Did you catch the part where they ramped up work on Iraq in the *summer* of 2001, i.e., before 9/11?
Curious, that.
This does make it clear that Chenney et al. knew who she was and considered her to be a political enemy. Part of the CIA faction that wasn't finding evidance of WMDs.
They probably saw Wilson's article as an attempt for the CIA to prevent the war. There is something to that. If there was good evidance of WMDs, Plame could have persuaded her husband to not publish the article.
Wilson's article was published after the war started -- May, wasn't it?
1: Lex, why is that curious? Iraq never had anything to do with 9/11, and this lot had been talking about it since before they were in power (see PfaNAC)
Think of 9/11 & Afghanistan as a detour for them on their way to Iraq...
Corn has been holding this to promote his book, it wasn't a secret to anyone with classified access. You can be sure Fitz knew about this from the beginning of his investigation. He's still not done.
Think of 9/11 & Afghanistan as a detour for them on their way to Iraq...
Then think of Iraq as a strategic detour on their way to Iran.
Then think of Iran as a pit-stop on their way to Candyland.
"Candyland" s/b "Armageddon" (Same difference, to them.)
7 -- I totally read that as Cleveland, and wondered what malicious plans the neo-cons had for the Cuyahogas. Need to get more sleep.
3: Yes, July. I vaguely remember some pushback on the sixteen words from before the war but I don't know what I'm thinking of.
8: Exactly.
9: It saddens me to think that Cleveland would probably lose that match-up - Browns vs. The Red-State Rovers - as well.
11: Man, first the river catches on fire, then the Indians choke in 2005, then we get invaded in a search for non-existant WMDs. Cleveland can't catch a break.
RE 3
I didn't know that. Next time the CIA should leak before the war happens when it could make a diiference.
This is big news to me in that it raises the question of how Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson got framed up so prettily, & why they fell for it. Because seriously, Joseph Wilson IV is the perfect fall guy.
Anybody who can spell G-O-P knows Wilson's personal connection to the Agency was politically radioactive. Maybe neither Wilson was by trade a "politician", but long careers in Washington go to those who understand how bureaucracy works. V P Wilson's hand anywhere in the decison to hire her husband to answer a question whose answer could affect her own career made his report the next best thing to "plausibly deniable": Wilson could be to some degree discredited regardless of what he said.
So how did the Nigeria mission happen, I wonder? If VP Wilson was "chief of operations" for her unit, and her unit was responding (as has been reported) to a request from outside the Agency, then somebody else must have been in on the decision with her. If she wasn't going to be presenting the report directly to the office that asked the question, then surely she was going to present the report to someone who was in communication with that office.
If it sounds like I'm saying we need more CIA officers to get outed...well, I'm not quite saying that. What I'm curious about is how Joe Wilson's name came up. (Assuming that Joe Wilson was not in fact the only U.S. diplomat who was able to travel to Nigeria without starting a war.) I don't recall a direct quote about this, but my understanding of V P Wilson's position is that Joe Wilson was suggested for the role and that she was consulted about the suggestion.
Who knew V P Wilson's husband was qualified for the Nigeria mission, and when did they know it?
What I'm curious about is how Joe Wilson's name came up.
He was actually very much the logical choice. He had been an acting ambassador to Iraq during the last war, and had also been ambassador to Gabon, which is the only other French-speaking, uranium-producing country in Africa, IIRC. He's almost uniquely qualified.
(And it's Niger, not Nigeria)
soubzriquet at 4: Iraq never had anything to do with 9/11, and this lot had been talking about it since before they were in power (see PfaNAC)
Yeah, that was kind of my point. I guess irony doesn't transmit well on the Intertubes.
15: Wasn't Wilson's report strictly internal to the Veep's office and CIA, before he went public with it? So discrediting it with the public wasn't an issue. What was an issue was that it might be discredited inside the administration; and that would only be an issue insofar as the administration wanted to discredit anything that didn't give their preferred answer, given which it didn't really matter who reported on what. If the CIA folks thought that the Veep's office was asking a sincere question to learn information, then there wasn't any reason to worry about whether J Wilson's connections could make him discreditable.
This is probably hideously naive.
16:
Also, just to be clear: my real question (in light of the revelation noted in the post) isn't "who knew Joe Wilson was qualified for the mission?" My question is "who knew V P Wilson's husband was qualified?"
The sense I've gotten was that he was an obvious choice (local knowledge, etc.) and that her involvement was limited to approaching him. I don't think the mission was seen within the CIA at the time as something that needed to be unimpeachable through accusations of nepotistic plotting.
2: This does make it clear that Cheney et al. knew who she was
Actually, no, it doesn't. If the dots are connected, it isn't in Corn's piece, tho his intro certainly does finesse the lack of connection. Of course, it does make it seem more likely that Cheney would've picked up that info ...
20: Both versions of your question assume he was, in fact, qualified. Which he was. Which is why I've never understood why the fact that he was married to Valerie P. Wilson was ever relevant to or indicative of anything.
It wasn't -- the connection just gave them a bullshit excuse to punish the two of them by wrecking her career.
It seems that it was sort of a warning shot to the CIA that Bush was going to go after them.
The loyalty of the Bush supporters on this is terrifying. I never, ever, thought that I would end up lending my small support the the nice CIA, and trying to protect it from bad people.
The loyalty of the Bush supporters on this is terrifying
Not just on this. On everything. It's a pure cult of personality.
"3. This realization isn't mine, I got it from a friend: Cheney and his staff must have known who she was, and what she was working on, at the time they outed her.
4. Bush's relatively recent admission that they were mistaken about the WMDs was a lie from start to finish. The Bush administration knew that well before the war started.
5. Thanks to the magic of global mass communications, the rest of the world now knows it too."
I had always said it was about Plame, not Wilson. Wilson, was of course, limited in how he could characterize the WH motivations. There remains a question of "Why Joe" that is slightly open for me still. Obviously, he scared the WH silly, which may not be irrelevant. Joe saved lives by the bucketload, including Iraq Embassy lives in '91. Putting Joe in the game may have added dozens of powerful players(eg, Larry Johnson), and sent a message.
2 mistakes I did make:1) VP was in Greece, not the 'stans. 2) VP was in charge of Iraq. I had thought Iran WMD.
My name's on the tombstone of quite a few, Bob.
Maybe we should discuss whether Valerie Wilson is HOT?
Compared to Cindy Crawford, or J. Biel? Or the young Liz Taylor?