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anonymously, on May 22, 2003 (a month before Joseph Wilson's article), about the Brits' "sexed up" Iraq WMD intel (the exaggerated claims about Iraq WMDs). The Blairites were very concerned about this, and were trying to find out who the whistleblower was. They put great pressure on the BBC to force them to disclose it. Near the end of June, Kelly learned that "it was known" that he was the whistleblower, and, at that point, he wrote a letter to his bosses saying that it was him. Thus began the chain of events that led to his death, on July 17, three days after the first Plame outing. (The second Plame outing, of the entire Brewster Jennings operation--a 20 year CIA project with covert eyes and ears on WMDs around the world-- occurred four days after that, on July 22, and--possibly of great importance--after Kelly's office and computers were searched.)
Judith Miller and David Kelly were friends and correspondents. She had cultivated him as a WMD expert and used him as a major quoted source in her book "Germs." One of his last emails was to Judith Miller--the one in which he was worried about the "many dark actors playing games."
Miller then wrote a news article for the NYT (July 21, 2003) about Kelly's death, in which she failed to disclose the "dark actors" email or her other connections to Kelly. (The email was later released by his family.) It's quite odd--if not a breach of journalistic ethics--for her to try to play the objective news reporter about this close associate's death, and not report her connections to him.
Also, I suspect that she put words in Kelly's mouth in that article. In paragraphs 15-16, she has him saying "to his associates" (without quotes) that US troops were not looking hard enough for WMDs in Iraq. This criticism of US troops does not fit Kelly's state of mind at the time (that of a whistleblower), but it does serve Miller's interests. At the time, Kelly was risking his career to expose the exaggerations about Iraq WMDs. Meanwhile, Miller was running around Iraq with the US troops after the invasion "hunting" for WMDs that everyone in the Bush Cartel knew weren't there, on a special "embed" contract signed by Donald Rumsfeld. She led the troops around, pointing them here and there--badgering them, threatening them with her connections in the Pentagon--and became a big annoyance to the commanders in the field. She seemed quite sure that WMDs would be found, if only they looked hard enough. Kelly saying this just doesn't smell right. And it would be easy enough to make something up after he was dead. (And, given what we now know of Miller's "journalism," it wouldn't at all be surprising if that's what she did.)
These suspicions about Miller's "journalism" have led me to a suspicion about something else--that she was the one who "outed" Kelly to the Blair government. The BBC refused to disclose his identity. And it seemed to catch him by surprise that they knew. How did they find out?
The public had been super-primed to expect a find a WMDs in Iraq after the invasion, and Miller was well-positioned to "get the scoop." But the WMDs never materialised.
During that period (March-April 2003), something caused Kelly to do a turnabout on the war. He had supported the war and wanted Saddam Hussein ousted. He was highly experienced on Iraq WMDs, had been there many times as a WMD inspector, and was legendary for facing down Saddam (and the Russians) on WMD issues. A tough guy; a brilliant scientist, from all reports. He strongly believed in his work, the goal of which was non-proliferation (same goal as Plame's covert work). He was an insider on the Brits WMD intel docs, had tried to get them to be more accurate, but did not whistleblow before the invasion. He did it afterwards.
After he was identified, he was given a "security-style" interrogation, was likely threatened with the Official Secrets Act and loss of his pension, was forced to partially recant before a Parliamentary defense committee, and was outed to the press, and then sent home apparently without surveillance or protection. He was soon found dead (July 18) near his home, along the route of his normal afternoon walk, under a tree, having slit one wrist and bled to death all night out in the cold and the rain. (--tough guy? brilliant scientist?)
There were many dissenters (eyewitnesses and experts) about the conclusion of suicide. The possibility of murder was not pursued, despite strong evidence pointing to it (not enough blood at the scene; body moved; no note; no indications of despair--quite the contrary--and on and on). The official "Lord Hutton report" exonerated the Blairites and blamed the BBC (!).
On July 7, 2003--after Kelly had been whistleblowing for more than a month, after he had been identified and interrogated, ten days before his death, and seven days before the Plame outing--Tony Blair was informed that Kelly "could say some uncomfortable things." COULD say. Not HAD said. (Hutton report.)
I strongly suspect that this warning to Blair about what Kelly "could say" was the true trigger for the Plame outing, and not the publication of Joseph Wilson's article on July 6. I read an interview of Wilson in which he stated that he had called Condi Rice, to get the regime to disavow the Iraq-Niger allegation, and she told him (through intermediaries) that she was not interested in his information, but, if he was so concerned about the matter, why didn't he publish it?
So his publication was expected (and likely part of a long term Bushite plot to "get" the CIA, and, possibly, in particular, to disable the CIA's covert weapons monitoring capability, in order to advance Cheney arms dealing schemes).
Why, then, did the Bushites out Plame in such a foolish and hasty way--contacting at least SIX journalists (witnesses to treason), and involving numerous top Bushite officials (everyone who laid eyes on the Plame memo on AF-1 on the Africa trip, July 5-12, including possibly Bush and Cheney), Libby and Rove in the U.S., and who knows who else? The way they did it put everyone at maximum risk of treason charges. And then they compounded that risk by outing the whole CIA front company on July 22 (after Kelly's death), in the most obvious way possible, planting it in a news column.
It feels like panic to me--not the conclusion of a well-thought out, planned scheme, going all the way back to the Niger forgeries, to draw out the dissident elements in the CIA, or whatever they were up to. It feels more like they were stumbling all over themselves, and inventing ill-coordinated (and even silly) cover stories, and maximizing everybody's risk, in response to something UNEXPECTED.
I think that something--the something that got Kelly whistleblowing, the something that the Bushites and the Blairites were so scared of, and didn't expect--is that Kelly had stumbled upon their covert plot to PLANT nukes or other WMDs in Iraq, for the enormous political gain to Bush/Blair (if WMDs had been "found"). And perhaps Kelly even helped foil their nefarious scheme (it would have outraged him--my read on his character). The panic to out Plame--that I sense in the Bushites' actions--was possibly based on fear that she and her WMD network would find out (she was in a good position to do so), or they suspected her of already knowing, or of having helped to foil their plot--and they then got confirmation of this when they got into Kelly's computers; thus, the seemingly gratuitous (unnecessary for "punishing" Wilson), and highly risky (as to treason charges) outing of Brewster Jennings.
Judith Miller was all set up to "get the scoop" on these planted WMDs, and was possibly mixed up in that plot as well, in addition to the Plame outing itself, and whatever murky role she may have been playing in David Kelly's outing. (The irony may be that the person to whom he trustingly sent a warning about the "dark actors playing games" was a "dark actor" herself). Many people were endangered by these outings--Plame and her family, all of the BJ network, some of whom were put at high risk of being killed, and Kelly. And the only thing any of them were guilty of was seeking or telling the truth.
There were reports in Iranian and Pakistani newspapers in March 2003 of a covert US arms shipment unloaded at the Basra port (reported by an Iraqi Governing Council member, who suspected a "plant" of WMDs), and of a "bungled" covert effort to move arms within Iraq that met with "friendly fire" (by a US Defense Dept. whistleblower). Kelly had friends in Iraq, and had gone to Iraq after the invasion. It seems likely that he would have gotten word of these reports. (His last emails reveal that he was looking forward to returning to Iraq, after the controversy surrounding him blew over--which he thought would take about a week. He was also looking forward to his daughter's wedding. My guess: he had assured his bosses that he wouldn't reveal the worst, and thought that would be an end to it.)
I think that the New York Times has much to answer for--especially the owners, publishers and editors who were most responsible for Judith Miller's position in the paper, and for her bald-faced, lying propaganda for the war, on the front pages of their paper--a journalistic campaign that had vast repercussions throughout the corporate news monopoly press, with many other news organizations taking their cue from the NYT; throughout the U.S. (it didn't fool the American people, 58% of whom opposed the Iraq war BEFORE the invasion, in Feb. '03--but it certainly helped stifle dissent, and aided the Bushites in their lying), and, of course, in Iraq, where tens of thousands of innocent people were slaughtered, and others detained and tortured.
By promoting Judith Miller, and granting her this reputable platform on which to lie about Iraq and promote the war--in the nation's "newspaper of record--they also contributed to whatever skulduggery she may have been involved in. They gave her status and authority, and undeserved power. Their part in this war has completely sullied the NYT as a news organization. They will never recover from it. They will live in infamy, right up there with the Bush Cartel, as the worst bunch of liars and evildoers our country has ever been inflicted with. That's some legacy for a once highly respected newspaper.
And we have by no means seen the last of the repercussions of their actions--with an out of control cabal in the White House with its finger on our nuclear trigger, and now saber-rattling at Iran and Syria. If there is a holocaust in the Middle East, it will not be limited to the Middle East (read Carl Sagan's "The Cold and the Dark" about what even a LIMITED nuclear exchange will do to our planet)--and, well, I guess there won't be anybody left to thank the New York Times for aiding and abetting it.
The remedy is for the NYT to come clean NOW. To stop this madness NOW. To front-page and banner headline its own mistakes, and lead a campaign to force Congress to impeach this entire regime NOW. Some at the NYT may be facing indictment, conviction and jail time, and, I would hope, given the stakes, that they would bravely face that consequence, rather than see mushroom clouds in the Middle East darken our planet forevermore.
The fighting, and the divisiveness, and the violence, and the warmongering, and the skulduggery, and the nuclear blackmail, and the paranoia, and the war profiteering, and the use of US soldiers as cannon fodder, and the lying, and the thievery, and the destruction of our democracy MUST END. NOW!
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