Why is this happening now? As we pointed out on August 27, the
attempt to claim Armitage as the first leaker to Novak is a red
herring aimed at confusing the issue of Bush Administration accountablity
for outing a CIA operative specializing in Weapons of Mass Destruction.
Larry Johnson, a counterterrorism expert, may have the answer.
We're sure he won't mind our reposting of his recent column:
How low can they go? I refer of course to the latest vitriol
directed at Valerie and Joe Wilson by the likes of Christopher
Hitchens and Fred Hiatt of the Washington Post, who claim that
Joe Wilson, not Bush Administration officials, is responsible for
destroying his wife's cover and exposing her as a CIA operative.
Hitchens battle with the bottle may account for his addled thinking,
but what is Hiatt's excuse? Both men perform like Cirque du Soleil
contortionists in dreaming up excuses for the nutty and destructive
policies and actions of the Bush Administration. In watching their
behavior we see a parallel with the devotees of Jim Jones who gathered
in Guyana almost 30 years ago to drink poisoned kool aid.
Let's focus on the Post's Fred Hiatt. In today's Post editorial
page, Hiatt writes:
Nevertheless, it now appears that the person most responsible
for the end of Ms. Plame's CIA career is Mr. Wilson. Mr. Wilson
chose to go public with an explosive charge, claiming -- falsely,
as it turned out -- that he had debunked reports of Iraqi uranium-shopping
in Niger and that his report had circulated to senior administration
officials.
The claim that Joe Wilson’s op-ed from July of 2003 was
a pack of lies and misrepresented the truth is an old rightiwng,
White House canard. Here is what Joe Wilson said in the July
2003 op-ed:
Though I did not file a written report, there should be at least
four documents in United States government archives confirming
my mission. The documents should include the ambassador's report
of my debriefing in Niamey, a separate report written by the embassy
staff, a C.I.A. report summing up my trip, and a specific answer
from the agency to the office of the vice president (this may have
been delivered orally). While I have not seen any of these reports,
I have spent enough time in government to know that this is standard
operating procedure.
The question now is how that answer was or was not used by our
political leadership. If my information was deemed inaccurate,
I understand (though I would be very interested to know why). If,
however, the information was ignored because it did not fit certain
preconceptions about Iraq, then a legitimate argument can be made
that we went to war under false pretenses.
False claim? False claim my ass! There were at least four reports.
We now know that the National Intelligence officer for Africa
in January 2003 briefed the White House that the Iraq/Niger claim
was bunk. Even a partisan Senate Intelligence Committe report
cites
repeated efforts by the intelligence community to warn the
President’s
advisors that reports claiming Iraq was trying to buy uranium,
including British reoirts, were not credible.
What is so bizarre is that the White House did admit that it
was wrong to put the infamous 16 words into the State of the Union
Address (of course, they blamed the CIA), just days after Wilson's
op-ed appeared. If, as Hiatt claims, Wilson's op-ed was false,
then why did the White House correct the record by confirming the
substance of his claim?
Hiatt also portrays an astonishing ignorance of national security
affairs. He offers up this goofiness referring to Joe Wilson's "culpability" for
exposing his wife's job:
He ought to have expected that both those officials and journalists
such as Mr. Novak would ask why a retired ambassador would have
been sent on such a mission and that the answer would point to
his wife.
Yes, why would the CIA send the former Director of Africa at
the National Security Council, a former Ambassador to Gabon, and
the last U.S. official to face down Saddam Hussein to Africa? Because
Joe Wilson was uniquely qualified to do the job. Moreover, this
is (or at least was) a common acitivity by the CIA. My former boss
at State Department, Ambassador Morris D. Busby, made at least
two trips I know of at the behest of the CIA after leaving government
because of his experience in dealing with terrorism, narcotics,
and Latin America. There are times when the CIA wants information
and does not want to expose its own assets.
There was nothing on the public record or in any public document
identifying Valerie Plame Wilson as a CIA operative. That information
was classified. Sending Joe on a mission to Africa does not point
the finger at her. Moreover, she did not make the decision to send
him. That is another of Hiatt's lies and is routinely echoed by
rightwing hacks. As Walter Pincus reported in the Washington Post
in July 2005:
“ They [the White House] said that his 2002 trip to Niger
was a boondoggle arranged by his wife, but CIA officials say that
is incorrect. One reason for the confusion about Plame's role is
that she had arranged a trip for him to Niger three years earlier
on an unrelated matter, CIA officials told The Washington Post.” (Washington
Post, 27 July 2005)
Harlow, the former CIA spokesman, said in an interview yesterday
that he testified last year before a grand jury about conversations
he had with Novak at least three days before the column was published.
He said he warned Novak, in the strongest terms he was permitted
to use without revealing classified information, that Wilson's
wife had not authorized the mission and that if he did write about
it, her name should not be revealed. (Washington Post, 27 July
2005)
We are forced to revisit this nonsense because we have now
learned that in addition to Libby and Rove, Richard Armitage
also was shooting
off his mouth about classified information. Regardless of Armitage’s
role as an initial source for Novak, we are still left with the
fact that Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, and Scooter Libby abused their
power and were actively engaged in a coordinated effort to discredit
Joe Wilson for his behind the scene efforts to alert the public
to the falsehoods in the President’s State of the Union
address.
While Richard Armitage may have had no malicious intent, the
same cannot be said for Cheney, Libby and Rove. They knew exactly
what they were doing. According to The Washington Post, during
the week of July 6, 2003, “two top White House officials
disclosed Plame’s identity to at least six Washington journalists.” Sometime
after Novak’s column appeared, Rove called Chris Matthews,
host of MSNBC’s “Hardball” and told him that
Mr. Wilson’s wife was “fair game.”
And we have the document released by Special Counsel Patrick
Fitzgerald in United States v. Libby, that provides a copy of
notes Cheney had written in the margins of Mr. Wilson’s July 6
op-ed. In a court filing, Fitzgerald stated that the notes demonstrated
that Cheney and Libby were “acutely focused” on the
Wilson column and on rebutting his criticisms of the White House’s
handling of the Niger intelligence. Those notes became the basis
for Republican National Committee talking points circulated and
repeated by Ken Mehlman and others.
Why is this relevant? Today the Bush Administration is once
again trying to manufacture a case for war. They are calling
critics
of its policies on Iran and Iraq "appeasers" and decrying
the lack of intelligence on Iran. It is deja vu all over again
to quote Yogi Berra. They whine about a lack of intelligence
on Iran but refuse to accept responsibility for their own role
in
destroying Valerie Plame's undercover work, which was focused
on monitoring the flow of nuclear technology to Iran. They may
not
have fully understood what Val was doing because of her cover
status. But that's the point. They don't think these things true.
Their
only goal is political survival.
Perhpas the new attention on the Plame affair will fuel public
support for accountability in government. The gang of political
thugs currently in the White House refuse to be held accountable
for anything. With the help of enablers like Fred Hiatt and Christopher
Hitchens and others in the main stream media, it is no wonder that
Bush, Cheney, and Rumsfeld skate from disaster to disaster, oblivious
to the field of debris left in their wake.
We must also remember that the Government sanctioned attack on
the Wilsons is not an isolated event. Just ask former Treasury
Secretary Paul O'Neill or National Security Advisor Richard Clarke.
Add to this list the names of the two CIA Baghdad Chiefs of Station
who were savaged for their prescient early warnings that Iraq was
moving into a civil war. The Plame/Wilson affair stands as a stark
reminder that President Bush and his minions prefer destroying
those who call them to account for failed policies rather than
admit error and take corrective measures that will serve the longterm
interests of the United States. As we move towards a new war with
Iran, we should not be surprised that people who know the truth
are reluctant to come forward. If you choose to blow the whistle
you are choosing career suicide and a full frontal assault on your
character. In smearing the Wilsons, Bush and Cheney also are sliming
America.
Posted by Larry Johnson on Friday, 01 September 2006 at 13:24
