Wilson's Paula Zahn interview

In what I can only describe as a "softball" interview, Paula Zahn asked Wilson about the lies that he told.

Here's the transcript, with my comments:

Former Ambassador Joe Wilson joins me now from Washington.

Welcome back, sir. It's good to have you with us.

WILSON: Hi, Paula.

ZAHN: I want you to respond to that very specific allegation in the addendum to the Senate report, which basically says that your public comments not only are incorrect, but have no basis in fact.

WILSON: Well, I'm not exactly sure what public comments they're referring to. If they're referring to leaks or sources, unidentified government sources in articles that appeared before my article in "The New York Times" appeared, those are either misquotes or misattributions if they're attributed to me.

He's not sure? How could he not be sure? The SICR is public knowledge. He can read it for himself and refresh his memory, if he needs to.

Wilson has chosen this line of attack, "I've been misquoted or misattributed", to deflect serious questions about his lies. He has not been misquoted, as The Weekly Standard so ably documents.

I would point out that my article appeared on July 6, 2003, in which said categorically, mine was but a small role in the effort to determine whether Saddam was attempting to purchase uranium yellow cake from Niger.

And that investigation was undertaken at the request of the government, at the request of the government because of a report, based upon documents purporting to be a memorandum of agreement. ZAHN: All right. Let me ask you this. To clear up some of the confusion here tonight, did Iraq make an attempt to buy uranium from Niger?

WILSON: As I pointed out in my article in July 2003, it was highly unlikely that that particular allegation, which were based on these documents that later turned out to be forgeries, was correct, that it did happen. It's highly unlikely that it happened.

Wilson himself reported that the former Nigerian Prime Minister told him that the Iraqis had approached him to "do business" and that he (the Minister) was convinced that meant uranium. What Wilson is doing here is conflating the purchase of uranium from Niger, which is unproven, with the the interest in purchasing uranium from Niger by the Iraqis, which interest Wilson himself confirmed. This is nothing more than obfuscation, pure and simple. Move the shells around and try to hide the pea. Zahn falls for it, hook line and sinker. Obviously she either didn't do her homework or she was trying to give Wilson a forum to vent.

ZAHN: All right. Let's go back to some of the other criticism you're hearing surrounding this very narrow part of the argument.

Today in "The New York Times," William Safire, the columnist, said that, instead of refuting President Bush's reasons for going to war, that your findings actually bolstered the link between Niger and Iraq.

WILSON: Well, that's interesting, because they didn't. And in fact, there is, in the body of the report, there are a whole host of citations of the efforts of the CIA not to have the president of the United States become a witness of fact in this -- in this matter.

On October 2, 2002, the deputy director of central intelligence said to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that one thing where I think the British stretched a little bit beyond where we would stretch is on the points about where Iraq seeking uranium from various African locations.

On October 6, the director of central intelligence called the deputy national security advisor and said that he did not want the president to be a fact witness on this issue, because his analysts had told him the reporting was weak.

And then on the same day, the CIA director or the CIA sent a second fax to the White House which said, among other things, "We have told Congress that the Africa story is overblown and this is one of two issues which we differ with the British."

I think it's as clear as a bell from everything that's in the report that the conclusion that somehow this bolstered the case is inaccurate.

Ahhh!! So Wilson has read the SICR, despite his protestations of ignorance earlier in the interview. Zahn never catches this either.

Furthermore, as is now becoming obvious, Wilson uses his favorite tactic, deflection, to draw attention away from the hard questions. The fact is the SICR states that Wilson's report bolstered the CIA's view that Iraq was trying to obtain uranium in Africa, just as Novak reports. Wilson never answers that question, he simply wanders off into a section of the report that, in his view, supports his allegations. (It doesn't, and it's not even relevant, but that matters not to Wilson.)

ZAHN: Is it as clear as a bell? You've got the head of the RNC out there, Mr. Gillespie, calling you and out and outright liar.

WILSON: Well, I think this is part of a concerted smear campaign, a partisan smear campaign. And what it's doing is it confuses people about the facts of this matter. And it also sets up, as some reporters have suggested, a possible defense along the lines that it was OK to betray the national security by exposing my wife's identity and her employment in order to discredit my bona fides.

When in trouble, use ad hominem to deflect criticism. This must be that "vast right wing conspiracy", working overtime to discredit the poor, maligned ambassador, who simply told the truth, right?

But the important thing is the day after my article appeared, which was several months after it became known that these documents were forgeries, the day after my article appeared, the White House said, the 16 words did not rise to the level of inclusion in the State of the Union address.

That, of course, justifies all the lies that Wilson has told, right?

ZAHN: A final word -- a final question for you, Mr. Ambassador. At the time that your wife's cover was blown, was she actively involved in a CIA investigation involving weapons of mass destruction?

WILSON: Well, I guess the question you really are asking is was she responsible possess for my going out to Niger?

ZAHN: No, that's actually not the question I'm asking. Are you able to tell us what she was involved in at the time that her cover was blown?

WILSON: No, of course not. Of course not. At that time, she was an undercover employee, at the time that her cover was blown by Bob Novak.

This, of course, is an outright lie, as is proven by the SICR, which places Valeria Plame in Washington, in the DO's office, at the time of the incident.

But what I can tell you is that on July 22, which was several months before I ever answered any questions about my wife, other than in the hypothetical, some enterprising reporters called the CIA and this is what the CIA said about her.

The CIA officer said she did not recommend her husband to undertake the Niger assignment. "They -- parentheses, the officers who did ask Wilson to check the story -- were aware of who she was married to, which was not surprising. There were people elsewhere in government who were trying to make her look like she was the one who was cooking this up for some reason. I can't figure out what it could be. We paid Wilson's airfare, but to go to Niger is not exactly a benefit. Most people you have to pay big bucks to go there," the senior intelligence official said.

Since then, David Ensor has gotten exactly the same statement out of the CIA, as has another reporter from "The Los Angeles Times."

So the Senate Intelligence Committee members are liars? Or the CIA officers being interviewed aren't familiar with the facts?

ZAHN: Ambassador Wilson, we have to leave it there. Thank you for joining us tonight.

We do need to button this off by reminding people that this bipartisan Senate Intelligence Committee report states that his wife had, indeed, proposed his name for the Niger mission. We leave it up to you to wade through all of these facts.

So what have we learned from the Paula Zahn interview? Nothing, except to confirm Wilson's penchant for changing the subject to deal with questions that he doesn't want to answer.