Posted on 09/28/2003 3:39:47 PM PDT by Brian S
Sun September 28, 2003 02:30 PM ET By Lori Santos
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. national security adviser Condoleezza Rice said on Sunday she knew "nothing of any" White House effort to leak the identity of an undercover CIA officer in July, a charge now under review at the Justice Department.
On "Fox News Sunday," the top aide to President Bush said, "This has been referred to the Justice Department. I think that is the appropriate place for it."
Rice said the White House would cooperate should the department headed by Attorney General John Ashcroft decide to proceed with a criminal investigation of the matter, which centers on the alleged public disclosure of the wife of former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson.
Wilson was sent by the CIA to Niger in 2002 to investigate a report that Iraq was trying to obtain uranium from Niger, but returned to say it was highly doubtful.
The Washington Post reported on Sunday that two top White House officials called at least six Washington journalists and revealed the identity and occupation of Wilson's wife -- apparently in retaliation for his conclusion, which undermined the position of the White House.
The Post said CIA Director George Tenet sent a memo to the Justice Department raising questions about the alleged leak, which could mean prison time and a fine.
Rice said, "I know nothing of any such White House effort to reveal any of this. And it certainly would not be the way the president would expect his White House to operate."
Bush made the Iraq uranium claim in his January State of the Union speech. Critics have said the Iraq-Niger assertion, which later was found to be based partly on forged documents, showed the administration had tried to hype intelligence to make a case for going to war.
URANIUM REPORT
Wilson said in August there had been several attempts to discredit him but mainly through an article by Chicago columnist Robert Novak that said two senior administration officials said Wilson's wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate the uranium report.
Novak's column named Wilson's wife and said she was a CIA operative dealing with weapons of mass destruction.
Asked if the White House was not concerned that top officials might have done such a thing, Rice said she did not recall any discussions of the matter.
"I don't remember any such conversations," Rice said.
"It is well known that the president of the United States does not expect the White House to get involved in such things, anything of this kind," she added.
On NBC's "Meet the Press," U.S. Rep. Richard Gephardt of Missouri, a Democratic presidential candidate, said Bush personally should "investigate what happened ... And people ought to be punished for doing this."
Rice also said top officials "didn't remember" in the case of the president's State of the Union address in January, in which he said, "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."
Though the offending phrase had been deleted from an October presidential speech in Cincinnati, Rice said, "Three-plus months later, people didn't remember that George Tenet had asked that it be taken out. ... I didn't remember. (Deputy national security adviser) Stephen Hadley didn't remember."
"We are trying to put now in place methods so you don't have to be dependent on people's memories for something like that," she added.
If so, then you can bet that Daddy knows exactly who they are. And they should watch their backs.
Wouldn't Bush & co. have undermined their claim about the uranium by exposing the wife?
Consider: who's side would that knowledge tend to support, the administration, or the Wilson, who would be regarded as someone "in the know."
Also, Novak is a hack.
I think with this much effort on their part that the "vicims" involved might need to be careful of impending Arkencide. The dims (and their allies, including some posting these articles here) are setting them up for the same fate as the English "arms expert" who's suicide sparked such a damaging row surrounding Tony Blair. This won't get legs until someone dies.
Now that you mention it this is straight from the "Destroy Ken Star" playbook: leak something and blame the other guy.
How would that work? Five minutes of fame and a book contract with Simon and Schuster; not much punishment there, it would seem.
Clinton and democraps have well placed backstabbers and saboteurs throughout the federal bureaucracies. The liberal media is all over this singing glory hallelujah.
Just like their mentor they are without honor or shame. If it results in the major collapase of U.S. foreign policy, or the Middle East going Nuclear it's all OK if it serves the political purpose.
Wilson is a side-show to the main question yet unanswered, who was in the chain that forged and forwarded the documents? Why is this still covered up?
I'd like to know about the forged documents, too.
But why does the media continue to misreport the story? Bush did not base any statement in his SOTU Address on forged documents or Joseph Wilson tea-sipping trips. He based it on British Intelligence which was not based on the forged documents at all.
Each story I've read today on this investigation makes it appear that President Bush made a reference to Niger based on forged documents and ignored Wilson. That is not true.
As to the Wilsons. I've been posting on other threads and I think this story is being spun to draw attention away from whatever they've done and make it appear the Bush administration has done something wrong. Someone on another thread made the excellent analogy to the Florida couple taping Newt and company and the initial stories were spun that it was the Republicans' discussion that was the wrongdoing. Same here, IMO.
And btw, Novak did not report Plame was an "undercover" operative. She may have been, either in the past or was currently, but I don't think so. Again, lazy and loose use of language by these "reporters" to help direct the story the way they wish.
Just who are you referring to as an "intelligence asset"? Valerie Plame, whose husband was busy writing anti-war diatribes in "The Nation" on the eve of war? That asset?
And while I'm on the subject, why didn't Wilson bother to include in his "Nation" piece that was written about two weeks after the State of the Union Address any concerns he had about what he'd "found" (or not) in Niger and the president's speech? Hm?
Oh, and when Wilson was a guest of Bill Moyers at the end of February---again, after the SOTU speech, is Wilson agreeing that Saddam has WMD, but his disagreement is with war and Wilson was arguing for "containment" and accusing Bush of Empire building.
Now, I wonder about "intelligence assets" married to such and just where their loyalties lie.
You are correct.
Let's be precise, shall we?
Wilson is no "whistle blower", he is a liar in that he tells part of a story and omits certain facts in order to shape it against this administration. And now his accusation exposing him more as the partisan fraud that he is.
Too bad. Years ago I guess he did a good thing right before the first Gulf War, but then he got in tight with clinton and here we are.
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