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Plaming Turd Blossom Timeline
(aka The Karl Rove -- Valerie Plame Wilson Affair)
- 1992 Karl Rove is fired from the re-election campaign of George H.W. Bush (i.e., Bush the Elder) for leaking information to columnist Robert Novak detrimental to Robert Mosbacher (another official on the campaign and Rove rival).
Link | Link
- Late 2001 The Italian intelligence service (SISMI) obtains half a dozen letters and other documents from a source in Rome alleged to be correspondence between Niger and Iraqi officials negotiating a sale of 500 tons of uranium oxide to Iraq. The Italians share the intelligence with their counterparts in both Britain and the US. Where the Italians got the documents from is still a mystery.
- Feb. 2002 Defense Department's Office of Special Plans is pushing Niger documents as evidence of reconstituted Iraqi nuclear weapons program. Valerie Wilson (nee Plame) is an undercover CIA officer working in the Counterproliferation Division (CPD). At a CIA meeting, she recommends her husband Joe Wilson (a former diplomat with experience and contacts in Africa) go to Niger on a fact-finding mission to investigate the validity of the documents. Valerie Wilson's superior at the CIA CPD division selects Wilson for the job.
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- Feb. 21, 2002 Joe Wilson leaves for Niger
- March 2002 Joe Wilson delivers his report to CIA regarding the suspected uranium deal concluding that it was "highly doubtful" any sale or transfer of uranium took place.
- September 2002 US and RAF aircraft doubled the rate at which they were dropping bombs on Iraq in 2002 in an attempt to provoke Saddam Hussein into giving the allies an excuse for war." The paper cites newly released statistics from the British Defense Ministry showing that "the Allies dropped twice as many bombs on Iraq in the second half of 2002 as they did during the whole of 2001" and that "a full air offensive" was under way months before the invasion had officially begun.
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- Oct. 5, 2002 The CIA sends a four-page memo to Bush administration officials, including Bush's deputy national security adviser, Stephen J. Hadley, expressing doubt over claims that Iraq had attempted to obtain uranium from Niger.
- Oct. 7, 2002 CIA Director George Tenet argues "personally to White House officials, including deputy national security adviser Stephen Hadley," that the Africa-uranium claim should not be included in Bush's October 7 speech in Cincinnati due to their unreliability. The White House removes the Niger reference from the speech.
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- Jan 28, 2003 The famous 16 words referencing the alleged Iraqi purchase of yellowcake from Niger (which had been removed from the Cincinnati speech) are spoken by the President in the State of the Union address: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."
- March 7, 2003 Mohamed ElBaradei of the IEAE concludes that the Niger-Iraq claims were based on forgeries.
- March 19, 2003 US invasion of Iraq begins.
- May 6, 2003 Nicholas Kristof writes in the NYT that "an envoy" (does not name Wilson) went to Niger to investigate claims Iraq sought to purchase 'yellowcake' uranium from Niger and the envoy concluded that the documents upon which the claim rested were forged.
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June 10, 2003 A classified State Department memorandum is drafted for Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Marc Grossman, containing information about CIA officer Valerie Plame. She is named in the memo in a paragraph marked "(S)" for secret, a clear indication that any Bush administration official who read it should have been aware the information was classified.
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July 6, 2003 Joseph Wilson Op-Ed article is published in the NYT entitled "What I did find in Africa". He criticizes President Bush stating that allegations Iraq attempted to purchase yellowcake from Niger were based upon forged documents.
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July 6, 2003 Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage asks for a copy of the June 10th State Department memo that mentions Valerie Wilson as working for the CIA in a paragraph marked "secret" and, also, asks that it be forwarded to Secretary of State Colin Powell.
July 7, 2003 The June 10th memo is taken aboard Air Force One by then Secretary of State Colin Powell who is flying with the President that day.
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Former White House spokesman Ari Fleischer was on Air Force One that day, along with several other administration officials, and apparently told prosecutors that he never saw a classified State Department memo that disclosed Plame's identity, but another former official reportedly saw him perusing it on Air Force One.
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July 8, 2003 I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, the chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, meets with New York Times reporter Judith Miller and discussed CIA operative Valerie Plame. Link.
July 8, 2003 Reporter Robert Novak calls Rove and they end up talking about Valerie Wilson. Rove reportedly told the grand jury that he first learned of Valerie Wilson's identity from Novak -- but Novak's version of the story is that Rove already knew about her when the two spoke.
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July 10, 2003 Rove talks to Time magazine reporter Matt Cooper. Rove testifies that Cooper called him about Social Security reform and only briefly about Joe and Valerie Wilson. Cooper testifies that Social Security never came up in the conversation that was primarily about Joe and Valerie Wilson.
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July 14, 2003 Robert Novak writes a syndicated column in the Chicago Sun-Times "outing" Valerie Wilson as a CIA operative.
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July 21, 2003 Rove tells CNBC's Chris Matthews that Wilson's wife is "fair game".
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July 30, 2003 The CIA files a report of a potential crime with the Criminal Division of the Department of Justice.
October 28, 2003 Talon News (later determined to be a shame news organization created by a GOP operative) posted on its web site an interview by Jeff Gannon with Ambassador Joseph Wilson in which the questioner asked: "An internal government memo prepared by U.S. intelligence personnel details a meeting in early 2002 where your wife, a member of the agency or clandestine service working on Iraqi weapons issues, suggested that you could be sent to investigate the reports. Do you dispute that?" This question highly suggests that Jeff Gannon had a copy of the classified June 10, 2003 State Department memo.
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Note: This timeline relied heavily upon one from Dkosopedia, Link, however, I decided to create my own as the Dkosopedia timeline IMHO needed to be cut down and a few pertinent facts added to narrow the focus upon the heart of the controversy.
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