Robert Sterling
LEAKGATE - PART I
Fri Oct 3 15:41:57 2003
64.140.158.6

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Thanks,
Robert Sterling
Editor, The Konformist
http://www.konformist.com

"Even though I'm a tranquil guy now at this stage of my life, I have
nothing but contempt and anger for those who betray the trust by
exposing the name of our sources. They are, in my view, the most
insidious of traitors."

- George H.W. Bush, at the dedication of the George Bush Center for
Intelligence.

***

Slate.com

chatterbox Gossip, speculation, and scuttlebutt about politics.
Did Rove Blow a Spook's Cover?
The White House won't say.
By Timothy Noah
Posted Tuesday, September 16, 2003

A minor flap has been brewing since syndicated columnist Robert
Novak, citing "two senior administration officials," reported in July
that Joseph C. Wilson IV was married to a Central Intelligence Agency
specialist on "weapons of mass destruction" named Valerie Plame.
Wilson is the former diplomat sent by the CIA last year to check out
allegations that Iraq had purchased uranium from Niger. He caused the
Bush administration no small embarrassment by stating, in a July 6 op-
ed, that he'd reported "it was highly doubtful that any such
transaction had ever taken place." Novak hasn't particularly
supported the Iraq war, and his column essentially took Wilson's
side. But the fact that Novak blew Plame's cover (in the course of
relating that Wilson was sent at Plame's suggestion) gave The
Nation's David Corn the opportunity to accuse the Bush administration
of compromising national security, in violation of the Intelligence
Identities Protection Act of 1982. Wilson wouldn't confirm that his
wife works for the CIA, but he told Corn that if she did, then naming
her this way would have compromised every operation, every
relationship, every network with which she had been associated in her
entire career. This is the stuff of Kim Philby and Aldrich Ames.

The question of whether to investigate who in the Bush administration
blew Plame's cover surfaced Aug. 21 at a forum about intelligence
failures on Iraq held by Rep. Jay Inslee, a fervently anti-war
Democrat. Wilson, who was present, had this to say:

It's of keen interest to me to see whether or not we can get Karl
Rove frog-marched out of the White House in handcuffs. And trust me,
when I use that name, I measure my words.

This appeared to be an unsubtle hint that Wilson knew one of the
leakers to be Rove. Taking the bait, someone asked White House press
spokesman Scott McClellan about it today:

Q: On the Robert Novak-Joseph Wilson situation, Novak reported
earlier this year quoting "anonymous government sources" telling him
that Wilson's wife was a CIA operative. Now, this is apparently a
federal offense, to burn the cover [of] a CIA operative. Wilson now
believes that the person who did this was Karl Rove. He's quoted from
a speech last month as saying, "At the end of the day, it's of keen
interest to me to see whether or not we can get Karl Rove frog-
marched out of the White House in handcuffs." Did Karl Rove tell that?

A: I haven't heard that. That's just totally ridiculous. But we've
already addressed this issue. If I could find out who anonymous
people were, I would. I just said, it's totally ridiculous.

Q: But did Karl Rove do it?

A: I said, it's totally ridiculous.

Now, on one level, Chatterbox feels mildly sympathetic toward
McClellan. White House etiquette prevented him from saying, "How the
hell should I know? If Rove blew the cover of a CIA agent, do you
suppose he'd be stupid enough to tell me about it?" And McClellan
deserves points for not taking a leaf from his predecessor Ari
Fleischer's playbook, which says that you should always deny damaging
stuff well before you know whether it's true.

But on another level, it's pretty unsettling that McClellan refuses
to answer the question at all. Rove is, after all, the president's
principal political adviser, a man so influential that a recent book
about him was titled Bush's Brain. McClellan could have said
something like, "I have a very hard time imagining that to be true,
but if you like I'll ask him." But McClellan didn't say that. Maybe
he finds all speculation about wacky national-security skullduggery
repellant in light of his father's embarrassing new book alleging
that Lyndon Johnson murdered John F. Kennedy. Or maybe - just maybe -
McClellan wonders himself whether Rove got a little overzealous.

Wilson, for his part, denied today that he ever accused Rove. He told
Chatterbox "Karl Rove" was simply a handy metonym for whatever
two "senior administration officials" fingered Plame (correctly or
falsely, Wilson still won't say). But Wilson's "I measure my words"
comment at the Inslee forum suggests to Chatterbox that Wilson is now
being coy about what he knows, or at least suspects, regarding Rove.
Maybe it's time for somebody to ask Rove himself whether he risked 10
years in jail in order to suggest that Wilson got his Niger
assignment based on nepotism. And, perhaps, deliberately to punish
Wilson by destroying his wife's career at the CIA. Rove is ruthless
enough to have done so. The only real question is whether Bush's
Brain is stupid enough.

Timothy Noah writes "Chatterbox" for Slate.

E-mail Timothy Noah at chatterbox@slate.com.

*****

George W. Nixon
WASHINGTON, July 24, 2003
CBSNews.com

President Bush is often compared to Ronald Reagan and George Bush the
Elder. In his latest Against the Grain commentary, CBSNews.com's Dick
Meyer says think Nixon.

Fall guys, intimidation and leaked personal attacks on enemies are
back in at the 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. How Nixonian. How
disappointing.

Political enemy number one is former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV.

Wilson wrote an op-ed piece in "The New York Times" on July 6 that
infuriated the White House. Wilson reported that in 2002, at the
CIA's request, he had investigated reports that Iraq was trying to
buy uranium from Niger and that he had found the reports baseless.
>From that firsthand experience, Wilson wrote about the case for war
in Iraq, "that some of the intelligence related to Iraq's nuclear
weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat."

Wilson's piece ignited a full-blown frenzy and led to an embarrassing
White House admission that it shouldn't have included the discredited
claim about "yellowcake" from Niger in his State of the Union
address. The Texans didn't 'ppreciate that.

Eight days after Wilson published his piece, veteran reporter Robert
Novak wrote a column that said, "Wilson never worked for the CIA, but
his wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass
destruction. Two senior administration officials told me Wilson's
wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate [the reports]."

Wilson's wife, it has been reported elsewhere, worked undercover.
The "two senior officials" who blew her cover to Novak probably did
something illegal. They certainly did something vile. Chuck Colson,
the keeper of Nixon's enemies list, would be so proud.

Wilson told Newsday, "This might be seen as a smear on me and my
reputation, but what it really is is an attempt to keep anybody else
from coming forward."

Political enemy number two is ABC News correspondent Jeffrey Kofman.

Kofman filed a story that reported on morale problems of troops with
the Third Infantry long stationed in Iraq. He had a quote from a
soldier who said, "If Donald Rumsfeld was here, I'd ask him for his
resignation." The Texans didn't `ppreciate that.

After the piece ran, Matt Drudge says he got a call from a White
House aide who anonymously leaked the inflammatory secret that Kofman
is (young readers, please do not continue) - Canadian. A Canuck,
reporting on our boys? I never...

Oh yeah, the leaker also disclosed that Kofman is gay. It so happens
that Kofman is very openly gay. (For the record, he used to work at
CBS News, but I don't believe I ever met or talked to him.)

The Drudge Report ran a headline about Kofman's connection to the
dreaded C-word. It also linked to a profile of him in "The Advocate,"
a gay magazine. Chuck Colson would be so proud.

So far, the Bush Team hasn't had as much luck with fall guys. CIA
chief George Tenet tried to take the bullet for the "yellowcake"
flap, but the flap flapped on. So NSC aide Stephen Hadley was sent
out to take it on the chin. Neither resigned, neither was fired. They
just took responsibility.

That is something the President has not done.

Last week, a reader who often sends me very smart e-mails with his
own political analysis, wrote that he had just had a "Eureka"
epiphany about the GWB-RMN axis. I dismissed it. I think George Bush
is much more like Ronald Reagan: supremely self-confident,
simplistic, sincere, comfortable in his skin and thus comforting, un-
neurotic, lacking all traces of self-doubt, incurious, nice manners.
Nixon had none of those qualities.

But the Bush White House is becoming Nixon-like, with a smile and, of
course, good manners. It's re-election time and it's CREEP-Y.

Dick Meyer, the Editorial Director of CBSNews.com, is based in
Washington. For many years, he was a political and investigative
producer for The CBS News Evening News With Dan Rather.

*****

Townhall.com

Mission to Niger
Robert Novak
July 14, 2003

WASHINGTON -- The CIA's decision to send retired diplomat Joseph C.
Wilson to Africa in February 2002 to investigate possible Iraqi
purchases of uranium was made routinely at a low level without
Director George Tenet's knowledge. Remarkably, this produced a
political firestorm that has not yet subsided.

Wilson's report that an Iraqi purchase of uranium yellowcake from
Niger was highly unlikely was regarded by the CIA as less than
definitive, and it is doubtful Tenet ever saw it. Certainly,
President Bush did not, prior to his 2003 State of the Union address,
when he attributed reports of attempted uranium purchases to the
British government. That the British relied on forged documents made
Wilson's mission, nearly a year earlier, the basis of furious
Democratic accusations of burying intelligence though the report was
forgotten by the time the president spoke.

Reluctance at the White House to admit a mistake has led Democrats
ever closer to saying the president lied the country into war. Even
after a belated admission of error last Monday, finger-pointing
between Bush administration agencies continued. Messages between
Washington and the presidential entourage traveling in Africa hashed
over the mission to Niger.

Wilson's mission was created after an early 2002 report by the
Italian intelligence service about attempted uranium purchases from
Niger, derived from forged documents prepared by what the CIA calls
a "con man." This misinformation, peddled by Italian journalists,
spread through the U.S. government. The White House, State Department
and Pentagon, and not just Vice President Dick Cheney, asked the CIA
to look into it.

That's where Joe Wilson came in. His first public notice had come in
1991 after 15 years as a Foreign Service officer when, as U.S. charge
in Baghdad, he risked his life to shelter in the embassy some 800
Americans from Saddam Hussein's wrath. My partner Rowland Evans
reported from the Iraqi capital in our column that Wilson showed "the
stuff of heroism." President George H.W. Bush the next year named him
ambassador to Gabon, and President Bill Clinton put him in charge of
African affairs at the National Security Council until his retirement
in 1998.

Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an
Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction. Two senior
administration officials told me Wilson's wife suggested sending him
to Niger to investigate the Italian report. The CIA says its counter-
proliferation officials selected Wilson and asked his wife to contact
him. "I will not answer any question about my wife," Wilson told me.

After eight days in the Niger capital of Niamey (where he once
served), Wilson made an oral report in Langley that an Iraqi uranium
purchase was "highly unlikely," though he also mentioned in passing
that a 1988 Iraqi delegation tried to establish commercial contacts.
CIA officials did not regard Wilson's intelligence as definitive,
being based primarily on what the Niger officials told him and
probably would have claimed under any circumstances. The CIA report
of Wilson's briefing remains classified.

All this was forgotten until reporter Walter Pincus revealed in the
Washington Post June 12 that an unnamed retired diplomat had given
the CIA a negative report. Not until Wilson went public on July 6,
however, did his finding ignite the firestorm.

During the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, Wilson had taken a
measured public position -- viewing weapons of mass destruction as a
danger but considering military action as a last resort. He has
seemed much more critical of the administration since revealing his
role in Niger. In the Washington Post July 6, he talked about the
Bush team "misrepresenting the facts," asking: "What else are they
lying about?"

After the White House admitted error, Wilson declined all television
and radio interviews. "The story was never me," he told me, "it was
always the statement in (Bush's) speech." The story, actually, is
whether the administration deliberately ignored Wilson's advice, and
that requires scrutinizing the CIA summary of what their envoy
reported. The Agency never before has declassified that kind of
information, but the White House would like it to do just that now --
in its and in the public's interest.

*****

CIA seeks probe of White House
EXCLUSIVE, MSNBC and NBC News
WASHINGTON, Sept. 26

The CIA has asked the Justice Department to investigate allegations
that the White House broke federal laws by revealing the identity of
one of its undercover employees in retaliation against the woman's
husband, a former ambassador who publicly criticized President Bush's
since-discredited claim that Iraq had sought weapons-grade uranium
from Africa, NBC News has learned.

THE FORMER ENVOY, Joseph Wilson, who was acting ambassador to Iraq
before the first Gulf War, was dispatched to Niger in 2002 to
investigate a British intelligence report that Iraq sought to buy
uranium there. Although Wilson discredited the report, Bush cited it
in his State of the Union address in January among the evidence he
said justified military action in Iraq.
The administration has since had to repudiate the claim. CIA Director
George Tenet said the 16-word sentence should not have been included
in Bush's Jan. 28 speech and publicly accepted responsibility for
allowing it to remain in the president's text.

Wilson published an article in July alleging, however, that the White
House recklessly made the charge knowing it was false.

"We spend billions of dollars on intelligence," Wilson wrote. "But we
end up putting something in the State of the Union address, something
we got from another intelligence agency, something we cannot
independently verify, in an area of Africa where the British have no
on-the-ground presence."

WHITE HOUSE DENIALS

The next week, columnist Robert Novak published an article in which
he revealed that Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, was a covert CIA
operative specializing in weapons of mass destruction. "Two senior
administration officials told me Wilson's wife suggested sending him
to Niger to investigate," Novak wrote.

The White House has denied being Novak's source, whom he has refused
to identify. But Wilson has said other reporters have told him White
House officials leaked Plame's identity.

NBC News' Andrea Mitchell reported Friday night that the CIA has
asked the Justice Department to investigate whether White House
officials blew Plame's cover in retaliation against Wilson. Revealing
the identities of covert officials is a violation of two laws, the
National Agents' Identity Act and the Unauthori

• LEAKGATE - PART II — Robert Sterling, Fri Oct 3 15:45
• LEAKGATE - WHO LEAKED? (CLICK) — Justin Raimondo, Fri Oct 3 15:54
• libby? — lll, Sat Oct 4 14:08
• BUSH, "F**K LEAKGATE" — differentstrings, Fri Oct 3 17:30
• fineman's take — lll, Sat Oct 4 13:59