MEDIA MATTERS
CNN interview, Gannon misrepresented findings on Joe Wilson
Mon Feb 14, 2005 02:23
64.140.158.41
In taped CNN interview, Gannon misrepresented Senate Intel report
http://mediamatters.org/items/200502120003
In an interview with CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer, former Talon News Washington bureau chief and White House correspondent Jeff Gannon falsely claimed that the Senate Intelligence Committee "chastised" former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV "for essentially misleading everybody along" by denying that his wife, former CIA operative Valerie Plame, was responsible for the CIA's decision to send Wilson to Niger to investigate allegations that Iraq had tried to purchase uranium from the west African nation.
On the February 11 edition of News from CNN, Blitzer showed a clip of his interview with Gannon from the evening before, part of which had aired on the February 10 edition of Wolf Blitzer Reports. In the clip, Gannon explained why the Justice Department had interviewed him as part of its investigation into the leak of Plame's identity as a CIA undercover operative:
GANNON: They were interested in where -- how I knew or received a copy of a confidential CIA memo that said that uh, Valerie Plame suggested that Joe Wilson be sent on this mission -- something that they have all vigorously denied but which is, in effect, true. The Senate Intelligence Committee eight months later, when they issued their report, said that and chastised Joe Wilson for essentially misleading everybody all along, and that's the day Joe Wilson was no longer a [Senator John] Kerry [presidential] campaign adviser.
In fact, the Senate Intelligence Committee's report (pdf) did not reach a conclusion about how the CIA made its decision, much less "chastise" Wilson, who had denied that his wife had "anything to do" with the CIA's decision. Here's what the report stated:
Some CPD [CIA's Directorate of Operations, Counterproliferation Division] officials could not recall how the office decided to contact the former ambassador, however, interviews and documents provided to the committee indicate that his wife, a former CPD employee, suggested his name for the trip. The CPD reports officer told Committee staff that the former ambassador's wife "offered up his name" and a memorandum to the Deputy Chief of CPD on February 12, 2002, from the former ambassador's wife says, "my husband has good relations with both the PM [prime minister] and the former Minister of Mines (not to mention lots of French contacts), both of whom could possibly shed light on this sort of activity." This was just one day before CPD sent a cable [blacked out] requesting concurrence with CPD's idea to send the former ambassador to Niger and requesting any additional information from the foreign government service on their uranium reports. [p. 39; PDF p. 49]
The Senate report did not mention that an unnamed CIA official told the Los Angeles Times that Wilson's denial was accurate. The Times reported on July 15, 2004: "A senior intelligence official said the CIA supports Wilson's version: 'Her bosses say she did not initiate the idea of her husband going. ... They asked her if he'd be willing to go, and she said yes,' the official said."
Contrary to Gannon's assertions that the Senate Intelligence Committee "chastised" Wilson, it was only Republicans on the committee who "chastised" Wilson. In an additional statement, which was not part of the unanimous bipartisan report, Senators Pat Roberts (R-KS), Christopher S. Bond (R-MO), and Orrin G. Hatch (R-UT) [pp. 443-45; PDF pp. 453-55] attacked Wilson's credibility.
Gannon's false claim echoes his assertion in a July 15, 2004, White House press briefing, in which he asked White House press secretary Scott McClellan:
Q: Last Friday, the Senate Intelligence Committee released a report that shows that Ambassador Joe Wilson lied when he said his wife didn't put him up for the mission to Niger. The British inquiry into their own prewar intelligence yesterday concluded that the President's 16 words ["The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa"] were "well-founded." Doesn't Joe Wilson owe the President and America an apology for his deception and his own intelligence failure?
Posted to the web on Friday February 11, 2005 at 8:35 PM EST
============================================
Senator Seeks Assesment of Damage From CIA Leak
Deborah Tate
Capitol Hill - 14 Oct 2003, 22:39 UTC
Listen to Deborah Tate's report (RealAudio)
Tate report - Download 287k (RealAudio)
http://www.voanews.com/mediastore/tate_congress_CIA_leak_14sep03.rm
The U.S. Senate's top Democrat is calling on the head of the Central Intelligence Agency to provide Congress with an assessment of the damage to U.S. intelligence that may have been caused by the leak of a CIA officer's name.
Senator Tom Daschle says he is sending a letter to CIA director, George Tenet, asking him to give lawmakers a formal assessment of the impact the leak has had, and what can be done to rectify the situation.
"The depth of damage not only in exposing an individual but exposing as well of the kind of operation underway within the CIA is extraordinary in the magnitude of concern that it ought to cause all of us," he said.
At issue is the disclosure to reporters that the wife of former U.S. Ambassador Joe Wilson was a CIA officer.
Ambassador Wilson, who has criticized President Bush's policy on Iraq, says he believes administration officials leaked his wife's name to deter other critics from speaking out.
In an article in July, syndicated columnist Robert Novak wrote that Ambassador Wilson's wife worked for the CIA, citing two unidentified administration officials as his sources.
The Justice Department is investigating whether any crime has been committed.
Democratic critics say they do not believe Attorney General John Ashcroft can lead an impartial probe. They criticize the delay granted to White House staff to turn over pertinent records related to the investigation.
President Bush has vowed cooperation with the inquiry. But last week he questioned whether the leaker would ever be identified.
The comment drew anger from Senator Daschle, who said: "I was concerned last week when the President said it was unlikely that any guilt could be found, that it was unlikely this investigation would prove to be productive. That too sends a chilling message to all those who are investigating."
Senator Daschle wrote to the president last week to denounce what he called 'the serious missteps' in the probe.
=============================
Searched news for CIA LEAK. Results 1 - 10 of about 4,940
Experts Urge Restructuring of US Intelligence Agencies
Gary Thomas
Washington 14 Oct 2003, 20:28 UTC
The commission investigating the terrorist attacks of September 11,2001 is hearing a number of proposals, some of them from current and former top intelligence officials, about possible changes to the U.S. intelligence structure.
Former intelligence officials say the U.S. intelligence community was shaken to the core by the September 11 attacks. John MacGaffin, formerly the assistant Deputy Director of Operations at the CIA, says the attacks underscore the need for strengthened domestic intelligence.
"We have to have a proactive approach, and that is domestic intelligence," he said. "And that is intelligence gathering. And that is very difficult for Americans to contemplate. But if we don't do it, the bad guys are going to continue to beat us as they beat us in 9-11 [September 11], which was truly an intelligence failure, a systemic failure of which multiple elements of our government bear responsibility."
In the United States, domestic and foreign intelligence are separate, with domestic intelligence duties under the purview of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which is primarily a law enforcement agency, and foreign intelligence gathering, handled by the CIA.
Todd Masse, an intelligence specialist at the Congressional Research Service, says the United States has always been wary of granting too much power to intelligence agencies, especially in the domestic arena.
"Historically, the reasons why domestic intelligence was separated from foreign intelligence in the United States is that the U.S. was simply reluctant to have a domestic spy agency, a Gestapo," he explained. "I mean, coming out of World War II, what we were operating against, and we didn't want it reinvented here in the United States."
Analysts say there are three broad ideas for changing domestic intelligence. One calls for beefing up the FBI's domestic intelligence capability. Another would give the new Department of Homeland Security a domestic intelligence arm. And the third is to create an entirely new, autonomous domestic intelligence agency along the lines of Britain's MI 5.
There is considerable praise for the FBI's efforts. But many intelligence analysts believe law enforcement and intelligence do not mix. Martin Rudner, director of the Center for Intelligence and Security Studies at Carleton University in Canada, says the cultures of intelligence agencies and police forces are quite different.
"I think the real tension there always is in intelligence, is between intelligence and law enforcement," said Mr. Rudner. "And to use the metaphor, intelligence tries to string you along. Law enforcement tries to string you up. They have different mandates.
"The intelligence agency says, let's monitor this because we want to identify all the people involved in the network of the violation of law," he continued. "Whereas a law enforcement agency says, having seen a felony, it's my duty to bring this to the prosecutors with the evidence so that charges can be laid."
Amy Zegart, an intelligence specialist at the University of California at Los Angeles, says there is also a problem with coordination and cooperation among the some 35 U.S. government agencies that deal with intelligence in one form or another.
"There's no question that what we have is a community of a number of different agencies which have a very difficult time working together, in part simply because there are so many of them, in part because of legal barriers, and in part because there's no one person in charge of the intelligence budget and who can set the programmatic priorities and back those priorities up," said Ms. Zegart.
Some observers, such as former CIA Director John Deutsch, also want to see further centralization of intelligence, the creation of a kind of "intelligence czar." In theory, there already is such a post. Under the post-World War II National Security Act, the head of the CIA is also the Director of Central Intelligence, the titular head of the entire intelligence community. But, in reality, say intelligence analysts, he has virtually no control over the budgets or programs of the multiplicity of agencies that deal in intelligence.
# # #
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LEAK-GATE/message/138
=========================================
While Talon News appears to be more of a Republican political advocacy group than a media outlet, The Leadership Institute Broadcast School of Journalism appears to be more of a training ground for Republican advocacy in the media than a school of journalism.
http://mediamatters.org/
http://mediamatters.org/items/200502120003
In an interview with CNN anchor Wolf Blitzer, former Talon News Washington bureau chief and White House correspondent Jeff Gannon falsely claimed that the Senate Intelligence Committee "chastised" former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV "for essentially misleading everybody along" by denying that his wife, former CIA operative Valerie Plame, was responsible for the CIA's decision to send Wilson to Niger to investigate allegations that Iraq had tried to purchase uranium from the west African nation.
On the February 11 edition of News from CNN, Blitzer showed a clip of his interview with Gannon from the evening before, part of which had aired on the February 10 edition of Wolf Blitzer Reports. In the clip, Gannon explained why the Justice Department had interviewed him as part of its investigation into the leak of Plame's identity as a CIA undercover operative:
GANNON: They were interested in where -- how I knew or received a copy of a confidential CIA memo that said that uh, Valerie Plame suggested that Joe Wilson be sent on this mission -- something that they have all vigorously denied but which is, in effect, true. The Senate Intelligence Committee eight months later, when they issued their report, said that and chastised Joe Wilson for essentially misleading everybody all along, and that's the day Joe Wilson was no longer a [Senator John] Kerry [presidential] campaign adviser.
In fact, the Senate Intelligence Committee's report (pdf) did not reach a conclusion about how the CIA made its decision, much less "chastise" Wilson, who had denied that his wife had "anything to do" with the CIA's decision. Here's what the report stated:
Some CPD [CIA's Directorate of Operations, Counterproliferation Division] officials could not recall how the office decided to contact the former ambassador, however, interviews and documents provided to the committee indicate that his wife, a former CPD employee, suggested his name for the trip. The CPD reports officer told Committee staff that the former ambassador's wife "offered up his name" and a memorandum to the Deputy Chief of CPD on February 12, 2002, from the former ambassador's wife says, "my husband has good relations with both the PM [prime minister] and the former Minister of Mines (not to mention lots of French contacts), both of whom could possibly shed light on this sort of activity." This was just one day before CPD sent a cable [blacked out] requesting concurrence with CPD's idea to send the former ambassador to Niger and requesting any additional information from the foreign government service on their uranium reports. [p. 39; PDF p. 49]
The Senate report did not mention that an unnamed CIA official told the Los Angeles Times that Wilson's denial was accurate. The Times reported on July 15, 2004: "A senior intelligence official said the CIA supports Wilson's version: 'Her bosses say she did not initiate the idea of her husband going. ... They asked her if he'd be willing to go, and she said yes,' the official said."
Contrary to Gannon's assertions that the Senate Intelligence Committee "chastised" Wilson, it was only Republicans on the committee who "chastised" Wilson. In an additional statement, which was not part of the unanimous bipartisan report, Senators Pat Roberts (R-KS), Christopher S. Bond (R-MO), and Orrin G. Hatch (R-UT) [pp. 443-45; PDF pp. 453-55] attacked Wilson's credibility.
Gannon's false claim echoes his assertion in a July 15, 2004, White House press briefing, in which he asked White House press secretary Scott McClellan:
Q: Last Friday, the Senate Intelligence Committee released a report that shows that Ambassador Joe Wilson lied when he said his wife didn't put him up for the mission to Niger. The British inquiry into their own prewar intelligence yesterday concluded that the President's 16 words ["The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa"] were "well-founded." Doesn't Joe Wilson owe the President and America an apology for his deception and his own intelligence failure?
Posted to the web on Friday February 11, 2005 at 8:35 PM EST
============================================
Senator Seeks Assesment of Damage From CIA Leak
Deborah Tate
Capitol Hill - 14 Oct 2003, 22:39 UTC
Listen to Deborah Tate's report (RealAudio)
Tate report - Download 287k (RealAudio)
http://www.voanews.com/mediastore/tate_congress_CIA_leak_14sep03.rm
The U.S. Senate's top Democrat is calling on the head of the Central Intelligence Agency to provide Congress with an assessment of the damage to U.S. intelligence that may have been caused by the leak of a CIA officer's name.
Senator Tom Daschle says he is sending a letter to CIA director, George Tenet, asking him to give lawmakers a formal assessment of the impact the leak has had, and what can be done to rectify the situation.
"The depth of damage not only in exposing an individual but exposing as well of the kind of operation underway within the CIA is extraordinary in the magnitude of concern that it ought to cause all of us," he said.
At issue is the disclosure to reporters that the wife of former U.S. Ambassador Joe Wilson was a CIA officer.
Ambassador Wilson, who has criticized President Bush's policy on Iraq, says he believes administration officials leaked his wife's name to deter other critics from speaking out.
In an article in July, syndicated columnist Robert Novak wrote that Ambassador Wilson's wife worked for the CIA, citing two unidentified administration officials as his sources.
The Justice Department is investigating whether any crime has been committed.
Democratic critics say they do not believe Attorney General John Ashcroft can lead an impartial probe. They criticize the delay granted to White House staff to turn over pertinent records related to the investigation.
President Bush has vowed cooperation with the inquiry. But last week he questioned whether the leaker would ever be identified.
The comment drew anger from Senator Daschle, who said: "I was concerned last week when the President said it was unlikely that any guilt could be found, that it was unlikely this investigation would prove to be productive. That too sends a chilling message to all those who are investigating."
Senator Daschle wrote to the president last week to denounce what he called 'the serious missteps' in the probe.
=============================
Searched news for CIA LEAK. Results 1 - 10 of about 4,940
Experts Urge Restructuring of US Intelligence Agencies
Gary Thomas
Washington 14 Oct 2003, 20:28 UTC
The commission investigating the terrorist attacks of September 11,2001 is hearing a number of proposals, some of them from current and former top intelligence officials, about possible changes to the U.S. intelligence structure.
Former intelligence officials say the U.S. intelligence community was shaken to the core by the September 11 attacks. John MacGaffin, formerly the assistant Deputy Director of Operations at the CIA, says the attacks underscore the need for strengthened domestic intelligence.
"We have to have a proactive approach, and that is domestic intelligence," he said. "And that is intelligence gathering. And that is very difficult for Americans to contemplate. But if we don't do it, the bad guys are going to continue to beat us as they beat us in 9-11 [September 11], which was truly an intelligence failure, a systemic failure of which multiple elements of our government bear responsibility."
In the United States, domestic and foreign intelligence are separate, with domestic intelligence duties under the purview of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, which is primarily a law enforcement agency, and foreign intelligence gathering, handled by the CIA.
Todd Masse, an intelligence specialist at the Congressional Research Service, says the United States has always been wary of granting too much power to intelligence agencies, especially in the domestic arena.
"Historically, the reasons why domestic intelligence was separated from foreign intelligence in the United States is that the U.S. was simply reluctant to have a domestic spy agency, a Gestapo," he explained. "I mean, coming out of World War II, what we were operating against, and we didn't want it reinvented here in the United States."
Analysts say there are three broad ideas for changing domestic intelligence. One calls for beefing up the FBI's domestic intelligence capability. Another would give the new Department of Homeland Security a domestic intelligence arm. And the third is to create an entirely new, autonomous domestic intelligence agency along the lines of Britain's MI 5.
There is considerable praise for the FBI's efforts. But many intelligence analysts believe law enforcement and intelligence do not mix. Martin Rudner, director of the Center for Intelligence and Security Studies at Carleton University in Canada, says the cultures of intelligence agencies and police forces are quite different.
"I think the real tension there always is in intelligence, is between intelligence and law enforcement," said Mr. Rudner. "And to use the metaphor, intelligence tries to string you along. Law enforcement tries to string you up. They have different mandates.
"The intelligence agency says, let's monitor this because we want to identify all the people involved in the network of the violation of law," he continued. "Whereas a law enforcement agency says, having seen a felony, it's my duty to bring this to the prosecutors with the evidence so that charges can be laid."
Amy Zegart, an intelligence specialist at the University of California at Los Angeles, says there is also a problem with coordination and cooperation among the some 35 U.S. government agencies that deal with intelligence in one form or another.
"There's no question that what we have is a community of a number of different agencies which have a very difficult time working together, in part simply because there are so many of them, in part because of legal barriers, and in part because there's no one person in charge of the intelligence budget and who can set the programmatic priorities and back those priorities up," said Ms. Zegart.
Some observers, such as former CIA Director John Deutsch, also want to see further centralization of intelligence, the creation of a kind of "intelligence czar." In theory, there already is such a post. Under the post-World War II National Security Act, the head of the CIA is also the Director of Central Intelligence, the titular head of the entire intelligence community. But, in reality, say intelligence analysts, he has virtually no control over the budgets or programs of the multiplicity of agencies that deal in intelligence.
# # #
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LEAK-GATE/message/138
=========================================
While Talon News appears to be more of a Republican political advocacy group than a media outlet, The Leadership Institute Broadcast School of Journalism appears to be more of a training ground for Republican advocacy in the media than a school of journalism.
http://mediamatters.org/
- Gannon has White House press credentials - HOW? —The Leadership Institute, Mon Feb 14 03:13
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