Who actually sent Amb. Joseph Wilson on his Niger mission?

[Elendil_s_Heir]

I DON’T want to debate the whole yellowcake/Wilson/Plame/Scooter ‘n’ Karl controversy.

I DO want to know who actually sent Wilson on his mission to determine whether or not Saddam Hussein was trying to get nuclear bomb-making materials in Niger. In all the press coverage, I’ve never discovered that particular bit of info.

Those in the White House who criticized Wilson and, by extension, his wife, seem to have implied to their press contacts that she sent him, or arranged to have him sent, on a junket for which he was simply unqualified. I find that hard to believe. Although she may have suggested him to her CIA superiors, would she herself have had the authority to send him on such an important investigative trip? Wouldn’t some CIA higher-up have made that call? Would the State Department, or even the White House, have been the place where someone in authority said, “Go to Niger, Joe, and let us know what Saddam did there”?

Factual answers, or informed speculation, please.

[pesch]

No comments, just quotes:

From the senate report on prewar intelligence on Iraq

(U) Conclusion 14. The Central Intelligence Agency should have told the Vice President and other senior policymakers that it had sent someone to Niger to look into the alleged Iraq-Niger uranium deal and should have briefed the Vice President on the former ambassador’s findings.

From the bottom of this Washington Post story

On another item of dispute – whether Vice President Cheney’s office inspired the Wilson trip to Niger – Wilson had said the CIA told him he was being sent to Niger so they could “provide a response to the vice president’s office,” which wanted more information on the report that Iraq was seeking uranium there. Tenet said the CIA’s counterproliferation experts sent Wilson “on their own initiative.”

From New York Times op-ed writer Nicholas Kristof:

I’m told by a person involved in the Niger caper that more than a year ago the vice president’s office asked for an investigation of the uranium deal, so a former U.S. ambassador to Africa was dispatched to Niger.

Now, ‘that person involved in the Niger caper’ is alleged to have been Wilson, but I can’t find comfirmation in that.

There’s a start. If you want more information, check out the blog Just One Minute. He concludes that Wilson is a liar, but the commentary is not too scathing to be off-putting, and he links to a lot of the news stories, so it’s a good jumping-off point for you to get more information.

[The_Hamster_King]

Here are Wilson’s own words on who sent him, from an interview that he did with Wolf Blitzer on August 3rd, 2003:

Well, look, it’s absolutely true that neither the vice president nor Dr. Rice nor even George Tenet knew that I was traveling to Niger.

What they did, what the office of the vice president did, and, in fact, I believe now from Mr. Libby’s statement, it was probably the vice president himself…

…they asked essentially that we follow up on this report – that the agency follow up on the report. So it was a question that went to the CIA briefer from the Office of the Vice President. The CIA, at the operational level, made a determination that the best way to answer this serious question was to send somebody out there who knew something about both the uranium business and those Niger officials that were in office at the time these reported documents were executed."

According to him, a request came down to the CIA from the office of the Vice President asking for more information on possible Iraqi uranium purchases from Niger. As a former diplomat to Niger who had connections with officials in the uranium mining operation, Wilson was a natural choice. He has never claimed that he was sent by Dick Cheney – only that he was sent by the CIA in response to a request by Cheney’s office.

As to his wife’s role in his selection: She didn’t have the authority to send him on her own. A state department memo has been circulated that she did SUGGEST his name to her superiors, however CIA officials have challenged the accuracy of that memo by claiming that the author was not actually present at the meeting where Wilson was selected. Maybe Valerie Wilson recommended her husband for the job and maybe she didn’t – at this point its uncertain. But his trip doesn’t seem to have been a boondoggle. He was certainly qualified for the job and seems to have spent his time in country doing what he said he was sent to do. And why scam a trip to Niger of all places?

I’m not going to wade through that blog. What is Wilson supposed to be lying about?