2003-07-17 18:53:11 Wounding Wilson's Wife Time Magazine has picked up on the story of the alleged BushCo attack on the wife of ex-ambassador Joseph Wilson, the whistleblower who blew the lid off the Niger-uranium scandal: A War On Wilson? Inside the Bush Administration's feud with the diplomat who poured cold water on the Iraq-uranium connection Has the Bush Administration declared war on a former ambassador who conducted a fact-finding mission to probe possible Iraqi interest in African uranium? Former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson raised the Administration's ire with an op-ed piece in The New York Times on July 6 charging that the Administration had "twisted" intelligence to "exaggerate" the Iraqi threat. Since then Administration officials have taken public and private whacks at Wilson, charging that his 2002 report, made at the behest of U.S. intelligence, was faulty and that his mission was a scheme cooked up by mid-level operatives. Some government officials, noting that Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, is a CIA official who monitors the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, intimate that she was involved in his being dispatched Niger to investigate reports that Saddam Hussein's government had sought to purchase large quantities of uranium ore, sometimes referred to as yellow cake, for the purposes of building nuclear devices. ... A War On Wilson? Time July 16, 2003 Now, what's worrisome is not that the White House is charging that Plame was or wasn't involved in anything; it's that they blew her cover. Writes Robert Novak in his July 14th column: 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 his wife suggested sending Wilson 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. So, why is this a big deal? David Corn explains it all for you (bold emphasis mine): [Wilson] will neither confirm nor deny that his wife — who is the mother of three-year-old twins — works for the CIA. But let's assume she does. That would seem to mean that the Bush administration has screwed one of its own top-secret operatives in order to punish Wilson or to send a message to others who might challenge it. The sources for Novak's assertion about Wilson's wife appear to be "two senior administration officials." If so, a pair of top Bush officials told a reporter the name of a CIA operative who apparently has worked under what's known as "nonofficial cover" and who has had the dicey and difficult mission of tracking parties trying to buy or sell weapons of mass destruction or WMD material. If Wilson's wife is such a person — and the CIA is unlikely to have many employees like her — her career has been destroyed by the Bush administration. ... Without acknowledging whether she is a deep-cover CIA employee, Wilson says, "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." If she is not a CIA employee and Novak is reporting accurately, then the White House has wrongly branded a woman known to friends as an energy analyst for a private firm as a CIA officer. That would not likely do her much good. This is not only a possible breach of national security; it is a potential violation of law. Under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982, it is a crime for anyone who has access to classified information to disclose intentionally information identifying a covert agent. The punishment for such an offense is a fine of up to $50,000 and/or up to ten years in prison. ... Novak tells me that he was indeed tipped off by government officials about Wilson's wife and had no reluctance about naming her. "I figured if they gave it to me," he says. "They'd give it to others." ... So where's the investigation? Remember Filegate — and the Republican charge that the Clinton White House was using privileged information against its political foes? In this instance, it appears possible — perhaps likely — that Bush administration officials gathered material on Wilson and his family and then revealed classified information to lash out at him, and in doing so compromised national security. ... Stay tuned, folks — this story is only beginning to find its legs. Contrary to Wilson's claim (in the final paragraph of the Time article) — "Wilson... considers the matter settled now that the White House has admitted the Bush reference to Iraq and African uranium should not have been in the State of the Union address" — Wilson himself knows this matter is far from "settled." Incidentally, witness how Cheney's denial of any involvement in Wilson's mission has begun to deteriorate: "In an exclusive interview, the Vice President's Chief of Staff Lewis Libby, told TIME: 'The Vice President heard about the possibility of Iraq trying to acquire uranium from Niger in February 2002. As part of his regular intelligence briefing, the Vice President asked a question about the implication of the report. During the course of a year, the Vice President asked many such questions and the agency responded within a day or two saying that they had reporting suggesting the possibility of such a transaction.'" That's hardly a confession, but it's a lot more than Cheney's office was willing to admit last week. Drip, drip, drip... Splash! |