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● 우라늄(uranium) 購入計劃認定(구입계획인정)



이라크 問題(문제)에서 美·英 委員會(위원회)



「否定說(부정설)」 뒤집다



産經新聞(산케이신문) 2004年7月17日 朝刊(조간)



[워싱턴=近藤豊和] 이라크가 大量破壞武器開發計劃(대량파괴무기개발계획)을 둘러싸고 아프리카 北部(북부)의 니제르(Niger)로부터 核武器(핵무기)의 原料(원료)로도 되는 우라늄(uranium)의 購入(구입)을 企圖(기도)하고 있었다고 여겨지는 問題(문제)에서, 이라크 戰爭前(전쟁전)의 同(동) 武器開發計劃(무기개발계획)에 관한 情報(정보)의 精度(정도)를 調査(조사)한 美·英 兩國(양국)의 委員會(위원회)는 모두 「니제르로부터의 우라늄 購入의 企圖」를 事實上(사실상) 認定(인정)하는 結論(결론)을 냈다.



同 問題를 둘러싸서는, 民主黨(민주당)의 大統領選擧候補(대통령선거후보)인 케리(John F. Kerry) 上院議員(상원의원)의 顧問(고문)을 現在(현재) 맡은 前 駐가봉(주Gabon) 大使(대사) 윌슨(Joseph C. Wilson IV)氏가, 「自身(자신)의 調査(조사)에서는 우라늄 購入의 事實(사실)없음」이라고 公表(공표), 부시(George W. Bush) 大統領(대통령)의 2003年 一般敎書演說內容(일반교서연설내용)의 「虛僞(허위)」를 指摘(지적)하는 등, 多樣(다양)한 問題를 불러일으키고 있었지만, 美·英 兩(양) 委員會의 結論으로 事態(사태)는 全面的(전면적)인 轉換(전환)을 强要(강요)당하는 樣相(양상)이 되었다.



이 問題는, 윌슨氏가 2003年7月 美國 新聞(신문) 뉴욕타임스(The New York Times)에서, 自身이 2002年2月 美 中央情報局(중앙정보국)[CIA, Central Intelligence Agency]의 依賴(의뢰)로, 니제르에서 實施(실시)한 우라늄 購入計劃(구입계획)의 調査에서는, 「事實을 確認(확인)할 수 없었다」라고 公表, 부시 大統領이 2003年1月의 一般敎書演說에서 「후세인(Saddam Hussein)이, 아프리카로부터 大量(대량)의 우라늄 購入을 企劃(기획)했다」라고 말한 內容(내용)을 「虛僞事實(허위사실)」이라고 指摘했다.



이 直後(직후)에, 著名(저명) 칼럼니스트(columnist)[Robert Novak]가 윌슨氏의 아내가 「CIA의 秘密工作員(비밀공작원)이다」라고 報道(보도), 윌슨씨는 이것이, 「虛僞事實의 公表」에 대한 화이트하우스(The White House) 高官(고관)으로부터의 報復(보복)으로, 칼럼니스트에게 情報提供(정보제공)된 것이라고 告發(고발). 司法當局(사법당국)이 工作員(공작원)의 身分保護規定違反(신분보호규정위반)으로 搜査(수사)에 나서, 부시 大統領이나 政權首腦(정권수뇌)들까지도 事情聽取(사정청취)하는 事態가 되어 있다.



美國 上院(상원) 特別委員會(특별위원회)는 지난 週(주) 公表한 報告書(보고서)에서, 「이라크가 니제르로부터 우라늄 購入을 企圖했다고 分析(분석)하기에 充分(충분)한 情報가 있으며, 윌슨氏의 否定情報(부정정보)는, 니제르를 訪問(방문)했을 때에 會談(회담)한 니제르 政權首腦들이 口頭(구두)로 否定(부정)한 것만이 根據(근거)이며, CIA 등의 分析을 뒤집는 것은 아니었다」라고 指摘했다.



그리고, 英國(영국) 獨立委員會(독립위원회)의 報告(보고)도 「1999年에 이라크 高官이 우라늄 購入交涉(구입교섭)을 위해서 니제르 등 아프리카 諸國(제국)을 訪問했다」등의 事實을 認定, 이라크의 우라늄 購入企圖(구입기도)는, 美國·유럽 各國(각국)의 情報機關(정보기관)의 一致(일치)된 見解(견해)였다 라는 內容이었다.



兩 委員會(위원회)의 結論으로부터는, 부시 大統領의 一般敎書演說內容에 「虛僞」는 없고 윌슨氏의 主張(주장)은 正當性(정당성)이 不足(부족)하다는 것이 浮刻(부각)되었다.



윌슨氏는 이러한 事態를 받고도 沈默(침묵) 그대로. 한편, 美國 新聞 월스트리트저널(The Wall Street Journal) 등은 윌슨氏의 態度(태도)를 강하게 批判(비판), 大統領(대통령)에의 謝罪(사죄)를 要求(요구)하고 있다.



http://www.sankei.co.jp/news/040717/morning/17int003.htm







● < 英 버틀러 보고서 요약 >



연합뉴스 2004년7월15일 09:12



(서울=연합뉴스) 이라크 관련 정보 실패의 원인을 조사해온 영국의 버틀러 위원회는 14일 이라크 침공의 명분이 됐던 이라크 대량살상무기(WMD)에 관한 정보는 '심각한 결함'을 가진 것이라는 결론을 내렸다.



영국 정부가 이라크 관련 정보를 수집.분석하는 과정에서 오류를 범했는지를 조사한 버틀러 위원회는 이날 발표한 최종 보고서에서 영국 정보기관들이 정보원의 신뢰도를 체크하지도 않았고 때로는 제3자를 통해 입수된 정보에 의존하는 오류를 범했다고 지적했다.



다음은 AP통신과 영국 BBC방송 인터넷판이 전한 버틀러 보고서의 주요 내용이다.



▷ 2002년9월 서류에 나타난 정보의 한계들이 "충분하게 명확히" 드러나지 못했으며, 중요한 경고도 없었다.



▷ 이라크가 45분안에 대량살상무기를 배치할 수 있다는 주장은 증거가 없으며, 확인되지 않았다면 이 주장은 2002년9월 서류에 포함되지 말았어야 했다.

▷ 정보는 "객관적인 한계"에 직면했다. 그리고 정치인들에 의한 의도적 왜곡은 없었고 어떤 비난도 "집단적"이었다.



▷ 존 스칼렛 합동정보위원회(JIC) 위원장은 여전히 해외정보국(MI6) 국장자리를 지켜야 한다. 그러나 향후 정보기관장들은 "영향력을 떠나 실증적"이어야 한다.



▷ 이라크가 최근 생화학 무기를 생산했다는 주장을 포함, 이라크 정보원에게서 들어온 정보에 기반한 전쟁관련 주요 주장들은 "신뢰할 수 없으므로" 철회됐어야 했다.



▷ 일반적으로 이라크에 적대적인 자료 및 인적 정보에 대해 "과도한 신뢰"가 있었다.



이 보고서는 그러나 이같은 정보의 결함에도 불구하고 이라크의 금지된 무기 프로그램에 대해 결론을 내리기는 것은 시기상조라고 지적하면서도 이라크 무기사찰단인 ISG의 정보, 검토와 이라크 인사들의 설명을 고려해 전쟁전 이라크 정권에 대해 다음과 같은 결론을 내렸다고 밝혔다.



▶ 유엔무기사찰단이 느슨해지고, 제재가 약화됐거나 해제됐을 때 이라크 정권은 가능하다면 핵무기를 포함한 금지된 무기의 개발프로그램을 재가동할 전략적 의도를 갖고 있었다.



▶ 이라크 정권은 이를 위해 자체 능력을 유지하기 위해 불법적인 연구와 개발, 재료획득 활동을 수행하고 있었다.



▶ 이라크 정권은 이라크 관리들이 1999년 아프리카 중서부의 공화국인 니제르를 방문한 이후, 허용된 것보다 더 긴 사거리를 가진 탄도탄 미사일을 개발하고 있었다.



▶ 영국 정부는 이들이 우라늄을 얻기 위해 니제르 공화국을 방문했다는 것을 암시하는 몇가지 별도 정보를 갖고 있었다.



▷ 이라크가 실제 우라늄을 구입했다는 증거가 결정적이지 않았으며 영국 정부도 이를 주장하지 않았다.



▷ 영국 정부가 이에 대해 평가할 당시 위조된 관련 서류들을 보지 못했다. 따라서 영국 정부는 위조사실 때문에 비난받을 수는 없다.







● [JEWISH WORLD REVIEW]



Wilson lied, kids died!



July 15, 2004



Ann Coulter



Another high-profile John Kerry supporter was outed as a

nutcase this week: Joseph C. Wilson IV, the Walter Mitty of

conspiracy theorists. Wilson is the ne'er-do-well WASP

embraced by the Democrats last year for calling Bush a liar.

Wilson claimed to be shocked, appalled, alarmed when

President Bush said during his 2003 State of the Union

address: "The British government has learned that Saddam

Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium

from Africa."



Wilson was shocked because, in 2002, he had been sent on an

unpaid make-work job to Niger to "investigate" whether

Saddam Hussein had tried to buy uranium ore from Niger.

Wilson's method of investigating consisted of asking African

potentates questions like: Did you commit a horrible crime,

which, if so, would ruin your country's relationship with

the United States? I have no independent means of

corroborating this, so be honest!



On the basis of the answers he got, Wilson concluded that

Saddam had not sought uranium ore from Niger. Since "Africa"

means "Niger" and "British intelligence" means "Joseph

Wilson," Wilson realized in horror that Bush's statement

referred to Wilson's very own report! Out of love for his

country and an insatiable desire to have someone notice his

worthless existence, Wilson wrote an op-ed in The New York

Times calling Bush a liar.



The whole story was already nutty enough to be believed by

every columnist at The New York Times. But then journalist

Robert Novak revealed that Clown Wilson had been sent as an

unpaid intern to Niger by his wife, a chair-warmer at the

CIA who apparently wanted to get him out of the house. This

in turn provoked our own Walter Mitty to accuse Karl Rove of

outing his wife as an undercover "spy" in retaliation for

his attacks on the Bush administration. (And P. Diddy told

me Britney Spears is out to get me! I'm a spy too!)



In response to Wilson's crazy behavior, he was made an

adviser to the Kerry campaign. He was also fawned over by

Vanity Fair magazine, embraced by Democratic senators like

Jon Corzine of New Jersey, hailed as a patriot in The New

York Times, awarded The Nation magazine's "Award for Truth-

Telling" and given a lucrative book contract.



According to The Washington Post, Wilson began wiling away

his once-empty days discussing "who would play (his wife) in

the movie" and fantasizing about how his obituary would

read. His favorites were: "Joseph C. Wilson IV, the Bush I

administration political appointee who did the most damage

to the Bush II administration ..." and "Joseph C. Wilson IV,

the husband of the spy the White House outed ..."



I'm not sure we were waiting for any more evidence on

whether Wilson was an idiot, but this week we found out he's

a liar, too. The Senate report on the CIA's intelligence

gathering concluded that, contrary to Wilson's statements

about his own report, his findings had bolstered rather than

undermined the case that Saddam had sought uranium from

Niger.



Most amusingly, despite Wilson's insistence that he had been

tapped for the Niger trip based on his nonexistent expertise

and zero credentials, the Senate committee produced his

wife's memo recommending her husband for the (unpaid) job.

This followed Wilson's assertions that his wife "definitely

had not proposed that I make the trip" and his astonishment

that anyone could imagine his wife was "somehow involved in

this," saying that "just defies logic."



When presented with the memo from his wife recommending him

for the job, Wilson said only that his wife was not the one

who made the decision to send him to Niger. This cleared up

the matter for anyone who had been under the impression

Wilson was married to George Tenet.



As an aside, I note that the main point of the Senate report

was to slam the agency for its Mickey Mouse intelligence

gathering on weapons of mass destruction. Guess what

Wilson's wife does at the CIA? That's right! She gathers

intelligence on weapons of mass destruction! No wonder she

claims to be "undercover." Her fantasist husband calls the

incompetent CIA paper-pusher "Jane Bond." (I'm an

astronaut!)



The implicit deal the government has always had with

worthless, rich WASPs is they get trivial, make-work jobs

with the Foreign Service so they can go around calling

themselves "diplomats"; but the trade-off is, they're not

supposed to make fools of themselves or commit treason. It's

not that high a hurdle. Unlike the Ivy League WASPs of

yesteryear, at least worthless WASPs from the lower-ranked

schools like Wilson have, thus far, managed to avoid

treason. Merely being an ass shouldn't cause many problems

for the country - except that: One political party embraced

the ass.



Wilson is an "unpaid foreign affairs adviser" to the Kerry

campaign. (In yet another testament to the wisdom of the

market, all Wilson's "jobs" seem to be unpaid.) Indeed,

Wilson's website, denouncing the perfidy of the Bush

administration, was created and paid for by "John Kerry for

President." (Why haven't any crack investigative journalists

noticed that?)



This may explain why Kerry was boasting about foreign

leaders supporting him earlier this year: He was trying to

distract voters from the fact that his strongest base of

support in the United States consists of lonely fantasists

hoping to make some new friends.



http://www.jewishworldreview.com/cols/coulter1.asp







● [THE WASHINGTON TIMES]



British report undermines Wilson on prewar data



By Bill Sammon



July 15, 2004



The British government yesterday bolstered President Bush's

assertion that Iraq sought uranium from Niger, casting

further doubt on former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV's

claims to the contrary.



The conclusion was reached by Robin Butler, who once was

Britain's top civil servant, in a major report on prewar

intelligence that came five days after the Senate Select

Committee on Intelligence reached a similar conclusion in

its report.



Taken together, the British and U.S. reports appear to

undermine Mr. Wilson's criticism of Mr. Bush, which led to a

criminal investigation of the White House and made the

retired diplomat a media darling.



"It is accepted by all parties that Iraqi officials visited

Niger in 1999," the British report said. "The British

government had intelligence from several different sources

indicating that this visit was for the purpose of acquiring

uranium.



"Since uranium constitutes almost three-quarters of Niger's

exports, the intelligence was credible," the report added.



That buttressed an assertion by Mr. Bush in his 2003 State

of the Union speech: "The British government has learned

that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities

of uranium from Africa."



Yesterday, the British report called that assertion "well

founded." The report was cited by British Prime Minister

Tony Blair, who told Parliament: "It expressly supports the

intelligence on Iraq's attempts to procure uranium from

Niger in respect of Iraq's nuclear ambitions."



The State of the Union assertion rankled Mr. Wilson, who

said he found no evidence of such an attempted purchase

during a CIA-sponsored trip to Niger. Mr. Wilson arrived in

the African nation in late February 2002.



"I spent the next eight days drinking sweet mint tea and

meeting with dozens of people," he wrote in the New York

Times 18 months later. "Niger formally denied the charges."



Mr. Wilson, who opposed Operation Iraqi Freedom and works as

an adviser to Democratic Sen. John Kerry's presidential

campaign, accused Mr. Bush of twisting the facts "to

exaggerate the Iraqi threat."



The accusation set off a feeding frenzy in the media that

intensified after conservative columnist Robert Novak

mentioned in a July 2003 column that Mr. Wilson's Niger trip

had been suggested by his wife, Valerie Plame, a CIA

employee.



That prompted Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia,

the ranking Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee,

to ask the Justice Department to begin a criminal

investigation into whether the White House had leaked Mrs.

Plame's name to Mr. Novak. The president himself was

interviewed recently by an investigator on the case.



Mr. Wilson, who did not return phone calls yesterday, has

publicly accused White House political strategist Karl Rove

of leaking the name, although he has provided no evidence to

back up that accusation.



"It's of keen interest to me to see whether or not we can

get Karl Rove frog-marched out of the White House in

handcuffs," he told an audience on Aug. 21, 2003.



Earlier this year, Mr. Wilson parlayed the controversy into

a book, "The Politics of Truth," in which he insisted that

his wife was not the one who had suggested that the CIA send

him to Niger.



"Valerie had nothing to do with the matter," Mr. Wilson

wrote. "She definitely had not proposed that I make the

trip."



But that assertion was disputed by the Senate intelligence

committee report last week.



"Interviews and documents provided to the committee indicate

that his wife ... suggested his name for the trip," the

report stated.



According to the Senate report, Mrs. Plame boasted to her

CIA superiors about Mr. Wilson's contacts with Niger.



"My husband has good relations with both the [prime minister

of Niger] and the former Minister of Mines (not to mention

lots of French contacts), both of whom could possibly shed

light on this sort of activity," she wrote in a Feb. 12,

2002, memo to her superiors, cited in the Senate report.



When the CIA gave her the green light to enlist her husband

for the mission, she told Mr. Wilson that "there's this

crazy report" on a purported deal for Iraq to buy uranium

from Niger, according to the report.



Like the British report, the United States did not back away

from Mr. Bush's State of the Union assertion. The U.S.

report said Mr. Wilson did little to change the CIA's belief

that Iraq had tried to buy uranium.



"The report on the former ambassador's trip to Niger,

disseminated in March 2002, did not change any analysts'

assessment of the Iraq-Niger uranium deal," the U.S. report

said. "For most analysts, the information in the report lent

more credibility to the original Central Intelligence Agency

(CIA) reports on the uranium deal."



Mr. Wilson has defended his position by pointing out that

some documents linking Iraq with Niger were forgeries. U.S.

and British officials said the forgeries may have been a red

herring to cloud the issue and, in any event, did not

surface until after the link had been established.



"The forged documents were not available to the British

government at the time its assessment was made, and so the

fact of the forgery does not undermine it," concluded the

report by Mr. Butler.



White House deputy spokesman Trent Duffy said the Butler

report "speaks for itself" and declined further comment,

citing the Justice Department's ongoing leak probe.



http://www.washtimes.com/national/20040715-121137-6756r.htm









(끝)