The First Novak Article
Mission to Niger
Robert Novak (archive)
July 14, 2003
Editor's Note: Robert Novak wrote a column on Oct. 1, 2003 in response to the story that began to unfold three months after
this column originally ran.
WASHINGTON -- The CIA's decision to send retired diplomat Joseph C. Wilson to Africa in February 2002 to investigate possible
Iraqi purchases of uranium was made routinely at a low level without Director George Tenet's knowledge. Remarkably, this
produced a political firestorm that has not yet subsided.
Wilson's report that an Iraqi purchase of uranium yellowcake from Niger was highly unlikely was regarded by the CIA as less
than definitive, and it is doubtful Tenet ever saw it. Certainly, President Bush did not, prior to his 2003 State of the
Union address, when he attributed reports of attempted uranium purchases to the British government. That the British relied
on forged documents made Wilson's mission, nearly a year earlier, the basis of furious Democratic accusations of burying
intelligence though the report was forgotten by the time the president spoke.
Reluctance at the White House to admit a mistake has led Democrats ever closer to saying the president lied the country into
war. Even after a belated admission of error last Monday, finger-pointing between Bush administration agencies continued.
Messages between Washington and the presidential entourage traveling in Africa hashed over the mission to Niger.
Wilson's mission was created after an early 2002 report by the Italian intelligence service about attempted uranium purchases
from Niger, derived from forged documents prepared by what the CIA calls a "con man." This misinformation, peddled by Italian
journalists, spread through the U.S. government. The White House, State Department and Pentagon, and not just Vice President
Dick Cheney, asked the CIA to look into it.
That's where Joe Wilson came in. His first public notice had come in 1991 after 15 years as a Foreign Service officer when,
as U.S. charge in Baghdad, he risked his life to shelter in the embassy some 800 Americans from Saddam Hussein's wrath. My
partner Rowland Evans reported from the Iraqi capital in our column that Wilson showed "the stuff of heroism." President
George H.W. Bush the next year named him ambassador to Gabon, and President Bill Clinton put him in charge of African affairs
at the National Security Council until his retirement in 1998.
Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction. Two
senior administration officials told me Wilson's wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate the Italian report. The
CIA says its counter-proliferation officials selected Wilson and asked his wife to contact him. "I will not answer any
question about my wife," Wilson told me.
After eight days in the Niger capital of Niamey (where he once served), Wilson made an oral report in Langley that an Iraqi
uranium purchase was "highly unlikely," though he also mentioned in passing that a 1988 Iraqi delegation tried to establish
commercial contacts. CIA officials did not regard Wilson's intelligence as definitive, being based primarily on what the
Niger officials told him and probably would have claimed under any circumstances. The CIA report of Wilson's briefing remains
classified.
All this was forgotten until reporter Walter Pincus revealed in the Washington Post June 12 that an unnamed retired diplomat
had given the CIA a negative report. Not until Wilson went public on July 6, however, did his finding ignite the firestorm.
During the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, Wilson had taken a measured public position -- viewing weapons of mass destruction
as a danger but considering military action as a last resort. He has seemed much more critical of the administration since
revealing his role in Niger. In the Washington Post July 6, he talked about the Bush team "misrepresenting the facts,"
asking: "What else are they lying about?"
After the White House admitted error, Wilson declined all television and radio interviews. "The story was never me," he told
me, "it was always the statement in (Bush's) speech." The story, actually, is whether the administration deliberately ignored
Wilson's advice, and that requires scrutinizing the CIA summary of what their envoy reported. The Agency never before has
declassified that kind of information, but the White House would like it to do just that now -- in its and in