A CIA Cover Blown, a White House Exposed

[CatWoman]

WASHINGTON — Toward the end of a steamy summer week in 2003, reporters were peppering the White House with phone calls and e-mails, looking for someone to defend the administration's claims about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

About to emerge as a key critic was Joseph C. Wilson IV, a former diplomat who asserted that the administration had manipulated intelligence to justify the Iraq invasion.


At the White House, there wasn't much interest in responding to critics like Wilson that Fourth of July weekend. The communications staff faced more pressing concerns — the president's imminent trip to Africa, growing questions about the war and declining ratings in public opinion polls.

Wilson's accusations were based on an investigation he undertook for the CIA. But he was seen inside the White House as a "showboater" whose stature didn't warrant a high-level administration response. "Let him spout off solo on a holiday weekend," one White House official recalled saying. "Few will listen."

In fact, millions were riveted that Sunday as Wilson — on NBC's "Meet the Press" and in the pages of the New York Times and the Washington Post — accused the administration of ignoring intelligence that didn't support its rationale for war.

Underestimating the impact of Wilson's allegations was one in a series of misjudgments by White House officials

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-leak25aug25,0,61238.story?page=1&coll=la-home-headlines

[underpants]

1. The way I hear it, Wilson went to Aruba.....

:evilgrin:

[CatWoman]

2. I just printed off this article

it's a whopping 13 pages long.

I hope he had fun :hi:

[Pirate Smile]

13. A Salon article on this article and whether Time Inc kept quiet to help

Bush:

From a BurtWorm thread:

"LA Times: Time Inc may have kept Plame info quiet so as not to harm Bush in an election year. As reported in salon.com's War Room:

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/index.html


Did Time hide the truth to help Bush win re-election?

The Los Angeles Times takes a long look at Plamegate today. There's little new here -- except for a claim by someone close to Karl Rove that Rove first heard Plame's name from Bob Novak -- but the Times does raise an interesting question along the way. We know now that Rove and Scooter Libby were involved in the outing of Plame. But how is it, the Times asks, that their roles remained secret until after George W. Bush was re-elected?

The answer, at least in part: Their roles remained secret because some members of the mainstream press helped to keep them secret. According to the Times' report, Time magazine's Matthew Cooper chose not to ask for a waiver of confidentiality from Rove until this summer -- in part because his attorney advised against it, and in part because "Time editors were concerned about becoming part of such an explosive story in an election year." As a result, the Times says, "Cooper's testimony was delayed nearly a year, well after Bush's reelection."

Translated, as John Aravosis explains at AMERICAblog today, that means that Time's editors didn't want Cooper to reveal information that could be damaging to Bush's re-elections hopes until after the election was over. "It's one thing for Time to do its job and ignore the effects of its reporting and overall work on US elections," Aravosis writes. "It's quite another for Time to make decisions based on whether they'll influence US elections."

In a way, it may be even worse than that. By not seeking a waiver from Rove -- by not reporting what its reporter knew to be true -- Time allowed Americans to go the polls believing that which the magazine knew to be false. Until Time turned over Matthew Cooper's email messages to Patrick Fitzgerald this July, the White House was free to proclaim -- as it did, repeatedly and vociferously -- that Karl Rove had nothing whatsoever to do with the outing of Valerie Plame. That's the false story Americans had been told when they cast their votes for the presidency in November. Time knew better but didn't say.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4456483

[ninkasi]

20. Time should have reported the truth

So Time was so concerned about reporting a story that might influence US elections, that it sat on the story till later. Isn't a reporter's obligation to report the truth? If it happens to influence the election, so be it. Time decided to withhold the facts, though, knowing that Americans would vote based on false, or incomplete information.

The whole establishment has betrayed us. From corrupt politicians, to those too timid, too anxious not to rock the boat, to the press which has done everything but report the truth, to the corporations which buy politicians, meaning that laws are passed not based on the common good, but upon big business' greed, they have all betrayed us.

They have allowed oceans of innocent blood to be shed in the deserts of Iraq, a needless tragedy, and one which will haunt us for many, many years. Time deserves a share of the blame in that. I try not to get my hopes up regarding Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation into outing Valerie Plame in order to punish her husband. We have been betrayed too many times, by too many people, to let myself believe that there might still be a public official who will search for the truth, and broadcast it to us.

Excellent post, and important. I'm nominating this one.

[KeepItReal]

3. This is like a history of how Bush & Co. lied their way into Iraq

Check this out on Powell's speech to the U.N.:

"To sort out the conflicting intelligence, Wilkerson convened a three-day meeting at CIA headquarters. Its rotating cast included the administration's major foreign policy players: Libby, Hadley, Powell, Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage, Tenet, Deputy CIA Director John E. McLaughlin and Rice.

Wilkerson was told that Libby had said the 48-page document was designed to offer Powell "a Chinese menu" of intelligence highlights to draw from for his speech. Powell and his team were skeptical of most of it. Rice, Tenet and Hadley were trying to reinsert bits of intelligence they personally favored but that could not be corroborated. Hadley offered an unsubstantiated report of alleged meetings between Sept. 11 hijacker Mohamed Atta and an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague shortly before the attacks.

"The whole time, people were trying to reinsert their favorite … pet rocks back into the presentation, when their pet rocks weren't backed up by anything but hearsay, or Chalabi or the INC or both," Wilkerson said."

[gratuitous]

4. "One in a series of misjudgments"

Just makes it all sound so benign, doesn't it? "Yeah, Charles Manson just had a series of misjudgments back in July and August of 1969." Sure, some people died, but really, who among us hasn't screwed up from time to time?

This is about a phoney rationale for a war that's squandered our national defense, treasury and honor! It's killed tens of thousands of people who never meant us any harm, and motivated a lot of people who now indeed mean to do us harm. It's difficult to imagine a worse outcome of this whole ill-considered enterprise.

"Series of misjudgments" my sweet Aunt Fanny! I didn't read the entire article, but it makes it sound like the Bush administration just had a few political miscalculations instead of running a campaign of criminal conduct.

[seemslikeadream]

5. looking for someone to defend the administration's claims about WMD

http://www.cursor.org.nyud.net:8090/images/iheartchalabi.jpg

[lovuian]

6. 9 pages of how Bush and his people made a propoganda war

to make Americans go to war with Iraq falsely!!!

Bush has all the information and yet he allows this incompetent nitwits or treasonous spies to run the white house!!!

It looks Bad for Bush!!!

[Pirate Smile]

9. That was what I was going to point out - It is 9 PAGES LONG!

[Roland99]

7. My Gen. Discussion thread about one aspect of this article:

Is this why/when Cheney was visiting the CIA so often?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4454884

[Lone_Star_Dem]

8. Bush had better schedule more dates for his Iraqapalooza tour

He's going to have to work pretty damn hard to counter the rising tide of truth hitting the media. :evilgrin:

[leftchick]

10. Wow! OSP, WHIG!!!

It is all there in Black and White! Excellent article....

<snip>

Rumsfeld, Libby and Wolfowitz were longtime supporters of Chalabi, the Iraqi National Congress leader who was a key source of the now-discredited intelligence that Hussein had hidden huge stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction. The CIA viewed Chalabi as a "fake," said Daalder, a former Security Council staffer.

Rumsfeld's Pentagon established an independent intelligence operation, the Office of Special Plans, which essentially provided the Defense Department and White House with an alternative to CIA and State Department intelligence. The competing operations would create confusion in preparations for the invasion of Iraq.



<snip>

Many of those officials also were members of the White House Iraq Group, established to coordinate and promote administration policy. It included the most influential players who would represent two elements of the current scandal: a hardball approach to political critics and long-standing disdain for CIA views on intelligence matters.

The group consisted of Rove, Libby, White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr., then-national security advisor Condoleezza Rice and her deputy, Stephen Hadley, and Mary Matalin, Cheney's media advisor. All are believed to have been questioned in the leak case; papers and e-mails about the group were subpoenaed.

[catmandu57]

11. This is the most indepth article I've read

Sometimes it got a little confusing as to where this was going I kept trying to figure out who's ass was being covered.


edit: batteries ran low had to fix spelling

[Kazak]

12. Plame hitting the media again?

An attempt to soften the blow of imminent indictments, perhaps?

:D

[proud patriot]

14. Yowza

:-)

[CatWoman]

15. I'm surprised this thread didn't get more replies

judging from all the "What happened to Plame" threads that rear their ugly heads in GD and GD Politics.

[Quixote1818]

16. Put it in General Discussion and it will probably take off

A lot of people don't go to Late Breaking News compared to GD. People live in GD it seems

[NYC]

25. People are still reading.

And some of us are busy saving that Judith Miller in an I Heart Chalabi T-shirt picture. :)

[Straight Shooter]

17. I would love to see the Plame outing brought out in Camp Casey.

It's all part and parcel of a very nasty Pandora's box that bush opened.

[DoYouEverWonder]

18. It was on this trip to Africa that Bush and other high level officials

conspired to out a CIA operative and her cover. The calls to Rove and Libby were made from AF1. This was a top down operation and most of the WH officials in this picture will probably be facing indictment soon.

[Al-CIAda]

19. .

[Virginian]

21. Is Fitzgerald still the proscecutor?

A caller to AAR told Ed that Patrick Fitzgerald had resigned and had been replaced. I don't see anything about it on DU.

[lovuian]

23. I think the caller got misxed up with Fitz's boss just retired and

is amazingly working for Lockheed!!! Thats a stumper!!!

[snot]

22. Interesting in mentioning that the lengths the WH went to--

--supposedly just to discredit Wilson--were extraordinary. Others have suggested that's because the real goal was to shut down Plame's operation investigating WMD's before she discovered something even more damaging to * supporters.

[DELUSIONAL]

24. When Colin Bowel gave his UN speech/demonstration

DU was covering the event real time.


I remember that many of the DU people who were watching and commenting were shooting down all of Bowel's "evidence".

At one point Bowel used a DRAWING -- and the rest of his props were as outrageous.

I was impressed with the critical thinking ability of the DU posters -- you guys took Bowel apart and did more reporting than the Corporate media whores.

[calimary]

26. Dang! Won't download.

Glad it's being posted, though.