Joseph Wilson book will name White House leaker

[villager]

No direct story link -- item taken from today's Publisher's Weekly e-newsletter...


Wilson Book Will Reveal White House Leak

The much-awaited May book from nuclear expert Joseph Wilson will disclose who in the White House he says leaked information that led to the outing of his wife as a CIA agent, PW has learned.

Sources say the embargoed title, The Politics of Truth, from Carroll & Graf, will reveal who tipped off syndicated columnist Robert Novak in July that Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, worked for the CIA--a felony punishable by as many as ten years in prison--and the larger circumstances around the leak. The matter is the subject of a grand-jury investigation that has seen Novak, Wilson and a number of high-profile administration members questioned.

Asked about such disclosures in the book, C&G editor Philip Turner did not deny that the book was specific. "I think readers who want the personality side will not be disappointed. He lays it on the line." As for the author's candor on the leak's larger circumstances, Turner says, "Without going too far, he sketches out a scenario of events that is convincing and plausible and very personal." Turner says the book has been vetted carefully and that the publisher is prepared to defend it.

The book, which will come out May 20, will discuss Wilson's career as a diplomat in Africa and devote three chapters to the time he served as the last American diplomat in Baghdad, in 1990. But the juiciest part remains the name game: Who provided the leak, and how. Novak cited two senior administration officials in his July column but has declined to turn them over to investigators. Wilson has been silent since the grand jury convened.

Wilson, a retired ambassador, came to prominence with a NY Times op-ed in July about the investigation he made on behalf of the Bush administration over a claim, first made in the State of the Union address in 2003, that Saddam Hussein had tried to buy uranium from Niger. In the piece, titled "What I Didn't Find In Africa," Wilson said that he found no evidence that the transaction had been attempted. Several weeks later, Novak reported that Wilson's wife was CIA. Another grand jury is meeting over the Niger findings.

A first-person account that Wilson is writing himself, Politics of Truth is expected to draw heavy attention, and has already lined up media such as Dateline. Turner signed it up for an advance reportedly only in the low five-figures at the end of September, just days before a criminal referral was given that empanelled a grand jury. In the book, Wilson reportedly describes the last eight months as an "existential roller-coaster that has not yet come to rest."--Steven Zeitchik

www.publishersweekly.com

[Tuttle]

1. Could someone please explain to me why CNN hasn't fird Novak?

I mean, aren't we at war? How can someone be THAT irresponsible as to name an undercover agent?

Besides, then he would name names!

Tut-tut

[Eric J in MN]

5. It's ok if a Republican betrays America.

Peter Arnett said that the Iraquis would be more effective at the guerilla-stage of the war than the battlefield stage of the war, and CNN fired him for supposedly helping Iraq.

But Robert Novak truly helped terrorists by exposing Valerie Plame and all the people she used to work with, who monitor weapons-of-mass-destruction, but because Novak is a Republican, CNN does nothing.

[onecitizen]

33. Actually, believe it or not.........

Novak is a registered....get ready.......Democrat!! Marc Shields has pointed this out on "Capitol Gang" a couple of times. Apparently when he(Novak) first came to DC he was a Dem and never bothered to officially change his affiliation. Even though his loyalties obviously lie with the other side.

[TacticalPeek]

36. He probably enjoys doing his part to sabotage dem primaries (:-) n/t

[SoCalDem]

41. I was a registered republican so I could vote for McCain

I changed it back, but ANYONE can register in any party.. It's meaningless..

It's what you say and DO that matters, not what box you check on a form.........

[Pobeka]

38. It takes a caller on the line making rude comments to get fired!

Sorry couldn't resist :evilgrin:

[GreatCaesarsGhost]

2. i've never seen a "frog-march"

can't wait till may!

[northofdenali]

25. Lets start with Karl Rove.................

:evilgrin:

[coloradodem2005]

3. When this comes out, will the leaker be frog-marched?

[Nlighten1]

4. May?

Oh, boy...George and Karl won't like this...

[Killarney]

6. Great!

I'm glad it's already got Dateline lined up.

The more press the better. So many Americans don't have any idea about this, seriously. You ask most Americans who Valierie Plame is and they don't know.

End of May is good timing, too.

[Lindsay]

7. Another good read

to look forward to. Go Joe Wilson!!!

[BootinUp]

8. Theories

are nice, we need proof! I'm not complaining about Wilson, glad he wrote the book.

[Monkey see Monkey Do]

9. F'kin A!

Paging Gilliani, your VP slot in the Cheney batcave is open.

[Stephanie]

10. We should have indictments before May.

So the book will just be icing.

I am holding my breath until we get our Frog March.

Hannah
Libby
Cheney
Rove

That's what I want to see.

[lancdem]

11. I think you're right about indictments

I don't think Wilson would spill all the details unless he knew it wouldn't compromise the investigation.

[TacticalPeek]

19. I am currently evaluating Richard Perle for a position in that line-up.

I was thinking his resignation from the Defense Policy Board would turn out to relate to financial scandal, of which he has plenty, of course. But looking around for info about the other grand jury investigating the forged Niger documents I noticed this on the leak grand jury:

"Three of the five people who are targets work or worked in Cheney's office," the source said.

He added that members of the defence policy board, a Pentagon advisory group, are also under scrutiny.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1145390,00.html

Hmmmmm.


This article also has this about the 'forgotten' grand jury:

"A parallel grand jury is looking into the forgery of a document that surfaced in Italy before the war, purporting to show Iraqi attempts to buy uranium in Niger. Despite doubts over its authenticity, the document underpinned US and British claims, since proved groundless, that Saddam was reconstituting his nuclear weapons programme."

Very little news about the forgery grand jury, which is good, but it holds the potential to shake the foundations as much or more than a Cheney resignation, IMHO.

[Stephanie]

24. Very interesting....

We thought the Perle resig was about the Hollinger investigation. Makes more sense that he be forced to resign by BushCO before the scandal breaks if he's involved in Plame or the forgery.

But why do you say the forgery would be more scandalous than Cheney's resignation? I think if the forgery has roots in the WH it would come directly from Cheney's crew of neo-con lunatics, don't you think? Of which Perle is one.

[TacticalPeek]

26. Perhaps there was/is a big-time parallel intel/black ops infrastructure,

run out of the VP office and/or Pentagon, which, if fully exposed, would dwarf Nixon's 'plumbers' and Raygun's Poindexter/North shadow government.

Potential violation of national security regs/statutes, treason, possible foreign nationals subverting US national security interests, all directed by senior administration officials and hidden from Congressional oversight.

Not only is Cheney the real president, he may have his own personal, private government.

[Stephanie]

27. Ummm - when you say "perhaps"

Do you mean that you know something about this? Or are you speculating? You mean something more than OSP/INC/Energy Task Force pre-war scams? I'd be very interested to hear more about this. I have a deep loathing for Cheney:

Dick Cheney - Shadow President

Did Dick Cheney’s secret Energy Task Force plan the Invasion of Iraq?

[TacticalPeek]

28. Speculation, based mostly on Seymour Hersh's New Yorker writing,

in which I got the feeling that he, or more likely his sources, were showing only a little of their hand. If true, and still active, one would be circumspect about traceable opposition. Liddy was a little dangerous, but this would be on another level.

I remember having an extremely low opinion of Richard Nixon, and then being dumbfounded that he approved the fire-bombing of the Brookings Institute, and am still amazed as things trickle out of the tapes even today.

[Stephanie]

30. Please check out my Shadow President post above

I'm quite sure you're right. Dick moved into the bunker with the PNAC blueprint and got to work, IMO.

Did you see this New Yorker article about the Energy Task Force? I'd like to know where she got this document, and what's happening with it now.

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040216fa_fact
CONTRACT SPORT
by JANE MAYER
What did the Vice-President do for Halliburton?
Issue of 2004-02-16 and 23
Posted 2004-02-09

<snip>

For months there has been a debate in Washington about when the Bush Administration decided to go to war against Saddam. In Ron Suskind’s recent book “The Price of Loyalty,” former Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill charges that Cheney agitated for U.S. intervention well before the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Additional evidence that Cheney played an early planning role is contained in a previously undisclosed National Security Council document, dated February 3, 2001. The top-secret document, written by a high-level N.S.C. official, concerned Cheney’s newly formed Energy Task Force. It directed the N.S.C. staff to coöperate fully with the Energy Task Force as it considered the “melding” of two seemingly unrelated areas of policy: “the review of operational policies towards rogue states,” such as Iraq, and “actions regarding the capture of new and existing oil and gas fields.”

A source who worked at the N.S.C. at the time doubted that there were links between Cheney’s Energy Task Force and the overthrow of Saddam. But Mark Medish, who served as senior director for Russian, Ukrainian, and Eurasian affairs at the N.S.C. during the Clinton Administration, told me that he regards the document as potentially “huge.” He said, “People think Cheney’s Energy Task Force has been secretive about domestic issues,” referring to the fact that the Vice-President has been unwilling to reveal information about private task-force meetings that took place in 2001, when information was being gathered to help develop President Bush’s energy policy. “But if this little group was discussing geostrategic plans for oil, it puts the issue of war in the context of the captains of the oil industry sitting down with Cheney and laying grand, global plans.”

[TacticalPeek]

32. Umm, tasty.

I foolishly let my subscription lapse recently. I love Mayer, and this dovetails nicely with the 31 Jan 01 NSC memo from Suskind's book about 'Post-Saddam' planning.

The link only gets me to a default(?) New Yorker page; perhaps the 'SPORT' needs to be in the url, but plain appending of it doesn't work either.

I need to read this, and noticed there is a new Hersh piece there, too, on Pak nuke intrique, which I must also read.

Thanks for the info.

[Stephanie]

34. Re-pasting the link for you

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?040216fa_fact

If it doesn't work I will PM the article - not too long.

*edit* And here is my thread on the new Hersh piece:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x1182375

[TacticalPeek]

35. Great, that one works, thanks, and for the thread link, too. n/t

[alfredo]

12. Bringing this out now will put pressure on the bush white house to

surrender the traitors. Either they surrender him/her, or have the perp outed.

[nefarious]

13. I'd put my money on Rove too

Anyone with a large bust of Lenin as the centerpiece in their home has got to be a Bolshevik terrorist.

But I could see how someone might think mean-as-a-Wyoming-rattlesnake Cheney, or low-as-whale-shit Pearl could have done the same. Who does that leave, Rumsfeld, Wolfowits, Rice, and Powell?

[Stephanie]

15. We have the names

We're just waiting for the frog march.

By the way, where did you get that bit about a Lenin bust in Rove's home? Link? Or were you joking?

This is from Josh Marshall two weeks ago. This is why we're SO IMPATIENT.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_02_01.html#002529

There's been plenty of chatter over recent days that some indictments were coming down the pike in the Plame matter. Now UPI's Richard Sale seems to have the goods.

This from a story just out ...

Federal law enforcement officials said that they have developed hard evidence of possible criminal misconduct by two employees of Vice President Dick Cheney's office related to the unlawful exposure of a CIA officer's identity last year.
The investigation, which is continuing, could lead to indictments, a Justice Department official said.

According to these sources, John Hannah and Cheney's chief of staff Lewis "Scooter" Libby were the two Cheney employees.

"We believe that Hannah was the major player in this," one federal law enforcement officer said.

<more>

[nefarious]

17. The Lenin bust at Rove's place

Is from David Brock's account "Blinded by the Right."

A very good read from an ex-insider in the Neo Con power base.

[Stephanie]

18. Jayzus!

I know about the book but haven't read it. That's an amazing factoid. What on earth does he mean by that??

By the way, welcome to DU, nefarious!

[nefarious]

20. Meant to signify revolution

Against what was called the "status quo" liberals and democrats who don't see things their way, and who besmirched Ronald Reagan with Iran-Contra and opposed Clarence Thomas using the Anita Hill strategy... among other things.

[Chomskyite]

22. Correction

You mean Grover Norquist.

[TacticalPeek]

23. Haven't seen Grover lately. Did he get lost in Perry's hair? n/t

[TacticalPeek]

21. George Soros made a cute comment on c-span last night,

about the neo-cons being more like neo-Marxists: all about power and materialism. :evilgrin:

And welcome to DU, nefarious!

:toast:

[Nlighten1]

14. Auughhh!

I can't find this on the site.

[villager]

16. no, it's just a blurb from their daily...

...e-mail newsletter. There's no link back to an archived article...

[Beetwasher]

29. YES!

Sweet!

[Doctor_J]

31. How will Rove dodge this?

They managed to stall the investigation for 8 months. Now Wilson is going to TELL THEM who it was. Can't wait to see the spin on this.

[villager]

40. hopefully, finally, at last --

--he won't.

[Oilwellian]

37. Looks like a good thread to post this

God, I love this taunting picture. :D

[TacticalPeek]

39. got righteousness?

Not self-righteous. Just righteous.

[dusty64]

42. This ought to be interesting.

Looks like the genie is out of the bottle and the regime is NOT going to be able to stuff it back in.

[snippy]

43. Has anyone seen anything more about White House staff taking the fifth?

Josh Marshall's reference to this on February 22 is the only thing I have seen.