The SMH today reprints Joe Wilson's column from the Los Angeles Times in which he has another go at the Bush Administration.
Of course, the most important thing about the whole affair - whether or not Wilson got it right on the Iraq uranium issue - is left completely out of the picture. (As is Wilson's own admissions about how he "misspoke" about when he saw the fake letter.)
In fact, Wilson still insists in today's piece that he is right and the CIA and British Intelligence were wrong:
"I knew that the statement in Bush's speech - that Iraq had attempted to purchase significant quantities of uranium in Africa - was not true. I knew it was false from my own investigative trip to Africa (at the request of the CIA) and from two similar intelligence reports. And I knew that the White House knew it."
Of course, many people will believe this because the White House itself, prematurely and rather strangely in hindsight (all to do with political infighting with the CIA, apparently), did back away from the claim soon after Wilson wrote his original column.
The best summary of all of this is, I think, on the Factcheck.org site, with its further links to other material.
Now the Sydney Morning Herald, if it had any interest in keeping its readers aware of what the facts are, and how Wilson has been largely discredited in his original claims, would balance today's opinion piece with an article which spells out the facts around Wilson's Iraq uranium claims.
In fact, I think it would be outrageous to let Wilson's paragraph above go uncontradicted.
But I am not going to hold my breathe waiting for the SMH to do this.
Sorry to bother you Steven, but wasn't the most important issue the subsequent behaviour of all the President's men towards the Wilson family?
ReplyDeleteGeoff
No, I don't think so. The whole affair is very complicated, and I think the various articles on slate.com ( a site which, apart from Hitchen's enduring support of the Iraq war, is far from being routinely pro-Bush) have been pretty good on the pro and cons. Suffice it to say that there has been a body of "middle of the road" (as opposed to standard right wing) commentary suggesting that the whole matter is pretty trivial.
ReplyDeleteAs I recall, the right wing skeptics view is something like this: in light of Wilson getting publicly involved in a hot political issue (in a highly contentious way, as I say in my post,) why would it be a surprise that someone in the White House would suggest to a journalist that Wilson did not come to the whole issue as a completely independent party. He lives with a CIA operative, who may have even got him the Iraq gig, and as the CIA has had elements that have been trying to divert blame over pre war intelligence, this might suggest his criticism is far from objective.
The issue is then whether in disclosing the wife's job, did they know she would lose it? Well, this may all depend on how "covert" she was. She worked in Washington, and as late as last week, the prosecutor was still checking with the neighbours to see if they knew who she worked for. This suggests there is some doubt that she was really so "covert." The details will come out more during the trial, and of course it is also important to remember that no one (yet) has been charged with the actual offence of disclosing a covert operative's name. That may be for more technical reasons, but we will know more soon.
By the way, as a scandal, it appears to bear no comparison to Watergate, whatever some on the Left say. The prosector seems to have no issue with co-operation from the White House (apart from the fact that he thinks one of them has lied, of course!)
Geoff, see www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110007508 for some recent comment on this along my lines.
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