Valerie Plame did not "convince" the CIA to send Jow Wilson to Niger. That is a lie.

Via CNN:
Wilson visited Niger in early 2002 on behalf of the CIA to investigate a British report alleging Iraq attempted to buy yellowcake -- uranium ore -- to develop nuclear weapons. Wilson reported finding no evidence to support the allegation.

Novak reported in his July column that Plame suggested her husband for the Niger visit, but officials told CNN Tuesday she had nothing to do with the decision. "She did not recommend him. It was not her idea to send him," said one official.

Via TruthOut:
Another false claim is that Valerie sent her husband on the mission to Niger. According to the Senate Intelligence Committee Report issued in July 2004, it is clear that the Vice President himself requested that the CIA provide its views on a Defense Intelligence Agency report that Iraq was trying to acquire uranium from Niger. The Vice President's request was relayed through the CIA bureaucracy to the Director of the Counter Proliferation Division at the CIA. Valerie worked for a branch in that Division.

The Senate Intelligence Report is frequently cited by Republican partisans as "proof" that Valerie sent her husband to Niger because she sent a memo describing her husband's qualifications to the Deputy Division Chief. Several news personalities, such as Chris Matthews and Bill O'Reilly continue to repeat this nonsense as proof. What the Senate Intelligence Committee does not include in the report is the fact that Valerie's boss had asked her to write a memo outlining her husband's qualifications for the job. She did what any good employee does; she gave her boss what he asked for.

The decision to send Joe Wilson on the mission to Niger was made by Valerie's bosses. She did not have the authority to sign travel vouchers, issue travel orders, or expend one dime of US taxpayer dollars on her own. Yet, she has been singled out by the Republican National Committee and its partisans as a legitimate target of attack. It was Karl Rove who told Chris Matthews, "Wilson's wife is fair game."

Via WaPo:
Over the past months, however, the CIA has maintained that Wilson was chosen for the trip by senior officials in the Directorate of Operations counterproliferation division (CPD) -- not by his wife -- largely because he had handled a similar agency inquiry in Niger in 1999. On that trip, Plame, who worked in that division, had suggested him because he was planning to go there, according to Wilson and the Senate committee report.

Via TMP Cafe:
Yes it is true she recommended her husband to do the job that needed to be done but the decision to send Joe Wilson on this mission was made by her bosses.

At the end of the day, Joe Wilson was right. There were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

Posted by: brittney at November 1, 2005 12:32 PM

Nice try, but even the articles you cite indicate that Plame played a role in the sending of her husband to Niger.

Also, it's worth noting that WILSON claims the CIA didn't send him to Niger, that the Vice President did. That, obviously, is a lie.

As for Wilson's trip to Niger, by his own admission his investigation consisted of "sipping tea" with a few top Niger officials and asking them if Saddam had tried to buy uranium. He then wrote an op-ed characterizing their denials as proof-positive that Saddam had not tried to buy uranium yellowcake in Niger. But of course they didn't tell him that - they told him representatives of Saddam's regime had in fact made initial trade inquiries. As Niger produces basically nothing of value except uranium, it is unlikely Saddam's regime tried to buy anything other than uranium from Niger.

The CIA World Factbook describes Niger's economy this way: "Niger is one of the poorest countries in the world, a landlocked Sub-Saharan nation, whose economy centers on subsistence crops, livestock, and some of the world's largest uranium deposits."

It's top exports are, in order, uranium ore, livestock, cowpeas and onions.

Did Saddam send trade reps to one of the poorest countries in Africa to buy cows, cowpeas and onions?

C'mon. We know he sent trade reps to Niger. Uranium is the most likely reason.

As I demonstrated in this post on Oct. 2, 2003, Wilson was a Saddam-coddler who believed Saddam was justified in seeking weapons of mass destruction - not exactly the right guy to send to Niger to investigate the allegation.

Here's a link to another piece I wrote dissecting the early days of the "scandal," and the journalism thereof. Wilson himself played a large role in "outing" his wife, as did liberal writer David Corn.

By the way, as I note in that piece, Wilson was NOT sent to Niger to investigate BRITISH intel suggesting the Iraqis tried to buy uranium there - he was sent to investigate a report to that effect by ITALIAN intel.

The press has repeated the British angle error over and over as Brittney does above), because it can't get details right. And the famous disputed "16 words" in Bush's State of the Union speech were not - definitively NOT - refuted by Wilson's findings in Niger. Wilson was looking for evidence to confirm/deny the ITALIAN report - British intel's report was not focused on Niger, but on Africa as a whole, and the British government to this day stands behind it. Bush's "16 words" said "Africa" - NOT "Niger."

But the Left has worked mighty hard to confuse the two in order to prop up its "Bush lied" meme.

Remember, please, that at the foundation of all of this is that Saddam failed to comply with UN resolutions regarding his WMD, and repeatedly lied to the world about his WMD programs, which is why virtually all the world's intel services agreed he still possessed WMD and active WMD development programs.

Turns out they were half right - his WMD had been disposed of, but his development programs were still active, idling in neutral until the sanctions were dropped. And he was busy bribing the French and the Chinese and the Russians (and British MP George Galloway) with millions skimmed from the Oil for Food program in order to undermine the sanctions.

Did Saddam try to buy uranium in Africa?

Yes.

Did Plame play a role in sending Wilson to Niger?

Yes.

Has Wilson been a serial liar about what he found in Niger, and about his own politics in the process?

Yes.

Posted by: Bill Hobbs at November 1, 2005 1:58 PM

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