Tuesday, October 10, 2006

Uranium, Wilson, Niger, and Iraq.

I came across an odd little fact recently. Several, to tell the truth. Most of them having to do with Joe Wilson, the person who tried to speak "Truth to power" at the Bush administration.

You may remember this little problem a while back. The story goes like this: Joe Wilson, Ambassador to Iraq during the Iraq war (1991), expert in the Middle East, is sent by Dick Cheney's office to go to Niger to find out whether or not Saddam has tried to procure Uranium from them. Wilson reports that there was no such attempt. After that, the evil Bushhitler administration sandbags Wilson, and blows the cover of his secret agent wife, Valerie Plame, because the evil Bush administration must cover their asses about their lies.

Um…problem.

Where to start…how about with the fact that Joe Wilson was NEVER an Ambassador. Look up in a Lexus Nexus search through the NYTimes for Wilson during 1991. His title was NOT Ambassador, it was "Deputy Chief of Mission." The Times described him as being more like a building superintendent, making sure the janitorial staff was fully stocked. He's such a Middle East expert, he speaks NONE of the languages.

Dick Cheney's office hadn't heard of Joe Wilson when he popped up claiming to have proof that Bush lied, kids died. In fact, no one was entirely certain why Joe Wilson, who was unemployed before being sent to Niger, was sent in the first place. He speaks none of the local languages, has zero skills in terms of investigation or spy skills. Basically, it became a matter of "Who sent this schlub?"

Enter the wife.

On his approved papers for Wilson's trip to Niger, there's one name that sticks out on the forms—the name of Valerie Plame, his wife, a CIA desk jockey. Her name was blown by someone named "Scooter" Libby— an underling in the VPs office, who claimed he didn't know what her ranking was. He had heard the name of Plame all over the beltway, so he naturally assumed that Valerie's CIA employment record wasn't a secret. Scooter made the assumption that Wilson's trip to Africa was a make-work project by Plame in an attempt to get the husband out of the house for a while, and said as much.

Valerie Plame's status with the CIA is "classified." However, that's the status of everyone down to and including the janitorial staff. She is not a covert agent. She took the bus to Langley every morning. Any idiot with a bus pass getting off at the next stop would know who she works for. Then again, most covert agents who don't want to be noticed also tend to shy away from Vanity Fair photospreads, like Ms. Plame.

Almost two and a half years later, the most they could get on "Scooter" was purgery—which, in a federal court, is defined as being interrogated one day, and give a slightly different answer to the same question when you're asked two years later.

Did I miss anything…oh, yes, the crucial, all important part—the uranium from Niger. The most important part is, "Was Wilson right?"

Wilson's finding were covered in the proof that Saddam was going for nukes. In fact, Wilson was too stupid to realize what he was saying.
Reading Wilson's report, you notice that all Saddam's agents in Niger were doing was to "increase trade with Niger," and "increase exports from Niger." After a simple AOL search, I looked up what DOES Niger export? I found SESRTCIC
Guess what the major export of Niger is?
Guess what industry employs over HALF of Niger's population and income?
One guess is all you need.
Uranium.
There's also a nice little book written by the head of Saddam's nuclear program from the late 1990s called "Saddam's Bomb Maker." It's remaindered now, but you should be able to find it in any Edward R. Hamilton bookstore.
Add this to the fact that they've been hauling out Uranium from Iraq by the ton [previous post], and I wonder exactly what Wilson will be doing with his spare time.
I hope a jail sentence.

1 comment:

John said...

That entire, cacophonic episode was orchestrated for one primary purpose: To launch the "Bush Lied, Kids Died"/"The Liar In Chief"/"The Misleader"/"The Lying Liar Who Tells Lies" (Al Franken's book title) over-the-top propaganda campaign in order to (1) rip wide open a hole in Bush's approvals, which were stubbornly bouyant for his entire first term, and (2) to get revenge for--among other things like getting steamrolled throughout the first term, and the 2000 election--Clinton's Impeachment for perjury.

You can be damn sure that Clinton loyalists were fanning the flames of the "Bush Lied" psychosis, as based upon "The Sixteen Words" vis-a-vis "yellow cake in Africa" in the SOTU that Wilson--and Wilson alone--called a "lie."

And they went to town with that, and, indeed, we entered the Twilight Zone.