Another Leak Investigation?

In the wake of the Washington Post's story on the CIA's secret detention facilities, it appears that we may see another high profile leak investigation. The CIA has requested that DOJ investigate the matter and pursue criminal charges for the release of classified information. Likewise (also mentioned in the NYT story) several top House and Senate Republicans have called for a joint Intelligence Committee investigation into the leak. Already several reports are drawing comparisons to the Judy Miller story (see Howard Kurtz's 11/14 column). I think this story would provide an excellent contrast to the Miller story.

The problem with Judy Miller's effort to hide behind press secrecy protection is that the facts of her case flew in the face of the intent of such protections. The idea is to protect whistle blowers and encourage them to bring to light topics, otherwise hidden from the public, that may be critical to the public discourse and democratic oversight of government actions. Judy Miller exposed details meant to crucify one such whistle blower, details that were otherwise irrelevant to the public discourse. Nor was it a simple or direct impeachment of Joe Wilson's credibility or an attack on the substance of his reports. The Plame story was simply an effort create insinuations about Wilson's qualifications and generally besmirch his reputation and possibly (depending on what you're willing to believe about Libby and Rove) to exact revenge by ruining Plame's career. Hardly a lofty testament to the value of an independent press.

The Post's CIA detainee story, by contrast, contained exactly the sort of critical information that the public deserves to see, and should be given every available legal protection. This is not to say that there should be no oversight of how classified information is exposed or that press organizations should not exercise caution in disclosing it (as the Post did in refusing to name the countries where the detainment centers are located). This was information that the public did not know and had no reason to suspect about government policies that go directly to the heart of what our values are and how we conduct ourselves.

This will admittedly cause difficulties for the CIA in its effort to continue to pursue these policies, difficulties that the CIA can claim impair its mission and endanger national security, but these difficulties arise from the outrageousness of the conduct itself. I fail to see how the exposure of this information will in any way impact on the actions of Al Qaeda relative to the CIA, nor the actions of the CIA relative to Al Qaeda, except to the extent that this is now propaganda for Al Qaeda and a source of domestic and international political problems for the CIA. This is not the case of an agent or undercover program that, once exposed, can no longer no long serve the assigned mission. Secrecy is not critical to the function of a prison camp. The exposure of these policies hurt the U.S. and the CIA not because it imposes functional problems, but because the policies are stupid.

The only reason they were likely secret in the first place was probably to avoid political fallout, in both the U.S. and the host countries. That is not, to my mind, a valid reason for government secrecy. If a democratic country allows its government to conceal its actions because the public would not like those actions, something has gone seriously wrong. If some investigation does arise from this leak, I certainly hope that a critical element of that investigation is to discover why exactly the public did not know about these facilities prior to the leak and to inquire into the validity of the profferred justifications for concealing the facilities.

Poor Scott McClellan

This is a pretty funny transcript. My favorite part:

Q: Scott, this is ridiculous. The notion that you're going to stand before us, after having commented with that level of detail, and tell people watching this that somehow you've decided not to talk. You've got a public record out there. Do you stand by your remarks from that podium or not?

MCCLELLAN: I'm well aware, like you, of what was previously said. And I will be glad to talk about it at the appropriate time. The appropriate time is when the investigation...

Q: (inaudible) when it's appropriate and when it's inappropriate?

MCCLELLAN: If you'll let me finish.

Q: No, you're not finishing. You're not saying anything. You stood at that podium and said that Karl Rove was not involved. And now we find out that he spoke about Joseph Wilson's wife. So don't you owe the American public a fuller explanation. Was he involved or was he not? Because contrary to what you told the American people, he did indeed talk about his wife, didn't he?

MCCLELLAN: There will be a time to talk about this, but now is not the time to talk about it.

Q: Do you think people will accept that, what you're saying today?

MCCLELLAN: Again, I've responded to the question.

QUESTION: You're in a bad spot here, Scott... because after the investigation began -- after the criminal investigation was under way -- you said, October 10th, 2003, "I spoke with those individuals, Rove, Abrams and Libby. As I pointed out, those individuals assured me they were not involved in this," from that podium. That's after the criminal investigation began.

Now that Rove has essentially been caught red-handed peddling this information, all of a sudden you have respect for the sanctity of the criminal investigation?

MCCLELLAN: No, that's not a correct characterization. And I think you are well aware of that.....

And we want to be helpful so that they can get to the bottom of this. Because no one wants to get to the bottom of it more than the president of the United States.

It's gotta suck being a Bush press secretary...

Re: On Tubes and Niger

This story has hit slashdot, and in 6-7 years of regularly reading that site, I don't think I've ever seen this many comments on an article.

On Tubes and Niger

NYT has phenomenally comprehensive coverage of the case the Bush administration made for war, and Vice President Cheney does not look so good. What a shame -- and right before the debates!

Put on your tin hats, fellas.

Laura Rozen at War and Piece has this breaking coverage of the alleged Pentagon consultant/Israeli spy story. There is a lot of grumbling online that this is related to the niger uranium forged documents, which also might be connected with the Plame investigation. And all signs point to the Office of Special Plans at the Pentagon. This is certainly one to watch over the next week (I wonder if it will detract from the convention).

Re: Twisting the Story

In a Washington Post op-ed today, Thomas Davis III, the chairman of the House Government Reform Committee claims that the Valerie Plame leak is not worth investigating in part due to the fact that the Butler report "casts serious doubt on the credibility of Joseph Wilson". That's quite a leap in logic. I fail to see how Wilson's credibility should even enter the picture. What does Joe Wilson have to do with the fact that someone leaked the identity of a covert intelligence agent, which, if I recall correctly, is a federal felony? The Butler report is not a get out of jail free card for anything that vaguely involves Joe Wilson.

Twisting the Story

The Washington Post has an editorial today with their take on the new updates to the Niger uranium story. They, like most coverage of the issue are missing the point. The editorial cites the Butler report as saying that intel was reasonable until October 2002 and that Joe Wilson's report did not change their assessment. While it may be true that it did not change the assessment of the British intelligence, that was not the case with the CIA. As you may recall George Tenet accepted responsibility for the charge being included in Bush's state of the union, and said the CIA should not have allowed him to say that. Previous to Tenet's statement there were numerous reports that various people in the CIA had attempted to contact the administration to warn them off of this intel, but those efforts were ignored. These claims, to my knowledge, have never been satisfactorily explored. The point is that regardless of what data has come up now, at the time of the speech, George Bush was presenting data that US intelligence believed to have been discredited.

This is not to say that the new light that has been cast on the issue is meaningless. If it is the case that Saddam Hussein was actively trying to acquire nuclear materials, that would certainly support the administration's claims that Saddam was, in fact, still pursuing nuclear weapons and it will bolster their claims that the war was necessary. What it does not do is have any impact on whether the administration was out of line in pumping the uranium claims when the US intelligence community thought those claims were bogus.

Unfortunately much of the press coverage seems to suggest that maybe Bush was right to include the famous 16 words in his speech, because now evidence justifies it. Whether or not the accusation ultimately proves to be true, the administration promoted it at a time when it was believed to not be true which demonstrates dubious judgment and ethics on their part. Nothing that happens now will change that.

Pitbull Fitzgerald, What's Taking So Long?

I'm getting tired of waiting for US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald to come out with some news of an indictment in the Valerie Plame Affair. It's been some time since he had a rather long sit-down with the President, and one might imagine that was at the tail end of his investigation. There have been rumors floating around for some time that a grand jury has been impaneled--and a grand jury will indict a ham sandwich. So what's the hold-up?

Well, I suspect it might be that Mr. Fitzgerald is not stopping with the Valerie Plame business--I think he is going after big fish on the forged uranium documents. Remember, the two stories are integrally related, because Valerie Plame was outted as a spy immediately after former Ambassador Joseph Wilson spilled the beans about the unsupported tale that Iraq was seeking uranium from Niger. After some documents turned out to be really bad forgeries, the FBI began an investigation and nothing more has been made of that investigation. It is entirely possible that the same people involved in releasing Valerie Plame's name were the same people who forged the documents in the first place--or at least knew they were forgeries but tried to sell them on the street as real Rolex watches. And President Bush bought 'em.

I raise this issue because today there is supposed to be a big report coming down from the other side of the Atlantic that suggests there is other intelligence (not related to the forged documents) that supports the Niger-Iraq uranium claims. I must admit that I am dubious. But we will know shortly.

But back to these forged documents for a moment, the Financial Times reported at the end of June that the guy who apparently sold the documents to an Italian newspaper has come forward and told his story to an American televion network. Apparently the tipper has some interesting news about where he got the documents. (By the way, the recent Senate Intelligence Committee report notes that the tipper apparently requested that the Italian newspaper, Panorama, pay $15,000 euros in exchange for the documents.)

Why the network is sitting on the story (if FT has it right) is beyond me. Now would seem to be the perfect time to come out with the story--unless the network is waiting for indictments to come down, or waiting to see what is in the British report.

Or unless this is all just a crock of shit. It's always a possibility...
(Sorry for the lack of links. I'm just too lazy right now. But if anyone wants back-up for anything in here, just let me know. I'll find it. Eventually.)

Let Them Eat Yellowcake

This story just does not want to die. Financial Times now reports that the forged documents (that form the background for the Valerie Plame affair [Wikipedia]) "appear to have been part of a 'scam', and the actual intelligence showing discussion of uranium supply has been ignored." FT claims:

Human intelligence gathered in Italy and Africa more than three years before the Iraq war had shown Niger officials referring to possible illicit uranium deals with at least five countries, including Iraq.

Hmm.

Make what you will of that story, things get far more interesting when you read Josh Marshall's account of things over at Talking Points Memo. I have found Marshall's analysis very insightful and accurate, and he suggests in no uncertain terms that FT's story is wrong and is designed to muddy the waters when the real story comes out. As a hint of what is to come, the FT story suggests that the forger (who "has a record of extortion and deception and had been convicted by a Rome court in 1985 and later arrested at least twice") plans to reveal "selected aspects of his story to a US television channel."

And rumor has it that Patrick Fitzgerald (U.S. attorney in Chicago) may announce indictments in the Valerie Plame affair sometime this summer.

Patrick Fitzgerald on the Prowl

Newsday reports here that Patrick Fitzgerald, the Chicago US Attorney who was appointed as special counsel to investigate the Valerie Plume affair, has issued a subpoena to the Bush administration seeking phone records from Air Force One for the week preceding the leak (Valerie Plume is former Ambassador Joseph Wilson's wife. Joseph Wilson, you may recall, challenged Bush's assertion in the State of the Union that Iraq had sought uranium from Niger. Robert Novak revealed that Valerie Plume was an undercover CIA operative sometime after Wilson spoke out against the administration).

Article: Paging Oliver North

In the past 24 hours both Condi Rice and George Bush have fully dumped responsibility for the uranium gaffe on the CIA. Now they just need to find some party loyalist within the CIA to fall on his sword for this and they'll have cleared that hurdle. This should not prove too difficult given that the CIA is still claiming that those trucks were bio-warfare labs despite findings by other British and US government officials that the trucks were most likely used to pump weather balloons. Bush is all lacquered up in his teflon coating.

And here's your regularly scheduled episode of "The Iranian People Want A Liberal Democracy".

Update: Ask and ye shall receive. George Tenet accepts blame for the uranium mess.

Discussion: Weapons of Mass Compunction

The BBC, the Independent, and the Guardian have news stories (see BBC here, the Independent here, and the Guardian here) covering the report released by the Foreign Affairs Select Committee of the House of Commons.

Also, former ambassador Wilson stated on Sunday's Meet the Press (see the transcript here) that he investigated the issue whether Iraq purchased uranium from Niger over a year ago and found it was unfounded--and told the Bush administration as much. The Christian Science Monitor published this commentary on the issue over a month ago, and CNN had this interview today. Check out Mr. Wilson's op-ed in the New York Times, entitled "What I Didn't Find in Africa"