Wilsongate: CIA wants to investigate

CIA seeks probe of White House

Agency asks Justice to investigate leak of employee’s identity

Update: Julian Borger Names Karl Rove (09/30)

Update: WH: Rove wasn't Source of Novak, Wilson admitts, he "fabricated a key part of his allegation", Novaks Response: "I do not reveal confidential sources", Senator Schumer asked for independent Investigation at Press Conference, more... (09/29)

Update: Ex-CIA McGovern confirmed Plame's CIA status to William Rivers Pitt (truthout.org):
"...His wife was in fact a deep cover operative..."
Second Confirmation on Plame by Mel Goodman (former CIA Analyst) on BBC (09/29)
Third Confirmation by National Review Contributor Clifford D. May (09/29)
Andrea Mitchell and Tom Brokaw received one of "these phone calls", but not by WH (09/29)

Update: Probe will include Columnist Novak (09/28)

Update: "Two top White House officials called at least six Washington journalists and revealed the identity and occupation of Wilson's wife" (WP 09/28)

MSNBC -September 26

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.

Did Rove Blow a Spooks Cover?

Slate -September 15, 2003

The White House Wont Say By Timothy Noag

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.

Leak of CIA Name Being Investigated

WP -Sunday, September 28, 2003; Page A01

A senior administration official said two top White House officials called at least six Washington journalists and revealed the identity and occupation of Wilson's wife. That was shortly after Wilson revealed in July that the CIA had sent him to Niger last year to look into the uranium claim and that he had found no evidence to back up the charge. Wilson's account eventually touched off a controversy over Bush's use of intelligence as he made the case for attacking Iraq.

"Clearly, it was meant purely and simply for revenge," the senior official said of the alleged leak.

...Wilson, while refusing to confirm his wife's occupation, has suggested publicly that he believes Bush's senior adviser, Karl C. Rove, broke her cover. He said Aug. 21 at a public forum in Seattle that it is of keen interest to him "to see whether or not we can get Karl Rove frog-marched out of the White House in handcuffs."

Who was "Number 2"?

Fact Check by GFP

According to the Post, the leaks were made after Wilson went public in July. His NYT column ran on 7/6. Novak's column outing his wife ran on 7/14. Ari Fleischer's last White House press conference was 7/14. So it could have been Fleischer.

Justice Dept. probes leak to columnist Novak

Chicago Sun-Times -September 28, 2003

The Justice Department is looking into an allegation that an administration official leaked the name of an undercover CIA officer to Chicago Sun-Times columnist Robert Novak, the Washington Post reported in today's editions.

Novak revealed the CIA officer's name in a column in July about retired diplomat Joseph C. Wilson's mission to Africa in February 2002 to investigate possible Iraqi purchases of uranium yellowcake from Niger. Novak wrote that two senior administration officials told him that Wilson's wife, who Novak identified by name as an agency operative on weapons of mass destruction, suggested sending Wilson to Niger

Please check out also Wilson: "Two senior administration sources..is Code for White House"

Latest Developments

White House Denies Rove Leaked Secret Information Wire Service -September 29

"He wasn't involved," White House press secretary Scott McClellan said of Rove. "The president knows he wasn't involved. ... It's simply not true."

Wilson: I Made Up Rove Leak Allegation NewsMax.com

...Former US ambassador to Iraq, Joseph Wilson admitted Monday morning that he fabricated a key part of his allegation...

"In one speech I gave out in Seattle not too long ago, I mentioned the name Karl Rove," Wilson told GMA. "I think I was probably carried away by the spirit of the moment."

Wilson then confessed, "I don't have any knowledge that Karl Rove himself was either the leaker or the authorizer of the leak."

Wilson insisted, however, "I have great confidence that, at a minimum, [Rove] condoned it and certainly did nothing to shut it down."

Novak's latest Statement (Transcript, Source DrudgeReport)
Now also backed up by CNN Report September 29, 2003 9:18 PM EDT

"...As a professional journalist with 46 years experience in Washington I do not reveal confidential sources. When I called the CIA in July to confirm Mrs. Wilson's involvement in the mission for her husband -- he is a former Clinton administration official -- they asked me not to use her name, but never indicated it would endanger her or anybody else. According to a confidential source at the CIA, Mrs. Wilson was an analyst, not a spy, not a covert operator, and not in charge of an undercover operatives..."

CNN-version

"Nobody in the Bush administration called me to leak this," Novak said on CNN's "Crossfire," of which he is a co-host. "There is no great crime here."

"[The CIA] asked me not to use her name, but never indicated it would endanger her or anybody else," he said.

Novak said a confidential source at the CIA told him Plame was "an analyst, not a spy, not covert operative and not in charge of undercover operatives."

Other CIA sources told CNN on Monday that Plame was an operative who ran agents in the field.

William Rivers Pitt, at Democratic Underground -September 29, 5:49 PM EST, later on Truthout.org

"...Ray McGovern, who was for 27-years a senior analyst for the CIA, further confirms the status of Plame within the CIA. “I know Joseph Wilson well enough to know,” said McGovern in a telephone conversation we had today, “that his wife was in fact a deep cover operative running a network of informants on what is supposedly this administration’s first-priority issue: Weapons of mass destruction.”

McGovern further elaborated on the damage done when such an agent has their cover blown. “This causes a great deal of damage,” said McGovern. “These kinds of networks take ten years to develop. The reason why they operate under deep cover is that the only people who have access to the kind of data we need cannot be associated in any way with the American intelligence community.

Our operatives live a lie to maintain these networks, and do so out of patriotism. When they get blown, the operatives themselves are in physical danger. The people they recruit are also in physical danger, because foreign intelligence services can make the connections and find them. Operatives like Valerie Plame are real patriots.”

BBC World News Sources: Agonist.org Newsblogs

...Included an interview with a Mel Goodman, senior fellow at the Center for International Policy, a former CIA analyst who is now an often vocal critic of the CIA itself.

Goodman stated twice that Plame was a deep cover operative, but did not say how he knew that. What he did say was that he has spoken to many people inside the CIA. Many of those he spoke to want an independent counsel to investigate this. He said that people in the CIA are angry and think it took too long before Tenet requested an investigation.

Third Confirmation on Plame by National Review Contributor Clifford D. May (09/29 -10:22 a.m.)

Was it really a secret that Joe Wilson's wife worked for the CIA?

...That wasn't news to me. I had been told that — but not by anyone working in the White House. Rather, I learned it from someone who formerly worked in the government and he mentioned it in an offhand manner, leading me to infer it was something that insiders were well aware of.

I chose not to include it (I wrote a second NRO piece on this issue on July 18) because it didn't seem particularly relevant to the question of whether or not Mr. Wilson should be regarded as a disinterested professional who had done a thorough investigation into Saddam's alleged attempts to purchase uranium in Africa.

NBC Nightly News (as told on agonist.org and DU)

"...The only news coming out of this report was that Andrea Mitchell, who had been fingered as one who had received the leak, said that she did not get a call from an administration official, and that her first conversation with administration officials regarding the leak was after the Novak column had appeared and was off the record..."

Atrios Blogspot- September 30

"...We have Tom Brokaw on record as saying that Andrea Mitchell was called and that they decided not to disclose Valerie's name..."

The focus on Rove brought an odd twist to Bush's travels. When the president boarded Air Force One at Andrews Air Force Base outside of Washington, he walked up the steps and waved - and not a single camera followed. He looked momentarily perplexed. All lenses were trained on Rove at the bottom of the steps.

"Several of the journalists are saying privately 'yes it was Karl Rove who I talked to" (Source: Guardian Audio )

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printed from Wilsongate: CIA wants to investigate on 2004-05-06 02:19:18