The Bush administration continues to surprise me:
Capital Games: ...In a recent column on Nigergate, Novak examined the role of former Ambassador Joseph Wilson IV in the affair. Two weeks ago, Wilson went public, writing in The New York Times and telling The Washington Post about the trip he took to Niger in February 2002--at the request of the CIA--to check out allegations that Saddam Hussein had tried to purchase uranium for a nuclear weapons program from Niger. Wilson was a good pick for the job. He had been a State Department officer there in the mid-1970s. He was ambassador to Gabon in the early 1990s. And in 1997 and 1998, he was the senior director for Africa at the National Security Council and in that capacity spent a lot of time dealing with the Niger government. Wilson was also the last acting US ambassador in Iraq before the Gulf War, a military action he supported. In that post, he helped evacuate thousands of foreigners from Kuwait, worked to get over 120 American hostages out Iraq, and sheltered about 800 Americans in the embassy compound. At the time, Novak's then-partner, Rowland Evans, wrote that Wilson displayed "the stuff of heroism." And President George H. W. Bush commended Wilson: "Your courageous leadership during this period of great danger for American interests and American citizens has my admiration and respect. I salute, too, your skillful conduct of our tense dealings with the government of Iraq....The courage and tenacity you have exhibited throughout this ordeal prove that you are the right person for the job."Posted by DeLong at July 17, 2003 09:24 AM | TrackBackThe current Bush administration has not been so appreciative of Wilson's more recent efforts.... [O]nce Wilson went public, he prompted a new round of inconvenient and troubling questions for the White House. (Wilson, who opposed the latest war in Iraq, had not revealed his trip to Niger during the prewar months, when he was a key participant in the media debate over whether the country should go to war.)
Soon after Wilson disclosed his trip in the media and made the White House look bad. the payback came. Novak's July 14, 2003, column presented the back-story on Wilson's mission and contained the following sentences: "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 allegation.
Wilson caused problems for the White House, and his wife was outed as an undercover CIA officer.... [T]he Bush administration has screwed one of its own top-secret operatives in order to punish Wilson or to send a message to others who might challenge it.
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. If Wilson's wife is such a person--and the CIA is unlikely to have many employees like her--her career has been destroyed by the Bush administration.... 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. This is the stuff of Kim Philby and Aldrich Ames."...
Novak tells me that he was indeed tipped off by government officials about Wilson's wife and had no reluctance about naming her. "I figured if they gave it to me," he says. "They'd give it to others....I'm a reporter. Somebody gives me information and it's accurate. I generally use it." And Wilson says Novak told him that his sources were administration officials...
Why is this surprising? We knew Mr. Bush was vindictive when he was elected.
Posted by: bakho on July 17, 2003 11:25 AMTricky Dick Nixon is back but his last name is Cheney. It looks like the House GOP leadership, the Vice President, and Mary Matalin are going to wage a counterattack. Opponents of Bush should be elated because if they do, this Administration will look like the Watergate gang. David Gergen has been suggesting that the White House come clean. Gergen has always be a good counselor to the Presidents he has served but then again - Bush has not asked for Gergen's help. He should.
Posted by: Hal McClure on July 17, 2003 11:28 AMHmm - if it's OK for the White House to out a secret operative, then is it also OK for a reporter to out their unnamed sources?
Or are reporters held to higher standards than our government?
rbb
Information about the wife in the Novak "smear" 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. "
Info about the wife in the Corn column defending Wilson:
Wilson caused problems for the White House, and his wife was outed as an undercover CIA officer. Wilson says, "I will not answer questions about my wife. This is not about me and less so about my wife. It has always been about the facts underpinning the President's statement in the state of the union speech."
So he will neither confirm nor deny that his wife--who is the mother of three-year-old twins--works for the CIA. But let's assume she does. That would seem to mean that the Bush administration has screwed one of its own top-secret operatives in order to punish Wilson or to send a message to others who might challenge it.
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. If Wilson's wife is such a person--and the CIA is unlikely to have many employees like her--her career has been destroyed by the Bush administration. (Assuming she did not tell friends and family about her real job, these Bush officials have also damaged her personal life.) 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. This is the stuff of Kim Philby and Aldrich Ames." If she is not a CIA employee and Novak is reporting accurately, then the White House has wrongly branded a woman known to friends as an energy analyst for a private firm as a CIA officer. That would not likely do her much good. "
Uhh, I don't think Novak said anything about "undercover", or the kids, or that she works as an energy analyst at a private firm. So, if Wilson won't talk about his wife, where is this coming from? I think Corn got it from Wilson, incredibly.
Now, Wilson's first account of his trip to Niger, as presented in the NY Times, was woefully incomplete, as this follow-up TIME story makes clear. I think Wilson would like to pretend that the White House is smearing him, and I agree that his wife probably should not be part of the story.
That said, the Novak column reads like two officials speculating on how Wilson got the assignment. Frankly, if she works on WMDs, and her husband is being considered for such an assignment, it does not strike me as outlandish that she might have been asked about whether he is the guy for the job.
Anyway, this is an interesting attempt to change the subject, but I would like to hear more about why Mr. Wilson's account of his trip to Niger has changed so much over the last few weeks.
TIME excerpt:
Government officials are not only disputing the genesis of Wilson's trip, but also what he found. Last week Bush Administration officials said that Wilson's report, far from undermining the President's claim in this year's State of the Union address that Iraq had sought uranium from Africa, had in fact reinforced it. They say that when Wilson returned from Africa in Feb. 2002, he included in his report an encounter with a former Nigerien government official who told him that Iraq had approached him in June 1999, expressing interest in expanding commercial relations between Iraq and Niger. The Administration claims that Wilson reported that the former Nigerien official interpreted the overture as an attempt to discuss uranium sales. "This is in Wilson's report back to the CIA," White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer told reporters last week, a few days before he left his post to join the private sector. "Wilson's own report, the very man who was on television saying Niger denies it...reports himself that officials in Niger said that Iraq was seeking to contact officials in Niger about sales."
Wilson's version of the story has a crucial difference. He says the official in question was contacted by an Algerian-Nigerien intermediary who inquired if the official would meet with an Iraqi about "commercial" sales — an offer he declined. Wilson dismissed the suggestion, included in CIA Director George Tenet's own mea culpa last week, that this validates what the President claimed in this State of the Union address: "That then translates into an Iraqi effort to import a significant quantity of uranium as the President alleged? These guys really need to get serious."
OK, so now he disagrees with the judgements made by the CIA analysts. Last week in the NY Times he didn't mention this at all. And next week?
TIME link:
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,465137,00.html
Faux-NY Times link
http://www.iht.com/cgi-bin/generic.cgi?template=articleprint.tmplh&ArticleId=102040
I prefer to keep in mind that Tony Blair's office chose to copy a California doctoral thesis from the internet and use it as evidence that Iraq had WMDs. In turn, our Administration cited the same "evidence." We have captured most of the deck of cards. Where are the WMDs. I suggest the WMD stories simply do not hold up. Meanwhile 85 American and 10 British soldiers have died in Iraq since May 1.
Posted by: arthur on July 17, 2003 12:34 PMMark Kleiman has a useful take on what happened, and its implications, and whether this is accurate.
Tom, that is the first actual attempt to answer any of these allegations that I've seen from the right. I'll wait and see how that plays out.
"We have captured most of the deck of cards. Where are the WMDs. I suggest the WMD stories simply do not hold up. Meanwhile 85 American and 10 British soldiers have died in Iraq since May 1."
Where are the WMDs??
As Tom Friedman pointed out yesterday, the proof the WMDs is in the mass graves being unearthed one after another in Iraq, maybe 90 with up to 10,000 dead in each -- including one so far that was full of children -- and in the 300,000 people still missing. The real human mass destruction.
Now those may not be the WMDs that the neocons were going on about, so maybe the *neocons* should be pissed off -- but what do good liberals who are supposed to so care about the victimized of the world have to be so upset about???
When I was draft age the liberal anti-war movement was based on the premise that the war was *bad for the Vietnamese*. Now the liberal anti-war movement sure seems based on the fact that in spite of the war being *good* for the Iraqis, it was bad for liberals. What a come down.
"Meanwhile 85 American and 10 British soldiers have died in Iraq since May 1."
Yes, and while no more of those mass graves with up to 10,000 each in them will be filled up, and another 300,000 people won't go missing, this is an unacceptable cost ratio for today's liberals. Even though back in the days when liberal Democrats knew how to win elections, they promised "we will bear any cost" to defend the freedom of others.
For the life of me, I don't see why this shouldn't have been a bipartisan war with neocons having their rationale for it and the liberals fully supporting it with an even better rationale of toppling one of the world's worst mass killers. I mean, if Democrats could support war to bomb Serbia into regime change on "humanitarian" grounds when there was *no* US interest there, then how can they possibly not support the same in Iraq when Saddam was so much worse than Milosovic? (Not to mention that we *do* have major strategic interests in the mideast, and Saddam was one of the region's most toxic destabilizers.)
Of course the answer is obvious. Clinton was a Democrat, so there was no chance then of giving any credit to a Republican for doing the right thing, which to the left of the Democratic party (though not the Gephardt center) is an offense that *far* outweighs the benefit of merely toppling one of the world's worst mass-murdering dictators.
So now we have this absurd hyperventilating over what? Over how Bush used 16 works in a 5,000 word speech, reporting something our closest ally still says is true, to criminally manipulate the country into going into a war that both Houses of Congress had voted to support three months previously. It was not only criminal manipulation, but retroactive-in-time manipulation!
It's just nuts. Everyone who doesn't care about the next election should keep it up.
~~~~
"The Democratic candidates for president – and many in the media – are trying to make President Bush see like a liar. In so doing, they are making an unforgivable mistake...
"I am a proud Democrat who generally supports Democratic candidates for office. I have never voted for anyone other than a Democrat for president. I believe that the Democratic Party's philosophy is overall far better for our country than the Republican Party's...
"Although I am a Democrat, I am no ideologue ... and it is my current intention to vote for George W. Bush for re-election.
"Whether intelligence reports about Iraq were accurate or not, the president had a right to rely on information from Blair, America’s most steadfast ally, and his government...
"I believe Democrats and their media allies will fail to bring Bush down, because taking on Saddam Hussein was the right course of action for America....
Ed Koch, former mayor of NYC.
(key words: "I am no ideologue".)
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2003/7/15/215614.shtml
~~~~~
"Democrats smell blood and don’t want to be told that it’s their own....
"One reason why the President ... is all but certain to win re-election is the descent into madness of his opponents. They’ve let post-impeachment, post-chad-dangling bitterness unhinge them to the point where, given a choice between investigating the intelligence lapses that led to 9/11 and the intelligence lapses that led to a victorious war in Iraq, they stampede for the latter.
"Iraq was a brilliant campaign fought with minimal casualties, 11 September was a humiliating failure by government to fulfill its primary role of national defense. But Democrats who complained that Bush was too slow to act on doubtful intelligence re 9/11 now profess to be horrified that he was too quick to act on doubtful intelligence re Iraq.
"This is not a serious party."
Mark Steyn, www.spectator.co.uk
~~~~
"Far too many Democrats are just too angry to think straight at the moment."
The Economist, Lexington, 6/26
Jim,
The swirling rationals for the war are what I object to.
It started out as 'We must fight Iraq because of WMDs'. Then it was Al Qaeda. Then WMD to Al Qaeda. Then it was to liberate Iraq.
The lies on the first 3 reasons make me believe the 4th is a lie. (Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.)
Furthermore, there is an opportunity cost to invade Iraq now. Because our troops are in Iraq, they are not available to deal with problems arising in other areas of the world - Liberia, North Korea, Iran (with a more advance WMD program than Iraq?), Congo, etc. Which of those has a more acute problem with mass killings?
Additionally, a war of liberation in Iraq properly justified to the world would garner support from more than England. Imagine if we had sufficent MPs from a large coalition to prevent chaos in Iraq?
For all that was said about 'finally, we have adults in the White House', they certainly treat us like children.
rbb
Posted by: Mobius Klein on July 17, 2003 04:55 PM"Imagine if we had sufficent MPs from a large coalition to prevent chaos in Iraq?"
No need to imagine: we had sufficient MPs from a large coalition to prevent chaos at Srebeniča.
John, I am just warming up. I am trying out my rebuttal at various sites, and hope to hit on a formula I like. But my latest plan is to deliver "mock and awe" at Mr. Corn's bold use of selective quotation.
From the Corn column:
"Novak's July 14, 2003, column presented the back-story on Wilson's mission and contained the following sentences: "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 allegation."
Disturbing! But what did Novak write?
"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. "
Hold the phone! Did Novak actually write "The CIA says" in his third sentence? Did Corn's fingers get tired typing?
According to Novak, two senior Admin officials said that the wife suggested Mr. Wilson for the job. Is it only the CIA that makes suggestions for this sort of mission? Surely a Ms. Wilson working in Defense, State, or even the White House could have been in a position to offer such a suggestion, since all of those areas have intelligence people, and people who work with them.
Meanwhile, Novak is clear that the CIA implied that Ms. Wilson works there (or why would they use her to contact the hubby?)
So, at a minimum, the CIA confirmed that Ms. Wilson was with the Agency. At a maximim, they were the only source. Is this how the CIA discusses its super-top-secret operatives? Maybe she is a minor contract player, or some such.
Now, Corn knows he is just having fun. Look at what he says after the selective excerpt:
"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" ..."
Well, yes, they "appear to be" if you rely on his excerpt. If you read Novak, the source appears to be, less dramatically, the CIA.
There is more fun throughout Corn's piece. Wilson won't confirm that his wife is CIA, so Corn and Wilson trade exciting hypotheticals - "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. This is the stuff of Kim Philby and Aldrich Ames." "
Yes, and if I were Bill Gates, I would give everyone who has commented at this site today one million dollars! Make that two million! But don't rush out and spend it yet, because if I am not Bill Gates, then (sorry), I won't. And if Ms. Wilson is not a super-top-secret operative, then what has been compromised, and what is the column about?
Leaving us where? Mr. Wilson has already demonstrated a selective memory, and quite probably annoyed some CIA folks (OK, White House too) with his misleading NY Times piece. Does he want to talk about his own deficiencies as a reporter, or paint himself as a victim? This attempt to change the subject may buy a bit of time, and the spotllight may shift.
And is Mr. Corn even keeping a straight face while he types this? C'mon, find one fact in this column supporting Corn's theory. Wilson delivers a non-denial denial to the question of whether his wife contacted him as Novak asserts. And as to Novak's sources, the closest we come to support for Corn is Wilson saying this:
"And Wilson says Novak told him that his sources were administration officials. "
ALL Novak's sources were Admin officials? It is clear from his column that Novak had multiple sources, including Admin officials and CIA. Could Mr. Wilson's selective memory be acting up again? Might Novak have been answering incompletely, or answering an incomplete question, when he told Wilson about Admin officials?
Wilson has an axe to grind, we don't know what he and Novak said, and the rest of this column is fluff.
Well, that's my case. I am still not thrilled with the presentation, but I definitely have a point hidden here somewhere.
Let's just bring this thing about Plame full circle. If the meanest take on this story is true, then an administration that argued illicit weapons alledgedly held by Iraq were a threat to US security and so justified war, has just undermined its own efforts to dig out illicit weapons in other place where they might be a threat to the US. In order to do what? Not to make us safer, certainly. Not to contradict Wilson's statements, even, but only to suggest that an extraordinarily successful diplomat with experience in both Niger and Iraq got an assignment to look into a link between Niger and Iraq through nepotism, rather than because he was the right man for the job. Or maybe to make an example of the family of a man that had cause Bush trouble.
Please, don't let this be true.
Posted by: K Harris on July 18, 2003 07:41 AMI think the presentation isn't bad, Tom. And even skimming, you seem to have a pretty good point. It's Sunday now, and I notice I haven't heard any more about this.
Posted by: John Isbell on July 20, 2003 03:55 PM