What I Didn't Find in Africa is in Wilson's own words. [...] I see nothing in Wilson's own words that allude to any failed transaction or attempted transaction. Wilson does refer to what we now know to be forged documents which were the origin of the claims about Iraq's attempts.
I didn't refer exclusively to "What I Didn't Find In Africa," but also to Wilson's subsequent book
The Politics of Truth. If you scope it out on
Amazon, you can see that on the first page of chapter one, Wilson states that:
In it [that is, "the piece I had written for the New York Times op-ed page on July 6," meaning "What I didn't Find in Africa"], I stated that the Bush administration had been informed a year and a half earlier that their claims of Iraqi attempts to purchase uranium from Niger were false.
As you say yourself, Skeptigirl, you "see nothing in Wilson's own words [i.e. "What I Didn't Find in Africa"] that allude to any failed transaction or attempted transaction," but in
The Politics of Truth, Wilson says that something to that effect
is there, even though you and I agree it is not.
(Note, incidentally, that I cited the above passage in my previous post, stating that Wilson had claimed
in the book that there had been no attempt on Iraq's part to acquire Nigerien yellowcake.)
What is in the "Intelligence Report" which was what page 43 in the 911 report was referring to was hearsay.
Just for clarification, by the way, the Senate intelligence committee's report on prewar intel assessments of Iraq is not the same thing as the 9/11 report. I'm sure you knew that, and your referring to it as "the 911 report" is just the result of a Freudian slip or something, but I just want to establish we're on the same page here.
You say the material in the CIA report based on Wilson's debriefing was hearsay. Taken by itself, perhaps, but Wilson himself provided corroboration, again in
The Politics of Truth. From the
Washington Post:
Tenet's statement noted that Wilson had reported back to the CIA that a former Niger official told him that "in June 1999 a businessman approached him and insisted that the former official meet with an Iraqi delegation to discuss 'expanding commercial relations' between Iraq and Niger. The former official interpreted the overture as an attempt to discuss uranium sales."
In his book, Wilson recounts his encounter with the unnamed Niger official in 2002, saying, he "hesitated and looked up to the sky as if plumbing the depths of his memory, then offered that perhaps the Iraqi might have wanted to talk about uranium."
Comparing Wilson's recounting with the Senate report, it's safe to assume that the "unnamed official" in question was former Nigerien prime minister Ibrahim Mayaki.
There is a reference above that the former Prime Minister suggested Iraq may have requested "expanding commercial relations" which might have been interpreted as an attempt to buy uranium. It wasn't from Wilson's report.
I'm not sure what you mean by "Wilson's report." In "WIDFiA," Wilson states that he "did not file a written report." The reference to Iraq attempting to "expand commercial relations" comes from a report by CIA Directorate of Operations (DO) based on a verbal debriefing of Wilson by DO personnel, which is, for all practical purposes, "Wilson's report." And, again, Wilson provides confirmation for the claims from this report in his book.
Note that the Senate report mentions an earlier INR intelligence assessment which concluded that it was next to impossible for Niger to actually export uranium ore to Iraq, but did allow that "some [Nigerien] officials may have conspired for individual gain to arrange a uranium sale."
With regard to whether it is plausible that "expanding commercial relations" meant buying yellowcake, it's worth noting that
the CIA World Factbook lists
Niger's export commodities as uranium ore, livestock, cowpeas and onions. To give you an idea of how important the uranium is in this equation, note that Niger's primary export partner is France, which takes 47.9% (presumably by price) of Niger's exports. France is a major producer of nuclear power--probably the largest in Europe--and is notoriously protectionist when it comes to agricultural products, so it's a safe bet Nigerien exports to France consist
entirely of uranium ore (which would explain the degree of French control over Nigerien uranium ore production). The same considerations apply to the US, which takes another 20.3% of Niger's exports. So yellowcake almost certainly accounts for at least two thirds of Niger's income from exports.
So if you were to ask "how plausible is it that 'expanding commericial relations' necessarily involved yellowcake uranium ore?" it's a reasonable response to ask "how plausible is it that it could mean anything else?" With Niger having some of the largest uranium deposits in the world, how likely is it that an Iraqi trade delegation would be looking to buy livestock (more readily imported from, say, Australia, like the Arabian Gulf states do) or onions?
In addition, if you look at the bottom of page 44 of the 911 report, it says the opposite. It says "the ambassador" found no evidence of an attempt to buy yellow-cake.
Correction to my previous post: yes, Wilson, when interviewed by the Senate intelligence committee
did "refut[e] the possibility [...] that Iraq approached Niger to purchase uranium." Unfortunately, this contradicts not only what he reportedly told his CIA DO debriefers, but also what he wrote in
The Politics of Truth.
You have a forged document, Wilson found no evidence, and the former Prime Minister said Iran attempted to buy yellow-cake. The Iraq reference is more indirectly described.
The forged sale agreement has no bearing on my argument, so I'll dismiss that for the straw man it is. The reference to the reported Iranian purchase attempt is a red herring, as an attempt by Iran to purchase uranium ore from Niger does not preclude an Iraqi attempt to do the same. That leaves Wilson.
Since Wilson, in his own words, conveniently did not file a written report, it's impossible to tell what he actually told his CIA debriefers. What can be established, however, is that Wilson's account of his findings is highly inconsistent. His statement to the Senate intelligence committee "refuting the possibility [...] that Iraq approached Niger to purchase uranium" seems to have been the only time he denied outright the salient point of the Sixteen Words, namely that Iraq
attempted to acquire uranium ore from Niger; the rest of the time, he's obfuscated, claiming that the Sixteen Words weren't true because Iraq hadn't
actually managed to acquire any yellowcake, as if that had any bearing on whether or not they
tried. Moreover, he has personally confirmed evidence which strongly suggests that Iraq
did make such an attempt, albeit an abortive one.
Too thin to base the Sixteen Words on, sure, but bear in mind the Sixteen Words
weren't based on anything Wilson reported (or was alleged to have reported). But the claims that the Sixteen Words were false are based entirely on Wilson's say-so, and his collected statements fail to actually support that accusation.
(Note: for the record, my argument relates exclusively to Wilson's criticism of the Sixteen Words. This has no bearing on my opinion with regard to the administration's subsequent cack-handed attempt at retaliation against Wilson, which I believe was petty, vindictive, unethical, unjustifiable and above all breathtakingly stupid.)
