Claim Karl Rove was leak in CIA outing

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<p>Strick,</p>

<p>Be specific. I see no evidence of Wilson’s dishonesty. What are you seeing that I’m not seeing?</p>

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<p>Beg pardon? Wilson lied when he said his wife had nothing to do with his getting the Niger assignment. It is not true that his report debunked the claim that Iraq sought yellow cake in Niger. He’s either a liar or a fool. He claimed that documents he had never seen were forged. They weren’t available for him to make that assessment until 8 months later.</p>

<p>What’s not clear about that, Greybeard? :D</p>

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<p>Well, Strick, a retired CIA officer who was a colleague of Plame’s vigorously disagrees with some of your fundamental assumptions.
Bear in mind, we don’t know what Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor,
thinks because so far he is [quite correctly] playing his cards very
close to the vest. Emphasis below is mine.

</p>

<p>The legalities of who, if anyone, broke what laws is still unclear to me and I await whatever Fitzgerald finally reports, assuming he does.</p>

<p>However, it’s extremely clear that the Bush administration reacted to Joe Wilson the way they do when they’re crossed by anyone, a coordinated no-holds barred slander attack, involving at least half a dozen White House operatives, in which Wilson’s wife was “fair game.”</p>

<p>It would be deeply ironic if the biter is bit.</p>

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<p>“The misinformation being spread in the media about the Plame affair is alarming and damaging to the longterm security interests of the United States.* Republicans’ talking points are trying to savage Joe Wilson and, by implication, his wife, Valerie Plame as liars.* That is the truly big lie.”</p>

<p>The above is an excerpt from Josh Marshall’s TPMcafe. For the rest of the story, read here:
<a href=“http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/7/13/04720/9340[/url]”>http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/7/13/04720/9340&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>Thedad,
You beat me to it!</p>

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<p>I stand corrected in my previous post. Wilson provided a verbal report which was documented by CIA analyst who was present. That report differs significantly from what Wilson has reported about his trip to Niger since then. </p>

<p>The Intelligence Committee report says that the CIA found Wilson’s mission provided little new information other to confirm that Iraq had the former Nigerian Prime Minister revealed that he believed a delegation from Iraq had visited Niger to discuss purchasing uranium. The CIA did not use Wilson’s report to “produce any further analytical products or highlight the report to policymakers.” They never briefed the Vice President for the same reason.</p>

<p>Wilson apparently valued his opinion more than anyone else did.</p>

<p>TheDad, the article you post claims that there was “a coordinated, orchestrated smear” against Plame. Nothing revealed so far demonstrates that. Even if you believe Plame was “outed” (which, at least as far as the law goes, doesn’t appear to have happened), where’s the smear? That she used her connections to recommend her husband for this job? That’s a smear? Really? And Wilson said several times that Plame had nothing to do with his getting the Niger assignment (in those words, I can quote and link to the sources), not that she made the decision as this author tries to revise history. BS article. Looks like a waste of a cut and paste to me.</p>

<p>As for Wilson’s clear dishonesty, read the SpinSanity article. If you’re not familiar with one of the most objective (if now defunct) factfinding websites there is, have a look around and see if you can see any bias in their reporting. Read the bi-partisan Senate Intelligence Committee report for yourself. Don’t let anyone interpret it for you, go to the source. You’ll see he was dishonest about the whole episode.</p>

<p>Wilson lied his ass off, and it’s not just the Republicans saying so. Other, objective sources agree. You can see if for yourself if you’re willing to look.</p>

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<p>Strick writes “Beg pardon? Wilson lied when he said his wife had nothing to do with his getting the Niger assignment.”</p>

<p>Here’s what Wilson said to Time on the subject: </p>

<p>“In an interview with TIME, Wilson, who served as an ambassador to Gabon and as a senior American diplomat in Baghdad under the current president’s father, angrily said that his wife had nothing to do with his trip to Africa. 'That is bulls__t. That is absolutely not the case,” Wilson told TIME. ‘I met with between six and eight analysts and operators from CIA and elsewhere [before the Feb 2002 trip]. None of the people in that meeting did I know, and they took the decision to send me. This is a smear job.’"</p>

<p>I’ll leave this one to the court of public opinion.</p>

<p>Strick continues: “It is not true that his report debunked the claim that Iraq sought yellow cake in Niger.”</p>

<p>Wilson believes it did. </p>

<p>“He’s either a liar or a fool. He claimed that documents he had never seen were forged. They weren’t available for him to make that assessment until 8 months later.”</p>

<p>Call him a fool, if you will, but you can’t call him a liar on this one. Here’s what he said on those documents in the New York Times:</p>

<p>“As for the actual memorandum, I never saw it. But news accounts have pointed out that the documents had glaring errors — they were signed, for example, by officials who were no longer in government — and were probably forged. And then there’s the fact that Niger formally denied the charges.”</p>

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<p>Wilson’s wife had nothing to do with him getting the Niger assignment? Here’s what the Senate Intelligence Committee determined:</p>

<p>

</p>

<p>Which version should I believe, what Wilson says or what the Intelligence Committee discovered under oath? </p>

<p>I repeat the question, even if it all of it were true, how is this smear on his wife? Suggesting that his wife used her contacts? Who wouldn’t be tickled pink if she had? That’s how it works in intelligence circles, everywhere in fact. The accusation that people are trying to make this out as nepotism defies belief. They were pointing out he lied when he said she wasn’t involved and he’s trying to wiggle out of it with a bigger lie.</p>

<p>Wilson also told the Committee that he knew that part of what influenced him that to debunk the report was those documents that he couldn’t have seen. Wilson told the Committee that CIA contacts discussed the reports with him. The CIA reports officer was adamant that he did not discuss classified documents with Wilson and that the documents were not in US possesion at the time.</p>

<p>The only other basis for claiming that Wilson had debunked the report in the Intelligence Committee report was that the former Minister of Mines told Wilson that he wasn’t aware that anyone from Iraq had contacted the Niger government about purchasing uranium. The formally denied the charges. We believe all of this solely on their denial? Does anyone ever not deny something like this?</p>

<p>Then Wilson recounted how the former Prime Minister claimed Iraq had made contact with him for exactly that purpose in 1999. That observation was the only thing the CIA analysts found useful in Wilson’s report and it was what he ignored.</p>

<p>I don’t know how anyone could reach the conclusion that the report had been debunked from that. He was dishonest about the reports but I guess I’ll accept he’s a fool for thinking he had debunked it, particularly given British intelligence reports to the contrary which have never been refuted or disavowed (the Italian forgeries are a different matter, but they only reduces the evidence available, not eliminates it).</p>

<p>So that leaves with Wilson being dishonest on several issues (see SpinSanity) and wrong when he claimed to have completely debunked the report that Iraq was trying to buy uranium from Africa.</p>

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<p>For anyone here who has any inclination to be fair minded about this, I encourage you to read this: <a href=“http://www.nationalreview.com/york/york200507121626.asp[/url]”>http://www.nationalreview.com/york/york200507121626.asp&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>Using Cooper’s own email, it certainly debunks the theory that Rove was playing some dirty trick in outing Plame. Why would someone who wants to “out” another person use terms like "double super secret background ". It is clear that Rove had no desire for any of the details of the conversation to be made public (I repeat, why would you insist that the information not be made public if your intent was to make it public?) and bolsters Rove’s story that he was just trying to correct the wrong impressions that were being foisted by Wilson about his assignment.</p>

<p>It also shows how reporters twist information to create stories that they want to make. Cooper took the information, ignored the request that it be “super secret background”, twisted it to fit the storyline dujuor (that the WH was involved with dirty tricks) and added details (Plames name and covert nature of her assignment) that Rove never mentioned.</p>

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<p>My previous post shows Cooper’s duplicity and lack of ethics. It turns out Miller has her own issues with ethics and responsible reporting:</p>

<p>

<a href=“http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A51840-2005Feb24.html[/url]”>http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A51840-2005Feb24.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p>In this case, Miller used leaked information from the prosecuter’s office to effectively forewarn an organization with possible links to terrorism of an impending raid. Those who use hyperbole about “holding a gun to our soldier’s heads” about alleged Rove activities should think carefully about the role that our press is playing in undermining our war on terror. Don’t they teach ethics and responsible reporting in journalism school these days?</p>

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<p>I GET IT!!! Only reporters and anyone disagreeing with the administration are liars, and the Republicans never lie, never misstate facts, mis-represent intelligence, never blame others for their mistakes…now that we have that straight and the polticals that are for the President are all perfect and have never ever done anything the least bit wrong.</p>

<p>And, anyone that says gee this COULD be wrong, well, they are all liars and exagerators and never ever tell the truth.</p>

<p>Don’t they teach ethics and responsible actions in Government either…check out Rove’s history of political game playing…but I guess ethics are all relative depending on whose side your on.</p>

<p>Being a lying liberal who doesn’t love democracy, you can disregard all I have said.</p>

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<p>I can’t believe that we’re debating such questions as does giving a verbal report to four CIA officials constitute “filing a report”, or whether Plame okayed her husband’s trip, or other officials okayed it.</p>

<p>The larger issue is that we have an administration that believed certain things about Iraq, and subverted the normal intelligence apparatus in order to support their contentions, and thereby persuade the American people to support war. That’s the bottom line. That’s why I posted the Hersch article, above. </p>

<p>You can argue that Plame was unimportant. You can argue that Joe Wilson report wasn’t “filed”, or whatever you want to say about his report. But all these issues are a distraction from the larger picture, which is that there were no wmd, and the UN inspectors were successful in monitoring and preventing purchase and/or production of wmd. And we invaded the country anyway.</p>

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<p>What i can’t understand is when the Republicans say that they’re the most patriotic…when they think that secrets and a closed administration is fine and that all suspected enemy combatants should be jailed forever and tortured WITH NO TRIAL. Patrotic should mean for democracy. We, the liberals, are more patriotic, because we actually believe in Democracy with a Big D…for all. Not just for some select rich Republicans. We believe in civil rights…for ALL. It’s innocent until proven guilty…I thought. I’ve decided I’m more patriotic…</p>

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<p>To illustrate my point: Reprinted from Tompaine.com today
Taking Our Values Public
Bernie Horn
July 13, 2005</p>

<p>Bernie Horn is senior director of policy and communications at the Center for Policy Alternatives. For more information, see <a href=“Loading...”>www.stateaction.org/progressivevalues</a>, or contact <a href="mailto:bhorn@cfpa.org">bhorn@cfpa.org</a>.</p>

<p>Why do we progressives wince at the word “values?” Because it has become a club, fashioned by the right wing to bludgeon our candidates. It has become a code word to attack our morality. In this war of words, how can progressives fight back? How do we reframe the values debate? </p>

<p>First, we have to understand how the conservatives have hijacked the word.</p>

<p>Thanks to the right-wing messaging machine, many Americans think the term “values” is synonymous with “moral values,” defined by a specific religious code of personal conduct. It’s an attempt to convince the public that conservatives have values and progressives do not.</p>

<p>But that’s just spin.</p>

<p>Everybody makes value judgments constantly, and most values have nothing to do with morality. They simply measure “good” and “bad.” Values judge how fabrics feel, how flowers smell, how foods taste, how music sounds.</p>

<p>In the realm of public policy, we certainly want government officials to uphold the values of honesty and integrity, but that would be true whether they administered conservative or progressive public policies.</p>

<p>So how do conservatives equate moral values with opposing public health coverage, favoring lower taxes or blocking the exercise of free speech? And how do they get away with ignoring the most basic Judeo-Christian value—love thy neighbor—as they advocate for discriminatory policies?</p>

<p>Conservative Value Confusion</p>

<p>This is the message framing trick: The right wing’s “moral values” refer to private, not public, policy values. </p>

<p>“Private values” signify commonly accepted measurements of a good person. They include loyalty, piety, generosity, courtesy, bravery, respectfulness and patriotism.</p>

<p>The term “public values” means commonly accepted measurements of good public policy. Substantive public values include fairness, justice, equality, freedom, opportunity and security. There are also procedural public values, like efficiency and transparency, which measure the administration of government, whether the substantive policy is progressive or conservative.</p>

<p>Significantly, the private value most commonly misused by conservatives is “personal responsibility.” Unemployment, hunger, discrimination are all the individual’s problem, they say. They’re not a societal problem. Conservatives twist the language of responsibility to shirk responsibility. It’s downright Orwellian.</p>

<p>But conservatives don’t even have to say the words “personal responsibility.” They just use the framework of personal responsibility to present their messages. Studies consistently show that when news stories involving social issues are framed to focus on individuals’ misfortunes, the public tends to place responsibility on the individual. When similar stories are framed to focus on the conditions and policies that cause individuals’ misfortunes, the public tends to hold government policies responsible. (See Bales and Gilliam, “Communications for Social Good,” 2004.) For the same reason, trumpeting private values suggests individual responsibility, the conservative position. Using public values suggests societal responsibility, the progressive argument.</p>

<p>So how do we construct a language of progressive public values? It’s easy, because progressive values reflect historic American values.</p>

<p>Historic American Values</p>

<p>“We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights; that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.” These famous lines from the Declaration of Independence are the greatest values statement in U.S. political history. It proclaims public values—measurements of the quality of governments, not individuals.</p>

<p>Here is where we begin to formulate progressive values, by translating the three tenets “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness” into contemporary language.</p>

<p>By “Life,” Thomas Jefferson and the signers of the Declaration did not mean simply the right to survival. They meant a right to personal security.</p>

<p>By “Liberty,” Jefferson was referring to the kinds of freedoms that were ultimately written into all federal and state Bills of Rights, blocking the government from infringing upon speech, religion, the press and trial by jury, as well as protecting individuals from wrongful criminal prosecutions.</p>

<p>But how do we translate Jefferson’s “pursuit of Happiness?” It cannot mean that everyone has the God-given right to do anything that makes them happy. To understand “pursuit of happiness,” we must consider an earlier part of the same sentence: “all men are created equal.” Jefferson is not saying we have an unlimited right to pursue happiness; he is saying that all of us have an equal right to pursue happiness. In today’s language, we’d call it the right to equal opportunity.</p>

<p>Contemporary Progressive Values</p>

<p>Now let us rearrange and restate America’s historic values as a Progressive Declaration:</p>

<p>First, progressives are resolved to safeguard our individual freedoms. We must fiercely guard our constitutional and human rights, and keep government out of our private lives.</p>

<p>Second, progressives strive to guarantee equal opportunity for all. We must vigorously oppose all forms of discrimination, create a society where hard work is rewarded, and ensure that all Americans have equal access to the American Dream.</p>

<p>Third, progressives are determined to protect our security. While forcefully protecting lives and property, we must ensure the sick and vulnerable, safeguard the food we eat and products we use, and preserve our environment.</p>

<p>Our progressive values differ fundamentally from those of conservatives. While conservatives work to protect freedom, opportunity and security only for a select few, progressives work to extend these rights to all Americans. Now, that’s morality.</p>

<p>When presented with this structure, some progressives note that the words freedom, equal opportunity and security sound awfully moderate to them. Exactly! These are values that resonate with the vast majority of Americans. The concept of framing is to build a bridge connecting progressives with undecided voters. When we use familiar public values to describe and defend progressive policies, average Americans understand that we’re on their side.</p>

<p>It’s not that progressives should never use private values. The personal attributes of individual candidates for office are properly measured by such values. But the point is that progressives gain the upper hand when we move the policy debate from private to public values, because we’re the only ones who favor freedom, equal opportunity and security for all.</p>

<p>This is a battle we can win. We can assail the right wing’s perversion of the language of values. We can declare our own values through a progressive linguistic framework. We can sway Americans to our side by showing that progressive—not conservative—policies are grounded in “values.”</p>

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<p>“I GET IT!!! Only reporters and anyone disagreeing with the administration are liars, and the Republicans never lie…”</p>

<p>No. But neither is it true that the darlings of the liberal and Democratic scene never lie. Wilson did and in doing so he convinced a lot of people that Bush lied. Which is not true (see below).</p>

<p>Wilson’s actions, his lies in regard to his wife’s role in the matter and his misrepresentations about what he did and what it proved, are central to what happened here. Cooper’s email makes it clear that Rove was attacking what Wilson had done, not Wilson’s wife. All that in a call Rove took and tried to respond to in the couple of minutes he could spare before he went on vacation. Not exactly evidence of a smear campaign or a concerted effort to “out” anyone. More evidence might change that picture, but that’s all there is now.</p>

<p>“subverted the normal intelligence apparatus in order to support their contentions”</p>

<p>And that’s relevant, too. Wilson’s allegations centered on the infamous 16 words from the 2003 State of the Union address. Remember them?

</p>

<p>Wilson essentially called that a lie. Far from it, if you believe another objective source:</p>

<p>[Bush’s</a> “16 Words” on Iraq & Uranium: He May Have Been Wrong But He Wasn’t Lying](<a href=“http://www.factcheck.org/article222.html]Bush’s”>http://www.factcheck.org/article222.html)</p>

<p>If you read the article, you’ll see that the CIA considered Wilson’s report didn’t debunk the statement. They thought it supported it, as anyone would from he said he found out. The British Intelligence report Bush refers to in the 16 words has never been withdrawn and is still supported by the British government.</p>

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<p>“Liberal Values” (according to Bernie Horn):</p>

<ol>
<li> “honesty…” [good]</li>
<li> “integrity…” [ok]</li>
<li> “fairness…” [about time!]</li>
<li> “justice…” [‘no justice no peace’]</li>
<li> “equality…” [“tryin’ to make it real compared to what?” Les McCain]</li>
<li> “freedom…” [more the better]</li>
<li> “opportunity…” [fair is fair]</li>
<li><p>“security…” [who can deny it]</p></li>
<li><p>“how fabrics feel…” [ummm?]</p></li>
<li><p>“how food tastes…” [well, …I don’t know about this one]</p></li>
<li><p>“how music sounds…” [“the hills are alive”]</p></li>
</ol>

<p>says Bernie: “It’s downright Orwellian”</p>

<p>Well said Bernie! </p>

<p>We’ll have some grub, kick back to some Pete Seeger, feel-up some fabric and ring the bells of justice and freedom for all to hear!</p>

<p>[“we certainly want government officials to uphold the values of honesty and integrity…fairness, justice, equality, freedom, opportunity and security… judge how fabrics feel, how flowers smell, how foods taste, how music sounds.”]</p>

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<p>

The British Butler Report goes even further and explicitly says that the 16 words in Bush’s SoU address were “well founded”.</p>

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<p>

What Miller did in warning the the potential terrorists was not just a “mistake” - it was careless and irresponsible reporting that may have helped a terrorist organization. Reporters need to be reminded that “getting the story” takes the back seat to winning the war.</p>

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<p>

One small detail - you forgot that Saddam kicked the inspectors out in 98. The only reason that they were let back in was because 150,00 US troops (plus troops from GB and other countries) were camped on his border.<br>
You also didn’t pay attention to Blix’s answer when he was asked if given more time that he could assure that there were no weapons. His answer: no, he would not be able to make any assurances along those lines.<br>
You also fail to note in the Duelfer report that it was a well known fact that Saddam had every intent in reinstating the WMD program once sanctions were lifted. The sanctions were already all but gone and once the inspectors completed their effort in a couple of months there would have been no UN mandate to maintain the sanctions.
Ergo - a Saddam still in power with no sanctions and with a new WMD program in place. That’s a happy thought to consider as the result of no invasion.</p>

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<p>Hayden,
Thanks for the Hersch article. I’ve kept up on most of his articles but missed that one. It is a shame that we are arguing about stupid things that distract from the real issue. That is exactly the way the Republicans want it. </p>

<p>I noticed Fundingfather and Strick didn’t start calling Wilson a liar till yesterday, the same day the Republican talking points came out about framing Wilson as a liar. In fact ff and strick follow the orders so quickly and on point it makes me wonder.</p>