, 2004 2:39:56 PM
Because apparently everyone had that shoddy intelligence, including Clinton...but that doesn't mean they all lied.
So, I ask because the only point I'm trying to make is that Bush...did...not...lie.
Call him wrong on policy, call him dimwitted for committing our troops in the manner he did, call him wing-ding-belly-nelly, or whatever you want, but he did not lie. That's all I'm saying.
You guys have a great day. --s
Posted by: j.scott barnard | Jul 20, 2004 2:46:04 PM
J. Scott Barnard,
Actually, you're wrong. It's not that both the Clinton and Bush administrations were honestly in error about Iraq. Instead, they were both lying. (I assume Wilson was not conscious of this, and was naively relying on both administrations' false claims.)
I suggest you read this article: "A Legacy of Lies: President Bush misled the nation about the threat Iraq posed. But he wasn't the first to do so."
Posted by: Jon | Jul 20, 2004 2:52:48 PM
