Joe And Dick On The Same Page

September, 2003

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP, “MEET THE PRESS“)

DICK CHENEY, VICE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: I had heard a report that the Iraqis had been trying to acquire uranium in Africa, Niger in particular.

I get a daily brief on my own each day before I meet with the president to go through the intel. And I ask lots of question. One of the questions I asked at that particular time about this, I said, “What do we know about this?” They take the question. He came back within a day or two and said, “This is all we know. There’s a lot we don’t know,” end of statement. And Joe Wilson — I don’t know who sent Joe Wilson. He never submitted a report that I ever saw when he came back.

Here’s what Wilson said in the op-ed on July 6th, that Ken Mehlman and half the Washington Press Corps is characterizing as “Cheney sent me to Africa:”

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.

When Karl Rove was talking to Bob Novak on July 8th about Valerie Plame this is what Wilson had actually said. If Karl was “knocking down” a story it was one that he was making up in his head because Cheney himself backed up Wilson’s story long after the brouhaha had hit the fan. Nothing in Cheney’s statement contradicts what Wilson said, even about the disposition of the report:

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.

All Karl and his hit squad had to do to “knock down” Wilson was say, “Cheney had some questions back in 2002, but he never saw any report on Wilson’s trip and was unaware that the CIA had dispatched him. And frankly, after looking into the matter and seeing his report for the first time we can see why it wouldn’t have been forwarded to the White House. Ambassador Wilsons himself says that there was nothing earth shattering in it. In retrospect he was on the right track but nobody knew that at the time. Fog of war and all that…”

But no. They couldn’t try to be reasonable and put the thing into perspective. They had to immediately smear Wilson with this business about his wife. And a smear it was — it was the main thrust of Rove’s “evidence” in his discussion with Cooper and he admits that he at least confirmed this information to Novak. That’s the mark of Rove.

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