The CIA leak inquiry that threatens senior White House aides has now widened to include the forgery of documents on African uranium that started the investigation, according to NAT0 intelligence sources.The New York Times:This suggests the inquiry by special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald into the leaking of the identity of undercover CIA officer Valerie Plame has now widened to embrace part of the broader question about the way the Iraq war was justified by the Bush administration.
[. . .]
Two facts are, however, now known and between them they do not bode well for the deputy chief of staff at the White House, Karl Rove, President George W Bush's senior political aide, nor for Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby.
The first is that Fitzgerald last year sought and obtained from the Justice Department permission to widen his investigation from the leak itself to the possibility of cover-ups, perjury and obstruction of justice by witnesses. This has renewed the old saying from the days of the Watergate scandal, that the cover-up can be more legally and politically dangerous than the crime.
I. Lewis Libby Jr., Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, first learned about the C.I.A. officer at the heart of the leak investigation in a conversation with Mr. Cheney weeks before her identity became public in 2003, lawyers involved in the case said Monday.Laura Rozen:Notes of the previously undisclosed conversation between Mr. Libby and Mr. Cheney on June 12, 2003, appear to differ from Mr. Libby’s testimony to a federal grand jury that he initially learned about the C.I.A. officer, Valerie Wilson, from journalists, the lawyers said.
In an explosive series of articles appearing this week in the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, investigative reporters Carlo Bonini and Giuseppe d'Avanzo report that Nicolo Pollari, chief of Italy's military intelligence service, known as Sismi, brought the Niger yellowcake story directly to the White House after his insistent overtures had been rejected by the Central Intelligence Agency in 2001 and 2002. Sismi had reported to the CIA on October 15, 2001, that Iraq had sought yellowcake in Niger, a report it also plied on British intelligence, creating an echo that the Niger forgeries themselves purported to amplify before they were exposed as a hoax.We know that the Vice President's office was so deeply opposed to the CIA that it practically set up its own intelligence agency to sell the Iraq war to the people. It was not Joe Wilson's statement (in a New York Times op-ed) that Iraq did not acquire nuclear materiel from Niger that caused the Office of the VP to flip out; it was Nick Kristoff and Walter Pincus's reports that Wilson confided anonymously he had told the CIA that the Niger docs were forgeries that really irked the administration. It turns out that Kristoff and Pincus were wrong, likely because Wilson misrepresented his involvement with exposing the forgeries, but that's immaterial to the question of the administration's retaliation.Today's exclusive report in La Repubblica reveals that Pollari met secretly in Washington on September 9, 2002, with then–Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley. Their secret meeting came at a critical moment in the White House campaign to convince Congress and the American public that war in Iraq was necessary to prevent Saddam Hussein from developing nuclear weapons. National Security Council spokesman Frederick Jones confirmed the meeting to the Prospect on Tuesday.
Now, previously we might have understood the retaliation against Plame/Wilson to be a sign of the Veep's bizarre perspective about American intelligence: that Wilson would be discredited for the fact alone of his being linked to the CIA. But now we understand that the Niger dossier was known by the State Department to be fake before the President cited its findings in the 2003 SOTU Address. And what we're finding out from the Italian press is the degree to which the Pentagon, in 2002—just 1 year after the September 11 attacks, almost to the day—collaborated with Italian intelligence (SISMI) to push bogus Niger documents after the CIA wouldn't bite. The reason the administration pounced on Wilson in the first place? Something about those secret meetings in Rome would have been devastating to the White House Iraq Group, had that revelation become public knowledge in 2003.
One of those Pentagon officials who met with SISMI leaders in secret Rome meetings is Larry Franklin, who has been arrested and charged with acting as an Israeli spy. Stephen Hadley, another Pentagon figure present for the meetings, is currently the National Security Advisor. Stateside figures Karl Rove and I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby are likely looking at perjury and obstruction of justice charges; Vice President Cheney may or may not be indicted. He may be labelled an unindicted co-conspirator, based on what reports are saying today.
Steve Clemons reports that indictment letters were received today, will be filed officially tomorrow, and will be acknowledged publicly on Thursday.
Mars, bitches.
Posted by Kriston at October 25, 2005 5:25 PMAlso, no gays settling down.
Posted by: foo at October 26, 2005 8:13 AM"But now we understand that the Niger dossier was known by the State Department to be fake before the President cited its findings in the 2003 SOTU Address."
The president didn't mention Niger in his SOTU speech. He mentioned Africa, and British intelligence still stands by their report on just that.
The investigation should stick to the leak only. Otherwise, Fitzgerald is overreaching.
Whatever happens, history will absolve them. The ghosts of children buried alive will see to that.
Mars bitches indeed.
Posted by: j.scott barnard at October 26, 2005 8:59 AMJosh Marshall on the implausibility of the British claim to have any significant evidence other than the forgeries. The Butler report was ass-covering.
(And the claim that Bush didn't cite the Niger dossier's findings because he didn't say "Niger" is pathetic. Suppose George Bush were to say "Some brave patriot is saying at grammar.police that history will absolve me." It would be fair to say "Bush cited Scott Barnard's comment," even though he didn't use your name. What is not obvious about that?)
I have a question about Wilson and the documents. The claim I see is usually that Wilson couldn't have exposed the documents as forgeries, because he hadn't seen them. But the latest line seems to be that the documents the CIA used to send Wilson to Niger were straight-up transcriptions of the forgeries. Couldn't Wilson have shown that those couldn't be authentic?
Pincus is apparently saying that Wilson did mislead him, which means this story probably doesn't work out; but I'm curious.
Posted by: Matt Weiner at October 26, 2005 10:20 AMMatt, you say "ass covering", I say other than...
If Libby goes to jail for a year (see Sandy Berger's long, long sentence for stealing classified information) and we have a free, democratic Iraq that doesn't gas its women and bury their children alive, then it's a fair trade for me.
Let the chips fall where they may.
Posted by: at October 26, 2005 10:41 AMI have a question about Wilson and the documents. The claim I see is usually that Wilson couldn't have exposed the documents as forgeries, because he hadn't seen them. But the latest line seems to be that the documents the CIA used to send Wilson to Niger were straight-up transcriptions of the forgeries. Couldn't Wilson have shown that those couldn't be authentic?
As I recall, some of the forgeries were on the wrong letterhead and signed by officials who hadn't been around for like a decade or more. While I'm sure the transcriptions would have given no indication of the phony letterhead, I'd figure one could easily check up on the validity of the signatories. Isn't that all the IAEA was checking with their fabled Google search?
Posted by: Dan at October 26, 2005 10:42 AMLet the chips fall where they may.
Posted by: Dan at October 26, 2005 10:45 AMScott, the article you linked says that the Butler report said that Bush's assertions were well-founded. But we all know that's what it said. What's in dispute is whether the Butler report itself is credible. If you follow the links, you will find evidence (the contradiction with the Taylor report) that the Butler report was spinning. All the foreign intelligence service reports seem to have been based on the same forgeries, at least none of them have produced any other intelligence. The British say they have other intelligence, but they've been less than honest and I see no reason to take their word.
As for Sandy Berger, there's a difference between stealing classified documents and destroying them (bad, and I wouldn't mind if he was in jail) and blowing the cover of a CIA agent. Berger didn't actually release any information.
In any case, you seem to think that the end of a free, democratic Iraq justifies the means that were taken to fight the war. I agree that a free, democratic Iraq would be great, but it doesn't look like we're going to get one--and that's not unconnected to the dishonest means used to sell the war. The American people were deprived of the opportunity to discuss whether we should go to war for a democratic Iraq, because the Bush administration chose to gin up a phony case about nuclear weapons.
Posted by: Matt Weiner at October 26, 2005 11:46 AMCoincidentally, here's some allegations about the Brit's additional intelligence; as Henry says, take it with a grain of salt.
Posted by: Matt Weiner at October 26, 2005 11:49 AMjsb, you have gone 'round the bend.
Posted by: catherine at October 26, 2005 12:08 PMIn a few years they'll all be on the college lecture circuit.
Posted by: David at October 26, 2005 12:17 PM"you have gone 'round the bend"
Have I, Catherine? What did we do all this for, then. Oil? Israel? Enlighten me. Why did they lie? What was their aim? I have my opinion, belief, whatever you want to call it. If that makes me 'round the bend in your book, then so be it.
And Dan, the body count is much much higher than 25,000. You need to start counting from 1980. Iran-Iraq war, tanker war, Gulf war... And especially don't forget that special period after the first Gulf War when we abandoned Kurds and Shia to slaughter. Couple hundred thousand I believe. Part of that blood is on our hands. So forgive me if I take a longer view than just the past two fucking years.
Why did your party institute "regime change" as our nation's official foreign policy towards Iraq? In fact, would you include the 500,000 babies that supposedly died under sanctions in your number?
You think the status quo was working. Or you have a better idea of how regime change could have been achieved. But in the end, are our goals much different? By our, I mean all of you in this thread. --s
Posted by: j.scott barnard at October 26, 2005 3:24 PM