The Ambassador Strikes Back, Answers to the Right Wing Spin Machine
*** A BRAD BLOG EXCLUSIVE ***
By Brad Friedman on 7/13/2005, 2:45pm PT  

Ambassador Joseph Wilson fired back today at the Rightwing Spin Machine, which, having been issued marching orders late yesterday in a set of talking points from the RNC, is once again hoping to distract from the potentially treasonous crimes that George W. Bush's top political operative and Deputy Chief of Staff, Karl Rove, is alleged to have committed.

In a phone discussion early this afternoon, Wilson told The BRAD BLOG in no uncertain terms that "the President should fire Rove."

He told us that he'd be appearing on NBC's Today Show tomorrow morning and would be repeating that call.

As well, he told The BRAD BLOG that he planned to read a letter on air which he received from Bush's father, President George H.W. Bush shortly after an article of his was printed in the San Jose Mercury News, on October 13, 2002, in which Wilson related his concerns about the pitfalls of the approach to Iraq being taken at the time by both the U.N. and the U.S.

In reply to that article, Wilson said that the former President wrote that he had "read your article and I agree with a lot of it."

Additionally, Wilson explained, Bush 41's own National Security Advisor, Brent Scowcroft, had contacted him to ask whether he "could walk on over to the White House with the letter" at the time. Which apparently he did.

Wilson also had sent the article to Bush 41's Secretary of State, James Baker.

"None of them responded saying you're a Democratic partisan hack and your views suck," said Wilson.

The above points are notable, because armed with those RNC talking points, Rush Limbaugh, Fox "News" and Friends have today kicked into overdrive smearing and lying about Wilson, claiming that he was against the Iraq War from the get-go.

If fact, Wilson, who was in charge of the Embassy in Iraq during the first Gulf War under Bush 41 (he was the last American to speak personally with Saddam Hussein before the war begain, and was responsible for taking care of some 125 Americans who had sought refuge in the American Embassy there when they were not allowed by Saddam to leave the country just prior to the war), says that it was "a full eight months" after he was sent by the CIA to Niger to investigate claims that Iraq had attempted to purchase uranium there, "before I had said anything publicly about what America should consider in regard to a war with Iraq."

"My real concern was always WMD," he told us, "not Regime Change."

That concern was expressed in the October 2002, San Jose Mercury News editorial which apparently George W. Bush's own father and National Security Advisor tended to agree with. Wilson's trip to Niger occurred a full eight months earlier, in February of that same year.

We asked him if he had heard Fox "News'" John Gibson make his deplorable and irresponsible statement yesterday which said that "Karl Rove should receive a medal," because Wilson's wife, covert CIA asset Valerie Plame, "should have been outed."

"Where I come from," slurred Gibson, "we do not want secret spy masters pulling the puppet strings in the background.

Gibson's "logic", such that he has any, seems to be based on the unsupported claims that Plame --- or Wilson's "little wifey" as Gibson condescendingly referred to her --- was "pulling the puppet strings" of national policy from her covert position in the CIA, by sending Wilson to Niger. That was, in Gibson's false claim, because Wilson, "was opposed to the War in Iraq, opposed to Bush policy, and pointedly and loudly said so."

No, he didn't, Mr. Gibson. Never mind those pesky facts. It's only Fox "News" you work for, so we realize such facts are hardly relevant to you receiving your paycheck there.

"That is something that should be out in the open," blathered Gibson, "And the person doing it should be identified and should own up to it. So Rove should get a medal, if he did do what he says he didn't do."

In response, Wilson simply said, "Well, that's a lie. But no surprise there."

In the meantime, despite such pesky facts, the wingnuts also continue to claim that Plame was, in fact, not even a covert asset at the time of her outing.

The BRAD BLOG has learned from several sources, as also confirmed in Time magazine that Plame was indeed a "NOC", an agent with "nonofficial cover", the most valuable, secretive and vulnerable of CIA assets.

In regard to whether she was covert or not at the time of her outing by Rove, Bob Novak or whoever his "two senior administration sources" were, Wilson said, "What I can say is, that the CIA looked at the evidence of what had happened and referred the case to the Justice Department. That means that the CIA may think that a crime has been committed."

On Rightwing Hackery hoping to cynically deflect from the seriousness of the potentially treasonous crime committed by claiming that "Wilson lied" about his wife's involvement in sending him to Niger, Wilson says, "In actual fact, all I've done is repeat what the CIA itself has said since July 22nd, 2003 as reported initially in Newsday by Knut Royce and Tim Phelps."

That Newsday article says [emphasis added]:

A senior intelligence official 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."

"The CIA said [my wife] was not the person to have authorized my trip. They've repeated that time and time again."

And the Bush Apologists, who suddenly don't seem to care all that much about National Security after all, keep repeating the opposite. Time and time again.

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