'JINSA John' Bolton gave Valerie Plame's name to Neocon Libby at Cheney's office?:
Truthseeker
Cheney's office?:
Truthseeker
Peter Vos
Truthseeker wrote:
> 'JINSA John' Bolton gave Valerie Plame's name to Neocon Libby at
> Cheney's office?:
>
>
> http://www.warwithoutend.co.uk/zone0/viewtopic.php?t=38213
Wow. That's Ray McGovern writing. Former CIA analyst and founder of
Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS). And just because
they are retired, don't kid yourself... they aren't sitting around
playing gin rummy. They know how the system works. They know who to
call to get the right answer. They know where all the bodies are
buried. And they are pissed. This group of retired analysts,
operatives, and officers wrote an open letter to Bush calling for
Cheney's resignation.
McGovern's a central figure and the public face for the group. He's
been putting stuff out there for some time now and none of it comes up
bad. None of it. He doesn't get a lot of airtime so he's not a
household name like David Hackworth. But his stuff circulates.
I think he is looking at Iraq and doing penance for Vietnam. He admits
the CIA knew the Gulf of Tonkin incident was bogus. He admits they knew
most of MacNamara's claims were bogus. Everyone kept waiting for
someone else to come clean and no one did. They were always able to
rationalize their inaction. He doesn't want that to happen again.
He's a Catholic and has taken this on with a religious fervor. When
everyone was pasting on bumper stickers that said "God Bless America"
he was passing out bumper stickers that said "God Bless The Rest of the
World Too." The man is on a mission from God. He's passionate, but he's
far from crazy. Remember, everything he puts out is solid.
This piece about Bolton is stunning. I hear that and basically it
sounds like this is the way he is laying out the trail:
Bolton to Scooter to Rove.... and you know you can track back from
there because then he drops this bombshell:
"the State Department deliberately concealed unclassified information
about the role of John Bolton, undersecretary of state for arms
control, in the creation of a fact sheet that falsely claimed that Iraq
sought uranium from Niger."
If that's not Powell...it's Armitage.... or both. Two weeks into this
current cycle and you are one step away from the President, the Vice
President and the Secretary of State.
John Dean may be right after all when he says it's bigger than
Watergate.
==
Bottom of the 2nd inning: Rove is on base after getting hit with the
pitch. Libby is at bat. Bolton is on deck. Miller is in the hole.
And Fitzgerald winds up.......
Truthseeker
Fitzgerald later today (July 19th, 2004) at 4:00 PM on the west coast
(8 PM on the east coast) and then repeating at 8 PM on the west coast
and at 11 PM on the east coast and repeating again at 1 AM on the west
coast and at 4 AM on the east coast.. Ambassador Wilson's attorney
(Christopher Wolf) was excellent on 'Hardball' last night (July 18th,
2005) as one can read the transcript of what he had to say via the
following URL when it gets added there if it hasn't been already:
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/3719710/
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/8627361/
BROWN: Coming up, we're going to talk to the attorney for former
Ambassador Joe Wilson and his wife, when our HARDBALL special
investigation into the CIA leak returns.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(NEWS BREAK)
BROWN: Welcome back to HARDBALL. I'm Campbell Brown, in for Chris
Matthews.
And we're back with Dick Sauber, the attorney for "TIME"
magazine's Matthew Cooper. And also joining us now is attorney
Christopher Wolf, who is advising former Ambassador Joe Wilson and his
wife.
Welcome. Good to have you here.
CHRISTOPHER WOLF, ATTORNEY FOR JOE WILSON AND VALERIE PLAME: Thank
you, Campbell.
BROWN: Tell me what struck you and the Wilsons about Matt Cooper's
account of his grand jury testimony.
WOLF: Well, it was the first detailed description of the conversation
that Mr. Cooper had had with Mr. Rove. And it confirmed, as we
suspected all along , that Mr. Rove did in fact leak Valerie Wilson's
identity to a reporter or reporters.
BROWN: But do you believe that Rove knew that she was a covert CIA
operative? Isn't that what's important here?
WOLF: Well, that's being investigated by Mr. Fitzgerald, and we
don't know the answer to that.
But it certainly was reckless of him not to confirm her status before
identifying her. Whether it was illegal or not remains to be seen, but
it was not the kind of conduct that someone with a security clearance
in the White House should have engaged in.
BROWN: How do you think Rove learned who Valerie Plame was?
WOLF: It would be complete speculation on our part.
But we do know this much, that he had very senior level access to
classified information. And, more importantly, the CIA itself
determined that this was a major breach of national security sufficient
to warrant a criminal investigation, which is why it was referred to
the Justice Department.
And, notably, if you read the decision of the D.C. Circuit Court of
Appeals in ruling on the reporter's privilege issue, they
recognize-without, of course, citing the evidence, because it's
secret and confidential-they recognized that this is a serious issue
of a breach of national security.
BROWN: Do you believe he violated his security clearance, Rove? Do
you believe that, based on...
(CROSSTALK)
WOLF: I don't have personal knowledge. I don't know what's
going on in the grand jury. I don't know what the evidence is.
But I do know that, as John Podesta pointed out yesterday on "Meet
the Press," the Mr. Rove had signed a nondisclosure agreement that
provides that even confirming classified information is prohibited.
So, whether it was illegal or not, I don't know. It certainly seemed
inappropriate, and, in our view, was reckless.
BROWN: What do you think about this, Dick? Let me go back to you on
it, because some in Congress are even talking about having Rove's
security clearance revoked or trying to. Do you think he violated it?
SAUBER: I really don't know. I do know that, in this city every day
since I've been a defense lawyer, people are investigated for
inappropriate handling of classified material. So, there's a
plethora of laws and regulations and statutes out there that might
address a situation like this.
I don't know if the information was classified. I don't know
whether he released it inappropriately. I think that's what Mr.
Fitzgerald is trying to get to the bottom of. And I do agree-I think
that the under-seal submission that Mr. Fitzgerald gave to the judges
contains a lot of the information that would explain whether or not
there's been a national security breach.
BROWN: I want to go back to the question a moment ago of how he may
have known, because of this new information about this secret State
Department memo and also this briefing book that was prepared for Dr.
Condoleezza Rice prior to her being secretary of State, so that she
could then go on the Sunday shows and sort of rebut many of these
claims. Does that change your opinion, all this new information, in
any way?
WOLF: Well, it really doesn't. But it does confirm what we had
suspected and what Ambassador Wilson has written his book and said in
public statements, that this information, whatever it's nature, was
used as political payback, was used to feed a campaign against someone
who was the first to blow the whistle on the administration with
respect to its claim of using nuclear weapons in Iraq.
BROWN: But let me interrupt.
WOLF: Sure.
BROWN: Did-is it not possible that-that administration officials,
that Rove, that Libby, had a right to question those findings?
WOLF: Well, you know, they didn't question them. In fact, the day
after Joe Wilson's article appeared in "The New York Times," his
op-ed, Condoleezza Rice and the White House confirmed that the 16 words
in the State of the Union, the words that raised the specter of a
mushroom cloud, should not have been in the State of the Union, and,
notably, the White House has not retracted that retraction.
That's the whistle-blowing that Joe Wilson engaged in. And there was
no reason based on that for the White House then to engage in a
personal attack on his family.
BROWN: OK. I do want to ask you - we're going to take a quick
break, but about the question of whether Joe Wilson may have a separate
credibility problem, though, when we come back.
WOLF: Sure.
BROWN: We'll be back with more with Christopher Wolf and Dick
Sauber.
This is a HARDBALL special investigation, only on MSNBC.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
BROWN: We're back with two of the lawyers in the CIA leak
investigation, Dick Sauber, who represents "TIME" magazine reporter
Matt Cooper, and Christopher Wolf, attorney for former Ambassador Joe
Wilson and his wife.
And let me ask you, Republicans are out there hammering your guy right
now. Does Joe Wilson have a credibility problem?
WOLF: I don't think so at all. In fact, if you look at the whole
history of this affair, Joe Wilson kept secret his mission to Niger for
two years-or for a year, rather, before he wrote his op-ed. And even
before he wrote his op-ed, he tried to get the administration to
correct the statements he made, which he thought were distorting his
findings.
It was only after the administration made its claims, that there was
this specter of nuclear weapons obtained by Iraq from Niger, did he go
public. No. Joe Wilson was appointed by both Presidents Bush and
Clinton. He enjoyed a very good relationship with President Bush I.
He, until this episode, was not a partisan person. He freely admits he
has become one, as is his right as an American citizen.
BROWN: Right. But there are-there are other questions here, because
he suggested that he was sent on this mission by the vice president's
office.
(CROSSTALK)
WOLF: No, he never did. He never did. And that's one of the ...
BROWN: He said he thought he may have been...
WOLF: No.
BROWN: He wasn't unclear on it.
WOLF: No.
BROWN: Hey, look, come on. I talked to him. I interviewed him right
after his...
(CROSSTALK)
BROWN: ... came out.
WOLF: I understand, but if you read his book-if you read his book
and if you read...
(CROSSTALK)
BROWN: But he never let on in any way, shape or form that his wife was
involved in the discussions about how he should go-or why he should
go.
WOLF: What he said was that his understanding-his understanding was,
Campbell, that the vice president's office had asked the CIA to look
into this issue of whether Iraq was seeking to obtain nuclear
fissionable material from Niger.
He then had meetings at the CIA and his wife participated on the
periphery. And what he also said was, she was not the one who
authorized his trip or engineered his trip. All of that is true. And
all of the discussion about this is simply a sideshow. It has nothing
to do with the ultimate report which he gave, which, as I said earlier,
the White House confirmed and admitted that the 16 words should not
have been in the State of the Union.
BROWN: Also, at the time that he wrote his op-ed, he was advising
Senator Kerry and the Kerry campaign, correct?
WOLF: I don't believe that's right. At the time he wrote his
op-ed was 2003. In 2004, he became involved in the campaign.
BROWN: And that's when he became a partisan, based on the reaction
to his op-ed and what he viewed as a smear campaign.
WOLF: He became a partisan-he's spoken for himself on this, but as
I understand it, he became-he became a partisan because he believed
the American people had been lied to about the reasons for going to war
in Iraq, and he disagreed with going to war in Iraq.
BROWN: Dick, you said that's what initially interested Matt in this
whole story and his desire to pursue it was what he viewed as a smear
campaign against Wilson. Explain that.
SAUBER: Well, well, what Matt said was that, when Ambassador
Wilson's op-ed piece came out, the White House then said that the 16
words that made it into the State of the Union address should not have
been in there. They weren't fully supported. And yet, within a few
days, he began hearing from administration officials things that seemed
to undercut Ambassador Wilson's credibility.
What Matt couldn't do is to reconcile both facts. If they-if the
administration was retracting support for those 16 words, why then
start to undermine Ambassador Wilson's credibility? That was the
contradiction that led to and was the basis of and the point of his
article in "TIME" online entitled "War on Wilson."
BROWN: Why-let me go back to the big picture, I guess. How do the
Wilson's want to see this play out?
WOLF: Well, they want justice to be done, and they have complete
confidence in the criminal justice system.
And they want to see the grand jury complete its mission, and they want
to see the special prosecutor complete his work. And whatever the
results are, they are. But they believe that this needs to be
thoroughly investigated. They don't believe that the White House has
done what it said it would do at the beginning, which is tell
everything and let everything be known. And they have complete faith
in the American system of justice.
BROWN: Based on what we know now, do both of you think that
indictments will ultimately be handed down?
SAUBER: I honestly have no idea whether there will be indictments to
come out of this.
WOLF: I have no idea either. But certainly this is a prosecutor who
has worked very hard and a grand jury that's been sitting for quite
some time. So, needless to say, it will be interesting to see the
results.
BROWN: There's been a lot of talk about Joe Wilson, but we have not
yet heard from Valerie Plame-Wilson. What does she think about this?
How has it affected here life and her ability to do her job, frankly?
WOLF: Well, you're not going to hear from her, because she's an
intensely private person. I happen to be not only their lawyer, but
their next-door neighbor.
And for-until July 2003, which was five years after becoming their
next-door neighbor, I had no idea that Valerie Wilson was an undercover
agent. She said she was a consultant, which, in Washington, typically
means you're either unemployed or have worked for a failed political
campaign. So, I backed off, and I didn't press.
I know Valerie Wilson as a loving mother of twins and as someone who
volunteers for her church and works for charities and likes to putter
in her garden. I know her as an intensely private person. And this
has been a terribly painful episode for her.
More importantly, it's been a terrible episode for the United States,
because Valerie Wilson working undercover had sources all over the
world, who conceivably have been put in jeopardy, as the D.C. Circuit
itself recognized in its published opinion. It's that breach of
national security which is of paramount interest to both the Wilsons.
And the personal harm to Valerie is secondary, but obviously important.
BROWN: All right. We have got to end on that note.
Christopher Wolf and Dick Sauber, thank you very much. Appreciate your
both being here.
WOLF: Thank you.
BROWN: And when we
Truthseeker
to JINSA (Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs) after doing a
search for JINSA at www.google.com:
JINSA ZIONIST OPERATIVE JOHN BOLTON JUST NAMED AS US AMBASSADOR:
Truthseeker
Reporter ties Cheney aide to CIA story
Time identifies chief of staff as 2d source
By Diedtra Henderson, Globe Staff | July 18, 2005
WASHINGTON -- I. Lewis ''Scooter" Libby, Vice President Cheney's chief
of
staff, was a second source for a Time magazine article that revealed
the
identity of a covert CIA agent, the magazine reported yesterday,
undercutting repeated White House denials.
For two years, the Bush administration has said that neither top
presidential adviser Karl Rove nor Libby was involved in identifying
Valerie
Plame, the covert CIA agent first named in a July 2003 article by
syndicated
columnist Robert Novak.
Last week, Rove, Bush's deputy chief of staff, was identified as a
confidential source of Time reporter Matthew Cooper and that disclosure
led
to some Democrats calling for Rove's resignation while others pressed
for
the revocation of his security clearance. The disclosure also resulted
in
the White House no longer denying Rove's involvement and instead
declining
to comment because the matter is under investigation.
The partisan attacks are expected to continue this week with Libby -- a
neoconservative and member of the team planning for the war -- being
linked
again to the story, and as Congress hears testimony backing a federal
shield
law to protect reporters from testifying about unnamed sources. It was
reported last year that Libby waived a confidentiality agreement with
Cooper, allowing him to give testimony, but the topic of their
conversation
was not known.
Republicans continued yesterday to defend Rove. Republican National
Committee chairman Ken Mehlman, appearing on NBC's ''Meet the Press,"
argued
that Rove learned of Plame's identity from journalists, and that
Democrats
are attacking Rove based on information that exonerates Rove. Mehlman
said
Democrats owe Rove an apology.
A lawyer familiar with Rove's grand jury testimony told the Associated
Press
yesterday that Rove learned about the CIA officer either from the media
or
from someone in government who said the information came from a
journalist.
The lawyer spoke on condition of anonymity because the federal
investigation
is continuing.
Also appearing on ''Meet the Press," John Podesta, chief of staff
during the
Clinton administration, said if Rove had ''an ounce of character," he
would
resign. ''Mr. Rove has created a tremendous credibility problem for
this
White House, for this president, for this country on a matter of utmost
national security," he said. ''The one thing that is unassailable at
the end
of this week is that Mr. Rove did not tell the truth in 2003."
In a first-person article about his grand jury testimony in this week's
issue of Time, Cooper said he called Rove about Joseph C. Wilson IV,
author
of a New York Times op-ed article on his mission to Niger in which he
found
no evidence that Saddam Hussein was trying to procure uranium to make
nuclear weapons. The Bush administration justified going to war in Iraq
as
necessary to stop the spread of weapons of mass destruction, and
Wilson's
article said it twisted intelligence to exaggerate the Iraqi threat.
Critics of the administration have charged that Plame's cover was
deliberately leaked as retribution for Wilson's article. Knowingly
revealing
the identity of covert personnel is a felony.
During the conversation with Rove, Cooper learned that Wilson's wife --
whom
Rove did not name -- worked at the CIA on weapons of mass destruction
and
that she -- not Cheney -- was responsible for sending Wilson to Africa.
Rove
ended the call by saying he had ''already said too much," though Cooper
was
not sure what he meant.
The next day, Cooper repeated details gleaned from Rove to Libby.
According
to Cooper's article in this week's Time, Libby, speaking on the record,
denied Cheney had any role in or knowledge of Wilson's trip to Niger.
At one
point, when the conversation was on background, Cooper asked about
Wilson's
wife sending her husband to Niger. ''Libby replied, 'Yeah, I've heard
that,
too,' or words to that effect," according to the article. His article
reveals the ''microscopic, excruciating detail" sought by the grand
jury and
special prosecutor in his 2 1/2 hours of testimony Wednesday and echoes
comments he made yesterday on news shows.
Meanwhile, investigators, in an effort to determine the source of the
leak,
are focusing on a 2003 State Department memo that details why Wilson
was
chosen for the trip and what role Plame played in his selection,
according
to reports in The New York Times and the Los Angeles Times.
Special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, who is investigating the leak, has
focused on a classified memo and meeting notes sent by State Department
officials to then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, the Los Angeles
Times
reported. The day after Wilson's op-ed article was published, Bush
traveled
to Africa on Air Force One. Powell, also on Air Force One, had a copy
of the
classified documents. The New York Times reported that Powell was
walking
around the aircraft with the memo in his hands. Cooper wrote that he
first
spoke to the special prosecutor in August 2004, giving ''limited
testimony"
in his attorney's office about his interview with Libby. ''Like Rove,
Libby
never used Valerie Plame's name or indicated that her status was
covert, and
he never told me that he had heard about Plame from other reporters,"
Cooper
wrote.
Cooper's account of his grand jury testimony, which he gave last week,
said
Fitzgerald's questions hinted at the investigation's direction. ''He
asked
me several different ways if Rove indicated how he had heard that Plame
worked at the CIA," Cooper wrote. ''(He did not, I told the grand
jury.)
Maybe Fitzgerald is interested in whether Rove knew her CIA ties
through a
person or through a document," Cooper wrote.
Cooper's notes and e-mail messages turned over to the special
prosecutor by
Time -- over the reporter's objections -- indicate that Rove told him
''material was going to be declassified in the coming days that would
cast
doubt on Wilson's mission and his findings." Speaking on ''Meet the
Press,"
Cooper said there may have been government officials other than Rove
and
Libby who were sources for his article. Asked on CNN's ''Reliable
Sources"
about a third unnamed administration source, ''a policy person in
Africa,"
Cooper declined comment.
Cooper wrote that sitting before the grand jury, which hears testimony
in
secret, he was struck by the mostly African-American, mostly female
group
and their inquisitiveness as they sat in black vinyl chairs and at
desks
''as if it were a shabby classroom at a rundown college." Cooper and
New
York Times reporter Judith Miller fought such testimony to the Supreme
Court. They lost. Miller remains jailed in Alexandria, Va.
Cooper wrote that he was surprised to be questioned extensively about
welfare reform, a reporting topic he shelved in favor of the Wilson
story.
''To me, this suggested that Rove may have testified that we had talked
about welfare reform," Cooper wrote.
Robert Luskin, Rove's attorney, declined comment yesterday.
This week, Cooper will testify before Congress on behalf of a federal
shield
law that could have helped him avoid testifying before the grand jury.
For the most part, Republicans have stood firm behind the White House.
Yesterday, however, Representative Roy Blunt of Missouri, the
third-ranking
House Republican, appeared on CBS's ''Face the Nation." Responding to a
question about the administration's previous denials of Rove's
involvement,
Blunt said the administration needs ''to be very thoughtful about what
they
say and be sure that their credibility is sustained."
Truthseeker
EquusScelestus
Truthseeker wrote:
> Exactly right, Peter.. MSNBC's 'Hardball' is doing a broadcast on
> Fitzgerald later today (July 19th, 2004) at 4:00 PM on the west coast
> (8 PM on the east coast)
That would be 7pm on the East Coast - Keith Olbermann is on at 8pm.
EquusScelestus
Truthseeker wrote:
> Exactly right, Peter.. MSNBC's 'Hardball' is doing a broadcast on
> Fitzgerald later today (July 19th, 2004) at 4:00 PM on the west coast
> (8 PM on the east coast)
That would be 7pm on the East Coast - Keith Olbermann is on at 8pm.
Truthseeker
the west coast).
Truthseeker
http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=7005
Everything you need to know about fellow JINSA Israel firster Michael
Ledeen (is he also involved with Rovegate?):
Truthseeker
Truthseeker
By Ray McGovern
t r u t h o u t | Perspective
Tuesday 19 July 2005
The key issue in the affair has little directly to do with former U.S.
ambassador Joseph Wilson; or his wife, Valerie Plame; or Vice President
Dick Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby; or even
President George W. Bush's alter ego, Karl Rove. White House v.
Wilson/Plame is about Iraq, where our sons and daughters - and many
others - are daily meeting violent death in an unwinnable war.
And it's about manipulation.
It's about how our elected representatives were deceived into voting
for an unprovoked war and what happened when one man stood up and
called the administration's bluff. And it's about the perfect storm now
gathering, as:
more lies are exposed (whether in journalists' e-mails or in the
minutes of high-level meetings at 10 Downing Street),
the guerrilla war escalates in Iraq, and
more and more Americans find themselves agreeing with Sen. Chuck Hagel,
R-Neb., that administration leaders seem to be "making it up as they go
along."
It wasn't envisaged this way by the naïve "neoconservative" ideologues
that got us into the quagmire in Iraq. Actually they still seem to
believe that all will be well if the Iraqi people can only get it into
their heads that we are liberators, not occupiers.
So much smoke is being blown over White House v. Wilson/Plame that it
is becoming almost impossible to see the forest for the trees.
Bewildered houseguests from outside the Beltway throw up their hands:
"It's all just politics...and character assassination." And that may
well be precisely the impression the media wish to leave with us.
Otherwise, left to our own devices, we might conclude they served us
poorly with the indiscriminate, hyper-patriotic cheerleading that
helped slide us into the worst foreign policy debacle in our nation's
history.
Our weekend guests had a hard time trying to understand why the White
House two years ago blew the cover of CIA operative Valerie Plame, wife
of former ambassador Joseph Wilson. Sure, Wilson had caught and exposed
the Bush administration in a very serious lie. But almost immediately,
top officials conceded that Ambassador Wilson was essentially correct
in dismissing the flimsy report that Iraq was trying to acquire uranium
in Africa.
Betrayal of Trust
So why the neuralgic reaction? Why go to such lengths to impugn
Wilson's credibility; and what purpose would be served by harming his
wife as well? At first blush, it does seem awfully petty. But dig a
little deeper and you'll get a glimpse of what lies beneath the White
House campaign against the Wilsons.
Revenge? There was certainly a strong desire to retaliate. And Karl
Rove did tell NBC's Chris Matthews at the time that wives were "fair
game." Angry at White House dissembling, Wilson had doffed his
ambassadorial hat and thrown down the gauntlet when he told the press
that the Iraq-Niger caper "begs the question about what else they are
lying about." And, indeed, how many more untruths have been uncovered
over the past two years?
Was the relentless White House campaign to vilify the Wilsons aimed
primarily at serving notice that a similar fate awaits any whose
conscience might prompt them to expose still more of the lies used to
"justify" the attack on Iraq? That, too, was surely part of it. And,
sad to say, it has worked - at least until now. Yes, we have learned
about the misdiagnosed aluminum tubes, the "Curveball" deception on
Iraqi biological warfare, and the "unpiloted aerial vehicles" (UAVs)
that Congress was told could threaten our coastal cities. But it was
basic physics that held administration arguments up to eventual
ridicule. None of the exposés came from the mouths of people like Joe
Wilson, who simply could not abide crass deception in matters of war
and peace.
The main motivation of the White House character assassins had more to
do with the particular lie that Joseph Wilson exposed and the essential
role it played in the administration's plans. For a nuclear-armed Iraq
was the most compelling threat that could be peddled to our elected
representatives and senators to deceive them into approving a war
launched for reasons unrelated to any putative Iraqi WMD program.
The Big Lie
The Bush administration needed to assert that Iraq was on the verge of
acquiring nuclear weapons. Taking that line posed a huge challenge. On
the one hand, a new threat had to be created/hyped out of thin air;
and, on the other, the pundits had to be too lazy to refresh their
memories on what senior U.S. officials had said about Iraq's military
capability before 9/11.
"Saddam Hussein has not developed any significant capability with
respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project
conventional power against his neighbors." (Colin Powell, Feb. 24,
2001)
"We are able to keep his arms from him. His military forces have not
been rebuilt." (Condoleezza Rice, July 29, 2001)
These statements went quickly down the memory hole. Immediately after
9/11, administration officials, with Vice President Dick Cheney in the
lead, began to warn that Iraqi "weapons of mass destruction" were just
over the horizon. On August 26, 2002, a month after senior U.S.
officials had explained to their British counterparts that intelligence
was being "fixed" around a policy of war, Vice President Dick Cheney
was the first to use that fabricated and twisted intelligence to
deceive Americans at large. In a major speech he claimed:
"We now know that Saddam has resumed his efforts to acquire nuclear
weapons. Among other sources, we've gotten this from the firsthand
testimony of defectors - including Saddam's own son-in-law."
In fact, Saddam's son-in-law, Hussein Kamel, had told us just the
opposite: "All weapons - biological, chemical, missile, nuclear were
destroyed," he told his debriefers in 1995. Everything else he told
them was true. And so was that. Kamel had been in charge of those
programs; the weaponry was destroyed at his command.
But no matter. Cheney's speech, and the subsequent National
Intelligence Estimate cooked to his recipe, allowed the president to
raise the specter of mushroom clouds over U.S. cities, to force a yes
vote in Congress for war and, not incidentally, to win back the Senate
the following month.
The Iraq-Niger lie was thus both the cornerstone of the Bush agenda for
war and the key to unraveling how the "fixing" worked. Rove, master of
the administration's strategy yet only two years out of Texas, joined
by Cheney's chief of staff I. Lewis ("Scooter") Libby spread red
herrings to divert reporters off the scent and wound up triggering the
eventual appointment of a special prosecutor and the convening of a
grand jury.
So it was the president's and vice president's own men who brought the
skunk to the picnic - Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald. He shows
no inclination to join in the fun and games, and still less to speak
prematurely, or to speak at all. Rather, Fitzgerald appears to be a
real pro, and as long has he can avoid being fired, he could
potentially take all the fun out of things. "Neo-conservative" pundit
William Kristol was clearly reflecting growing uneasiness when he
commented recently that Fitzpatrick is "the problem for the White
House; we have no idea what he knows."
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ray McGovern works at Tell the Word, the publishing arm of the
ecumenical Church of the Saviour in Washington, DC. He had a 27-year
career as an analyst at CIA and is on the Steering Committee of Veteran
Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. This article appeared first on
TomPaine.com.
Truthseeker
[b]Cheney And Plame[/b]
Ray McGovern
July 19, 2005
Ray McGovern works at Tell the Word, the publishing arm of the
ecumenical Church of the Saviour in Washington, DC. He had a 27-year
career as an analyst at CIA and is on the Steering Group of Veteran
Intelligence Professionals for Sanity.
In yesterday's essay, Why Plame Matters , we suggested that the White
House assault on the reputations of former ambassador Joseph Wilson and
his wife had much to do with "the particular lie that Wilson
exposed," and we discussed the unusual role Vice President Dick
Cheney played regarding the bogus "intelligence" about Iraq seeking
to acquire uranium from Niger. Our Veteran Intelligence Professionals
for Sanity (VIPS) files provide contemporaneous insight into Cheney's
unusual involvement and throw light on continuing attempts to disguise
it.
Continuing attempts? Investigative journalist Robert Parry, writing
today for consortiumnews.com, notes that atop the Republican National
Committee's list of "Joe Wilson's Top Ten Worst Inaccuracies and
Misstatements" sits "Wilson insisted that the Vice President's
office sent him to Niger." That's not exactly what Wilson said,
but let's leave that point aside for the moment. What strikes me is
the rather transparent two-year-old campaign to dissociate Cheney from
L'Affaire Iraq-Niger.
On July 14, 2003, the day of Robert Novak's opening salvo against the
Wilsons, VIPS wrote a Memorandum for the President with two main
sections: "The Forgery Flap," and "The Vice President's
Role." In that memo, we also made an important recommendation that
appeared a bit extreme at the time, but it was already possible to
discern what was going on:
We recommend that you call an abrupt halt to attempts to prove Vice
President Cheney "not guilty." His role has been so transparent
that such attempts will only erode further your own credibility.
Equally pernicious, from our perspective, is the likelihood that
intelligence analysts will conclude that the way to success is to
acquiesce in the cooking of their judgments, since those above them
will not be held accountable. We strongly recommend that you ask for
Cheney's immediate resignation.
Protesting (or Protecting) Too Much
We were all children once. Remember how, when you and your peers got
caught in some mischief, the ringleader had to be protected? "Who
decided to do this terrible thing?" was often the question. "Not
Dick (or Tom or Harry)" was often the instinctive, immediate answer.
Remember how, as a parent, that made you really wonder about Dick (or
Tom or Harry)?
In our memo of July 14, 2003, we warned President George W. Bush that
the Iraq-seeking-uranium-in-Niger forgery was "a microcosm of a
mischievous nexus of overarching problems" in his White House. We
cited the remarks of then-presidential spokesman Ari Fleischer earlier
that week, which (as noted above) set the tone for what has
followed-right up to today. When asked about the forgery Fleischer
noted-as if drawing on well-memorized talking points-that the vice
president was not guilty of anything. (The denial was gratuitous; the
question asked did not even mention the vice president's possible
role.) And the liturgy of absolution continued on July 11, 2003, when
then-director of the CIA, George Tenet, did his awkward best to absolve
the vice president of responsibility.
The "Particular Lie" and Forgery
We noted yesterday that the main motivation of the White House campaign
to discredit the Wilsons had to do with "the particular lie that
Joseph Wilson exposed and the essential role it played in the
administration's plans. The lie was that Iraq was on the verge of
acquiring nuclear weapons and that, despite Iraq's inability to
deliver such weapons on the U.S., this somehow posed a "grave and
gathering" threat. The plans were to use that ominous specter to
deceive Congress into approving war on Iraq. The problem was that not
even the obsequious George Tenet could come up with evidence that could
withstand close scrutiny.
This was a problem, especially since U.N. inspectors and U.S.
intelligence knew that Iraq's nuclear program had been destroyed
after the Gulf War and there was no persuasive evidence that Baghdad
was moving to reconstitute it. Even the intelligence imagery analysts,
whom former CIA director John Deutch gave away to the Pentagon in 1996,
could not come up with the evidence needed, despite very strong
incentive to please their boss, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
What a welcome windfall, then, when a deus ex machina appeared in early
2002, in the form of a report alleging that Iraq was seeking uranium in
the African country of Niger. Since Iraq had no other use for uranium,
the White House spin machine went into high gear, playing up the report
as proof that Baghdad was reconstituting its nuclear weapons
development program. The intelligence analysts had to hold their
noses-not only because of the dubious sourcing but because the
substance of the report made little sense. They knew (and Wilson
confirmed) that all the uranium mined in Niger is controlled by a
French-led international consortium that exercises super-strict control
over exports from Niger. It just couldn't happen.
Provenance and likelihood be damned. The White House now had a
"report" that could be used effectively with Congress, and Tenet
could be counted on to keep his nose-holding professionals out of
sight. The Iraq-seeking-uranium-from-Africa canard assumed such
prominent importance to the administration's case that it simply
could not be dropped altogether-either in Washington or in London.
Accordingly, none of us in VIPS were in the least surprised to learn
recently of the line taken by Karl Rove with Time reporter Matthew
Cooper on July 11, 2003. In an email that Cooper sent his bosses at
Time , Rove insisted that Wilson's findings on Niger-Iraq were
flawed. According to Cooper, Rove "implied strongly there's still
plenty to implicate Iraqi interest in acquiring uranium from Niger."
That was false. Neither British nor U.S. intelligence has come up with
anything to throw the slightest doubt on Wilson's conclusions.
Who Did It?
Who authored the forgery remains a mystery, but one that Congress has
avoided trying to solve, even though many have expressed outrage at
having been snookered into voting for war. Senate intelligence
committee chair Pat Roberts, R-Kan., has demonstrated a curious lack of
curiosity. Nothing that ranking minority member Jay Rockefeller could
do would persuade Roberts to ask the FBI to investigate.
Those searching for answers are reduced to asking the obvious: Cui
bono? Who stood to benefit from such a forgery? A no-brainer-those
lusting for war on Iraq. And who might that be? Look up the
"neocon" writings on the website of the Project for the New
American Century . There you will find information on people like
Michael Ledeen, "Freedom Analyst" at the American Enterprise
Institute and a key strategist among "neoconservative" hawks in and
out of the Bush administration. Applauding the invasion of Iraq,
Ledeen asserted at the very start that the war could not be contained,
and that "it may turn out to be a war to remake the world."
Beyond his geopolitical punditry, Ledeen's career shows he is
well-accustomed to rogue operations. A longtime Washington operative,
he was fired as a "consultant" for the National Security Council
under President Ronald Reagan for running fool's errands for Oliver
North during the Iran-Contra subterfuge. One of Ledeen's Iran-Contra
partners in crime, so to speak, was Elliot Abrams. Abrams was convicted
of lying to Congress about Iran-Contra. He was pardoned before jail
time, however, by George H. W. Bush and is now George W. Bush's
deputy national security adviser. Ledeen continues to enjoy entree into
the office of the vice president, as well as to his friend Abrams.
During a radio interview with Ian Masters on April 3, 2005, former CIA
operative Vincent Cannistraro charged that the Iraq-Niger documents
were forged in the United States. Drawing on earlier speculation
regarding who forged the documents, Masters asked, "If I were to say
the name Michael Ledeen to you, what would you say?" Cannistraro
replied, "You're very close."
Ledeen has denied having anything to do with the forgery. Yet the
company he keeps with other prominent Iran-Contra
convictees/pardonees/intelligence contractors suggests otherwise.
Another intriguing straw in the wind is Ledeen's long association
with Italian intelligence, which, according to most accounts, played a
role in disseminating the forged documents. If Ledeen and his
associates were involved, this might also help explain the
amateurishness of the forged documents. They would have sorely missed
the institutional expertise formerly at their beck and call.
The Cover-up
It is a safe bet that Joseph Wilson suspected this kind of
skullduggery. He nevertheless played it straight. After hearing the
bogus Iraq-story repeated in the January 28, 2003, State of the Union
speech and ascertaining that it was based on little more than the
original report, Wilson began to approach administration officials
suggesting that they retract the story or he would in conscience be
compelled to make public what had happened. He was told, in effect, Go
public; who will believe you? So he did. Astonishingly, the
administration and the domesticated press have partially succeeded in
making Wilson's credibility the issue-witness, for example, the
frontal assault last weekend by fast-talking, no-holds-barred
Republican National Committee chairman Ken Mehlman.
Joseph Wilson had been around long enough to know what to expect.
Moreover, the White House apparently made it very clear that they would
make him pay if he went public. Just three weeks before The New York
Times published Wilson's op-ed "What I Did Not Find in Africa,"
he and I shared keynoting duties at a conference on Iraq. Wilson told
me then that he was about to publish, adding "They are going to come
after me big-time. I don't know exactly how, but they are going to
do it."
It has now become clear that Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis
"Scooter" Libby, was as active as Rove in spreading the word about
the Wilsons when the story broke in July 2003. Surprise, surprise.
Truthseeker
http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/000370.html
March 14, 2005
JOHN BOLTON PUSHED NIGER-URANIUM FIASCO AT STATE -- Then Tried to Hide
his Tracks and Staff Lied to Congress
I just received this March 1, 2005 letter written by House Government
Reform Committee Ranking Member Henry Waxman to Representative
Christopher Shays who chairs the Government Reform Committee's
Subcommittee on National Security, Emerging Threats, and International
Security.
Waxman is basically blowing the whistle on the administration's
extravagant use of "sensitive but unclassified" designations on
official acts to block public access to and transparency of government
policymaking.
On pages 5-7, Waxman reveals that John Bolton promulgated the
Niger-Uranium fiction at the State Department despite rejection of this
claim by State Department and CIA intelligence analysts.
Waxman then argues that not only did Bolton and his people then try and
conceal Bolton's role in pushing the Niger-Uranium agenda by marking
the material "sensitive but unclassified" and blocking it in case of a
Freedom of Information Act request, the State Department actually LIED
TO CONGRESS about John Bolton's role.
I think Senator Hagel might want to reconsider his support for the
Bolton nomination now. . .
Here is the excerpt from the Waxman letter:
Concealment of a State Department Official's Role in the Niger Uranium
Claim
In April 2004, the State Department used the designation "sensitive but
unclassified" to conceal unclassified information about the role of
John Bolton, Under Secretary of State for Arms Control, in the creation
of a fact sheet distributed to the United Nations that falsely claimed
Iraq had sought uranium from Niger.
On December 19, 2002, the State Department issued a fact sheet entitled
"Illustrative Examples of Omissions from the Iraqi Declaration to the
United Nations Security Council." (9) The fact sheet listed eight key
areas in which the Bush Administration found fault with Iraq's weapons
declaration to the United Nations on December 7, 2002. Under the
heading "Nuclear Weapons," the fact sheet stated:
The Declaration ignores efforts to procure uranium from Niger.
Why is the Iraqi regime hiding their uranium procurement?
It was later discovered that this claim was based on fabricated
documents. (10) In addition, both State Department intelligence
officials and CIA officials reported that they had rejected the claim
as unreliable. (11) As a result, it was unclear who within the State
Department was involved in preparing the fact sheet.
On July 21, 2003, I wrote to Secretary of State Colin Powell, asking
for an explanation of the role of John Bolton, Under Secretary of State
for Arms Control and International Security Affairs, in creating the
document. (12) On September 25, 2003, the State Department responded
with a definitive denial: "Under Secretary of State for Arms Control
and International Security Affairs, John R. Bolton, did not play a role
in the creation of this document." (13)
Subsequently, however, I joined six other members of the Government
Reform Committee in requesting from the State Department Inspector
General a copy of an unclassified "chronology" on how the fact sheet
was developed. (14) This chronology described a meeting on December 18,
2002, between Secretary Powell, Mr. Bolton, and Richard Boucher, the
Assistant Secretary for the Bureau of Public Affairs. According to this
chronology, Mr. Boucher specifically asked Mr. Bolton "for help
developing a response to Iraq's Dec 7 Declaration to the United Nations
Security Council that could be used with the press. According to the
chronology, which is phrased in the present tense, Mr. Bolton "agrees
and tasks the Bureau of Nonproliferation," a subordinate office that
reports directly to Mr. Bolton, to conduct the work.
This unclassified chronology also stated that on the next day, December
19, 2003, the Bureau of Nonproliferation "sends email with the fact
sheet, 'Fact Sheet Iraq Declaration.doc.'" to Mr. Bolton's office
(emphasis in original). A second e-mail was sent a few minutes later,
and a third e-mail was sent about an hour after that. According to the
chronology, each version "still includes Niger reference." Although Mr.
Bolton may not have personally drafted the document, the chronology
appears to indicate that he ordered its creation and received updates
on its development.
The Inspector General's chronology was marked "sensitive but
unclassified." In addition, the letter transmitting the chronology
stated that it "contains sensitive information, which may be protected
from public release under the Freedom of Information Act" and requested
that no "public release of this information" be made. (15) In fact,
however, the chronology consisted of nothing more than a factual
recitation of information on meetings, e-mails, and documents.
This is not a constructive reformer out to promote American interests
in a dignified manner in the world's most significant multilateral
institution.
There are many administration jobs that John Bolton may be completely
appropriate for -- but the one that he has been nominated for is not on
that list.
Senator Hagel -- don't you see that?
Truthseeker
Date: Wed, 20 Jul 2005 21:33:07 EDT
Subject: Judge Roberts and Cheney
We have to keep up the focus on the Fitzgerald investigation and
deception that led us to war. The public does care about that and
Roberts is a part of it.
Use the info. Post it. Pass it on.
In re: Richard B. Cheney, Vice President of the United States, 2003
U.S. App. LEXIS 18831 (D.C. Cir. 2003), cert. granted, 2003 U.S. LEXIS
9205 (2003): secrecy of Vice President Cheney's energy task force
Judge Roberts was one of the dissenters in the court's 5-3 denial of a
petition for rehearing en banc (with one judge not participating) filed
by the Bush Administration in its continuing efforts to avoid releasing
records pertaining to Vice President Cheney's energy task force. This
ruling came in litigation brought by Judicial Watch and the Sierra Club
charging that the Vice President's task force had violated federal law
by not making its records public. The court's ruling marked "the fourth
time a judicial panel has rebuffed efforts to keep the information from
the public." Carol D. Leonnig, "Energy Task Force Appeal Refused,"
Washington Post (Sept. 12, 2003). At the Administration's urging, the
Supreme Court has agreed to review the case; a decision is expected by
the end of June 2004.
http://www.pfaw.org/pfaw/general/default.aspx?oid=13523
Truthseeker
washingtonpost.com
Plame's Identity Marked As Secret
Memo Central to Probe Of Leak Was Written By State Dept. Analyst
By Walter Pincus and Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, July 21, 2005; A01
A classified State Department memorandum central to a federal leak
investigation contained information about CIA officer Valerie Plame 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, according to current and former government
officials.
Plame -- who is referred to by her married name, Valerie Wilson, in the
memo -- is mentioned in the second paragraph of the three-page
document, which was written on June 10, 2003, by an analyst in the
State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), according
to a source who described the memo to The Washington Post.
The paragraph identifying her as the wife of former ambassador Joseph
C. Wilson IV was clearly marked to show that it contained classified
material at the "secret" level, two sources said. The CIA classifies as
"secret" the names of officers whose identities are covert, according
to former senior agency officials.
Anyone reading that paragraph should have been aware that it contained
secret information, though that designation was not specifically
attached to Plame's name and did not describe her status as covert, the
sources said. It is a federal crime, punishable by up to 10 years in
prison, for a federal official to knowingly disclose the identity of a
covert CIA official if the person knows the government is trying to
keep it secret.
Prosecutors attempting to determine whether senior government officials
knowingly leaked Plame's identity as a covert CIA operative to the
media are investigating whether White House officials gained access to
information about her from the memo, according to two sources familiar
with the investigation.
The memo may be important to answering three central questions in the
Plame case: Who in the Bush administration knew about Plame's CIA role?
Did they know the agency was trying to protect her identity? And, who
leaked it to the media?
Almost all of the memo is devoted to describing why State Department
intelligence experts did not believe claims that Saddam Hussein had in
the recent past sought to purchase uranium from Niger. Only two
sentences in the seven-sentence paragraph mention Wilson's wife.
The memo was delivered to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell on July 7,
2003, as he headed to Africa for a trip with President Bush aboard Air
Force One. Plame was unmasked in a syndicated column by Robert D. Novak
seven days later.
Wilson has said his wife's identity was revealed to retaliate against
him for accusing the Bush administration of "twisting" intelligence to
justify the Iraq war. In a July 6 opinion piece in the New York Times
and in an interview with The Washington Post, he cited a secret mission
he conducted in February 2002 for the CIA, when he determined there was
no evidence that Iraq was seeking uranium for a nuclear weapons program
in the African nation of Niger.
White House officials discussed Wilson's wife's CIA connection in
telling at least two reporters that she helped arrange his trip,
according to one of the reporters, Matthew Cooper of Time magazine, and
a lawyer familiar with the case.
Prosecutors have shown interest in the memo, especially when they were
questioning White House officials during the early days of the
investigation, people familiar with the probe said.
Karl Rove, President Bush's deputy chief of staff, has testified that
he learned Plame's name from Novak a few days before telling another
reporter she worked at the CIA and played a role in her husband's
mission, according to a lawyer familiar with Rove's account. Rove has
also testified that the first time he saw the State Department memo was
when "people in the special prosecutor's office" showed it to him, said
Robert Luskin, his attorney.
"He had not seen it or heard about it before that time," Luskin said.
Several other administration officials were on the trip to Africa,
including senior adviser Dan Bartlett, then-White House spokesman Ari
Fleischer and others. Bartlett's attorney has refused to discuss the
case, citing requests by the special counsel. Fleischer could not be
reached for comment yesterday.
Rove and Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter"
Libby, have been identified as people who discussed Wilson's wife with
Cooper. Prosecutors are trying to determine the origin of their
knowledge of Plame, including whether it was from the INR memo or from
conversations with reporters.
The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday that the memo made it clear
that information about Wilson's wife was sensitive and should not be
shared. Yesterday, sources provided greater detail on the memo to The
Post.
The material in the memo about Wilson's wife was based on notes taken
by an INR analyst who attended a Feb. 19, 2002, meeting at the CIA
where Wilson's intelligence-gathering trip to Niger was discussed.
The memo was drafted June 10, 2003, for Undersecretary of State Marc
Grossman, who asked to be brought up to date on INR's opposition to the
White House view that Hussein was trying to buy uranium in Africa.
The description of Wilson's wife and her role in the Feb. 19, 2002,
meeting at the CIA was considered "a footnote" in a background
paragraph in the memo, according to an official who was aware of the
process.
It records that the INR analyst at the meeting opposed Wilson's trip to
Niger because the State Department, through other inquiries, already
had disproved the allegation that Iraq was seeking uranium from Niger.
Attached to the INR memo were the notes taken by the senior INR analyst
who attended the 2002 meeting at the CIA.
On July 6, 2003, shortly after Wilson went public on NBC's "Meet the
Press" and in The Post and the New York Times discussing his trip to
Niger, the INR director at the time, Carl W. Ford Jr., was asked to
explain Wilson's statements for Powell, according to sources familiar
with the events. He went back and reprinted the June 10 memo but
changed the addressee from Grossman to Powell.
Ford last year appeared before the federal grand jury investigating the
leak and described the details surrounding the INR memo, the sources
said. Yesterday he was on vacation in Arkansas, according to his
office.
Truthseeker
July 22 (Bloomberg) -- Two top White House aides have given accounts to
a special prosecutor about how reporters first told them the identity
of a CIA agent that are at odds with what the reporters have said,
according to people familiar with the case.
Lewis ``Scooter'' Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff,
told special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald that he first learned from
NBC News reporter Tim Russert of the identity of Central Intelligence
Agency operative Valerie Plame, the wife of former ambassador and Bush
administration critic Joseph Wilson, one person said. Russert has
testified before a federal grand jury that he didn't tell Libby of
Plame's identity, the person said.
White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove told Fitzgerald that he
first learned the identity of the CIA agent from syndicated columnist
Robert Novak, according a person familiar with the matter. Novak, who
was first to report Plame's name and connection to Wilson, has given a
somewhat different version to the special prosecutor, the person said.
These discrepancies may be important because Fitzgerald is
investigating whether Libby, Rove or other administration officials
made false statements during the course of the investigation. The Plame
case has its genesis in whether any administration officials violated a
1982 law making it illegal to knowingly reveal the name of a covert
intelligence agent.
`Twisted' Intelligence
The CIA requested the inquiry after Novak reported in a July 14, 2003,
column that Plame recommended her husband for a 2002 mission to check
into reports Iraq tried to buy uranium from Niger. Wilson, in a July 6,
2003, article in the New York Times, had said President George W.
Bush's administration ``twisted'' some of the intelligence on Iraq's
weapons to justify the war.
Robert Luskin, Rove's attorney, said yesterday that Rove told the grand
jury ``he had not heard her name before he heard it from Bob Novak.''
He declined in an interview to comment on whether Novak's account of
their conversation differed from Rove's.
There also is a discrepancy between accounts given by Rove and Time
magazine reporter Mat Cooper. The White House aide mentioned Wilson's
wife -- though not by name -- in a July 11, 2003, conversation with
Cooper, the reporter said. Rove, 55, says that Cooper called him to
talk about welfare reform and the Wilson connection was mentioned
later, in passing.
Cooper wrote in Time magazine last week that he told the grand jury he
never discussed welfare reform with Rove in that call.
Miller in Jail
One reporter, Judith Miller of the New York Times, has been jailed on
contempt of court charges for refusing to testify before the grand jury
about her reporting on the Plame case.
Cooper testified only after Time Inc. said it would comply with
Fitzgerald's demands for Cooper's notes and reporting on the Plame
matter, particularly regarding his dealings with Rove.
Libby, 54, didn't return a phone call seeking comment.
The varying accounts of conversations between Rove, Libby and reporters
come as new details emerge about a classified State Department
memorandum that's also at the center of Fitzgerald's probe.
A memo by the department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research included
Plame's name in a paragraph marked ``(S)'' for ``Secret,'' a
designation that indicated to anyone who read it that the information
was classified, the Washington Post reported yesterday.
State Department Memo
The memo, prepared July 7, 2003, for Secretary of State Colin Powell,
is a focus of Fitzgerald's interest, according to individuals who have
testified before the grand jury and attorneys familiar with the case.
The three-page document said that Wilson had been recommended for a
CIA-sponsored trip to Africa by his wife, who worked on the CIA's
counter-proliferations desk.
Bush had said in his State of the Union message in January 2003 that
Iraq was trying to purchase nuclear materials in Africa. Days after
Wilson's article -- in which he said there was no basis to conclude
that Iraq was trying to buy nuclear material in Africa and that the
administration had exaggerated the evidence -- the White House
acknowledged that the Africa assertion shouldn't have been included in
the speech.
The memo summarizing the Plame-Wilson connection was provided to Powell
as he left with Bush on a five-day trip to Africa. Fitzgerald is
exploring whether other White House officials on the trip may have
gained access to the memo and shared its contents with officials back
in Washington. Rove and Libby didn't accompany Bush to Africa.
One key to the inquiry is when White House aides knew of Wilson's
connection to Plame and whether they learned about it through this memo
or other classified information.
Some Bush allies hope that the Fitzgerald investigation, which
dominated the news in Washington for the first part of July, will
subside as attention shifts to Bush's nomination of Judge John Roberts
to fill the first vacancy on the Supreme Court in 11 years.
Fitzgerald's term of service lasts until October, which is also the
length of time remaining for the grand jury hearing evidence in the
case.
To contact the reporter on this story:
Richard Keil in Washington at dk...@bloomberg.net.
Truthseeker
July 22, 2005
For Two Aides in Leak Case, 2nd Issue Rises
By DAVID JOHNSTON
This article was reported by David Johnston, Douglas Jehl and Richard
W. Stevenson and was written by Mr. Johnston.
WASHINGTON, July 21 - At the same time in July 2003 that a C.I.A.
operative's identity was exposed, two key White House officials who
talked to journalists about the officer were also working closely
together on a related underlying issue: whether President Bush was
correct in suggesting earlier that year that Iraq had been trying to
acquire nuclear materials from Africa.
The two issues had become inextricably linked because Joseph C. Wilson
IV, the husband of the unmasked C.I.A. officer, had questioned Mr.
Bush's assertion, prompting a damage-control effort by the White House
that included challenging Mr. Wilson's standing and his credentials. A
federal grand jury investigation is under way by a special counsel to
determine whether someone illegally leaked the officer's identity and
possibly into whether perjury or obstruction of justice occurred during
the inquiry.
People who have been briefed on the case said the White House
officials, Karl Rove and I. Lewis Libby, were helping prepare what
became the administration's primary response to criticism that a flawed
phrase about the nuclear materials in Africa had been in Mr. Bush's
State of the Union address six months earlier.
They had exchanged e-mail correspondence and drafts of a proposed
statement by George J. Tenet, then the director of central
intelligence, to explain how the disputed wording had gotten into the
address. Mr. Rove, the president's political strategist, and Mr. Libby,
the chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney, coordinated their
efforts with Stephen J. Hadley, then the deputy national security
adviser, who was in turn consulting with Mr. Tenet.
At the same time, they were grappling with the fallout from an Op-Ed
article on July 6, 2003, in The New York Times by Mr. Wilson, a former
diplomat, in which he criticized the way the administration had used
intelligence to support the claim in Mr. Bush's speech.
The work done by Mr. Rove and Mr. Libby on the Tenet statement during
this intense period has not been previously disclosed. People who have
been briefed on the case discussed this critical time period and the
events surrounding it to demonstrate that Mr. Rove and Mr. Libby were
not involved in an orchestrated scheme to discredit Mr. Wilson or
disclose the undercover status of his wife, Valerie Wilson, but were
intent on clarifying the use of intelligence in the president's
address. Those people who have been briefed requested anonymity because
prosecutors have asked them not to discuss matters under investigation.
The special counsel in the case, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, has been
examining this period of time to determine whether the officials' work
on the Tenet statement led in some way to the disclosure of Ms.
Wilson's identity to Robert D. Novak, the syndicated columnist,
according to the people who have been briefed.
It is not clear what information Mr. Rove and Mr. Libby might have
collected about Ms. Wilson as they worked on the Tenet statement. Mr.
Rove has said he learned her name from Mr. Novak. Mr. Libby has
declined to discuss the matter.
The effort was striking because to an unusual degree, the circle of
officials involved included those from the White House's political and
national security operations, which are often separately run. Both arms
were drawn into the effort to defend the administration during the
period.
In another indication of how wide a net investigators have cast in the
case, Karen Hughes, a former top communications aide to Mr. Bush, and
Robert Joseph, who was then the National Security Council's expert on
weapons proliferation, have both told the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee that they were interviewed by the special prosecutor.
Ms. Hughes is to have her confirmation hearing on Friday on her
nomination to lead the State Department's public diplomacy operation.
Mr. Joseph was recently confirmed as under secretary of state for arms
control and international security. As part of their confirmation
proceedings, both had to fill out questionnaires listing any legal
matters they had become involved in.
Mr. Rove and Mr. Libby did not meet face to face while hammering out
the critical points that were desired for the Tenet statement, the
people briefed on the case said.
In its final version, the Tenet statement, through its language and
tone, supported the contention that senior White House officials were
focused on addressing the substance of Mr. Wilson's claims. It did not
mention Mr. Wilson or his wife, and Mr. Libby made it clear that Vice
President Cheney did not send Mr. Wilson to Africa, a notion some said
Mr. Wilson had suggested in his article. The defenders of Mr. Rove and
Mr. Libby contend that the statement underscores that they were not
trying to punish Mr. Wilson.
A former government official, though, added another element to how the
statement was prepared, saying that no one directed Mr. Tenet to issue
it and that Mr. Tenet himself felt it was needed. The statement said
that the "C.I.A.'s counterproliferation experts, on their own
initiative, asked an individual with ties to the region to make a visit
to see what he could learn."
In Mr. Wilson's article, he recounted a mission he undertook to Niger
in 2002 seeking information about a purported effort by President
Saddam Hussein of Iraq to acquire uranium there, his conclusion that
the effort had not occurred and the filing of his report.
In his State of the Union address in January 2003, Mr. Bush cited
reports that Iraq had sought to acquire a form of uranium in Africa as
evidence of Mr. Hussein's intentions to gain weapons that he might
provide to terrorists, use to threaten the United States or employ
against other nations in the Middle East.
Lawyers with clients in the case said Mr. Fitzgerald and his
investigators have shown interest in a classified State Department memo
that was provided to Colin L. Powell, then the secretary of state, as
he left for Africa on Air Force One with Mr. Bush and his top aides on
July 7, 2003, a day after Mr. Wilson made his accusations public.
The memorandum identified Ms. Wilson by name and described her as
having a role in her husband's selection for the mission to Niger. A
government official said the paragraph in the memorandum identifying
Ms. Wilson was preceded by the letter S in brackets, a designation
meaning that contents of the paragraph were classified secret. The
designation was first reported on Thursday by The Washington Post.
The investigators have been trying to determine who else within the
administration might have seen the memo or learned of its contents.
Among those asked if he had seen the memo was Ari Fleischer, then the
White House press secretary, who was on Air Force One with Mr. Bush and
Mr. Powell during the Africa trip. Mr. Fleischer told the grand jury
that he never saw the document, a person familiar with the testimony
said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the
prosecutor's admonitions about not disclosing what is said to the grand
jury.
Mr. Fleischer's role has been scrutinized by investigators, in part
because his telephone log showed a call on the day after Mr. Wilson's
article appeared from Mr. Novak, the columnist who, on July 14, 2003,
was the first to report Ms. Wilson's identity.
In his column, Mr. Novak referred to her by her maiden name, Valerie
Plame, which she had used when first employed by the C.I.A. Mr.
Fleischer has told the grand jury that he did not return Mr. Novak's
call, a person familiar with the testimony said.
Mr. Rove has also told the grand jury that he never saw the memorandum,
a person briefed on the case said. Democrats who have been eager to
focus attention on the case have urged reporters to look into the role
of several other administration officials, including John R. Bolton,
who was then under secretary of state for arms control and
international security and has since been nominated by Mr. Bush to be
ambassador to the United Nations.
In his disclosure form for his confirmation hearings, Mr. Bolton made
no mention of being interviewed in the case, a government official
said. In the week after Mr. Wilson's article appeared, Mr. Bolton
attended a conference in Australia.
In addition to ferreting out the original leak, the grand jury is
examining the truthfulness of its witnesses, comparing each account
with previous testimony. One apparent area of interest is the
conflicting accounts given by Mr. Rove and Matthew Cooper, a Time
magazine correspondent who has said he spoke to Mr. Rove about Ms.
Wilson, about why they spoke on July 11, 2003.
Mr. Rove, said a source familiar with his testimony, told prosecutors
that the conversation began under the pretext of discussing welfare
reform.
But Mr. Cooper said he had no record or memory of actually talking to
Mr. Rove about welfare reform, instead only discussing the Wilson case
in their brief chat. The grand jury focused on that apparent
discrepancy, Mr. Cooper wrote in an account in Time this week.
Anne E. Kornblut contributed reporting for this article.
By DAVID JOHNSTON
This article was reported by David Johnston, Douglas Jehl and Richard
W. Stevenson and was written by Mr. Johnston.
WASHINGTON, July 21 - At the same time in July 2003 that a C.I.A.
operative's identity was exposed, two key White House officials who
talked to journalists about the officer were also working closely
together on a related underlying issue: whether President Bush was
correct in suggesting earlier that year that Iraq had been trying to
acquire nuclear materials from Africa.
The two issues had become inextricably linked because Joseph C. Wilson
IV, the husband of the unmasked C.I.A. officer, had questioned Mr.
Bush's assertion, prompting a damage-control effort by the White House
that included challenging Mr. Wilson's standing and his credentials. A
federal grand jury investigation is under way by a special counsel to
determine whether someone illegally leaked the officer's identity and
possibly into whether perjury or obstruction of justice occurred during
the inquiry.
People who have been briefed on the case said the White House
officials, Karl Rove and I. Lewis Libby, were helping prepare what
became the administration's primary response to criticism that a flawed
phrase about the nuclear materials in Africa had been in Mr. Bush's
State of the Union address six months earlier.
They had exchanged e-mail correspondence and drafts of a proposed
statement by George J. Tenet, then the director of central
intelligence, to explain how the disputed wording had gotten into the
address. Mr. Rove, the president's political strategist, and Mr. Libby,
the chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney, coordinated their
efforts with Stephen J. Hadley, then the deputy national security
adviser, who was in turn consulting with Mr. Tenet.
At the same time, they were grappling with the fallout from an Op-Ed
article on July 6, 2003, in The New York Times by Mr. Wilson, a former
diplomat, in which he criticized the way the administration had used
intelligence to support the claim in Mr. Bush's speech.
The work done by Mr. Rove and Mr. Libby on the Tenet statement during
this intense period has not been previously disclosed. People who have
been briefed on the case discussed this critical time period and the
events surrounding it to demonstrate that Mr. Rove and Mr. Libby were
not involved in an orchestrated scheme to discredit Mr. Wilson or
disclose the undercover status of his wife, Valerie Wilson, but were
intent on clarifying the use of intelligence in the president's
address. Those people who have been briefed requested anonymity because
prosecutors have asked them not to discuss matters under investigation.
The special counsel in the case, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, has been
examining this period of time to determine whether the officials' work
on the Tenet statement led in some way to the disclosure of Ms.
Wilson's identity to Robert D. Novak, the syndicated columnist,
according to the people who have been briefed.
It is not clear what information Mr. Rove and Mr. Libby might have
collected about Ms. Wilson as they worked on the Tenet statement. Mr.
Rove has said he learned her name from Mr. Novak. Mr. Libby has
declined to discuss the matter.
The effort was striking because to an unusual degree, the circle of
officials involved included those from the White House's political and
national security operations, which are often separately run. Both arms
were drawn into the effort to defend the administration during the
period.
In another indication of how wide a net investigators have cast in the
case, Karen Hughes, a former top communications aide to Mr. Bush, and
Robert Joseph, who was then the National Security Council's expert on
weapons proliferation, have both told the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee that they were interviewed by the special prosecutor.
Ms. Hughes is to have her confirmation hearing on Friday on her
nomination to lead the State Department's public diplomacy operation.
Mr. Joseph was recently confirmed as under secretary of state for arms
control and international security. As part of their confirmation
proceedings, both had to fill out questionnaires listing any legal
matters they had become involved in.
Mr. Rove and Mr. Libby did not meet face to face while hammering out
the critical points that were desired for the Tenet statement, the
people briefed on the case said.
In its final version, the Tenet statement, through its language and
tone, supported the contention that senior White House officials were
focused on addressing the substance of Mr. Wilson's claims. It did not
mention Mr. Wilson or his wife, and Mr. Libby made it clear that Vice
President Cheney did not send Mr. Wilson to Africa, a notion some said
Mr. Wilson had suggested in his article. The defenders of Mr. Rove and
Mr. Libby contend that the statement underscores that they were not
trying to punish Mr. Wilson.
A former government official, though, added another element to how the
statement was prepared, saying that no one directed Mr. Tenet to issue
it and that Mr. Tenet himself felt it was needed. The statement said
that the "C.I.A.'s counterproliferation experts, on their own
initiative, asked an individual with ties to the region to make a visit
to see what he could learn."
In Mr. Wilson's article, he recounted a mission he undertook to Niger
in 2002 seeking information about a purported effort by President
Saddam Hussein of Iraq to acquire uranium there, his conclusion that
the effort had not occurred and the filing of his report.
In his State of the Union address in January 2003, Mr. Bush cited
reports that Iraq had sought to acquire a form of uranium in Africa as
evidence of Mr. Hussein's intentions to gain weapons that he might
provide to terrorists, use to threaten the United States or employ
against other nations in the Middle East.
Lawyers with clients in the case said Mr. Fitzgerald and his
investigators have shown interest in a classified State Department memo
that was provided to Colin L. Powell, then the secretary of state, as
he left for Africa on Air Force One with Mr. Bush and his top aides on
July 7, 2003, a day after Mr. Wilson made his accusations public.
The memorandum identified Ms. Wilson by name and described her as
having a role in her husband's selection for the mission to Niger. A
government official said the paragraph in the memorandum identifying
Ms. Wilson was preceded by the letter S in brackets, a designation
meaning that contents of the paragraph were classified secret. The
designation was first reported on Thursday by The Washington Post.
The investigators have been trying to determine who else within the
administration might have seen the memo or learned of its contents.
Among those asked if he had seen the memo was Ari Fleischer, then the
White House press secretary, who was on Air Force One with Mr. Bush and
Mr. Powell during the Africa trip. Mr. Fleischer told the grand jury
that he never saw the document, a person familiar with the testimony
said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the
prosecutor's admonitions about not disclosing what is said to the grand
jury.
Mr. Fleischer's role has been scrutinized by investigators, in part
because his telephone log showed a call on the day after Mr. Wilson's
article appeared from Mr. Novak, the columnist who, on July 14, 2003,
was the first to report Ms. Wilson's identity.
In his column, Mr. Novak referred to her by her maiden name, Valerie
Plame, which she had used when first employed by the C.I.A. Mr.
Fleischer has told the grand jury that he did not return Mr. Novak's
call, a person familiar with the testimony said.
Mr. Rove has also told the grand jury that he never saw the memorandum,
a person briefed on the case said. Democrats who have been eager to
focus attention on the case have urged reporters to look into the role
of several other administration officials, including John R. Bolton,
who was then under secretary of state for arms control and
international security and has since been nominated by Mr. Bush to be
ambassador to the United Nations.
In his disclosure form for his confirmation hearings, Mr. Bolton made
no mention of being interviewed in the case, a government official
said. In the week after Mr. Wilson's article appeared, Mr. Bolton
attended a conference in Australia.
In addition to ferreting out the original leak, the grand jury is
examining the truthfulness of its witnesses, comparing each account
with previous testimony. One apparent area of interest is the
conflicting accounts given by Mr. Rove and Matthew Cooper, a Time
magazine correspondent who has said he spoke to Mr. Rove about Ms.
Wilson, about why they spoke on July 11, 2003.
Mr. Rove, said a source familiar with his testimony, told prosecutors
that the conversation began under the pretext of discussing welfare
reform.
But Mr. Cooper said he had no record or memory of actually talking to
Mr. Rove about welfare reform, instead only discussing the Wilson case
in their brief chat. The grand jury focused on that apparent
discrepancy, Mr. Cooper wrote in an account in Time this week.
Anne E. Kornblut contributed reporting for this article.
Truthseeker
By Douglas Frantz, Sonni Efron and Richard B. Schmitt
The Los Angeles Times
Saturday 23 July 2005
Washington - The special prosecutor in the CIA leak investigation
has shifted his focus from determining whether White House officials
violated a law against exposing undercover agents to determining
whether evidence exists to bring perjury or obstruction of justice
charges, according to people briefed in recent days on the inquiry's
status.
Differences have arisen in witnesses' statements to federal agents
and a grand jury about how the name of Valerie Plame, a CIA agent, was
leaked to the press two years ago.
According to lawyers familiar with the case, investigators are
comparing statements by two top White House aides, Karl Rove and I.
Lewis "Scooter" Libby, with testimony from reporters who have
acknowledged talking to the officials.
Although no one has suggested that the investigation into who
leaked Plame's name has been shelved, the intensity of the inquiry into
possible perjury charges has increased, according to one lawyer
familiar with events who spoke on condition that he not be identified.
Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor, and his team have
made no decision on whether to seek indictments.
The investigation focused initially on whether administration
officials illegally leaked the identity of Plame, the wife of former
Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, in a campaign to discredit Wilson after
he wrote an op-ed article in the New York Times criticizing the Bush
administration's grounds for going to war in Iraq.
The sources said prosecutors were comparing the various statements
to the FBI and the grand jury by Rove, who is a White House deputy
chief of staff and President Bush's chief political strategist. In
Rove's first interview with the FBI, he did not mention a telephone
conversation he had with Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper,
according to lawyers involved in the case. Cooper has since said that
he called Rove specifically to discuss the matter.
Rove has been interviewed twice by the FBI and has made three
appearances before the grand jury, according to lawyers familiar with
the case.
Rove was told by prosecutors in October that he was not a target of
the inquiry, said his lawyer, Robert Luskin. Rove, through his lawyer,
has denied being the source of Plame's name.
"I am quite sure that if his status has changed, I would be
informed about it," Luskin said Friday. "I am not aware of anything
that has come to light that would change the facts in front of the
prosecutor that would change that assurance."
Rove "has, from the beginning, been candid, forthcoming and
accurate," Luskin said. "There has never been any moment when the
government, prosecutors or investigators have suggested that they
thought he was being anything but truthful or cooperative."
The investigation's change in emphasis comes amid indications that
Fitzgerald's inquiry has gone beyond the White House and scrutiny of
officials such as Rove and Libby, who is Vice President Dick Cheney's
chief of staff.
A former senior State Department official has acknowledged that he
testified before the grand jury in Washington, and a congressional
source confirmed that Robert Joseph - who worked on the White House
National Security Council - told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
that he had been questioned by the special prosecutor. Karen P. Hughes,
a former top aide to Bush, also told the committee that she had been
questioned, the source said.
In addition, a senior US official said that several State
Department officials - including then-Secretary of State Colin L.
Powell - were questioned months ago about the creation and distribution
of a classified memo that mentioned Plame. Prosecutors are interested
in the memo because it may have been a vehicle for spreading Plame's
name among administration staff members.
Disclosing the identity of a CIA undercover agent is a crime under
some circumstances, but legal experts have said that elements of the
law make it difficult to prove a violation. Prosecutors could have an
easier time winning a conviction under another law that makes it a
crime for officials with security clearances to disseminate certain
information. According to that statute, it could be a crime to have
confirmed that Plame was a CIA agent if she was operating undercover.
Plame was first identified as a CIA operative by syndicated
columnist Robert Novak in an article that appeared July 14, 2003 -
eight days after Wilson's op-ed piece challenged administration claims
that Iraq had tried to acquire uranium for its nuclear program from the
African nation of Niger.
An official close to the investigation said Fitzgerald was
concentrating on what happened in the White House and other parts of
the administration in those eight days.
The Los Angeles Times reported Monday that Rove and Libby were
intensely focused on discrediting Wilson during that period.
Prosecutors have been told that although lower-level aides routinely
handled media inquiries, Rove and Libby began communicating directly
with reporters about Wilson, the Times report said.
The CIA requested the inquiry into Plame's unmasking. Fitzgerald,
the US attorney in Chicago, was appointed a special prosecutor in
December 2003 and was given wide latitude to conduct his investigation.
He is working with FBI agents, a team of attorneys from the Justice
Department in Washington and four prosecutors from his Chicago office.
The investigation has led to the jailing of Judith Miller of the
New York Times, found in civil contempt for refusing to reveal her
sources in inquiring about the Plame case; she did not publish any
stories on the matter. Other reporters have testified before the grand
jury about conversations with sources after receiving waivers of
confidentiality from their sources.
Fitzgerald has asked witnesses not to discuss their grand jury
testimony, but the law does not prohibit them from speaking publicly.
Rove and Libby spoke with reporters during the crucial eight-day
period when the administration was working to undermine Wilson's
credibility, in part by suggesting that his wife had put his name
forward for the fact-finding mission to Niger in early 2002. His
assignment was to determine the authenticity of claims that Iraq had
tried to buy uranium from that country for its nuclear program.
Wilson later wrote in the op-ed piece that the claims were likely
false and that intelligence cited by the Bush administration to support
the invasion of Iraq "was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat."
According to Luskin, Rove has said that he learned Plame's name
from Novak. Novak has refused to discuss his testimony, but
investigators are believed to be focusing on possible variations with
Novak's account.
Writing in Time magazine, Cooper said that he had telephoned Rove
to ask about Wilson's column. But Rove, according to lawyers involved
in the case, told the grand jury that Cooper had telephoned him about a
welfare issue and that Wilson came up later.
Cooper wrote that Rove had disclosed to him that Wilson's wife
worked for the CIA, though Rove did not use her name. Cooper said that
he did not learn Plame's name until he read it in the Novak column
several days later, or that he might have learned it from a computer
search.
Libby, according to a person familiar with events, told
investigators that he learned Plame's name from a reporter, apparently
Tim Russert of NBC-TV.
But Russert, who spoke with Fitzgerald last summer after Libby
released him from a pledge of confidentiality, said he did not give
Plame's name to Libby, according to a statement issued by NBC at the
time.
Cooper wrote in Time that he had also talked to Libby. He said he
asked Libby whether he had heard anything about Wilson's wife
dispatching Wilson to Niger, and that Libby replied, " 'Yeah, I've
heard that, too,' or words to that effect."
Fitzgerald's term as special prosecutor expires in October, but it
could be renewed if the investigation is not finished.
Truthseeker
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/072305Z.shtml
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Hearing on Security Implications of Revealing Covert Agent's Identity:
Sen. Byron Dorgan (D-ND) and Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) co-chair a
meeting on the national security implicatings of disclosing a covert
agent's identity. Former intelligence agents participate in the
meeting, co-sponsored by the Sen. Democratic Policy Committee and
Democratic members of the Hse. Gov. Reform Comm.
Truthseeker
Truthseeker
Truthseeker
By RICHARD W. STEVENSON
The New York Times
24 Jul 2005
WASHINGTON - His former secretary of state, most of his closest aides
and a parade of other senior officials have testified to a grand jury.
His political strategist has emerged as a central figure in the case,
as has his vice president's chief of staff. His spokesman has taken a
pounding for making statements about the matter that now appear not to
be accurate.
For all that, it is still not clear what the investigation into the
leak of a CIA operative's identity will mean for President Bush. So far
the disclosures about the involvement of Karl Rove, among others, have
not exacted any substantial political price from the administration.
And nobody has suggested that the investigation directly implicates the
president.
Yet Bush has yet to address some uncomfortable questions that he may
not be able to evade indefinitely.
For starters, did Bush know in fall 2003, when he was telling the
public that no one wanted to get to the bottom of the case more than he
did, that Rove, his longtime strategist, senior adviser and alter ego,
and I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of
staff, had touched on the CIA officer's identity in conversations with
journalists before the officer's name became public? If not, when did
they tell him, and what would the delay say in particular about his
relationship with Rove, whose career and Bush's have been intertwined
for decades?
There also is the broader issue of whether Bush was aware of any effort
by his aides to use the CIA officer's identity to undermine the
standing of her husband, a former diplomat who had publicly accused the
administration of twisting its prewar intelligence about Iraq's nuclear
program.
For the past several weeks, Bush and his spokesman, Scott McClellan,
have declined to address the leak in any substantive way, citing the
continuing federal criminal investigation.
But Democrats increasingly see an opportunity to raise questions about
Bush's credibility and to reopen a debate about whether the White House
leveled with the nation about the urgency of going to war with Iraq.
And even some Republicans said Bush cannot assume he will escape from
the investigation politically unscathed.
"Until all the facts come out, no one is really going to know who the
fickle finger of fate points at," said Tony Fabrizio, a Republican
pollster.
Degrees of knowing
The case centers on how the name of a CIA operative ended up two years
ago in a syndicated column by Robert Novak, who identified her by her
maiden name, Valerie Plame.
The operative, who is more commonly known as Valerie Wilson, is married
to Joseph Wilson, a former diplomat who had publicly accused the
administration eight days before Novak's column of twisting some of the
intelligence used to justify going to war with Iraq. Under some
conditions, the disclosure of a covert intelligence agent's name can be
a federal crime.
The special prosecutor in the case, Patrick Fitzgerald, has kept a
tight curtain of secrecy around his investigation. But he spent more
than an hour in the Oval Office on June 24, 2004, interviewing Bush
about the case. Bush was not under oath, but he had his lawyer for the
case, James Sharp, with him.
Neither the White House nor the Justice Department has said what Bush
was asked, but prosecutors do not lightly seek to put questions
directly to any president, suggesting there was information Fitzgerald
felt he could get only from Bush.
Allan Lichtman, a presidential historian at American University in
Washington, said the lesson of recent history, for example in the
Iran-contra case under President Reagan, is that presidents tend to
know more than it might first appear about what is going on within the
White House.
"My presumption in presidential politics is that the president always
knows," Lichtman said. "But there are degrees of knowing. Reagan said,
keep the contras together body and soul. Did he know exactly what
Oliver North was doing? No, it doesn't mean he knew what every
subordinate is doing."
Rove spoke to reporters
According to accounts by various people involved in the case, Rove
spoke in the days after Wilson went public with his criticism in July
2003 to both of the first two reporters to disclose that Wilson's wife
worked for the CIA, Novak and Matthew Cooper of Time magazine. Cooper
has said he also spoke about the case with Libby.
By September 2003, as a criminal investigation was beginning, McClellan
was telling reporters that Rove had nothing to do with the leak, saying
he had checked with Rove about the topic.
Around the same time, the president was saying he had no idea who might
have been responsible. Asked by a reporter on Oct. 6, 2003, whether the
leak was retaliation for Wilson's criticism, Bush replied: "I don't
know who leaked the information, for starters. So it's hard for me to
answer that question until I find out the truth."
Republicans said the relationship between Bush and Rove was so deep and
complex that it was hard to imagine the president cutting ties with him
barring an indictment.
McClellan and other White House officials have repeatedly declined to
answer when asked if Rove or Libby had told the president by October
2003 that they had alluded to Wilson's identity months earlier in their
conversations with the journalists.
Bush in a box?
But Bush's political opponents said the president is in a box. In their
view, either Rove and Libby kept the president in the dark about their
actions, making them appear evasive at a time Bush was demanding that
his staff cooperate fully, or Rove and Libby had told the president and
he was not forthcoming in his public statements about his knowledge of
their roles.
"We know that Karl Rove, through Scott McClellan, did not tell
Americans the truth," said Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., and a former top
aide in President Clinton's White House. "What's important now is what
Karl Rove told the president."
Truthseeker
White House Effort To Discredit Critic Examined in Detail
By Walter Pincus and Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, July 27, 2005; A01
The special prosecutor in the CIA leak probe has interviewed a wider
range of administration officials than was previously known, part of an
effort to determine whether anyone broke laws during a White House
effort two years ago to discredit allegations that President Bush used
faulty intelligence to justify the Iraq war, according to several
officials familiar with the case.
Prosecutors have questioned former CIA director George J. Tenet and
deputy director John E. McLaughlin, former CIA spokesman Bill Harlow,
State Department officials, and even a stranger who approached
columnist Robert D. Novak on the street. In doing so, special
prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald has asked not only about how CIA
operative Valerie Plame's name was leaked but also how the
administration went about shifting responsibility from the White House
to the CIA for having included 16 words in the 2003 State of the Union
address about Iraqi efforts to acquire uranium from Africa.
Most of the questioning of CIA and State Department officials took
place in 2004, the sources said.
It remains unclear whether Fitzgerald uncovered any wrongdoing in this
or any other portion of his nearly 18-month investigation. All that is
known at this point are the names of some people he has interviewed,
what questions he has asked and whom he has focused on.
Fitzgerald began his investigation in December 2003 to determine
whether any government official knowingly leaked Plame's identity as a
CIA employee to the media. Plame's husband, former ambassador Joseph C.
Wilson IV, has said his wife's career was ruined in retaliation for his
public criticism of Bush. In a 2002 trip to Niger at the request of the
CIA, Wilson found no evidence to support allegations that Iraq was
seeking uranium from that African country and reported back to the
agency in February 2002. But nearly a year later, Bush asserted in his
State of the Union speech that Iraq had sought uranium from Africa,
attributing it to British, not U.S., intelligence.
Fitzgerald has said in court that he had completed most of his
investigation at a time he was pressing for New York Times reporter
Judith Miller to break her silence and testify about any conversations
she had with a specific administration official about Plame during the
week before Plame's identity was revealed.
Miller, who never wrote a story about the matter, is in jail for
refusing to comply with a court order to testify. Court records show
Fitzgerald is seeking information about communications she had with the
Bush official between July 6 and July 13, 2003, when the White House
was attempting to discredit Wilson and his allegations.
Fitzgerald appears to believe that Miller's conversations may help him
get to the bottom of the leak and the damage-control campaign
undertaken by senior Bush officials that week.
Using background conversations with at least three journalists and
other means, Bush officials attacked Wilson's credibility. They said
that his 2002 trip to Niger was a boondoggle arranged by his wife, but
CIA officials say that is incorrect.
One reason for the confusion about Plame's role is that she had
arranged a trip for him to Niger three years earlier on an unrelated
matter, CIA officials told The Washington Post.
Miller's role remains one of many mysteries in the leak probe. It is
unclear to whom, if anyone, she spoke to about Plame, and why she
emerged as a central figure in the probe despite never having written a
story about the case. Also murky is the role of Novak, who first
publicly identified Plame in a syndicated column published July 14,
2003.
Lawyers involved in the case have confirmed that Novak discussed Plame
with White House senior adviser Karl Rove four or more days before the
column identifying her ran. But the identity of another
"administration" source cited in the column is still unknown. Rove's
attorney has said Rove did not identify Plame to Novak.
In a strange twist in the investigation, the grand jury -- acting on a
tip from Wilson -- has questioned a person who approached Novak on
Pennsylvania Avenue on July 8, 2003, six days before his column
appeared in The Post and other publications, Wilson said in an
interview. The person, whom Wilson declined to identify to The Post,
asked Novak about the "yellow cake" uranium matter and then about
Wilson, Wilson said. He first revealed that conversation in a book he
wrote last year. In the book, he said he tried to reach Novak on July
8, and they finally connected on July 10. In that conversation, Wilson
said he did not confirm his wife worked for the CIA but that Novak told
him he had obtained the information from a "CIA source."
Novak told the person that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA as a
specialist in weapons of mass destruction and had arranged her
husband's trip to Niger, Wilson said. Unknown to Novak, the person was
a friend of Wilson and reported the conversation to him, Wilson said.
Novak and his attorney, James Hamilton, have declined to discuss the
investigation, as has Fitzgerald.
Harlow, the former CIA spokesman, said in an interview yesterday that
he testified last year before a grand jury about conversations he had
with Novak at least three days before the column was published. He said
he warned Novak, in the strongest terms he was permitted to use without
revealing classified information, that Wilson's wife had not authorized
the mission and that if he did write about it, her name should not be
revealed.
Harlow said that after Novak's call, he checked Plame's status and
confirmed that she was an undercover operative. He said he called Novak
back to repeat that the story Novak had related to him was wrong and
that Plame's name should not be used. But he did not tell Novak
directly that she was undercover because that was classified
information.
In a column published Oct. 1, 2003, Novak wrote that the CIA official
he spoke to "asked me not to use her name, saying she probably never
again will be given a foreign assignment but that exposure of her name
might cause 'difficulties' if she travels abroad. He never suggested to
me that Wilson's wife or anybody else would be endangered. If he had, I
would not have used her name."
Harlow was also involved in the larger internal administration battle
over who would be held responsible for Bush using the disputed charge
about the Iraq-Niger connection as part of the war argument. Based on
the questions they have been asked, people involved in the case believe
that Fitzgerald looked into this bureaucratic fight because the effort
to discredit Wilson was part of the larger campaign to distance Bush
from the Niger controversy.
Wilson unleashed a multimedia attack on Bush's claim on July 6, 2003,
appearing on NBC's "Meet the Press," in an interview in The Post and
writing his own op-ed article in the New York Times, in which he
accused the president of "twisting" intelligence.
Behind the scenes, the White House responded with twin attacks: one on
Wilson and the other on the CIA, which it wanted to take the blame for
allowing the 16 words to have remained in Bush's speech. As part of
this effort, then-national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley spoke
with Tenet during the week about clearing up CIA responsibility for the
16 words, even though both knew the agency did not believe Iraq was
seeking uranium from Niger, according to a person familiar with the
conversation. Tenet was interviewed by prosecutors in the leak case,
but it is not clear whether he appeared before the grand jury, a former
CIA official said.
On July 9, Tenet and top aides began to draft a statement over two days
that ultimately said it was "a mistake" for the CIA to have permitted
the 16 words about uranium to remain in Bush's speech. He said the
information "did not rise to the level of certainty which should be
required for presidential speeches, and the CIA should have ensured
that it was removed."
A former senior CIA official said yesterday that Tenet's statement was
drafted within the agency and was shown only to Hadley on July 10 to
get White House input. Only a few minor changes were accepted before it
was released on July 11, this former official said. He took issue with
a New York Times report last week that said Rove and Vice President
Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, had a role in
Tenet's statement.
The prosecutors have talked to State Department officials to determine
what role a classified memo including two sentences about Plame's role
in Wilson's Niger trip played in the damage-control campaign.
People familiar with this part of the probe provided new details about
the memo, including that it was then-Deputy Secretary of State Richard
L. Armitage who requested it the day Wilson went public and asked that
a copy be sent to then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell to take with
him on a trip to Africa the next day. Bush and several top aides were
on that trip. Carl W. Ford Jr., who was director of the Bureau of
Intelligence and Research at the time and who supervised the original
production of the memo, has appeared before the grand jury, according
to a former State Department official.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/26/AR2005072602069_pf.html
Truthseeker
By Dafna Linzer
The Washington Post
Monday 25 July 2005
Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales said yesterday that he spoke
with White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. immediately after
learning that the Justice Department had launched a criminal
investigation into the leak of a CIA operative's identity. But
Gonzales, who was White House counsel at the time, waited 12 hours
before officially notifying the rest of the staff of the inquiry.
Many details of the investigation led by special prosecutor Patrick
J. Fitzgerald are unknown. Sources close to the case have said
Fitzgerald is looking into possible conflicts between what President
Bush's senior adviser Karl Rove and vice presidential staff chief I.
Lewis "Scooter" Libby told a grand jury, and the accounts of reporters
who spoke with the two men.
Gonzales said yesterday on "Fox News Sunday" that he is among the
group of top current and former Bush administration officials who have
testified to the grand jury about the unmasking of Valerie Plame, a CIA
operative. Gonzales, who has recused himself from the case, would not
discuss details of his testimony but said he learned about Plame's work
from newspaper accounts.
In the New York Times yesterday, columnist Frank Rich reported that
when Gonzales was notified about the investigation on the evening of
Monday, Sept. 29, 2003, he waited 12 hours before telling the White
House staff about the inquiry. Official notification to staff is meant
to quickly alert anyone who may have pertinent records to make sure
they are preserved and safeguarded.
Asked on CBS's "Face the Nation" about the report, Gonzales said
the Justice Department had informed his office around 8 p.m. and that
White House lawyers said he could wait until the next morning before
notifying the staff. He did not say why he called Card.
"I specifically had our lawyers go back to the Department of
Justice lawyers and ask them, 'Do you want us to notify the staff now,
immediately, or would it be okay to notify the staff early in the
morning?' And we were advised, go ahead and notify the staff early in
the morning, that would be okay." He said most of the staff had left by
the time the Justice Department called and that "no one knew about the
investigation."
But he acknowledged telling one person: "the chief of staff. And
immediately the next morning, I told the president. And shortly
thereafter, there was notification sent out to all the members of the
White House staff," Gonzales said.
Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.), appearing on the same program,
questioned why Gonzales would not have notified the staff immediately
by e-mail and suggested that Fitzgerald now pursue whether Card may
have given anyone in the White House advance notice to prepare for a
criminal investigation.
"The real question now is, who did the chief of staff speak to? Did
the chief of staff pick up the phone and call Karl Rove? Did the chief
of staff pick up the phone and call anybody else?" Biden asked.
The case centers on the White House response in the days after July
6, 2003, when former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV accused the Bush
administration of twisting intelligence on Iraq's weapons arsenal to
justify war. In an op-ed piece, Wilson wrote that the government sent
him to Niger to investigate assertions that Iraq had tried to acquire
materials there for a nuclear weapon and that he had reported back,
before the war, that no proof had been found to support the
allegations.
Eight days after Wilson's article appeared, Robert D. Novak
published a syndicated column suggesting that the administration did
not take Wilson's findings seriously and noting that Wilson's wife --
Plame -- was a CIA operative who had suggested him for the trip.
After accusations that someone in the administration had
jeopardized an operative's cover in political retaliation, the Justice
Department appointed Fitzgerald in December 2003 to investigate.
Asked on CBS why he did not investigate the leak when it first
became public, Gonzales said: "This is the kind of issue that I felt
that we should wait and see whether or not there would be some kind of
criminal investigation. And of course, there was."
-------
Truthseeker
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/27/politics/27leak.html
Ex-Aide on Periphery of Leak Inquiry
By ANNE E. KORNBLUT
POUND RIDGE, N.Y. -
>From the road, it is barely possible to see the home where Ari
Fleischer lives.
Tucked away behind a secured fence and a thicket of shrubbery, Mr.
Fleischer, the former White House press secretary, is where he wants
to be these days: nearly invisible.
For the two years since he left the White House - on the very day in
July 2003 that Robert D. Novak printed the name of a Central
Intelligence Agency operative in his syndicated newspaper column - Mr.
Fleischer has been caught up in the investigation of who supplied that
information to the columnist and whether it was a crime.
The prosecutor in the case, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, called Mr.
Fleischer to appear before the grand jury that is investigating the
leak.
One person familiar with Mr. Fleischer's testimony said he told the
grand jury that he was not Mr. Novak's source.
And Mr. Fleischer, who was never shy about championing his Republican
bosses, seems not to fit Mr. Novak's description, in a subsequent
column, of his primary source as "no partisan gunslinger."
But Mr. Fleischer was in the middle of the developments that
surrounded the White House's response to the criticism leveled by
Joseph C. Wilson IV, a former diplomat, who on July 6, 2003, publicly
said the administration had "twisted" intelligence about the nuclear
ambitions of President Saddam Hussein of Iraq.
In the week that followed Mr. Wilson's assertions in an Op-Ed article
in The New York Times, Mr. Fleischer played a central role as the
White House acknowledged that six months earlier, President Bush
should not have cited intelligence about Iraqi efforts to acquire
uranium from Africa in his State of the Union address.
Mr. Wilson, who had traveled to the African nation of Niger in 2002 at
the request of the C.I.A. to look into the uranium reports, had
challenged Mr. Bush's statement.
A White House telephone log shows that Mr. Fleischer received a call
from Mr. Novak on July 7, 2003, but a person familiar with Mr.
Fleischer's testimony said he told prosecutors he never returned the
call.
Mr. Fleischer was aboard Air Force One with Mr. Bush and several other
senior administration officials as they traveled across Africa that
week.
And while a classified State Department memorandum that identified Mr.
Wilson's wife, Valerie Wilson, as a C.I.A. operative, was also on
board, Mr. Fleischer has told the grand jury that he never saw the
document, according to the person familiar with his testimony.
["I'm cooperating with the investigators, and refer all questions to
them," Mr. Fleischer said on Tuesday, after turning away a reporter at
his house on Monday.]
The people who discussed the testimony of Mr. Fleischer and other
witnesses asked not to be named because Mr. Fitzgerald, the special
prosecutor, has asked anyone involved in the case not to talk about
it.
At least one person who provided an account of Mr. Fleischer's role
did so in the belief that it would remove suspicion from Mr.
Fleischer.
As the investigation has progressed, according to people who have been
officially briefed on the inquiry, investigators have lessened their
interest in Mr. Fleischer's activities and those of other top White
House press aides at the time as more senior administration figures
have attracted greater attention.
Those figures include Karl Rove, Mr. Bush's top political adviser, and
I. Lewis Libby, the chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney.
Truthseeker
Truthseeker
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/thenewswire/archive/2005/07/it-seems-unusual-that-mr_4852.html
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