Scooter Libby is spending his fall asking for money. Judy Miller is spending hers without a job. Joe and Valerie Wilson are spending theirs counting their book proceeds, with Joe still basking in celebrity spotlights. And Patrick Fitzgerald is spending his fall ignoring a growing number of anecdotal accounts of just how "widely known" Valerie Plame was.
You just can't make this stuff up.
Fitzgerald won't investigate, because it's not part of the referral, but the MSM should look at Joe Wilson a little closer, since this whole soap opera was started by him when he triumphantly announced what he hadn't found in Africa. But here's a Wilson quote in June 2003, a month before the Novak article, courtesy Gateway Pundit,
... I remain on the view that we will find biological and chemical weapons and we may well find something that that indicates that Saddam's regime maintained an interest in nuclear weapons...
I understand his sentiments might have been that war wasn't an option, even with some WMDs at Saddam's disposal. And he might have been saying Saddam could get yellowcake from some other place than Niger. But he had to know his debunking canard would become a large arrow in the democrat's quiver, and would surely stir the fire in the loins of the anti-war left.
Case in point, Wilson uttered his WMD CYA words giving a speech at the "Education for Peace in Iraq Center". Only a few months later, and six months after the first M1A1 rolled across the Iraq border, and before the final Kay or Duelfer reports had been completed, this organization was saying the following:
URGE YOUR REPRESENTATIVE to cosponsor H.Res.307, which would establish a select committee to investigate possible wrongdoing by the Bush administration related to its use of intelligence on Iraq.
That seems a tad early to call for a posse, dontcha think? However the EPIC organization seems a tad leftist. Are you beginning to connect the dots?
So......for kicks let's make some observations.
> If the Niger docs were forged by a state intelligence service, they were meant to be discovered as frauds. No state would do such a poor job.
> The notion that the CIA sent Wilson to Africa to acquire useful intelligence seems far-fetched considering he was limited in chatting to former government officials only. Had they themselves been involved in prohibited trade with Iraq, why would they admit so? If they were out of the present government, how would they know for sure? The agency then required no formal trip report and debriefed him at home with his wife present.
> If the CIA really wanted Plame's NOC kept intact they would have never allowed Wilson to go public. Indeed they would have denied even sending him.
> The Brits still claim their intel, which Bush referenced in his SOTU speech, was based partially on the 1999 Iraqi delegation to Niger that Wilson actually confirmed.
> Many people apparently knew of Plame's employer in DC circles. Wilson himself evidently mentioned her to retired generals in the green room at Fox News, although he disputes it. They don't.
> The forged Niger docs were never intended to be the ONLY casus belli argument for attacking and removing Saddam.
One might conclude the following:
>> The entire thing is a clumsy sting perpetrated by buffoons who probably think they're more clever than they are. The name's Wilson. Joe Wilson.
>> The entire thing is nothing more than a desperation play by the democrats, who have nothing left in their war chest. If true, rather pathetic.
>> The entire thing was designed to be a kerfuffle. Why? Well, Valerie Plame works in the WMD proliferation branch. Perhaps she had knowledge of the source or nature of the anthrax attacks shortly after 9/11. And perhaps the CIA is running interference in some way, shape or form.
>> Wilson is telling the truth, Bush and Blair either lied for Halliburton and Exxon, or they are being advised by paranoid nutcakes who themselves might be crazy.
Great choices, eh? But that's the way I see it. Since the third idea is probably too tinfoil-ish and the fourth means I've been wrong all along, I'm going with door number one.
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