Unsupported Claims Gazette

Joe Wilson wrote a New York Times Op-Ed and said on many other public occasions that he found no evidence showing Saddam Hussein's Iraq had sought uranium in Niger. This was later found to be untrue, as documented by the Senate Intelligence Committee and reported by the Post's own Susan Schmidt on July 10, 2004.

But that story has never been a favorite of the Post research department, judging from multiple misrepresentations since then of that simple chain of events.

Today's example is Vice President Sued by Plame And Husband on A3 by Eric Weiss and Charles Lane. It follows Wednesday's mistake by Howard Kurtz. Kurtz said reports of Iraq seeking Niger uranium were an "unsupported claim." Now, Weis and Charles play a variation:

Wilson had been sent by the CIA to investigate whether Iraq had sought nuclear weapons material from Niger. He reported that the charge could not be proved, but Bush nevertheless asserted in his 2003 State of the Union address that intelligence existed that Iraq had tried to buy uranium in Africa.

No. Wrong. The distant, disinterested "He reported the charge could not be proved" isn't even a fair rendering of Wilson's public remarks. In public, Wilson said he had debunked the claim. In private, according to the Senate Intelligence committee findings:

Wilson's report, rather than debunking intelligence about purported uranium sales to Iraq, as he has said, bolstered the case for most intelligence analysts.

Which among other things means Bush "nevertheless" asserted in the 2003 State of the Union Address something that Joe Wilson "bolstered." Cowboy.

As for the Weiss/Lane story itself, about the lawsuit filed by Plame and Wilson, it seems oddly serene about the role reporters or Plame or Wilson might be forced to play in this suit:

But legal analysts said the suit could open new avenues for extracting information from the administration, because Plame and Wilson could conduct discovery if the U.S. District Court in Washington lets the suit proceed.

Plame and Wilson might be entitled to demand documents from Cheney and others, as well as to require them to sit for sworn depositions, much as President Bill Clinton had to answer questions under oath in Paula Jones's sexual harassment lawsuit.

And, because the accusations in the suit are separate from the issue Fitzgerald was looking into -- whether anyone violated a federal law against disclosing CIA officers' identities -- Plame and Wilson "could go out and look into a lot of things that Fitzgerald didn't look into," said Eugene Volokh, a law professor at the University of California at Los Angeles.

As Volokh knows--and I wouldn't be surprised if commented on this at his own blog--the law rudely permits defendants to go looking into a lot of things that Fitzgerald didn't--or didn't report on, once he did. The betting seems to be against this suit going to trial, but I'm touched by the confidence among partisans or reporters that this would only make the Administration squirm.*

UPDATE: A Fox anchor just chatted with Bob Novak about the suit, ending with the tagline, "and they waited three years to file [suit]." Strata-Sphere cites a long post by Seixon who points to an old story by UPI reporter Richard Sale in October 26, 2005. Seixon believes Sale unwittingly was used by the VIPS group, former intelligence officials working in public and private to undermine the Bush Administration. Why should you care? Sale's old story was about charges to be filed by Fitzgerald; they weren't, but many of them are now appearing in the Plame/Wilson civil suit, including one that claims the Administration was trying to destroy Wilson's ability to work as a consultant:

It appears that Sale’s sources for this article were most likely people close to Wilson, perhaps doing some wishful thinking or revealing Wilson’s plans for a civil suit. Did Sale’s sources conflate Fitzgerald’s investigation with the civil suit that the Wilsons had drawn up? These same “federal law enforcement officials” may be the same ones that have been feeding Jason Leopold a plethora of misinformation. DOJ sources also related to Sale the story that Fitzgerald’s investigation would be looking into the Niger forgeries, including the conspiracy theory that Michael Ledeen was involved with their dissemination. This conspiracy has been pushed by VIPS for over a year, with Larry Johnson still referring to it as late as this week.

VIPS afficianados and fans of the Jason Rove-Has-Been-Indicted Leopold melodrama need to check this out.

*This Wizbang post has a few comments along those lines, including one from NRO's John Podhoretz:

Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you, Valerie. Because, you see, if the suit is summarily dismissed, she and Joe will be laughingstocks. And if it goes any further, Dick and Karl and Scooter will have the right to do discovery -- and then, I believe, Val 'n' Joe will reap the whirlwind.

Comments

[Mark Hansen]

Why would the CIA itself start an investigation, if Valerie wasn't a co-vert agent? Mark