Armed Liberal asks what ought to be a simple question about the Wilson/Plame/Rove affair:
So here's where I get stuck, and could genuinely use some help.It looks to me like Iraq did make an attempt - at least a desultory one - to buy uranium.
That's what they were accused of.
Wilson, in his original oped, slams the Administration because
In September 2002, however, Niger re-emerged. The British government published a ''white paper'' asserting that Saddam Hussein and his unconventional arms posed an immediate danger. As evidence, the report cited Iraq's attempts to purchase uranium from an African country.Then, in January, President Bush, citing the British dossier, repeated the charges about Iraqi efforts to buy uranium from Africa.
The next day, I reminded a friend at the State Department of my trip and suggested that if the president had been referring to Niger, then his conclusion was not borne out by the facts as I understood them.
So I'm puzzled...it seems that the facts as he knew them supported the claim that Iraq was trying to buy uranium.
So help me understand this gap. Too many smart people don't see it as a gap for me to just assume there is one.
I've read through ALL of the 80 or so comments to this post, which I rarely do. Robert M. and Phil Smith get pretty close to answering Marc's question, if they haven't actually answered it. Just about everyone else is off the mark. The salient issue to close or explain the gap was whether evidence uncovered or discovered by Wilson in Niger lent credence to the notion (expressed in Bush's "16 words") that Iraq was interested in purchasing uranium in Africa. The only reservations I had about the facts concerned the confusing WaPo typo, which apparently originally read "Iraq" when it ought to have read "Iran." When that was corrected my assumption was that Wilson didn't find out anything about Iraq, which seemed strange since that was why he was sent! So thanks to Phil and Robert for clearing that up. Apparently there was evidence pointing to the possibility that both Iran and Iraq were interested in purchasing uranium from Niger, and we have some former African potentate's assurance that the overtures from Iraq were rebuffed. Boy that must have been reassuring in the uncertain conditions preceding the invasion, huh? (Wipes flopsweat from brow.)
Bush's statement was simply accurate. I mean, rigorously so. Wilson's statements were, however, unambiguously inaccurate. In short Armed Liberal seems far too modest. The gap exists. The issue is why it continues to perplex us. Whether Bush intended to mislead the American people by making an accurate statement seems hardly execrable in light of Wilson's deliberate attempt to mislead the American people by making multiple inaccurate statements.
So naturally the "real issue" has to be Valerie Plame and Karl Rove, because Wilson's behavior just doesn't match up well against George W.'s does it?
The issue that got under my skin was similar to the one Marc raised, which also hasn't been discussed much. Essentially I wanted to know why the Bush folks didn't just point out that Wilson was talking out of both sides of his mouth, and that his "report" said something that contradicted what he said in the NYT and elsewhere? In case anyone is interested, I posted something here about that. Suffice to say that the Bush Administration had no idea what Wilson had found in Africa, because he hadn't submitted a written report and the CIA notes weren't passed uphill. The Bush administration simply, and mistakenly, took Wilson at his word (as has everyone else in the media, ever since). Now, I'm not going to say Wilson lied, because he may very well have thought that what he uncovered in Niger revealed that Iraq wasn't a danger. But that just means he's either a lousy analyst or a lousy fact finder, because he failed to communicate that conclusion to the CIA during his debrief. In fact, it doesn't even appear that he tried to do so. The "gap" is real, regardless of how many smart people feel compelled to ignore or downplay it.
Yes Wilson probably lied, but that's not the half of it. The media which is supposed to clarify these things has simply not done so, either out of mendacity or incompetence. This, during a time of war.
Not good, folks. Not good at all.
(Cross-posted by Demosophist to Anticipatory Retaliation and The Jawa Report)
Posted by Demosophist at July 20, 2005 02:38 PM | TrackBack