- White House spinmeisters are claiming that Vice President
Dick Cheney and the White House Iraq Group (WHIG) engaged in a "work
up" on Ambassador Joseph Wilson because they did not know who he was
and wanted to have all the information on him so they could engage in "politics."
The right wing is bemoaning a situation which they see as the "criminalization
of politics." The White House and their media trolls (including the
increasingly ubiquitous former federal prosecutor Joseph DiGenova and his
law partner wife Victoria Toensing) are lying out of their teeth about
Cheney and what he knew about Wilson.
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- Wilson was Deputy Chief of Mission in Baghdad when Iraq
invaded Kuwait on August 5, 1990. Cheney, who was then the Secretary of
Defense, flew to Saudi Arabia to confer with Saudi officials. The Defense
Department was well aware of the situation in Baghdad, where Wilson had
taken over the operation of the U.S. embassy in the absence of April Glaspie
after she was recalled to Washington by the Bush I administration.
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- In his book, The Politics of Truth, Wilson describes
the relationship between his embassy staff and the Pentagon, which Cheney
headed: "I received a message from Washington advising us that there
would be military means at the ready -- to extract us -- in the event Saddam
tried to prevent us from departing, when and if our removal was made. We
would drive into the desert to the east of Baghdad, near the Iranian border,
where a helicopter and a contingent of Special Operations forces would
be standing by to whisk us to safety." In addition, the safety of
the U.S. embassy staff was one of the highest priorities for then-Secretary
of State James Baker in his negotiations with Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq
Aziz. Cheney would now have us believe that he was sleeping at those National
Security Council meetings when Baker was describing the situation at the
Baghdad embassy and the role of DCM [Deputy Chief of Mission] Joe Wilson.
The lies of Cheney and his band of neocons apparently have no boundaries.
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- Cheney and his defenders would now have us believe that
the Secretary of Defense in 1990 was unaware of who was in charge of the
U.S. embassy in Baghdad even as a rescue mission was being planned by Cheney's
senior military advisers and officials.
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- Insiders involved with Operation Desert Storm NSC meetings
(which also discussed the exfiltration of Western "human shields"
from Iraq), including then Assistant Secretary of State for Near East and
South Asian Affairs John Kelly, often brought up Joe Wilson in the discussions.
When contingency plans dealing with the Baghdad embassy staff were being
discussed by Cheney, among others, Kelly reportedly would often reply,
"Joe Wilson has already thought of that."
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- When Cheney told Meet the Press host Tim Russert on Sept.
14, 2003, "I don't know Joe Wilson," it was clear the Vice President
was lying. If Cheney told similar lies to the Special Prosecutor, that
would constitute making false statements to a federal law enforcement officer,
impeachable felonies.
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- Additionally, during the NSC meetings, President George
H. W. Bush, himself, often inquired about "what Joe Wilson was saying"
about the situation on the ground in Baghdad. For Cheney to have ignored
these comments during NSC meetings shows an individual who was either incredibly
arrogant and ignorant or someone who was having severe heart problems causing
a shortage of oxygen to the brain and a resulting lapse of memory.
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- http://waynemadsenreport.com/
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