Update [2005-8-1 18:30:21 by susanhu]: Andrea Mitchell is on MSNBC’s Hardball today to talk about Novak’s column and the CIA leak case.

The “run silent, run, just run …” Robert Novak fires back at the CIA today in his syndicated column at the Chicago Sun-Times:

A statement attributed to the former CIA spokesman indicating that I deliberately disregarded what he told me in writing my 2003 column about Joseph Wilson’s wife is just plain wrong.

Though frustrated, I have followed the advice of my attorneys and written almost nothing about the CIA leak over two years because of a criminal investigation by a federal special prosecutor. The lawyers also urged me not to write this. But the allegation against me is so patently incorrect and so abuses my integrity as a journalist that I feel constrained to reply.

Now wait just a fucking minute here. As Larry Johnson, a former CIA officer, just told me, “The real news in Bob Novak’s latest column is the revelation that Novak thinks he has ‘integrity’. Talk about delusional.”

Novak goes on — calling this an “obscure case” — and Johnson replies, BELOW THE FOLD:
[editor’s note, by susanhu] Edited to reflect Johnson’s remarks that he updated and posted at his blog, No Quarter.

Larry Johnson told me — about the following section in Novak’s column (below) — that:

Back in July 2003 Novak wrote:


“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 that Wilson’s wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate the Italian report. The CIA [Harlow] says its counter-proliferation officials selected Wilson and asked his wife to contact him.”

I believe Novak reported accurately that “two senior Administration officials” said that Valerie Plame “suggested the mission”. But those sources were spreading deliberate disinformation. A real journalist would have asked some hard questions, things apparently beyond Novak’s ability in his dotage. In stark contrast to what the two “senior” Admistration officials told him, CIA officials, both former and current, are on record saying that Novak is wrong and that Plame neither suggested nor authorized the mission. So what does Bob “the responsbile journalist” Novak do? He insists that the info about Plame is right even though officials in her chain of command say the opposite. Who are you going to believe?


Novak:

In the course of a front-page story in last Wednesday’s Washington Post, Walter Pincus and Jim VandeHei quoted ex-CIA spokesman Bill Harlow describing his testimony to the grand jury. In response to my question about Valerie Plame Wilson’s role in former ambassador Wilson’s trip to Niger, Harlow told me she “had not authorized the mission.” Harlow was quoted as later saying to me “the story Novak had related to him was wrong.”


This gave the impression I ignored an official’s statement that I had the facts wrong but wrote it anyway for the sake of publishing the story. That would be inexcusable for any journalist and particularly a veteran of 48 years in Washington. The truth is otherwise, and that is why I feel compelled to write this column.


My column of July 14, 2003, asked why the CIA in 2002 sent Wilson, a critic of President Bush, to Niger to investigate an Italian intelligence report of attempted Iraqi uranium purchases. All the subsequent furor was caused by three sentences in the sixth paragraph:


“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 that Wilson’s wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate the Italian report. The CIA [Harlow] says its counter-proliferation officials selected Wilson and asked his wife to contact him.”


Next, Novak “takes refuge” in the Senate Intel report:

There never was any question of me talking about Mrs. Wilson “authorizing.” I was told she “suggested” the mission, and that is what I asked Harlow. His denial was contradicted in July 2004 by a unanimous Senate Intelligence Committee report. The report said Wilson’s wife “suggested his name for the trip.” It cited an internal CIA memo from her saying “my husband has good relations” with officials in Niger and “lots of French contacts,” adding they “could possibly shed light on this sort of activity.” A State Department analyst told the committee that Mrs. Wilson “had the idea” of sending Wilson to Africa.


Larry Johnson’s retort:

But, we now are reminded what a complete, disgusting douchebag (to quote Jon Stewart) Robert Novak really is. He admits that he was told that revealing Plame’s identity would cause “difficulties”. He describes her in his original article as an “operative”. Note, not “analyst” but “operative”.

Bob Novak has been in town long enough to know the difference.

An operative is someone who carries out operations. An analyst is someone who sits at a desk and tries to make sense out of information that operators collect.

Bill Harlow says he asked Novak not to use her name and Novak confirms this. CIA spokesmen were in the position of having to protect a sensitive, covert asset and this joke of a journalist did not appreciate that creating difficulties for an intelligence agency in a time of war is a bad thing?


More from Novak:

So, what was “wrong” with my column as Harlow claimed? There was nothing incorrect. He told the Post reporters he had “warned” me that if I “did write about it her name should not be revealed.” That is meaningless. 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.”


Harlow said to the Post that he did not tell me Mrs. Wilson “was undercover because that was classified.” What he did say was, as I reported in a previous column, “she probably never again would be given a foreign assignment but that exposure of her name might cause ‘difficulties.’ ” According to CIA sources, she was brought home from foreign assignments in 1997, when agency officials feared she had been “outed” by the traitor Aldrich Ames.


I have previously said that I never would have written those sentences if Harlow, then-CIA Director George Tenet or anybody else from the agency had told me that Valerie Plame Wilson’s disclosure would endanger herself or anybody.


The recent first disclosure of secret grand jury testimony set off a news media feeding frenzy centered on this obscure case. Joseph Wilson was discarded a year ago by the Kerry presidential campaign after the Senate committee reported much of what he said “had no basis in fact.” The re-emerged Wilson is now accusing the senators of “smearing” him. I eagerly await the end of this investigation when I may be able to correct other misinformation about me and the case.


Larry Johnson responds:

After talking with several friends still inside the operations community, there is a widely held sentiment, “Too bad Novak is not sharing a cell with Judith Miller”.


Too bad Novak is not sharing a cell with Miller.


Larry Johnson will publish these and additional remarks at his blog, No Quarter.