CIA leak: Now it can be told; Novak reveals in new book how the secret unfolded

When I went to my office Monday, July 7, 2003, Joe Wilson was not in the forefront of my mind. Frances Fragos Townsend was. She had just been named deputy national security adviser at the White House though her background was in liberal Democratic politics, including Attorney General Janet Reno's inner circle during the Clinton administration. Her appointment was a political mystery of the kind I had been exploring for forty years in my column.

I wrote the Townsend column Tuesday morning because I had a busy schedule the rest of the day, including a 3 p.m. appointment with Richard Armitage, deputy secretary of state. I had no idea what a big event it would turn out to be.

Armitage was less guarded
I asked to see Armitage early in the George W. Bush administration and repeated my request after the terrorist attack of September 11, 2001. Armitage and Colin Powell, the new secretary of state and Armitage's close friend, were widely perceived as being out of step with the rest of the administration about military intervention in Iraq.

I had ready access to Powell, in person and over the telephone, but he was circumspect in what he said to me, while Armitage had a reputation for being less guarded in conversations with journalists. Armitage rebuffed me, not with the customary evasion of claiming an overly full schedule but by his secretary making clear that he simply did not want to see me. I assumed that Armitage bracketed me, a notoriously conservative columnist, with the Iraqi war hawks who were unsympathetic toward his views. If so, he had somehow missed my written and spoken criticism of the Iraqi intervention.

Then, in the last week of June 2003, Armitage's office called to agree unexpectedly to my request and set up the appointment for July 8.

Neither of us set ground rules
It is important to note that Armitage reached out to me before Joe Wilson went public on the New York Times op-ed page and on "Meet the Press" with an account of his Niger report that he said contradicted 16 words in Bush's January 2003 State of the Union address: ("The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium in Africa.")

I was ushered into Armitage's big State Department inner office promptly at 3 p.m. Neither of us set ground rules for my visit. I assumed, however, that what Armitage said would not be attributed to him but would not be off the record. That is, I could write about information he gave me but would not identify him by name. During a long career, I had come to appreciate that sort of thing in countless interviews without putting it into so many words. I viewed what Armitage told me to be just as privileged as if he had made me swear a blood oath.

Armitage was giving me high-level insider gossip, unusual in a first meeting. About halfway through our session, I brought up Bush's sixteen words. What Armitage told me generally confirmed what I had learned from sources the previous day while I was reporting for the Fran Townsend column.

I then asked Armitage a question that had been puzzling me but, for the sake of my future peace of mind, would better have been left unasked.

Why would the CIA send Joseph Wilson, not an expert in nuclear proliferation and with no intelligence experience, on the mission to Niger?

"Well," Armitage replied, "you know his wife works at CIA, and she suggested that he be sent to Niger." "His wife works at CIA?" I asked. "Yeah, in counterproliferation."

He mentioned her first name, Valerie. Armitage smiled and said: "That's real Evans and Novak, isn't it?" I believe he meant that was the kind of inside information that my late partner, Rowland Evans, and I had featured in our column for so long. I interpreted that as meaning Armitage expected to see the item published in my column.

I never spoke to Armitage again about Wilson. But he acknowledged to me nearly three months later through his political adviser, lobbyist Ken Duberstein, that he was indeed the primary source for my information about Wilson's wife. Shortly thereafter, he secretly revealed his role to federal authorities investigating the leak of Mrs. Wilson's name but did not inform White House officials, apparently including the president.

After Patrick Fitzgerald, the U.S. attorney in Chicago named as a special prosecutor in the case, indicated to me he knew Armitage was my source, I cooperated fully with him. At the special prosecutor's request and on my lawyers' advice, I kept silent about this -- a silence that subjected me to much abuse. I was urged by several friends, including some journalists, to give up my source's name. But I felt bound by the journalist's code to protect his identity.

Reprinted from The Prince of Darkness: 50 Years Reporting in Washington, Copyright © 2007 by Robert D. Novak. Published by Crown Forum, a division of Random House Inc., available in bookstores Tuesday.

I’ve listened to the released clip of the Armitage-Woodward audio taped interview probably a couple hundred times now and there are a few things that stay with me that denote further importance, IMO.

My interpretations:
First of all one of Armitage’s main purposes(maybe THE main purpose) of having the interview at all was to tell Woodward that Wilson’s wife worked for CIA. (how ‘bout that?) This seems to be the case with Novak also.

Second, Armitage had direct talks with Joe Wilson about the Niger trip in the not too distant past(prior to the interview).

Third, Armitage was shilling for the Agency and specifically George Tenet. Just seems odd that the number two man at State sounded more like he was really the number two man at CIA.

Also, the overlying tone of the interview was to discredit the Administration and not Joe Wilson.

So we now know the President never gave any orders to out Ms. Plame yet it seems pretty obvious that Armitage was on a campaign to do just that.

The questions then become:
Why?
Who ordered him to do so?
or maybe What consensus was formed to proceed to do so? Between whom? And what was the overall objective?

All considered, it’s seems ‘not a partisan gunslinger’ was not a very good description at all when talking of Richard Armitage, IMO.

>>>You sir are as arrogant as The Old Hoosier.<<<

You seem to be the expert on arrogance. How arrogant IS an old Hoosier?

>>>Serving facts up to the likes of you would be to waste good pearls on swine because obviously you wouldn’t know a Marxist from a vegetarian.<<<

That is pretty mouthy from someone with weak facts.

>>>The problem with George Bush is that he is not primarily a conservative, he is primarily a Christian<<<

And not a very good one. Jesus instructed the rich man to sell all he owned and give the money to the poor. Bush, on the other hand robs from Peter to pay Paul (prescription drugs; massive foreign aid, etc.). In other words, Bush is a socialist (Marxist).

>>>Bush is first a committed Christian, then a devoted family man who values personal loyalty to an extreme, and third, a conservative when that philosophy does not conflict with the first two.<<<

Let me rephrase that: Bush is first a committed Socialist, then a devoted family man who values personal loyalty to an extreme (that is, loyalty of others to him, but not him to others), and third he throws a bone at the conservatives every now and then.

>>>But they are not conservative. <<<

Well we agree on two things (the SCV would be the other).

Just kidding. I agree with most of what you said.

>>>First, if he were a total leftist, why did he heroically push a supply side solution to the economic troubles following the Clinton Bubble.<<<

I admitted in my post that he threw us a bone every now and then. He cut taxes, which was good, then he implemented a massive transfer of wealth (actually, a massive transfer of debt since we are clean out of wealth).

>>>Freneau claims that Bush claimed to be a conservative, but after in office supported a lot of what Fr. called Marxist legislation.<<<

Robbing from Peter to pay Paul is not Christian. It is Socialism (Marxism).

I admit there is a certain amount of Constitutionally-authorized Socialism, for example National Defense; Post Offices and Postal Roads; national standards, patents, and copyrites; regulation of commerce; and maybe a few other things.

If Bush wanted a massive Socialist entitlement, that will burden our posterity with massive debt for generations, then why not request an authorizing amendment to the Constitution? Why not? Because he would never get it ratified, even if he got Congress to authorize it. So, instead, he usurps the Constutition and implements a massive redistrubution of wealth, which is Marxism. That is no logical way to explain that one away.

Note that I wrote “for generations”. I hope our nation survives a few more generations, but with Bush’s open borders policy, that might be stretching it a bit

>>>Actually, Bush had long ago come out for federal education testing mandates, modeling them after his work in Texas education.<<<

The state level is where it belongs, and also the only place it is authorized by the Constitution. If Bush wanted federal control over education, why not request an Amendment to the Constitution to authorize it? Why not? Because he would never get it ratified, even if he got Congress to authorize it. So, instead, he usurps the Constutition and implements central government control over education, and central government control over education is Marxism, period. That is no logical way to explain that one away.

>>>e one exception I see is McCain-Feingold . . . But Bush was not going to oppose McCain.<<<

Bush made his bed with the devil, and now he has to lie in it. Of course, he will always have a few apologists trying to put a positive spin on it.

>>>If HE’S a Marxist or Leftist so is almost - not all - but almost all of the rest of America and officeholders who supported the legislation that Fr. so railed against.<<<

Now you are getting the picture. Have you not wondered why the elite are so much for free trade, open borders, and nation-destroying legislation like the Amnesty Bill? Because that is what Marx called for.

>>>And why rail against LBJ for allegedly starting it all?<<<

Because his so-called Great Society sent this nation rolling down a hill towards hell. When Bush made the claim that illegals were doing jobs Americans would not do, he was partly right. Many Americans don’t need to work because they get free money and free health care, compliments of LBJ. So they sit around on their lazy asses all day, trash their homes and neighborhoods, and pass on their laziness to their posterity. If they had to work, or starve, they would. They certainly did before LBJ.

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