Posted on 09/30/2003 9:24:15 PM PDT by kattracks
WASHINGTON -- I had thought I never again would write about retired diplomat Joseph Wilson's CIA-employee wife, but feel constrained to do so now that repercussions of my July 14 column have reached the front pages of major newspapers and led off network news broadcasts. My role and the role of the Bush White House have been distorted and need explanation.
The leak now under Justice Department investigation is described by former Ambassador Wilson and critics of President Bush's Iraq policy as a reprehensible effort to silence them. To protect my own integrity and credibility, I would like to stress three points. First, I did not receive a planned leak. Second, the CIA never warned me that the disclosure of Wilson's wife working at the agency would endanger her or anybody else. Third, it was not much of a secret.
The current Justice investigation stems from a routine, mandated probe of all CIA leaks, but follows weeks of agitation. Wilson, after telling me in July that he would say nothing about his wife, has made investigation of the leak his life's work -- aided by the relentless Sen. Charles Schumer of New York. These efforts cannot be separated from the massive political assault on President Bush.
This story began July 6 when Wilson went public and identified himself as the retired diplomat who had reported negatively to the CIA in 2002 on alleged Iraq efforts to buy uranium yellowcake from Niger. I was curious why a high-ranking official in President Bill Clinton's National Security Council (NSC) was given this assignment. Wilson had become a vocal opponent of President Bush's policies in Iraq after contributing to Al Gore in the last election cycle and John Kerry in this one.
During a long conversation with a senior administration official, I asked why Wilson was assigned the mission to Niger. He said Wilson had been sent by the CIA's counterproliferation section at the suggestion of one of its employees, his wife. It was an offhand revelation from this official, who is no partisan gunslinger. When I called another official for confirmation, he said: "Oh, you know about it." The published report that somebody in the White House failed to plant this story with six reporters and finally found me as a willing pawn is simply untrue.
At the CIA, the official designated to talk to me denied that Wilson's wife had inspired his selection but said she was delegated to request his help. He asked me not to use her name, saying she probably never again will be given a foreign assignment but that exposure of her name might cause "difficulties" if she travels abroad. He never suggested to me that Wilson's wife or anybody else would be endangered. If he had, I would not have used her name. I used it in the sixth paragraph of my column because it looked like the missing explanation of an otherwise incredible choice by the CIA for its mission.
How big a secret was it? It was well known around Washington that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA. Republican activist Clifford May wrote Monday, in National Review Online, that he had been told of her identity by a non-government source before my column appeared and that it was common knowledge. Her name, Valerie Plame, was no secret either, appearing in Wilson's "Who's Who in America" entry.
A big question is her duties at Langley. I regret that I referred to her in my column as an "operative," a word I have lavished on hack politicians for more than 40 years. While the CIA refuses to publicly define her status, the official contact says she is "covered" -- working under the guise of another agency. However, an unofficial source at the Agency says she has been an analyst, not in covert operations.
The Justice Department investigation was not requested by CIA Director George Tenet. Any leak of classified information is routinely passed by the Agency to Justice, averaging one a week. This investigative request was made in July shortly after the column was published. Reported only last weekend, the request ignited anti-Bush furor.
©2003 Creators Syndicate, Inc.
Even funnier since Novak alerted the world that Wilson's wife is named as married to Wilson in his "Who's Who" listing. AND in his official biography for The Middle Eastern Institute, here:
http://www.mideasti.org/html/bio-wilson.html
Wilson & the Democrats making out like Novak and The White House blew his wife's cover has become laughable.
To point out the obvious, Novak has a vested self-interest in spinning this story to his benefit.
First, Novak has moved from being a reporter (actually a columnist) writing about a story to being the story. One of the cardinal rules of journalism is that the reporter is not the story--the story is the story and the reporter is the background, and that's where Novak has crossed the line.
Second, Novak knows that he is going to be questioned by the FBI and possibly hauled before a grand jury. He has to be very careful about what he says because, although he's said that he will not reveal his confidential sources, his public words will be used in the investigation and he will be questioned about them. He has to carefully choose his words, because whatever he says will be scrutinized.
Third, Novak said he will protect his sources. This means that he cannot give any clues to their identities in what he says publically, or privately.
Forth, Novak wants to continue working as a journalist. Although he has been critical of the administration's policies in Iraq and Israel, he still wants to keep working, and his sources are within the current administration. He's walking tightrope. He has to diminish his role in this, because if he doesn't, his sources will dry up. OTOH, his ego says he has to play up the story and his role in it to get more publicity for his column, and for Novak, getting his column published means income.
When I come up with more, I'll let you know.
Americans need to know that the corruption Clinton inflicted on all agencies of government continue to this day. His tokens, FOBs, incompetents, and spouses of, are all over the government.
I'm wondering if Susie Hubbell still has her 80,000 gubbment job in Washington. I forget which agency got her services courtesy of Clinton intervention.
You have mail.
Of course, if it's your ox being gored....
Novak differentiates between CIA and 'senior administration officials', Wilson's OpEd says he was debriefed at State, though the CIA paid, and TIME magazine, puts it this way
And some government officials have noted to TIME in interviews, (as well as to syndicated columnist Robert Novak) that Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, is a CIA official who monitors the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. These officials have suggested that she was involved in her husband's being dispatched Niger to investigate reports that Saddam Hussein's government had sought to purchase large quantities of uranium ore, sometimes referred to as yellow cake, which is used to build nuclear devices.
Government officals, Not Administration....= State.
(Keep in mind that Novak likes to play himself off as an Administration insider...)
The "former diplomat" seems to have demonstrated himself to be a "partisan hack". Therefore, a notably unreliable source, wouldn't you say? Incredible, in every sense of the word. That is, without credibility...
Both things have to be approved by Ashcroft himself, and absent a definitive crime, that ain't gonna happen.
See
(k) In requesting the Attorney General's authorization to question, to arrest or to seek an arrest warrant for, or to present information to a grand jury seeking a bill of indictment or to file an information against, a member of the news media for an offense which he is suspected of having committed during the course of, or arising out of, the coverage or investigation of a news story, or committed while engaged in the performance of his official duties as a member of the news media, a member of the Department shall state all facts necessary for determination of the issues by the Attorney General.
IN fact the argument is made routinely these days that the Media generally employs the former disguised as the latter.....
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