Posted on 09/29/2003 1:49:52 PM PDT by Pokey78
Edited on 09/29/2003 2:01:54 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
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...
And he was approached through several channels, which means a more sophisticated group than Pakistani dissidents, who might be able to contact an embassy, but would not have the ability to go through multiple channels.
And Bush didn't comment on it at all. He just let it hang there. I thought that was very interesting.
Why doesn't Rush just tutor the boy?
But Sean, good-hearted though he is, reminds me of a high school student who didn't read the book but is trying to BS his way through the oral report. I have heard enough of those to know what he's doing.
Fox would do well to have both a fact checker and a research person who is competent give him some asistance. Alan doesn't need any help, since all he ever does is read the Rat talking points.
Indeed, I'll give odds...
Here's hoping their miserable careers should come to a sudden end.
I wholeheartedly agree with that. It's just too easy for a reporter to put out a juicy story and claim journalistic ethics (I would never reveal my sources). Who's to ever know if the source even exists?
Agreed. Novak would be put to pasture if CNN didn't value his bumbling inarticulation on the issues. He says his job is not to shill for Republicans while his debate-opponents are delivering their Dem talking points. I like diverse points of view, but in his column 90% of his targets are Republicans.
Meanwhile forgive me if this has been posted above. It comes from the Best of the Web today and offers some interesting insights.
The Plame Facts
"At CIA Director George J. Tenet's request, the Justice Department is looking into an allegation that administration officials leaked the name of an undercover CIA officer to a journalist," yesterday's Washington Post reported. "The operative's identity was published in July after her husband, former U.S. ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, publicly challenged President Bush's claim that Iraq had tried to buy 'yellowcake' uranium ore from Africa for possible use in nuclear weapons."
We've been keeping an eye on this story since July, when it first surfaced in the left-wing press. But we haven't commented on it, because we haven't been sure what to make of it. We're still not sure what to make of it, since we've heard only part of one side of the story; the administration has not made any substantive comments, and what we've heard from its accusers has been far from complete. But now that the story is getting attention outside the fever swamps, we thought we'd review what is and isn't known so far.
At issue is the following passage in syndicated columnist Robert Novak's July 14 column:
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. "I will not answer any question about my wife," Wilson told me.
Two days later, The Nation's David Corn published a column that laid out the allegation at the heart of the Post story:
The sources for Novak's assertion about Wilson's wife appear to be "two senior administration officials." If so, a pair of top Bush officials told a reporter the name of a CIA operative who apparently has worked under what's known as "nonofficial cover" and who has had the dicey and difficult mission of tracking parties trying to buy or sell weapons of mass destruction or WMD material. . . .
This is not only a possible breach of national security; it is a potential violation of law. Under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982, it is a crime for anyone who has access to classified information to disclose intentionally information identifying a covert agent.
A couple of caveats are in order here. First, it remains unconfirmed that Plame was in fact working covertly for the CIA. Novak described her as a CIA "operative," but not an undercover operative. Wilson and the CIA both imply that she was an undercover operative, but they employ various circumlocutions to avoid actually saying so. Thus Corn:
Without acknowledging whether she is a deep-cover CIA employee, Wilson says, "Naming her this way would have compromised every operation, every relationship, every network with which she had been associated in her entire career.
The Post, likewise, says "the CIA has declined to confirm whether she was undercover."
In addition, no one in a position to know has publicly fingered the alleged leakers. Wilson himself has said he would like "to see whether or not we can get Karl Rove frog-marched out of the White House in handcuffs," and various anti-Bush conspiracy theorists have latched on to the Rove theory. But this seems to be pure speculation, and possibly wishful thinking. Bush-haters, after all, would love to be rid of Rove, a great political asset to the White House.
The Post's main source narrows the field somewhat:
A senior administration official said that before Novak's column ran, two top White House officials called at least six Washington journalists and disclosed the identity and occupation of Wilson's wife. . . . The official would not name the leakers for the record and would not name the journalists. The official said there was no indication that Bush knew about the calls.
One question that arises is how the Post's source knew that the alleged leakers were "top White House offiicials"--a category that is more specific than Novak's description of "senior administration officials." It's possible is that the Post's source is someone at the CIA who had knowledge of journalists' inquires to the agency about the leaks. Perhaps one or more of the journalists used the more specific description. But the Post account suggests that the source has even more specific knowledge. "The official would not name the leakers for the record," (emphasis ours), the paper says, implying that he did name them off the record. How would he know? Did one of the reporters betray his sources?
Then there's this, also from the Post account:
When Novak told a CIA spokesman he was going to write a column about Wilson's wife, the spokesman urged him not to print her name "for security reasons," according to one CIA official. . . .
Novak said in an interview [Saturday] night that the request came at the end of a conversation about Wilson's trip to Niger and his wife's role in it. "They said it's doubtful she'll ever again have a foreign assignment," he said. "They said if her name was printed, it might be difficult if she was traveling abroad, and they said they would prefer I didn't use her name. It was a very weak request. If it was put on a stronger basis, I would have considered it."
If the revelation of Plame's name was such a serious breach of national security, why didn't the CIA make a stronger pitch to Novak to withhold it? Indeed, as blogger Donald Luskin asks, why did the CIA answer Novak's questions at all?
Instead of saying "Valerie who? We've never heard of anyone named Valerie" or simply that "We don't answer media inquiries about CIA personnel"--the CIA itself confirmed [her identity], and in so doing the CIA itself leaked it.
Then there's the question of motive. Why would Novak's administration sources blow Plame's cover, assuming indeed that they did so? Wilson told Corn the revelation "is intended to intimidate others who might come forward." But this doesn't make sense. An ordinary reader of Novak's column had no way of grasping the purported significance of the revelation. Novak didn't make explicit that he was blowing Plame's cover; what he reported seemed to be more an accusation of nepotism. (Not a very convincing accusation, we might add, since Wilson was not paid for his sojourn to Niger, which is not exactly one of the world's leading vacation spots.) In order for the revelation to have the kind of deterrent value Wilson claims, it would have to be clear to an outsider that Novak had reported something truly damaging--and that couldn't happen without the leakers themselves being incriminated. And in any case, how many administration critics are married to CIA covert operatives?
The Post's source's theory is that "it was meant purely and simply for revenge" against Wilson. Human nature being what it is, one can't rule out such ignoble motives. But as a political matter, taking such action would have been, as the Post's source puts it, "a huge miscalculation." What could have been in it for the administration, or for the leakers? Why risk creating the Bush White House's first-ever scandal over the yellowcake kerfuffle, an issue that no one cared about outside the Beltway and the Bush-hating left? It doesn't sound like something Karl Rove would do.
The CIA affirmed that Plame's status was classified, that whoever leaked it wasn't authorized to do so, and that the news media would not have been able to guess her identity without somebody with access to classified information illegally leaking it to them, and that the act was criminal. Oh, and the 11 answer response from the CIA with fleshed out details is now classified secret (not secret enough for somebody to leak that to MSNBC though)
I know Ailes is trying to be profitable, but you are right, they need at least ONE research assistant that can help. This thread has consumed my interest and research skills for several hours, and I am not trying to get ready for a television show. Perhaps we should start a daily thread entitled: " ATTENTION: FOX Here is research for the current stories you will be covering today!
Hardly. More like a GHW Bush holdover.
Wilson was undersecretary to Ambassador April Glaspie in Iraq in 1990. (Meeting Saddam Diplomat Joe Wilson Recalls Meeting With the Iraqi Leader) This is only one of hundreds of links available through Google.
His full biography may be read here. By the way, this is the biography that gives his wife's maiden name.
I am losing faith in all the television people. They seem content to read one wire clipping over and over again, withou bothering to verify or to get comments from other sources.
Is her show taped hours earlier, as well?
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