Nov 30 2005
The Wilson-Kerry-NSC Axis Of Evil
There is more and more evidence that there was a lot of collusion between the Wilsons, people at the CIA and people at the State Department to put out a sham story on the Niger forgeries to help Kerry get elected. Here is the evidence (which somehow Inspector Clousseu Fitzgerald keeps missing).
(1) Wilson was working for the Kerry campaign when he started to tell his Niger forgery lie to Kristof, Pincus, Knight Ridder and the rest of the media. The fact is now well known the trip Wilson used as the lynch pin for the forgery sham had nothing to do with the forgeries.
(2) At the same time Wilson, by his own words, is calling the State Department, CIA and NSC about Niger, Rand Beers up and quits his job at NSC to go work for the Kerry campaign. Personally I think all those phone calls were to tell everyone to start implementing their plans.
(3) Rand Beers, per his own words, knows about Valerie and her role as a member of the Kerry campaign prior to the Novak article. Beers is good friends with Clarke and Berger (Berger being another Kerry campaign member).
(4) Wilson, in his own words, told a group of people only days before his NY Times Op-Ed piece ran in July 2003 that the only way the story can stop Bush’s re-election is for a scandal to hit the news media. Obviously it doesn’t matter if the scandal is just Niger forgeries, it could additionally include the outing of a CIA agent ready to retire.
The Wilson phone calls prior to the article coming out are interesting. And there are multiple variations (as with everything Wilson says).
Here is what Wilson said to Andrea Mitchell on July 6 2003 [Hat tip: reader Mary Mapes]
AMB. WILSON: Andrea, when I was in the National Security Council, I was senior director for African affairs, and subsequent to that, when I wrote this article, I checked with members of the then-vice president’s staff, senior members, as well as other senior members of the NSC staff, to refresh my own memory.
OK, this could have been in May or June of 2003 or earlier. But isn’t interesting Joe Wilson is contacting ‘then-vice president’s [Cheney’s] staff’? He is also contacting NSC staff. But let’s let Joe set some time lines for us:
In March, 2003, Dr. Mohamed El Baradai, the Director General of the IAEA testified to the UN Security Council that the documents had been deemed by that agency to be forgeries. His Deputy, Jaques Baute, had been even more candid, commenting that they were so replete with errors that a two hour search on Google would have sufficed to discredit them. The US government, in response, was a statement that ‘We fell for it.’
It was at that point that I became aware that the President’s State of the Union assertion was based on the Niger claim.
For the next three months, I privately urged the administration through contacts and third parties to correct the record. I also shared what I knew with Nick Kristof of The New York Times and Walter Pincus of The Washington Post, as well as with several Democratic Senators and I met with the staffs of the House and Senate Intelligence committees.
Democrat Senators. If I recall John Kerry is a Democrat Senator! Note that Wilson get’s really moving the exact same time Rand Beers leaves the government to join the Kerry campaign. And from March through May Wilson is calling all sorts of people. Could he have called Rand Beers on the NSC staff? Where is his statement regarding the Knight Ridder reporter he talked to? He was not being very discrete, or was he?
But there is more calling going on into June:
In mid-June, Condoleeza Rice, in response to a question from Tim Russert asserted with respect to what the White House knew about the Niger matter that maybe somebody in the bowels of the Agency knew something about it but nobody in her circle.
It was clear to me then, and later confirmed by a senior State Department official, that if the truth were to come out, I would have to write it myself.
Did Fitzgerald ever find out who all these contacts were and if they, like Rand Beers, knew about Valerie’s CIA job? I think I am going to have to start calling Fitzgerald ‘Fitz Magoo’ (and yes, anyone using that needs to site this post!).
Wilson is still talking about these pre media blitz contacts today!
I had attempted to talk directly to the State Department and to a number of Democratic senators and to get the record corrected.
The question is who was the state department person who would align with Wilson, Beers, Kerry and company? Well, right on queue we have Lawrence Wilkerson:
He was high enough up to have access to the NRI memo outlining Valerie’s r0le.
[T]he case that I saw for four-plus years was a case that I have never seen in my study of aberrations, bastardizations, perturbations, changes to the national security decision-making process. What I saw was a cabal between the vice-president of the United States, Richard Cheney, and the secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld, on critical issues that made decisions that the bureaucracy didn’t know were being made.
I am surprised Colin Powell had this kind of loose canon on his staff. Seems he has been with Powell for some time. Well, Powell is not standing by his aide it seems:
Until now, Wilkerson has also kept his counsel, although he publicly opposed John Bolton’s confirmation as UN ambassador. At that time, most analysts believed that Wilkerson reflected Powell’s private views on Bolton.
That would not be surprising, as Wilkerson worked directly with or for Powell for some 16 years out of their 30-plus-year military and government careers. At the same time, Wilkerson said he had paid a ”high cost” in his personal relationship with Powell for publicly speaking out.
Note that this is in a rag that writes about the VIPS as if they are not lunatic escaped from the asylum -which they are.
But this is the most telling comment from Wilkerson, and why no one should pay him much mind (except as a possible State Department mole for Wilson Axis)
Cheney, he said, was a ”good executive” as defence secretary under George H. W. Bush but appeared to change as a result of the September 11, 2001 attacks. ”I think (he) saw 9/11 and the potential for another 9/11 with nuclear weapons and suddenly became so fixated on that problem that it skewed his approach,” Wilkerson said, adding that neither he nor Rumsfeld could be considered neo-conservatives.
He thinks Cheney had a change of heart about nuclear weapons in the hands of terrorists after 9-11? The more important questions is why didn’t Wilkerson? How many 9-11’s would it take to hit home with this cold hearted bastard? How many of us was he willing to let die because he was not fixated on the risk?
I am not sure what to make of Wilkerson, to be honest. But he is a definite candidate for the State Department leak source. Maybe he waited this long to retire because of Fitz Magoo’s ‘investigation’.
AJ –
This from a lefty blogger, but it excerpts some of Wilson words:
That’s because Scowcroft was involved in the Plame Affair from the start.
Scowcroft and Wilson first met when Poppy Bush was declaring Wilson a “true American hero” after Wilson got back from Baghdad in 1991. But they grew to know each other better through their mutual involvement in the American-Turkish Council. They discussed the rising push for war, but Scowcroft assured Wilson that the “right-wing nuts” would not “win the policy.” (Wilson 290)
In Fall 2002, as both Scowcroft and Wilson started publishing op-eds against regime change, Scowcroft was at least partially responsible for bringing Wilson to the attention of the Administration. Scowcroft brought a copy of Wilson’s San Jose Mercury News column to show some people in the White House.
I sent my article to Scowcroft, Baker, and the president’s father out of courtesy, because I referred to the lessons learned in the diplomacy of the first Gulf War.
[snip]
Brent called me when he received the article. He kindly asked if he could “take it over to the White House,” only about two blocks from his downtown office. He said that he thought senior officials ought to read the views of somebody who actually had experience in Iraq and with Saddam’s government. By this, I took him to mean that he intended to share it with the national security adviser, Dr. Condoleezza Rice, or her deputy, Stephen Hadley. (Wilson 295-6)
So Scowcroft is–at the very least–witness to the fact that someone in the Administration knew about Wilson well before his July 6 2003 article.
But I don’t think that’s where Scowcroft’s involvement in this affair ends. In his description of how he made up his mind to write his op-ed, Wilson says the following.
The last straw came when Dr. Rice, in a June 8 appearance on Meet the Press, told Tim Russert: “Maybe somebody in the bowels of the Agency knew something about this, but nobody in my circles.” That was a lie, and I knew it. She had to have known it as well. The next day, I called a former government official who knew Dr. Rice and expressed my disgust at her continuing refusal to tell the truth. He replied that the interview had not been one of her finest moments. (Wilson 332)
I don’t think it’s too wild a guess to imagine this former government official is Scowcroft. After all, he was probably responsible for introducing Wilson’s writing to Condi. So it would make sense for Wilson to call Scowcroft to share his disgust with Condi’s claim that she had never heard of his trip; Scowcroft may know, after all, that she did. And the comment that the interview “had not been one of her finest moments” sure sounds like something a mentor would say to express disappointment at seeing his protege fail.
And if you believe that speculation, then this passage…
For four months, from March to July, I did what I could to encourage the White House to come clean on what it knew, including speaking to people close to the administration, senior officials at the State Department, and to staffs of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees. [emphasis mine]
…suggests Wilson may have been working through Scowcroft (and others) for months to try to get the Administration to admit they knew the Niger claims were bunk
(LINK)
This is also Wilson:
“he last straw came when Dr. Rice, in a June 8 appearance on Meet the Press, told Tim Russert: “Maybe somebody in the bowels of the Agency knew something about this, but nobody in my circles.” That was a lie, and I knew it. She had to have known it as well.
[snip]
A call to a senior official in the administration elicited the suggestion that I might have to write the story myself. I took the remark to heart and called David Shipley, the editor of the op-ed page at the New York Times. He immediately offered me fifteen hundred words to tell my story.
Still, I hesitated, in the hope that pressure from journalists would force the hand of the administration. But two weeks after the Rice remark on Meet the Press, with my name now openly circulating among the press, it was clear that sooner or later my anonymity was going to be sacrificed on the altar of the story. (Politics of Truth 332)”
(LINK)
Gee….ya think? Anyways, do you think this is how the connection to Kristof came about….look in both columns— right hand side Kristof, Left Judy Miller and who is the Group Chairmen? Oh Scowcroft.
(LINK)
A call to a senior official in the administration elicited the suggestion that I might have to write the story myself.
who would that be?
Plame Game – Deep in the DNC ‘Doo-Doo’
As I work the connections I’ve discovered for a future post, AJ Strata has begun to link few things between last year’s Kerry Campaign, portions of the NSC, CIA and the Niger forgery story. AJ is definately on to something here.
I am only bolding tis because I did not notice it AS BRIGHTLY before
For four months, from March to July, I did what I could to encourage the White House to come clean on what it knew, including speaking to people close to the administration, senior officials at the State Department, and to staffs of the House and Senate Intelligence Committees. [emphasis mine]
March huh? Beers left after the start of the war which was mid to late March.
Hey AJ, speaking of Wilkerson, look at him posturing in this article.
Asked whether the vice-president was guilty of a war crime, Mr Wilkerson replied: “Well, that’s an interesting question – it was certainly a domestic crime to advocate terror and I would suspect that it is … an international crime as well.” In the context of other remarks it appeared he was using the word “terror” to apply to the systematic abuse of prisoners.
The Washington Post last month called Mr Cheney the “vice-president for torture” for his demand that the CIA be exempted from a ban on “cruel, inhuman and degrading” treatment of detainees.
Mr Wilkerson, a former army colonel, also said he had seen increasing evidence that the White House had manipulated pre-war intelligence on Iraq to make its case for the invasion. He said: “You begin to wonder was this intelligence spun? Was it politicised? Was it cherry-picked? Did, in fact, the American people get fooled? I am beginning to have my concerns.
Don’t forget that fake Republican Carl Ford. I think he is definately involved more than we think. He was at the State Department, was former CIA, and I believe he was involved with the State of the Union speech.
SBD
As usual, some really good sleuthing. I do have a slight problem with one interpretation, though, see > below, second para:
“Here is what Wilson said to Andrea Mitchell on July 6 2003 [Hat tip: reader Mary Mapes]
AMB. WILSON: Andrea, when I was in the National Security Council, I was senior director for African affairs, and subsequent to that, when I wrote this article, >
OK, this could have been in May or June of 2003 or earlier. But isn’t interesting Joe Wilson is contacting ‘then-vice president’s [Cheney’s] staff’? He is also contacting NSC staff. But let’s let Joe set some time lines for us:” (END)
Joe Wilson was Director for African Affairs at NSC from 1997 to 1998. I would interpret the “then Vice-President” to have been Al Gore, not (now) Vice-President Cheney.
Similarly, the phrase “other senior members of the NSC staff” I would think refers to his former 1997-1998 NSC colleagues.
Wilson, in talking to Mitchell, seems to place emphasis on the “senior” category of staff members (he only talked to the most important people, I guess). However, in copies of at least some published bio-sketches of Wilson, the word “senior” does not precede the title “Director for African Affairs…”
I don’t know if the omission is an error, or if “senior” wasn’t part of his title, and I doubt if it matters much to anyone other than Wilson. But my point here is, whether his contacts are or were in the present Administration, it may be more likely than not that they were (also) in the previous one.
Carl Ford gave campaign money to Murtha and in 1999, he gave to John Kerry.
Carl Ford Campaign Money
SBD
[…] AJStrata and MacRanger have been working overtime on the Wilson/Plame affair and wow, have they discovered some doozies. First AJ outlines what we know so far about the possible collusion between Kerry, the CIA, and the Wilsons: There is more and more evidence that there was a lot of collusion between the Wilsons, people at the CIA and people at the State Department to put out a sham story on the Niger forgeries to help Kerry get elected. Here is the evidence (which somehow Inspector Clousseu Fitzgerald keeps missing). […]
The CIA Coup
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