[Mb-civic] Great Full Report on Rove Controversy

[Michael Butler]

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David Gregory | Root of the Rove Controversy Is the War in Iraq    €

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    Rove's War
    By Sidney Blumenthal
    Salon.com

    Thursday 14 July 2005

    Bush's right-hand man is dispatching his troops to smear Joe Wilson --
and save himself. He may win in Washington, but the special prosecutor will
have the last word.

    This is Karl Rove's war. From his command post next to the Oval Office
in the West Wing of the White House, he is furiously directing the order of
battle. The Republican National Committee lobs its talking points across
Washington, its chairman forays the no-man's-land of CNN. Rove's lawyer, Fox
News and the Wall Street Journal editorial board are sent over the top. Newt
Gingrich and Tom DeLay man the ramparts, defending Rove's character.

    For two years, since the appointment of an independent counsel to
investigate the disclosure of the identity of an undercover CIA operative,
President Bush and his press secretary, Scott McClellan, have repeatedly
denied the involvement of anyone in the White House. "Have you talked to
Karl and do you have confidence in him?" a reporter asked Bush on Sept. 30,
2003. "Listen, I know of nobody," he replied. "I don't know of anybody in my
administration who leaked classified information. If somebody did leak
classified information, I'd like to know it, and we'll take the appropriate
action."

    Bush backed himself into that corner because of a sequence of events
beginning with the ultimate rationale he offered for the Iraq war. Public
support for the war had wavered until the administration asserted
unequivocally that Saddam Hussein was seeking to acquire and build nuclear
weapons. Its most incendiary claim was that he had tried to purchase
enriched yellowcake uranium in Niger. An Italian magazine, Panorama, had
received documents appearing to prove the charge. Former ambassador Joseph
Wilson was secretly sent by the CIA to investigate, and he found no evidence
to substantiate the story. The CIA subsequently protested inclusion of the
rumor in a draft of a Bush speech, and Bush delivered it on Oct. 7, 2002,
without it.

    But a month earlier, a British white paper had mentioned the Niger
rumor. And in his January 2003 State of the Union address, Bush said: "The
British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought
significant quantities of uranium from Africa." These 16 notorious words had
already been proved false, however (debunked by three separate reports from
administration officials, which were apparently ignored ahead of Bush's
speech). On March 7, 2003, the International Atomic Energy Agency announced
that the Niger documents were "not authentic." The following day, the State
Department concurred that they were forgeries. The invasion of Iraq began on
March 20.

    After the war began, the administration refused to acknowledge those 16
words were false. To set the record straight, Wilson wrote an Op-Ed article
on July 6, 2003, in the New York Times titled "What I Didn't Find in
Africa." It was the first crack in the credibility of the administration's
case for the war, suggesting that the underlying intelligence had been
abused, distorted and even forged. National Security Advisor Condoleezza
Rice later admitted, "It was information that was mistaken." And CIA
Director George Tenet said the lines "should never have been included in a
text written for the president."

    A week after Wilson's Op-Ed appeared, on July 14, conservative columnist
Robert Novak wrote that Wilson's "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 revelation of Plame's identity may be a
violation of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982 -- a felony
carrying a 10-year prison sentence. Apparently, the release of Plame's
identity was political payback against Wilson by a White House that wanted
to shift the subject of the Iraq war to his motives.

    On July 30, the CIA referred a "crime report" to the Justice Department.
"If she was not undercover, we would not have a reason to file a criminal
referral," a CIA official said. On Dec. 30, the Justice Department appointed
Patrick Fitzgerald, U.S. attorney for northern Illinois, as the special
prosecutor.

    Fitzgerald's investigation stalled when two reporters he subpoenaed,
Matthew Cooper of Time magazine and Judith Miller of the New York Times,
initially refused to testify. But Time handed over Cooper's notes on his
conversation with Rove to the prosecutor, and Cooper eventually decided to
cooperate. Miller chose to remain in contempt of court and has been
imprisoned until the grand jury is dissolved. With the publication of
Cooper's memo to his editors two weeks ago, the White House was asked about
whether the president would adhere to its own "highest standards," as
McClellan had put it, and fire anyone involved in outing Plame. But since
Monday, both McClellan and Bush have refused to comment on the
investigation. While the White House stonewalls, Rove has license to run his
own damage-control operation. His surrogates argue that if Rove did
anything, it wasn't a crime. There's no cause for outrage, except at Joe
Wilson, and now, in a turn of the screw, Matt Cooper. The inhabitants of the
political village should busy themselves with their arts and crafts. No
one's status will be endangered or access withdrawn, it is implied, if they
do nothing rash. They should simply accept that exposing undercover CIA
operatives is part of politics as usual. Return to your homes. Stay calm.

    Rove is fighting his war as though it will be settled in a court of
Washington pundits. Brandishing his formidable political weapons, he seeks
to demonstrate his prowess once again. His corps of agents raises a din in
which their voices drown out individual dissidents. His frantic massing of
forces dominates the capital by winning the communications battle. Indeed,
Rove may succeed momentarily in quelling the storm. But the stillness may be
illusory. Before the prosecutor, Rove's arsenal is useless.

    Can the special counsel be confounded by manipulation of the Washington
chattering class? What's the obligation of a reporter to a source in this
case? What game are Rove and his surrogates playing? What are the legal
vulnerabilities of Rove and others in the White House?

    Wilson's article provided the first evidence that the reasons given for
the war were stoked by false information. But the attack on Wilson by
focusing on his wife is superficially perplexing. Even if the allegation
were true that she "authorized" his mission, as Rove told Cooper, it would
have no bearing whatsoever on the Niger forgeries, or any indictment. But
Rove's is a psychological operation intended to foster the perception that
the messenger is somehow untrustworthy and that therefore his message is
too. The aim is to distract and discredit. By creating an original taint on
Wilson's motives, an elaborate negative image has been constructed.

    The Wall Street Journal editorial of July 13 best reflected the
through-the-looking-glass Rovian defense and projection: "For Mr. Rove is
turning out to be the real "whistleblower" in this whole sorry
pseudo-scandal ... In short, Mr. Rove provided important background so
Americans could understand that Mr. Wilson wasn't a whistleblower but was a
partisan trying to discredit the Iraq War in an election campaign."

    In order to untangle this deceptive web, it's essential to return to the
beginning of the long disinformation campaign triggered by the publication
of Wilson's Op-Ed. The facts clarify not only the mendacity of the smears
but also the seeming quandary of the reporters who have become collateral
damage.

    In early 2002, Valerie Plame was an officer in the Directorate of
Operations of the CIA task force on counter-proliferation, dealing with
weapons of mass destruction, including Saddam's WMD programs. At that time,
as she had been for almost two decades, she was an undercover operative.
After training at "The Farm," the CIA's school for clandestine agents, she
became what the agency considers among its most valuable and dangerous
operatives -- a NOC, or someone who works under non-official cover. NOCs
travel without diplomatic passports, so if they are captured as spies they
have no immunity and can potentially be executed. As a NOC, Plame helped set
up a front company, Brewster-Jennings, whose cover has now been blown and
whose agents and contacts may be in danger still. After marrying Wilson in
1998, she took Wilson as her last name.

    When the Italian report on Niger uranium surfaced, Vice President
Cheney's office contacted the CIA's counter-proliferation office to look
into it. Such a request is called a "tasker." It was hardly the first query
the task force had received from the White House, and such requests were not
made through the CIA director's office, but directly. Plame's colleagues
asked her if she would invite her husband out to CIA headquarters at
Langley, Va., for a meeting with them, to assess the question.

    It was unsurprising that the CIA would seek out Wilson. He had already
performed one secret mission to Niger for the agency, in 1999, and was
trusted. Wilson had also had a distinguished and storied career as a Foreign
Service officer. He served as acting ambassador in Iraq during the Gulf War
and was hailed by the first President Bush as a "hero." Wilson was an
important part of the team and highly regarded by Secretary of State James
Baker and National Security Advisor Brent Scowcroft. Wilson was also an
Africa specialist. He had been a diplomat in Niger, ambassador to Gabon and
senior director for Africa on the National Security Council during the
Clinton administration. (I first encountered Wilson then, and we have since
become friends.) No other professional had such an ideal background for this
CIA mission.

    Plame's superiors asked her to cable the field in Africa for routine
approval of an investigation of the Niger claim. At Langley, Wilson met with
about a dozen officers to discuss the situation. Plame was not at the
meeting. Afterward, Wilson informed his wife that he would be traveling to
Niger for about 10 days. She was not particularly enthusiastic, having
recently given birth to twins, but she understood the importance of the
mission. She had no authority to commission him. She was simply not the
responsible senior officer. Nor, if she had been, could she have done so
unilaterally. There was nothing of value to be gained personally from the
mission by either Joe or Valerie Wilson. He undertook the trip out of a
long-ingrained sense of government service.

    CIA officers debriefed Wilson the night of his return at his home. His
wife greeted the other operatives, but excused herself. She later read a
copy of his debriefing report, but she made no changes in it. The next they
spoke of Niger uranium was when they heard President Bush's mention of it in
his 2003 State of the Union address.

    Attributing Wilson's trip to his wife's supposed authority became the
predicate for a smear campaign against his credibility. Seven months after
the appointment of the special counsel, in July 2004, the
Republican-dominated Senate Select Committee on Intelligence issued its
report on flawed intelligence leading to the Iraq war. The blame for failure
was squarely put on the CIA for "groupthink." (The Republicans quashed a
promised second report on political pressure on the intelligence process.)
The three-page addendum by the ranking Republicans followed the now
well-worn attack lines: "The plan to send the former ambassador to Niger was
suggested by the former ambassador's wife, a CIA employee."

    The CIA subsequently issued a statement, as reported by New York Newsday
and CNN, that the Republican senators' conclusion about Plame's role was
wholly inaccurate. But the Washington Post's Susan Schmidt reported only the
Republican senators' version, writing that Wilson was "specifically
recommended for the mission by his wife, a CIA employee, contrary to what he
has said publicly," in a memo she wrote. Schmidt quoted a CIA official in
the senators' account saying that Plame had "offered up" Wilson's name.
Plame's memo, in fact, was written at the express directive of her superiors
two days before Wilson was to come to Langley for his meeting to describe
his qualifications in a standard protocol to receive "country clearance."
Unfortunately, Schmidt's article did not reflect this understanding of
routine CIA procedure. The CIA officer who wrote the memo that originally
recommended Wilson for the mission -- who was cited anonymously by the
senators as the only source who said that Plame was responsible -- was
deeply upset at the twisting of his testimony, which was not public, and
told Plame he had said no such thing. CIA spokesman Bill Harlow told Wilson
that the Republican Senate staff never contacted him for the agency's
information on the matter.

    Curiously, the only document cited as the basis for Plame's role was a
State Department memo that was later debunked by the CIA. The Washington
Post, on Dec. 26, 2003, reported: "CIA officials have challenged the
accuracy of the ... document, the official said, because the agency officer
identified as talking about Plame's alleged role in arranging Wilson's trip
could not have attended the meeting. 'It has been circulated around,' one
official said." Even more curious, one of the outlets where the document was
circulated was Talon News Service and its star correspondent, Jeff Gannon
(aka Guckert). (Talon was revealed to be a partisan front for a Texas-based
operation called GOPUSA and Gannon was exposed as a male prostitute, without
previous journalistic credentials yet with easy and unexplained access to
the White House.) According to the Post, "the CIA believes that people in
the administration continue to release classified information to damage the
figures at the center of the controversy."

    Fitzgerald sought testimony from Cooper because he had published an
article on the Wilson case, citing anonymous White House sources. Miller had
published no article at all. Apparently, another witness gave up Miller's
name to the prosecutor under questioning. Who that witness might be and
under what circumstances he cited Miller is unknown. (In the run-up to the
war, Miller's articles on WMD were crucial in creating a political
atmosphere favorable to the administration's case. But her articles were
later revealed to be false, based on disinformation, and the Times published
a long apology.)

    Both Cooper and Miller argued that they were entitled to journalistic
privilege to protect their sources. But the court ruled against them. U.S.
District Court Judge Thomas Hogan's opinion suggested that the prosecutor's
case had deepened and widened.

    In discussing the sealed affidavit filed by Fitzgerald, and not privy to
the defendants, Hogan stated that the "Special Counsel outlines in great
detail the developments in this case and the investigation as a whole. The
ex parte affidavit establishes that the government's focus has shifted as it
has acquired additional information during the course of the investigation.
Special Counsel now needs to pursue different avenues in order to complete
its investigation." Judge Hogan concluded that "the subpoenas were not
issued in an attempt to harass the [reporters], but rather stem from
legitimate needs due to an unanticipated shift in the grand jury's
investigation."

    Now Miller languishes in jail and Cooper has testified before the grand
jury. Is Miller protecting her sources, or does the prosecutor seek to
question her as a disseminator of information? Should a journalist protect a
source if that person has not provided true information as best they know,
but disinformation? What is the obligation of reporters to protect people
who have misled them?

    In the best-case scenario for Miller, Bill Kovach believes that any
pledge she may have made to a source should be invalid. Kovach is the former
Washington bureau chief of the New York Times, former curator of the Nieman
Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University and founding director of the
Committee of Concerned Journalists. He describes the internal policy set
within the Times on sources. "By the 1980s, we decided that we had to set
some limits because reporters had been misled and the credibility of the
news reports had been damaged by misleading sources. When I was chief of the
bureau in Washington, we laid down a rule to the reporters that when they
wanted to establish anonymity they had to lay out ground rules that if
anything the source said was damaging, false or damaged the credibility of
the newspaper we would identify them."

    In the Plame matter, Kovach sees no obligation of the reporters to false
sources. "If a man damages your credibility, why not lay the blame where it
belongs? If Plame were an operative, she wouldn't have the authority to send
someone. Whoever was leaking that information to Novak, Cooper or Judy
Miller was doing it with malice aforethought, trying to set up a deceptive
circumstance. That would invalidate any promise of confidentiality. You
wouldn't protect a source for telling lies or using you to mislead your
audience. That changes everything. Any reporter that puts themselves or a
news organization in that position is making a big mistake."

    Obviously, the Times is not imposing the rules in its present crisis
that Kovach was involved in making. Are the editors unfocused on the
underlying facts and falsehoods? Do the editors have a responsibility to
determine who is a fair source and who is a deceiver? Has anyone fully
debriefed Miller? For now, the Times is frozen in its heroic defense of the
First Amendment.

    Washington, meanwhile, is an echo chamber of Rove's agents. His lawyer,
Robert Luskin, has trashed Cooper: "By any definition, he burned Karl Rove."
RNC chairman Ken Mehlman has appeared on talk shows, given newspaper
interviews and circulated a three-page memo of talking points to Republican
surrogates. In one brief statement, for example, Mehlman said: "The fact is
Karl Rove did not leak classified information. He did not, according to what
we learned this past weekend, reveal the name of anybody. He didn't even
know the name ... He tried to discourage a reporter from writing a story
that was false."

    Mehlman's farrago of lies and distortions may be a fair representation
of Rove's fears. Is it "the fact" that Rove didn't leak classified
information? Plame's identity of course was classified. That is why the CIA
referred the matter to the Department of Justice for investigation. But is
Mehlman disclosing yet another Rove worry? The prosecutor can indict under
any statute, including simply leaking classified information. Is Rove afraid
of being indicted under that law, not just the one that makes it a crime to
identify Plame? Mehlman raises a further Rove anxiety. No, Rove didn't
"reveal the name." But the law doesn't cite that as a felony; it only
specifies revealing the "identity" as a crime. It says nothing about a
"name." Rove revealed "Joe Wilson's wife." That qualifies as an "identity."
By the way, Plame did not go by the name of Plame, but Wilson -- in other
words, Mrs. Wilson, or "Joe Wilson's wife." Rove seemed to know that much --
her identity.

    Helpfully guiding a reporter to the truth and away from "a story that
was false"? Indeed, Rove was planting two false stories, not just one. The
first was that "Joe Wilson's wife" had sent him on his mission; the second
was to suggest that Wilson was wrong and that there would be new information
to support the original Bush falsehood. In fact, the White House admitted
that Wilson was correct and that Bush's 16 words were wrong. Yet Rove
attempted to insinuate doubt in the mind of the reporter to discourage him
from writing a story that was true.

    At one point, on CNN, Wolf Blitzer asked Mehlman if he had attended
meetings at the White House on how to deal with Wilson. Suddenly, the
voluble Mehlman constricted. "I don't recall those meetings occurring," he
said. Has the prosecutor inquired about such meetings and their
participants?

    The sound and fury of Rove's defenders will soon subside. The last word,
the only word that matters, will belong to the prosecutor. So far, he has
said very, very little. Unlike the unprofessional, inexperienced and weak
Ken Starr, he does not leak illegally to the press. But he has commented
publicly on his understanding of the case. "This case," he said, "is not
about a whistle-blower. It's about a potential retaliation against a
whistle-blower."

    -------

    Sidney Blumenthal, a former assistant and senior advisor to President
Clinton and the author of The Clinton Wars, is writing a column for Salon
and the Guardian of London.

 

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    Root of the Rove Controversy Is the War in Iraq
    By David Gregory
    NBC News

    Wednesday 13 July 2005

    US justification for waging war on Saddam still haunts White House.

    Washington - President Bush said Wednesday that he will reserve judgment
on Karl Rove's possible involvement in the leaking of a CIA agent's identity
until the special prosecutor's criminal investigation into the matter is
complete.

    "This is a serious investigation," Bush said at the end of a meeting
with his Cabinet, with Rove, his deputy chief of staff, sitting just behind
him. "I will be more than happy to comment on this matter once this
investigation is completed," Bush said.

    While the White House seemingly stands by its man, NBC News chief White
House correspondent David Gregory discusses the investigation, how the
administration is expected to proceed, and how the root of the scandal is
once again the controversial justifications for the war in Iraq.

    Scott McClellan, the White House press secretary, came to Rove's defense
during a press briefing Tuesday by saying, "Any individual who works here at
the White House has the confidence of the president. They wouldn't be
working here at the White House if they didn't." What is the likelihood that
Bush would ever actually fire Rove, a close confidant and the architect of
his re-election campaign?
I think, were Karl Rove to be indicted for any crime, it would be impossible
for the president to keep him on. Short of that, I don't think that he will
go anywhere. I think the president will stand behind him.

    If you look, the president's past comments were pretty clear: that
anyone who is responsible for leaking classified information, which is a
crime, would be fired. Until and unless that's proven in this case, I don't
think that Karl Rove will go anywhere.

    As to the question of whether what Karl Rove did was a smear campaign,
or politically sleazy, it's pretty clear to me that everyone in White House
- from the president, to the vice president, to other officials - shared
Rove's interest in discrediting former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who was
critical of the administration's case for going to war in Iraq.

    Other than standing by Rove, how much longer can the White House remain
silent and dodge this issue?
The president spoke out this morning to say it's an ongoing investigation
and that they should get to the bottom of it. But, beyond that, he'll try to
make it clear that Karl Rove continues to do his job as normal, that it's
business as usual, and that he retains the president's confidence. It's
pretty clear that's the case.

    The White House has a political problem because they have made
statements that are wrong and that are no longer accurate. That's brought
the heat on them.

    The president just said today that he "will not prejudge the
investigation based on media reports." So, it doesn't appear that he is
going to comment beyond that.

    What is the legal basis behind the whole case? The law says that you
have to have known the person is a covert agent and that you have to
intentionally disclose that. Not accidentally disclose it, but intentionally
disclose it.

    Based on what we know so far, Karl Rove did not do that.

    Now, that's the legal standard, but there is a different standard
politically. That's what is being debated now.

    Rove has testified before the grand jury, now we know the contents of
this e-mail, and we know that [Time magazine reporter] Matt Cooper will
testify [today]. But, based on what we know so far, Rove never used her
name, which is not as important as the fact that he did not reveal that she
was a covert agent.

    What more can we learn from Matt Cooper's testimony today? I think it
will be interesting to see what questions he is asked, if we can figure that
out.

    The line of questions may say something about what the special
prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, is interested in learning and where he is
going with the case. That's the key thing, whether Matt Cooper essentially
confirms the substance of the e-mail he turned over.

    Is this a case of the curse of the second-term scandal? No, it would be
the curse of the first term. This happened in the first term. This is
perhaps the curse of a controversial basis for going to war.

    Really what this is about is the case for going into Iraq. The issue is
really the debates about the war, the evidence that was used to go to war,
and the claims that were made by this administration that proved to be
false.