In his “I’m sorry,” to Executive Editor Leonard Downie Jr., Woodward says he wanted to protect his sources. But he only went to his editor after Libby was indicted. So, the sources he wants to protect can’t be the sources Libby revealed, or Judith Miller, either because in her case she had Libby’s waiver and in his case, he can only have heard what he heard from the Veep or someone in the CIA itself.
Now who in the CIA would want Libby to know that Valerie Plame, a CIA agent, was Wilson’s wife? What possible value to the intelligence community would dispersing intelligence that could endanger its operations have in this case? You’re right, the CIA has no motive to leak her identity.
That leaves us with a Senior Administration Official (SAO) who wanted information from the CIA for the specific purpose of causing harm to Joe Wilson and his family because Joe Wilson had upset the WMD rationale apple cart, leaving egg all over the Administration’s war-mongering face. A political revenge motive. Now this makes sense. And Libby was the conduit who was fed by a more senior SAO. His boss?
In his own words Woodward says,
“I didn’t want anything out there that was going to get me subpoenaed.” WaPo
So, Woodward has protecting an SAO source that he needs to protect for whatever reason because of either future value, present threat, or past debt.
Yesterday Andy Card said he was a source Woodward talked to, but denies that Valerie Plame ever came into their conversations. Yesterday Raw Story said that Stephen Hadley is Woodward’s “unknown” source of her name, according to its own unnamed
“attorneys close to the investigation and intelligence officials.”
So far, no denials from Hadley who is “a hardliner close to Vice President Dick Cheney and to the neoconservative camp.”
Or Cheney. Every other eligible SAO is falling all over himself to deny, deny, deny.
A senior administration official said that neither President Bush himself, nor his chief of staff, Andrew H. Card Jr., nor his counselor, Dan Bartlett, was Mr. Woodward’s source. So did spokesmen for former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell; the former director of central intelligence, George J. Tenet; and his deputy, John E. McLaughlin.
A lawyer for Karl Rove, the deputy White House chief of staff who has acknowledged conversations with reporters about the case and remains under investigation, said Mr. Rove was not Mr. Woodward’s source.
Mr. Cheney did not join the parade of denials. A spokeswoman said he would have no comment on a continuing investigation. Several other officials could not be reached for comment. NYT
There’s your guy.