The Politics of Truth: A Diplomat's Memoir: Inside the ... (ISBN 0786715510)

Amazon.com Review:
While many former Bush administration officials published books airing their gripes and concerns in advance of the 2004 election, few were in a situation as personal as Joseph Wilson's. A career diplomat, he found himself working for an administration that apparently leaked information revealing his wife, Valerie Plame, to be a CIA operative soon after Wilson cast doubt on Bush's claims of Iraq trying to buy uranium from Niger. When columnist Robert Novak named Plame, there was widespread speculation about who leaked the information. In The Politics of Truth, Wilson points a finger at Dick Cheney’s chief-of-staff I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby and national security aide Eliot Abrams although Wilson never really presents smoking gun evidence against them. There is little here that breaks new ground in terms of hard facts being revealed, nonetheless, Wilson's account, personal and well written, maps out the human impact of the situation in ways that major newspapers never could. Wilson's animus toward the administration is made stronger by his support of the president in the 2000 election and he held out hope that a centrist conservative approach would help America's position in the world. That scenario withered, in Wilson's mind, when the plan to invade Iraq became increasingly inevitable and, like many traditional conservatives, Wilson mourns the rise of the ideological "neo-conservatives" who shaped foreign policy. But while a true-life secret identity/betrayal story is inherently fascinating, and Wilson's indignation and scorn is powerfully delivered, there is more to recommend his book. Wilson tells of being stationed in the Persian Gulf in the days leading up to the first Gulf War, a haunting encounter with Saddam Hussein, and years of efforts to establish democracy in Africa. The Politics of Truth provides a glimpse inside the high stakes world of international intelligence and, Joseph Wilson says, that world can be vicious. --John Moe

Fascinating & Frightening:
Joseph Wilson has had a fascinating life and having worked as a diplomat in different African nations and Iraq in the run up to the first Gulf war, he is not naive, nor is he anti-war. This is why it is all the more powerful to hear his side of how the White House has worked to discredit him, because he pointed out that claims they were making about Saddam trying to buy uranium for nuclear weapons from Niger were false. He never wanted a fight with the White House, but once they outted his wife as a CIA operatives the gloves came off. All the more telling is the fact that George Bush Snr. invited Wilson to the oval office and warmly thanked him for all he had achieved in getting US citizens out of Iraq prior to the first Gulf war. This same man is being attacked and vilified by the current White House run by the son, simply because he asked for some untrue statements to be corrected. Very indicative of the sorry state of the Office of the President of the US.

Whether you lean left or right, read this book!:
There's a little-known story about the Valerie Plame Wilson affair that has gone almost unmentioned in its aftermath. I have seen this story mentioned once, during congressional testimony on the part of one of her co-workers. The testimony never made it to the public outside of C-SPAN. Here's how it works. A former covert agent is outed. Immediately, intelligence services in other countries go to work to identify all of the people they can who can be proven to have had contact with the outed agent, going back as far as possible and covering every possible contact, including everyone they can include. The list, which will be huge, is now slowly and patiently shaken down, and people who were formerly "trusted" are now considered "dirty" until proven otherwise. Twenty-year-old survillance photos are pulled from files and re-examined. Field operatives are pulled in for questioning. Possible double agents are identified, trapped and used to reveal more information. Often when a single agent's cover is blown, even a non-active one, people die for years afterward and entire intelligence networks, networks that often cost many millions of dollars to create and involve years of work on the part of many dedicated people, are destroyed. A blown cover is like a large rock hitting a pool of calm water; the ripples last for a very long time. There is no doubt that the outing of Wilson's wife caused mayhem at the very least and at the worst, many deaths. This fact goes unmentioned in news coverage, not out of conspiracy but out of ignorance. Most people just don't know. Whether you are politically on the right or on the left, if you believe in our Republic and wish to preserve it, you should read this book and gain some insight into the mechanisms of politics. The GWB administration has been willing to go farther past traditional limits than any other in history to discredit its enemies and hit back hard, and truth is not (at all) a requirement. It's a Karl Rove tactic, and it has worked well to win elections against not one but three decorated war veterans. If you are at all interested in the future of the United States, you should read this frank and well-written book, and then look for these tactics in future elections and congressional battles.

The Politics of truth by Joseph Wilson:
I found this book very interesting and informative. It was well constructed and the only disappointment I had with it was that it finished too early. More comments about the last presidential election and its aftermath would have been most welcome

MISSION TO NIGER:
Before George W. Bush accused Saddam Hussein of trying to buy uranium yellowcake from Africa, Ambassador Joseph Wilson was tasked by the CIA to investigate. Wilson found that the claim rested on one incident: a high ranking official from Niger, attending a regional conference, was approached by an Iraqi official who, in the course of conversation, expressed the wish that Iraq and Niger establish commercial relations. Afterwards, the official from Niger suspected that Saddam was seeking uranium, although uranium was never mentioned and nothing ever came of it. But on the basis of this highly inconclusive bit of speculation, Bush declared, as if it were established fact, that Saddam tried to buy uranium from Africa. Even after the CIA repeatedly warned the Bush administration that American intell did not support the claim, the administration insisted on repeating it. Finally, the CIA agreed to greenlight it when the Bush administration chose to cite UK intelligence instead of US. Ambassador Wilson further found that Saddam couldn't have gotten yellowcake from Niger under any circumstances since production is set and regulated by an international consortium that includes several US allies. Wilson also recounts how two other investigations, one by an American Marine Corps general and another by the US Ambassador to Niger, had already investigated the Bush claim and found that it was unfounded. Thus Wilson's findings merely confirmed what the US government already knew. But why did the CIA investigate the claim three times? Because Cheney did not like the truth and kept pushing the CIA to find "evidence" for it. After Valerie Plame Wilson, Ambassador Wilson's wife, was outed as a CIA officer (Wilson suspects it was done to warn others to keep quiet, and also as revenge), Cheney's office claimed that it was forced to mention her in order to set the record straight. Wilson, they asserted, had lied by claiming that Cheney had chosen him for the mission. But Wilson never claimed he was sent by Cheney. In fact, as an appendix, the book includes Wilson's original New York Times op-ed piece that touched off the controversy. When you actually read the piece, you realize what Wilson actually said: "In February 2002, I was informed by officials at the Central Intelligence Agency that Vice President Dick Cheney's office had questions about a particular intelligence report. While I never saw the report, I was told that it referred to a memorandum of agreement that documented the sale of uranium yellowcake by Niger to Iraq in the late 1990s. The agency officials asked if I would travel to Niger to check out the story so they could provide a response to the vice president's office" (478). I checked this version of the op-ed piece with the one the NYTimes printed at the time, and it matches perfectly; Wilson hasn't changed a word. As you can see, he says officials at the CIA, not Cheney, sent him. However, it was Cheney who tasked the CIA to investigate, which is true according to the government investigation conducted by Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald. By the way, the report that Cheney tried to use as evidence turned out to be based on forged documents. The book's biggest shortcoming is that it was published before key information about the case became available. Thanks to an expose by Italian journalists, we now know that the Italian government provided the Brits with the same forged documents about Niger that they gave the US. Moreover, they did so without informing either country that they had provided them to the other. Before the vote on whether to give Bush authority to declare war, his administration told Congress they had proof that Saddam tried to obtain uranium from Africa. But they refused to hand the documents over until after the vote. When the Bush administration finally gave copies to the UN, which had been demanding to see them, the UN determined that the documents were bogus. The Bush administration then admitted they were forgeries, claiming to have been "duped." But according to Italian media, the Italian government had, from the outset, warned both countries that the documents' authenticity could not be verified. The investigation by Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald uncovered that Libby, Rove, and Armitage (all top Bush officials) leaked classified information about Plame to several reporters. Armitage happened to leak to Bob Novak, the reporter who ended up printing it. But according to the Fitz investigation it was Libby, not Armitage, who first outed Wilson's wife to reporters (Matt Cooper of Time Magazine, Tim Russert of NBC, and Judy Miller of the NYT). When the investigation began uncovering the role played by Bush officials, Republican operatives tried to cast doubt over the investigation by intimating that Fitzgerald was a closet liberal. In fact, Fitzgerald was DOUBLY selected by the Bush administration: once when Bush nominated him to be District Attorney, and again when he was selected (via a designee) to head the Plame investigation. Fitzgerald's Republican loyalties are made clear by the weak claim that Libby "threw sand in the umpire's face" (the umpire being Fitz himself). Based on that, Fitz claimed that the investigation couldn't continue to investigate Cheney's role in the affair. Basically, Fitz protected Cheney by using Libby as the scapegoat. Since Republicans claimed that Wilson was unqualified for the mission to Niger, Wilson recounts his experience not only in Niger but in Iraq. Wilson personally knew the Niger officials involved, and he was the last American diplomat sent to Iraq by George H. W. Bush to meet with Saddam before the outbreak of the Gulf War. Hence he had important knowledge of and experience in the relevant countries. The book even contains a copy of a letter written by G. H. W. Bush praising Wilson's fine work. The book contains a section devoted to photographs. It recounts Wilson's entire professional history, not just the events surrounding the infamous "sixteen words."

Proud to have this book in my personal library:
I'm proud to have this book in my personal library, and I hope that my children will read it in time. I believe this book should be read by all Americans. It is a fascinating look into former Ambassador Wilson's life and service to the USA, and how when he and his wife put the truth on the table, they were subjected to the rage of the Neocon administration. It exposes the dirty tricks of politics, and sheds light into the pit that became the Bush/Cheney Administration. This book exposes the lies that were fabricated in order to sell the Iraq war to the American public, the personal vendettas of the Bush administration, and Mr. Cheney, the master puppeteer himself, eerie. Highly recommended.