Nov 27 2005
Niger Forgeries – Al Gore?
OMG, the left is all atwitter about the Niger Forgeries and the Bush administration’s march to war in Iraq….
Except the forging occured on Clinton’s watch. From the leftward fever swamps we have this joke of a conspiracy theory:
At night, between the first and second of the January 2001, a mysterious thief came to the embassy of Niger in Rome and into the residence of the counselor in charge. It turned out that some letterhead and seals (see photocopy) were missing. A second dossier on Niger-Iraq trade soon came into Martino’s hands, one that included references to uranium trafficking. Martino claims he got it from embassy personnel and that he thought it was authentic.
Martino passed it on to the French secret service, who had paid for it, and also to Panorama [a magazine owned by Bush ally and Italian president Silvio Berlusconi], which assessed it by dispatching a female reporter to Niger. Panorama also turned the file over to the US Embassy in Rome for cross-checking in the US.
For the calendar challenged, Bush was not sworn in until January 20, 2001. So how is it he was able to start this scandal prior to being President – let alone prior to 9-11!
If we are going to lay blame, Clinton-Gore were in office at the time and the only ones who could have planned and executed such a covert operation on January 1, 2001.
AJ
Isn’t funny that the left hold Bush as the dumbest incompetent to ever enter the office at the same time they devise these scenarios he pulls off while the dumb duped congress is rendered powerless by his brains, guile and super human powers.
–This site that talks about the forgeries themselves, is interesting. Not vouching for everything (or really sure where the writer is coming from) However some of the information is interesting since they appear to be gleaning much from foreign news outlets it might be useful.
http://cryptome.org/niger-docs3.htm
AJ
HOLY COW! Look at this! Looks like Gabon was paying big, no word of Niger
“USA: African Governments Spend Millions on Lobbying
by Jim Lobe, Inter Press Service
May 20th, 2001
WASHINGTON — African governments are paying millions of dollars to lobbyists in hopes of influencing Washington’s policy, according to an examination of US government files.
Oil-producing nations — especially, Nigeria, Angola, Gabon, and Equatorial Guinea — are paying the biggest fees by far, but others, especially those with which Washington has difficult relations, are not holding back the cash….
…Still others may be acting through private individuals or companies who contract with US lobbyists, according to disclosure statements which lobbyists are required to file under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA)…
Favoured lobbyists include former high-ranking State Department and other government officials…Lobbyists also include former high-ranking members of the intelligence community. Milton Bearden, L.C. Johnson, they co-wrote WSJ Op-Ed> a senior Central Intelligence Agency officer who specialised in Muslim countries and served as station chief in Pakistan when Washington was backing the mujahideen in Afghanistan, has just been hired by a wealthy Sudanese businessman reported to be close to the Khartoum government.
…Under FARA, individuals who engage in lobbying on behalf of foreign entities are required to register with the US government and file semi-annual reports on their activities. All of these filings are public information and are kept in a small office at the Justice Department….
According to the records, oil-producers are the current big spenders.
…Gabon, another oil producer, has gone through more than a half a dozen lobbying firms in recent years. …
…Most recently, however, Gabon appears to have cut off some of its agents, settling instead for relationships with UK-based Shandwick Public Affairs, which last year bought out Powell Tate and Cassidy & Associates.
Gabon has also maintained a three-year-old relationship with Jacqueline Wilson, the ex-spouse of a senior US diplomat. According to her filings, Wilson receives tens of thousands of dollars for special projects and reports to President Omar Bongo’s daughter, Pascaline Mferri Bongo.
In her latest filing, Wilson reported that she was paid 60,000 dollars between August and November 2000 to ”support action of president of Gabon to fight AIDS pandemic (and) develop a strategy.” As to work performed, she reported sending ”letters to the office of National AIDS policy at the White House.”
http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=98
Joe Wilson:
1994.
That same year, Wilson also came back to Washington, as a senior director for African affairs at the National Security Council, where, according to the Reagan administration’s assistant secretary of state for African affairs…
… After only one year in the job Wilson decided to retire and go into the private sector because “we wanted to have kids, and felt that it had become very difficult to live off two government salaries.” He set up a consultancy, J. C. Wilson International Ventures, with an office in downtown Washington at the headquarters of the Rock Creek Corporation, an investment firm of which little is known. Wilson’s right-wing critics have been quick to condemn the affiliation as “murky,” though Wilson does not work for Rock Creek and merely rents space and facilities there.
“I have a number of clients, and basically we help them with their sort of investments in countries like Niger,” explains Wilson. “Niger was of some interest because it has some gold deposits coming onstream. We had some clients who were interested in gold…. We were looking to set up a gold-mine company out of London.”
MMapes,
You’re on a roll, girl! The name “Jim Lobe”, author of that May 2001 article, was a familiar name to me…I came across him a few weeks ago while searching on Joe Wilson and Pat Lang.
Google these keywords: “jim lobe” 2003 niger
You’ll get some interesting hits that’ll make you wonder just who Jim Lobe is and what he’s up to. Look at this, for example:
http://www.coldtype.net/Assets.05/Essays/08.Cheney.pdf
Maid Marion
Get out of my head! When I was searching around this African new site (you have to be a subscriber to read the stories) I was struck by all the Gabon economic crisis stories in 1999 to mid-late 2000 (nothing of the like on Niger and no stories about Gold deposits coming onstream)
then late 2000 this story pops up
“POLITICS-US:Contending Factions in Bush Administration Could Muddy Waters in Crisis Areas
Analysis by Jim Lobe on 21/12/2000 00:43:01 GMT
WASHINGTON, Dec 20 (IPS) – If you thought that President Bill Clinton’s foreign policy suffered from incoherence, wait until the administration of George W. Bush takes over Jan. 20. … (continue)”
which is one that just hit me like a brick! I searched around for it, but still can’t find it. Search Jim Lobe and WHOAA (his name ALONE comes http://www.lewrockwell.com/ips/lobe-arch.html, first one “Scowcroft vs. Neocons -Bush 41 aide criticizes Bush 43 aides.”
But the main one on Africa above hit me because it made me realize that maybe alot of the adversity was from the “African” side of thinking…this where all these people are getting paid outrageous sums of money for what? A couple of letters written? (Probably more but)
This guy too–by Robert Cabelly, a former diplomat who worked on Angola when he was at the State Department;—from the main article google him, he is practically Joe Wilson.
AJ AJ AJ
On your Wilson Gadon and Uranium post…my last comment, could this be why the year 1999 keeps popping up!
http://strata-sphere.com/blog/index.php/archives/980
CARNIVAL OF THE CLUELESS #23
Welcome to the 23rd edition of the Carnival of the Clueless where bloggers highlight the stupidity of various loons, goons, poltroons, dirty necked galoots and the odd idiotarian whose behavior marks them for entry into the blog slaughterhouse. Taking…