The Plame Game

For a few days now I've been working on information regarding Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson. My contention, in a comment to this post, was that this Plame-Leak controversy was obscuring the fact that Wilson lied on multiple occasions about the circumstances surrounding his trip to Niger to investigate Uranium sales deals with Iraq.

Another commenter said that he never heard that Wilson had been discredited. I believe he never heard it because it isn't in the MSM's best interest to discuss that the "Bush-lied" poster boy was actually lying about quite a few things...and more so...possibly just incompetent at his job and only got the Niger mission because his wife in fact worked for the CIA.

You can read summaries of these facts in articles in National Review here and here as well as OpinionJournal.com. which concluded with the following paragraphs:

The Senate Intelligence Committee found, finally, that far from debunking the Iraq-Niger story, Mr. Wilson's debrief was interpreted as providing "some confirmation of foreign government service reporting" that Iraq had sought uranium in Niger. Why? Because he'd reported that former Nigerien Prime Minister Ibrahim Mayaki had told him of a 1999 visit by the Iraqis to discuss "commercial relations," which the leader of the one-industry country logically interpreted as interest in uranium.

Remember that Messrs. Bush and Blair only said that Iraq had "sought" or was "trying to buy" uranium, not that it had succeeded. It now appears that both leaders have been far more scrupulous in discussing this and related issues than much of the media in either of their countries, which would embarrass the journalistic profession, if that were possible.

All of this matters because Mr. Wilson's disinformation became the vanguard of a year-long assault on Mr. Bush's credibility. The political goal was to portray the President as a "liar," regardless of the facts. Now that we know those facts, Americans can decide who the real liars are.

But I am working on a summary based on the primary source documents of the Butler Report (from British Intelligence) and the Senate Intelligence Committee report.

Here is a key phrase from the Butler Report:

It is accepted by all parties that Iraqi officials visited Niger in 1999. The British Government had intelligence from several different sources indicating that this visit was for the purpose of acquiring uranium. Since uranium constitutes almost three-quarters of Niger's exports, the intelligence was credible.

It should also be noted that while at one time the US seemed to back on the President's State of the Union statement about uranium and Niger, the British never backed down and continued to maintain that Iraq sought those materials. Good for them.

Interestingly enough, on Special Report w/Brit Hume tonight(Monday) Fred Barnes said "Of course Wilson's whole story has been totally discredited now." And he said it so off-handedly as to suggest that it was common knowledge.

Well, apparently it's not, but it should be.


(Note: portions of this piece were cross-posted at Stones Cry Out*)

*Cause really...where else would it be cross posted? :)