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Skriven 2005-07-18 21:38:00 av BOB KLAHN (1:123/140)
Ärende: Joe Wilson's Op Ed
==========================

 Just because I'm tired of the lies being spread about what
 Wilson said in his Op-Ed piece, here it is.

 Read it before trying to tell us what Wilson claimed, or did not
 claim. And read it before believing the lies spread by the RNC.

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 Published on Sunday, July 6, 2003 by the New York Times
 <http://www.nytimes.com>
 What I Didn't Find in Africa
 by Joseph C. Wilson 4th


 Did the Bush administration manipulate intelligence about Saddam
 Hussein's weapons programs to justify an invasion of Iraq?

 Based on my experience with the administration in the months
 leading up to the war, I have little choice but to conclude
 that some of the intelligence related to Iraq's nuclear weapons
 program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat.

 For 23 years, from 1976 to 1998, I was a career foreign service
 officer and ambassador. In 1990, as chargé d'affaires in
 Baghdad, I was the last American diplomat to meet with Saddam
 Hussein. (I was also a forceful advocate for his removal from
 Kuwait.) After Iraq, I was President George H. W. Bush's
 ambassador to Gabon and S
o Tomé and Príncipe; under President
 Bill Clinton, I helped direct Africa policy for the National
 Security Council.

 It was my experience in Africa that led me to play a small role
 in the effort to verify information about Africa's suspected
 link to Iraq's nonconventional weapons programs. Those news
 stories about that unnamed former envoy who went to Niger?
 That's me.

 In February 2002, I was informed by officials at the Central
 Intelligence Agency that Vice President Dick Cheney's office had
 questions about a particular intelligence report. While I never
 saw the report, I was told that it referred to a memorandum of
 agreement that documented the sale of uranium yellowcake ? a
 form of lightly processed ore ? by Niger to Iraq in the late
 1990's. The agency officials asked if I would travel to Niger to
 check out the story so they could provide a response to the vice
 president's office.

 After consulting with the State Department's African Affairs
 Bureau (and through it with Barbro Owens-Kirkpatrick, the United
 States ambassador to Niger), I agreed to make the trip. The
 mission I undertook was discreet but by no means secret. While
 the C.I.A. paid my expenses (my time was offered pro bono), I
 made it abundantly clear to everyone I met that I was acting on
 behalf of the United States government.

 In late February 2002, I arrived in Niger's capital, Niamey,
 where I had been a diplomat in the mid-70's and visited as a
 National Security Council official in the late 90's. The city
 was much as I remembered it. Seasonal winds had clogged the air
 with dust and sand. Through the haze, I could see camel caravans
 crossing the Niger River (over the John F. Kennedy bridge), the
 setting sun behind them. Most people had wrapped scarves around
 their faces to protect against the grit, leaving only their eyes
 visible.

 The next morning, I met with Ambassador Owens-Kirkpatrick at the
 embassy. For reasons that are understandable, the embassy staff
 has always kept a close eye on Niger's uranium business. I was
 not surprised, then, when the ambassador told me that she knew
 about the allegations of uranium sales to Iraq ? and that she
 felt she had already debunked them in her reports to Washington.
 Nevertheless, she and I agreed that my time would be best spent
 interviewing people who had been in government when the deal
 supposedly took place, which was before her arrival.

 I spent the next eight days drinking sweet mint tea and meeting
 with dozens of people: current government officials, former
 government officials, people associated with the country's
 uranium business. It did not take long to conclude that it was
 highly doubtful that any such transaction had ever taken place.

 Given the structure of the consortiums that operated the mines,
 it would be exceedingly difficult for Niger to transfer uranium
 to Iraq. Niger's uranium business consists of two mines, Somair
 and Cominak, which are run by French, Spanish, Japanese, German
 and Nigerian interests. If the government wanted to remove
 uranium from a mine, it would have to notify the consortium,
 which in turn is strictly monitored by the International Atomic
 Energy Agency. Moreover, because the two mines are closely
 regulated, quasi-governmental entities, selling uranium would
 require the approval of the minister of mines, the prime
 minister and probably the president. In short, there's simply
 too much oversight over too small an industry for a sale to have
 transpired.

 (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.)

 Before I left Niger, I briefed the ambassador on my findings,
 which were consistent with her own. I also shared my
 conclusions with members of her staff. In early March, I arrived
 in Washington and promptly provided a detailed briefing to the
 C.I.A. I later shared my conclusions with the State Department
 African Affairs Bureau. There was nothing secret or
 earth-shattering in my report, just as there was nothing secret
 about my trip.

 Though I did not file a written report, there should be at
 least four documents in United States government archives
 confirming my mission. The documents should include the
 ambassador's report of my debriefing in Niamey, a separate
 report written by the embassy staff, a C.I.A. report summing up
 my trip, and a specific answer from the agency to the office of
 the vice president (this may have been delivered orally). While
 I have not seen any of these reports, I have spent enough time
 in government to know that this is standard operating procedure.

 I thought the Niger matter was settled and went back to my
 life. (I did take part in the Iraq debate, arguing that a strict
 containment regime backed by the threat of force was preferable
 to an invasion.) 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. He replied that perhaps the president was
 speaking about one of the other three African countries that
 produce uranium: Gabon, South Africa or Namibia. At the time, I
 accepted the explanation. I didn't know that in December, a
 month before the president's address, the State Department had
 published a fact sheet that mentioned the Niger case.

 Those are the facts surrounding my efforts. The vice
 president's office asked a serious question. I was asked to help
 formulate the answer. I did so, and I have every confidence that
 the answer I provided was circulated to the appropriate
 officials within our government.

 The question now is how that answer was or was not used by our
 political leadership. If my information was deemed inaccurate, I
 understand (though I would be very interested to know why). If,
 however, the information was ignored because it did not fit
 certain preconceptions about Iraq, then a legitimate argument
 can be made that we went to war under false pretenses. (It's
 worth remembering that in his March "Meet the Press" appearance,
 Mr. Cheney said that Saddam Hussein was "trying once again to
 produce nuclear weapons.") At a minimum, Congress, which
 authorized the use of military force at the president's behest,
 should want to know if the assertions about Iraq were warranted.

 I was convinced before the war that the threat of weapons of
 mass destruction in the hands of Saddam Hussein required a
 vigorous and sustained international response to disarm him.
 Iraq possessed and had used chemical weapons; it had an active
 biological weapons program and quite possibly a nuclear research
 program ? all of which were in violation of United Nations
 resolutions. Having encountered Mr. Hussein and his thugs in the
 run-up to the Persian Gulf war of 1991, I was only too aware of
 the dangers he posed.

 But were these dangers the same ones the administration told us
 about? We have to find out. America's foreign policy depends on
 the sanctity of its information. For this reason, questioning
 the selective use of intelligence to justify the war in Iraq is
 neither idle sniping nor "revisionist history," as Mr. Bush has
 suggested. The act of war is the last option of a democracy,
 taken when there is a grave threat to our national security.
 More than 200 American soldiers have lost their lives in Iraq
 already. We have a duty to ensure that their sacrifice came for
 the right reasons.

 Joseph C. Wilson 4th, United States ambassador to Gabon from
 1992 to 1995, is an international business consultant.

 Copyright 2003 The New York Times Company

 www.commondreams.org <http://www.commondreams.org/>

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BOB KLAHN bob.klahn@sev.org   http://home.toltbbs.com/bobklahn

... George W. Bush, the most corrupt man to hold the presidency in my lifetime.
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