That’s funny, Curt. It is based upon the assumption that you are right and that anyone who opposes you and fails to accept your opinions has “dug in their heels”. That’s not at all what you’re accusing me of doing, is it?

Listen, I’ve got my sources, and you’ve got yours. Every time I bring up mine in a conversation here, you talk about giving up because it’s useless. I want us to discuss both of our sources and what they really say. It is currently my opinion that your interpretations are wrong. If you actually tried to convince me otherwise, you might succeed. So far, I don’t feel like a sufficient effort has been put forth.

For instance, Mike mentioned how we found 500 tons of uranium in Iraq. Then, I explained this and provided documentation to show where I’m getting the idea that Saddam had no WMDs. If you think I’m wrong, refute my source or my interpretation of it. As it stands, it seems to me that the ISG has declared that Saddam had no WMDs. Am I wrong?

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Give it up guys. I learned long ago that Reasic was one of those all to common lefties who cherry pick facts and ignore anything that would refute the world they see. Your time would be better spent having discussions with the rare lefty who hasn’t dug their heels in….I know, a rare breed.

And Reasic is not one of those.

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If you are puzzled by the timid reaction by the Administration in pursuing both matters then join the club. One can only conclude that after walking into a now four year buzz saw for daring to rightly suggest that Wilson’s wife was the reason Wilson went to Africa, the Administration is reluctant to face another Democrat/Media propaganda offensive.

This is the funny part to me. You guys make such a big deal out of Berger and Wilson and how they should be prosecuted, but the White House has not pursued it. If it makes so much sense to you, why haven’t they done so? Maybe it’s because you’ve got your facts wrong?

How about the WMDs that you think were in Iraq? Why doesn’t the administration ever state these “facts” that you seem to be so sure of? Why have they instead actually stated that the intelligence was wrong. Should not the administration’s reaction be the metric by which you should gauge your own? Maybe your opinions are all based on faulty information. I would think this would make you want to double check yourselves, but no, you just shrug your shoulders and keep on trucking with your conspiracy theories.

Tab 4 (starting on page is the CIA report describing what Joe Wilson learned in Niger:

“…In June 1999 Barka, A Nigerien/Algerian Businessman, approached him [Prime Minister Mayaki] and insisted that that Mayaki meet with an Iraqi delegation to discuss “expanding commercial relations” between Niger and Iraq…. Mayaki said that he interpreted the phrase “expanding commercial relations” to mean that Iraq wanted to discuss uranium yellowcake sales.”

Well there you go. And of course when we invaded Iraq we found that Saddam Hussein had a 500 ton mountain of uranium .

Let’s use a little logic here for once. First of all, your quote from the report is not all that Wilson found. He also talked to other sources and concluded that no such deal ever happened or even could have possibly been made, even if they wanted to, so the whole argument is moot. You’re going by one representative of Niger’s interpretation of a communication in which uranium was never mentioned. I would not consider that to be solid evidence. However, you want it to be so, so you do.

As to the uranium we found, it was all locked up tight just as the IAEA had left it. This was never used, and was a declared stockpile. There was no attempt to use this uranium. The way you write about it, you make it seem as though a deal went down and this uranium was purchased from Niger.

So, here’s comes the logic part. If Saddam already had 500 tons of uranium at his disposal, what did he need with any more from Niger? Answer: he didn’t. Case closed. This is all a big waste of time. You guys are relying on a bunch of hearsay, and you’re drawing many baseless conclusions from sketchy information. Our intelligence concluded after the war that Saddam’s weapons had been destroyed back in 1991 and no attempt was made to start any programs back up.

Check out my post on this subject to see excerpts from the Iraq Survey Group report.

First, with respect to chemical weapons:

While a small number of old, abandoned chemical munitions have been discovered, ISG judges that Iraq unilaterally destroyed its undeclared chemical weapons stockpile in 1991. There are no credible indications that Baghdad resumed production of chemical munitions thereafter…

And biological weapons?

ISG found no direct evidence that Iraq, after 1996, had plans for a new BW program or was conducting BW-specific work for military purposes.

and

ISG judges that in 1991 and 1992, Iraq appears to have destroyed its undeclared stocks of BW weapons and probably destroyed remaining holdings of bulk BW agent.

So, not only were there no WMDs in Iraq when we got there, we also know exactly where they went. They were destroyed.

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“There was no WMD program?”

Where do you get such information.

Surely NOT from the Unanimous Senate Intell Report.

Certainly NOT from the Duelfer Report.

Not from the statements of Democrats pre-invasion who were privvy to the same intelligence.

You can go on and on and on about aluminum tubes but it does not change the fact that Saddam had a highly sophisticated WMD program and could have reconstituted an effective, active effort within moments of the cessation of UN sanctions.

Why Bush backed down from the 16 words probably relates to the CIA’s waffling on the issue.

But the CIA debriefed Wilson after his trip to Niger and I have the PDF of that debrief through State Dept. Intell here:

http://wid.ap.org/documents/libbytrial/jan23/DX71.pdf

Tab 4 (starting on page is the CIA report describing what Joe Wilson learned in Niger:

“…In June 1999 Barka, A Nigerien/Algerian Businessman, approached him [Prime Minister Mayaki] and insisted that that Mayaki meet with an Iraqi delegation to discuss “expanding commercial relations” between Niger and Iraq…. Mayaki said that he interpreted the phrase “expanding commercial relations” to mean that Iraq wanted to discuss uranium yellowcake sales.”

Well there you go. And of course when we invaded Iraq we found that Saddam Hussein had a 500 ton mountain of uranium .

Interestingly, the two paragraphs immediately following Joe Wilson’s report about Iraq’s attempts to buy uranium describe “An Iranian delegation” which came to Niger “to discuss buying 400 tons of yellowcake.”

Wilson lied to government authorities, and may have done so under oath yet he is not prosecuted. Democrats would scream bloody murder.

No doubt the same reasoning applies in the Berger case. “A breach of National Security” is a serious matter. Even the judge found the plea deal to be too lenient and increased the fine five fold.

But what is really interesting about the Archives Inspector General’s report is that Archives staff first phoned Clinton scandal burier and former WH Counsel Bruce Lindsey upon learning that Berger was stealing the nation’s most closely guarded documents.

Even still, Berger lied to Archives investigators claiming that Archives staff must have missplaced the documents.

Neither Berger, nor Wilson will ever be held to account for the full measure of their crimes and in the case of Wilson, the most massive fraud committed against the Commander in Chief at a time of war.

If you are puzzled by the timid reaction by the Administration in pursuing both matters then join the club. One can only conclude that after walking into a now four year buzz saw for daring to rightly suggest that Wilson’s wife was the reason Wilson went to Africa, the Administration is reluctant to face another Democrat/Media propaganda offensive.

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Here’s what another former CIA officer had to say about Plame’s status:

Ah, Larry C. Johnson. Yes, you’re about as nonpartisan in your criticism of the Bush Administration as he is. Can you not see, that you only question facts when they inconveniently do not support your beliefs about this Administration? You can deny being a lefty all you want to, and delude yourself in the belief that you are rationally neutral in fact-gathering, but the reality is, you are partisanly aligned to believe the worst about this Administration. Point out just one blogpost of yours that is not partisanly aligned with lefties, on the issues of the day. Please show me where you have ever been balanced. This whole PlameGate affair was a total waste of government time, money, and resources. And the Libby Trial, even moreso.

Then why have they expressed regret that they were included in the speech? That doesn’t add up. The carefully worded phrase may have been technically accurate, but the implications, which were far greater, especially when coupled with the false claims about aluminum tubes, were erroneous. There was no WMD program. That’s what this boils down to. The implication of these statements was that there was a WMD program.

Didn’t you already get your answer in the comments section in the link Curt provided:

Yup, been down this road before here…go check it out. Not going to go over the minutia once again with you.

Btw, here’s the famous 16 words, just as a reminder of exactly what was said:

The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa

Emphasis, mine.

Having read Curt’s link, where you two have been down this road before, no amount of fact presentation is going to sway you, because you’ve entrenched yourself in your own beliefs. That’s why Mike and Curt think of responding to you as a time-waster. You believe in what you want to believe. That’s what it boils down to.

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Mike,

If, as you assert, no damage was done, then WHAT was Berger doing? Did he spill coffee on the documents and was taking them out for cleaning? It was a white wash all right.

I looked at the pdf, and the part that caught my eye was the “Results of the Investigation”. It said that he plead guilty to a misdemeanor and was sentenced to two years probation, 3 years without access to classified info, fines, etc. Is this true?

As for President Bush’s 16 words, they have been proven correct by both the Senate Intell Report and British Butler Review.

Then why have they expressed regret that they were included in the speech? That doesn’t add up. The carefully worded phrase may have been technically accurate, but the implications, which were far greater, especially when coupled with the false claims about aluminum tubes, were erroneous. There was no WMD program. That’s what this boils down to. The implication of these statements was that there was a WMD program.

But Wilson is never held to account for his false statements and Scotter Libby faces jail time for the equivalent of not remembering what he had for breakfast.

What false statements? As I said before, this is not a situation where Scooter just forgot what happened. He specifically claimed that he got the information from Russert, who testified that was not true. Also, there were holes in his memory. In order to believe his memory excuse, the jury would have to have believed that he remembered it one day, not the next, and again on another day, and so on. His defense was filled with holes. It was definitely not “the equivalent of not remembering what he had for breakfast”.

I was pleased to see that you made it through a response without assigning some liberal label. Maybe we’re making progress?

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Reasic: If you’re not clear about the damage to National Security by Berger, the National Archives Inspector General summarizes it as “a breach of National Security.”

http://www.landmarklegal.org/uploads/OIGFOIA.pdf

And the full background on that breach comes from the House Oversight Committee:

http://republicans.oversight.house.gov/Media/PDFs/BergerReport010907.pdf

If, as you assert, no damage was done, then WHAT was Berger doing? Did he spill coffee on the documents and was taking them out for cleaning? It was a white wash all right.

As for Wilson’s lies. The Senate Intell Committee concluded that his media claims were false and that his wife WAS the key person in getting him the assignment.

As for President Bush’s 16 words, they have been proven correct by both the Senate Intell Report and British Butler Review.

But Wilson is never held to account for his false statements and Scotter Libby faces jail time for the equivalent of not remembering what he had for breakfast.

I suggest that if you are fuzzy regarding the details of the fraud that has been perpetrated on the American people by Wilson/Plame, you go back and check Curt’s index for more background material.

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Sorry about the double post. It was taking forever, so I stopped and reposted. I guess it took both.

Mike,

Apparently Reasic is cool with the idea that rogue government employees (Plame and Wilson) should abuse their position to undermine the foreign policy of our elected leadership.

Tell me what, specifically you think should’ve happened. The Vice President asked the CIA about the possibility that this happened. So, they did. They sent Wilson, who was familiar with everyone who might have been involved in such a sale. Would you rather they sent someone who wasn’t? Plame was also not in a position to approve Wilson’s trip. That had to be done by her supervisor. So, are you saying that her supervisor was also a left-wing kook? Also, Wilson’s claims were that no sale took place, and no sale could have taken place. Even if Saddam had someone ask about it, it couldn’t have happened. Was that also incorrect? If not, that means you want to consider the fact that Saddam looked into something but nothing came of it, or could have come of it, as a good reason to go to war. Hell, why not go to war because you just want to? And how about those aluminum tubes? Do you also believe the claim that was made that they were for centrifuges?

All I’m doing here is I’m trying to demostrate that maybe they were just trying to get at the truth. We know for a fact that other claims made by the White House about Saddam were untrue, such as the aluminum tubes claim. Cheney, on the Meet the Press, even said that the aluminum tubes were what raised his “level of concern”:

VICE PRES. CHENEY: …The third thing you need is fissile material, weapons-grade material. Now, in the case of a nuclear weapon, that means either plutonium or highly enriched uranium. And what we’ve seen recently that has raised our level of concern to the current state of unrest, if you will, if I can put it in those terms, is that he now is trying, through his illicit procurement network, to acquire the equipment he needs to be able to enrich uranium to make the bombs.

MR. RUSSERT: Aluminum tubes.

VICE PRES. CHENEY: Specifically aluminum tubes. There’s a story in The New York Times this morning-this is-I don’t-and I want to attribute The Times. I don’t want to talk about, obviously, specific intelligence sources, but it’s now public that, in fact, he has been seeking to acquire, and we have been able to intercept and prevent him from acquiring through this particular channel, the kinds of tubes that are necessary to build a centrifuge. And the centrifuge is required to take low-grade uranium and enhance it into highly enriched uranium, which is what you have to have in order to build a bomb. This is a technology he was working on back, say, before the Gulf War. And one of the reasons it’s of concern, Tim, is, you know, we know about a particular shipment. We’ve intercepted that. We don’t know what else-what other avenues he may be taking out there, what he may have already acquired. We do know he’s had four years without any inspections at all in Iraq to develop that capability.

All false. So, this was at worst an enormous blunder and a stunning display of incompetence, or it was outright lying. Either way, they were wrong. Now, you choose to stick by their claims why?

Can’t wait for the first time President Hillary locks up a leaker for him to cheer her on.

For the last time, I’m not a lib and I don’t care about Clinton.

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I wish you guys would get it through your thick skulls that just because I’m against one particular person in one instance does not make me for their opponent. I’m not for the Clintons.

PS – I find it quite funny how the lefties are all ecstatic over this perjury charge when they once told us that a perjury charge doesn’t matter when a certain someone couldn’t keep their pants on.

Here’s what I think, since you didn’t ask and instead assumed. I don’t think there should’ve been an investigation about Clinton having sex. However, since there was and he lied, I think he should definitely have been indicted, and I stand by that indictment. No one should lie to a grand jury in an investigation.

And don’t let me even get started on Sandy Burgler and the outrage from the left about his actions….

Hypocrites.

I don’t know what he did. I’ve read about your outrage over how he took documents that he shouldn’t have. Ive also read from other sources that those documents were provided to the commission, so I’m not sure what to think about that. However, just like anyone else, if he did something illegal, I think he should be prosecuted.

I’m against corruption, not Republicans – oh, and neocons. I may actually vote Republican, if given the right choice in the election.

There was no crime. She was NOT covert. Get over it. This was, and is, a well orchestrated bunch of angry CIA agents trying to bring about a result in the election. Period.

Here’s what another former CIA officer had to say about Plame’s status:

There is the claim that the law to protect intelligence identities could not have been violated because Valerie Wilson had not lived overseas for six years. Too bad this is not what the law stipulates. The law actually requires that a covered person “served” overseas in the last five years. Served does not mean lived. In the case of Valerie Wilson, energy consultant for Brewster-Jennings, she traveled overseas in 2003, 2002, and 2001, as part of her cover job. She met with folks who worked in the nuclear industry, cultivated sources, and managed spies. She was a national security asset until exposed…

It’s very simple, really. Those that Plame dealt with overseas thought she worked for a company called Brewster-Jennings. Any and all work she was undertaking at the time had to be scrapped because of her identity coming out. The lives of any informants she might have been working with were endangered. At the very least, information about her status at the CIA was classified, which would mean that Libby leaked classified information. The determination of her status had not come yet. The investigator was piecing together the puzzle of what happened and who said what to whom and when, and Libby obstructed that process by lying about it. It’s not like he just forgot, either. He said he learned about her status from Russert, and Russert specifically denied that. Libby learned about it from others in the White House and he knew that. There were also lapses in his memory, where he supposedly remembered it one day and forgot it the next. This was a solid case of Libby lying to a grand jury for whatever reason, and that reason doesn’t matter. If he lied, he’s guilty.

Now, as far as the investigation not continuing, I don’t know what to think about that. I think there are clear implications from this trial that Cheney and others were involved with the plot to get back at the Wilsons. That was the prosecutor’s case. So, if Libby was found guilty, that helps to validate his theory on what happened. There are many reasons why an investigation may not continue, including not having enough evidence, so I don’t think we can assume that no one else did anything illegal just because there won’t be an investigation.

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Apparently Reasic is cool with the idea that rogue government employees (Plame and Wilson) should abuse their position to undermine the foreign policy of our elected leadership. Can’t wait for the first time President Hillary locks up a leaker for him to cheer her on.

Question: I forget, did Joe Wilson provide testimony to the Senate intell panel or any other government agency regarding his trip to Africa?

Is he totally unaccountable for the lies he told about the trip and who sent him?

I know Reasic’s answer and I’m not interested in any more leftwing lunacy. So if someone grounded in a better sense of reality could help me out I’d appreciate it.

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