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.
If the admin has balls, it would investigate who was the "CIA official" who leaked to the BBC.
Let 'em try. They couldn't even make the original yellowcake story last more than ten days. And with the California elections coming up in a week, this thing only has two ways to go: Into obscurity while the Justice Department completes their "investigation", or blowing up in the RATS' faces as some media moron finally figures out that the Dems are claiming 2+2=5 here.
Absolutely. Wash Post should be Jayson Blair'ed on it. It's a lie....I assume.
The only thing standing between hillary and the White House is the public's confidence in Bush's handling of national security. That's based on the belief that Bush is honest. The media is relentless in its slander of Bush, and Bush just shrugs and smiles.
Bush41 lost the presidency because he didn't fight for it. Let's hope Bush43 decides someday to fight back.
Call a plumber!
Ding ding ding ding ding! We have a winner.
I agree, though I'm not yet totally convinced there may not be a separate attempt by some other administration official, about fifteen levels lower than White House level and probably a Clintonista, trying to separately shop the story around after the original Novak leak in order to frame the Bush White House.
Oh, yeah. I forgot about that. Good point.
I loved Novak digging to find out her name had also been listed beside Wilsons in some muckety muck Who's Who list.
The scandal took off at the weekend after an unnamed senior administration official, reportedly close to Mr Tenet, told the Washington Post that two White House officials leaked Miss Plame's identity to selected journalists in an act of "revenge" on Mr Wilson.
Any ideas who the senior administration official close to Tenet might be?
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