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When and Why Joseph C. Wilson IV outed Valerie Plame
Before we put Plame "leak" story to bed once and for all, I want to reiterate out what I first posited almost two years ago, which now seems to be more true than ever.
It was almost certainly Mr. Joseph C. Wilson IV who "outed" his wife as a CIA officer.
And he probably did this in early May 2003 at after meeting with top level Democrats and around the time he began to work for the John Kerry for President campaign.
Let’s run through the chronology.
January 28, 2003: President George W. Bush gave his State of the Union speech.
February 6, 2003: Joe Wilson wrote an editorial for the Los Angeles Times, A ‘Big Cat’ With Nothing to Lose, in which he claimed we should not attack Saddam Hussein because he will use his weapons of mass destruction on our troops and give them to terrorists.
There is now no incentive for Hussein to comply with the inspectors or to refrain from using weapons of mass destruction to defend himself if the United States comes after him.
And he will use them; we should be under no illusion about that.
February 28, 2003: Joe Wilson is interviewed by Bill Moyers. Wilson agrees with Bush’s SOTU remarks, and reiterates his belief that Saddam has WMD.
MOYERS: President Bush’s recent speech to the American Enterprise Institute, he said, let me quote it to you. "The danger posed by Saddam Hussein and his weapons cannot be ignored or wished away." You agree with that?
WILSON: I agree with that. Sure.
MOYERS: "The danger must be confronted." You agree with that? "We would hope that the Iraqi regime will meet the demands of the United Nations and disarm fully and peacefully. If it does not, we are prepared to disarm Iraq by force. Either way, this danger will be removed. The safety of the American people depends on ending this direct and growing threat." You agree with that?
WILSON: I agree with that. Sure. The President goes on to say in that speech as he did in the State of the Union Address is we will liberate Iraq from a brutal dictator. All of which is true. But the only thing Saddam Hussein hears in this speech or the State of the Union Address is, "He’s coming to kill me. He doesn’t care if I have weapons of mass destruction or not. His objective is to come and overthrow my regime and to kill me." And that then does not provide any incentive whatsoever to disarm.
March 3, 2003: Joe Wilson wrote a piece for the Nation, Republic Or Empire. In it Wilson blasts the "neo-conservatives" in the Bush administration for their imperial over-reach. But he makes no mention of uranium or any other suggestion that Bush misled the country or lied about Iraq’s WMD.
Then what’s the point of this new American imperialism? The neoconservatives with a stranglehold on the foreign policy of the Republican Party, a party that traditionally eschewed foreign military adventures, want to go beyond expanding US global influence to force revolutionary change on the region. American pre-eminence in the Gulf is necessary but not sufficient for the hawks. Nothing short of conquest, occupation and imposition of handpicked leaders on a vanquished population will suffice. Iraq is the linchpin for this broader assault on the region. The new imperialists will not rest until governments that ape our worldview are implanted throughout the region, a breathtakingly ambitious undertaking, smacking of hubris in the extreme.
March 8, 2003: CNN’s Renay San Miguel interviewed Joe Wilson about the so-called Niger forgeries.
SAN MIGUEL: So how do you play this, then? I mean, what, do you admit it, do you just move on? Do you try to get these things verified if you do believe, indeed, that Iraq was trying to buy this material from Niger? I mean, how do you handle this? What’s the damage control on this?
WILSON: I have no idea. I’m not in the government. I would not want to be doing damage control on this. I think you probably just fess up and try to move on and say there’s sufficient other evidence to convict Saddam of being involved in the nuclear arms trade.
So up until at least March 8, 2003 Joe Wilson still contended that Saddam had WMD and that he was involved in the nuclear arms trade. Then what happened?
May 2003: Joe Wilson began to "advise" the Kerry for President campaign.
Wilson … said he has long been a Kerry supporter and has contributed $2,000 to the campaign this year. He said he has been advising Kerry on foreign policy for about five months and will campaign for Kerry, including a trip to New Hampshire… — David Tirrell-Wysocki, "Former Ambassador Wilson Endorses Kerry In Presidential Race,” The Associated Press, 10/23/03
Five months prior to October 2, 2003 would be May 2, 2003. What happened on that date?
May 2, 2003: Joe Wilson and Valerie attended a conference sponsored by the Senate Democratic Policy Committee, at which Wilson spoke about Iraq. One of the other panelists was the New York Times journalist Nicholas Kristof
Here, unlike his remarks to CNN on March 8, 2003, Wilson claimed State Department officials should have known better than to have been duped by the forged documents that allegedly had proved a deal for uranium had been in the works between Iraq and Niger.
May 3, 2003: Over breakfast the next morning with Kristof and his wife Valerie Plame, Wilson told Kristof about his trip to Niger.
May 6, 2003: Kristof published the first public mention of Wilson’s mission to Niger, without identifying him by name, in a column for the New York Times, Missing in Action: Truth.
May 23, 2003: Joe Wilson made a $1,000 contribution to the John Kerry For President campaign.
Soon, other newspaper articles began to appear, for which Mr. Wilson had been the obvious source.
June 12, 2003: Walter Pincus published an article in the Washington Post, CIA Did Not Share Doubt on Iraq Data.
June 29, 2003: The UK’s Independent published, Ministers Knew War Papers Were Forged, Says Diplomat.
A high-ranking American official who investigated claims for the CIA that Iraq was seeking uranium to restart its nuclear programme accused Britain and the US yesterday of deliberately ignoring his findings to make the case for war against Saddam Hussein.
The retired US ambassador said it was all but impossible that British intelligence had not received his report - drawn up by the CIA - which revealed that documents, purporting to show a deal between Iraq and the West African state of Niger, were forgeries.
When he saw similar claims in Britain’s dossier on Iraq last September, he even went as far as telling CIA officials that they needed to alert their British counterparts to his investigation. …
The former diplomat - who had served as an ambassador in Africa - had been approached by the CIA in February 2002 to carry out a "discreet" task: to investigate if it was possible that Iraq was buying uranium from Niger. He said the CIA had been asked to find out in a direct request from the office of the Vice-President, Dick Cheney.
During eight days in Niger, he discovered it was impossible for Iraq to have been buying the quantities of uranium alleged. "My report was very unequivocal," he said. He also learnt that the signatures of officials vital to any transaction were missing from the documents. On his return, he was debriefed by the CIA.
Note that almost everything in this article has been subsequently proven to be untrue, including Wilson’s claim that he had been sent by Dick Cheney, that his own report was "unequivocal," and that he had seen the forged documents.
June 2003: According to the Washington Post’s Bob Woodward, the following interview with Richard Armitage at the State Department transpired about a month before Robert Novak’s column appeared on July 14, 2003.
Woodward: Well it was Joe Wilson who was sent by the agency, isn’t it?
Armitage: His wife works for the agency.
Woodward: Why doesn’t that come out? Why does that have to be a big secret?
Armitage: (over) Everybody knows it.
Woodward: Everyone knows?
Armitage: Yeah. And they know ’cause Joe Wilson’s been calling everybody. He’s pissed off ’cause he was designated as a low level guy went out to look at it. So he’s all pissed off.
Woodward: But why would they send him?
Armitage: Because his wife’s an analyst at the agency.
Woodward: It’s still weird.
Armitage: He — he’s perfect. She — she, this is what she does. She’s a WMD analyst out there.
Woodward: Oh, she is.
Armitage: (over) Yeah.
Woodward: Oh, I see. I didn’t think…
Armitage: (over) "I know who’ll look at it." Yeah, see?
Woodward: Oh. She’s the chief WMD…?
Armitage: No. She’s not the…
Woodward: But high enough up that she could say, "oh, yeah, hubby will go."
Armitage: Yeah. She knows [garbled].
Woodward: Was she out there with him, when he was…?
Armitage: (over) No, not to my knowledge. I don’t know if she was out there. But his wife’s in the agency as a WMD analyst. How about that?
Why would Richard Armitage have been talking about Wilson and Plame in June of 2003? This was still weeks before Joe Wilson wrote his New York Times editorial, and a month before Robert Novak published anything about Valerie Plame.
Armitage brought this up because he is a gossip and it was already common knowledge because Joe Wilson had been calling all of the newspapers trying to get them to run his story about his mission to Niger.
Given the chronology and Mr. Armitage’s remarks, it is seems quite obvious that Mr. Wilson outed his wife when he spoke to the Senate Democratic Policy Committee and then to the subsequent reporters at the Times, the Post and elsewhere, when he was hawking his story about his trip to Niger.
Wilson’s motivation for bringing up his wife would have been exactly as Armitage suggested to Woodward. He told these people about Plame’s work at the CIA to give his radically new and dangerous story more credibility.
Wilson would have used his wife’s position as a WMD analyst at the CIA to bolster his outrageous claims against a (then) popular President in a time of war.
July 6, 2003: Frustrated that his trip to Niger story was still not getting enough attention, Mr. Wilson finally stepped out from behind the curtain and wrote his now notorious op-ed piece for the New York Times, What I Didn’t Find in Africa.
Sometime after July 6th and before July 8th 2003 Richard Armitage told Robert Novak about Wilson’s wife working at the CIA. And Mr. Novak then published that information in his column on July 14, 2007.
But Valerie Plame’s work at the CIA had almost certainly long since been disclosed to anyone who would listen by Joe Wilson. And he disclosed this information to promote himself, his fantasy about his "mission to Niger," and his new political career.
Remember, there was even talk at one point within the Kerry camp that Joe Wilson might be his Secretary Of State. Mr. Wilson had his eyes on the prize.
Any concern about the secrecy of his wife’s job at the CIA was a minor consideration compared to that lofty goal.
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It was almost certainly Mr. Joseph C. Wilson IV who "outed" his wife as a CIA officer.
And he probably did this in early May 2003 at after meeting with top level Democrats and around the time he began to work for the John Kerry for President campaign.
Let’s run through the chronology.
January 28, 2003: President George W. Bush gave his State of the Union speech.
February 6, 2003: Joe Wilson wrote an editorial for the Los Angeles Times, A ‘Big Cat’ With Nothing to Lose, in which he claimed we should not attack Saddam Hussein because he will use his weapons of mass destruction on our troops and give them to terrorists.
There is now no incentive for Hussein to comply with the inspectors or to refrain from using weapons of mass destruction to defend himself if the United States comes after him.
And he will use them; we should be under no illusion about that.
February 28, 2003: Joe Wilson is interviewed by Bill Moyers. Wilson agrees with Bush’s SOTU remarks, and reiterates his belief that Saddam has WMD.
MOYERS: President Bush’s recent speech to the American Enterprise Institute, he said, let me quote it to you. "The danger posed by Saddam Hussein and his weapons cannot be ignored or wished away." You agree with that?
WILSON: I agree with that. Sure.
MOYERS: "The danger must be confronted." You agree with that? "We would hope that the Iraqi regime will meet the demands of the United Nations and disarm fully and peacefully. If it does not, we are prepared to disarm Iraq by force. Either way, this danger will be removed. The safety of the American people depends on ending this direct and growing threat." You agree with that?
WILSON: I agree with that. Sure. The President goes on to say in that speech as he did in the State of the Union Address is we will liberate Iraq from a brutal dictator. All of which is true. But the only thing Saddam Hussein hears in this speech or the State of the Union Address is, "He’s coming to kill me. He doesn’t care if I have weapons of mass destruction or not. His objective is to come and overthrow my regime and to kill me." And that then does not provide any incentive whatsoever to disarm.
March 3, 2003: Joe Wilson wrote a piece for the Nation, Republic Or Empire. In it Wilson blasts the "neo-conservatives" in the Bush administration for their imperial over-reach. But he makes no mention of uranium or any other suggestion that Bush misled the country or lied about Iraq’s WMD.
Then what’s the point of this new American imperialism? The neoconservatives with a stranglehold on the foreign policy of the Republican Party, a party that traditionally eschewed foreign military adventures, want to go beyond expanding US global influence to force revolutionary change on the region. American pre-eminence in the Gulf is necessary but not sufficient for the hawks. Nothing short of conquest, occupation and imposition of handpicked leaders on a vanquished population will suffice. Iraq is the linchpin for this broader assault on the region. The new imperialists will not rest until governments that ape our worldview are implanted throughout the region, a breathtakingly ambitious undertaking, smacking of hubris in the extreme.
March 8, 2003: CNN’s Renay San Miguel interviewed Joe Wilson about the so-called Niger forgeries.
SAN MIGUEL: So how do you play this, then? I mean, what, do you admit it, do you just move on? Do you try to get these things verified if you do believe, indeed, that Iraq was trying to buy this material from Niger? I mean, how do you handle this? What’s the damage control on this?
WILSON: I have no idea. I’m not in the government. I would not want to be doing damage control on this. I think you probably just fess up and try to move on and say there’s sufficient other evidence to convict Saddam of being involved in the nuclear arms trade.
So up until at least March 8, 2003 Joe Wilson still contended that Saddam had WMD and that he was involved in the nuclear arms trade. Then what happened?
May 2003: Joe Wilson began to "advise" the Kerry for President campaign.
Wilson … said he has long been a Kerry supporter and has contributed $2,000 to the campaign this year. He said he has been advising Kerry on foreign policy for about five months and will campaign for Kerry, including a trip to New Hampshire… — David Tirrell-Wysocki, "Former Ambassador Wilson Endorses Kerry In Presidential Race,” The Associated Press, 10/23/03
Five months prior to October 2, 2003 would be May 2, 2003. What happened on that date?
May 2, 2003: Joe Wilson and Valerie attended a conference sponsored by the Senate Democratic Policy Committee, at which Wilson spoke about Iraq. One of the other panelists was the New York Times journalist Nicholas Kristof
Here, unlike his remarks to CNN on March 8, 2003, Wilson claimed State Department officials should have known better than to have been duped by the forged documents that allegedly had proved a deal for uranium had been in the works between Iraq and Niger.
May 3, 2003: Over breakfast the next morning with Kristof and his wife Valerie Plame, Wilson told Kristof about his trip to Niger.
May 6, 2003: Kristof published the first public mention of Wilson’s mission to Niger, without identifying him by name, in a column for the New York Times, Missing in Action: Truth.
May 23, 2003: Joe Wilson made a $1,000 contribution to the John Kerry For President campaign.
Soon, other newspaper articles began to appear, for which Mr. Wilson had been the obvious source.
June 12, 2003: Walter Pincus published an article in the Washington Post, CIA Did Not Share Doubt on Iraq Data.
June 29, 2003: The UK’s Independent published, Ministers Knew War Papers Were Forged, Says Diplomat.
A high-ranking American official who investigated claims for the CIA that Iraq was seeking uranium to restart its nuclear programme accused Britain and the US yesterday of deliberately ignoring his findings to make the case for war against Saddam Hussein.
The retired US ambassador said it was all but impossible that British intelligence had not received his report - drawn up by the CIA - which revealed that documents, purporting to show a deal between Iraq and the West African state of Niger, were forgeries.
When he saw similar claims in Britain’s dossier on Iraq last September, he even went as far as telling CIA officials that they needed to alert their British counterparts to his investigation. …
The former diplomat - who had served as an ambassador in Africa - had been approached by the CIA in February 2002 to carry out a "discreet" task: to investigate if it was possible that Iraq was buying uranium from Niger. He said the CIA had been asked to find out in a direct request from the office of the Vice-President, Dick Cheney.
During eight days in Niger, he discovered it was impossible for Iraq to have been buying the quantities of uranium alleged. "My report was very unequivocal," he said. He also learnt that the signatures of officials vital to any transaction were missing from the documents. On his return, he was debriefed by the CIA.
Note that almost everything in this article has been subsequently proven to be untrue, including Wilson’s claim that he had been sent by Dick Cheney, that his own report was "unequivocal," and that he had seen the forged documents.
June 2003: According to the Washington Post’s Bob Woodward, the following interview with Richard Armitage at the State Department transpired about a month before Robert Novak’s column appeared on July 14, 2003.
Woodward: Well it was Joe Wilson who was sent by the agency, isn’t it?
Armitage: His wife works for the agency.
Woodward: Why doesn’t that come out? Why does that have to be a big secret?
Armitage: (over) Everybody knows it.
Woodward: Everyone knows?
Armitage: Yeah. And they know ’cause Joe Wilson’s been calling everybody. He’s pissed off ’cause he was designated as a low level guy went out to look at it. So he’s all pissed off.
Woodward: But why would they send him?
Armitage: Because his wife’s an analyst at the agency.
Woodward: It’s still weird.
Armitage: He — he’s perfect. She — she, this is what she does. She’s a WMD analyst out there.
Woodward: Oh, she is.
Armitage: (over) Yeah.
Woodward: Oh, I see. I didn’t think…
Armitage: (over) "I know who’ll look at it." Yeah, see?
Woodward: Oh. She’s the chief WMD…?
Armitage: No. She’s not the…
Woodward: But high enough up that she could say, "oh, yeah, hubby will go."
Armitage: Yeah. She knows [garbled].
Woodward: Was she out there with him, when he was…?
Armitage: (over) No, not to my knowledge. I don’t know if she was out there. But his wife’s in the agency as a WMD analyst. How about that?
Why would Richard Armitage have been talking about Wilson and Plame in June of 2003? This was still weeks before Joe Wilson wrote his New York Times editorial, and a month before Robert Novak published anything about Valerie Plame.
Armitage brought this up because he is a gossip and it was already common knowledge because Joe Wilson had been calling all of the newspapers trying to get them to run his story about his mission to Niger.
Given the chronology and Mr. Armitage’s remarks, it is seems quite obvious that Mr. Wilson outed his wife when he spoke to the Senate Democratic Policy Committee and then to the subsequent reporters at the Times, the Post and elsewhere, when he was hawking his story about his trip to Niger.
Wilson’s motivation for bringing up his wife would have been exactly as Armitage suggested to Woodward. He told these people about Plame’s work at the CIA to give his radically new and dangerous story more credibility.
Wilson would have used his wife’s position as a WMD analyst at the CIA to bolster his outrageous claims against a (then) popular President in a time of war.
July 6, 2003: Frustrated that his trip to Niger story was still not getting enough attention, Mr. Wilson finally stepped out from behind the curtain and wrote his now notorious op-ed piece for the New York Times, What I Didn’t Find in Africa.
Sometime after July 6th and before July 8th 2003 Richard Armitage told Robert Novak about Wilson’s wife working at the CIA. And Mr. Novak then published that information in his column on July 14, 2007.
But Valerie Plame’s work at the CIA had almost certainly long since been disclosed to anyone who would listen by Joe Wilson. And he disclosed this information to promote himself, his fantasy about his "mission to Niger," and his new political career.
Remember, there was even talk at one point within the Kerry camp that Joe Wilson might be his Secretary Of State. Mr. Wilson had his eyes on the prize.
Any concern about the secrecy of his wife’s job at the CIA was a minor consideration compared to that lofty goal.
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