March 7, 2006
South Puget Sound Community College presents Ambassador Joseph Wilson
OLYMPIA, Washington – Ambassador Joseph Wilson will speak March 23 at 7:30 p.m. on the Main Stage of the Kenneth J. Minnaert Center for the Arts at South Puget Sound Community College. Ambassador Wilson is presented as part of the college’s Artists & Lectures Series.
Called by President George H. W. Bush “a true American hero,” Ambassador Wilson has been involved in international politics for more than twenty years. As the acting U.S. ambassador in Iraq during Operation Desert Shield, Wilson was responsible for freeing 150 American hostages seized by Iraq. Wilson is now at the center of a major political maelstrom involving the White House, the C.I.A. and the second gulf war in Iraq.
In 2002, at the request of Vice President Dick Cheney, Wilson was assigned by the C.I.A. to investigate claims that Saddam Hussein was seeking to acquire uranium from Niger for the purpose of advancing his nuclear program. When his investigation turned up nothing, Wilson reported back to officials in Washington that there was no basis for the claims. Surprised that President Bush repeated the claim, most famously in his 2003 State of the Union address, Wilson wrote in a New York Times op-ed that the Bush administration had exaggerated the public case for invading Iraq. Supposedly in retaliation and to discourage others from speaking out, White House officials allegedly called reporters to identify Wilson's wife, Valerie Wilson (born Plame) as a clandestine C.I.A. operative.
Admission to Wilson’s lecture is $25 general, $10 students, staff and seniors. Tickets can be purchased online at the Minnaert Center Web site, www.spscc.ctc.edu/CFA, or by calling the box office at (360) 596-5501. Parking is free.