In agreement with several other threads, I think Karl Rove has at least proven he is willing to use classified information for political gain. I’m probably not the only one wondering who else he’s used this tactic against.
It reminded me of an article I saw some time ago that answered a tough question. Who does Karl turn to when he needs advice?
Shadowy Neo-Con Adviser Moves on Iran
WASHINGTON, Jun 24 (IPS) – When ‘The Washington Post’ published a list of the people who Karl Rove, President George W. Bush’s closest adviser, regularly consults for advice outside the administration, foreign-policy veterans were shocked when Michael Ledeen popped up as the only full-time international-affairs analyst.
”The two met after Bush’s election,” the Post reported cheerfully, quoting Ledeen about Rove’s request that, ”anytime you have a good idea, tell me”. ”More than once, Ledeen has seen his ideas, faxed to Rove, become official policy or rhetoric,” noted the newspaper.
”When I saw that, I couldn’t believe it,” said one retired senior diplomat. ”But, then again, with this administration, it seemed frighteningly plausible.”
Michael A. Ledeen, resident scholar in the ”Freedom Chair” at the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), where he works closely with the better-known former chairman of the Defense Policy Board, Richard Perle, has been a fixture of Washington’s neo-conservative community for more than 20 years. But he is now out front, in a public campaign for the United States to confront Iran, warning that Teheran will cause Washington problems in both Iraq and Afghanistan and that ”the mullahs are determined to obliterate Israel”.
This next part is also from the same article and mentions Ledeen’s connections in Italy.
To Ledeen, whose own contacts with the mullahs in the Iran-Contra affair 15 years ago remain the source of some mystery, Iran is ”the Mother of Modern Terrorism”. And terrorism has been Ledeen’s bread and butter since at least the late 1970s, when he consulted for Italian military intelligence (SISMI), which in turn enabled him to expose Billy Carter’s dealings with the Gadhafi regime in Libya to the great satisfaction of Republicans, who were revving up their campaign against Billy’s brother, then president Jimmy Carter.
Ledeen’s right-wing Italian connections — including alleged ties to the P-2 Masonic Lodge that rocked Italy in the early 1980s — have long been a source of speculation and intrigue, but he returned to Washington in 1981 as ”anti-terrorism” adviser to the new secretary of state, Al Haig.
Over the next several years, Ledeen used his position as consultant to Haig, the Pentagon and the National Security Council under Ronald Reagan to boost the notion of a global terrorist conspiracy based in the Kremlin, whose KGB pulled the strings of all of the world’s key terrorist groups, especially in the Middle East.
I think Karl has earned the right to have his clearance removed if he stays.
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The original WaPo story mentioned above can be found at the link below.
White House’s Roving Eye for Politics
President’s Most Powerful Adviser May Also Be the Most Connected
By Thomas B. Edsall and Dana Milbank
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, March 10, 2003; Page A01