The CIA leak (Latest From Novak)

townhall.com ^ | 10/01/03 | Robert Novak

[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.

Contact Robert Novak | Read Novak's biography

[cyncooper]

If the admin has balls, it would investigate who was the "CIA official" who leaked to the BBC.

Especially since the "CIA official" was pro-Wilson/anti-Bush. Coincidence? And speaking to the BBC, no less, who were applying the bellows to their "Sexed-up Dossier" story at the time. Why, it all dovetailed together----those liars Blair and Bush against the noble public servants like Wilson (retch).

[Shermy]

I think it's Tenet and he is gone.

I think you're on to something there.

I looked at the original article, it began with this paragraph:

The CIA's decision to send retired diplomat Joseph C. Wilson to Africa in February 2002 to investigate possible Iraqi purchases of uranium was made routinely at a low level without Director George Tenet's knowledge. Remarkably, this produced a political firestorm that has not yet subsided.

How did Novak know this? Maybe he during a long conversation with Tenet he asked "Didn't you know about this" Tenet said "no, routine procedure."

Tenet is a big shot, but so is Novak so they could have met.

[Leroy S. Mort]

Destro, Mr. Wilson was not a CIA employee. His wife was.

[nutmeg]

Please FReepmail me if you want on or off my infrequent ‘miscellaneous’ ping list.

[Destro]

So he went to Niger as a freelancer?

[Mia T]

Precisely!

clinton fruitcake cooks Niger yellowcake_bump

1. Why did Bush allow it?

    

2. And why hasn't Bush purged the executive and judicial of the clintonoid-holdover infestation anyway?

 

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[Leroy S. Mort]

You got it.

[Cicero]

Bush did a good job appointing competent top-level people he could trust. But he has done a LOUSY job of shoveling out clinton's political appointees in the middle ranks.

The CIA, the FBI, the State Department, and most other parts of the government are chock full of clintonoids, busily undermining Bush's administration.

A president can't rule alone. He needs people he can trust to carry out his program. Tenet should go. Mueller should go. And hundreds of less well known people should go. The Democrats NEVER make this kind of mistake. They always clean house.

[okie01]

"Also, this article might confirm the idea that the "leak" was from gabbiness..."

That clearly appears to be the case.

I wonder what would've happened if Novak had written only that "Wilson was sent to Niger on his wife's recommendation". I.e., without mentioning her distinctive name, Valerie Plame.

Because, to my mind, Novak was certainly right to report the nepotistic aspect of Wilson's appointment -- a Clintonite hack is appointed to investigate a Bush administration claim by a CIA committee headed by his wife!?

[ex-Texan]

*BUMP*!

[PhiKapMom]

This made our Oklahoma City Fox News after the baseball game. The reporter had a former CIA Supervisor/agent on who was retired. He said Wilson's wife was an analyst and this was much ado about nothing. The reporter came back on and said twice that she was an analyst not an undercover operative.

Her final comment was that there was a much bigger questioned that needed investigated and it was:

Why did Wilson get the assignment in the first place?

[Optimist]

Fridays are often chosen for below-the-radar news "leaks" since it is too late for the Friday editions, and the weekend news teams are generally less substantial. Often by the time Monday rolls around, it is three days old and is often buried below the fold. (Altough it helps to have a sympathetic media.)The Clinton administration did this all the time when they wanted to get ahead of a story.

[FairOpinion]

http://www.newsmax.com/archives/ic/2003/9/30/121754.shtml

Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com Staff
For the story behind the story...


Tuesday Sept. 30, 2003; 12:03 p.m. EDT

Wilson: Wife Not Endangered by Leak

Former U.S. ambassador to Iraq, Joseph Wilson admitted Monday that his wife was not endangered by having her name divulged in a July 14 report by columnist Robert Novak.

Asked if the leak "in any way put your wife in danger," Wilson told ABC's "Good Morning America" host Charlie Gibson, "Well, not that I'm aware of."

The Bush administration critic said that while there was always the potential that a CIA employee could become a target, he reiterated, "I don't have any specific threats to talk about at all."

Despite Wilson's acknowledgment that his wife was never in danger, reporters and commentators have continued to report breathlessly that her life was in jeopardy because of the leak to Novak.

The CIA refuses to say whether Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, was working undercover. But in reports published before the Agency called for a special investigation on Friday, Plame was identified as an energy analyst who did consulting work for the CIA.

National Review Online columnist Cliff May said Monday that Plame's identity was no big secret - and was instead known to many in Washington, D.C.

"That [Wilson's wife worked for the CIA] wasn't news to me," May revealed. "I had been told that — but not by anyone working in the White House. Rather, I learned it from someone who formerly worked in the government and he mentioned it in an offhand manner, leading me to infer it was something that insiders were well aware of."

[Mitchell]

Ping.

[Jeff Chandler]

Why did Wilson get the assignment in the first place?

If the party affiliations were reversed, that would be the headline, and Novak would be given a hero's welcome on Good Morning America.

[swilhelm73]

I think unlike you or I, Republican leaders generally think that compromise is still a possibilty. Bush promised a new tone and worked his a$$ off to try and set one, only to have it thrown back in his face.

At the same time, like Reagan before him, Bush seems to believe that fighting a drawn out partisan battle back home will jeopardize the war abroad.

The ironic thing, of course, is the only way we could realistically lose the war on terror is if the Democrats succeed in demonizing it and the president.

[July 4th]

Her name, Valerie Plame, was no secret either, appearing in Wilson's "Who's Who in America" entry.

So the name was out there. Bottom line.

[Jeff Chandler]

The ironic thing, of course, is the only way we could realistically lose the war on terror is if the Democrats succeed in demonizing it and the president.

They're getting uncomfortably close to doing just that. At what point will Bush fight for his job?

[okie01]

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.

"If true, why was it "reported" Friday night, to get a full weekend's settling in?"

On another thread, I noted there had been a ten week gap between the "outing" and the "outrage". Given that we now know the investigation request was actually made in July, it all becomes even more suspicious, does it not?

[swilhelm73]

That would fit Novak's latest article in which he says his source was high ranking and apolitical...Tenet has served Clinton and Bush...