“Joe Wilson was wrong …”

from The Gray Area:

In Chapter 10, “Joe Wilson’s Attack”, of Karl Rove’s 2010 book, Courage & Consequence, My Life as a Conservative in the Fight, Karl Rove explains how “the former Ambassador, either by design or through ignorance gave the American people and, for that matter, the world a version of events that as inaccurate, unsubstantiated, and misleading“.

The 16 words in President Bush’s 2003 State of the Union address that created such as stir were, “The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.“

Mr. Wilson implied in his famous op-ed, “What I Didn’t Find in Africa”, that on his trip to Africa “he found no evidence Iraq had tried to acquire uranium. In fact Wilson collected information that showed Saddam Hussein attempted to do just that. Wilson left this out of his op-ed, but included it in his verbal report to the CIA.” CIA Director George Tenet included this and other facts in his statement released late on a Friday evening in July 2003, which received little media attention.

“Joe Wilson was wrong when he:

– said he had disproved the British intelligence report,
– twisted the Bush Administration’s statement that Iraq attempted to acquire uranium into obtained uranium,
– said the information he acquired was conclusive,
– speculated that VP Cheney received his report,
– said he had talked to very “senior officials” in Cheney’s office,
– said he had been sent to Africa at VP Cheney’s behest,
– said he had debunked forged documents sold to Italian intelligence, and
– said that his wife had nothing to do with sending him to Niger.”

The Bush Administration “vacillated” on a response to all this false reporting “and made the problem worse”. Later, it was shown that “the 16 words were … accurate and their source, British Intelligence, later reaffirmed them”.

So anytime anyone like Knut Royce attempts to re-write history for leftist political purposes, remember there is another side, which makes more sense and wasn’t covered by the new media. Really, that’s a surprise!

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