Joe Wilson Vowed Vengeance Against Karl Rove

NewsMax.com ^ | 9/29/03 | Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com Staff

[kattracks]

The man at the center of the storm over whether the White House leaked the name of his CIA-analyst-wife to the press swore vengeance against the Bush administration just one month ago, telling a Seattle audience that he'd wanted to "to see whether or not we can get Karl Rove frog-marched out of the White House in handcuffs."

With the Washington Post doing his dirty work on Sunday, former ambassador to Iraq, Joseph Wilson seems to be gathering a few allies in his mission, with Democrats like Sen. Charles Schumer proclaiming yesterday, "Whoever [leaked Wilson's wife's name] should go to jail."

Wilson is the man tapped by the CIA, reportedly at his wife's recommendation, to travel to Niger to investigate reports that Saddam Hussein had sought to purchase yellow cake uranium, one of the country's chief exports.

Because Wilson came up empty in terms of finding any evidence of a uranium transaction, the press has taken it as an article of faith that Bush's reference in last year's State of the Union message to British intelligence on the Iraq-Niger uranium deal was a deliberate attempt to mislead.

The CIA's request late Friday that the Justice Department investigate whether the White House leaked Mrs. Wilson's name to columnist Robert Novak has set off media smoke alarms.

But what hasn't gotten much attention is Novak's original report, which made it clear that the White House wasn't the only one who spilled the beans about Wilson's wife.

Here's what Novak wrote on July 14:

"Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction. Two senior administration officials told me Wilson's wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate the Italian report. The CIA says its counter-proliferation officials selected Wilson and asked his wife to contact him."

So it wasn't just the White House who blew Mrs. Wilson's cover. In fact, the cavalier manner which the CIA seems to have confirmed her role in the imbroglio suggests there was nothing particularly secret about her identity in the first place.

Despite complaints from Democrats like Schumer that the leak compromised both national security and Mrs. Wilson's safety, the agency told the Post for its Sunday report, "No further harm would come from repeating Plame?s name."

In fact, it's an open question as to whether Mrs. Wilson's identity was supposed to be a secret in the first place, with the Post noting far down in its report that the "CIA has declined to confirm whether she was undercover."

If Mrs. Wilson wasn't undercover, then this is a non-story ginned up by her husband, a unabashed Bush-hater who wrote in the notoriously left-wing Nation magazine earlier this year that under Bush, "America has entered one of it periods of historical madness."

White House critics want to paint a picture of Mrs. Wilson as a super secret spy working abroad whose life was endangered because of a White House vendetta, while in reality she was apparently safe and sound working stateside as a CIA weapons analyst at the time of the Novak report.

Read more on this subject in related Hot Topics:

Bush Administration
Media Bias

[Uncle Miltie]

"The CIA's request late Friday that the Justice Department investigate whether the White House leaked Mrs. Wilson's name to columnist Robert Novak has set off media smoke alarms."

The party affiliation of CIA Director Tennet is?

[Sunshine Sister]

Boy that sure blew up in a hurry didn't it? Thanks for the post!

[piasa]

As if that's relevent...

[princess leah]

Yes, Tenet, a CLINTON appointee heldover into Bush's administration - sounds like a mole to me!

[piasa]

If you were talking about Deutch you might have a point. Problem is, Tenet has been in support of regime change in Iraq since long before Bush came along. It was Tenet who began cleaning up the mess the politically correct John Deutch and Senator toriccelli made of the CIA. And it is Tenet who the left wing tried early on to discredit by misquoting him almost as much as they misquoted Wolfowitz. He's not loved by the left.

[ought-six]

That's true: the left has no use for Tenet.

[piasa]

NOVAK: 'NOBODY IN THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION CALLED ME TO LEAK THIS'
Drudge Report ^ | 09/29/03

In July I was interviewing a senior administration official on amb. Wilson's report when he told the trip was inspired by his wife, a CIA employee working on weapons of mass destruction. Another senior official told me the same thing. As a professional journalist with 46 years experience in Washington I do not reveal confidential sources. When I called the CIA in July to confirm Mrs. Wilson's involvement in the mission for her husband -- he is a former Clitnon administration official -- they asked me not to use her name, but never indicated it would endanger her or anybody else. According to a confidential source at the CIA, Mrs. Wilson was an analyst, not a spy, not a covert operator, and not in charge of an undercover operatives...

[Batrachian]

The problem for the Democrats is that they have no power. They can't form commitees, they can't appoint an independent prosecutor, and they can't start an impeachment trial. They have nothing except for their news media lackeys and a few whiners like Chuck Schumer. You notice that it wasn't Hillary out there demanding an investigation. That's because she knows this is going nowhere and doesn't want to look bad when this "scandal" fizzles.

I think it's time for the President to start cleaning house on these Clintonista leftovers. This fellow Wilson probably was the leak anyway.

[dead]

What the hell does "frogmarched" mean?

[mewzilla]

To carry face downwards between four people each holding a limb :)

Heh heh heh....

[longtermmemmory]

should that "former ambasador" read "former saddam enabler"?

[dead]

Thanks. I never heard that one before.

[Bedford Forrest]

I think it's time for the President to start cleaning house on these Clintonista leftovers. This fellow Wilson probably was the leak anyway.

From the various stories about Dubya conducting certain firings during HW's administration, we were entitled to believe that he would not have a problem purging the more nefarious holdovers. If so, then why has he failed to fumigate the nests of Klintonistas which infest all of the bureaucracies, including the important ones, i.e., the intelligence and enforcement agencies? And concerning the quisling Wilson, certainly his curious performance in Niger is a sufficient ground for a "review" of his wife's security clearance, given the highly sensitive intelligence material she may be privy to in the course of her work.

[AMNZ]

Wilson needs to be hung by the short ones.

[longtermmemmory]

The US diplomat in the US embassy in Athens Greece who resigned over the war was a Carter holdover.

The state department has many political hacks.

[mewzilla]

I think it's Britspeak :) I found the definition in my British English dictionary at any rate.

[mewzilla]

Or frog-marched.

[Vinomori]

Has anyone seen the report that Wilson had already identified his wife as CIA in his own BIO?

[Just mythoughts]

So it was a set up from the beginning. The CIA is under President Bush and if someone at the CIA gave her up then it is President Bush's fault.

That is what will be investigated why did President Bush's CIA leaked her name.

Talk about slick looks like Novak was being used from the beginning to give credibility.