The CheneyGate scandal may turn out ultimately to be a game of "follow the uranium." Because it was the documents forged by perpetrators yet unknown claiming a deal to purchase uranium yellowcake from Niger that started the chain of events that led to the indictment of Scooter Libby, currently the chief patsy in the CheneyGate affair.
We do know that SISMI, the Italian military intelligence agency, was a part of the scam in a major way. Larry Johnson writes (Mambo Italiano and Plame Gate No Quarter blog 10/10/05):
SISME provided the CIA with three separate intelligence reports that Iraq had reached an agreement with Niger to buy 500 tons of yellowcake uranium (October 15, 2001; February 5, 2002; and March 25, 2002). (See Expanded PlameGate Timeline below). The second report from February was the subsequent basis for a DIA analysis, which led Vice President Cheney to ask CIA for more information on the matter. That request led to the CIA asking Ambassador Joe Wilson to go check out the story in Niger.
Even in the much maligned October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate, the entire intelligence community remained split on the reliability of the Iraq/Niger claim. During briefings subsequent to the publication of the NIE, senior CIA officials repeatedly debunked the claim that Iraq was trying to buy uranium. They also dismissed as unreliable reports from Great Britain, which also were derived from the faulty Italian intelligence reports.
Italy’s SISME also reportedly had a hand in producing the forged documents delivered to the U.S. Embassy in Rome in early October 2003 that purported to show a deal with Iraq to buy uranium. Many in the intelligence community are convinced that a prominent neo-con with longstanding ties to SISME played a role in the forgery. The truth of that proposition remains to be proven. This much is certain, either SISME or someone with ties to SISME, helped forge and circulate those documents which some tried to use to bolster the case to go to war with Iraq.
Ironically, the yellowcake itself wouldn't have helped Saddam much in the short run to get a nuclear weapon. In fact, Iraq already had stores of uranium yellowcake from their previous, long-discontinued nuclear weapons program. But the quantities in the forged doucments alleged to be involved were so large that they seemed to indicate a serious program. More importantly, the American public immediately perceived a connection between "uranium" and "nuclear weapons," whereas "aluminum tubes" doesn't really conjure up that mushroom that Condi-Condi warned us about.
Johnson also provides the text of the letter Joe Wilson sent to the Senate Intelligence Committee after they issued the 2004 "SSCI report" (in CheneyGateSpeak): Update on the Lies of Ambassador Wilson No Quarter blog 10/30/05. The title is somewhat misleading, because Johnson actually vouches for Wilson's credibility, and most of the post is devoted to Wilson own defense of his credibility. The same piece is available at the TPM Cafe.
Wilson's letter addresses some of the favorite talking points of the conservative comma-dancers (and the Daily Howler) who raise superficial questions about his credibility. But it's more interesting for the glimpse it gives us at Wilson's now-legendary trip to Niger. It also is a good reminder of what a whitewash the SSCI report was. He repeats a point I've made here before:
The first time I actually saw what were represented as the [Niger] documents was when Andrea Mitchell, the NBC correspondent handed them to me in an interview on July 21[2003]. 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.
He also notes:
At the time of my trip [2002] I was in private business and had not offered my views publicly on the policy we should adopt towards Iraq. Indeed, throughout the debate in the runup 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.
Wilson did oppose the invasion of Iraq in 2003. In his memoir The Politics of Truth (2004), he describes an appearance on Nightline of March 5, just weeks before the start of the war. Other guests included that Maverick McCain and Richard Land a senior official of the Southern Baptist Convention. (See my Blue Voice post Get to know your theocrats of 10/12/05 for more on Land.) Wilson's account of that appearance gives a good idea that he can be a combative sort when the situation calls for it.
It was an unpleasant evening from the beginning. Land reflected the views of the one part of the American population that was gung-ho for war from the beginning. The Christian Right, with its literal interpretation of the Book of Revelation, had become increasingly strident in promoting war in the Middle East as necessary for the return of Jesus and the subsequent "rapture" promised on Judgment Day.
When I was making the point that we could achieve disarmament without resporting to occupation - not the best idea, given the potential for negative outcomes, I was about to say - John McCain interrupted me and likedened my attitude to appeasement. I take great offense at having my patriotism questioned by anyone. John McCain's service to his country is unimpeachable but that does give him a monopoly on loyalty, nor is it equatable with wisdom on national security issues.
That quality of being willing to take on critics directly is probably something that the CheneyGate conspirators seriously underestimated.
And also, that's the great Maverick McCain, who is still calling for escalation of the Iraq War.
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