by Taylor Marsh
I had a very interesting conversation with Joseph Wilson and Valerie Plame Wilson over the weekend on foreign policy issues. Wilson was blunt when it came to Obama on Iraq, as well as Pakistan, which you'll see below. I also got a chance to get Valerie's views on the C.I.A. going forward. Important to note that this is Ms. Plame Wilson's first foray into politics, because as an employee of the Agency she couldn't dabble in politics, because of the Hatch Act, which she mentioned in our interview. Of course, I had to ask Valerie about her sense of Clinton and how women are reacting to her.
"... .. But I was struck by a piece in the New York Times the other day, an op-ed piece by Gloria Steinem, who noted that if a woman presumed to enter the presidential race with two years of high level experience she would be laughed out of the room. ... .. It's a very interesting dynamic and I think we, at least on the Democratic side, how fortunate we are to have at least two extremely viable candidates, I think she's the better one, but I think we have an embarrassment of riches, versus the Republican side which is just an embarrassment. ... .." - Valerie Plame Wilson
Great line. In the end, no matter what candidate you support, Valerie nails it. Democrats have it hands down over the Republicans, especially on foreign policy. But like her husband, she's backing Clinton. By the way, so is her former C.I.A. colleague Larry Johnson.
Hitting the last part of the interview, I ended by asking Joseph Wilson about Iraq and given that Clinton and Obama have the identical voting records in the Senate, what does he make of the political volleying, with Obama trying to make an issue out of his speech versus Clinton's vote on the Iraq war resolution. After all, Joseph Wilson was in the eye of the storm.
"Well, I think the fact that's dominated the narrative is an indication of how little people really understand the dynamics of the debate as it was going on at the time. And the people making a lot of hay over this weren't there. I was there. I was fighting the fight. I looked to the left of me. I looked to the right of me. I didn't see Barack Obama anywhere. I was out there and there is nobody who can deny that. ... I didn't talk to Edwards about it because he was a co-sponsor of that particular resolution, whereas a lot of us were trying to fight for more restrictive language. Being in the minority, you couldn't get that restrictive language at that time. So what happened the day after the bill was passed? Hillary Clinton and Robert Byrd went down and submitted another bill which further restricted, attempted to restrict the ability for the president to act. But in actual fact, those who were there are the debate will remember that the American people and the U.S. Congress were sold on this resolution not because the president wanted to go to war, because he said publicly, I do not want this resolution to go to war. I want this resolution so I can get to the United Nations and get intrusive inspections. That's what Colin Powell said. That's what the president of the United States said and that's what they got. They got a resolution that permitted the president of the United States to go to the U.N. and get intrusive inspections. The great betrayal of the America people is not in that Resolution. It was in the president not allowing the inspections to reach their natural conclusions. Her short circuited the process. That is the betrayal of the country. That is the betrayal of the Congress. That's the betrayal of the American people. That's the betrayal of the world. People who don't remember that are trying to spin this for their own particular short-term partisan interest and they should not be allowed to get away with it. The most important thing of course now, that aside, ... is what is it going to take to get out of there in a way that, one, protects our national security interests, which has been terribly compromised in the region. ... .."
As for the McCain-Lieberman the surge is working, not to mention the violence, he offered the following, in part:
"The level of violence has been brought down to 2006 levels. This is not an end to this brooding civil war. This is a reduction from the spike in 2007. ... .. The fact remains, as General Petraeus himself has said, absent a political process you're not going to have a solution. ... .. There has been no political process. There has just been American troops inserted into the military space. So whatever success the surge has had it has been on the backs of the American troops and it is not being, it is not underpinning a long-term political strategy or political solution."
On the intersection of politics and foreign policy, Joe talked about Clinton's experience and her focus on George W. Bush. The whole section to this also talks about the trip Wilson and the Clintons took to Africa, but here's just part of it.
"Let me say something, I've noticed, and I've watched all the debates. Everybody is running against Hillary, except for Hillary. She's running against the legacy of George Bush. She understands who the adversary is. The adversary is this eight years of misrule that has been the Bush administration, and it's important for people to keep focused on that and she has stayed focused on that and she understands what the real objectives are. Frankly, she's far and away the most experienced ... of a good field. .. ... I saw her in action when I was working on the National Security Council. ... .. "
Given the back and forth between Clinton and Obama on Pakistan in the last debate, I wanted to get Joe's take on Obama saying he'd sanction military actions if he had actionable intelligence, while Clinton seemed to caution against trusting actionable intelligence as a means for preemptive action, because sometimes it doesn't prove out. Of course, the question came amidst the latest comments from Musharraf obviously taking note of Obama's statements, as well as Bush's rhetorical maneuvering, to warn the U.S.
Here's the context, via CNN, in case you hadn't heard about Musharraf's latest response.
Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf has made it clear that a U.S. military mission to capture Osama bin Laden or other top al Qaeda leaders on Pakistani soil would be unwelcome and "against the sovereignty of Pakistan."
President Musharraf says the United States would regret attempting to hunt for Osama bin Laden in western Pakistan.
President Musharraf told the Singapore Straits Times that his military has the experience to operate in the mountainous terrain near the Afghan border and if the United States went in they would "regret that day." .. ...
Wilson's reaction to Obama's actionable intelligence answer on Pakistan was blunt.
"It was reinforced today by Musharraf's comment that any U.S. bombing of Pakistan would be considered a hostile act. That is precisely how reckless it is to be sitting there saying, yeah, if we have actionable intelligence we'll just go ahead and bomb a sovereign country. The last thing we need to do is to further exacerbate anti-American opinion in a country that has a significant fundamentalist population and has nuclear weapons. So I think that is really born out by what Musharraf said yesterday or today. How delicate international diplomacy is today and how important it is to measure your statements and not to act in a way that can be construed as reckless."
Valerie weighed in on the politicization of our intelligence as well. Her comments on this are tremendously important. Please take the time to listen to them. I can't possibly transcribe the import of all she said, which was quite complex. Shorter version from Valerie on politics and intelligence:
"Get the hell out of the intelligence business." - Valerie Plame Wilson
I'll second that.