From: Adam Flinton 

Gary Britt wrote:
> The facts are neatly summarized below, and while the writer for the
> Minnesota Star Tribune below thinks Plame was undercover, her HUSBAND has
> admitted on TV that she "wasn't undercover and hadn't been undercover for
> six years".  So much for the vaunted Star Tribune.
>

They're not a summary of the facts though. They are simply a summary of how
far Steyn can be paid to twist a picture.

> This controversy began, you'll recall, because Wilson objected to a line in
> the president's State of the Union speech that British intelligence had
> discovered that Iraq had been trying to acquire ''yellowcake'' -- i.e.,
> weaponized uranium -- from Africa. This assertion made Bush, in Wilson's
> incisive analysis, a ''liar'' and Cheney a ''lying sonofabitch.''
>
> In fact, the only lying sonafabitch turned out to be Yellowcake Joe. Just
> about everybody on the face of the earth except Wilson, the White House
> press corps and the moveon.org crowd accepts that Saddam was indeed trying
> to acquire uranium from Africa.

After sh*tloads of Steyns usual diversionary text then first major lie. No
this was not the case. The intel of the 3B'es (Bush, Blair &
Berlusconi) were scratching around for this sort of usefull info but
frankly it was not there.

> Don't take my word for it; it's the
> conclusion of the Senate intelligence report, Lord Butler's report in the
> United Kingdom, MI6, French intelligence, other European services

Note the usual Steyn twisting the mirror. "other European
services"? i.e. Berlusconi's boys who had similar orders to make the
facts fit the policy?

The French did not & this is fairly crucial as both Niger mines were
owned & operated by a froggie company & one might wonder if any
french citizens on site might have a secondary reporting role to french
intel.

Nor did the Libyans & again given the geography etc this is fairly
important. in the early 1990'es there had been a vague proposal to bind
together Libyan & iraqi effortsbut Khadaffi had decided against. My
guess is that most of the reports (esp the various tailenders which assume
material shipment via Libya) were based on this 1991-2 info but guess
what....the dates are curious left off. My oh my what a shock.

> -- and,
> come to that, the original CIA report based on Joe Wilson's own briefing to
> them. Why Yellowcake Joe then wrote an article for the New York Times
> misrepresenting what he'd been told by senior figures from Major Wanke's
> regime in Niger is known only to him.
>

A classic piece of Steyn twisting. Note how What Major Wanke's regime has
never disclosed anything to Steyn & yet he has some sort of psychic
projection.

It is always going to be the case that what is publically available in such
matters will differ from that which is not.

Adam



>
>
> "Rich Gauszka"  wrote in message
> news:42d9c485{at}w3.nls.net...
>
>>http://www.startribune.com/stories/1519/5509192.html
>>
>>A SECRET KNOWN, A COVER BLOWN
>>
>>Larry C. Johnson
>>
>>July 17, 2005
>>
>>The misinformation being spread in the media about the Plame affair is
>>alarming and damaging to the long-term security interests of the United
>>States. Republicans' talking points are trying to savage Joe Wilson and,
>
> by
>
>>implication, his wife, Valerie Plame, as liars. That is the truly big lie.
>>
>>Plame was an undercover operations officer until outed in the press by
>>Robert Novak. Novak's column was not an isolated attack. It was in fact
>
> part
>
>>of a coordinated, orchestrated smear that we now know includes at least
>
> Karl
>
>>Rove.
>>
>>Plame was a classmate of mine from the day she started with the CIA. I
>>entered on duty at the CIA in September 1985. All of my classmates were
>>undercover -- in other words, we told our family and friends that we were
>>working for other overt U.S. government agencies. We had official cover.
>>That means we had a black passport -- i.e., a diplomatic passport. If we
>>were caught overseas engaged in espionage the black passport was a
>>get-out-of-jail-free card.
>>
>>A few of my classmates, and Plame was one of these, became a non-official
>>cover (NOC) officer. That meant she agreed to operate overseas without the
>>protection of a diplomatic passport. If caught in that status she would
>
> have
>
>>been executed.
>>
>>The lies by people like Victoria Toensing, Rep. Peter King and P.J.
>
> O'Rourke
>
>>insist that Plame was nothing, just a desk jockey. Yet, until Novak
>
> betrayed
>
>>her, she was still undercover and the company that was her front was still
>
> a
>
>>secret to the world. When Novak outed her he also compromised her company
>>and every individual overseas who had been in contact with that company
>
> and
>
>>with her.
>>
>>The Republicans now want to hide behind the legalism that "no laws were
>>broken." I don't know if a man-made law was broken, but an ethical and
>
> moral
>
>>code was breached.
>>
>>For the first time, a group of partisan political operatives publicly
>>identified a CIA NOC. They have set a precedent that the next group of
>>political hacks may feel free to violate.
>>
>>They try to hide behind the specious claim that Joe Wilson "lied."
>
> Although
>
>>Wilson did not lie, let's follow that reasoning to the logical conclusion.
>>Let's use the same standard for the Bush administration. Here are the
>
> facts.
>
>>Bush's lies have resulted in the deaths of almost 1,800 American soldiers
>>and the mutilation of 12,000. Wilson has not killed anyone. He tried to
>>prevent the needless death of Americans and the loss of American prestige
>
> in
>
>>the world.
>>
>>But don't take my word for it; read the biased Senate Intelligence
>
> Committee
>
>>report. Even though it was slanted to try to portray Wilson in the worst
>>possible light, this fact emerges on page 52 of the report: According to
>
> the
>
>>U.S. ambassador to Niger (who was commenting on Wilson's visit in February
>>2002), "Ambassador Wilson reached the same conclusion that the
Embassy has
>>reached that it was highly unlikely that anything between Iraq and Niger
>
> was
>
>>going on."
>>
>>The Republicans insist on the lie that Plame got her husband the job. She
>>did not. She was not a division director; instead she was the equivalent
>
> of
>
>>an Army major. Yes, she recommended her husband to do the job that needed
>
> to
>
>>be done, but the decision to send Wilson on this mission was made by her
>>bosses.
>>
>>At the end of the day, Wilson was right. There were no weapons of mass
>>destruction in Iraq. It was the Bush administration that pushed that lie,
>>and because of that lie Americans are dying. Shame on those who continue
>
> to
>
>>slander Joe Wilson while giving Bush and his pack of liars a pass. That's
>>the true outrage.
>>
>>
>
>
>

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