He Said It! (A political trivia game)

[Gorf]

Who said: "If we want to cultivate a true spirit of democracy we cannot afford to be intolerant. Intolerance betrays want of faith in one's cause."

[Barefoot In Kailua]

{ said:

>-(Gorf)-<[} link=board=news&thread=1091067092&start=45#3 date=1091139484]Who said: "If we want to cultivate a true spirit of democracy we cannot afford to be intolerant. Intolerance betrays want of faith in one's cause."

Gorf, If you want to play the game, play it right. You can't just throw out 50 questions when the first one hasn't been answered yet. The author of the quote is Gandhi.

[Gorf]

Barefoot said:

Gorf, If you want to play the game, play it right. You can't just throw out 50 questions when the first one hasn't been answered yet. The author of the quote is Gandhi.

I thot the right be what you not likin mon?

I ain't be throwin out no 50 questions.

I be throwin out 20 at most so far.

I don't be wantin no date wit myself.

[Barefoot In Kailua]

{ said:

>-(Gorf)-<[} link=board=news&thread=1091067092&start=47#3 date=1091146379]

I thot the right be what you not likin mon?

I ain't be throwin out no 50 questions.

I be throwin out 20 at most so far.

I don't be wantin no date wit myself.

Oh brother!

[Gorf]

Barefoot said:

Oh brother!

Where for art though?

[Barefoot In Kailua]

Art thou not Gorf, a Bush basher?

[Gorf]

Barefoot said:

Art thou not Gorf, a Bush basher?

I say thee nay.

I am but a humble reporter of the Bush iniquities.

[chunkymonkey]

{ said:

>-(Gorf)-<[} link=board=news&thread=1091067092&start=25#1 date=1091082362] Wilson reported back that the claim was “bogus and unrealistic.”

[/color]

One of the few reasonably frank statements to come from the US political establishment was this assessment given last July by Joseph Wilson IV to the Washington Post,
[/quote]

Gorf ... if you are going to cut-and-paste ... please use current information. 9-11 commission has shown that Wilson was a fraud ... making up his story. He has lost creditability on this ...

Report Disputes Wilson's Claims on Trip, Wife's Role
By Susan Schmidt
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, July 10, 2004; Page A09

[glow=yellow,2,300]Former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, dispatched by the CIA in February 2002 to investigate reports that Iraq sought to reconstitute its nuclear weapons program with uranium from Africa, was specifically recommended for the mission by his wife, a CIA employee, contrary to what he has said publicly.

Wilson last year launched a public firestorm with his accusations that the administration had manipulated intelligence to build a case for war ... Wilson's assertions -- both about what he found in Niger and what the Bush administration did with the information -- were undermined yesterday in a bipartisan Senate intelligence committee report.

The panel found that Wilson's report, rather than debunking intelligence about purported uranium sales to Iraq, as he has said, bolstered the case for most intelligence analysts. And contrary to Wilson's assertions and even the government's previous statements, the CIA did not tell the White House it had qualms about the reliability of the Africa intelligence that made its way into 16 fateful words in President Bush's January 2003 State of the Union address. [/glow]

[chunkymonkey]

Niger and Iraq ...
From the BBC, July 14, 2004

[glow=blue,2,300]Pre-war assessments that Iraq sought uranium from Niger were "well-founded on intelligence", the Butler report has concluded.

The controversial claims were first made in a dossier compiled by the British intelligence services on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction, made public in September 2002.

Nuclear watchdog the International Atomic Energy Agency, had subsequently said some documents supporting the uranium claim were forgeries.

But Lord Butler said the government had intelligence from "several different sources".

"The forged documents were not available to the British government at the time its assessment was made and so the fact of the forgery does not undermine it," the report said [/glow]

[Deleted]

Monkeychunks, the 9/11 Commission said NO SUCH THING about Wilson. They certainly did not call him a fraud.

This is what really bothers me about people like you and BiK. You have absolutely no regard for the truth.

[chunkymonkey]

(R)uffda! said:

Monkeychunks, the 9/11 Commission said NO SUCH THING about Wilson. They certainly did not call him a fraud.

(R)uffda ... you got me! It wasn't the 9-11 Commission, it was the Senate Intelligence Committee. And they didn't call him a "fraud" ... they just demonstrated that he lied. "Fraud" was my conclusion, ie: "Fraud ... a deliberate deception for unfair ... gain" (can we say, "book profits.")

"Lie ... a false statement deliberately presented as true."

Since you don't believe the Washington Post (I understand) or the BBC, here is the Senate report ...

([Letter or number blacked out]) Some CPD officials could not recall how the office decided to contact the former ambassador, however, interviews and documents provided to the Committee indicate that [Valerie Plame] his wife, a CPD employee, suggested his name for the trip. The CPD reports officer told Committee staff that the former ambassador’s wife "offered up his name" and a memorandum to the Deputy Chief of the CPD on February, 12, 2002

([Word blacked out]) The intelligence report [on Wilson’s trip] indicated that former Nigerien Prime Minister Ibrahim Mayaki was unaware of any contracts that had been signed between Niger and any rogue states for the sale of yellowcake while he was Prime Minister (1997-1999) or Foreign Minister (1996-1997)... Mayaki said, however, that in June 1999, businessman, approached him and insisted that Mayaki meet with an Iraqi delegation to discuss "expanding commercial relations" between Niger and Iraq. The intelligence report said that Mayaki interpreted "expanding commercial relations" to mean that the delegation wanted to discuss uranium yellowcake sales. The intelligence report also said that "although the meeting took place, Mayaki let the matter drop due to the U.N. sanctions on Iraq."
[Page 44]
[Page 45]
(U) The former ambassador [Wilson] also told Committee staff that he was the source of a Washington Post article ("CIA Did Not Share Doubt on Iraq Data; Bush Used Report of Uranium Bid," June 12, 2003) which said, "among the Envoy’s conclusions was that the documents may have been forged because ‘the dates were wrong and the names were wrong.’" Committee staff asked how the former ambassador could have come to the conclusion that the "dates were wrong and the names were wrong" when he had never seen the CIA reports and had no knowledge of what names and dates were in the reports. The former ambassador said that he may have "misspoken" to the reporter when he said he concluded that the documents were "forged." He also said he may have become confused about his own recollection after the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported in March 2003 that the names and dates on the documents were not correct and may have thought he had seen the names himself.

(U) The former ambassador [Wilson] told Committee staff that he had no direct knowledge of how the information he provided was handled by the CIA, but, based on his previous government experience, he believed that the report would have been distributed to the White House and that the Vice President received a direct response to his question about the possible uranium deal
[Page 46]

[Page title blacked out]
([Letter or number blacked out]) The CIA’s DO [Directorate of Operations] gave the former ambassador’s [Wilson’s] information a grade of "good," which means that it added to the IC’s [Intelligence Community’s] body of understanding on the issue, . The possible grades are unsatisfactory, satisfactory, good, excellent, and outstanding, which, according to the Deputy Chief of CPD [CIA Counterproliferation Division], are very subjective. The reports officer said that a "good" grade was merited because the information responded to at least some of the outstanding questions in the Intelligence Community, but did not provide substantial new information. He said he judged that the most important fact in the report was that the Nigerien officials admitted that the Iraqi delegation had traveled there in 1999, and that the Nigerien Prime Minister believed the Iraqis were interested in purchasing uranium, because this provided some confirmation of foreign government service reporting.

An INR [State Department Intelligence and Research] analyst said when he saw the report he believed that it corroborated the INR’s position, but said that the "report could be read in different ways." He said the report was credible, but did not give it a lot of attention because he was busy with other things.

(U) DIA [Defense Intelligence Agency] and CIA analysts said that when they saw the intelligence report they did not believe that it supplied much new information and they did not think that it clarified the story on the alleged Iraq-Niger uranium deal. They did not find Nigerien denials that they had discussed uranium sales with Iraq as very surprising because they had no expectation that Niger would admit to such an agreement if it did exist. The analysts did, however, find it interesting that the former Nigerien Prime Minister said an Iraqi delegation had visited Niger for what he believed was to discuss uranium sales.

(U) Because CIA analysts did not believe that the report added any new information to clarify the issue, they did not use the report to produce any further analytical products or highlight the report of policymakers. For the same reason, CIA’s briefer did not brief the Vice President on the report, despite the Vice President’s previous questions about the issue.
Page 47

In a written response to questions from Committee staff, the White House said that on September 11, 2002, National Security Council (NSC) staff contacted the CIA to clear language for possible use by the President. The language cleared by the CIA said, "Iraq has made several attempts to buy high strength aluminum tubes used in centrifuges to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons. And we also know this: within the past few years, Iraq has resumed efforts to obtain large quantities of a type of uranium oxide known as yellowcake, which is an essential ingredient of this process. The regime was caught trying to purchase 500 metric tons of this material. It takes about 10 tons to produce enough enriched uranium for a single nuclear weapon." The text was identical to the text proposed by the White House except that the CIA had suggested adding "up to" before 500 metric tons. The President never used the approved language publicly.

Hmmm ... what really happened wouldn't have sold books ... which are still in book stores today. So ... did Wilson mislead for personal gain ... or simply lie?

[Deleted]

First of all, I have no doubt this will be cleared up soon. But to call Wilson a fraud or a liar is just misstating the case.

But besides that, THIS ISN'T EVEN THE ISSUE. The issue is that someone in the Bush Administration chose to leak the identity of a CIA agent to the media because they DIDN'T LIKE WHAT WILSON WAS SAYING. This, my friend, was a crime. A CRIME.

As usual, all this other blather (which invariably turns out to be Bush propaganda) is just the usual Right-Wing misdirection.

[chunkymonkey]

(R)uffda! said:

THIS ISN'T EVEN THE ISSUE. The issue is that someone in the Bush Administration chose to leak the identity of a CIA agent to the media because they DIDN'T LIKE WHAT WILSON WAS SAYING. This, my friend, was a crime. A CRIME.

As you noted ... this, too, will be cleared up. At this point ... it isn't, is it.

[Deleted]

And, just for the record:

By Mary Jacoby



July 16, 2004 | WASHINGTON -- Choreographed editorials and Op-Ed pieces on Thursday in the Wall Street Journal and National Review and by conservative columnist Robert Novak signaled the revving up of a Republican campaign to discredit former ambassador Joseph Wilson and his claims that President Bush trumpeted flimsy intelligence in the drive to invade Iraq.

The opinion pieces came on the heels of a July 10 report in the Washington Post that said Wilson lied when he claimed in public statements that his wife, a covert Central Intelligence Agency officer, had not recommended him for a fact-finding mission to Niger in 2002.


It was on this CIA-sponsored trip more than two years ago that Wilson concluded there was no truth to a British intelligence report, highly prized by the White House, that Saddam Hussein had sought to purchase uranium for nuclear weapons from the African nation. When Bush repeated the questionable claim in a January 2003 State of the Union address, Wilson wrote publicly about his trip and his findings in an Op-Ed piece in the New York Times, setting off a political firestorm. The first chapter in the drama appeared to end when the White House admitted that Bush should not have said: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."


But the Senate Intelligence Committee's release of a report last week on prewar intelligence failures has resurrected the Niger controversy. The report, amplified by Washington Post reporter Susan Schmidt and right-wing opinion writers, prompted the retired diplomat on Thursday to send a six-page rebuttal to the panel's chairman, Sen. Pat Roberts, R-Kan., and its ranking Democrat, Sen. Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia. An aide to Rockefeller did not return phone calls, while a Republican intelligence committee staffer who was asked to comment on Wilson's letter said, "Our report speaks for itself."

The new questions about Wilson and his motives come as polls show Bush approval ratings floundering amid falling support for the war in Iraq. The campaign of presumed Democratic presidential nominee Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts has sharply questioned Bush's candor and credibility, and a special prosecutor is wrapping up an investigation into which senior administration official leaked Plame's name to columnist Novak. Wilson has said the apparently illegal disclosure of his wife's identify (she was a covert CIA officer) was made in retaliation for his speaking out about the lack of evidence in Niger.

The dispute over the committee report centers on its interpretation of two facts. One is that Wilson told his CIA debriefers that during his Niger trip, he spoke to the country's former prime minister, who told him that members of an Iraqi delegation in the late 1990s expressed interest in expanded commercial contacts with Niger. The former prime minister told Wilson that he interpreted the comment to mean that Iraq was interested in buying uranium, although the word "uranium" was not mentioned in the Iraqis' conversation, he said. The prime minister, fearful of United Nations sanctions that prevented trade with Iraq at the time, dropped the subject, Wilson reported.

But because the ex-minister believed the Iraqis were seeking uranium, the Senate report concluded that whether Iraq sought uranium in Africa remains an open question -- a conclusion Wilson disputes. It further reported that far from debunking the notion that Iraq was seeking uranium for weapons, Wilson's trip to Niger actually bolstered the story, at least in the view of some intelligence analysts, who found the news that the former prime minister believed the Iraqis were trying to buy uranium convincing. But no sale of uranium ever took place, Wilson reported, and that conclusion is not in dispute. Wilson did report that Iraq's neighbor, Iran, had tried to buy 400 tons of uranium from Niger in 1998.

The report also quotes an internal CIA memo written by Wilson's wife, Plame, stating: "my husband has good relations with both the PM (prime minister) and the former Minister of Mines (not to mention lots of French contacts), both of whom could possibly shed light on this sort of activity." Based on Plame's internal memo and other evidence, three Republicans -- Roberts and Sens. Orrin Hatch of Utah and Kit Bond of Missouri -- wrote additional views appended to the report, concluding that "the plan to send the former ambassador to Niger was suggested" by Plame. The three GOP senators criticized their Democratic counterparts on the panel for refusing to endorse this conclusion.

In his letter to the committee, Wilson disputed the Republican senators' characterization. "There is no suggestion or recommendation in that statement that I be sent on the trip," he wrote. A CIA spokeswoman declined to comment. In an interview, Wilson said that his wife was stating facts about his background, not pushing that he go to Niger.

The Washington Post story, meanwhile, took the disputed Senate report conclusions even further. It stated in its lead that Wilson was "specifically recommended for the mission by his wife ... contrary to what he has said publicly." In the interview, Wilson argued that the Post story failed to make clear that only the intelligence panel's Republicans, and not its Democrats, came to that conclusion. He said he has written a letter of protest to the Post.

The Post article also contained one acknowledged error: In trying to build a case that Wilson's Niger trip had actually bolstered the administration's claims, Schmidt wrote that Wilson had told the CIA that Iraq had tried to buy 400 tons of uranium from Niger in 1998. In fact, it was Iran that Wilson said had tried to make the purchase, as the Senate report states. The Post ran a correction.

[Deleted]

chunkymonkey said:

As you noted ... this, too, will be cleared up. At this point ... it isn't, is it.

Not exactly. There is no disputing that Plame's identity was leaked to Novak and at least 4 other members of the media. In short, we know a crime took place. We just don't know who in the Bush Administration committed it.

Not even CLOSE to the REPUBLICAN conclusions--read opinions (or slander)--in a report that will more than likely be proven incorrect.