Joseph C. Wilson

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Joseph Charles Wilson IV (born November 61949) was a United States foreign service diplomat between 1976 and 1998. He has achieved his recent notoriety from an op-ed essay[1] published on July 62003, in the New York Times in which he revealed his February 2002 trip investigating whether Iraq purchased or attempted to purchase Yellowcake from Niger in the late 1990's. In his op-ed piece, published 4 months after the war began, he accused the Bush Administration of "exaggerating the Iraqi threat" in order to justify war. Shortly thereafter, while musing on the choice of Wilson for the Niger mission, columnist Robert Novak noted the fact that Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, worked for the CIA. For information on this, see the Plame Affair. The information was published in a July 142003 column[2] in which he said, "Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction. Two senior administration officials told me Wilson's wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate the Italian report." Deputy Attorney General James Comey (then Attorney General John Ashcroft having recused himself from the case) named Patrick J. Fitzgerald as a special prosecutor to determine who was involved in disclosing the identity of a CIA operative. As of October 28th, 2005, this investigation has resulted in two indictment related to alleged misconduct that hindered the investigation. These indictments charge Lewis Libby with making false statements to investigators & a federal grand jury.

See: Plame affair and Plame scandal timeline.

Contents

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Education

Wilson is a 1972 graduate of the University of California, Santa Barbara. He joked that he majored in "history, volleyball, and surfing" [3], maintaining a "C" average, but became much more serious about his education after graduating. He learned to speak French fluently, and entered the Foreign Service in 1976, specializing in African affairs.

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Career

Wilson was a member of the U.S. Diplomatic Service from 1976 through 1998. From 1988 to 1991, he was the Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, Iraq. He was hailed as "truly inspiring" and "courageous" by George H. W. Bush after sheltering more than one hundred Americans at the embassy, despite Saddam Hussein's threats to execute anyone who refused to hand over foreigners. As a result, in 1990, he also became the last American diplomat to meet with Saddam Hussein (Wilson, 2003). When Saddam sent a note to Wilson (along with other embassy heads in Iraq) threatening to execute anyone sheltering foreigners in Iraq, Wilson publicly repudiated the dictator by showing up to a press conference wearing a homemade noose around his neck. Saddam offered a public apology for the diplomatic note.

Wilson later served as U.S. ambassador to Gabon and São Tomé and Príncipe under President George H. W. Bush and helped direct Africa policy for the National Security Council under President Bill Clinton.

Wilson manages JCWilson International Ventures, Corporation, a consulting firm specializing in strategic management and international business development.

Wilson is a speaker represented exclusively by Greater Talent Network.

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Political ties

Wilson was a supporter and donor to the Kerry/Edwards campaign for the presidency and served as an unpaid advisor and speechwriter for the Kerry campaign in 2003 and 2004. In 2000, he donated both to Vice President Gore’s and to George W. Bush's presidential campaigns. In 2003, he formally endorsed Kerry for President, and donated $2,000 to his campaign.[4] Wilson has also stated he will never vote for a Republican. [Scott Shane, “Private Spy And Public Spouse Live At Center Of Leak Case,” The New York Times, 7/5/05] In the mid-eighties, Wilson worked for Gore as a congressional staffer. He has made contributions to the campaigns of Democratic candidates such as Hillary Clinton and Ted Kennedy, and to Republicans such as California Rep. Ed Royce and Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter.[5] He has in the recent past spoken to activist groups like Win Without War, a nonpartisan coalition of groups which oppose the War in Iraq.

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The trip to Niger

In late February of 2002, Wilson had been sent to Niger on behalf of the CIA to investigate the possibility that Saddam Hussein had attempted to buy enriched uranium yellowcake. Wilson concluded then that there "was nothing to the story".

But he also reported that, although former Nigerien prime minister Ibrahim Assane Mayaki was unaware of any pending sales contract with Iraq, an Iraqi delegation had approached him in June 1999, expressing an interest in "expanding commercial relations." Mayaki believed this may have meant that they wanted to purchase yellowcake uranium, one of Niger’s few exports. Mayaki claimed he refused to discuss any trade issues at all due to active UN sanctions on Iraq, and so steered the conversation in another direction. [6] An editorial in the Washington Post claimed that "Mr. Wilson was the one guilty of twisting the truth. In fact, his report [to the CIA] supported the conclusion that Iraq had sought uranium." The last time Iraq sought uranium from Niger, according to the Duelfer Report, was 1981. The editorial also claimed that "President Bush was right to approve the declassification of parts of a National Intelligence Estimate about Iraq three years ago in order to make clear why he had believed that Saddam Hussein was seeking nuclear weapons." [7] An editorial in the Wall Street Journal makes similar claims: "In short, Joe Wilson hadn't told the truth about what he'd discovered in Africa, how he'd discovered it, what he'd told the CIA about it, or even why he was sent on the mission. The media and the Kerry campaign promptly abandoned him, though the former never did give as much prominence to his debunking as they did to his original accusations. But if anyone can remember another public figure so entirely and thoroughly discredited, let us know."[8]

A news report in the same issue of the Post as the editorial contradicted these statements, however, reporting that the CIA's National Intelligence Estimate was skeptical of claims of uranium procurement; according to the NIE, "U.S. intelligence did not know the status of Iraq's procurement efforts, 'cannot confirm' any success and had 'inconclusive' evidence about Iraq's domestic uranium operations... The State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, likewise, called the claim 'highly dubious.' For those reasons, the uranium story was relegated to a brief inside passage in the October estimate."[9]

The Post's ombudsman, Deborah Howell, noted that the editorial was written before the front-page report and that the writer had not read the report. She also noted that the basis for the editorial's claim that Wilson's report "supported the conclusion that Iraq had sought uranium" was the mere fact that there was a meeting between Iraqi and Nigerien trade officials "because that's mostly what Niger has to export." She also noted that the editorial had inconsistently dealt with the report of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, which noted that "the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research analysts believed that [Wilson's] report supported their assessment that Niger was unlikely to be willing or able to sell uranium to Iraq." She also advised that "It would have been helpful if the editorial had put statements about Wilson in more context -- especially the controversy over his trip and what he said."[10]

An article in the 25 October 2005 edition of the Italian newspaper La Repubblica[11][12] indicates that some of Wilson's statements about Niger were correct.[13][14][15] The article states that Nicolo Pollari, head of the Italian Intelligence Service, SISMI, knew the Niger documents were forgeries, but tried to go around the CIA to get them into the public eye in the US. The documents contained several misspelled French words and contained signatures from Nigerien officials who hadn't even been in office at the time they were signed, although Wilson did not see any of these documents during his trip to Niger.

La Repubblica also claims that Pollari met with Stephen Hadley, previously the Deputy National Security Advisor, on 9 September, 2002, to discuss the documents without going to the CIA, who had reservation about the documents. That meeting was before President Bush gave his major speech on 7 October, 2002 saying, "The Iraqi regime.... possesses and produces chemical and biological weapons. It is seeking nuclear weapons". An effort was made to include in that speech the specific claim that uranium was sought from Niger, but the CIA had that claim removed from the speech (source). President George W. Bush then included the 16 words in his January 2003 speech that uranium had been sought from Africa, even after the CIA had expressed reservations in October 2002. The National Intelligence Estimate of October 2002 said, "the claims of Iraqi pursuit of natural uranium in Africa are, in INR's assessment, highly dubious".[16][17][18][19]

On 11 December 2005, the Los Angeles Times reported that French intelligence had warned the Bush Administration repeatedly that there was no evidence that Saddam sought uranium from Niger. The Times reported that "The French conclusions were reached after extensive on-the-ground investigations in Niger and other former French colonies, where the uranium mines are controlled by French companies, said Alain Chouet, the French former official. He said the French investigated at the CIA's request.... [T]he essence of Chouet's account — that the French repeatedly investigated the Niger claim, found no evidence to support it, and warned the CIA — was extensively corroborated by [a] former CIA official and a current French government official, who both spoke on condition of anonymity."[20]

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The op-ed

The controversy surrounding Wilson began with President Bush's 2003 State of the Union Address [21], in which he stated that "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." Two months later, documents suggesting that Iraq had tried to buy 500 tons of uranium from Niger, were judged to be "obvious" forgeries by the IAEA. However, it is suggested the documents that the IAEA judged to be forgeries were not the same documents that the British based their original assessment on. Two British Parliamentary reports confirmed the original intelligence. One of these reports (the Butler Report) suggested that the forged documents were distributed with the knowing goal of being discovered as obvious forgeries so as to discredit the intelligence. The revelations in La Repubblica (above) seem to counter this allegation. Furthermore, although other sources for the uranium claim are mentioned no evidence of their existence has been advanced. The documents were obtained by the U.S. Embassy in Rome on October 92002, and distributed throughout the U.S. intelligence community shortly thereafter, but not passed on to the IAEA until February 32003. The IAEA released its report a month later, just weeks before the start of the Iraq war.

On July 62003, Wilson authored an op-ed essay in the New York Times[22] in which he accused the Bush administration of "exaggerating the Iraqi threat" in order to justify war. In the article, Wilson states: "The vice president's office asked a serious question. I was asked to help formulate the answer." Critics of Wilson have contended that he falsely claimed to have been sent by the vice president personally. However, in the quotation above and other instances Wilson has said only that he was sent by the CIA in response to questions asked by the vice president's office. Then CIA director George Tenet has said that the administration was not directly briefed on Wilson's report.

"Because this report, in our view, did not resolve whether Iraq was or was not seeking uranium from abroad, it was given a normal and wide distribution (within the intelligence community), but we did not brief it to the President, Vice-President or other senior Administration officials. "[23]

The day after Wilson's editorial, titled "What I Didn't Find in Africa" appeared, White House aides said that the State of the Union Address should not have contained the reference. And Secretary of State Colin Powell, then traveling with the President in Africa, gave a press conference addressing the issue, saying "There was sufficient evidence floating around at that time that such a statement was not totally outrageous or not to be believed or not to be appropriately used. It's that once we used the statement, and after further analysis, and looking at other estimates we had, and other information that was coming in, it turned out that the basis upon which that statement was made didn't hold up, and we said so, and we've acknowledged it, and we've moved on."[24]

The administration still maintains that other intelligence that Iraq may have attempted to acquire uranium in Africa may have been correct. Many supporters of the theory point to the Butler Review, which found, without showing evidence for it, there was credible intelligence that Iraq had attempted to acquire uranium from Niger in 1999, but not 2002, and less certain intelligence that Iraq had attempted to acquire uranium from the Democratic Republic of Congo. Critics of the theory view the evidence relating to the Democratic Republic of Congo as suspect, and point out that while the President's speech mentioned only Africa, press secretary Ari Fleischer explicitly affirmed that this was a reference to Niger.[25] In addition, nuclear expert Norman Dombey has pointed out that the information relied upon by the Butler Review on the Niger issue was incomplete; as he noted, "The Butler report says the claim was credible because an Iraqi diplomat visited Niger in 1999, and almost three-quarters of Niger's exports were uranium. But this is irrelevant, since France controls Niger's uranium mines."(Independent, 25 July 2004). And when asked by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence to discuss the conclusions of British intelligence, Deputy Director of Central Intelligence John McLaughlin stated, "The one thing where I think they stretched a little bit beyond where we would stretch is on the points about Iraq seeking uranium from various African locations. We've looked at those reports and we don't think they are very credible. It doesn't diminish our conviction that he's going for nuclear weapons, but I think they reached a little bit on that one point."[26]

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The Senate Intelligence Committee Report

A Senate Intelligence Committee report issued on July 7, 2004 challenged some of the statements made by Wilson.

The report suggests that Wilson's wife was involved in his selection for the mission. As reported by the Washington Post:

The report states that a CIA official told the Senate committee that Plame "offered up" Wilson's name for the Niger trip, then on Feb. 12, 2002, sent a memo to a deputy chief in the CIA's Directorate of Operations saying her 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." The next day, the operations official cabled an overseas officer seeking concurrence with the idea of sending Wilson, the report said. [27]

High ranking CIA officials told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that they disputed the claim that Plame was involved in the final decision to send Wilson, and indicated that the operations official who made it was not present at the meeting where Wilson was chosen. And Newsday reported the following:

A senior intelligence officer confirmed that Plame was a Directorate of Operations undercover officer who worked ‘alongside’ the operations officers who asked her husband to travel to Niger. “But he said she did not recommend her husband to undertake the Niger assignment. ‘They (the officers who did ask Wilson to check the uranium story) were aware of who she was married to, which is not surprising,’ he said. ‘There are people elsewhere in government who are trying to make her look like she was the one who was cooking this up, for some reason,’ he said. ‘I can’t figure out what it could be.’ 'We paid his (Wilson’s) airfare. But to go to Niger is not exactly a benefit. Most people you’d have to pay big bucks to go there,’ the senior intelligence official said. Wilson said. he was reimbursed only for expenses. (July 22 2003)

Wilson wrote: "Apart from being the conduit of a message from a colleague in her office asking if I would be willing to have a conversation about Niger's uranium industry, Valerie had had nothing to do with the matter." And former CIA officer Larry Johnson elaborated:

Another false claim is that Valerie sent her husband on the mission to Niger. According to the Senate Intelligence Committee Report issued in July 2004, it is clear that the Vice President himself requested that the CIA provide its views on a Defense Intelligence Agency report that Iraq was trying to acquire uranium from Niger. The Vice President's request was relayed through the CIA bureaucracy to the Director of the Counter Proliferation Division at the CIA. Valerie worked for a branch in that Division. The Senate Intelligence Report is frequently cited by Republican partisans as "proof" that Valerie sent her husband to Niger because she sent a memo describing her husband's qualifications to the Deputy Division Chief. Several news personalities, such as Chris Matthews and Bill O'Reilly continue to repeat this nonsense as proof. What the Senate Intelligence Committee does not include in the report is the fact that Valerie's boss had asked her to write a memo outlining her husband's qualifications for the job. She did what any good employee does; she gave her boss what he asked for.[28]

Accounts of Valerie Plame's involvement in her husband's selection differ. Wilson has claimed that she simply contacted him on the agency's behalf and escorted him to the meeting before leaving. The evidence cited above, if accurate, would indicate that Plame may also have recommended her husband and/or written a summary of his qualifications when he was being considered. However, as written by the Committee, "Interviews and documents provided to the Committee indicate that his wife, a CPD [Counterproliferation Division] employee, suggested his name for the trip," said the report.

Wilson's report has also come under fire for inconsistency. As reported in the same Washington Post article:

The report also said Wilson provided misleading information to The Washington Post last June. He said then that he concluded the Niger intelligence was based on documents that had clearly 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 Senate panel said. Wilson told the panel he may have been confused and may have "misspoken" to reporters. The documents -- purported sales agreements between Niger and Iraq -- were not in U.S. hands until eight months after Wilson made his trip to Niger.

Here are the facts as determined by the Senate Select Committee's investigation (pages 39-44):

  • The U.S. embassy in Niger issued a cable reporting that the alleged Iraq-Niger uranium deal warranted a hard look.
  • Valerie Plame suggested her husband travel to Niger to look into it.
  • A WINPAC analyst sent an email saying the results "from this source" will be suspect and not believable but CIA decided to send Wilson anyway.
  • In February 2002, Wilson arrived in Niger and met with former officials of Niger, no current officials.
  • On March 1, 2002 the CIA published an intelligence assessment, Niger: Sale of Uranium to Iraq is Unlikely, unrelated to Wilson's trip. This assessment was not provided to Vice President Cheney.
  • On March 8, 2002 an intelligence report based on Wilson's trip was disseminated. The report indicated the former Prime Minister of Niger had said no contracts to sell uranium to Iraq were signed during his tenure. However, an Iraqi delegation had approached him in June 1999 to discuss "expanding commercial relations." The Prime Minister took this to mean uranium yellowcake sales. The PM let the matter drop due to UN sanctions on Iraq.

The Senate Report was critical of Wilson because his description of his findings differed from the DO intelligence report and his description of the information provided to him by the CIA differed from the CIA's account. Wilson told the Senate his findings refuted the notion Iraq had sought uranium from Niger. The intelligence report actually confirmed that Iraq had approached Niger for increased trade, which was interpreted by the PM as seeking uranium. Wilson claimed the CIA told him about documents pertaining to an alleged uranium sale to Iraq. The CIA reports officer denied giving Wilson any such information and noted there were no "documents" circulating at the time. (Pages 44-45)

Many further details of the trip can be found in the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Report on the U.S. Intelligence Community's Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq, which contains a 48-page section dealing with intelligence related to Niger.

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Criticism of Wilson

Wilson was criticized recently for allegedly talking about his wife's CIA job prior to the column by Novak. Retired Army Maj. Gen. Paul E. Vallely claimed on the John Batchelor radio show that Wilson had spoken to him about his wife's role with the CIA while they were waiting together in the green room before appearing together on FOX News. He said this occurred on three to five occasions, first in February or March of 2002. Vallely also said Wilson was proud to routinely introduce his wife as a CIA employee at cocktail parties per a tabloid source.[29]

Wilson has since demanded that Vallely retract these allegations, calling them "patently false." Wilson wrote to his attorney in an email included in his demand for a retraction: "This is slanderous. I never appeared on TV before at least July 2002 and only saw him maybe twice in the green room at FOX. Vallely is a retired general and this is a bald faced lie.... I never laid eyes on [Vallely] till several months after he alleges I spoke to him about my wife."[30]

On November 7, 2005, Lt. General Tom McInerney (USAF Retired) contended that Joe Wilson bragged to him about his wife's job with the CIA while waiting in the green room at FOX News. [31]

A compendium of the times that Wilson and Vallely appeared on FOX has revealed that there is only one possible date, September 12, 2002, during which the two would have been in the green room within hours of each other. According to Jeralyn Merritt, who went through the FOX transcripts to compile this information, "That date, Wilson's segment was over 15 minutes before Vallely's began. The Fox green room in New York is very small and contains an even smaller makeup room that only has one guest chair. Guests are by themselves in the makeup room. I assume Wilson would have been having his makeup done before his segment, so Vallely wouldn't have been with him then. Even if they did overlap in the green room for a couple of minutes, it strains credulity to think the topic of Wilson's wife's employment with the CIA would have come up. There likely would have only time for mere pleasantries."[32]

Former CIA officer Larry C. Johnson questions the credibility of both Generals, noting "I too was a Fox News Contributor in 2002 and spent a lot of time in the Green Room with both Vallely and McInerney. I saw them but never saw Joe Wilson. What is really curious is that I know I spent more time with Vallely and McInerney than Joe Wilson ever did and the subject of my wife (or their wives) never came up."[33] Former Naval intelligence officer and NSA analyst Wayne Madsen similarly pointed out: "As someone who spent a fair amount of time at Fox News' Washington green room, I can say that Vallely is full of crap. When you are booked by Fox to appear, a car is sent around to pick you up. The car arrives with enough time to transport you to the studios at 400 North Capitol Street, usually 15 minutes before air time. However, most of that time is spent checking in and sitting for makeup. If you happen upon another guest in the green room before sitting for makeup, they are likely only minutes from air time -- certainly not enough time to engage in a biographical rendition about your family with a total stranger. If two guests appeared at the same time at Fox in Washington, they were taken to different studios."[34]

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Book: The Politics of Truth

In 2004, Wilson published a book, The Politics of Truth, with the subtitle, "Inside the Lies that Led to War and Betrayed my Wife's CIA Identity". The book gives is an autobiographical account of over two decades of foreign service, in addition to giving his personal account of the events leading to his decision to go public with his criticisms of the Bush administration, and what he views as an orchestrated attack by administration officials in retaliation for his coming forward. The book also provided fuel for many of Wilson's critics, who perceived an increasingly partisan tone and who found in it what they believed were inconsistencies with some of Wilson's prior statements. Some also saw the book as both financially and politically opportunistic, particularly given its release in an election year.(May, Schmidt, 2004).

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See also

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External links and references

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