Buying into propaganda doesn't fly in the face of facts pointing to the contrary.Fearmongering and avoiding the core issue, which is Karl Rove playing recklessly and loose with America's classified information, doesn't serve the public well.
To: Mark Steyn mailbox-at-steynonline-dot-com
My Title: We're Not Buying Your Line of Reasoning
Re: Quote from your column in
Chicago Sun Times 17 July 2005Excerpt from your July 17 column:
"....Just about everybody on the face of the earth except Wilson, the White House press corps and the moveon.org crowd accepts that Saddam was indeed trying to acquire uranium from Africa. Don't take my word for it; it's the conclusion of the Senate intelligence report, Lord Butler's report in the United Kingdom, MI6, French intelligence, other European services -- "
Dear Mr. Steyn,
I don't write many e-mails to columnists. In this case, I was driven to do so.
"Everybody on the face of the earth" is an exaggeration that few Americans are "buying." There is too much information out here to believe such a line, which sounds a lot like whistling past the graveyard.
We know this is about the gross abuse of intelligence and political retrubution toward the man who dared to try and dispel the inconsistencies on the part of the White House in building their case to make pre-emptive war on Iraq. The retribution came in the form of ceratin White Hose officials playing fast and loose with classified information.
Most people on the face of the earth can see that. There is no ethical excuse for what has been done to Valerie Plame. You can use all the fear-mongering and fact-twisting you'd like. In the end, truth always prevails. Mr. Steyn, I think you'd look a lot better, when the smoke clears, on the right side of history. That, of course, is up to you.
I cannot abide by your gross misleadings, though. I thought I'd write and tell you so. I'm an honest person who happens to believe Mr. Wilson. There isn't anything he's said, to this day, to convince me otherwise. In the end, I think most other American citizens who respect the value of good character will agree with me.
Sincerely
Jude Nagurney Camwell
Senate Intelligence Report - In his testimony, George Tenet had obvious reservations about Cheney/Feith/Libby:
NYT LINK These reservations do not seem to have made it into the
Senate Intelligence Report.
Comment from Guardian article, showing that Tenet was scapegoated instead:
Link - The report repeatedly condemns the departing CIA director, George Tenet, accusing him of skewing advice to top policy-makers with the CIA's view, and casting aside dissenting views from other intelligence agencies overseen by the state or defence departments.
It blames Mr Tenet for not personally reviewing Mr Bush's 2003 State of the Union address, which contained since-discredited references to Iraq's attempts to purchase uranium in Africa. Mr Tenet has resigned, and leaves his post on Sunday.
** NOTE:
The Senate Intel Committee used Tenet as scapegoat and told America they'd investigate the White House role "later"...and they never did. Butler Report: My comments:
Joe Wilson's argument was not whether or not an attempt was made to purchase uranium, it was whether or not our American president was using incredibly shaky information in his State of the Union speech to promote an unnecessary war. The Butler Report only served to separate the British government's admittedly inconclusive intelligence from Bush's (ab)use of that intelligence. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Chapter 6.4
Section 503-
a. It is accepted by all parties that Iraqi officials visited Niger in 1999.
b. British government intelligence from several different sources indicated that this visit was for the purpose of acquiring uranium.
c. The evidence was not conclusive that Iraq actually purchased uranium, as opposed to having sought uranium. The British government did not claim this.
d. The forged documents were not available to the British government at the time its assessment was made and so the fact of the forgery does not undermine it.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Related post at my freelance blog From Independent article:
"George Tenet, the CIA director at the time, declared that the Niger claim was "not tenable". And in last week's damning senate report on pre-war intelligence, a memo by a senior CIA official was revealed which said: "We told Congress that the Brits have exaggerated this issue."
MI6 - see my comments here (many links):
LINKSISMI French intelligence - See: New Yorker/Seymour Hersh
New Yorker LinkIn the fall of 2001, soon after the September 11th attacks, the C.I.A. received an intelligence report from Italy’s Military Intelligence and Security Service, or SISMI, about a public visit that Wissam al-Zahawie, then the Iraqi Ambassador to the Vatican, had made to Niger and three other African nations two and a half years earlier, in February, 1999. The visit had been covered at the time by the local press in Niger and by a French press agency. The American Ambassador, Charles O. Cecil, filed a routine report to Washington on the visit, as did British intelligence. There was nothing untoward about the Zahawie visit. “We reported it because his picture appeared in the paper with the President,” Cecil, who is now retired, told me. There was no article accompanying the photograph, only the caption, and nothing significant to report. At the time, Niger, which had sent hundreds of troops in support of the American-led Gulf War in 1991, was actively seeking economic assistance from the United States.
None of the contemporaneous reports, as far as is known, made any mention of uranium. But now, apparently as part of a larger search for any pertinent information about terrorism, SISMI dug the Zahawie-trip report out of its files and passed it along, with a suggestion that Zahawie’s real mission was to arrange the purchase of a form of uranium ore known as “yellowcake.” (Yellowcake, which has been a major Niger export for decades, can be used to make fuel for nuclear reactors. It can also be converted, if processed differently, into weapons-grade uranium.)
"Other European services" (
???????? ... )
