Posted on 09/07/2006 4:10:25 PM PDT by Laverne
(CBS) In an exclusive interview with CBS News national security correspondent David Martin, Richard Armitage, once the No. 2 diplomat at the State Department, couldn't be any blunter.
"Oh I feel terrible. Every day, I think I let down the president. I let down the Secretary of State. I let down my department, my family and I also let down Mr. and Mrs. Wilson," he says.
When asked if he feels he owes the Wilsons an apology, he says, "I think I've just done it."
In July 2003, Armitage told columnist Robert Novak that Ambassador Wilson's wife worked for the CIA, and Novak mentioned it in a column. It's a crime to knowingly reveal the identity of an undercover CIA officer. But Armitage didn't yet realize what he had done.
So, what exactly did he tell Novak?
"At the end of a wide-ranging interview he asked me, 'Why did the CIA send Ambassador (Wilson) to Africa?' I said I didn't know, but that she worked out at the agency," Armitage says.
Armitage says he told Novak because it was "just an offhand question." "I didn't put any big import on it and I just answered and it was the last question we had," he says.
Armitage adds that while the document was classified, "it doesn't mean that every sentence in the document is classified.
"I had never seen a covered agent's name in any memo in I think 28 years of government," he says.
He adds that he thinks he referred to Wilson's wife as such, or possibly as "Mrs. Wilson." He never referred to her as Valerie Plame, he adds.
"I didn't know the woman's name was Plame. I didn't know she was an operative," he says.
He says he was reading Novak's newspaper column again, on Oct. 1, 2003, and "he said he was told by a non-partisan gun slinger."
"I almost immediately called Secretary Powell and said, 'I'm sure that was me,'" Armitage says.
Armitage immediately met with FBI agents investigating the leak.
"I told them that I was the inadvertent leak," Armitage says. He didn't get a lawyer, however.
"First of all, I felt so terrible about what I'd done that I felt I deserved whatever was coming to me. And secondarily, I didn't need an attorney to tell me to tell the truth. I as already doing that," Armitage explains. "I was not intentionally outing anybody. As I say, I have tremendous respect for Ambassador. Wilson's African credentials. I didn't know anything about his wife and made an offhand comment. I didn't try to out anybody."
That was nearly three years ago, but the political firestorm over who leaked Valerie Plame's identity continued to burn as Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald began hauling White House officials and journalists before a grand jury.
Armitage says he didn't come forward because "the special counsel, once he was appointed, asked me not to discuss this and I honored his request."
"I thought every day about how I'd screwed up," he adds.
Armitage never did tell the president, but he's talking now because Fitzgerald told him he could.
Think I posted that the day Novak's article was published.
He's a lying b*stard too.
This JERK didn't feel bad enough to come forward and stop the madness. Jail time is too good for him.
-and while I am at in Colin Powell KNEW !! Makes him a co-conspirator along with the jerk.
FGS, are there NO men left in Washington DC?????????
What is it with these wimps?
So he either screwed up and did not tell his President, or he was deliberately watching his President squirm.
Either way makes him look like a sniveling boy, George W Bush should knock his block off.
SOOOOOOOO WHY hasn't Armitage, if he IS the leaker, given Novak the release???? BECAUSE IT"S NOT THE DICK!!
Read it again...sounds like he wanted to...but Fitz asked him not to talk....interesting twist.
ping
Soooooo, why did Fitzy tell him NOT to talk??? Millions of dollars were spent, lives were ruined, a woman went to jail, and Scooter lost his job.....WOWIE, Fitzy has some 'splainin" to do!
But, as someone pointed out the other day, he could have fessed up well before Fitzy was appointed. He knew as soon as the Novak column came out.
When asked if he feels he owes the Wilsons an apology, he says, "I think I've just done it."
He doesn't owe those two traitors a damned thing. They intentionally set out to lie about Saddam Hussein seeking for uranium in Africa, which we now know he was, and sought to mislead the nation and the national security apparatus about this fact, then slandering the president claiming the president cooked the Yellowcake story up and undermined public confidence in the commander in chief and the nation's war effort during a time of national danger--all while operating as a paid operative of the Kerry campaign.
It is because Joe Wilson engaged in such a seditious ploy that his co-conspirator wife's identity had to be revealed to rebuke the lies he told claiming he was first working for Cheney, then for Colin Powell.
It is the Wilsons who owe the nation, and the president, an apology. And also they owe us at least 20 years in federal prison. But NO ONE owes these two master liars and charlatans a damned thing. Their name should be remembered along side the name of the Rosenbergs in the pantheon of treason and high crimes against the nation.
BTTT
So why didn't He and Powell come forward ?
The investigation of Chaney and subsequent prosecution Libby was nothing more than attempt to bring down a sitting administration....
Someone needs to go to Jail and it ain't the VP or Libby !!!!!
He did fess up to the FBI..before Fitz's appointment.
"I almost immediately called Secretary Powell and said, 'I'm sure that was me,'" Armitage says.
VERY CAREFULLY CHOSEN WORDS
By them is he trying to get Powell off the hook?
I saw that, but that does NOT excuse the whole mess. Fitz got involved after all the hoopla was going strong. Armitage kept his mouth shut and let it happen. Fitz is a political hack and sold out the American people.
Notice CBS doesn't ask if Armitage owes the president an apology. The president was infinitely more harmed by Armitage than was the hooker Valerie Plame. But CBS thinks that's a good thing, so no apology necessary.
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