Posted on 08/01/2005 6:01:49 AM PDT by summer
NEW YORK - Columnist Robert Novak has remained more or less mum on the Plame case since writing the now famous CIA leak column in July 2005. In his column today, however, he says that a recent statement by a CIA spokesman is "so patently incorrect and so abuses my integrity as a journalist" that he feels he must attempt to rebut it.
In a front-page story in last Wednesday's Washington Post, Walter Pincus and Jim VandeHei quoted ex-CIA spokesman Bill Harlow claiming that he told Novak before he wrote the fateful column that Plame (Mrs. Joseph Wilson) "had not authorized" her husband's mission to Africa" and that "the story Novak had related to him was wrong."
Novak writes today: "The truth is otherwise....There never was any question of me talking about Mrs. Wilson 'authorizing.' I was told she 'suggested' the mission, and that is what I asked Harlow. His denial was contradicted in July 2004 by a unanimous Senate Intelligence Committee report. The report said Wilson's wife 'suggested his name for the trip.'"
But what about the more vital point of Harlow declaring that he had told Novak not to reveal the agent's name? Novak provides a debatable point of logic. "That is meaningless," he writes. "Once it was determined that Wilson's wife suggested the mission, she could be identified as 'Valerie Plame' by reading her husband's entry in 'Who's Who in America.'
"Harlow said to the Post that he did not tell me Mrs. Wilson 'was undercover because that was classified.' What he did say was, as I reported in a previous column, she probably never again would be given a foreign assignment but that exposure of her name might cause 'difficulties.'
"I have previously said that I never would have written those sentences if Harlow, then-CIA Director George Tenet or anybody else from the agency had told me that Valerie Plame Wilson's disclosure would endanger herself or anybody."
Fact-checker? We don't need no stinkin' fact-checker!
lol
Quite the oversight at "Editor and Publisher," non?
I call this a tempest-in-a-teapot-dome scandal. It's just that small. But to much of the media (not Novak), it's a very big deal. I heard Tom Brokaw on Imus this morning waxing poetic about Judith Miller and all journalists willing to go to jail to protect sources and how we have to have shield laws in every state. He seems to think that not enough is being made of the Plame affair. And then he lamented that with all the untruths that were told to get us into the Iraq War no one has even been held accountable. I'm paraphrasing, but that was the gist.
The "journalists" have so abused their privilage that it needs to be removed. Perhaps if "journalism" went back to being a trade instead of a profession we might gain some respect back for the people who cover the news.
"This sounds like Novak is blaming everything on the CIA: "
It sounds like Novak did his job and double checked multiple sources. He was also never told that disclosing her identity would place anyone at risk.
When you're talking to a reporter, you'd think someone in the CIA would assume that the roperter is planning on reporting on the story.
Harlow didn't refuse to comment on the grounds of security and ask him to keep her identity confidential. He said that exposing her name might cause difficulties.
Considering that she suggested her husband who worked with the Kerry campaign and was a rabid anti-Bush activist to go on the trip, she should probably face some difficulties. She basically suggested that the CIA send someone who she knew would give a biased report.
Wilson's lies in his editorial and interviews with the press make this a story that the public has a right to hear. With no reason to believe that people might be put in harms way by disclosing the story, Novak did the right thing by reporting the story to disclose the truth.
The people who got upset about this are mainly those who didn't want the truth to become public.
BUMP. Nailed this. And also, 90+% the CIA employees are not covert agents. Hence anyone could be excused for not fretting much over someone who made a habit running around blowing her own "cover". The only "trouble" would be that the hive of liberal infestation within the CIA would be exposed.
Isn't it becoming obvious that Wilson, his wife, and other Clinton-era CIA sympathizers set up the White House from beginning to end on this whole situation?
I, for one, think the whole thing was set up by rogue elements in the CIA.
To paraphrase Bubba, "If you get Rove, you get Bush, then you get the Whitehouse."....except it is blowing up in the faces of the Wilsons, the Kerry campaign, Cooper-Grunwald, Judy Miller, the MSM, and the LibDem implants at CIA.
I'm pretty much convinced that this is the case.
Now the question is whether or not they'll get away with it.
Maybe.
Sounded like that to me.
Robert Novak, "The CIA leak", October 1, 2003
During a long conversation with a senior administration official, I asked why Wilson was assigned the mission to Niger. He said Wilson had been sent by the CIA's counterproliferation section at the suggestion of one of its employees, his wife. It was an offhand revelation from this official, who is no partisan gunslinger. When I called another official for confirmation, he said: "Oh, you know about it." The published report that somebody in the White House failed to plant this story with six reporters and finally found me as a willing pawn is simply untrue.
At the CIA, the official designated to talk to me denied that Wilson's wife had inspired his selection but said she was delegated to request his help. He 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. I used it in the sixth paragraph of my column because it looked like the missing explanation of an otherwise incredible choice by the CIA for its mission.
Novak indicates here that he talked to three people:
1. Source A: The "senior administration official" who first mentioned to Novak the role of the CIA's counterproliferation section and Wilson's wife in sending Wilson to Niger.
2. Source B: "Another official" Novak called for confirmation.
3. Source C: A CIA official designated to talk to Novak, who told Novak that "she probably never again will be given a foreign assignment but that exposure of her name might cause 'difficulties'. . ."
Novak's new article identifies Source C as ex-CIA spokesman Bill Harlow: "Harlow said to the Post that he did not tell me Mrs. Wilson 'was undercover because that was classified.' What he did say was, as I reported in a previous column, 'she probably never again would be given a foreign assignment but that exposure of her name might cause 'difficulties.''"
If Harlow is Source C, who is Source B? Well, if you wanted to confirm Source A's allegation about the CIA's role in Wilson's trip, who would you call? George Tenet is a logical answer.
I also find it interesting that Novak's articles have mentioned Walter Pincus twice. The first mention was in Novak's original article:
Robert Novak, "Mission to Niger", July 14, 2003
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.
Now in the new article Novak writes for the express purpose of correcting something Pincus reported:
Ex-CIA official's remark is wrong
Though frustrated, I have followed the advice of my attorneys and written almost nothing about the CIA leak over two years because of a criminal investigation by a federal special prosecutor. The lawyers also urged me not to write this. But the allegation against me is so patently incorrect and so abuses my integrity as a journalist that I feel constrained to reply.
In the course of a front-page story in last Wednesday's Washington Post, Walter Pincus and Jim VandeHei quoted ex-CIA spokesman Bill Harlow describing his testimony to the grand jury. In response to my question about Valerie Plame Wilson's role in former ambassador Wilson's trip to Niger, Harlow told me she "had not authorized the mission." Harlow was quoted as later saying to me "the story Novak had related to him was wrong."
This gave the impression I ignored an official's statement that I had the facts wrong but wrote it anyway for the sake of publishing the story. That would be inexcusable for any journalist and particularly a veteran of 48 years in Washington. The truth is otherwise, and that is why I feel compelled to write this column.
Yep .. for her and her hubby
The next question is .. if they played games with this intelligence information ... what other games did they play with our nations security information?
On April 23, 2001, CNN aired a program during which they interviewed an individual named Kenneth Bucchi, whom CNN described as a "former CIA narcotics agent." During the program, Bucchi alleged that the CIA "basically had a complicit operation, a quid pro quo, if you will, with the drug lords of Colombia and essentially, what we [the CIA] did is put the lion's share of the market in small cash in drug lords' hands..."
CIA spokesman Bill Harlow said the following in response to this allegation:
"Bucchi never worked for or was affiliated with the CIA in any way; he was neither an employee nor a contractor at any time. Bucchi's account of an operation supposedly working with the drug lords of Colombia is complete and utter nonsense—it is fiction."
Harlow added that while the CIA usually declines to say whether or not a person has ever worked for the Agency, "this one has just gone too far."
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