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.
The first sentence is TRUE. The second sentence leads one to believe that is what he did. I wonder how long the LIE will keep being repeated.
The truth is, VALERIE PLAME was NOT an undercover agent.
what's he apologizing to Wilson or Plame for - what he did broke no law - she was not covert, and she had made herself a legitimate part of the story by promoting her husband be sent to Niger.
its not going to happen.
has Tony Snow said word one about this story since it broke last week?
Three days after Novak's piece, David Corn was already alleging that Plame was "outed" to punish Wilson.
Now he's selling a book about the story.
What a whore.
On October 1, in DC, it was October 2 in South and Central Asia. Therefore it was possible he was still in DC, etc., on October 1.
forget all those players - we know their motives.
the key question is - who runs Fitzgerald?
Good point.
And consider how long it had to be repeated and picked at and nurtured along before the dimwitted bloggers picked it up and "broke" the story two months after the fact.
He frigging apologized to the Wilson's. After Joe's disgusting display over the last few years...
Way to go Mr. A...way to go...
Ok, I was willing to defend him somewhat, on the grounds that this whole thing is nothing but a liberal witch hunt. But now that I've heard his version, and that he told Powell and the investigators everything right away, I now want to know why he didn't write an op-ed to the NYT saying "get off Rove's back, it was me". <p.
I connected Mandy another way, too....I think to the Times somehow....Her father, I think. I think it was her father who first called for Nixon's impeachment. After he died, Felt came out. Don't forget, Hillary worked on Nixon's impeachment and that's when impeaching Bush came up.
I think you are correct, Cooper got his job at Times AFTER he married the daughter...I think, not certain, but I recall reading that somewhere.
Maybe he'll pay Libby's legal expenses??
Pray for W and Our Troops
Even the Commander in Chief episode had someone getting Frog-marched out of the Oval Office at the same time DU was talking about Merry-Fitzma.
You don't think Commander In Chief had any bearing on Hillary's run for the White House. It was a show for idiots. It's called brain-washing.
The least this waste of space can do, is pay Scooter's legal bills! His no-apology "apology" stinks and I don't believe for a minute, that he's "felt bad every single day, since he realized that he was the leaker".
Karl Rove wouldn't have been able to get away with this lame excuse.
But then Karl isn't a Dem lib scum sucker.
bttt
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