Manipulating Intelligence?

Today, Harry Reid has burned the biggest bridge in Senate history. Not by filibustering Bush's new Supreme Court nominee, but rather by shutting down the Senate in what amounts to an apparent 'Pearl Harbor Strategy' to revive the idea that Bush lied to invade Iraq. Maybe Democrats are finally seeing the light at the end of the tunnel... or is it actually a train heading down the tracks?

"The Libby indictment provides a window into what this is really all about, how this administration manufactured and manipulated intelligence in order to sell the war in Iraq and attempted to destroy those who dared to challenge its actions," Reid said before invoking Senate rules that led to the closed session.

...Democrats contend that the unmasking of Valerie Plame was retribution for her husband, Joseph Wilson, publicly challenging the Bush administration's contention that Iraq was seeking to purchase uranium from Africa. That claim was part of the White House's justification for going to war. abcnews

"...manufactured and manipulated intelligence..." This is THE most repeated phrase I have heard in the last two to three years. Repeated by those who also repeatedly claim that Bush or a member of his administration is just like Nazi propaganda minister Goebbels. The irony here is that they have been repeating such lies so often that they have probably convinced themselves that the technique is worth trying themselves.

Truth, however, is more effective than merely repeating lies. If there were ever a perfect example of anyone manufacturing and manipulating intelligence it is Joseph Wilson, who has been caught in so many lies that he should be entirely discredited, (but alas you do not need credibility to promote leftist causes).

Joseph Wilson claims to be 'apolitical'

On September 29th, 2003 he told Paula Zahn:

First of all, Novak also said that I was a Clinton appointee. In actual fact, my first political appointee was as ambassador. And I was appointed by George H.W. Bush, the first President Bush. So I really am apolitical in all of this. cnn

Yet he clearly has a well defined and extreme set of far left beliefs about a great many issues as well as a documented animosity against the Bush Administration. In short he has a severe case of BDS. I cannot imagine that he suddenly found his true beliefs only after visiting Niger at the behest of his wife.

Not only did Wilson unethically have his wife send him to Niger to 'investigate' the 'crazy' claim of the Bush administration that Iraq was attempting to acquire nuclear materials, but then he came back and deliberately tried to make it seem as though the Vice President had sent him to do so, which I will get to in a moment.

After Wilson returned from 'debunking' this story, which the Senate Intelligence Committee in fact confirms, he expressed his real views at a far left symposium on June 14, 2003, about the Iraq war, four months before he told Paula Zahn he was really, "apolitical in all of this". (The following quote is also before the Novak column.)

"...it doesn't show up on your television screens as shock and awe, [or] the burning of Baghdad at night, or the firebombing of Dresden. But it yeilds results. But this administration could not be patient. I remember these guys saying, the warmongers, --and I agree with you that they're, they have... there is no reason why we should allow them to kidnap our flag, and this morning before I went to play golf, before the sun came up I had-- or as the sun was coming up (because you can't put it out before the sun comes up), as the sun was coming up I had my flag out there because I'm not going to let these assholes claim that they're more patriotic than I am." Audio from event. 12:39 - 13:21

This puts his later quote into context when he said: "It's of keen interest to me to see whether or not we can get Karl Rove frog-marched out of the White House in handcuffs."

The idea that Wilson has ever been apolitical is, in charitable terms, hard to believe.

Did Wilson lie about who sent him to Niger?

Wilson gave an interview to New York Times reporter who first printed the idea that Wilson went to Niger at Cheney's request. Where would the NYTimes get the idea that Cheney sent Wilson? Did Wilson say that Cheney sent him? Or did he say that the CIA sent him at the request of the Vice President's office? Well, I have found another quote that might shed some light on what he might have been saying to reporters and others that might have given them the idea that the government of George W. Bush, and in particular the Vice President sent him to Niger...

...I just want to assure you that American ambassador who has been cited in reports in the New York Times and in the Washington Post, and now in the Guardian over in London, who actually went over to Niger on behalf of the government-not of the CIA but of the government-and came back in February of 2002 and told the government that there was nothing to this story, later called the government after the British white paper was published... From audio 1:32 - 2:03

So we see that Joseph Wilson is quite practiced on being coy about these kinds of statements. There is good reason to believe that he initially tried to make others believe that Cheney's office was directly responsible for his trip to Niger. I don't know, maybe he actually believed that. Maybe that's part of his fantasy about making trips for the CIA. Who knows.

What it begins to show is a pattern of deception.

END PART ONE

[H]egemonic Word count: 966