The latest Murray Waas paints a damning picture of the Vice-President’s role in l’affaire plame. I think it is pretty obvious that the Veep wanted it known that Wilson’s wife worked at the CIA. But let’s look at the facts.
Vice President Dick Cheney directed his then-chief of staff, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, on July 12, 2003 to leak to the media portions of a then-highly classified CIA report…
That report was the one the CIA drew up after interviewing Ambassador Wilson after this return from Niger.
only hours after Cheney reportedly instructed Libby to disclose information from the CIA report, Libby divulged to then-New York Times reporter Judith Miller and Time magazine correspondent Matthew Cooper that Plame was a CIA officer, and that she been involved in selecting her husband for the Niger mission.
This last part is a little misleading because…
During the conversations that followed on July 12 [Libby] discussed Ms. Wilson’s [CIA] employment with both Matthew Cooper (for the first time) and Judith Miller (for the third time).”
…this wasn’t the first time Libby had mentioned Wilson’s wife to Judith Miller. Nevertheless…
Moreover, on July 12, 2003, the same day that Libby spoke to both Cooper and Miller, Libby and Cheney traveled aboard Air Force Two for the dedication of a new aircraft carrier in Norfolk, Va. During the flight either to or from Norfolk, Cheney, Libby, and Cathie Martin, then-assistant to the vice president for public affairs, discussed how they might rebut Wilson’s charges and discredit him, according to federal court records, and interviews with people with first-hand knowledge of accounts that all three provided to federal investigators.
It has long been known that Cheney was among the first people in the government to tell Libby that Plame worked for the CIA.
Now, add it all up. Do you think Cheney directed Libby to out Valerie Plame? Below the fold, some more excerpts that support that contention.
Steve Aftergood, a senior research analyst with the Federation of American Scientists, who tracks government secrecy and classification issues, said that Libby “presents himself in this instance and others as being very scrupulous in adhering to the rules. He is not someone carried on by the rush of events. If you take his account before the grand jury on face value, he is cautious and deliberative in his behavior.
“That is almost the exact opposite as to how he behaves when it comes to disclosing Plame’s identity,” Aftergood said. “All of a sudden he doesn’t play within the rules. He doesn’t seek authorization. If you believe his account, he almost acts capriciously. You have to ask yourself why his behavior changes so dramatically, if he is telling the truth that this was not authorized and that he did not talk to higher-ups.”
Not to mention that Rove was leaking at the same time, and Hadley may have been leaking at the same time. It looks to me like the whole White House Iraq Group was being loose-lipped about the identity of Valerie Plame…almost certainly at the direction of Bush’s quail-hunting sidekick.
