Posted on 10/16/2005 10:31:43 PM PDT by churchillbuff
Since the posting of The New York Times lengthy article on Judith Miller's involvement in the Plame scandal Saturday, much of the Web has been abuzz with the revelation that she had some sort of special classified status while embedded with troops in Iraq at one point.
The issue came to the fore after Miller, in recounting her grand jury testimony, wrote about how her former classified status figured in her discussions with I. Lewis Libby. She was even pressed by the prosecutor on this matter.
E&P columnist William E. Jackson Jr., had first raised this issue last year. On Sunday, former CBS national security correspondent Bill Lynch posted his views in a long letter about it at the Romenesko site at poynter.org. Here is the letter:
*
There is one enormous journalism scandal hidden in Judith Miller's Oct. 16th first person article about the (perhaps lesser) CIA leak scandal. And that is Ms. Miller's revelation that she was granted a DoD security clearance while embedded with the WMD search team in Iraq in 2003.
This is as close as one can get to government licensing of journalists and the New York Times (if it knew) should never have allowed her to become so compromised. It is all the more puzzling that a reporter who as a matter of principle would sacrifice 85 days of her freedom to protect a source would so willingly agree to be officially muzzled and thereby deny potentially valuable information to the readers whose right to be informed she claims to value so highly.
One must assume that Ms. Miller was required to sign a standard and legally binding agreement that she would never divulge classified information to which she became privy, without risk of criminal prosecution. And she apparently plans to adhere to the letter of that self-censorship deal; witness her dilemma at being unable to share classified information with her editors.
In an era where the Bush Administration seeks to conceal mountains of government activity under various levels of security classification, why would any self-respecting news organization or individual journalist agree to become part of such a system? Readers would be right to question whether a reporter is operating under a security clearance and, by definition, withholding critical information. Does a newspaper not have the obligation to disclose to its readers when a reporter is not only embedded with a military unit but also officially proscribed in what she may report without running afoul of espionage laws? Was that ever done in Ms. Miller's articles from Iraq?
It is not hard to imagine a defense lawyer being granted a security clearance to defend, say, an "enemy combatant." When the lawyer gets access to classified information in the case, he discovers it is full of false or exculpatory information. But, because he's signed the secrecy oath, there's not a damn thing he can do except whine on the courthouse steps that his client is innocent but he can't say why. A journalist should never be put in an equivalent position, but this is precisely what Ms. Miller has opened herself to.
There are other questions. Does she still have a clearance? Did she have it when talking to Scooter Libby? Is that why she never wrote the Wilson/Plame story?
I am a former White House and national security correspondent and have had plenty of access to classified information. When I divulged it, it was always with a common sense appraisal of the balance between any potential harm done and the public's right to know. If I had doubts, I would run it by officers whose judgement I trusted. In my experience, defense and intelligence officials routinely share secrets with reporters in the full expectation they will be reported. But if any official had ever offered me a security clearance, my instincts would have sent me running. I am gravely disappointed Ms. Miller did not do likewise.
It strikes me that Ms. Miller's situation is the flip side of the NYT's Jayson Blair coin. He and the Times were rightly disgraced for fabricating. In my opinion, Miller also violated her duty to report the truth by accepting a binding obligation to withhold key facts the government deems secret, even when that information might contradict the reportable "facts."
If Ms. Miller agreed to operate under a security clearance without the knowledge or approval of Times managers, she should be disciplined or even dismissed. If she had their approval, all involved should be ashamed.
(( ping )) Lookee here.
re: Your theory from yesterday that Miller may be CIA.
It's looking better.
I hate to say this, but it's getting to the point where the DoD gives clearance to just about anyone these days.
I saw one article that said that, while reporting some story in France, Miller resided in the home of the US ambassador. It supposedly really p'd off the reporters in the NY Times bureau in Paris. Strange, that a mere reporter could set up shop in an American diplomatic home.
In fact, when you think about it - - Miller being turned into an "asset", complete with case officer, DoD security clearance, the works - - it explains this whole fiasco, beginning with her pro-WMD reports leading up to the war, to her obviously bogus "I don't recall my source" testimony before the grand jury, and finally to the utter confusion that seems to reign in the NY Times newsroom.
In the context of Miller herself being CIA, the whole mess suddenly begins to make some sense.
That fits. (Please see post #7)
(( ping ))
Check this out.
I just love the defense lawyer analogy. The press has such a high and mighty view of itself, and is always in such a hurry to condemn any obstruction to the peoples' right to know. But the press does more to twist and obscure the truth than just about any other institution in our culture. What a bunch of self-righteous hypocrites.
Ask the Washington Post- their reporter Walter Pincus' wife had - or was it 'has' a job in the State Dept: Mrs. Pincus worked in the Clinton Administration in the Office Research and Media Reaction in the State Dept Bureau of Intelligence and Research- as did Mr. Greg Thielmann, a vocal critic of the Bush Administration.... who was Director of Strategic, proliferation and military issues in the State Dept Bureau of Intelligence and research.
Walter supposedly was Army intelligence in the 50s, though we might want to question what army...
I'm pretty sure the Washington Post doesn't plaster disclaimers on his articles.
He also had some relationship to CIA in the 60s; curiously, he did work for J. William Fulbright at the same time:
Military service: U.S. Army Counterintelligence Corps 1955-7
Writes on national security for The Washington Post. According to published reports, Pincus worked for the CIA during the early 1960's, though when John Deutch was asked directly if Pincus was an "asset", he claimed not, but did express familiarity with the non-asset. The CIA did pay for him to attend two overseas conferences, by Pincus' own 1967 admission. The Washington Times (a Moonie publication) on 31 July 1996 described Pincus by saying that "some in the agency refer to [Pincus] as 'the CIA's house reporter.'"
WCSJ 2004: 4th World Conference of Science Journalists
Pincus has taken two 18-month sabbaticals from journalism. Both were spent directing investigations for the Senate Foreign Relations Committee under its then-chairman, Sen. J. William Fulbright. The first was into foreign government lobbying (1962-63) and the second into U.S. military and security commitments abroad and their effect on U.S. foreign policy (1969-70). Both investigations led to legislation. The first in a revision of the Foreign Agents Registration Act; the second in a series of limiting amendments on defense appropriations bills that culminated in the Hatfield-McGovern legislation to end the Vietnam War.
There are a lot of things/connections the press doesn't put in their disclaimers
Did you catch Hitchens on Mathews' weekend show. Hitch said flat out that Rove and Libby did nothing wrong, broke no law, would NOT be indicted, and added that HIS sources said the source of the leak was a journalist. Matthews was both stuned and beebed..his jaw dropped, and he invited Hitchens to name names...Hitch declined to do so..maybe someone can find a transcript...
Yep .. I did see that yesterday and found it very interesting
BTW .. on the lib sites ... they are freaking out about this story and Miller's role in this whole thing
Hitch looked/sounded sober...so I give it credence...Otherwise, if he didn't have the info, he wouldn;t have said anything...BTW..did you see the looks he was gving to Dowd and Tuker, on either side of him..?
I still believe that Miller and Plamer knew each other...had extensive contacts..way back..BTW..which sites..anythign worth checking out?
If this story is true .. I wonder how long she had this so-called clearance???
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