posted on August 12, 2003 04:07:35 PM new
I've been hearing dribbles and dabs about this one for weeks. A story this weekend in the St. Petersburg Times does a great job of laying out exactly what happened (so far as anyone knows) why it's wrong, and why we should care:
This goes waaaay beyond feeling up a frisky intern. This is treason - and the evidence was on the front page of the Chicago Sun-Times under Bob Novak's byline. How can the administration keep refusing to investigate this?
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We do not see things as they are. We see them as we are.
------------The Talmud
[ edited by msincognito on Aug 12, 2003 04:12 PM ]
posted on August 12, 2003 05:33:27 PM new
There is a very good summary of this story and legal questions here.
Joseph Wilson IV is the former Ambassador to Gabon (and associate director of the NSC for Africa) sent to Niger last year by the CIA to investigate the claim that the Iraqi regime had tried to buy yellowcake there: the claim that showed up as the famous "16 words" in the January State of the Union Address.
Having concluded that there had probably been no such purchase attempt, and having so reported at the time, Wilson kept his silence about his mission until after Walter Pincus of the Washington Post reported in June that "a former ambassador" had gone on the mission. In early July, Wilson wrote the op-ed in the New York Times that launched the story of the missing uranium into major media attention.
Thereafter, the administration, with help from journalistic allies, appears to have launched a coordinated attack on Wilson.
On July 14, Robert Novak's column carried the assertion that Wilson had been recruited for the mission at the instance of his wife, the former Valerie Plame. That assertion was sourced to "two senior administration officials," and was accompanied by the unsourced assertion that "Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction." Neither assertion was central to the story, whose thrust was that the Wilson mission was so minor, and handled at such a low level within the CIA, that it never reached the people around the President who decided what would go into the State of the Union Address.
posted on August 15, 2003 11:10:41 AM newThe Bush Administration Adopts a Worse-than-Nixonian Tactic: The Deadly Serious Crime Of Naming CIA Operatives
Congressional Calls For Investigation Should Be Heeded
Senator Dick Durbin (D - IL) was the first to react. On July 22, he delivered a lengthy speech about how the Bush Administration was using friendly reporters to attack its enemies. He knew this well, because he was one of those being so attacked.
"Sadly, what we have here," Durbin told his colleagues, "is a continuing pattern by this White House. If any Member of this Senate - Democrat or Republican - takes to the floor, questions this White House policy, raises any questions about the gathering of intelligence information, or the use of it, be prepared for the worst. This White House is going to turn on you and attack you."
After Senator Durbin set forth the evidence that showed the charges of the White House against him were false, he turned to the attacks on Ambassador and Mrs. Wilson. He announced that he was asking the chairman and ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee to investigate this "extremely serious matter."
"In [the Administration's] effort to seek political revenge against Ambassador Wilson," Durbin said, "they are now attacking him and his wife, and doing it in a fashion that is not only unacceptable, it may be criminal. And that, frankly, is as serious as it gets in this town."
The House Intelligence Committee is also going to investigate the Wilson leak. "What happened is very dangerous to a person who may be a CIA operative," Congressman Alcee Hastings (D - FL), a member of the Committee, said. And the committee's chairman, Porter Gross (R- FL), a former CIA agent himself, said an investigation "could be part of a wider" look that his committee is taking at WMD issues.
In a July 24 letter to FBI Director William Mueller, Senator Charles Schumer (D -NY) demanded a criminal investigation of the leak. Schumer's letter stated, "If the facts that have been reported publicly are true, it is clear that a crime was committed. The only questions remaining to be answered are who committed the crime and why?"
The FBI, too, has confirmed that they are undertaking an investigation.
But no one should hold their breath. So far, Congress has treated the Bush Administration with kid gloves. Absent an active investigation by a grand jury, under the direction of a U.S. Attorney or special prosecutor, an FBI investigation is not likely to accomplish anything. After all, the FBI does not have power to compel anyone to talk. And unless the President himself demands a full investigation, the Department of Justice is not going to do anything - unless the Congress uncovers information that embarrasses them into taking action.
While this case is a travesty, it won't be the first one that this administration has managed to get away with. Given the new the nadir of investigative journalism, this administration has been emboldened. And why not? Lately, the mainstream media has seemed more interested in stockholders than readers. If Congress won't meaningfully investigate these crimes - and, indeed, even if it will - it is the press's duty to do so. Let us hope it fulfills that duty. But I am not holding my breath about that, either.
