Actually, I think, on this one, Joe Wilson is telling much more of the truth than Pat Roberts. Don't get me started on the trip Roberts does, regularly, on Rockefeller.
The Senate Intelligence Committee report was bipartisan and signed off by both parties, so these very lame flings have nothing to do with the case.
We know Joe Wilson lied about a number of things. That his wife had nothing to do with his trip - the memo where she recommended him has been published. The interview where he claimed to have id'd the forged papers as fake, though the CIA didn't have them until 8 months later. Wilson has admitted he "misspoke" on that one. The bit where he said there was absolutely no Iraq-Niger connection, thus misstating his own report, as well as failing to address the numerous British and other intelligence reports that said there was a connection.
Hey, I could go to Niger, and I could fail to find a connection too! What would that prove?
well before Kerry's campaign for the Dem nomination looked even probable, let alone possible. So he wasn't angling for anything from Kerry on the trip.
So, you think Kerry wasn't running for Prez by 2002? Ha ha ha. Joe Wilson would have settled for another Dem candidate in any case. He needed a Dem admin to work again.
On the question of why Wilson was picked, let's just say, for conversation purposes his wife did not work at the CIA. And you were in the CIA looking for someone who knew a great deal about Iraq and Saddam,
Well that would have let Wilson out right there. He knew squat about Iraq.
who knew a great deal about Niger,
a few government officials at any rate
who was reasonably knowledgeable about nuclear things,
sez who? from what? pillow talk from Valerie?
and who, at least at that point, did not have a partisan reputation
Say what? Only if you were completely ignorant of Washington. Wilson was an out of work Dem diplomat.
This was an intelligence gathering trip. If you are looking for a competent person to send, you send someone with a background in intelligence, not a diplomatic flunky. Someone who could evaluate the claims made by all the European intelligence agencies that Iraq was meeting with agents from Niger, Libya and North Korea in the period 1999 - 2001, seeking yellowcake.
The idea that that person would have been Joe Wilson is just ludicrous on its face. Any hint of any idea that this wasn't total nepotism was soon gotten rid of by the obvious partisan self-puffery that the Joe Wilson used the trip for. |
