NOVAK: 'NOBODY IN THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION CALLED ME TO LEAK THIS'

Drudge Report ^ | 09/29/03

[Pokey78]

In July I was interviewing a senior administration official on Ambassador 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...

[Shermy]

Mew! What a find! Could the BBC's cia official and former diplomat be a husband wife team? Who fixed them up with the BBC???

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/3056626.stm

[piasa]

Clinton didn't want to hire Tenet- Clinton just had to hire him since Clinton's preferred choice, Deutch, blew up in his face.

[cars for sale]

and watching Chrissy Matthews scream in Wilson's favor even now is so flippin sicking it is beyond the duty
to watch....

[NYC Republican]

From Drudge:

Wilson, Joseph C 5/23/2003 $1,000.00 Washington, DC 20007 JC Wilson International Ventures/Bu -[Contribution] JOHN KERRY FOR PRESIDENT INC.

[Grampa Dave]

Do you mean Weasel Ashley?

[MasonGal]

I've been wondering just how Chrissy would handle this tonight. I, for one, NEVER have the stomach to watch him - but I knew for SURE I wouldn't be able to tonight.

[cars for sale]

has Fineman and O'Donnell on now spinning like this....oh yeah,well Rove liked it,even if he wasn't one bit involved....

[cwb]

I think I'm beginning to see were this story is going. Tonite on Hardball, Leon Charney (former Carter Adm) said he not only wants an independent council to investigate the outing of Wilson's wife, but the entire reasons for the war in Iraq. They are using this story to revive the 16-words and how Bush supposedly lied to the American people. As Matthews rightly pointed out, once you get an IC looking into one issue (Wilson) their powers greatly expand to other areas (Iraq). This is were the Dems are trying to take us.

[alnick]

Wilson says we should stay in Iraq despite the obstacles that the White House has put in the way.

Despite obstacles THE WHITE HOUSE put in the way?!?!!

What audacity!

[Grampa Dave]

Wouldn't that be so sweet if the CIA official that the BBC keeps referring to in this story was none other than the infamous wife of the infamous Wilson.

[cars for sale]

Fineman still using the LIE that the CIA sent Wilson....that was A LIE TOO...the CIA saya so !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[MasonGal]

Thanks for the info - and for having the nerve to even WATCH that show!! :))

[MasonGal]

Well - one thing is for sure - nobody watches that show anyway - his ratings are so low...

[Dog]

Shermy when did Novack write the original article?

[Pan_Yans Wife]

Interesting. An IC to examine his entire presidency. Will they start clamoring for impeachment?

[Reagan Man]

Joe Wilson is a Democrat operative and a POS. The Demlibs want the Bush administration discredited under any circumstance. The media will assist their leftwing brethren in any effort the liberal estrablishment may create. They think they smell blood. Problem is, it might be their own blood. Bob Novak has spoken and theres really nothing there. At worst, this was a mid to low level WH worker and responsibility didn't rise to any upper level Bush official.

Sorry folks, it wasn't Karl Rove.

[piasa]

Blast from the past :

Senator Who Helped Tie CIA’s Hands Now Castigating Agency for Intelligence Failures
NewsMax.com ^ | 9/30/01 | Carl Limbacher and NewsMax.com Staff

New Jersey Senator Robert Torricelli, who is calling for an investigation of the CIA to pinpoint the responsibility for the agency's failure to predict the Sept. 11 disasters, was one of those directly responsible for that failure.

In an arrogant display of unmitigated gall, Torricelli told CNN that he wants to set up a special committee to learn just what went wrong with the CIA, when it was his own actions that helped emasculate the agency and thus guarantee future intelligence failures.

"It's not clear to me that unless we take a look at what went wrong and how our systems failed, we're going to succeed in preventing any future attacks," he told CNN. What went wrong was the gutting of the CIA's ability to recruit reliable undercover agents in the field, and that inability was partly the result of Torricelli's meddling in the CIA's affairs.

As Newsmax.com's Washington correspondent Wes Vernon has reported, Torricelli led congressional efforts in the mid-1990s that handcuffed the CIA's abilities to recruit spies - a key policy that helped allow the attacks of Sept. 11 to take place with no intelligence warnings.

Vernon wrote that current and former CIA operatives say Clinton administration policies which forbade the CIA from recruiting known terrorists and other criminals left the U.S. government bereft of all intelligence about such terrorist groups.

In 1995 Robert Torricelli, D-N.J., then a member of the House of Representatives, made secrets public at the behest of left-wing activist Bianca Jagger, his girlfriend at the time, according to Newark Star-Ledger columnist Paul Mulshine in the January/February issue of Heterodoxy.

Mulshine's article showed how Torricelli's action in giving away the name of a CIA source in Guatemala was based not on fact, but on a conspiracy theory of "the loony left," as Heterodoxy later characterized it.

In its 1997 report, the House Intelligence Committee had this to say about the antics of Torricelli, by then a senator:

"None of the allegations raised by Rep. Torricelli in the March 22, 1995 letter to the president [Clinton] or subsequent public statements concerning the involvement of the CIA in the DeVine and Bamaca deaths in Guatemala have proved true."

Still, Torricelli's efforts paid off with the Clinton administration, which moved to ban the use of spies or the recruitment of spies that had any involvement with criminals or terrorists.

It was about the time of this well-publicized incident that the CIA's slide into a deteriorated human intelligence capability accelerated.

Torricelli effectively blinded the CIA.

If the senator, now under investigation for alleged bribery schemes, wants to know what caused the intelligence lapses he has only to look in the mirror to find one of the prime culprits.

---

Which is likely the reason we had no humint in Niger of our own, and had to rely on intel from other countries.

[Shermy]

Wouldn't that be so sweet if the CIA official that the BBC keeps referring to in this story was none other than the infamous wife of the infamous Wilson.

Well, that's the possibility Mewzilla caught on his BBC link. THAT should be investigated. :)

How does she, (if it was her) have links to the BBC? Tracing, tracing...

[Dog]

Wilson is going to regret he ever brought this up....

[Dog]

Look at post 404......everyone.