EDITION: U.S.
 
CONNECT    

Joseph C. Wilson
GET UPDATES FROM Joseph C. Wilson
Joseph C. Wilson is the CEO of his own firm JC Wilson International Ventures, "a consulting firm specializing in strategic management and international-business development."[1][2] In January 2007, Wilson joined Jarch Capital, LLC, as vice chairman, to advise the firm's expansion in areas of Africa considered "politically sensitive."[3]

A United States Foreign Service diplomat before retiring in 1998, Wilson was posted to African countries and to Iraq during the George H. W. Bush administration and later served as Special Assistant to US President Bill Clinton and as Senior Director for African Affairs on the United States National Security Council. Wilson became known to the general public as a result of his op-ed "What I Didn't Find in Africa", published in The New York Times four months after the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Wilson's op-ed documented his 2002 Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) investigation into whether Iraq had purchased or attempted to purchase uranium yellowcake from Niger. He concluded that the George W. Bush administration twisted intelligence to "exaggerate the Iraqi threat."[4]

The week after the article's publication, Robert Novak, in his syndicated Washington Post column, disclosed that Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, worked for the CIA as an undercover officer. Subsequently, former Ambassador Wilson and others alleged that the disclosure was part of the Bush administration's attempts to discredit his report about his investigations in Africa and the op-ed describing his findings because they did not support the government's rationale for the 2003 invasion of Iraq. Wilson's allegations led to a federal investigation of the leak by the United States Department of Justice, to the appointment of a Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, to the CIA leak grand jury investigation, and to a major American political scandal variously dubbed by the press "Plamegate", the "Plame affair", the "CIA leak scandal", and other terms relating to the public disclosure or "leak" of Mrs. Wilson's then-classified covert CIA identity as "Valerie Plame".

Although no one was "indicted for actually leaking Plame's identity,"[1] the investigation resulted in a federal criminal trial United States v. Libby in which Lewis Libby, the former Chief of Staff to Vice President of the United States, Dick Cheney, was tried on five federal felony counts. He was convicted on four of the counts, involving false statements, perjury, and obstruction of justice, none of which related directly to the Plame relevation but rather to his failure to cooperate with the subsequent investigation into the revelation. Libby was sentenced to 30 months in prison and a fine of $250,000.

Blog Entries by Joseph C. Wilson

George Bush's Deception Points

Posted November 9, 2010 | 17:35:22 (EST)

Having read that people began lining up in front of bookstores before former President Bush's memoir, Decision Points, was due to be released, I hurried off to purchase mine early on November 9, arriving about fifteen minutes after opening time. I have the distinction of being the first person to...

Read Post

Courage and Consequence: Less Memoir Than Hoax

Posted March 9, 2010 | 20:44:53 (EST)

Karl Rove's book Courage and Consequence is less memoir than hoax. The chapters that relate to the CIA leak scandal are yet another attempt to deflect attention from his central role in the betrayal of Valerie Plame Wilson's identity as a covert CIA officer.

His distortions and fabrications are...

Read Post

Legitimate Questions of Judgment, Experience

Posted May 5, 2008 | 00:37:43 (EST)

In recent weeks Americans have been subjected to a litany of outrageous statements from Sen. Barack Obama's pastor of 20 years, Rev. Jeremiah Wright. While Obama was finally compelled to distance himself from his radical preacher, the relationship raises legitimate questions about Obama's judgment and naivete.

Obama, after all, wants...

Read Post

The Obama Campaign: Consent of, or Contempt for, the People

Posted April 16, 2008 | 14:57:10 (EST)

Senator Obama's ill-conceived remarks likening small town Americans to embittered guns-and-God bigots have triggered a justifiable furor. Not only are the remarks insulting, but also factually incorrect.

As it happens, at the same event in San Francisco, Senator Obama made other remarks, equally startling, insulting our Foreign Service, Intelligence...

Read Post

Smears and Tears: How Obama's National Security Week Turned Into the Mendacity of Hype

939 Comments | Posted March 26, 2008 | 14:21:00 (EST)

The past week marked the fifth anniversary of the Iraq War and the milestone of the 4,000th American soldier killed in that disastrous adventure. Commemorating and underscoring the urgent need for a new policy direction, Senator Clinton delivered a serious and detailed address clearly setting out her vision for and...

Read Post

Obama's Shallow Credentials on National Security Are Dangerous for the Country

Posted March 20, 2008 | 14:51:10 (EST)


The Clinton campaign ad featuring a 3 a.m. telephone call as a metaphor for experienced leadership in foreign policy has generated considerable comment, but much of the reaction is from people who have never been involved in foreign policy and certainly never had to field such a call...

Read Post

Obama's Hollow "Judgment" and Empty Record

Posted March 2, 2008 | 14:59:49 (EST)

Barack Obama argues that he deserves the Democratic nomination and Hillary Clinton doesn't because he possesses superior "judgment," as he calls it, on the key issues we face as a nation. As definitive proof he offers one speech he made in 2002 during a reelection campaign for an Illinois senate...

Read Post

Battle-Tested

Posted February 13, 2008 | 00:45:18 (EST)

With the emergence of Sen. John McCain as the presumptive Republican nominee, the choice for the Democrats in the 2008 presidential election now shifts to who is best positioned to beat him, in what promises to be a more hard-fought campaign -- and perhaps a nastier one -- than Democrats...

Read Post

The Real Hillary I Know -- and the Unreal Obama

Posted December 21, 2007 | 13:05:31 (EST)

Yesterday the London Times reported central questions about Senator Obama's shocking dearth of international experience: "Fresh doubts over Barack Obama's foreign policy credentials were expressed on both sides of the Atlantic last night, after it emerged that he had made only one brief official visit to London - and...

Read Post

Ohio Special Election: Honest Leadership Matters

Posted December 7, 2007 | 10:43:08 (EST)

Honest leadership matters. As you may know, there is a special election in Ohio on December 11th to decide who will represent a large portion of this key swing state in Congress. We have the opportunity to make sure that an honest and respectable community leader, Robin Weirauch, holds this...

Read Post

A Reality Check on Iran Policy and U.S. Campaign Politics

Posted November 4, 2007 | 21:44:24 (EST)

On November 1, 30 Democratic senators, led by Senator Jim Webb of Virginia, delivered a strong letter to President Bush in response to his increasingly bellicose language on Iran. The letter informs the president that he does not have the authority to take military action against Iran without prior, specific...

Read Post

People for the American Way Address

Posted October 11, 2006 | 17:35:53 (EST)

I delivered the following remarks last night at the People for the American Way's Spirit of Liberty Awards.

I stand before you this evening as a proud American. Proud to have served my country for twenty- three years as a diplomat, including such glamorous postings as Niamey, Niger and...

Read Post