Weeks before Joseph Wilson penned his July 6, 2003 op-ed column for The New York Times
That prospect increases the chances that White House official Karl Rove and others learned about Plame from within the Administration rather than from media contacts. Rove has told investigators he believes he learned of her directly or indirectly from reporters, according to his lawyer.
Today’s new story in Time (sub. only) — “When They Knew” — states that “[t]he previously undisclosed fact gathering began in the first week of June 2003 at the CIA, when its public-affairs office received an inquiry about Wilson’s trip to Africa from veteran Washington Post reporter Walter Pincus.”
When Pincus’ article ran on June 12, the circle of senior officials who knew about the identity of Wilson’s wife expanded. “After Pincus,” a former intelligence officer says, “there was general discussion with the National Security Council and the White House and State Department and others” about Wilson’s trip and its origins.
Wow. Did Karl Rove lie? Oh dear. What could THAT mean?!
Interesting that the WH started investigating the Wilsons before Joe Wilson’s NYTimes OpEd. Now Wilson did speak to his contacts in government and the press long before he wrote the article and he appeared on CNN as well. But they may have been watching him from the time he returned from Niger and briefed the CIA, after learning about his oral report from Tenet. Boy they were scared of this guy.
According to Wilson in various interviews, he went public only when his behind-the-scenes effort at correction of the erroneous Niger statements met with total stonewall.
So it’s pretty clear that Rove et al. were assembling a dossier in order to trash him no matter what. Actually, I imagine they’ve been doing that all along to everyone of consequence who crosses their crooked path. It’s just that Wilson has had the guts and contacts and righteous anger to stand up to them.
may have been noticed by the WH.
He appears to be like a Don Quixote figure during those early days after Bush’s lying State of the Union address.
absolutely. Every pole cat in DC had a vested interest in fighting the glorious WoT. Consider that everybody in Congress with a flicker of a brain wave knew the intelligence was bullshit before Bush uttered those 16 words in SOTU. After the speech, there was no question about it, that’s why the 16 words were pulled from the October Cinci speech before the authorization vote. They knew it was bullshit, and they either didn’t care or didn’t want to be the guy/gal to call BushCo. on it.
Hear a single word during ’03 from anybody but Wilson?
Bob Woodward was on Chris Matthews today, mouthing the usual BS about “Wilson’s wife”. He’s also been a rabid Judy Miller supporter, offering to split her jail time with her. Ugghhh!!!
They knew, it would not have been scorched earth politics which was the whole purpose. The talking heads still have yet to address why Wilson had to be “discredited”. Woodward refused the term “smear”. If Wilson was some partisan hack (which Matthews clung to like a floating log), why not expose Wilson as such, rather than out a CIA agent? It was Plame who became too dangerous.
That whole crew was somebody’s idea of a joke. Matthews, Woodward, Kelly O’Donnell, Joe Klein and Elisabeth Bumiller.
Scott McClellan might as well have put on five masks and moved from chair to chair and you’d have had the same fuckin’ show.
Every time I listen to Bob Woodward, I feel like I need a bath.
You got that right. I stopped listening to the man after hearing him say “Prince Baaaan-daaar” for about the 20th time in his nasal mid-west way. He’s also one of the slowest speakers on the face of the planet, so his lies take way too much time to even get out.
Because he has the rep as a credible “investigative journalist”, his bullshit is particularly damaging. Every notice how even during the “reunion”, Carl gets short shrift? I’ll take more of Bernstein anyday.
I think, just from watching him, that he has gotten into a comfort zone where he feels he “has it made.” Therefore, he feels no need to get on the ball and investigate these things for himself, as he is obviously still capable of doing.
Don’t misread Woodward’s history. He’s been a master of disinformation from the get go.
We never would have had Watergate without him. I guess that goes to show how power can corrupt if you let it. What happened to the Woodward of 1972-1974?
Woodward was given what was needed to bring down Nixon, just like he’s being given what is needed to further this administration’s goals. Same deal, same backers.
Both cases, Woodward had some very powerful backers. He furthered their agenda, he was and is their inside the media man.
I was appaled by Woodward especially but the whole gang of shills made me want to puke. This is treason we are talking about. This is purgery we are talking about. They so pooh poohed that anything the WH had done was any big deal and that Wilson was not being smeared.
Sources familiar with the memo, which disclosed Plame’s relationship to Wilson, say Secretary of State Colin Powell read it in mid-June.
Huh? So why all the rush to retype it and fax it to him on AF1 as they flew to Africa in July? Or was it really Powell all that fuss was for? Maybe really intended for someone higher up?
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Combining All Timelines
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The Propaganda Machine and the WMD Case for Iraq War
It’s clear Nigergate and DSM publications come together by Blair and Bush, the decision to go to War at all cost. The briefing to fix the facts around the policy, creating the WHIG Group and DoD Special Operations relate to the choices made. Don’t forget Dick Cheney’s Office of Special Plans. I believe there was a royal exchange and concentration of information at the bureaus inside Downing Street 10 and the White House. The use and timing of language to counteract criticism is seen to be coordinated, up to and including reaction to the 7/7 and 21/7 London bombings today.
You can add the David Kelly affair, WMDs and the London timeline within this mind set. British weapons of mass destruction expert David Kelly dies under suspicious circumstances on July 18, 2003.
The WH problems didn’t stem solely from Joe Wilson, the outing of Valerie Plame was an subversive act to punish Joe & Valerie Wilson, and the CIA for undermining the activities of the three propaganda units in London, the WH and the Pentagon. CIA is the loser, DoD and Rumsfeld & Associates Feith et al, are the clear winners KO – TKO – points. Tenet can be seen as the captain, who fled his ship and left his troops, so the CIA could be torpedoed and made irrelevant.
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