Posted on 09/13/2006 12:00:39 PM PDT by Bubba_Leroy
When Richard Armitage finally acknowledged last week he was my source three years ago in revealing Valerie Plame Wilson as a CIA employee, the former deputy secretary of state’s interviews obscured what he really did. I want to set the record straight based on firsthand knowledge.
First, Armitage did not, as he now indicates, merely pass on something he had heard and that he ‘‘thought’’ might be so. Rather, he identified to me the CIA division where Mrs. Wilson worked, and said flatly that she recommended the mission to Niger by her husband, former Amb. Joseph Wilson.
Second, Armitage did not slip me this information as idle chitchat, as he now suggests. He made clear he considered it especially suited for my column.
An accurate depiction of what Armitage actually said deepens the irony of him being my source. He was a foremost internal skeptic of the administration’s war policy, and I long had opposed military intervention in Iraq. Zealous foes of George W. Bush transformed me improbably into the president’s lapdog. But they cannot fit Armitage into the left-wing fantasy of a well-crafted White House conspiracy to destroy Joe and Valerie Wilson. The news that he and not Karl Rove was the leaker was devastating news for the left.
A peculiar convergence had joined Armitage and me on the same historical path. During his quarter of a century in Washington, I had no contact with Armitage before our fateful interview. I tried to see him in the first 2 years of the Bush administration, but he rebuffed me — summarily and with disdain, I thought.
Then, without explanation, in June 2003, Armitage’s office said the deputy secretary would see me. This was two weeks before Joe Wilson surfaced himself as author of a 2002 report for the CIA debunking Iraqi interest in buying uranium in Africa.
I sat down with Armitage in his State Department office the afternoon of July 8 with tacit rather than explicit ground rules: deep background with nothing said attributed to Armitage or even an anonymous State Department official. Consequently, I refused to identify Armitage as my leaker until his admission was forced by Hubris, a new book by reporters Michael Isikoff and David Corn that absolutely identified him.
Late in my hourlong interview with Armitage. I asked why the CIA had sent Wilson — lacking intelligence experience, nuclear policy or recent contact with Niger — on the African mission. He told the Washington Post last week that his answer was: ‘‘I don’t know, but I think his wife worked out there.’’
Neither of us took notes, and nobody else was present. But I recalled our conversation that week in writing a column, while Armitage reconstructed it months later for federal prosecutors. He had told me unequivocally that Mrs. Wilson worked in the CIA’s Counter-Proliferation Division and that she had suggested her husband’s mission.
As for his current implications that he never expected this to be published, he noted that the story of Mrs. Wilson’s role fit the style of the old Evans-Novak column — implying to me it continued reporting Washington inside information.
Mrs. Wilson’s name appeared in my column July 14, 2003, but it was not until Oct. 1 that I heard about it from Armitage. Washington lobbyist Kenneth Duberstein, Armitage’s close friend and political adviser, called me to say the deputy secretary feared he had ‘‘inadvertently’’ (the word Armitage used in last week’s interviews) disclosed Mrs. Wilson’s identity to me in July and was considering resignation. (Duberstein’s phone call was disclosed in the Isikoff-Corn book, which used Duberstein as a source. They reported Duberstein was responsible for arranging my unexpected interview with Armitage.)
Duberstein told me Armitage wanted to know whether he was my source. I did not reply because I was sure that Armitage knew he was the source. I believed he contacted me Oct. 1 because of news the weekend of Sept. 27-28 that the Justice Department was investigating the leak. I cannot credit Armitage’s current claim that he realized he was the source only when my Oct. 1 column revealed that the official who gave me the information was ‘‘no partisan gunslinger.’’
Armitage’s silence the next 2œ years caused intense pain for his colleagues in government and enabled partisan Democrats in Congress to falsely accuse Rove of being my primary source. When Armitage now says he was mute because of special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald’s request, that does not explain his silence three months between his claimed first realization that he was the source and Fitzgerald’s appointment on Dec. 30. Armitage’s tardy self-disclosure is tainted because it is deceptive.
I agree...Powell is just as much of a LOW-LIFE COWARD as Armitage is in this. They both sat back while innocent people were being put thru the legal grinder!!
Thanks.
So now, my question is...
Did Bush get lucky in not having this bring down his presidency? Or did his people let this play out knowing how it would end?
Or while their evil plan was going along exactly as planned. Well, except for the fact that Wilson's testimony didn't match his editorial.
Wonder what happens to folks who overplay their hand and cost other folks the outcome they staked their careers on...
Wow!! No wonder Bob Novak has looked so angry for so long!
Wouldn't surprise me to find out that all of them play on the Clinton team, Bahbah.
Yo, Erik, he does not work for the feds, he's been gone for over 2 years.
Those two agencies, CIA and State, are the two most dangerous agencies in the whole of the US government. They are back to back Siamese twins. They can, and do, pretty much whatever they wish, without scrutiny or responsibility. They back each other up like Butch and Sundance...............
The Dems are still banging the impeachment drum and insist that Armitage's confession doesn't matter. Wilson just added Armitage to the lawsuit...IOW, they just threw Armitage under the bus. They are now eating their own again, which tells me they are running scared. If little old me can figure this out merely by surfing the internet, I am sure Rove has it figured out by now. Not to worry.
Okay....time for a dumb question.
Is the Secretary of State in fact the head of the State Dept?
If so,why cant they appoint personnel that are in line with their way of thinking?
Smells like Kling-On intrigue to me.
Add to your scenario that Armitage sought out an appointment with Novak before the NYT OpEd was published, althought the actual interview took place after its publication.
Seems like there was much nastiness afoot.
The other question is:
WAS THE LAW ACTUALLY BROKEN HERE BY DISCLOSING VAL PLAME'S NAME?
Apparently not since Armitage is free as a song bird.
Nor would it surprise me.
By gosh, you're right. I had forgotten that.
Frustrating as it is, Bush believes "what comes around goes around". Its an admirable trait, but he just gets tarred and feather by sitting by and waiting for it all to come out. By that time its too late. Argh.
Why isn't Armitage and Novak in jail?
Why was he harassing Cheney and Libby?
How could Scooter Libby possibly obstruct the investigation of a crime that never happened?
In the words of Desi Arnez, someone has some "splaining" to do here.
Precisely as you've been saying, Jane!
It is also noteworthy that Plame's boss Peter Allen resigned at the same time Armitage was considering it -- when the FBI probe was announced. He denied it was linked, but he had some role in the selection of Wilson.
If Fitzgerald were actually interested prosecuting traitors he would focus on these people, but that seems unlikely.
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