CIA seeks probe of White House; Agency asks Justice to investigate leak of employee’s identity

MSNBC-NBC News ^ | Sept. 26, 2003

[RDangerfield]

The CIA has asked the Justice Department to investigate allegations that the White House broke federal laws by revealing the identity of one of its undercover employees in retaliation against the woman’s husband, a former ambassador who publicly criticized President Bush’s since-discredited claim that Iraq had sought weapons-grade uranium from Africa, NBC News has learned.

The former, Joseph Wilson, who was acting ambassador to Iraq before the first Gulf War, was dispatched to Niger in 2002 to investigate a British intelligence report that Iraq sought to buy uranium there. Although Wilson discredited the report, Bush cited it in his State of the Union address in January among the evidence he said justified military action in Iraq.

The administration has since had to repudiate the claim. CIA Director George Tenet said the 16-word sentence should not have been included in Bush’s Jan. 28 speech and publicly accepted responsibility for allowing it to remain in the president’s text. Wilson published an article in July alleging, however, that the White House recklessly made the charge knowing it was false.

“We spend billions of dollars on intelligence,” Wilson wrote. “But we end up putting something in the State of the Union address, something we got from another intelligence agency, something we cannot independently verify, in an area of Africa where the British have no on-the-ground presence.”

The next week, columnist Robert Novak published an article in which he revealed that Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame, was a covert CIA operative specializing in weapons of mass destruction. “Two senior administration officials told me Wilson’s wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate,” Novak wrote. The White House has denied being Novak’s source, whom he has refused to identify. But Wilson has said other reporters have told him White House officials leaked Plame’s identity.

NBC News’ Andrea Mitchell reported Friday night that the CIA has asked the Justice Department to investigate whether White House officials blew Plame’s cover in retaliation against Wilson. Revealing the identities of covert officials is a violation of two laws, the National Agents’ Identity Act and the Unauthorized Release of Classified Information Act.

[RDangerfield]

Breaking news-big. This is excerpted. Full story

This follows up a story on Slate.com from Sept. 16 that most people ignored. The White House probably noticed it. Did Rove Blow a Spook's Cover? The White House won't say. September 16

[piasa]

The CIA should investigate Wilson's wife for nepotism since she was the one who recommended her husband to go on a "fact finding mission" that was really nothing more than an effort to stage a political hit on behalf of the antiwar crowd.

[piasa]

fyi

[Cindy]

Well, this is dirt --- wonder how it will end up. We'll see.

[MEG33]

Let's see if Novak will go to jail for contempt of court rather than reveal a source.

[thoughtomator]

Boggles my mind that they claim the uranium statement was discredited.

[MEG33]

They are absolute in the "discredited" statement when we know that is still credited in GB,the source Bush used.

[RJayneJ]

I have a feeling that this is about another matter I read about a month or so back concerning a whistle blower that told about the incompetence and deliberate foot dragging that made 9/11 possible concerning a deliberate failure to translate incoming information and it went right to the top of the agency.

[TheOtherOne]

Its going to take more than that, this story isn't going away that easy.

[MEG33]

No one seems to worry abour Linda Tripp's personal data released.

[William McKinley]

Breaking big? Hardly.

Sometimes you ask for an investigation in order to deflate an opponents' charges.

I can see it now. Dean, trying to make hay, starts hammering the administration on Wilson. The administration's answer? The Justice Department investigated those allegations and found nothing unusual.

[Just mythoughts]

Oh no where is the "Independent Counsel" when we need one.

Now Mr. Wilson has been talking please don't tell me that only the "White House" knew what his wife did.

[William McKinley]

The problem with your counter-point is that the angry left, regardless of what is said about Plame Wilson, is going to vote against Bush. But there are plenty of people who would 'even think about voting for Dean' (should he be the nominee) who would be succeptible to propaganda and demagoguery. Every election, there are 'independents' and 'moderates' who are on the fence. Dean's supporters would not give an Ashcroft Justice Department clearing creedence, but the mushy middle will.

People forget that Ashcroft has pretty high approval ratings, despite the efforts to demonize him.

[windchime]

Bump

[MEG33]

Even they call it a minor flap in Slate.

[gaspar]

Wilson is an officious, nasty piece of goods. His appearances on television have demonstrated a mean streak a mile wide and ten miles deep. Like the majority of retired Foreign Service officers he believes he walks on water; he accepts no criticism, and answers only the questions he wants to. The fact that the administration used an ultra-liberal Democrat to do this investigation demonstrates that someone (perhaps someone at the CIA itself) did not do his/her homework.

[WL-law]

The fact that the administration used an ultra-liberal Democrat to do this investigation demonstrates that someone (perhaps someone at the CIA itself) did not do his/her homework.

Well, you're missing the point of the story. Wilson was not appointed by "the administration". He was sent off by a quasi-rogue operation, i.e., not cleared all the way through, and the decision to send Wilson was based on the recommendation of Wilson's WIFE, and before the decision was vetted the trip by Wilson was already underway.

After all, by Wilson's own statements, it was little more than a tourist visit with a few meetings over tea -- it wasn't an 'operation' in any real sense.

Wilson inflated the significance of his trip in his own mind, and the press took the bait.