Decision ‘08

Did Bush Authorize Efforts To Discredit Joe Wilson?

PlameGate just got a whole lot more interesting with the latest court filings. Let Tom Maguire set the stage, first with a quote from the NY Sun ~~that I’m not linking to because the site has been down all day~~:

A former White House aide under indictment for obstructing a leak probe, I. Lewis Libby, testified to a grand jury that he gave information from a closely-guarded “National Intelligence Estimate” on Iraq to a New York Times reporter in 2003 with the specific permission of President Bush, according to a new court filing from the special prosecutor in the case.

The court papers from the prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, do not suggest that Mr. Bush violated any law or rule. However, the new disclosure could be awkward for the president because it places him, for the first time, directly in a chain of events that led to a meeting where prosecutors contend the identity of a CIA employee, Valerie Plame, was provided to a reporter.

Some are already buzzing that this proves Bush was out to discredit Wilson, and that’s one plausible interpretation, but it’s not a slam dunk at this stage:

…[W]e *don’t know* what Cheney and Bush discussed before Bush authorized the partial disclosure of the NIE. President Bush may have been vitally interested specifically in discrediting Joe Wilson; he may not have heard the name, and simply authorized the disclosure to help with the White House side of the press coverage. That said, Bush’s involvement preceded the July 8 meeting with Judy Miller, (p. 19/20 of .pdf), which is not great news.

25 Responses to “Did Bush Authorize Efforts To Discredit Joe Wilson?”

1 peter Says:
April 6th, 2006 at 4:12 pm
For a secretive administration which blasts the media for looking behind the curtain – as, for example, when Bush slammed the New York Times for revealing that the administration conducted wiretaps without warrants – it is wrong to selectively disclose classified information as a tool to fight political opponents.
2 dmac Says:
April 6th, 2006 at 4:34 pm
Absolutely - and the Dems never, ever, ever do this. Remember TravelGate, Peter? How about Paula Jones? Vince Foster? The slime entailed with the classified leaks that your boy (and his lovely wife and assorted minions) pulled on those unfortunate souls should make anyone blush.

Please - enough with the pollyanish Political Science 101 Lecture. Those who cast stones, you know.
3 topsecretk9 Says:
April 6th, 2006 at 4:59 pm
Peter, please. If Wilson were not lying there would be no reason for the WH to declassify the truth.
4 peter Says:
April 6th, 2006 at 5:59 pm
1) Vince Foster committed suicide, plain and simple. Even Ken Starr said that there was nothing there beyond a tragic event. Why people keep referring to him as though there was some deep, dark conspiracy is a mystery to me.

2) TravelGate was a similar non-event. People from the White House travel department were fired. This is not a big deal: staffers serve at the pleasure of the President and are frequently reshuffled with a new administration. Ken Starr also said that there was no wrongdoing by the Clintons here.

3) What exactly were the classified leaks concerning Paula Jones?
And when did Clinton leak classified information as part of a political vendetta?

4) Wilson lied? How and when? (The bit about whether Cheney directly asked him to go is a non-issue: go back and re-read the op-ed in the Times).

5) What Wilson did or did not do is hardly the issue. The issue is that George Bush made a false statement in the SOTU regarding Niger, based on flimsy and inconclusive evidence which turned out to be untrue. Like the false statements about the aluminum tubes, or the unfortunate presentation which Powell made to the UN, or the reliance on people like Chalabi and Curveball, it was another ace in the deck of cards which led to an invasion which has been an unmitigated disaster. Joe Wilson will be a footnote in history. Calling him a liar or justifying the release of classified information is merely a smokescreen to distract attention from the manifest ineptitude of the Bush administration.
5 topsecretk9 Says:
April 6th, 2006 at 7:19 pm
Peter
What Wilson did or did not do is hardly the issue.

Yes it is.

Wilson has admitted to lying about what he said to reporters. Via LIES he accused people of doing things they did not and told reporters that he himself had done certain things which a- he hadn’t or b- hadn’t but someone had revealed classified information to him.

The CIA signed off on the so-called 16 words, which WAS THEIR JOB to verify. They either believed their own intel or are incompetent, you pick.

It is not a smokescreen to call the man what he is, a liar - and admitted one at that and one that continues to do so because Kos people pay him lots in speaking fees to the lies. Again, if Joe Wilson were honest their would be no reason to declassify THE TRUTH.
6 Gwedd Says:
April 6th, 2006 at 7:37 pm
Comrades,

If the President declassified the information (which he has a legal right to do) and authorised it’s disclosure, then there was no crime comitted to begin with, and thus no reason for the entire investigation.

Respects,

Gwedd
7 peter Says:
April 6th, 2006 at 8:01 pm
Topsecretk9: if “it is not a smokescreen to call the man what he is, a liar:” do you think George Bush is an honest man?

Gwedd: you are correct — there is no illegality here. However, I think it is wrong to selectively disclose classified information for partisan reasons.
8 Aaron Says:
April 6th, 2006 at 9:22 pm
It is wong to disclose classified information for partisan reasons, but in that you’re talking about intent, which is difficult, if not impossible to prove. The reason for the “disclosure” of Valerie Plame’s identity — to people who didn’t have telephone books, that is — has been cited as explaining what Joe Wilson was doing in Nigeria in the first place. As an ambassaor with no experience in either nuclear non-proliferation or intelligence matters, only as a diplomat, Wilson was sent by the CIA to Nigeria not because he was qualified to investigate the possiblity of the smuggling of nuclear material, but instead because his wife was an employee of the CIA and was able to get the job for him. If the newsmedia were reporting Wilson’s statements as those from a credible source, it would be the responsibility of the administration to set the record straight and to let the media, and thus the people, know that he was just a crony.
9 Aaron Says:
April 6th, 2006 at 9:34 pm
Excuse me, Niger, not Nigeria.
10 peter Says:
April 6th, 2006 at 10:09 pm
1) There is no conceivable reason why the administration disclosed Valerie Plame’s identity except to punish someone who had the audacity to question the decision to invade Iraq. Wilson published the article and his wife’s identity was revealed within two weeks. I don’t have to prove intent: res ipsa loquitor, the thing speaks for itself.

2) “People who didn’t have telephone books?” Valerie Plame was a covert agent working for a CIA front organization (whose identity was revealed as a result of the leak) whose friends and family were unaware that she was a spy. As Reagan said, facts are stubborn things. The fact is that she was undercover until her status was revealed as a result of the administration’s leaking.

3) The suggestion that Plame’s identity was revealed to explain “what Joe Wilson was doing in Nigeria in the first place” is ludicrous. The fact is that he was asked by the government to go, and he went. What he was doing there was what the government had asked him to do.

4) The suggestion that Wilson was there “because his wife was an employee of the CIA and was able to get the job for him” is equally fatuous. His wife suggested him for the role, and others at the CIA hired him. Wilson had served with distinction as a diplomat for roughly twenty years — he was praised by Bush I for his work, who called him “”truly inspiring” and “courageous” — the CIA obviously was impressed by his credentials and sent him to Niger.

5) All of this misses the point. Sliming Joseph Wilson only serves the purpose of distracting people from the fact that he was, in fact, correct when he wrote that the Bush adminstration was “exaggerating the Iraqi threat” in order to justify war. Regrettably, what Wilson said was true and nearly everything that Bush and Cheney said about Iraq was false. That is what is most shameful about this whole sorry episode.
11 topsecretk9 Says:
April 6th, 2006 at 11:22 pm
do you think George Bush is an honest man? Yes, and far more honest than Wilson.

1) There is no conceivable reason why the administration disclosed Valerie Plame’s identity except to punish someone who had the audacity to question the decision to invade Iraq. Wilson published the article and his wife’s identity was revealed within two weeks. I don’t have to prove intent: res ipsa loquitor, the thing speaks for itself.

No White House official disclosed Plames identity. An unidentified GOVT official, presumably Richard Armitage, did to Bob Woodward and Bob Novak.

2) “People who didn’t have telephone books?” Valerie Plame was a covert agent working for a CIA front organization (whose identity was revealed as a result of the leak) whose friends and family were unaware that she was a spy. As Reagan said, facts are stubborn things. The fact is that she was undercover until her status was revealed as a result of the administration’s leaking.

She was outed 2ce, once by Aldrich Ames and then by her own employer- the CIA in Cuba.

3) The suggestion that Plame’s identity was revealed to explain “what Joe Wilson was doing in Nigeria in the first place” is ludicrous. The fact is that he was asked by the government to go, and he went. What he was doing there was what the government had asked him to do.

Then he shouldn’t have lied to Nic Kristof, Walter Pincus and a host of other reporters when he told them Cheney asked him to go, or even requested a “trip”

4) The suggestion that Wilson was there “because his wife was an employee of the CIA and was able to get the job for him” is equally fatuous. His wife suggested him for the role, and others at the CIA hired him. Wilson had served with distinction as a diplomat for roughly twenty years — he was praised by Bush I for his work, who called him “”truly inspiring” and “courageous” — the CIA obviously was impressed by his credentials and sent him to Niger.

Again it was Wilson who lied about the circumstances surrounding the trip, and he was hired because his wife suggested and then prepared a memo on his “good french contacts”

5) All of this misses the point. Sliming Joseph Wilson only serves the purpose of distracting people from the fact that he was, in fact, correct when he wrote that the Bush adminstration was “exaggerating the Iraqi threat” in order to justify war. Regrettably, what Wilson said was true and nearly everything that Bush and Cheney said about Iraq was false. That is what is most shameful about this whole sorry episode.

It is confounding that Wilson’s ego conflates revealing the factual details surrounding his trip to counter the lies he told with “smearing”. If Wilson did not lie, for example, when he said he had debunked forgeries he neither was asked to or had seen (unless he’s lying again and did see them, but that would be illegal, for they were classified) or if he had not lied about what he reported to the CIA, then he would have never made it into the NYT’s and but he would also not found himself so throughly debunked at the Senate Select Committee. An unfortunate event for Wilson, because he revealed that reporters either lied about him, he lied and he is fond of “literary flair”, and that he could not know — because he is not in Govt. — what the intelligence (predating 2001 even) noted (again unless he is a recipient of classified info) which is Iraq SOUGHT (that is an “S” not a “B”) yellowcake from Africa (that is the continent, not one country starting with an “N”) and further the CIA, whose job is to know so they can VET THE SPEECH signed off on it.
12 Aaron Says:
April 7th, 2006 at 5:51 am
“There is no conceivable reason why the administration disclosed Valerie Plame’s identity except to punish someone who had the audacity to question the decision to invade Iraq. Wilson published the article and his wife’s identity was revealed within two weeks. I don’t have to prove intent: res ipsa loquitor, the thing speaks for itself.”

The reason I cited above makes a lot of sense, and considering that the publication that revealed Plame’s identity (the op-ed piece, not the phone book) was written by Robert Novak, a critic of the war, it makes much more sense than being done to punish someone who opposed the war.
13 Aaron Says:
April 7th, 2006 at 6:00 am
he was praised by Bush I for his work, who called him “”truly inspiring” and “courageous”

That was for protecting people in the Baghdad embassy from Hussein’s men in 1991. What does it have to do with anything?
14 peter Says:
April 7th, 2006 at 7:35 am
Given the numerous things which George Bush has said which have turned out to be demonstrably false – that the government did not conduct wiretaps without warrants (when they did), that there were no war plans to invade Iraq (six months after Tommy Franks started planning), that nobody could have foreseen Katrina (let’s go to the videotape) – I don’t see how you could consider him to be an honest man.

1) Scooter Libby isn’t a White House official? Also, to say that Armitage is a government official, but not a White House official, is a distinction without a difference.

2) Plame was outed by Ames and the CIA? That’s why, in his press conference, Fitzgerald specifically said that Plame was covert and her identity was unknown to her friends and family?

3) Wilson did not say that Cheney asked him to go. What he did write is “”The vice president’s office asked a serious question. I was asked to help formulate the answer.” There is not even the implication that the trip was at Cheney’s request. Cheney asked for information and the CIA asked Wilson to go.

4) The Senate report did not “thoroughly debunk” Wilson. There were inconsistencies between Wilson’s account and the CIA’s account, and there are ambiguities about the meeting between Miyake and the Iraqis (i.e., whether the Iraqi inquiry about expanding commercial relations was a search for yellowcake). However, the thrust what Wilson said was true: Bush vastly overstated the purported Iraqi intentions to acquire nuclear weapons in his march to war.

5) While Bush said that Iraq sought uranium from Africa, Ari Fleischer specifically said that the country was Niger:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/07/20030707-5.html#10

6) Novak was an old friend of Karl Rove – he was a logical place to leak the story – his opposition to the war is irrelevant.

7) What does Bush I’s praise of Wilson have to do with anything? It’s the gold seal of approval. (Similar to 2004: the Swift Boaters can say all they want about John Kerry’s conduct in war, but his Purple Hearts and other medals speak for themselves. Joe Wilson was in public service for twenty years — as was his wife – and to insinuate that he was a dishonest partisan out to get George Bush is just pathetic).

You are clearly outraged at Joe Wilson. Among many other grievous failings, tens of thousands (or more) people are dead because of George Bush’s decision to invade Iraq based on faulty premises. Why no outrage there?
15 Mark Says:
April 7th, 2006 at 7:38 am
Peter, no outrage there because we did not kill tens of thousands (example: the 40 dead today were killed by terrorists), and because we liberated Iraq from a tyrant and gave the Iraqi people an actual chance to live a meaningful life.

Outraged?

Not on your life…
16 peter Says:
April 7th, 2006 at 7:50 am
We don’t know how many people died directly from American bombs and ordnance. However, I’ll posit that whatever the number is, it is less than tens of thousands.

However, the number of people who died as a result of the war — whether from our military or from the insurgency which resulted from the invasion — is certainly in the tens of thousands. Bush used the 30,000 figure last year, while Foreign Affairs suggested the number is north of 100,000.

Innocent people died under Hussein, and at least as many innocent people are dying today. I don’t know how anyone could point to this as progress. At least under Hussein, we did not bear any moral responsibility for the deaths of innocent lives.
17 dmac Says:
April 7th, 2006 at 9:49 am
“Innocent people died under Hussein, and at least as many innocent people are dying today.”

Another statement long on opinion and conjecture, but short of any demonstrable facts. Please give cites - and cites that are distinctly objective as well.
18 peter Says:
April 7th, 2006 at 11:11 am
As you know, there is no organization which surveys the deaths of innocents in Iraq, either before or after our invasion. There are no hard data on how many people died in Saddam’s prisons, and there are no hard data on how many people died because of American bombs, IED’s, riots, and insurgents. However, in the absence of statistics, one can make reasonable assumptions based on news reports and eyewitness accounts. Ayad Allawi recently was quoted as saying that “fifty or sixty” people are dying every day in sectarian violence. That yields a run rate of 20,000 deaths a year. As noted above, estimates of civilian deaths range from 30,000 (George Bush) to over 100,000, (Foreign Affairs), which also yields a mortality rate in the tens of thousands per year. The fact that it can’t be quantified down to the individual does not obviate the fact that an extraordinary number of Iraqi civilians die every year as a direct or indirect result of the invasion.
19 dmac Says:
April 7th, 2006 at 12:11 pm
Sure - “news reports” that are generated entirely from reporter’s acute observations from their hotel rooms, which of course are located within the Green Triangle. You’re now trafficking in innuendo and heresay.

Then you go on to use ONE comment from ONE person to support your “eyewitness accounts.” Congrats, Peter - your new reporter’s job at the NYT is ready for your immediate occupation.

Have you even bothered to read Omar the Iraq Model’s blog? There are countless others, where you read both the good and the bad that’s currently going on in the country, reported by regular citizens trying to get on with their lives. You know, people who actually are living in the country, rather than doing the fly - by thing at the Bahgdad Hilton.
20 peter Says:
April 7th, 2006 at 12:28 pm
1) How many reporters have died or been seriously injured thus far covering Iraq? Three dozen? Four dozen? How many have been abducted? The meme that “reporters report from their hotel balconies and don’t report the facts” is a bunch of crap.

2) If the “one person” you refer to is Allawi, then I think his word has some credibility. If you mean journalists, then I can tell you that the reporting in the Journal and the Economist (hardly liberal media) aligns with the reports in the Times.

3) I don’t know who Omar is, but unless you think the daily reporting is fabricated (how many people died today? Fifty?), the facts speak for themselves. If Allawi’s figure of fifty to sixty deaths every day is accurate, then it’s the equivalent (based on Iraq’s population size) of an Iraqi 9/11 every six days.
21 dmac Says:
April 7th, 2006 at 3:29 pm
“The meme that “reporters report from their hotel balconies and don’t report the facts” is a bunch of crap.”

Yet again, this unprovable statement begats another question - your supposition that because reporters are “getting abducted and murdered” is absolutely no evidence that they’re actually reporting from anywhere else but within the Green Zone. This is what you cite as evidence?

And what are you talking about in reference to the Journal and the Economist? I subscribe to both, but have seen no solid evidence in either pub that correlates to your claims here.

Again, no cites, no evidence - just rants and ravings. You do not seek to persuade in your arguments on this matter - only to vent your considerable spleen.
22 peter Says:
April 7th, 2006 at 3:50 pm
Since the war began, 86 journalists and media assistants have been killed, and 38 have been abducted (of whom five are now dead). This is about two dozen more than died in the entire VietNam war. It is certainly possible that the death rate among journalists exceeds the death rate of the military.

http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=16793

I don’t know how many of them were killed in the Green Zone (actually the issue was hotel balconies, but no matter). Out of 86 dead journalists, it is certainly reasonable to assume that the bulk of them were killed outside the Green Zone, which supposedly is safer than outside the Zone. However, this is a distinction without a difference. Given the enormous personal sacrifice of journalists serving in Iraq, I think it is offensive to imply that reporting is limited to reporters working from their hotel room balconies.
23 dmac Says:
April 7th, 2006 at 3:57 pm
Fair enough, Peter. And…thanks for the link!
24 peter Says:
April 7th, 2006 at 4:00 pm
good deal, thx
25 Aaron Says:
April 17th, 2006 at 8:22 pm
I didn’t have access to the internet last week. I doubt anyone will read this, but I’ll go ahead and post it anyway.

The facts:

1. Valerie Plame was an employee of the CIA.

2. Valerie Plame was living in the United States.

3. It is illegal for the CIA to conduct intelligence operations in the US.

Thus, if Valerie Plame was spying on someone or living under an assumed identity (meaning of “covert”), then she was doing it for someone other than the US.

If anything is irrelevant it is Novak’s old-time friendship with Rove.

IT MAKES NO SENSE WHATSOEVER THAT A CRITIC OF THE WAR WOULD CONSPIRE TO PUNISH ANOTHER INDIVIDUAL FOR CRITICIZING THE WAR.
Sorry to yell, but you just seem to ignore all of the logical fallacies in your arguments when I point them out, so I’ll just keep repeating them until you can explain them or admit to the flawed logic.

Another logical fallacy you ignore; here comes the shouting again: YOU SAID THE CIA WAS IMPRESSED BY JOE WILSON’S CREDENTIALS, CITING THE PRAISE HE RECEIVED FROM GEORGE HW BUSH IN 1991 FOR HIS PROTECTION OF THE US EMBASSY IN IRAQ AS “HIS CREDENTIALS.” HIS EXPERIENCE AS A DIPLOMAT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH HIS ABILITIES TO CONDUCT AN INVESTIGATION. FIND A REASON, OTHER THAN NEPOTISM, THAT THE CIA WOULD HAVE SENT WILSON TO NIGER. IF YOU CAN PROVIDE NONE, THEN ADMIT IT WAS NEPOTISM.