July
14, 2003
BY ROBERT NOVAK SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST
The CIA's decision to send retired diplomat Joseph C. Wilson
to Africa in February 2002 to investigate possible Iraqi purchases
of uranium was made routinely without Director George Tenet's
knowledge. Remarkably, this produced a political fire storm
that has not yet subsided.
Wilson's report that an Iraqi purchase of uranium yellowcake
from Niger was highly unlikely was regarded by the CIA as less
than definitive, and it is doubtful Tenet ever saw it. Certainly,
President Bush did not, before his 2003 State of the Union address,
when he attributed reports of attempted uranium purchases to
the British government. That the British relied on forged documents
made Wilson's mission, nearly a year earlier, the basis of furious
Democratic accusations of burying intelligence though the report
was forgotten by the time the president spoke.
Reluctance at the White House to admit a mistake has led Democrats
ever closer to saying the president lied the country into war.
Even after a belated admission of error last Monday, finger-pointing
between Bush administration agencies continued.
Wilson's mission was created after an early 2002 report by the
Italian intelligence service about attempted uranium purchases
from Niger, derived from forged documents prepared by what the
CIA calls a ''con man.'' This misinformation spread through the
U.S. government. The White House, State Department and Pentagon
asked the CIA to look into it.
That's where Joe Wilson came in. His first public note had come
in 1991 after 15 years as a Foreign Service officer when, as
U.S. charge in Baghdad, he risked his life to shelter in the
embassy 800 Americans from Saddam Hussein's wrath. My partner
Rowland Evans reported from the Iraqi capital in our column that
Wilson showed ''the stuff of heroism.'' The next year, President
George H.W. Bush named him ambassador to Gabon, and President
Bill Clinton put him in charge of African affairs at the National
Security Council until his retirement in 1998.
Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame,
is an agency operative on weapons of mass destruction. Two senior
administration officials told me his wife suggested sending Wilson
to Niger to investigate the Italian report. The CIA says its
counter-proliferation officials selected Wilson and asked his
wife to contact him. ''I will not answer any question about my
wife,'' Wilson told me.
After eight days in the Niger capital, Wilson made an oral report
in Langley that an Iraqi uranium purchase was ''highly unlikely,''
though he also mentioned in passing that a 1988 Iraqi delegation
tried to establish commercial contacts. CIA officials did not
regard Wilson's intelligence as definitive, being based primarily
on what the Niger officials told him and probably would have
claimed under any circumstances. The CIA report based on Wilson's
briefing remains classified. All this was forgotten until reporter
Walter Pincus revealed in the Washington Post on June 12 that
an unnamed retired diplomat had given the CIA a negative report.
Not until Wilson went public on July 6, however, did his finding
ignite the fire storm.
During the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, Wilson had taken
a measured public position--viewing weapons of mass destruction
as a danger but considering military action as a last resort.
He has seemed much more critical since revealing his role in
Niger. In the Washington Post on July 6, he talked about the
Bush team ''misrepresenting the facts,'' asking: ''What else
are they lying about?''
After the White House admitted error, Wilson declined all television
and radio interviews.
''The story was never me,'' he told me, ''it was always the
statement in [Bush's] speech.''
The story, actually, is whether the administration deliberately
ignored Wilson's advice, and that requires scrutinizing the CIA
summary of what their envoy reported. The agency never before
has declassified that kind of information, but the White House
would like it to do just that now--in its and in the public's
interest.
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