Kerry/Edwards 2004

“You looked where Tilt? On the internet? Are you so naive as to believe that all information about military policy is published on the internet? Try expanding your searches to professional and media databases.”

“Hey, it's YOUR claim. If you can't back it up, so be it.

I fed your entire spiel into a google search yesterday for ANY of the terms therein, and the only remotely pertinent hits in all of the eight(?) pages of returned results were a couple of articles on the Sullivan brothers.

I think you're hullucinating again, LOL

Perhaps you can explain exactly how Junior could've been expected to fulfill his sworn duty in the Texas Air Guard if he wasn't allowed to go into combat. It's ridiculous on its face.




Then there's this:


The Hon. Pat Roberts, Chairman, Senate Select Committee on Intelligence

The Hon. Jay Rockefeller, Vice Chairman, Senate Select Committee on Intelligence

Dear Sen. Roberts and Sen. Rockefeller,

I read with great surprise and consternation the Niger portion of Sens. Roberts, Bond and Hatch's additional comments to the Senate Select Intelligence Committee's Report on the U.S. Intelligence Community's Prewar Assessment on Iraq. I am taking this opportunity to clarify some of the issues raised in these comments.

First conclusion: "The plan to send the former ambassador to Niger was suggested by the former ambassador's wife, a CIA employee."

That is not true. The conclusion is apparently based on one anodyne quote from a memo Valerie Plame, my wife, sent to her superiors that says, "My husband has good relations with the PM [prime minister] and the former Minister of Mines (not to mention lots of French contacts), both of whom could possibly shed light on this sort of activity." There is no suggestion or recommendation in that statement that I be sent on the trip. Indeed it is little more than a recitation of my contacts and bona fides. The conclusion is reinforced by comments in the body of the report that a CPD [Counterproliferation Division] reports officer stated that "the former ambassador's wife 'offered up his name'" (page 39) and a State Department intelligence and research officer stated that the "meeting was 'apparently convened by [the former ambassador's] wife who had the idea to dispatch him to use his contacts to sort out the Iraq-Niger uranium issue."

In fact, Valerie was not in the meeting at which the subject of my trip was raised. Neither was the CPD reports officer. After having escorted me into the room, she [Valerie] departed the meeting to avoid even the appearance of conflict of interest. It was at that meeting where the question of my traveling to Niger was broached with me for the first time and came only after a thorough discussion of what the participants did and did not know about the subject. My bona fides justifying the invitation to the meeting were the trip I had previously taken to Niger to look at other uranium-related questions as well as 20 years living and working in Africa, and personal contacts throughout the Niger government. Neither the CPD reports officer nor the State analyst were in the chain of command to know who, or how, the decision was made. The interpretations attributed to them are not the full story. In fact, it is my understanding that the reports officer has a different conclusion about Valerie's role than the one offered in the "additional comments." I urge the committee to reinterview the officer and publicly publish his statement.

It is unfortunate that the report failed to include the CIA's position on this matter. If the staff had done so it would undoubtedly have been given the same evidence as provided to Newsday reporters Tim Phelps and Knut Royce in July 2003. They reported on July 22 that:

"A senior intelligence officer confirmed that Plame was a Directorate of Operations undercover officer who worked 'alongside' the operations officers who asked her husband to travel to Niger. But he said she did not recommend her husband to undertake the Niger assignment. 'They [the officers who did ask Wilson to check the uranium story] were aware of who she was married to, which is not surprising,' he said. 'There are people elsewhere in government who are trying to make her look like she was the one who was cooking this up, for some reason,' he said. 'I can't figure out what it could be.' 'We paid his [Wilson's] airfare. But to go to Niger is not exactly a benefit. Most people you'd have to pay big bucks to go there,' the senior intelligence official said. Wilson said he was reimbursed only for expenses." (Newsday article "Columnist Blows CIA Agent's Cover," dated July 22, 2003).

In fact, on July 13 of this year, David Ensor, the CNN correspondent, did call the CIA for a statement of its position and reported that a senior CIA official confirmed my account that Valerie did not propose me for the trip:

"'She did not propose me,' he [Wilson] said -- others at the CIA did so. A senior CIA official said that is his understanding too."

Second conclusion: "Rather than speaking publicly about his actual experiences during his inquiry of the Niger issue, the former ambassador seems to have included information he learned from press accounts and from his beliefs about how the Intelligence Community would have or should have handled the information he provided."

This conclusion states that I told the committee staff that I "may have become confused about my own recollection after the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) reported that the names and dates on the documents were not correct." At the time that I was asked that question, I was not afforded the opportunity to review the articles to which the staff was referring. I have now done so.

On March 7, 2003, the director general of the IAEA reported to the U.N. Security Council that the documents that had been given to him were "not authentic." His deputy, Jacques Baute, was even more direct, pointing out that the forgeries were so obvious that a quick Google search would have exposed their flaws. A State Department spokesman was quoted the next day as saying about the forgeries, "We fell for it." From that time on the details surrounding the documents became public knowledge and were widely reported. I was not the source of information regarding the forensic analysis of the documents in question; the IAEA was.

The first time I spoke publicly about the Niger issue was in response to the State Department's disclaimer. On CNN a few days later, in response to a question, I replied that I believed the U.S. government knew more about the issue than the State Department spokesman had let on and that he had misspoken. I did not speak of my trip.

My first public statement was in my article of July 6 published in the New York Times, written only after it became apparent that the administration was not going to deal with the Niger question unless it was forced to. I wrote the article because I believed then, and I believe now, that it was important to correct the record on the statement in the president's State of the Union address which lent credence to the charge that Iraq was actively reconstituting its nuclear weapons program. I believed that the record should reflect the facts as the U.S. government had known them for over a year. The contents of my article do not appear in the body of the report and it is not quoted in the "additional comments." In that article, I state clearly that "as for the actual memorandum, I never saw it. But news accounts have pointed out that the documents had glaring errors -- they were signed, for example, by officials who were no longer in government -- and were probably forged. (And then there's the fact that Niger formally denied the charges.)"

The first time I actually saw what were represented as the documents was when Andrea Mitchell, the NBC correspondent, handed them to me in an interview on July 21. I was not wearing my glasses and could not read them. I have to this day not read them. I would have absolutely no reason to claim to have done so. My mission was to look into whether such a transaction took place or could take place. It had not and could not. By definition that makes the documents bogus.

The text of the "additional comments" also asserts that "during Mr. Wilson's media blitz, he appeared on more than thirty television shows including entertainment venues. Time and again, Joe Wilson told anyone who would listen that the President had lied to the American people, that the Vice President had lied, and that he had 'debunked' the claim that Iraq was seeking uranium from Africa."

My article in the New York Times makes clear that I attributed to myself "a small role in the effort to verify information about Africa's suspected link to Iraq's nonconventional weapons programs." After it became public that there were then-Ambassador to Niger Barbro Owens-Kirkpatrick's report and the report from a four-star Marine Corps general, Carleton Fulford, in the files of the U.S. government, I went to great lengths to point out that mine was but one of three reports on the subject. I never claimed to have "debunked" the allegation that Iraq was seeking uranium from Africa. I claimed only that the transaction described in the documents that turned out to be forgeries could not have occurred and did not occur. I did not speak out on the subject until several months after it became evident that what underpinned the assertion in the State of the Union address were those documents, reports of which had sparked Vice President Cheney's original question that led to my trip. The White House must have agreed. The day after my article appeared in the Times a spokesman for the president told the Washington Post that "the sixteen words did not rise to the level of inclusion in the State of the Union."

I have been very careful to say that while I believe that the use of the 16 words in the State of the Union address was a deliberate attempt to deceive the Congress of the United States, I do not know what role the president may have had other than he has accepted responsibility for the words he spoke. I have also said on many occasions that I believe the president has proven to be far more protective of his senior staff than they have been to him.


The "additional comments" also assert: "The Committee found that, for most analysts, the former ambassador's report lent more credibility, not less, to the reported Niger-Iraq uranium deal." In fact, the body of the Senate report suggests the exact opposite:

In August 2002, a CIA NESA [Office of Near Eastern and South Asian Analysis] report on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction capabilities did not include the alleged Iraq-Niger uranium information. (page 48)

In September 2002, during coordination of a speech with an NSC staff member, the CIA analyst suggested the reference to Iraqi attempts to acquire uranium from Africa be removed. The CIA analyst said the NSC staff member said that would leave the British "flapping in the wind." (page 50)

The uranium text was included in the body of the NIE [National Intelligence Estimate] but not in the key judgments. When someone suggested that the uranium information be included as another sign of reconstitution, the INR [State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research] Iraq nuclear analyst spoke up and said the he did not agree with the uranium reporting and that INR would be including text indicating their disagreement in their footnote on nuclear reconstitution. The NIO [national intelligence officer] said he did not recall anyone really supporting including the uranium issue as part of the judgment that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear program, so he suggested that the uranium information did not need to be part of the key judgments. He told committee staff that he suggested, "We'll leave it in the paper for completeness. Nobody can say we didn't connect the dots. But we don't have to put that dot in the key judgments." (page 53)

On Oct. 2, 2002, the Deputy DCI [director of central intelligence] testified before the SSCI [Senate Select Committee on Intelligence]. Sen. Jon Kyl asked the Deputy DCI whether he had read the British White Paper and whether he disagreed with anything in the report. The Deputy DCI testified that "the one thing where I think they stretched a little bit beyond where we would stretch is on the points about Iraq seeking uranium from various African locations." (page 54)

On Oct. 4, 2002, the NIO for Strategic and Nuclear Programs testified that "there is some information on attempts ... there's a question about those attempts because of the control of the material in those countries ... For us it's more the concern that they [Iraq] have uranium in-country now." (page 54)

On Oct. 5, 2002, the ADDI [associate deputy director for intelligence] said an Iraqi nuclear analyst -- he could not remember who -- raised concerns about the sourcing and some of the facts of the Niger reporting, specifically that the control of the mines in Niger would have made it very difficult to get yellowcake to Iraq. (page 55)

Based on the analyst's comments, the ADDI faxed a memo to the deputy national security advisor that said, "Remove the sentence because the amount is in dispute and it is debatable whether it can be acquired from this source. We told Congress that the Brits have exaggerated this issue. Finally, the Iraqis already have 550 metric tons of uranium oxide in their inventory." (page 56)

On Oct. 6, 2002, the DCI called the deputy national security advisor directly to outline the CIA's concerns. The DCI testified to the SSCI on July 16, 2003, that he told the deputy national security advisor that the "President should not be a fact witness on this issue," because his analysts had told him the "reporting was weak." (page 56)

On Oct. 6, 2002, the CIA sent a second fax to the White House that said, "More on why we recommend removing the sentence about procuring uranium oxide from Africa: Three points (1) The evidence is weak. One of the two mines cited by the source as the location of the uranium oxide is flooded. The other mine cited by the source is under the control of the French authorities. (2) The procurement is not particularly significant to Iraq's nuclear ambitions because the Iraqis already have a large stock of uranium oxide in their inventory. And (3) we have shared points one and two with Congress, telling them that the Africa story is overblown and telling them this is one of the two issues where we differed with the British." (page 56)

On March 8, 2003, the intelligence report on my trip was disseminated within the U.S. government, according to the Senate report (page 43). Further, the Senate report states that "in early March, the Vice President asked his morning briefer for an update on the Niger uranium issue." That update from the CIA "also noted that the CIA would be debriefing a source who may have information related to the alleged sale on March 5." The report then states the "DO officials also said they alerted WINPAC [Center for Weapons Intelligence, Nonproliferation and Arms Control] analysts when the report was being disseminated because they knew the high priority of the issue." The report notes that the CIA briefer did not brief the vice president on the report. (page 46)

It is clear from the body of the Senate report that the intelligence community, including the DCI himself, made several attempts to ensure that the president did not become a "fact witness" on an allegation that was so weak. A thorough reading of the report substantiates the claim made in my opinion piece in the New York Times and in subsequent interviews I have given on the subject. The 16 words should never have been in the State of the Union address, as the White House now acknowledges.

I undertook this mission at the request of my government in response to a legitimate concern that Saddam Hussein was attempting to reconstitute his nuclear weapons program. This was a national security issue that has concerned me since I was the deputy chief of mission in the U.S. Embassy in Iraq before and during the first Gulf War.

At the time of my trip I was in private business and had not offered my views publicly on the policy we should adopt toward Iraq. Indeed, throughout the debate in the run-up to the war, I took the position that the U.S. be firm with Saddam Hussein on the question of weapons of mass destruction programs, including backing tough diplomacy with the credible threat of force. In that debate I never mentioned my trip to Niger. I did not share the details of my trip until May 2003, after the war was over, and then only when it became clear that the administration was not going to address the issue of the State of the Union statement.

It is essential that the errors and distortions in the additional comments be corrected for the public record. Nothing could be more important for the American people than to have an accurate picture of the events that led to the decision to bring the United States into war in Iraq. The Senate Intelligence Committee has an obligation to present to the American people the factual basis of that process. I hope that this letter is helpful in that effort. I look forward to your further "additional comments."

Sincerely,

Joseph C. Wilson IV, Washington, D.C.”

“So when Joseph Wilson feels he has to defend himself against what he sees as errors and distortions that meets your criteria for truth. But when George Bush does it you take it as a bald faced lie?

Forgive me for not feeling inferior to you if I look at things in the opposite way.

Strange coincidence my grandfather just called me to tell me that there are fires in Yosemite (Where I'm backpacking next weekend, I'm staying at there house the night I get to California). I asked him about the panel just to be sure I had the facts straight again, and indeed I do.”

“(Personally, I think the Shrub was on Double Secret Probation.)”

“Fortuneatly it looks like the fires are south of Glacier Point, so it doesn't look like I'll be affected, woo hoo!”

“If you still can't back it up, I'll be sure to give it all the weight it deserves in the meantime.

By-the-by.... I wonder what the word is on the indictments for Novak's sources. Perhaps they'll be handed down after the election... just like the second phase of the Senate's report. You know.... where they allegedly wade into the issue of the misuse of intelligence data for political leverage.”

“First off, I believe Novack has said that it's one source. Secondly he's made clear that it was someone non-political, so you're hopes of getting Rove or Libby (looks like he's been pretty much ruled out anyway) or Cheney or Bush aren't going to come to fruitition.”

“"During a long conversation with a senior administration official, I asked why Wilson was assigned the mission to Niger. He said Wilson had been sent by the CIA's counterproliferation section at the suggestion of one of its employees, his wife. It was an offhand revelation from this official, who is no partisan gunslinger. When I called another official for confirmation, he said: "Oh, you know about it." The published report that somebody in the White House failed to plant this story with six reporters and finally found me as a willing pawn is simply untrue."

So that is two sources one leaker, and one who confirmed (although it'd be hard to make a case against the confirmer.)”

“Time will tell, as they say.

I don't hold much store in Novak's veracity. After all, someone so craven as to expose a covert operative of the United States of America to sell a few papers and make political hay.... It's treasonous behavior, as far as I'm concerned.

People have gotten killed that way.


But if Novak is your kinda guy... I suppose you can overlook that.”

“This is way off topic but Novak's original story named the source as "two senior administration officials".

Secondly, what does the question of who recommended Wilson for the mission have to do with the treasonous criminal act of revealing the source of a deep cover CIA agent whose job it was to protect us from WMDs?”

“I think Novak makes his case very well if you read his entire response. He did his due diligince to make sure that no one's life was being put in danger. I personally probably wouldn't have published the name, but he's the journalist and he's the one who has to balance what he believes the public ought to know against exposing her. He checked up made sure that he wasn't exposing an actual foreign operative and then decided that the revelation was necessary to explain why Wilson had been assigned to the Niger case.”

“That's why the CIA asked Justice to investigate and a special prosecutor was eventually appointed?

Please think!”

“But "two senior administration officials" could mean lots of things, I take it by that the he means 1. the leaker, and 2. the confirmer. "Senior administration officials" could be a thousand different people. It could be anyone several levels down into any one department. It could be someone that no one in the White House even knows. It could be the under-secretary of state for southern Asian economic policy.”

“From Novak's story: "Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction."”

“I just sharted...”

“Why would a low level flunkie have access to such information? Senior means senior.”

“Yes Violin she was an AGENCY operative, that doesn't mean she was a foreign operative, which she wasn't. And it's been made very clear that her position was more well known around Washington and those flunkies are generally considered to be "Senior" if they hold any sort of management position in a federal agency. You'll notice that Novak didn't use "Senior White House official" a term which would have provided even more credence to his source, why not? The source probably isn't in the White House.”

“I don't think the Federal statute the "two senior administration officials" would be prosecuted under draws a distinction as to whether the exposed operative might be foreign or domestic.

Perhaps they can make that argument at sentencing.”

“No I'm certain the statute wouldn't, I was responding in regards to Novak's thinking as a journalist. Not to the responsibility of the leaker.”

“Come on Bison! You know "unidentified source" is plenty for Violin to run with a story. LOL!”

“Thanks again, Vi, for posting the above links. Maybe people around here will care to discuss this from an informed stance, rather than quote political campaign commericals.”

“BLA..BLA..BLA!!!”

“BLA.....


does that stand for "Brainless Liberialhaters Association?"”

“No, "Brainless Liberals Association"”

“"I haven't had a chance to ask the questioners the question they've been questioning."

- George W. Bush




Hey, don't look at Me! LOL”

“Now come on GW just has a very complex thought process.”

“"Now come on GW just has a very complex thought process.......'


Oh, my! Now THAT'S funny!”

“"Thanks again, Vi, for posting the above links. Maybe people around here will care to discuss this from an informed stance, rather than quote political campaign commericals."

Q, I really don’t care what you think or say about me or my points of view but if you are going to have beef with me at least be a man and bring it to my face. Don’t be passive aggressive and talk about me like I’m not in the room.

Grow a pair...”

“Oh yeah...GO KERRY!!!

”

“I'm sorry lady. Would your monkey like a banana?”

“Are you suggesting that there is a certain degree of “chimp” factor with our current president tilt? That is the absolute most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard and I will not stand for it…ah shlt, who am I kidding. Those ears don’t fool anyone.”

“Hey, I was expecting a double entendre about the banana ---

I've noticed that Tom Tomorrow gives George a quasi Alfred E. Neuman look.



More Lurch Trivia...

Ted Cassidy also played "Thing" occasionally.”

“"Hey, I was expecting a double entendre about the banana ---"

Sorry tilt. The last person that made a connection between Bush and genitals got fired from her job at Slimfast. I can't afford to lose my job right now. LOL!”

“I think she'll recover.

The quandry for Slimfast is... Are there more fat Republicans or more fat Democrats? LOL”

“"Q, I really don’t care what you think or say about me or my points of view but if you are going to have beef with me at least be a man and bring it to my face. Don’t be passive aggressive and talk about me like I’m not in the room.

Grow a pair....."


Look, it's clear that no matter what I say, you'll have an additude with me and I can't win with you. I've tried real hard with you to try and explain my points and everything, but it just falls on the floor and gets stepped on, by you.

If you think I'm talking about you, then my point is clear, however, there are many on this board that could be said about, myself included. You can't take what you dish out. For you to call me passive agressive is laughable. I could say that YOU spoke to me in that same tone on the thread lizs started, but I don't. So, which is it going to be? Pot calling the kettle about a color, or what's good for goose, is good for her old man?

For the most part, all I see here is campaign commercials, not informed points. Both sides. If you can't answer my request for information, say so and be done with it and be pease with it. It will make you no leser of a man. I asked for clarifaction about the crap you posted about Kerry. Back it up, or quite spreading uninformed campaign commericals.


Excuse the phuck outta me if I try one way to bring this chit outta the mud and bring these issues from an informed stance. You think that anything I say that goes against you stance is a stab at you. You know me better than that. For example, if that was the case, I would jumped on the horse with BB and rode it for all it's worth. It's at this point and time that I'll say I'm phucking sick and tired of being called negitive, passive agressive, hater, whatever. It's god damn insulting to me, and I've let to go for a while now. Now, you get pissed?

What phucking never......!

and please save the phucking Oprah comment.”

““Look, it's clear that no matter what I say, you'll have an additude with me and I can't win with you. I've tried real hard with you to try and explain my points and everything, but it just falls on the floor and gets stepped on, by you.”

No. It just goes nowhere and it is fruitless. All your demands in a debate are a one way street and you neither hold yourself to the same demands. So I simply let it go and refuse to even engage in it.

“If you think I'm talking about you, then my point is clear, however, there are many on this board that could be said about, myself included. You can't take what you dish out. For you to call me passive agressive is laughable.”

I was the one who was posting the campaign ad crap. The only one. I was posting it as a humorous jab at Violin. Remember when I said…”So going by Violin’s own standards…”.

“I could say that YOU spoke to me in that same tone on the thread lizs started, but I don't.”

I didn’t even read your posts on that thread. It was directed at Ewker and the others who were taking it too serious. If I’m going to comment on your post I will comment on it TO YOU, not about you. I’m not into the 3rd grade semantics and I have no fear of voicing my opinions. If I’m going to flame you I’ll do so directly.

“For the most part, all I see here is campaign commercials, not informed points. Both sides. If you can't answer my request for information, say so and be done with it and be pease with it. It will make you no leser of a man. I asked for clarifaction about the crap you posted about Kerry. Back it up, or quite spreading uninformed campaign commericals.”

Believe it or not the whole world is not so grim faced about politics. The political crap that goes on here is laughable and sop whacked out it can’t even be taken seriously. I made a spoof on Violin’s own style of posting inflammatory crap. You know, like when he says Bush hates the troops and such?

“You think that anything I say that goes against you stance is a stab at you.”

I catch maybe 25% of your posts if that. Normally they start out with some type of rhetoric, I glaze over and move on to someone else’s post. I only caught this post because it was a short one. You specifically pointed out the Bush ads and their content here. I was the one who posted that. So how could I see it as anything BUT?

“You know me better than that. For example, if that was the case, I would jumped on the horse with BB and rode it for all it's worth.”

Yet you do the exact same as BB and take shots from the side in the same way. Bottom line is this; either be honest enough to bring complaints and insults to me directly with direct address or (and this is my preference) put me on ignore and be phucking done with it. You must either learn to deal with the things I may say that you don’t agree with or just ignore them all together. If you do choose to insult me I have no problem with that but at least do so in a manner that is befitting a grown man.”

“Well, you've made it very obvious that it's a one way street.

Thanks for clearing that up.”

“Not a one way street Q, it's a dead end street. Click me on ignore and say good day.”

“Nope, because that would be giving you what you want. No matter what the deal is, you still don't deserve to share that list with buck.”

“God bless the Liberals!!!!”

“Doesn't anybody ever get tired of hearing the republicrat's tell us how great things are going to be without ever stating how they plan on doing it? When these guys speak all I hear is generalizations that mean nothing. No plans, no purpose, no frickin' vote from me!

A vote for Nader is a vote for Freedom!”

“Thanks for electing Bush last time, guys.”

“""Thanks for electing Bush last time, guys....."



Well, this can be taken a few ways. Should we vote the way we want to vote, or should we vote in order to prevent something from happening?

Maybe a third: Vote in what you believe in. As long as you don't by into bullchit commercials and make a vote from an informed stance, or vote in protest, it doesn't matter how, or why...

Just VOTE!”

“I'm not afraid of Nader getting votes. If Kerry runs his campaign right, and gets out his message in spite of the neo-con smears, he will be the next president.”

“I think of how Bush never would've been elected if Nader hadn't run in 2000. Then I think about all the people who are dead because of the outcome of that election. Then I wonder what the Republicans have up their sleeves for an encore.



On A Lighter Note ---- How's this for a bumper sticker?

"Carlyle Group/Halliburton '04!"

I know...... Either the print would be too small to read or the damn thing would have to be over 2 feet long, LOL”

“Actually, the costs of this war will be paid from taxes generated by the world's fastest growing economy, the clear result of Bush's tax cuts.”

“""Actually, the costs of this war will be paid from taxes generated by the world's fastest growing economy, the clear result of Bush's tax cuts."....."


Hey Alright! Yet another campaign ad quoter!

Just what this board needs!”

“Geeeeeeeeeeeez, LOL

Hit <pause>!”

“Tilt: "I think of how Bush never would've been elected if Nader hadn't run in 2000."

When will you people ever accept some responsibility & stop blaming others for your life?

How about blaming Gore for not getting out the vote? What % of registered Dems actually voted? THAT was what Gore shoulda been focused on, not blaming Nader for getting a couple % points.

IT'S GORE's responsibility to get out his supporters... if he didn't have enough of them to win, then that's that, case closed.

Quit whining.”

“"When will you people ever accept some responsibility & stop blaming others for your life?....."

How about when the right quits #&%!$ing about how the people who voted for Perot got Clinton elected?”