Novak strikes back - more on Butler report
Robert Novak, the columnist who famously "outed" Joe Wilson's wife
Valierie Plame, has since been silent on this topic on advice of
his legal counsel. Now that the evidence against Wilson's partisan claims are
out, it is payback time.
I quoted the conclusion on the Niger claim in Lord Butler's report
yesterday. Butler actually made mention of the controversy on the other
side of the pond in the actual text of the report:, from page 121
onwards. Not only was there evidence of Iraq trying to obtain uranium
from Niger, Butler also wrote there was evidence Iraq had made
inquiries about purchasing uranium from the Democratic Republic of
Congo. There was conflicting evidence about whether it had been
purchased, but the evidence Iraq had sought uranium appeared conclusive. 499.
We conclude that, on the basis of the intelligence assessments at the
time, covering both Niger and the Democratic Republic of Congo, the
statements on Iraqi attempts to buy uranium from Africa in the
Government’s dossier, and by the Prime Minister in the House of
Commons, were well-founded. By extension, we conclude also that the
statement in President Bush’s State of the Union Address of 28 January
2003 that: The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. was well-founded. 500.
We also note that, because the intelligence evidence was inconclusive,
neither the Government’s dossier nor the Prime Minister went on to say
that a deal between the Governments of Iraq and Niger for the supply of
uranium had been signed, or uranium shipped. 501.
We have been told that it was not until early 2003 that the British
Government became aware that the US (and other states) had received
from a journalistic source a number of documents alleged to cover the
Iraqi procurement of uranium from Niger. Those documents were passed to
the IAEA, which in its update report to the United Nations Security
Council in March 2003 determined that the papers were forgeries
Joshua Micah Marshall is visibly squirming
when faced with this evidence, but it is to his credit he doesn't try
to pretend it doesn't exist. Yet, Marshall has not admitted that Joseph
Wilson has
gone down in flames spectacularly, and neither has he admitted that
Bush was absolutely truthful in his state of the union address..This story has
been pretty much his pet peeve for a year, so it is probably
understandable. Face it: Plamegate is shut! PS: Tim Blair notes that Joe "not a political partisan" Wilson's site RestoreHonesty.com actually states it is paid for by John Kerry for President, Inc.
I have to take Tim on trust on this one, because Wilson's site has just
evaporated from the net, replaced by a blank placeholder. Somehow that
doesn't make me doubt the claim is true! Google doesn't even have a
cache of Wilson's site, and vew few sites link to it (before today).
One of them, however, is the John Kerry for President blog.
Update: Wilson's site is now back up, so it may have been an odd technical glitch.
9:31:39 PM 
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