It seems to me the MSM should be making a bigger point about the forgeries being known well before Wilson, and why the WH still insisted on going ahead with this despite other evidence. I wonder if the push to discredit Wilson was to prevent others from looking closer at the forgeries and their genesis. I would not be shocked if Bush/Cheney was behind the forgeries in the first place in its efforts to gin up a war, and that is why they panicked over Wilson.

I keep thinking that they went ballistic over Wilson, and harped on WHO SENT HIM, because they knew right away that the CIA had sent someone NOT CIA, i.e. Cheney was concerned that someone not in their control had been sent. It makes sense to me that Cheney had to learn (and discredit) who had sent him, to put the CIA “back in its place.” Punishing the CIA *and* Wilson by outing Plame was a horsehead-in-the-bed warning about the CIA exercising “too much” autonomy.

i’m unclear as to what substituting “early 2001″ for “late 2000″ does. on its surface, it looks like sheer sloppiness, not going to source material but going instead to a secondary sloppy source. why would someone be motivated to make the date later?

That is really the question I’m trying to raise here. One highly likely motivation is that the Wednesday July 7 2000 date is obviously wrong. July 7 2000 was not a Wednesday. So, it is rather inconvenient to have a claim sitting around with a wrong date. You see my point?

elucidation is most appreciated!

eRiposte- Great work! I’m almost certain that you have touched close to the bone on what is going on!

BTW On an earlier thread some Troll (that I unfortunately fed…hopefully with rat poison) brought up both Christopher Hitchens new “conspiracy” theory AND the date discrepancy about Plame’s requested list of her husbands qualifications (2/12/02) and the date Cheney “tasked” his briefer, Craig Schmall (2/14).

I think that the Hitchen’s theory…that the “easily” disproved forgeries were a diversion to conceal a REAL transaction by Ambassador Zawahie…borders on the sort of stuff proposed by those that think that the X-Files stories are real…and reptilian doppelgangers have taken over the Worlds political and military leaderships.

Zawahie’s name was used in the forgeries to divert attention from his real dealings? An almost exact set of “contracts” were constructed to resemble the actual documents…to DIVERT investigation away from the real ones??? Hitchens probably believes that the writer of Shakespeare wasn’t Shakespeare but some fellow with the same name! Basically one only has to remember that there is NO evidence of an actual transaction, or even a meeting in which yellowcake was discussed.

And Iraq had no motive, since Iraq didn’t have functional calutrons to process the yellowcake (so why risk getting caught at any number of critical junctures in the way…from someone leaking about the Contract or contact meetings, to the transport, or discovery of non-registered Uranium in Iraq)?

And the whole deal about some smuggler getting “permission” from the Supreme Court of Niger to undertake an act that violated International Sanctions seems absurd on its face!

The second discrepancy that the troller raised actually led me to some interesting information. One could explain the discrepancy as simply one that relates to a stenographic error…but I don’t think that is what actually happened.

Here’s the timeline:
Feb. 5th 2002 – The CIA produces a Second Report on the “foreign intelligence service” providing more detailed information on the Niger-Iraq contracts with “verbatim” text. For some reason SISMI has refused to release copies of the actual documents…but verbatim transcriptions would give the CIA dates, names of those on the contracts, the numbers of the laws, quantities, and export plans).

It’s clear that these were sent to other Intelligence Divisions, although if you look at the SSIC Report there is a redaction at the very point where those that would have been sent this analysis appears. But we know that both the INR, who criticized the new material, and the DOD (who prepared their own DIA report on February 12th) both received that CIA report.

2/12/02- DIA Report Produced
– Plame draws up Ambassador Wilson’s “credentials”
– CIA Cable to State Department regarding potential “mission” (possibly passed on to Niger)

2/13/02 In the early morning (@ 7-7:30) at the VP’s residence Fred Schmall recalls he is told by Cheney about a “report” about Iraq-Niger yellowcake that he wants more information on. Cheney later tells the SSIC that he believes this was the DIA Report. But note that this was produced the day before and may not have reached the OVP until 2/13.

2/19 Iraq Niger Uranium briefing meeting @ CIA with Wilson.

So it raises the issue that perhaps Cheney received the CIA Second report and spoke to someone in the CIA about it already. It seems unlikely that he could have actually have seen the DIA report by the time of his early morning meeting with Schmall on 2/13. That means that he likely saw the CIA report and then contacted McLaughlin or Tenet about the issue. These individuals, or someone in the CPD would have then acted pre-emptively to investigate the possibility of a trip. Cheney’s request to Schmall merely would have solidified the need to undertake a mission. To Schmall this would have seemed to be a “fresh” request.

To avoid overlap there were three parallel investigations that were based on the forgeries (and it’s interesting that only ONE…the CIA’s…was discussed in detail by the SSIC report).

1) Rumsfeld DIA > tasking Gen. Carlton Fulford to travel to Niger (two trips) to contact contemporary Nigerien military and those involved with the COGEMA cartel.

2) State Dept. INR requesting that Ambassador Barbro Owens Kilpatrick contact current Nigerian officials. This activity had already been initiated BEFORE any known activity at the CIA regarding a field investigation.

3) Cheney > CIA.

Neither the DOD or the State Department would have requested the CIA to undertake such an investigation. They were undertaking their own autonomous efforts. That leaves Cheney as the source of the request from the administration.

Thus the Libby’s/OVP’s effort to suggest that the CIA may have sent Wilson on their own or at the request of State (who actually opposed Wilsons trip) or the DOD, simply seems contrary to the events. DOD or State wouldn’t have asked the CIA to undertake an investigation.

I don’t find it strange that Cheney could have seen the DIA report on the same day of the date of the report. This is not implausible and should not be considered unrealistic unless specific timelines emerge for the day in question that indicate this to be the case.

Hitchens has long been delusional and swatting flies is a better occupation than reading his garbage.

eRiposte–

Regarding the change…..would the ‘accord’ possibly have something to do with it (the timeline on all the shape-shifting that is associated with that thing, frankly, eludes me)?

And thanks – again.

.

I don’t think it has much to do with the “accord” per se but clearly it has something to do with the rest of the forgeries…hard to say more at this time.

eRiposte,

Still rereading your many posts about this topic. I followed one of your links about WINPAC and evidently it linked to cia.gov.

I got this error message. Wondering what you think it means (I don’t believe the reasoning CIA gives). Bolding and italicization is mine.

CIA.gov has changed its Web address . . .

CIA.gov is now encrypted, except for our Electronic Reading Room, to assure visitor confidentiality. As a result, the Web address for pages and documents in our site has changed from http:// to https://. In addition, CIA Careers has moved to a new location within the website

Please use the links or the search form below to find the information you seek.

I have no reason to believe that what the website states above is incorrect. I’ve noticed this of late as well.

Now, coming back to your timeline – who tasked Ms. Wilson with drawing up her husband’s credentials so quickly on the 12th?

And was this an attempt by real truth seekers at the CIA to pre-empt the OVP’s next move that they knew must be coming on the heels of the DIA report?

Now, the second early morning ‘tasking’ of Mr. Schmall the next day could be viewed as evidence that supports such a scenario.

Nowever, without knowing who, specifically, placed the original ‘task’ one could just as easily conclude that this actually began the other way around, pretty much as Jeremy from Santa Monica has laid out, but with the added twist that the OVP waited for their cut-out to be popped on the 12th (which was facilitated by the release of the DIA report) and thus felt free to move forward with impunity on the 13th.

.

Cheney’s arguments to discredit Wilson have been:
1) He didn’t spend enough time to thoroughly debunk all reports, and
2) Anyway, his report tended to back up our claim that Saddam was seeking yellowcake, since he mentions an Iraqi who wanted to talk about “commercial relations”, and what else could that be but yellowcake?

BUT
Wilson wasn’t sent over to check out some vague reports about Saddam seeking uranium.
He was sent to check out the very specific report eriposte talks about here – that there was an accord in place to sell Nigerien yellowcake to Iraq.
The CIA had doubts about it to start with – the whole idea is dumb! – but the Veep asked that it be checked out, so they sent someone over to check things out on the ground in Niger. Wilson.
What he found was: The way the business is structured, there is simply no way that this deal could have ever happened.
Wilson was investigating the Accord, and thoroughly debunked it. Which left the Admin with nothing but the incredibly thin claim for the SOTU that the British were reporting that Saddam was seeking Uranium in Africa. From their big, scary, story about tons of uranium flowing to Saddam, that’s all they were left with.