Marc Choquette
Perspectives Editor
While the war in Iraq and the 2008 election dominate media coverage, there is an issue that is not getting the coverage it ought to receive. News outlets have rarely led with the story, and for obvious reasons: The issue is complex, tangible evidence is minimal, and the fact that the number of people involved with the case is staggering: encompassing members of the White House staff, weapons experts, and even journalists.
Even the common name for the case, “the CIA leak” is inaccurate. The CIA didn’t actually leak anything. This leads to the true purpose of the case: Find out if White House officials leaked the name of Valerie Plame, a covert CIA agent.
The events leading up to the investigation began in February of 2002, more than a year before the U.S. government and their “coalition” invaded Iraq. Joe Wilson IV, Plame’s husband and weapons expert, was sent to the African nation of Niger to investigate claims made in reports that uranium yellowcake was being sold to the Iraqi government. Wilson returned empty-handed, finding the claims to be false.
Fast forward to the 2003 State of the Union address, where President George W. Bush said, “The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.”
Wilson took exception to this claim and wrote an op-ed, which was published in The New York Times on July 6, 2003. It expressed Wilson’s concern over the intelligence used to build a case to fight the war in Iraq, revealing his lack of findings in Africa.
Only eight days later, the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame, Wilson’s wife, was leaked to the press. Her identity appeared in a column by conservative political commentator Robert Novak, responding to Wilson’s op-ed and referring to his wife as a CIA operative. He cited two “senior government officials” as his sources, refusing to give names, like other journalists in the case, because he believed it to be unethical. Those officials broke a law passed in 1982 that prohibits disclosure of a CIA officer’s identity by a government official.
The question remaining for U.S. attorney and independent prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is who leaked the name. I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby stands in the spotlight, charged with perjury, obstruction of justice, and making false statements. Karl Rove, a top Bush adviser, and Vice President Cheney, are also under the microscope.
Libby said he heard of Plame from “Meet the Press” host Tim Russert, a claim Russert denied in court. The New York Times indicated he might have learned it from Cheney, citing the suspicious fact that Libby withheld from the court
conversations he had with Cheney.
Libby’s defense against charges that he lied when questioned in 2003, according to the Washington Post, is that inaccurate statements made by Libby in this earlier questioning were the result of “mistakes or forgetfulness caused by long hours of dealing with national security issues.” They said Libby has a “bad memory” and “misspoke” to investigators, with little evidence to back the claims.
Yes, this was Libby’s defense, which rested after a mere three days. The Chief of Staff for the Vice President, which is perhaps one of the least important offices in government, had a clouded memory due to long hours at work.
Everyone wishes they could get out of breaking the law by telling an officer that we skipped a red light because they were “forgetful” or tired from work. This is clearly Libby trying to rid himself of accountability.
Evidence that Libby was the source of the leak is convoluted, however. Judith Miller, a former New York Times columnist, was jailed for refusing to reveal her sources, finally gave in after her source released her from confidentiality. She indicated Libby had talked to her on three separate occasions regarding Valerie Plame.
But Time Magazine reporter Matthew Cooper told a grand jury he found out Plame’s identity through Robert Luskin, the attorney for Karl Rove, and Bob Woodward, of the Washington Post, testified that a “senior government official” had talked about Plame, indicating that it might not have been Libby, since he was not considered a senior official.
With all this complication, it can be difficult to draw any conclusions. On the surface, it doesn’t seem like the leak of the name is such a big deal. After all, there was no real consequence to the leak. Yet one only needs to look to Plame to see the damage done with the leak of her identity.
Plame sued Cheney, Rove and Libby for their involvement in the case. She felt that, by leaking her name, they were trying to destroy her career and doing it as retaliation for her husband’s scathing op-ed, which was highly critical of White House officials and their assessment of pre-war intelligence.
In Wilson’s book, “The Politics of Truth,” he makes clear the effect the leak had on his wife, stating she “would never be able to regain the anonymity and secrecy that her professional life had required; she would not be able to return to her discreet work on some of the most sensitive threats to our society in the foreseeable future, and perhaps ever.”
Plame did not deserve this, and if her name was leaked to the press as a crude form of retaliation by our Executive Branch, it represents a new low in Washington politics. It would be a case of bullying and intimidation of the highest level, and intimidation of operatives (Plame) and dissenters (Wilson) jeopardizes issues of trust and security. Plame and Wilson should not be the only ones to pay the price for this abuse of power.
02-15-2007