LEAKGATE: Armitage is being used as a “patsy”?
http://www.apfn.org/apfn/Leakgate_Armitage.htm
Armitage cited as CIA leak source
GOOGLE NEWS UPDATES:
Mr. Armitage did not return calls for comment. But the
lawyer and other associates of Mr. Armitage have said he has
confirmed that he was the initial and primary source for the
columnist, Robert D. Novak, whose column of July 14, 2003,
identified Valerie Wilson as a Central Intelligence Agency
officer.
The identification of Mr. Armitage as the original leaker to
Mr. Novak ends what has been a tantalizing mystery. In
recent months, however, Mr. Armitage’s role had become clear
to many, and it was recently reported by Newsweek magazine
and The Washington Post.
In the accounts by the lawyer and associates, Mr. Armitage
disclosed casually to Mr. Novak that Ms. Wilson worked for
the C.I.A. at the end of an interview in his State
Department office. Mr. Armitage knew that, the accounts
continue, because he had seen a written memorandum by Under
Secretary of State Marc Grossman.
Mr. Grossman had taken up the task of finding out about Ms.
Wilson after an inquiry from I. Lewis Libby Jr., chief of
staff to Vice President Dick Cheney. Mr. Libby’s inquiry was
prompted by an Op-Ed article on May 6, 2003, in The New York
Times by Nicholas D. Kristof and an article on June 12,
2003, in The Washington Post by Walter Pincus.
The two articles reported on a trip by a former ambassador
to Africa sponsored by the C.I.A. to check reports that Iraq
was seeking enriched uranium to help with its nuclear arms
program.
Neither article identified the ambassador, but it was known
inside the government that he was Joseph C. Wilson IV, Ms.
Wilson’s husband. White House officials wanted to know how
much of a role she had in selecting him for the assignment.
Ms. Wilson was a covert employee, and after Mr. Novak
printed her identity, the agency requested an investigation
to see whether her name had been leaked illegally.
Some administration critics said her name had been made
public in a campaign to punish Mr. Wilson, who had written
in a commentary in The Times that his investigation in
Africa led him to believe that the Bush administration had
twisted intelligence to justify an attack on Iraq.
The complaints after Mr. Novak’s column led to the
appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate the
disclosure of Ms. Wilson’s identity.
The special prosecutor, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, did not bring
charges in connection with laws that prohibit the willful
disclosure of the identity of an C.I.A. officer. But Mr.
Fitzgerald did indict Mr. Libby on charges of perjury and
obstruction of justice, saying Mr. Libby had testified
untruthfully to a grand jury and federal agents when he said
he learned about Ms. Wilson’s role at the agency from
reporters rather than from several officials, including Mr.
Cheney.
According to an account in a coming book, “Hubris, the
Inside Story of Spin, Scandal and the Selling of the Iraq
War’’ by Michael Isikoff and David Corn, excerpts of which
appeared in Newsweek this week, Mr. Armitage told a few
State Department colleagues that he might have been the
leaker whose identity was being sought.
The book says Mr. Armitage realized that when Mr. Novak
published a second column in October 2003 that said his
source had been an official who was “not a political
gunslinger.’’
The Justice Department was quickly informed, and Mr.
Armitage disclosed his talks with Mr. Novak in subsequent
interviews with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, even
before Mr. Fitzgerald’s appointment.
The book quotes Carl W. Ford Jr., then head of the
intelligence and research bureau at the State Department, as
saying that Mr. Armitage had told him, “I may be the guy who
caused this whole thing,’’ and that he regretted having told
the columnist more than he should have.
Mr. Grossman’s memorandum did not mention that Ms. Wilson
had undercover status.
Apart from Mr. Ford, as quoted in the book, the lawyer and
colleagues of Mr. Armitage who discussed the case have
spoken insisting on anonymity, apparently because Mr.
Armitage was still not comfortable with the public
acknowledgment of his role.
He was also the source for another journalist about Ms.
Wilson, a reporter who did not write about her. The lawyers
and associates said Mr. Armitage also told Bob Woodward,
assistant managing editor of The Washington Post and a
well-known author, of her identity in June 2003.
Mr. Woodward was a late player in the legal drama when he
disclosed last November that he had the received the
information and testified to a grand jury about it after
learning that his source had disclosed the conversation to
prosecutors.
SOURCE: NEW YORK TIMES:
