Hi GST; I think Novak deliberately hurt Bush with his column. The odd thing about his column is that the CIA information had nothing to do with the rest of the logic. The White House intention was to imply that Wilson only got the job through nepotism, but the Novak column itself is deeply positive in every comment about Wilson, and only mentions the CIA connection as a side note. I've bolded the passages which are complimentary to Wilson:
Mission to Niger
Robert Novak, July 14, 2003
The CIA's decision to send retired diplomat Joseph C. Wilson to Africa in February 2002 to investigate possible Iraqi purchases of uranium was made routinely at a low level without Director George Tenet's knowledge. Remarkably, this produced a political firestorm that has not yet subsided.
Wilson's report that an Iraqi purchase of uranium yellowcake from Niger was highly unlikely was regarded by the CIA as less than definitive, and it is doubtful Tenet ever saw it. Certainly, President Bush did not, prior to his 2003 State of the Union address, when he attributed reports of attempted uranium purchases to the British government. That the British relied on forged documents made Wilson's mission, nearly a year earlier, the basis of furious Democratic accusations of burying intelligence though the report was forgotten by the time the president spoke.
Reluctance at the White House to admit a mistake has led Democrats ever closer to saying the president lied the country into war. Even after a belated admission of error last Monday, finger-pointing between Bush administration agencies continued. Messages between Washington and the presidential entourage traveling in Africa hashed over the mission to Niger.
Wilson's mission was created after an early 2002 report by the Italian intelligence service about attempted uranium purchases from Niger, derived from forged documents prepared by what the CIA calls a "con man." This misinformation, peddled by Italian journalists, spread through the U.S. government. The White House, State Department and Pentagon, and not just Vice President Dick Cheney, asked the CIA to look into it.
That's where Joe Wilson came in. His first public notice had come in 1991 after 15 years as a Foreign Service officer when, as U.S. charge in Baghdad, he risked his life to shelter in the embassy some 800 Americans from Saddam Hussein's wrath. My partner Rowland Evans reported from the Iraqi capital in our column that Wilson showed "the stuff of heroism." President George H.W. Bush the next year named him ambassador to Gabon, and President Bill Clinton put him in charge of African affairs at the National Security Council until his retirement in 1998.
Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction. Two senior administration officials told me Wilson's wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate the Italian report. The CIA says its counter-proliferation officials selected Wilson and asked his wife to contact him. "I will not answer any question about my wife," Wilson told me.
After eight days in the Niger capital of Niamey (where he once served), Wilson made an oral report in Langley that an Iraqi uranium purchase was "highly unlikely," though he also mentioned in passing that a 1988 Iraqi delegation tried to establish commercial contacts. CIA officials did not regard Wilson's intelligence as definitive, being based primarily on what the Niger officials told him and probably would have claimed under any circumstances. The CIA report of Wilson's briefing remains classified.
All this was forgotten until reporter Walter Pincus revealed in the Washington Post June 12 that an unnamed retired diplomat had given the CIA a negative report. Not until Wilson went public on July 6, however, did his finding ignite the firestorm.
During the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, Wilson had taken a measured public position -- viewing weapons of mass destruction as a danger but considering military action as a last resort. He has seemed much more critical of the administration since revealing his role in Niger. In the Washington Post July 6, he talked about the Bush team "misrepresenting the facts," asking: "What else are they lying about?"
After the White House admitted error, Wilson declined all television and radio interviews. "The story was never me," he told me, "it was always the statement in (Bush's) speech." The story, actually, is whether the administration deliberately ignored Wilson's advice, and that requires scrutinizing the CIA summary of what their envoy reported. The Agency never before has declassified that kind of information, but the White House would like it to do just that now -- in its and in the public's interest.
townhall.com
Note that Novak repeatedly calls the administration wrong, implied that they lied us into a war, that they are continuing to lie, that Wilson was a trustworthy source who should have been noted by the Administration, and that Wilson did not make a big deal about anything other than the yellowcake story itself. On the other hand, Novak's story mentions the connection to the CIA operative only in passing.
We know that Novak asked the CIA about the story, and the CIA told him not to publish the name of an operative, but he published it anyway. Why? Her name is not a part of the story in any significant way. But he DID mention her name because the news was not that she was CIA, but instead that "two senior administration officials" told him that she was CIA, and therefore that the administration was attempting to justify its tissue of lies and deceit with felonies.
Novak is a conservative columnist who was not a big time Iraq war proponent. I think his stab at Bush is another brick in the wall of conservative abandonment of Bush, of which I am another. More Novak columns:
Worries at the White House
Robert Novak, September 29, 2003
Anxiety about the 2004 presidential election that suddenly has grasped Republican hearts, from the White House to the grass roots, can be traced to President Bush's two important speeches on Iraq delivered over 15 days. They were both duds. His Sept. 7 speech to the nation was regarded by Republican politicians as a stylistic and substantive failure. His Sept. 22 address to the United Nations was worse, breeding discontent among his own supporters.
...
Replacing the old mantra that there is no way for Bush to lose, Republicans studying the electoral map wonder whether there is any way they can win.
...
Dramatic deterioration in the outlook over the last two weeks is reflected in the experience by a Republican businessman in Milwaukee trying to sell $2,000 tickets for Bush's only appearance this year in Wisconsin on Oct. 3. In contrast to money flowing easily into the Bush war chest everywhere until now, he encountered stiff resistance. Well-heeled conservative businessmen offered to write a check for $100 or $200, but not $2,000. They gave one reason: Iraq.
The clamp on their wallets, they said, derived from their feeling that Iraq was ''an albatross,'' and that ''there is no end in sight.'' The performance by Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld particularly came under fire.
...
Is it realistic to think about Bush winning big industrial belt states won by Al Gore in 2000: Michigan, Illinois and Pennsylvania? Would Missouri slip to the Democrats if Richard Gephardt is on the ticket? No wonder the arrogance quotient at the White House is diminishing. Reporters regularly on that beat say they have been getting their telephone calls returned the last two weeks.
suntimes.com
-- Carl@JustAnotherBrickInTheWall.com |
