Information AboutPlame Affair |
|
The Plame affair refers to the political controversy surrounding allegations by critics of the Bush Administration that White House officials deliberately leaked Valerie Plame ’s identity as an undercover U.S. Central Intelligence Agency ( CIA ) operative as political retaliation against her husband, retired ambassador Joseph C. Wilson . Shortly after the , 2003 Wilson and others alleged that the disclosure of his wife’s identity was a conspiracy by administration officials intended to punish him for his criticism, and that it endangered National Security . The CIA asked the Justice Department to investigate whether the disclosure violated federal criminal statutes. A Special Counsel , Patrick Fitzgerald , was appointed to lead the Investigation . Still ongoing as of April 2006, the investigation has not so far resulted in the filing of any charges concerning the alleged leak ''per se''. Fitzgerald determined that at least two Bush administration officials, Karl Rove and Lewis "Scooter" Libby , told several reporters about Plame's employment at the CIA, which Fitzgerald asserts was classified information, although they did not identify her as a covert agent. Libby was indicted on multiple counts based on his failure to initially report his mentioning Plame to reporters, including obstruction of justice, perjury, and making false statements to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and Grand Jury . The case against Libby is pending. As Fitzgerald's investigation remains open, speculation and controversy over the affair continues. BACKGROUND The U.S. led an effort for renewed sanctions through the U.N. as a response to what it said was Iraqi intransigence and refusal to allow thorough, randomly conducted inspections for WMD; the U.S. demanded that international sanctions contain strict time requirements and a threat of hostile consequences for any non-compliance. After UN Security Council Resolution 1441 against Iraq was adopted, the U.S. insisted that it had the authority to enforce the United Nations sanctions. This position, advocated repeatedly by the Bush administration and its supporters, has been and still is disputed by numerous legal experts. According to most members of the Security Council , it is up to the council itself, and not individual members, to determine how the body's resolutions are to be enforced. {Link without Title} {Link without Title} {Link without Title} In the years before and for months after the 2003 invasion of Iraq, U.S. government officials with the support of other countries' intelligence agencies publicly presented evidence that the Iraqi government had reconstituted its WMD program — including was undertaken in response to Iraq's removal of UNSCOM inspectors. Along with other reasons for war, the U.S. cited British intelligence that Saddam Hussein 's regime attempted to acquire yellowcake uranium from Africa. The original intelligence showed evidence of purchase of the material from Niger as well as a timeline for negotiations for obtaining the material. Shortly after the 2003 State Of The Union address, the documents showing Iraqi purchases of yellowcake uranium were deemed to be false. (The previous sentence is incorrect and misleading. In fact, President Bush's administration knew as early as October 2002 that there was no substance to the claims that Iraq was pursuing the purchase of natural uranium from Africa. The October 2002 NIE concluded that "the claims of Iraqi pursuit of natural uranium in Africa are, in INR's assessment, highly dubious.") Later investigations (the Butler Report in the United Kingdom and the U.S. Senate Select Committee On Intelligence report of July 7 2004 ) repeated the claim that there was intelligence from multiple sources other than the Niger Documents that indicated Iraq i ''attempts'' to purchase the material. The French Government had warned the Bush administration, a year before the State of the Union, that the allegation could not be supported with evidence. {Link without Title} But current critics say the French were denying the evidence because of their involvement in the Oil For Food Scandal . The IAEA ( International Atomic Energy Agency ) asked the U.S. Government for documentation in the Autumn of 2002, and after some delay, the U.S. Government sent documents to the IAEA without further comment. The IAEA experts quickly determined that the documents were primitive forgeries. And the Nobel Prize-winning director of IAEA, Dr. Mohamed ElBaradei , told the U.N. Security Council that the documents were forgeries, on March 7 2003 . The IAEA experts, during several months of U.N. inspections in Iraq before the war, found no evidence of any nuclear programme in the country. That was told to the U.N. Security Council in March 2003, before the war. The official U.S. Duelfer Inspection Report found later, after the war, that all nuclear production facilities in Iraq were destroyed before 1991 and never reconstituted. In March 2003 the U.N. experts asked for a few more months of inspections to verify the chemical and biological weapons disarmament in Iraq. But the U.S. government denied more time for inspections, and invaded Iraq, on March 19 2003 . ]] After the invasion of Iraq, Wilson publicly criticized the Bush administration in a ''New York Times'' opinion column. Eight days later, Plame's identity as a CIA agent was exposed in conservative pundit Robert Novak 's regularly syndicated column, along with an allegation that Plame had a role in sending Wilson to investigate the Iraq-Niger "yellowcake" claim. The revelation of Plame's identity began a larger political scandal, and Wilson claimed that Rove had leaked Plame's identity as a CIA operative in retaliation for his public contradiction of Bush administration claims. A subsequent special investigation was launched and placed under the direction of Patrick Fitzgerald , and numerous established and speculated connections to Bush administration officials have since surfaced. On October 28 , 2005 , a grand jury returned a 5-count indictment against Lewis Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's Chief of Staff, on charges of Perjury , Obstruction Of Justice , and making false statements. When the indictment was announced, Libby resigned his post. The indictment alleges that Libby had informed several reporters about Ms. Wilson's employment at the CIA, that this information was Classified , and that Cheney got the information from CIA sources and brought it to Libby's attention. Libby has been accused of perjury and obstruction of justice for lying about the disclosure to investigators, but has not been criminally charged for releasing Plame's name. Both Karl Rove and Lewis Libby had told reporters about the occupation of Joe Wilson's wife in CIA, but Lewis Libby did it first, according to the investigation, to reporter Judith Miller on June 23 2003 . WILSON'S TRIP TO NIGER AND CRITICAL EDITORIAL Wilson said that his African diplomatic experience led to his selection for the Mission To Niger ; he is a former ambassador to Gabon , another uranium-producing African nation, and was once posted in the 1970s to Niamey , Niger's capital. He was also once Director for African Affairs in the National Security Council under President Bill Clinton . According to the Senate investigation and the Libby indictment, Wilson's wife recommended Wilson when she was consulted on who to send on the mission. In his 2003 State Of The Union address, Bush cited a claim by British intelligence that Iraq sought uranium from Niger, saying "''The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.''" This is a claim the British government still maintains despite the forgery of some of the public documents released by the U.S. and British governments. Beginning in May, 2003, Wilson began a series of anonymous interviews with various reporters, and wrote a critical opinion piece in ''The New York Times'', published that led to that 2003 invasion. On 11 July 2003 , five days following the publication of Wilson's op-ed piece, the CIA issued a statement discrediting what it called "highly dubious" accounts of Iraqi attempts to purchase uranium from Niger. {Link without Title} Wilson's central claim was that several reports and investigations were done on Niger, among them his own on a journey in 2002, and all found the claims from President George Bush about a contact between Iraq and Niger to be unsubstantiated. He claimed the information given by the American government before the Iraq war was based on deceptions and false information. In the press release, CIA Director George Tenet said it should "never" have permitted the "16 words" relating to alleged Iraqi uranium purchases to be used in the State of the Union address, and called it a "mistake" that the CIA allowed such a reference in a speech Bush used to take the United States to war. Eight days following Wilson's ''Times'' editorial, Novak published his column containing the information about Plame's identity. Wilson claimed that the leak was an act of political retribution against him designed to destroy his wife's career. ROBERT NOVAK ARTICLE ]] In his report. The bipartisan Senate Intelligence report states that a CIA official told the Senate committee that Plame "offered up" Wilson's name for the Niger trip. {Link without Title} Although Wilson wrote that he was certain his findings were circulated within the CIA and conveyed (at least orally) to the office of the Vice President, Novak questioned the accuracy of Wilson's report and added that "it is doubtful Tenet ever saw it." However, Tenet himself later indicated not only his familiarity with the report but that it "was given a normal and wide distribution" in intelligence circles but not Congress or the Administration[http://www.cia.gov/cia/public_affairs/press_release/2003/pr07112003.html]. The bipartisan Senate Intelligence report stated that Wilson's report was actually viewed by the CIA as bolstering the belief that Iraq was trying to acquire "yellowcake" to reconstitute his nuclear WMD program. The State Department remained skeptical, however.[http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A39834-2004Jul9.html] Defenders of White House officials believe that Wilson, in a partisan way, initiated a Smear Campaign against the Bush administration. They promote the related view that those White House officials who talked on background about Wilson were, rather than trying to punish him by exposing his wife, trying to prevent reporters from believing Wilson's " Disinformation ." Opponents counter this speculation by arguing that such officials would still have a duty to diligently avoid exposing undercover officers or other confidential information. Response to the article Wilson charged that Plame's CIA status was deliberately exposed by Bush administration officials, as retaliation for his public charge that U.S. intelligence concerning Weapons Of Mass Destruction In Iraq was largely a Conspiracy to falsify and fabricate evidence to support the war. The Bush administration countered that it had only been trying to respond to Wilson's attempt to discredit it, by in return disputing several claims of his own. In particular, Wilson claimed that he had been sent to Niger as a response from the CIA to a question from the Office of the Vice President, whereas Cheney said he never heard of the whole mission to Niger before it happened. But later Cheney did admit that he put a question before the CIA about the Niger allegations. Defenders of the Bush administration say the only reason to mention Wilson's wife was to discredit this claim, and not to retaliate against Wilson in a personal way. Showing that Wilson's wife was indeed somewhat responsible for his mission to Niger was to dispute the Wilson claim that he was sent by the Vice President's office and that the administration had personal knowledge of his report. However, Cheney's office has since admitted that the trip was the result of a Vice Presidential inquiry. Novak defends his column In a later column, Novak said he included this paragraph "because it looked like the missing explanation of an otherwise incredible choice by the CIA for its mission." He claimed: :I was curious why a high-ranking official in President Bill Clinton 's National Security Council (NSC) was given this assignment. Wilson had become a vocal opponent of President Bush's policies in Iraq after contributing to Al Gore in the last election cycle and John Kerry in this one'' ... ''During a long conversation with a senior administration official, I asked why Wilson was assigned the mission to Niger. He said Wilson had been sent by the CIA's counter-proliferation section at the suggestion of one of its employees, his wife. Novak also suggested that Plame's relationship to Wilson could be assumed by reading his entry in '' Who's Who In America '', though it was her CIA status rather than her marriage which was a secret. The following day on CNN , Novak announced that Plame's nominal employer was Brewster Jennings & Associates . "There is no such firm, I'm convinced," Novak said, noting that "Ms. Valerie E. Wilson" had donated $1,000 to the Gore campaign in 1999 and had listed Brewster Jennings & Associates as her employer.[http://www.newsmeat.com/washington_political_donations/Valerie_Plame.php "CIA people are not supposed to list themselves with fictitious firms if they're under a deep cover — they're supposed to be real firms, or so I'm told. Sort of adds to the little mystery."[http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A40012-2003Oct3] Other than the use of the word "operative", there was nothing in the original article to suggest that Plame was engaged in covert activities. Novak later said a CIA source told him unofficially that Plame had been "an analyst, not in covert operations." But in fact the CIA source did warn Novak several times against the publication. {Link without Title} The suggestion that naming Plame as an agent was a serious crime first appeared in an article by David Corn published by '' The Nation '' on July 16 2003 , two days after Novak's column. In the article, Corn quoted Joe Wilson as saying, "Naming her this way would have compromised every operation, every relationship, every network with which she had been associated in her entire career. This is the stuff of Kim Philby and Aldrich Ames." Novak indicated that he had used the term "operative" loosely, and had not intended it to identify Plame as an undercover agent. Novak's initial column identified Plame as "an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction." He has since claimed that he believed Plame was merely an analyst at the CIA, not a covert operative — the difference being that analysts are not undercover, so identifying them is not necessarily a crime. Novak said the term "operative" is "a word I have lavished on hack politicians for more than 40 years." {Link without Title} Critics of Novak's defense argue that after decades as a Washington reporter, Novak was well aware of the difference and would be unlikely to make such a mistake. A search of the '' LexisNexis '' database for the terms "CIA operative" and "agency operative" showed Novak had accurately used the terms to describe ''covert'' CIA employees, every time they appear in his articles. {Link without Title} Corn, in his July 16 th, 2003 blog post that deconstructed Novak's terminology, was the first publication to use the terms "covert" or "undercover" in regard to Plame's status at the CIA. Corn indicated in that post and subsequent ones that he was speculating that Plame might have been "covert" based on Novak's use of the term "Agency operative", which typically is applied only to covert CIA employees. In any case, once Novak had revealed that Plame worked at the CIA the secret was blown and Corn was not revealing anything new. Novak has also claimed that Plame's CIA employment was an "open secret" in Washington, indicating that effective "affirmative measures" to conceal her relationship to the CIA were not being taken. Several ex-CIA operatives who knew Plame have disputed this and indicated that she was at one time a Non-official Cover (NOC) agent. Larry C. Johnson has stated that Valerie Plame "agreed to operate overseas without the protection of a diplomatic passport if she had been caught in that status she would have been executed." Others counter that this was well in the past, and outside the time frame protected by the law forbidding disclosure of an undercover agent. When Novak approached the CIA's office of Public Affairs regarding his article on Plame, he claimed that the office expressed no specific danger to anybody in case of the public disclosure of her name, but warned strongly against it. And the CIA officer telephoned later to Novak to repeat his warning. In "The CIA Leak," Novak stated this explanation for the two "senior administration officials" and the "CIA official" referenced in his June 14 article: ''During a long conversation with a senior administration official, I asked why Wilson was assigned the mission to Niger. He said Wilson had been sent by the CIA's counter-proliferation section at the suggestion of one of its employees, his wife. It was an offhand revelation from this official, who is no partisan gunslinger later report indicates that this official — "Operative A" — "helping" Novak was Karl Rove . When I called another official for confirmation, he said: "Oh, you know about it." The published report that somebody in the White House failed to plant this story with six reporters and finally found me as a willing pawn is simply untrue.'' ''At the CIA, the official designated to talk to me denied that Wilson's wife had inspired his selection but said she was delegated to request his help. He asked me not to use her name, saying she probably never again will be given a foreign assignment but that exposure of her name might cause "difficulties" if she travels abroad. He never suggested to me that Wilson's wife or anybody else would be endangered. If he had, I would not have used her name. I used it in the sixth paragraph of my column because it looked like the missing explanation of an otherwise incredible choice by the CIA for its mission.'' In other interviews, Novak confirmed that his sources warned him not to mention Plame. His motivation to disregard the warnings is suggested by this comment in "The CIA Leak": "I was curious why a high-ranking official in President Bill Clinton's National Security Council (NSC) was given this assignment." Just four days before he revealed Plame's name, Novak wrote "Bush's Enemy Within." Therein, Novak excoriates the Bush administration's appointment of Frances Townsend to an important National Security post, explaining she may potentially later betray Bush because two of her former superiors were Liberal Democrat s, and she had served in the US Attorney's office in Manhattan . According to Novak, this office was "notoriously liberal laden." On February 12 , 2004 , Murray S. Waas for the '' American Prospect '' wrote that two "administration officials" spoke to the FBI and challenged Novak's account about not receiving warnings not to publish Plame's name. According to one of the officials, "At best, he is parsing words ... At worst, he is lying to his readers and the public. Journalists should not lie, I would think." Novak has also stated on CNN 's '' Crossfire '' that "Nobody in the Bush administration called me to leak this." But he said also earlier: "I didn't dig it up. It was given to me" about Valerie Plame's identity. Others, such as . Statements by the Bush administration Bush and his White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan have made several statements about the administration's response if anyone was found to have been involved in the leak: McClellan - September 29 2003 : "The President has set high standards, the highest of standards for people in his administration. He's made it very clear to people in his administration that he expects them to adhere to the highest standards of conduct. If anyone in this administration was involved in it, they would no longer be in this administration." {Link without Title} Bush - September 30 2003 : " And if there is a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is. And if the person has violated law, the person will be taken care of. ... I don't know of anybody in my administration who leaked classified information. If somebody did leak classified information, I'd like to know it, and we'll take the appropriate action." {Link without Title} McClellan - October 7 2003 : "Let me answer what the President has said. I speak for the President and I'll talk to you about what he wants." and "If someone leaked classified information, the President wants to know. If someone in this administration leaked classified information, they will no longer be a part of this administration, because that's not the way this White House operates, that's not the way this President expects people in his administration to conduct their business." {Link without Title} Bush - June 10 2004 (Responding to a media question which asked "do you stand by your pledge to fire anyone found to have . . . leaked Plame's name?"): "Yes. And that's up to the U.S. Attorney to find the facts." [http://www.state.gov/e/eb/rls/rm/33463.htm] Bush - July 18 2005 : "I would like this to end as quickly as possible so we know the facts. And if someone committed a crime, they will no longer work in my administration." Novak's sources In another series of leaks during July 2005, it was revealed that Rove was Novak's second source . Novak told Rove about Plame, using her maiden name. Through his personal attorney, Robert Luskin , Rove has stated that other media sources told him about Plame, although he's not sure which journalist first told him. Rove and his attorney do not dispute '' TIME Magazine '' reporter Matthew Cooper's contemporaneous Email and subsequent Grand Jury Testimony , as related by Cooper himself, that he first learned Plame's identity from Rove. The investigation potentially involves multiple leak sources other than those who spoke to Novak, yet Novak was the first to print reference to Wilson's wife. It was initially believed that Lewis Libby was the first official to name Wilson's wife as a CIA agent to a reporter, Judith Miller on June 23 2003 , however Bob Woodward , assistant managing editor of ''The Washington Post'', later disclosed that he had been notified of Plame's position in the CIA by a "senior administration official" a full month before her identity was disclosed. Woodward provided sworn testimony to this effect on November 14 2005 although he has also stated that Novak's source was not in the White House {Link without Title} . The identity of Novak's first source is still publicly unknown — the person Novak described as "not a partisan gunslinger". Justice Department investigation The matter is currently under investigation by the Justice Department and the FBI . Former U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft recused himself from the investigation in December 2003. U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald currently heads the investigation, as Special Counsel. Because the Justice Department is a part of the Executive Branch , some critics of the Bush Administration contend that the absence of rapid and effective action has been deliberate. In March 2004, the Special Counsel Subpoena ed the telephone records of Air Force One . On April 7 , 2005 , the ''Washington Post'' reported that unnamed sources speculated that Fitzgerald was not likely to seek an indictment for the crime of knowingly exposing a covert officer (which prompted the inquiry), although he may possibly charge a government official with perjury for giving conflicting information to prosecutors during the investigation. Fitzgerald sought to compel Matt Cooper, a ''TIME Magazine'' correspondent who had covered the story, to disclose his sources to a grand jury. After losing all legal appeals up through the Supreme Court, ''TIME'' turned over Cooper's notes to the prosecutor. Cooper agreed to testify after receiving permission from his source, Karl Rove, to do so. Robert Luskin confirmed Rove was Cooper's source. A July 11 , 2003 email from Cooper to his bureau chief indicated that Rove had told Cooper that it was Wilson's wife who authorized her husband's trip to Niger, mentioning that she "apparently" worked at "the agency" on Weapons Of Mass Destruction issues. ''Newsweek'' reported that nothing in the Cooper email suggested that Rove used Plame's name or knew she was a covert operative , although Cooper's ''TIME Magazine'' article describing his grand jury testimony noted that Rove said, "I've already said too much." Neither ''Newsweek'' nor ''TIME'' have released the complete Cooper email. The leak to ''Newsweek'', presumably from ''TIME Magazine'', was the first major leak of investigative information. More attenuated leaks have followed, seemingly tailored to either include or absolve various officials and media personages. As of late July 2005, Fitzgerald's office has apparently not talked to the press. White House officials such as Press Secretary Scott McClellan and the President have not made any on-the-record comments concerning the investigation since ''Newsweek'''s e-mail scoop, although other Republican officials, particularly RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman , are talking with the press. '', Vice President Dick Cheney's Chief of Staff, had released her from her promise of confidentiality. Some commentators, most prominently Arianna Huffington , on her '' Huffington Post '' blog, have suggested that Miller may have been "grandstanding" in delaying her testimony to the grand jury. Others believe that Miller went to jail to land a million dollar book deal and to move attention from her questionable Iraq war reports. Others argue that there is no reason to believe that she went to jail for anything other than her stated reason, to protect confidential informants. {Link without Title} On , 2005 Fitzgerald submitted new court papers indicating that he will use a new grand jury to assist him in his ongoing investigations. TIME LINE OF EVENTS CIA calls for leak investigation On in October 2003. {Link without Title} Though Plame's exposure was claimed by Wilson to be retaliation for Wilson's editorial on issues surrounding the Yellowcake Forgery , the White House and the GOP have sought to discredit Wilson with a Public Relations campaign that claims Wilson has a Partisan political agenda. However, Wilson along with current and former CIA officials have asserted the leak not only damaged Plame's career, but arguably endangered U.S. National Security and endangered the missions of other CIA agents working abroad under Nonofficial Cover (as "NOCs"), passing as private Citizen s without diplomatic Passport s. Plame worked for the CIA for nearly 20 years. She was identified in the ''New York Times'' as a N.O.C. by Elisabeth Bumiller, who wrote ( 5 October 2003 ): ''But within the C.I.A., the exposure of Ms. Plame is now considered an even greater instance of treachery. Ms. Plame, a specialist in nonconventional weapons who worked overseas, had "nonofficial cover," and was what in C.I.A. parlance is called a NOC, the most difficult kind of false identity for the agency to create. While most undercover agency officers disguise their real profession by pretending to be American embassy diplomats or other United States government employees, Ms. Plame passed herself off as a private energy expert. Intelligence experts said that NOCs have especially dangerous jobs.'' Articles in '' {Link without Title} . While the complete list of witnesses who have testified before the s was needed to show a pattern of Intent by the leaker or leakers. {Link without Title} Both Vice President Dick Cheney and President George W. Bush have been interviewed by Fitzgerald, although not under oath. {Link without Title} Legal filings by Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald contain many pages blanked out for security reasons, leading some observers to speculate that Fitzgerald has pursued the extent to which national security was compromised by the actions of Rove and others. On 18 July 2005 , '' The Economist '' reported that Valerie Plame had been dissuaded by the CIA from publishing her own account of her exposure, suggesting that such an article would itself be a breach of national security. ''The Economist'' also reported that "affirmative measures" by the CIA were being taken to protect Plame's identity at the time Karl Rove revealed her CIA affiliation to journalists. {Link without Title} Contempt of court: Miller, Cooper ''New York Times'' investigative reporter 2005 , after the U.S. Supreme Court refused to grant certiorari, ''TIME Magazine'' said it would surrender to Fitzgerald e-mail records and notes taken by Cooper, and Cooper agreed to testify before the grand jury after receiving a waiver from his source. Miller and Cooper faced potential jail terms for failure to cooperate with the Special Counsel's investigations.[http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/02/politics/02leak.html Columnist Robert Novak, who later admitted that the CIA attempted to dissuade him from revealing Plame's name in print, "appears to have made some kind of arrangement with the special prosecutor" (according to ''Newsweek'')[http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8445696/site/newsweek/] and he has not been charged with contempt of court. Miller was jailed on 7 July 2005 , and remained there until September 29 when she agreed to testify in front of a grand jury after her source "voluntarily and personally released from [her promise of confidentiality." She was being held in Alexandria, VA in the same facility as Zacarias Moussaoui . In August 2005 the ''American Prospect'' magazine reported that Lewis Libby testified he had discussed Plame with Miller during a July 8 2003 meeting. Libby signed a general waiver allowing journalists to reveal their discussions with him on this matter, but ''American Prospect'' reported that Miller refused to honor this waiver on the grounds that she considered it coerced. Miller had said she would accept a specific individual waiver to testify, but contends Libby had not given her one until late September 2005. In contrast, Libby's lawyer has insisted that he had fully released Miller to testify all along. Karl Rove On September 29 , 2003 , White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan said, regarding any suggested involvement of Karl Rove with the leak, that "The President knows" that it was not true. ''And I said it is simply not true. So, I mean, it's public knowledge. I've said that it's not true. And I have spoken with Karl Rove ... He Bush 's aware of what I've said, that there is simply no truth to that suggestion. And I have spoken with Karl about it.''[http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/09/20030929-7.html] During the Republican National Convention , Rove told CNN : ''I didn't know her name and didn't leak her name. This is at the Justice Department. I'm confident that the U.S. Attorney, the prosecutor who's involved in looking at this is going to do a very thorough job of doing a very substantial and conclusive investigation.'' {Link without Title} On '''s going to do with the grand jury." The document dump has since occurred. {Link without Title} ]] On the nature or contents of his client's conversations with Cooper. {Link without Title} [http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1079464,00.html [http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-rove3jul03,1,2388418.story] {Link without Title} On 6 July 2005 , Cooper agreed to testify, thus avoiding being held in Contempt Of Court and sent to jail. Cooper said "I went to bed ready to accept the sanctions for not testifying," but told the judge that not long before his early afternoon appearance at court he had received "in somewhat dramatic fashion" an indication from his source freeing him from his commitment to keep his source's identity secret. For some observers this called into question the allegations against Rove, who had signed a waiver months before permitting reporters to testify about their conversations with him (see above paragraph). {Link without Title} Cooper, however, stated in court that he did not previously accept a general waiver to journalists signed by his source (whom he did not identify by name), because he had made a personal pledge of confidentiality to his source. The 'dramatic change' which allowed Cooper to testify was later revealed to be a phone conversation between lawyers for Cooper and his source confirming that the waiver signed two years earlier applied to conversations with Cooper. Citing a "person who has been officially briefed on the case," ''The New York Times'' identified Rove as the individual in question, a fact later confirmed by Rove's own lawyer.[http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8525978/site/newsweek/ According to one of Cooper's lawyers, Cooper has previously testified before the grand jury regarding conversations with Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Jr. , chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney, after having received Libby's specific permission to testify.[http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/07/politics/07leak.html?hp&ex=1120795200&en=211258b05dea0ba7&ei=5094&partner=homepage][http://rawstory.com/news/2005/What_Karl_Rove_and_Cheneys_chief_of_staff_told__0717.html] Rove's email to Hadley In an email sent by and that Cooper turned the conversation to Wilson and the Niger mission, Cooper disputed this suggestion in his grand jury testimony and subsequent statements: "I can't find any record of talking about reform with him on July 11 and I don't recall doing so," Cooper said. [http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1083899,00.html [http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000980363] Karl Rove revealed as one source of ''TIME'' article On 2005 , Cooper says Rove ended his conversation by saying "I've already said too much." If true, this could indicate that Rove identified Wilson's wife as a CIA employee prior to Novak's column being published. Some believe that statements by Rove claiming he did not reveal her name would still be strictly accurate if he mentioned her only as 'Wilson's wife', although this distinction would likely have no bearing on the legality of the disclosure. The White House repeatedly denied that Rove had any involvement in the leaks. Whether Rove's statement to Cooper that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA in fact violated any laws has not been resolved. In addition, Rove told Cooper that CIA Director George Tenet did not authorize Wilson's trip to Niger, and that "not only the genesis of the trip Niger is flawed an suspect but so is the report" which Wilson made upon his return from Africa. Rove "implied strongly there's still plenty to implicate Iraqi interest in acquiring uranium fro[m Niger," and in an apparent effort to discourage Cooper from taking the former ambassador's assertions seriously, gave Cooper a "big warning" not to "get too far out on Wilson." Cooper recommended that his bureau chief assign a reporter to contact the CIA for further confirmation, and indicated that the tip should not be sourced to Rove or even to the White House. The ''Washington Post'' reported that the CIA, contradicting Rove, "maintained that Wilson was chosen for the trip by senior officials in the Directorate of Operations counter-proliferation division (CPD) — not by his wife — largely because he had handled a similar agency inquiry in Niger in 1999" though she is reported to have suggested him for the 1999 trip[http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8525978/site/newsweek/ . Cooper testified before a grand jury on '', in which a college fraternity is placed under "double secret probation." {Link without Title} On 13 August 2005 journalist Murray Waas reported that Justice Department and FBI officials had recommended appointing a special prosecutor to the case because they felt that Rove had not been truthful in early interviews, withholding from FBI investigators his conversation with Cooper about Plame and maintaining that he had first learned of Plame's CIA identity from a journalist whose name Rove could not recall. In addition, then-Attorney General John Ashcroft, from whose prior campaigns Rove had been paid $746,000 in consulting fees, had been briefed on the contents of at least one of Rove's interviews with the FBI - raising concerns of a conflict of interest with the not-yet-recused Attorney General. {Link without Title} Following the revelations in the Libby indictment, sixteen former CIA and military intelligence officials urged President Bush to suspend Karl Rove's security clearance for his part in outing CIA officer Valerie Plame. {Link without Title} Other journalists with early knowledge Days after Novak's initial column appeared, several other journalists, notably Matthew Cooper of '' TIME '' magazine, published Plame's name citing unnamed government officials as sources. In his article, titled "A War on Wilson?", Cooper raised the possibility that the White House had "declared war" on Wilson for speaking out against the Bush Administration. {Link without Title} Josh Gerstein, staff reporter of the New York Sun, reported in a story on July 6, 2005 that former Time White House correspondent Hugh Sidey said in an interview that Plame's identity was widely known well before Mr. Cooper talked to his sources. {Link without Title} Both '' Reporters who also confirmed and expanded upon Novak's account, Timothy M. Phelps and Knut Royce , were also mentioned in October 2003 in connection to the investigation. {Link without Title} In an October 3, 2003 edition of the '', Mitchell stated she was misquoted. She clarified by stating, "I said that it was widely known that - here's the exact quote - I said that it was widely known that Wilson was an envoy and that his wife worked at the CIA. But I was talking about . . . after the Novak column." Walter Pincus , a '' Washington Post '' columnist, has written that he was told in confidence by an (unnamed) Bush administration official on 12 July 2003 , two days before Novak's column appeared, that "the White House had not paid attention to former Ambassador Joseph Wilson’s CIA-sponsored February 2002 trip to Niger because it was set up as a Boondoggle by his wife, an analyst with the agency working on weapons of mass destruction." {Link without Title} Because he did not believe it to be true, Pincus did not report the story. Tim Russert , the Washington bureau chief of NBC News , and Glenn Kessler , a diplomatic reporter for the ''Washington Post'', have both offered testimony in the ongoing investigation Tim Russert, of NBC's ''Meet the Press'', while denying he knew the name 'Valerie Plame' or that she was an active CIA agent, did not deny that he may have told Scooter Libby that Joe Wilson's wife worked for the CIA. Sydney Schanberg of the Village Voice, among other reporters, has called on Russert to divulge exactly what he knew and said to Libby, but Russert so far has refused to do so. The was told by a senior Bush administration official that Valerie Plame was a CIA analyst on weapons of mass destruction a month before it was reported in Robert Novak's column. To critics this is a rather surprising turn of events, since Woodward repeatedly downplayed the importance of the leak. {Link without Title} {Link without Title} {Link without Title} {Link without Title} {Link without Title} According to the blog, '' The Raw Story '', and '' The Times '' Woodward's source was National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley . {Link without Title} {Link without Title} Air Force One memo In late July and early August, 2005 , a great deal of attention began to be paid to a classified State Department memorandum which may have been the original source of the leaked suggestion regarding Plame, and may help to identify those who were in a position to have and therefore to leak Plame's identity. According to reports in the '' Wall Street Journal '' and the '' Washington Post '', the three page memo was originally dated June 10 , 2003 and addressed to Undersecretary of State Marc Grossman , who had asked to be briefed on the history of opposition by the State Department 's Bureau Of Intelligence And Research (INR) to the White House's position that Saddam Hussein was attempting to obtain Uranium from Africa . It was a summary of the notes (included with the memo) taken by an unnamed senior analyst, of a meeting at the CIA on February 19 , 2002 where Joseph Wilson's trip to Niger was discussed. The memo mainly shows that the State Department had already decided on the basis of other evidence, detailed in the memo, that Iraq was not in fact seeking to acquire uranium from Niger, and therefore opposed Wilson's trip as unnecessary. However, two sentences of background information in the second paragraph mention Wilson's wife, identifying her as "Valerie Wilson", and speculate that it was she "who had the idea to dispatch to use his contacts to sort out the Iraq-Niger uranium issue". Although she is not explicitly identified as a covert agent, the paragraph naming her was marked with an (S) [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/20/AR2005072002517_pf.html , the prescribed way to indicate in a U.S. is expected to be familiar with this notation. This could make leaking the contents of the document a crime. According to the ''Washington Post'', on July 6 , 2003 , shortly after Wilson had written in the '' New York Times '' and the ''Post'' and appeared on '' Meet The Press '' criticizing the Bush administration's statements regarding Saddam's attempts to acquire yellowcake, Secretary Of State Colin Powell had asked Carl W. Ford Jr. , at that time director of INR, to explain Wilson's statements. Ford readdressed the memo to Powell, who received it on July 7 , 2003 as he was about to leave for Africa aboard Air Force One with President Bush, White House senior adviser Dan Bartlett , then White House spokesman Ari Fleischer , then National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice , White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card , and others. The memo was passed around on the plane and discussed. The ''Post'''s sources report that Ford described the details of the memo in 2004 for the grand jury investigating the leak. On April 18, 2006, The New York Sun obtained a declassified version of the July 7, 2003 memo. In the second paragraph of the memo, marked with an (S//NF), it states: In a February 19, 2002, meeting convened by Valerie Wilson, a CIA WMD manager, and the wife of Joe Wilson, he previewed his plans and rationale for going to Niger. One week later, on July 14 , 2003 , Robert Novak stated in his column that it was Plame's idea to send Wilson to Niger, in the process exposing her as a CIA operative, which launched the controversy and eventually an investigation regarding the source of the information. Matthew Cooper of '' Time '' magazine, who received the leak later than Novak, stated that it was given to him by Karl Rove and confirmed by Lewis "Scooter" Libby . According to Robert Luskin , Rove's attorney, Rove has stated that he had not seen the memo until it was given to him by prosecutors investigating the leak, and that he learned of Plame from Novak. Novak has written that he got his information from "another journalist", unnamed, and that for confirmation of Plame's role he called two administration officials as well as CIA spokesman Bill Harlow , who advised him not to mention Plame by name; but he dismissed Harlow's advice because "once it was determined that Wilson's wife suggested the mission, she could be identified as 'Valerie Plame' by reading her husband's entry in 'Who's Who in America.' " Pincus' description of the contents of the memo was cited as support by those who believe that someone in the administration's inner circle was responsible for the leak [http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/index.html?blog=/politics/war_room/2005/08/11/pincus/index.html , who state that, to date, it is the only known document even tentatively linking Plame to the suggestion that Wilson be sent to Niger (aside from a separate statement of "additional views" filed by three Republican senators in connection with the Senate investigation into prewar intelligence on Iraq, which was not written until 2004); the precise information leaked to Novak, Cooper, and the ''Post'''s Walter Pincus in order to discount Wilson's qualifications. In their view this is consistent with the memo as the source of the leaked exposure of Plame via someone who was on that flight of Air Force One, as well as confirming that the information was known to be secret. Supporters of the administration counter that the source of the information could have been the earlier June 10 State Department memo, the notes of the CIA meeting by the unnamed senior State Department analyst, the analyst and other attendees at that meeting, or the persons at CIA involved with arranging Wilson's Niger trip, not just somebody who read the memo aboard Air Force One. INDICTMENT On ) of Libby on Felony charges of Perjury , making false statements to FBI agents and Obstruction Of Justice for impeding the Federal grand jury investigating the CIA leak case. Libby has not been indicted for the actual leaking of Plame's name to Robert Novak. While Fitzgerald did indicate that further indictments are possible, he indicated his understanding that this would be a rare occurrence, once a grand jury has been dismissed. However, Karl Rove's attorneys did indicate that their client is still a potential target of this investigation. {Link without Title} The prosecutor investigating the leak of a CIA officer's identity disclosed Friday November 18 2005 that he will enlist a different grand jury than the one that indicted the top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney the previous month. The use of a new grand jury could indicate that additional evidence or charges are coming. But experienced federal prosecutors cautioned against reading too much into Fitzgerald's disclosure. "It could just mean that the prosecutor needs the powers of the grand jury" to further his investigation and make a final determination whether to charge, said Dan French, a former federal prosecutor now representing a witness in the CIA inquiry. "One of the greatest powers of the grand jury is the ability to subpoena witnesses … and Fitzgerald may want that authority to pursue additional questions," French said. He might also need subpoenas to obtain documents, telephone records and executive branch agency security logs. {Link without Title} PUBLIC STATEMENTS White House reactions, Bush and Cheney involvement In the beginning the White House called the allegation that Rove disclosed classified information "totally ridiculous" and "simply not true," and stated that "if anyone in this administration was involved in it, they would no longer be in this administration." [http://slate.msn.com/id/2088471/ [http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A11208-2003Sep27¬Found=true][http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/09/20030916-6.html#27] The White House continued to publicly assert that no Bush administration officials were involved in the leak until after the Supreme Court decision of 2005, the subsequent release of internal '' TIME Magazine '' email, and ''TIME'' reporter Matt Cooper 's decision to testify to the grand jury. Once Karl Rove's involvement was disclosed, the White House refused to comment on the ongoing investigation and stated that they would fire anyone convicted of '''criminal activity'''. Critics find an intent to protect Mr. Rove in the new specificity, while supporters say this is indicative of was what was meant all along. On September 29 , 2003 , White House Press Secretary Scott McClellan stated that " anyone in this administration was involved in it, they would no longer be in this administration,"[http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/09/20030929-7.html#1 adding that Karl Rove had specifically assured McClellan that he was not involved, and that "the President expects his administration to adhere to the highest standards of conduct and the highest ethics." On September 30 , 2003 , Mr. Bush said " And if there is a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is. And if the person has violated law, the person will be taken care of." Followed by, "I don't know of anybody in my administration who leaked classified information. If somebody did leak classified information, I'd like to know it, and we'll take the appropriate action." {Link without Title} President George W. Bush, who has repeatedly denied knowing the identity of the leaker, called the leak a "criminal action" for the first time on 6 October 2003 , stating " anybody has got any information inside our government or outside our government who leaked, you ought to take it to the Justice Department so we can find the leaker."[http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/10/20031006-3.html Speaking to a crowd of journalists the following day, Bush said "I have no idea whether we'll find out who the leaker is -- partially because, in all due respect to your profession, you do a very good job of protecting the leakers."[http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/10/20031007-2.html On 8 October 2003 , White House spokesman Scott McClellan said that "no one has more of an interest in getting to the bottom of this than the White House does, than the President does." {Link without Title} On 10 October 2003 , after the Justice Department began its formal investigation into the leak, McClellan specifically said that neither Rove nor two other officials whom he had personally questioned – Elliott Abrams , a national security aide, and Lewis Libby , Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff – were involved and that anyone who was involved in leaking classified information would be fired. {Link without Title} On 10 June 2004 , eight months after the formal outside investigation was begun and five months after the appointment of a Special Counsel, President Bush was asked by a reporter, "Given recent developments in the CIA leak case, particularly Vice President Cheney's discussions with the investigators, do you still stand by what you said several months ago, suggesting that it might be difficult to identify anybody who leaked the agent's name? ... And do you stand by your pledge to fire anyone found to have done so?" The President responded, "Yes. And that's up to the U.S. Attorney to find the facts." {Link without Title} On 11 July 2005 , White House spokesman Scott McClellan, who had since become a grand jury witness himself, refused at a press conference to answer dozens of questions, repeatedly stating that the Bush Administration had made a decision not to comment on an "ongoing criminal investigation" involving White House staff. McClellan declined to answer whether Rove had committed a crime. McClellan also declined to repeat prior categorical denials of Rove's involvement in the leak,[http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/11/politics/11cnd-rove.html nor would he state whether Bush would honor his prior promise to fire individuals involved in the leak.[http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2003/09/20030929-7.html][http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2004/06/20040610-36.html][http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/11/AR2005071101568.html] Although Democratic critics called for Rove's dismissal, or at the very least immediate suspension of Rove's security clearances and access to meetings in which classified material was under discussion, Rove remained working in the White House. Neither Rove nor the President offered immediate public comment on the unfolding scandal. Congressional Republicans remained silent on the issue of the Valerie Plame leak and a White House compromise of national security, and as of said that even if Rove is not being truthful, he deserves a medal for leaking Plame's CIA identity because Joseph Wilson opposed the war and "Valerie Plame should have been outed by somebody."[http://oliverwillis.com/vid/gibson-plame.mov [http://mediamatters.org/items/200507130004] On 2003 remarks, to suggest that criminality was a pre-requisite all along. Many news outlets speculated that Rove's (future) legal defense might be built upon testimony that he was ignorant of Plame's protected status at the time he outed her as a CIA employee; if it could be proven that he had heard of her CIA covert status before speaking to journalists, however, Rove could face far more serious charges. A ''New York Times'' story of was photographed carrying the report in Africa in the company of the President in the days following the 6 July 2003 publication of Wilson's op-ed piece. Powell is reported to have testified before the grand jury. White House Chief of Staff, , 2003 , that the Department of Justice was beginning an investigation of the Plame affair, and that the next morning, Gonzalez would order the White House staff to preserve all documents which may be related to the case. Gonzalez has stated that he did not send the order to the staff because of the lateness of the hour, but speculation has suggested that he notified Card in order to give him a twelve hour head start before destruction of any incriminating documents would be prohibited. This was unusual, according to the ''Washington Post'', since the White House Staff is usually quickly notified of any investigations so as to safeguard the integrity of any documents, emails or memoranda that might be required for the investigation.[http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/24/AR2005072401058.html On April 6, 2006, it was widely reported {Link without Title} that George W. Bush authorized disclosure of classified information on Iraq's weapons program to rebut war critics, Scooter Libby told a grand jury, according to documents filed in federal court. Scott McClellan has confirmed that the president authorized the leak, but he has refused to answer questions pertaining to why the president would bother appointing a special counsel to investigate the incident if he was aware, from the very beginning, of who disclosed the information to reporters. Critics have pointed out that the last three years worth of investigation are now essentially irrevelant since the president knew all along what Patrick Fitzgerald was looking for, and that the president deliberately kept it to himself to avoid embarrassment. Congressional reactions On have called for hearings on the matter. {Link without Title} A Resolution Of Inquiry has been offered by Rush Holt (D-NJ) and John Conyers (D-MI), requesting that the Bush Administration release all documents concerning the exposure of Ms. Plame. Barney Frank (D-MA) and John Conyers (D-MI) have authorized the Library of Congress to research legal precedent for the impeachment of White House staffers. {Link without Title} A series of nationwide town hall meetings was scheduled for July 23 2005 to review the Downing Street Memo , the Plame affair, and the situation in Iraq . {Link without Title} . Twenty-six Democratic Senators, including seven members of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, have issued a public statement authored by Senator John Kerry , calling for Congressional hearings to investigate the Plame leak. {Link without Title} On November 1 2005 , Senator Harry Reid (D-NV) called for a Closed Session , for only the 54th time since 1929, to discuss the Plame affair and the Bush Administration's role in pre-Iraq War intelligence. On November 5 2005 , Conservative Senator Zell Miller wrote a column describing his view of the Plame affair as a "sting operation" by the Wilsons designed to pull down a sitting president. Miller claims that Joseph Wilson played a key role by "misrepresenting" the intelligence he gathered on his trip to Niger, publishing his findings in an op-ed piece. {Link without Title} Reactions of former CIA officers On 20 July 2005 , eleven former CIA officers backed Valerie Plame in a three page statement and characterized the leak of her identity as damaging "national security and threaten the ability of U.S. intelligence gathering." [http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,163162,00.html "Intelligence officers should not be used as political footballs," the eleven said. "In the case of Valerie Plame, she still works for the CIA and is not in a position to publicly defend her reputation and honor." Former , a former CIA colleague of Plame's in the late 1980's, heavily criticized the Bush Administration's handling of the leak: "This is wrong and this is shameful. Instead of a president concerned first and foremost with protecting this country and the intelligence officers who serve it, we are confronted with a president who is willing to sit by while political operatives savage the reputations of good Americans like Valerie and Joe Wilson." {Link without Title} On , and retired Army colonel and DIA officer W. Patrick Lang , {Link without Title} testified at a Senate Hearing on the consequences of the leak. Lang emphasized his view that the Bush Administration's action in leaking Plame's identity had threatened vital national security interests over the long term, by sending the message to potential assets around the world that their identity will not be protected if they work with the CIA. "This says to them that if you decide to cooperate, someone will give you up, so you don't do it," he said. "They are not going to trust you in any way." {Link without Title} Fred Rustmann, a covert CIA agent from 1966 to 1990, was briefly a supervisor of Valerie Plame Wilson during her early career at the CIA, although he left the agency before she went undercover. "She made no bones about the fact that she was an agency employee and her husband was a diplomat," he told ''The Washington Times''. "Her neighbors knew this, her friends knew this, his friends knew this. A lot of blame could be put on to central cover staff and the agency because they weren't minding the store here. ... The agency never changed her cover status." It is not clear how Mr. Rustmann, who left the Agency in 1990, would know this, since Plame is said to have gone undercover after 1990. And investigations by the FBI and by journalists revealed Rustmann's comments to be "baseless"; friends and neighbors of the Wilsons had no idea that Valerie Plame Wilson worked for the CIA before reading about it in Novak's column.[http://mediamatters.org/items/200510260005 [http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/05/politics/05wilson.html Reuel Marc Gerecht, a former CIA case officer, dismissed the damage caused by outing Valerie Plame. "The revealing of Valerie Plame's true employer," he wrote, "has in all probability hurt no one overseas. You can rest assured that if her (most recent) outing had actually hurt an agent from her past, we would've heard about it through a CIA leak. Langley's systemic sloppiness--the flimsiness of cover is but the tip of the iceberg of incompetence--has repeatedly destroyed agent networks and provoked 'flaps' with some of our closest allies. A serious CIA would never have allowed Mr. Wilson to go on such an odd, short 'fact finding' mission. It never would have allowed Ms. Plame potentially to expose herself by recommending such an overt mission for her mate, not known for his subtlety and discretion. With a CIA where cover really mattered, Mr. Libby would not now be indicted. But that's not what we have in the real world." {Link without Title} However, Larry Johnson noted that Plame's outing probably did compromise national security through revealing her cover company: "every time that someone like this is outed, it's not just the person. In this case, it's the front company. It's other NOCs who may have been exposed.... But what I do know for certain is, we're not just talking about Valerie Plame. We're talking about an intelligence resource, a United States national security resource that was destroyed by these White House officials that went out and started talking to the press about this. Reckless. And they have -- they have harmed the security of this country." {Link without Title} Public opinion In a Poll conducted July 13 - July 17 2005 by ABC News , a plurality (47%) of people surveyed said the White House is not cooperating fully with the ongoing investigation; the remainder either had no opinion (28%) or thought the White House was fully cooperating (25%). According to the poll, "75 percent say Rove should lose his job if the investigation finds he leaked classified information. That includes sizable majorities of Republicans, independents and Democrats alike — 71, 74 and 83 percent, respectively." [http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/PollVault/story?id=949950 ibid A CNN poll dated 22 July - 24 July found that 49% of respondents say Rove should resign, 31% said he should not, and 20% had no opinion. USAToday In a poll commissioned by ''Newsweek'' and published 8 August 2005 , 45% believed Rove "guilty of a serious offence", 15% "not guilty of a serious offence", and 37% responded "don't know." {Link without Title} Critics of the Bush administration allege that this episode, together with the outing of undercover source Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan which prematurely terminated an ongoing operation, demonstrates the low priority of national security in the Bush White House relative to political gain, or even just revenge for political damage. {Link without Title} CRITICISM OF PLAME/WILSON Regarding Wilson's trip to Niger Wilson was criticized by the Senate Select Committee on PreWar Intelligence alleging, wrongly, that he claimed his trip to Niger proved that Iraq was not seeking uranium from Niger. A former Minister of Niger told Wilson, that he, during an OAU minister meeting in Algiers in 1999, had an informal meeting with an official from Iraq, who wanted to talk about "trade" between the two countries. But their talk never came to any clear topic. The Minister let all matters drop because of UN sanctions against Iraq. And he told Wilson he didn't know if the official wanted to talk about uranium. (Pages 39-44). (See also Joe Wilson's book ''The Politics of Truth'', page 28.) In March 2003, the IAEA declared certain documents alleging a sale of uranium from Niger to Iraq to be forgeries.[http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/03/14/sprj.irq.documents/] The Senate Select Committee criticized Wilson for allegedly stating that his trip to Niger had proved that Niger Documents may have been forged when acting as a source for a [http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A46957-2003Jun11¬Found=true June 12, 2002] Washington post article. (Report, page 45 and Additional Views of Pat Roberts, et al. at pages 443-444). Wilson told The Washington Post anonymously in June 2003 that he had concluded that the intelligence about the Niger uranium was based on the forged documents because "the dates were wrong and the names were wrong." However, the Senate intelligence committee, which examined pre-Iraq war intelligence, reported that Wilson "had never seen the CIA reports and had no knowledge of what names and dates were in the reports." Wilson said that he "may have misspoken to the reporter when he said he concluded the documents were forged." (Report, page 44). Similarly, a May 6, 2003 article by Nicolas Kristof for which Wilson was one of the sources states that "that envoy reported to the C.I.A. and State Department that the information was unequivocally wrong and that the documents had been forged." In a later article , Mr. Kristof confirmed that Wilson was the source for this statement, but defended Wilson, stating that although Wilson may not have had the documents in his possession, he may still have provided information necessary to debunk the documents. In that article, Mr. Kristof also explained "Wilson has said that he misspoke when he made references to the documents to me and to two other journalists." A '' Washington Post '' editorial on April 9 , 2006 stated "After more than 2 1/2 years of investigation, Fitzgerald has reported no evidence to support Wilson's charge. Bush did not authorize the leak of Plame's identity. Libby's motive in allegedly disclosing her name to reporters, Fitzgerald said, was to disprove yet another false assertion, that Wilson had been dispatched to Niger by Cheney. In fact... Wilson was recommended for the trip by his wife... [http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/08/AR2006040800895.html High ranking CIA officials told the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence that they disputed the claim that Plame was involved in the final decision to send Wilson, and indicated that the operations official who made it was not present at the meeting where Wilson was chosen. And Newsday reported the following: :''A senior intelligence officer confirmed that Plame was a Directorate of Operations undercover officer who worked ‘alongside’ the operations officers who asked her husband to travel to Niger. “But he said she did not recommend her husband to undertake the Niger assignment. ‘They (the officers who did ask Wilson to check the uranium story) were aware of who she was married to, which is not surprising,’ he said. ‘There are people elsewhere in government who are trying to make her look like she was the one who was cooking this up, for some reason,’ he said. ‘I can’t figure out what it could be.’ 'We paid his (Wilson’s) airfare. But to go to Niger is not exactly a benefit. Most people you’d have to pay big bucks to go there,’ the senior intelligence official said. Wilson said. he was reimbursed only for expenses. (July 22 2003) Wilson wrote: "Apart from being the conduit of a message from a colleague in her office asking if I would be willing to have a conversation about Niger's uranium industry, Valerie had had nothing to do with the matter." Regarding Plame's CIA job allegedly being widely known On 2002 , during which the two would have been in the green room within hours of each other. In response to this explanation, Brit Hume of FOX News reported, "liberal Websites say they have proof Vallely is lying, saying research service LexisNexis shows Vallely and Wilson never appeared on FOX on the same day. But in fact, Vallely and Wilson appeared on the same day nine times in 2002, and on the same show twice — on September 8 and September 12 , when both men appeared within 15 minutes of one another." {Link without Title} According to Jeralyn Merritt, who went through the FOX transcripts to compile this information notes that on September 12 , "Wilson's segment was over 15 minutes before Vallely's began. The Fox green room in New York is very small and contains an even smaller makeup room that only has one guest chair. Guests are by themselves in the makeup room. I assume Wilson would have been having his makeup done before his segment, so Vallely wouldn't have been with him then. Even if they did overlap in the green room for a couple of minutes, it strains credulity to think the topic of Wilson's wife's employment with the CIA would have come up. There likely would have only time for mere pleasantries." {Link without Title} On November 7 , 2005 , Vallely appeared on ABC Radio Networks' ''The Sean Hannity Show''; on this occasion he stated that Wilson had disclosed Plame's employment while in the green room only once, but could not remember the precise date: ''we got to talk about our families, past assignments, and so on and so forth. And only on one occasion do I recall, you know, "My wife's at the agency."'' On November 8 , WorldNetDaily confirmed that ''Since speaking with WND late Friday, Vallely has clarified the number of occasions Wilson mentioned his wife's status and when the conversation occurred. ''After recalling further over the weekend his contacts with Wilson, Vallely says now it was on just one occasion'' {Link without Title} ''Media Matters'' noted that "Vallely's allegations have come nearly two years after the beginning of Fitzgerald's high-profile investigation. Despite widespread reporting about the seriousness of Fitzgerald's investigation, Vallely apparently did not feel compelled to share his story until more than a week after Libby's indictment. In an interview on the , Vallely stated, "I was asked, 'Why didn't you say this before?' Well, I figured Joe Wilson would self-destruct at some point in time." According to ABC Radio Networks ' John Batchelor on November 6 , touting McInerney's scheduled appearance on Batchelor's show the next day, retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Thomas McInerney , who has coauthored with Vallely a book about the war on terrorism, alleged that Wilson had also told him about his wife's job with the CIA while in the green room at FOX News studios; ''Lt. General Tom McInerney, USAF (ret), West Point '59, will join his colleague Maj. General Paul Vallely, USA (ret), West Point '61, on my show Monday 7 Novem |