A primer on the CIA leak scandal
Eric Black, Star Tribune
startribune.com
Published October 5, 2003 LEAK05
Did a high-ranking Bush administration official break the law by revealing the identity of an undercover CIA agent to punish the agent's husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, for embarrassing the White House?
After simmering for three months, a potentially serious scandal centering on that question reached a full media and political boil last week. Here's a primer on the story of the leak, the investigation and the fallout.
Who is Joseph Wilson?
A retired U.S. diplomat, Wilson served in several African nations, including Niger, and in Iraq. He has been widely praised for heroic measures to protect American hostages in the days before the 1991 Gulf War. Although he received commendations and ambassadorial appointments from the first President Bush, most of Wilson's partisan associations are on the Democratic side. He worked in Al Gore's Senate office and Bill Clinton's National Security Council. He's supporting Sen. John Kerry for president. He opposed Bush's Iraq policy on the grounds that Saddam Hussein could be contained by means short of war.
In February 2002, the CIA sent him to Niger to investigate intelligence that Saddam might have tried to acquire uranium yellowcake, which can be used to make nuclear weapons. Wilson concluded that the reports were false.
In his January 2003 State of the Union message, Bush cited the Niger yellowcake information to support his argument that Saddam was pursuing nuclear weapons. In a July 6 New York Times op-ed piece, Wilson laid out his conclusions about the Niger yellowcake and linked it to the growing doubts about whether Bush had misled the nation into war. The day after Wilson's op-ed was published, the White House acknowledged that the reference to African uranium should not have been in Bush's speech.
One week later, syndicated columnist Robert Novak wrote a column about Wilson. In the furor of the past week, it has largely gone unremarked that Novak's position on the Iraq war was closer to Wilson's than to Bush's and that the tone of the column was largely favorable to Wilson. In the column, almost as an aside, Novak said two senior administration sources had told him that Wilson got the CIA assignment to Niger at the suggestion of his wife, who "is an agency operative on weapons of mass destruction."
Why is the disclosure such a big deal?
It is a federal offense for a government employee with access to classified information to divulge the identity of an undercover intelligence official. And the Bush administration has staked much of its reputation on putting national security above everything. Columnist Paul Krugman of the New York Times, and one of the few in the mainstream press to write about the matter before last weekend, called the outing of Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, "criminal and unpatriotic" in his July 22 column.
Did Novak break the law?
Apparently not. Everyone who has analyzed the legal question has said that the official who gave Novak the information probably violated the law but that publishing the information was not criminal.
But on the issue of journalistic ethics, the tide is running strongly against him. In an exchange on the PBS "News Hour," Tom Rosenstiel of the Project for Excellence in Journalism said "Bob Novak has done a really dangerous and terrible thing." Rosenstiel said that before revealing classified information, journalists have to ask themselves whether the information is so valuable to the public that it justifies the danger to the people involved and whether there is a way to convey the vital information without blowing the cover of a CIA official. He said Novak had failed those tests. Rosenstiel said in an interview with the Star Tribune that Novak's revelation of Wilson's wife's work was "gratuitous."
Jane Kirtley, Silha professor of media ethics and law at the University of Minnesota, said Novak should have written a column saying that somebody in the White House was leaking the identity of a covert operative and then not published anything that would have divulged the identity. "If he had written that column, that would have been the highest form of ethical journalism," Kirtley said.
How does Novak defend his decision?
In a column last week, Novak made several arguments. 1. He did not receive a "planned leak." The information about Wilson's wife came about in the course of an interview that he initiated. 2. Plame was not a covert agent but an analyst. The CIA asked him not to unmask Plame but didn't say that the disclosure would endanger anyone. 3. The fact that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA was widely known in Washington.
Problems have emerged about the first two points. Back in July, Novak told Newsday: "I didn't dig it out. It was given to me. They thought it was significant, they gave me the name and I used it."
On the second point, the CIA has told reporters that it tried strenuously to convince Novak not to out Plame so as not to endanger her or operatives with whom she worked. Larry Johnson, a retired CIA analyst who trained with Plame, said she was undercover for three decades.
What were the leaker's motives?
Some speculate that the goal was to punish or intimidate Wilson. But if so, how? By endangering his wife? By ruining her career? It's unclear. Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post and others have heard that the leaker's goal was to damage Wilson's credibility. The suggestion that Wilson got the Niger assignment because of his wife's connection might undermine the impression that he was well-qualified to debunk the Niger-yellowcake rumor. There is speculation (see "The Plame Game" by Howard Fineman of Newsweek and MSNBC) that understanding the real motive requires plumbing the murky waters of a long-standing fight between neo-cons and the CIA that goes back to at least the 1980s.
Wilson himself said in a July interview that the purpose of the leak was not to intimidate him, "because I've already told my story. But it's pretty clear it is intended to intimidate others who might come forward."
If all of this happened in July, why is it exploding now?
The outing of Plame wasn't completely ignored, but almost. Newsday published an early piece about it. It lived largely in the realm of left-leaning Internet sites. "The truth is, the press blew it on this one," said Kurtz of the Washington Post. (The Star Tribune ran Krugman's July column but never mentioned the leak in its news pages until last week.)
The disclosure of classified information is supposed to routinely trigger a report and an investigation. That process went forward, without much notice or urgency, until it resulted in a CIA report to the Justice Department and an official request that Justice investigate. The request was leaked to MSNBC, which broke the news on its Web site on Sept. 26.
But the story really hit the big-time last Sunday when a front-page story in the Washington Post added a new leak. A senior administration official told the Post that "before Novak's column ran, two top White House officials had called at least six reporters and disclosed the identity and occupation of Wilson's wife." None of the six wrote about it. The Post's source said Bush had no prior knowledge of the campaign to out Plame. The source gave his (or her) own assessment of the leaker's motives: "Clearly, it was meant purely and simply for revenge."
Two days after breaking the story last Sunday, the Post conducted a poll on the leak. It found that large majorities of those sampled thought it was a serious problem, believed that the leak probably did come from the White House, favored an investigation by someone outside the administration and wanted the leaker fired and prosecuted. Also, 62 percent thought it was unlikely that Bush knew about the leak in advance.
Who are the other reporters who were offered the leak and will they come forward?
None of them has yet been identified. Andrea Mitchell of NBC News said she got a similar call, but it came after Novak's column had appeared. Media ethicists said that if the reporters pledged confidentiality, they have to keep their promises.
What's the status of the investigation?
President Bush has said he wants to know who outed Plame and believes the leaker should, at a minimum, be fired. The FBI will conduct interviews. Many Democrats are demanding the appointment of a special outside counsel on the grounds that anyone working for the administration will have a conflict of interest, or at least the appearance of a conflict. Any outside counsel would have to be appointed by Attorney General John Ashcroft.
Have any suspects been identified?
Not by investigators. Wilson at one point publicly blamed Karl Rove, Bush's top political adviser. In fact, at a public forum in August he said he would like to "see whether we can get Karl Rove frog-marched out of the White House in handcuffs." Wilson has now backed off somewhat and said he believes Rove at least condoned the leak.
James C. Moore, co-author of an unflattering book about Rove titled "Bush's Brain," wrote a commentary for buzz
flash.com that said anyone familiar with Rove's hot temper and his willingness to retaliate would suspect him. "Rove has always made sure that his enemies knew he will strike back, and swing with deadly power," Moore wrote.
Rove has not spoken publicly about the matter. White House spokesman Scott McClellan, who said he had talked with Rove about it, said the suggestion that Rove had anything to do with the leak was "ridiculous." In a story posted Friday, Eric Boehlert of Salon.com said Lewis Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, is under suspicion. |
