NYT: Case of C.I.A. Officer's Leaked Identity Takes New Turn

[DeepModem Mom]

Case of C.I.A. Officer's Leaked Identity Takes New Turn
By DOUGLAS JEHL
Published: July 28, 2005


WASHINGTON, July 26 - In the same week in July 2003 in which Bush administration officials told a syndicated columnist and a Time magazine reporter that a C.I.A. officer had initiated her husband's mission to Niger, an administration official provided a Washington Post reporter with a similar account.

The first two episodes, involving the columnist Robert D. Novak and the reporter Matthew Cooper, have become the subjects of intense scrutiny in recent weeks. But little attention has been paid to what The Post reporter, Walter Pincus, has recently described as a separate exchange on July 12, 2003.

In that exchange, Mr. Pincus says, "an administration official, who was talking to me confidentially about a matter involving alleged Iraqi nuclear activities, veered off the precise matter we were discussing and told me that the White House had not paid attention" to the trip to Niger by Joseph C. Wilson IV "because it was a boondoggle arranged by his wife, an analyst with the agency who was working on weapons of mass destruction."...

***

Mr. Pincus did not write about the exchange with the administration official until October 2003, and The Washington Post itself has since reported little about it. The newspaper's most recent story was a 737-word account last Sept. 16, in which the newspaper reported that Mr. Pincus had testified the previous day about the matter, but only after his confidential source had first "revealed his or her identity" to Mr. Fitzgerald, the special counsel conducting the C.I.A. leak inquiry.

Mr. Pincus has not identified his source to the public. But a review of Mr. Pincus's own accounts and those of other people with detailed knowledge of the case strongly suggest that his source was neither Karl Rove, Mr. Bush's top political adviser, nor I. Lewis Libby, the chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, and was in fact a third administration official whose identity has not yet been publicly disclosed....


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/07/28/politics/28leak.html

[proud2BlibKansan]

1. The plot thickens hee hee hee

This is starting to sound more and more like Watergate every day.

[bribri16]

132. Was Karen Hughes around then? Condi? Wolfowitz? Bolton?

OK Ari Fleicher!

[WhiteTara]

134. don't forget Mary Matlen eom

[alfredo]

2. Delicious.

Maybe some justice will be done.

[Rose Siding]

3. Here we go- can't wait to read this one!

:D

I wonder what Fitz wants so badly from Miller that these other guys couldn't give him.

[zippy890]

67. Miller may be the source

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/theblog/featuredposts.html#a004791

"This is why Miller doesn't want to reveal her "source" at the White House -- because she was the source. Sure, she first got the info from someone else, and the odds are she wasn't the only one who clued in Libby and/or Rove (the State Dept. memo likely played a role too)… but, in this scenario, Miller certainly wasn't an innocent writer caught up in the whirl of history"

She belongs in jail

[Roland99]

72. That sorta doesn't make sense. A source to herself?

[Carolab]

126. Pincus indicates it is a MALE.

Mr. Pincus wrote in the Nieman Reports article that he had agreed to answer questions from Mr. Fitzgerald last fall about his July 12, 2003, conversation only after "it turned out that my source, whom I still cannot identify publicly, had in fact disclosed to the prosecutor that he was my source, and he talked to the prosecutor about our conversation."

[rocktivity]

92. I, too, believe Miller is protecting either Rove, Cheney, Rummy or Rice

Don't buy into her damsel-in-distress, martyr-on-the-altar-of-a-free-press routine! Why else would she protect someone who tried to solicit her help in commiting a capital crime?

:headbang:
rocknation

[NVMojo]

4. is this the condi deal??

[joeunderdog]

76. "Condoleezza Rice at the Center of the Plame Scandal"

http://www.counterpunch.com/
Here's a snip...

There is also the intriguing relationship between John Bolton, the regime's stymied appointee to the UN, and Judith Miller, the New York Times correspondent sent to jail for contempt in refusing to divulge her sources on Plame even for a story she never wrote. Bolton's close relationship to Miller, in which many suspect the right-wing lobbyist handed the reporter much of the fraudulent accounts of Iraqi weaponry that ended up on the front page of the Times, may well have encompassed as well the passing of information from the INR memo on Plame, which Bolton saw before Powell or even Rice.

Then, too, as the Progressive Review's Sam Smith and Counterpunch's Alexander Cockburn have pointed out from their lonely perch of substance and perspective atop what's left of American journalism, there is, in the end, much less to the whole story than meets the eye. In their too obvious relish of celebrity, Wilson and Plame as heroes are as dubious as the Niger letters. The CIA, and the Presidents who used it as a private mafia, account for a more than half-century history far more catastrophic than a legion of seedy Roves and Libbys or even multiple Bush regimes. Relentlessly corrupt, inept, anachronistic, if ever an institution deserved to be "outed" and prosecuted in its numbers, it is our vastly bloodstained intelligence agency. But as so often in politics, we are left with the lesser, still needed reckoning at hand.

And in that, of course, the larger issue beyond Plame is the Bush regime's Big Lie behind the invasion of Iraq, in which the phantom Nigerien yellowcake was an important malignant element. No government since World War II has more blatantly invented the pretext for waging a war of aggression. The Rove and Libby collusion only begins to peel away the layers of the crime. Rice is the next skein to be pulled.

Her manifest failures in the fateful months before 9/11 in meeting the principal responsibilities of the National Security Advisor-the sheer incompetence and shallowness that left so much intelligence uncoordinated, so much neglected or misunderstood-should have been enough to have run her from public office long ago, of course, were it not for her hold on this tragically flawed president, and her deplorable immunity amid the chronic political cowardice of both the Democrats and the media.

Now, however, her role in the Plame scandal cannot be ignored or excused. She alone among senior officials was knowing and complicitous at every successive stage of the great half-baked yellow cake fraud. She alone was the White House peer-and in national security matters the superior-to Rove and Libby, who never could have acted without her collusion in peddling Plame's identity. She as much as anyone had a stake in smearing Wilson by any and all means at hand. If Rove and Libby are to be held criminally or at least politically accountable for a breach of national security, our "mushroom cloud" secretary of state should certainly be in the dock with them.

[Supersedeas]

91. Condi and Ari were on that flight together-National Security Advisor, eh?

[Don Claybrook]

5. I know Pincus has deep CIA contacts

But who does he talk to in the White House? Surely this is known in some specialized circles.

And although I have not yet read the full article, it looks like the NYT is trying to make sure the Post gets dragged down into it too, which is all the more interesting after reading Ariana Huffington's blog r.e. Judith Miller.

Is the story at critical mass yet, at the point of no return? It feels like it's getting close.

[fishnfla]

16. yeah is the NYT dragging Pincus out?

this story gets harder to follow

[Burried News]

100. Others besides Bush want to slow this story down.

Maybe 'confusion' is a puposeful construct.
This story does not keep things positive - and we are all about positive now.
The truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth - interferes with alot of powerful peoples plans. They want just enough push to get Bush out but leave the Neocons in.
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewPolitics.asp?Page=%5CPolitics%5Carchive%5C200507%5CPOL20050715c.html
QUOTE
(CNSNews.com) - Iowa Gov. Tom Vilsack Friday said he will pursue a "positive agenda" as the new chairman of the Democratic Leadership Council, which seeks "to modernize the progressive tradition in American politics for the 21st century."

"I'm proud and delighted to assume this new role," Vilsack said. "In my new capacity, I look forward to advancing reforms that will keep our country safe, give every American a chance to get ahead and reconnect our party with heartland values.

"There is nothing wrong with our country or our party that a positive agenda won't fix," he added. "I want all Americans who believe in security, opportunity and responsibility to feel they have a home in the DLC and the Democratic Party." END

[oasis]

127. Operation Mockingbird "journalists" are not to be trusted.

[LizW]

35. Yes, it seems Pincus has a CIA source

He didn't write the article, even though he had the same info as Novak. Probably, just like Novak, he talked to someone at the CIA who told him Plame was covert and not to blow her cover. So he didn't write about her until after it was all already blown.

[Pirate Smile]

39. But his source wanted to smear the Wilson's. Did the CIA want to

do that? I thought that was the WH that wanted to do that but who the hell really knows.:shrug:

[LizW]

89. He may have had two sources

In fact, I think he probably did. Good source and evil source. After the WH source leaked to him, he checked with his CIA source and was cautioned not to use the info. I'm guessing.

[merwin]

57. Think BOLTON. There's a reason they don't want to give up those

documents.

[writes2000]

59. Read The Whole Article: There's a Key Piece of Info at the End.

Pincus said that he didn't write about Plame sending Wilson on the trip because he didn't believe it.

If Pincus' source was within the CIA, they wouldn't have claimed that Plame sent Wilson. Instead, this sounds like someone that was at odds with the CIA. I'm betting that Piincus checked the story out with the CIA and quickly disproved it.

[jobycom]

63. Yeah, that sounds right. Good observation. nt

[usregimechange]

6. Recommended and kicked

[Elidor]

7. Who are the prime suspects?

Since it's a "he," I'm guessing it's Ari Fleischer, though it could also be Bolton or even failed female impersonator Karen Hughes.

It's an interesting picture that's emerging:

"...Mr. Libby, who was the subject of the interviews involving Mr. Russert, Mr. Kessler, Mr. Pincus and Mr. Cooper."

Multiple administration insiders had multiple conversations with reporters. Novak and Cooper both spoke to at least two administration officials. Other officials were busy making calls as well to other reporters as well. So much for their declarations of good intentions. What's their latest spin?

[nashville_brook]

36. my vote is on hughes

[Bumblebee]

47. But Pincus says "he" -- not "he or she"

[klyon]

69. that would be a good story

her returning and then getting busted, she was free and got sucked back in only to get arrested.
It was interesting the job she was recently appointed to do.

KL

[Reverend Smoothfield]

75. Colin Powell

1) definitely no partisan gunslinger
2) isn't he on record dismissing wilson's trip as a junket?

[nashville_brook]

94. i was trying to imagine someone using the word "boondoggle"

that's a pretty specific kind of word. i could imagine hughes using the word as a cute way to be dismissive.

given that it is prolly a man -- well, the word "boondoggle" seems to me to be a top-of-mind kind of terms for corporate folks -- cheney.

boondoggle. it's the key.

[Dhalgren]

85. Just the very numbers involved screams "conspiracy!"

This was obviously a coordinated attack. It involved officials from all across the administration. There is no way this was an isolated instance of Karl and/or Scooter just chit-chatting with some good friends who just happened to be reporters. Or the unbelievably lame "I was trying to warn the reporter that the story he was working on might be wrong." - bullshit. At some point Our Great Leader's handlers won't be able to hide the fact that this smear-leak was coming from the ENTIRE ADMINISTRATION - not just a few individuals. If the National Socialist Republicans do not act to investigate this criminal administration, then there can no longer be any question regarding their loyalty to their country...

[Beetwasher]

86. Yup, I Think It's Fleischer Too!

n/t

[lateo]

8. Is this a smoke screen?

To take the heat off of Rove?

[usregimechange]

9. No it will bring down the entire stack of cards!

[garthranzz]

12. What am I missing here?

What's the significance of this? That the cover story was already in place - to denigrate Plame while outing her?

[usregimechange]

17. This is just another reporter who was told Plames Identity.

It is verification that they outed her.

[Jackpine Radical]

73. It's more evidence of a conspiracy to out her.

They can't just sacrifice Karl & Scooter & call it quits. It's bigger than that now.

[meganmonkey]

96. That yet another administration official talked

we may not know who yet, but it's definitely getting bigger, and possibly going higher than we already knew about...

[RoyGBiv]

14. Absolutely not ...

What Rove did, Rove did.

But with each extra administration official that emerges as a source of the leak, the better a (legal) case for conspiracy becomes. IOW, instead of one or two administration officials acting on their own, it becomes more a matter of White House policy.

And that's a huge shitburger for the pResident to try to eat.

[Verve]

81. Agree. It appears Rove didn't deliberately attempt to out Plame.

The whole administration conspired to do so. This is much bigger than just Rove getting nailed!

[The Stranger]

82. That was my thinking as well. KEEP THE FOCUS ON ROVE.

Cut off the head and the rest of this giant snake will die.

[woodsprite]

84. Isn't the head really Cheney and Rove just the manipulator? n/t

[The Stranger]

88. Rove is the brain.

I think Bush has even said this.

[Burried News]

101. Is the heat on Rove, or on Traitors.

This investigation is now a problem for more than the Bush administration...

[usregimechange]

10. kick

[Wickerman]

11. Not Hughes or Condi

His source is a He.

Mr. Pincus wrote in the Nieman Reports article that he had agreed to answer questions from Mr. Fitzgerald last fall about his July 12, 2003, conversation only after "it turned out that my source, whom I still cannot identify publicly, had in fact disclosed to the prosecutor that he was my source, and he talked to the prosecutor about our conversation."

[Rose Siding]

20. Card?

The, um, CHIEF OF STAFF? :evilgrin:

[Wickerman]

21. gotta love it

and probably likely, a bunch of climbers doing the cabal's bidding.

I'm however, holding out for Dick. Er, Cheney, that is. :blush:

[Donailin]

40. the source was also "no partisan gunslinger"

and Mr. Pincus did not get the feeling that this was a revenge outing but damage control about Wilsons Niger story.

This story worries me. It's entirely apologetic towards the bushregime and comes off as "innocent talking points"

[Jackpine Radical]

74. Pincus is right.

It wasn't a revenge outing. It was strategically planned damage control, which Pincus didn't buy because it didn't checdk out with his spook friends. It was bigger than Rove. How does this story help Bushco? What "innocent talking points?" There was a systematic attempt to discredit Wilson through outing his wife. This story makes everything MUCH WORSE for Bushco.

[Roland99]

60. Could be a smokescreen.

[dooner]

13. Sounds like the NY Times wants Pincus in the cell next to Miller, but

they raise a good point. We would like to know who Pincus' source is.... presumably Fitzgerald knows.

But, why is the NY Times prodding the Washington Post to write a story about Pincus' source now.

Would this info be helpful to Miller's case perhaps? Do Pincus and Miller have the same source?

[Bumblebee]

28. Actually the passage about Miller and Keller is also intriguing

As if they, too, would like to know more. There's not much love, probably, between Miller and many other NYT reporters since she helped damage their credibility. Curiouser and curiouser. And all these hints and veiled suggestions without revelations as if they know more but cannot say it yet...

[aquart]

44. Did Pincus testify?

[aquart]

53. Yes. A two-hour deposition. Fitz KNOWS Pincus' source.

<http://editorandpublisher.com/eandp/search/article_display.jsp?schema=&vnu_content_id=1000938744>

Was It Proper for 'WP' Reporter to Talk to Plame Prosecutor?

By Allan Wolper

Published: May 31, 2005 11:35 AM ET

NEW YORK Washington Post investigative reporter Walter Pincus insists his two-hour deposition in the Valerie Plame CIA-leak case was within ethical guidelines, even though it remains hidden from public view. "My source's lawyer spoke to my lawyer," Pincus told me. "The special prosecutor knew who my source was."

[joeunderdog]

95. I like your thinking on this.

I suspect that once Miller's info becomes public, she'll say that she'll cooperate (since she'll have nothing to add anyway.) So maybe this is where it's going.

[dooner]

111. yes... we're on the same page

She must be getting tired of jail and if her source was revealed by someone else, publicly, she might be "ethically*" free to sing. And if


*we all know she doesn't have any real ethics, so maybe it's just "less fearful"

[Burried News]

102. I think you are correct. Now connect the dots

If Pinkus is CIA who is Miller?

[dooner]

112. State Department? n/t

[Burried News]

114. A god that must not be named, a country that must not be blamed.

http://globalresearch.ca.myforums.net/viewtopic.php?p=10298
See post SkullnBonz

[dooner]

122. I've noticed

we're not allowed to breathe in that direction. So I avoid going there. Which is really a bit weird.

[PurityOfEssence]

15. Name ONE high government official who's NOT a "partisan gunslinger"

I defy you. This mob is a bunch of privileged, feudal maniacs who are deeply partisan to the bone,

[dooner]

19. probably partisan, but not necessarily a gun slinger

I always consider this "partisan gunslinger" phrase with caution..

A gunslinger is a hit man, the guy who does the dirty work... he works for somebody else.
So when Novak said his source was "not a partisan gunslinger" I figure that only ruled out people like Rove, Hughes, Fleischer.... I don't think of Cheney as a gunslinger for example.

[hedda_foil]

26. "Name ONE high government official who's NOT a "partisan gunslinger"" OK

Colin Powell.

[librechik]

51. interesting n/t

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

78. Very. nt

[donkeyotay]

119. Ain't that a moment there?

Couple souls being sold to the devil. Powell would have to personally round up the crime family for me to trust him again. As for Tenet... well, who knows?

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

124. Tenet had his chance to be a great American.

Instead he took the seat behind Powell. There are some here who believe that Tenet is the guiding hand behind Plame. I'm not one of them. Even if he is, it is the wrong path. Why go through the crapshoot of getting a conviction via Plame when all he had to do was call a press conference and say "It is the CIA's considered opinion that the White House's case for war is based on lies. Any questions?"

As for Powell, even the mass citizen's arrest you envision would have me thinking "What's Powell up to?"

[Justice]

120. why do we believe Novak on this point, when he has shown himself

to lie time and time again.

[Pirate Smile]

18. This is quite the mystery. arrrgghhh. The suspense is killing me.

Not literally, of course, but I WANT TO KNOW THE TRUTH, damnit!

Oh fine, I'll just have to be patient. grrr :eyes:

[Hosnon]

117. No kidding...this is some pretty exciting stuff...a political junkie's wet

dream:)

Bring 'em down!

[snot]

22. What I'm curious about is . . .

why they decided to stick so many Admin necks out.

1. They didn't realize they might be breaking the law/committing treason?
2. They were aware of that possibility but were simply careless?
3. In line with the foregoing, were they under some pressure to act in a hurry, before they'd thought through the consequences?
4. They figured that if lots of them did it, it would be easier to brave out any flack and contend they did nothing wrong (i.e., "if the leak was really so wrong, they wouldn't all have done it")?
5. Some kind of blood-brother thing--we'll all be tainted, so we'll all sink or swim together?

I don't find any of these terribly convincing.

The good thing is, it certainly does look like a concerted, conspiratorial effort--again raising the question of why they went to such effort, and undertook such risk, if their only goal was to call Wilson a wuss.

[usregimechange]

23. Pride and Arrogance...

[Polemicist]

29. Hubris has a lot to do with it...

Remember, this administration made a huge jump from Texas to the White House and Texas is a unique governmental system run by commissions to a large degree. The state legislature only meets once every two years for a fairly limited term. So the Governor is little more than a figurehead with almost no power, other than appointing commission members, who do the real governing. They had ZERO National Security experience until getting to the WH and at that point, only about two years worth.

In other words, even being from Texas, they were small potatoes with very limited governing experience. Bush got Cheney and Rumsfeld and all the other Iran/Contra Republicans to add experience, but when you look at the cast of the White House Iraq Group where most of the smear media campaign was cooked up, it's amateur hour.

I have to say, and I do hate to admit it, but they will most likely skate on the treason part, due to stupidity. First, they thought they could do anything. That's the hubris part. Secondly, they were stupid and didn't know they were breaking the law. And that's what will save their asses.

Unless they were really, really stupid, and instead of admitting they were stupid and getting off for that reason, they covered it up to ensure Bush's re-election, and will get hit with perjury and obstruction of justice charges. I honestly think that's what the charges will end up being.

There is a chance that the Espionage Act was violated by leaking information in the State Department memo. But I don't think they can pin the circulation of the memo to the leakers. I think they will lie and say they never saw the memo, and no one will testify that they did. Unless there is one honest man in that Administration. Maybe someone that didn't always get along. Maybe Colin Powell?

I've got a pet theory that Ari Fleicher tried to pin the memo leak on Powell and he responded by putting the memo in Ari's hand. If there is a split among the Bushies, then we can have lot's of trial fun.

[sundancekid]

24. we used to call it "elephant diarrhea" -- the busheviks were already

anticipating that their conspiratorial positions would be a 1 and 2 punch:

1. how could her identity possibly be classified when EVERYBODY knew she was CIA???? the 3 monkey defense saw no evil, etc.

2. the particular press members they told would NEVER reveal anything and risk getting cut off from access to their whorehouse

oh how WWWWWWRRRRRRRRRRRROOOOOOOONNNNNNNNNGGGGGGGGG they could be!!!!!!
yup, one toke over the line -- too much koolaid -- jumped that shark bigtime.

[bunny planet]

27. maybe because their real purpose was outing the cover company

Brewster Jennings, maybe other NOCs with that cover company were getting close to something big that was inconvenient to key members of the administration, someone named Dick perhaps.

[tblue37]

41. Cheney wanted to make sure Plame's

cover was blown to destroy the operation that was tracing the illegal sales of WMDs--which he was probably involved in as Hallibirton CEO.

Just speculatin'.

[snot]

43. I'm also thinking Rove and Cheney

may have been smart enough to stick only their underlings' necks out, while themselves staying within the technical limits of the law.

[klyon]

70. or could be protecting the first Bush administration?

I have search my mind for a good reason for what this administration is doing, all I can come up with is that they are covering up a previous crime committed by George H W Bush. It can't be just for money that is to simple.

KL

[tblue37]

99. Maybe--

But people will do all sorts of things for money.

Besides, money and power go hand-in-hand, and when people are power mad, they also will do all sorts of things for money, no matter how much they already have, because money is how they "keep score."

[milkyway]

48. They didn't consider the law. They were so full of hubris they thought no

one could touch them. They were the creators of a new reality, a reality where the law was merely another weapon at their disposal. It could be ignored when it didn't suit their purposes. I doubt they even considered that the law could be turned back against them.

[aquart]

49. They habitually fail to foresee CONSEQUENCES.

And, frankly, any cabal that can steal a national election, control all branches of government, have every media outlet's praise, and keep Cheney's energy meeting notes secret, isn't going to worry about annoying a pissant diplomat and his spy wife.

It never occurred to them that they wouldn't get away with it.

[jobycom]

64. I think they just made it the talking point of the week.

Just as they all spout the same answer to any question, they coordinated their attacks to spread the story to as many reporters as would listen. Reading the story, you have Rove and Libby, you have Novak's leak, you have Miller's, and now you have Pincus's. The last three could be the same. So, you have three to six White House sources leaking the same info. It's just their attempt to spread a talking point.

As for why, I think it's still the simplest answer, though it's also the most horrifying. I think Rove and Cheney were trying to silence the CIA, who knew there were no WMDs. The memos the WH sent to the CIA didn't do the trick. So BushCo stepped up the assault. I believe they leaked Plame's name, and Brewster and Jennings, to get people killed, to put CIA NOCs in danger, to disrupt the whole network. That was BushCo's horse's head in the CIA bed. Play ball, or we will kill you.

I don't believe it was just retaliation against Wilson, nor just an attempt to discredit his information. It was retaliation against the whole damned CIA, mixed with a bit of punishment. Who was hurt most in the CIA? The very people proving Bush a liar on WMDs. That was the target.

These bastards were trying to start a war. They knew tens of thousands would be slaughtered. They expected even higher US casualties. Why would a few more NOC lives matter to them?

[DeepModem Mom]

79. I really like your suggestion that this was the talking point...

given to everyone, the same method they use every day when we hear them all repeat the same words again and again, like robots on Rove-control. This somehow has the ring of truth to me.

[DUgosh]

65. Delusions of Granduer n/t

[snot]

66. Could we agree

it's sometimes useful to assume we DON'T know the answer?

The one advantage we enjoy in having little or no evidence to support any particular explanation, including the usual, is: complete freedom to entertain possibilities . . .

[yodermon]

90. Because Plame & Brewster Jennings were about to expose OUTRIGHT TREASON

by bushco, Cheney especially.
see American Judas:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x66773

[Burried News]

105. Yes - they had no choice but to move deeper.

Sorry I didn't see your post when I replied to some above. I reached the same conclusion.

[ooglymoogly]

93. how bout they had everything covered....they thought

they had ashcroft, repug congress, pug supremes, pug senate, pug fbi, pug cia, pug msm...they didn't count on a real patriot since none existed in their world...they didn't count on fitzgerald.

[Burried News]

103. "why they decided to stick so many Admin necks out"

Suppose what they did in the lead up to war, could eventually be seen as Treason? That limits some choices.

[Stephanie]

104. Look to the WHIG

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/002642.php

The group met weekly in the Situation Room. Among the regular participants were Karl Rove, the president's senior political adviser; communications strategists Karen Hughes, Mary Matalin and James R. Wilkinson; legislative liaison Nicholas E. Calio; and policy advisers led by Rice and her deputy, Stephen J. Hadley, along with I. Lewis Libby, Cheney's chief of staff.

[Uncle Joe]

108. This causes me to think of an old movie "Murder On The Orient Express"

Just about everyone on the train committed the murder, and then proceeded to give each other an alibi.

[Jane Austin]

123. They always got away with everything else they tried.

Why shouldn't they get away with this?

I guess they hadn't gone up against the CIA before.

[Bumblebee]

25. Wow, now two papers are going after each other

and each other's reporters, Miller and Pincus. Great stuff -- that's what we need, the NYT and the WP trying to outdo each other!! Great competition! Lets the public win as a result.

[Griffy]

37. I agree.. they have been weak in truth lately.. need to shake them up!

and AAR and Daily show and such are on the rise, the market for the truth is growing!

BE the MEDIA!

[Burried News]

106. Two papers and two intelligence factions (not necessarily US)

Which one prefers DLC? and not as opposed to GOP.
All stories connect - it is one world after all.

[CityDem]

30. "an administration official" - I don't like the sound of this

An administration official could be someone in the State Dept, CIA, etc. This will only hurt the Bushco regime if it is a high level white house official -- Rove, Libby, Card, etc. If this is someone in the State Dept, Bushco Rove and company will get a free pass.

[Bumblebee]

31. A) it could be Bolton, which would be logical in Miller's case

B) That's obviously in addition to all else

[Donailin]

42. exactly

I don't like what I'm hearing. And what I'm hearing is a set up by the administration onto someone already dispensed of. No sweat off their backs. No partisan gunslinger? Powell? Armitage? Tenet? All three unemployed.

[starroute]

32. Stephen Hadley's name comes to mind

He's not a "partisan gunslinger" in the same way as Rove or Libby. He was a member of the White House Iraq Group. He took the blame for the Niger uranium story getting into the State of the Union Address and was very much involved with it in general. Someone -- I think at Kos - has been suggesting that he was Novak's other source. And I believe he's testified before the grand jury.

Lots of good credentials there.

[Bumblebee]

33. Didn't he also offer to resign over it?

[Auntie Bush]

38. What about Colin Powell?

He was on that trip to Africa, the Plame memo was sent to him, he's not as partisan as the others and he had his own PERSONAL reasons for discrediting Wilson and Plame due to all his lies about WMD to the UN.

[Donailin]

45. if that's the case it wil be disasterous for us.

and I won't be surprised. I can hear it now; "See, getting rid of powell and the other doves proves that Bush knows what he's doing, they were never real patriotic republicans"

oh fuck.

[Bumblebee]

46. It's not Powell. He didn't even bother to have a lawyer at his side.

while Bush, Cheney, and most of the rest did.

[Pithy Cherub]

34. The Bush Hydra Monster grows a new head daily!

In that exchange, Mr. Pincus says, "an administration official, who was talking to me confidentially about a matter involving alleged Iraqi nuclear activities, veered off the precise matter we were discussing and told me that the White House had not paid attention" to the trip to Niger by Joseph C. Wilson IV "because it was a boondoggle arranged by his wife, an analyst with the agency who was working on weapons of mass destruction."...

OK, would this be the NSA advisor Condoleeza Rice. She was so in adamant on those mushroom clouds and mythical yellowcake acquisitions.

Or perhaps some other White House Iraq Group participant...or DoD?

Then hmmmm, Colin Powell, he had lots to say to about trucks and nuclear devices.

The new who dunnit...:popcorn:

[Burried News]

107. Consider that there is a population of Hydra's rather than one.

One needs to keep open minded about hypotheses as well as facts. Sometimes things get simpler if you let them get more complicated first.
Who wants this investigation to go away? It isn't just the Bushes.

[WhiteTara]

50. kick

:kick:

[aquart]

52. Take a look at this take on Pincus.

He's about 72. Look for his source to have been older rather than younger, wouldn't you say?


<http://www.washingtonian.com/inwashington/buzz/pincus.html>

Why Doesn’t the Post Love Walter Pincus?

If President Bush suffers because it turns out he took the country to war on false pretenses, he might look back on stories by Walter Pincus for drawing first blood.

On March 16, the eve of war, Pincus wrote in the Post that “U.S. intelligence agencies have been unable to give Congress or the Pentagon specific information” about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

At the time, the Bush White House was telling the world that America had to invade Iraq to root out weapons of mass destruction. Pincus quoted sources saying that there was “a lack of hard evidence.” And they also said the White House had “exaggerated intelligence” to back up its drive toward war.

Pincus was uniquely positioned to delve into the intricacies of the weapons question. At 70, he had been reporting on national security for 25 years at the Post. Along the way he had cultivated sources in Congress, the CIA, the Pentagon, and the scientific community. For decades, he has been close to chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix.

-more-

[Bumblebee]

54. So, if anything, he is the opposite of Miller.

[aquart]

55. A Brooklyn boy.

[Bumblebee]

56. Is she a Brooklyn girl?

[dmr]

58. Thanks for this post, aquart

Pincus was uniquely positioned to delve into the intricacies of the weapons question. At 70, he had been reporting on national security for 25 years at the Post. Along the way he had cultivated sources in Congress, the CIA, the Pentagon, and the scientific community. For decades, he has been close to chief UN weapons inspector Hans Blix.

This is good to know. I'm going to research Mr. Pincus' work tomorrow to add to my archive.

[aquart]

61. You're welcome. Not anyone could have sidled up to this guy.

[SoCalDem]

62. Karen Huge or Mary Matalin

:)

[Lecky]

68. Doesn't Bolton work on WMDs?

[usregimechange]

71. kick

[Zen Democrat]

77. Elliott Abrams. For months we've heard that the three names

involved are Rove, Libby and Elliott Abrams. And with Abrams background (see link) he seems perfect for any sleazy smear or blackbag job --

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml?i=20010702&s=corn

.... But it wasn't his lies about mass murder that got Abrams into trouble. After a contra resupply plane was shot down in 1986, Abrams, one of the coordinators of Reagan's pro-contra policy (along with the NSC's Oliver North and the CIA's Alan Fiers), appeared several times before Congressional committees and withheld information on the Administration's connection to the secret and private contra-support network. He also hid from Congress the fact that he had flown to London (using the name "Mr. Kenilworth") to solicit a $10 million contribution for the contras from the Sultan of Brunei. At a subsequent closed-door hearing, Democratic Senator Thomas Eagleton blasted Abrams for having misled legislators, noting that Abrams's misrepresentations could lead to "slammer time." Abrams disagreed, saying, "You've heard my testimony." Eagleton cut in: "I've heard it, and I want to puke." On another occasion, Republican Senator Dave Durenberger complained, "I wouldn't trust Elliott any further than I could throw Ollie North." Even after Abrams copped a plea with Independent Counsel Lawrence Walsh, he refused to concede that he'd done anything untoward. Abrams's Foggy Bottom services were not retained by the First Bush, but he did include Abrams in his lame-duck pardons of several Iran/contra wrongdoers.

Abrams was as nasty a policy warrior as Washington had seen in decades. He called foes "vipers." He said that lawmakers who blocked contra aid would have "blood on their hands"--while he defended US support for a human-rights-abusing government in Guatemala. When Oliver North was campaigning for the Senate in 1994 and was accused of having ignored contra ties to drug dealers, Abrams backed North and claimed "all of us who ran that program...were absolutely dedicated to keeping it completely clean and free of any involvement by drug traffickers." Yet in 1998 the CIA's own inspector general issued a thick report noting that the Reagan Administration had collaborated with suspected drug traffickers while managing the secret contra war.

So Bush the Compassionate may hand the White House portfolio on human rights to the guy who lied and wheedled to aid and protect human-rights abusers. As Adm. William Crowe Jr. said of Abrams in 1989, "This snake's hard to kill."

[dryan]

80. I'm still voting...

for Karl Rove

[Beetwasher]

83. I LOVE THESE COMBINATION PUNCHES!!! WP Then NYT! Bam! Bam!

LOL!

[warrens]

87. A gallows built for Four

[McCamy Taylor]

97. Two Could be Coincidence, Three=Conspiracy

[rrrevolution]

98. Look at Who hired a Lawyer -- eliminate the rest as Pincus source

I suspect the most secreted and least talked about suspect would be Matalin who would have been heavily involved in the WHIG. Have not seen any quotes from her -- or even seen her make a public appearance.

This kind of disclosure would fit right into the "damage control" motives of the WHIG.

So who knows if Matalin has hired a lawyer or been asked any questions which she has refused to answer?

[Disturbed]

109. A Tripple Hit

Joe Wilson
Valarie Plame
Brewster Jennings

VP Cheney is the catalyst. Rove, Libby and other Hit Personnel.

Direct tie in to DSM and Haliburton.

[Otm Shank]

110. Page A17

I read the NYT at my local coffee shop this morning and stumbled upon this story almost by accident. Ticked off at the placement of the story, I refolded the paper so that page A17, where this article resides, was on top where it belongs and affixed a note:

"Page A1 material shamelessly buried on page A17--is cage brawling really more important than this?"

I hope that catches someone's attention! :)

[Peace Patriot]

113. Look at this time-line:

July 14, 2004: Plame outed. (Novak)
July 18, 2003: David Kelly (chief Brit weapons expert) found dead under extremely suspicious circumstances; his office and computers searched.
July 22, 2003: Bigger Plame/CIA outing of front company, all projects and agents/contacts put at risk. (Novak)

Was there a plot to plant nukes in Iraq--and get the enormous political benefit of a "find" of WMDs in Iraq (summer '03)?

That's my theory. What I'm seeing in those six-plus phone calls to reporters is PANIC--not at Wilson's or Kelly's public disclosures on false intel, but something worse. My guess: Kelly knew about, or even foiled, such a plot. That's what got him killed. Plame and her network might find out, or had some connection. That's why the second outing (of the company) (--much higher risk of treason charges--why do that if the goal was just to "punish" Wilson?)

Kelly started whistleblowing May 22, 2003 about the "sexed up" intel. They found out who he was and then interrogated him on July 7. Blair was told that day that Kelly "could say some uncomfortable things"--"COULD say," not HAD said.

For more details, see my posts at

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x1659507

[Burried News]

115. Kelly emailed Miller hours before he died.

Your theory is interesting.
I believe Kelly's family was threstened and he killed himself. It was the only way he could save them and still get a message to ... all of us and get even with them.
Don't ask - I don't know who them are.

[Peace Patriot]

128. Yes, I think that's possible, Burried News--but I think the evidence

points very strongly to assassination.

Method of death (slashing one wrist and slowly bleeding to death all night, out in the cold and the rain--surely a tough guy and scientist would find a better means to insure his own death, if that's what he intended).

Details of death (not enough blood at the scene; body moved, etc.--and many dissenting eyewitnesses and experts all ignored by the "Lord Hutton" inquiry, who exonerated the Bushites and blamed...get this...the BBC!) (The Hutton report was a lot of rubbish.)

Motive: On July 7, 2003, Blair was informed that Kelly "could say some uncomfortable things"--"COULD say," not HAD said. Kelly knew something MORE (something worse than cooked intel). I think word of this probably got to AF-1 that day or soon after, prompting the first Plame outing (in panic mode--calls to at least SIX reporters!), and the search of his computers may have found something that connected Brewster-Jennings (Plame's CIA front company) to the foiling of the WMD-planting plot, prompting the SECOND Plame outing, of the CIA's entire WMD monitoring operation--all projects, all agents put at risk, and, most important of all, disabled.

Means and opportunity: The gov't interrogated him, outed his name to the press, and then sent him home, apparently without surveillance or protection. Any interested party could have taken that opportunity to kill him and make it look like suicide. The lack of blood at the scene, and body being moved, point to his having been abducted and killed in a truck or van, or some other place, and the body then placed under the tree outdoors near his home. (The rain was a convenient cover for signs of foul play.)

There was no note (that we know of). His last emails were upbeat and forward-looking, except for his foreboding about the "many dark actors playing games" (which points to suspicion, not depression). He was looking forward to his daughter's wedding and returning to Iraq, and thought the controversy around him would blow over. (Maybe he had promised his bosses he wouldn't say anything more--wouldn't reveal their worst secret--and thought that was an end to it.)

I'm not saying it couldn't have been threats to his family and suicide to protect them. I think that's possible, but all of the above, and the coincidence with the Plame dates, points to a hit. They simply couldn't have David Kelly "off the reservation"--he knew too much. And one way or the other, they got rid of him.

That's what it looks like to me, on the basis of a lot of guesses and surmises. It needs a thorough investigation. And if that IS what happened, I hope that Patrick Fitzgerald knows about it, and can identify the perpetrators and conspirators, and get them convicted.

[sattahipdeep]

130. Fitzgerald knows....

Patrick J. Fitzgerald began serving as the United States Attorney for the
Northern District of Illinois on September 1, 2001. Mr. Fitzgerald was initially
appointed on an interim basis by Attorney General John Ashcroft before being
nominated by President George W. Bush. The United States Senate confirmed his
nomination by unanimous consent on October 23, 2001, and President Bush signed
his commission on October 29, 2001.

Mr. Fitzgerald served on the Attorney General's Advisory Committee
from 2001-2005, and he remains Chair of that Committee's sub-committee on terrorism.
He is also a member of the President's Corporate Fraud Task Force.
In December 2003, he was named Special Counsel to investigate the alleged disclosure
of the identity of a purported employee of the Central Intelligence Agency.

http://www.usdoj.gov/usao/iln/aboutus/patrickjfizgerald.html

[Generator]

118. Very interesting/Miller/David Kelly all at the same time as Plame

Kelly was the one that Miller wrote his "many dark actors playing games" final distressed e-mail to!

http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1938827

Snip~

One glaring example was recently recalled by Walter Pincus, senior national security correspondent of The Washington Post. Miller and Michael Gordon had reported on page one of the Times last Sept. 8 (just after Vice President Dick Cheney launched a propaganda offensive to hype the nuclear threat from Iraq): "More than a decade after Saddam Hussein agreed to give up weapons of mass destruction, Iraq has stepped up its quest for nuclear weapons and has embarked on a worldwide hunt for materials to make an atomic bomb" -- according to unidentified government sources -- by trying to purchase "specially designed aluminum tubes" believed to be for centrifuges to enrich uranium. The story referred to administration "hardliners" who argued that action should be taken because, if they waited for proof that Hussein had a nuclear weapon, "the first sign of a smoking gun may be a mushroom cloud."

That was Condi. Of course this was in 2002. I'm still fascinated by the Kelly-Miller connection.

[Peace Patriot]

131. There are a number of dots connecting Kelly and Miller, but not the

final dot--what exactly did he know that got him killed and who killed him?

He clearly knew SOMETHING. (--Blair being warned about what he COULD say).

My guess: A plot to plant WMDs in Iraq. Why? 1) That was Bush/Blair's most important political need in summer '03--a "find" of WMDs in Iraq would have changed the political landscape forevermore. 2) It fits Kelly's knowledge, character and state of mind--such a plot would have outraged him (got him whistleblowing in May '03); he loved his work--science, non-proliferation--and was very good at it (smart, tough); SOMETHING turned him around about the war and especially about the false intel (he had supported the war, and was an insider on the intel, but did a dramatic turnaround in May '03).

What could get him whistleblowing (trying to alert the public that something was wrong)? What could get the Blairites all in a tither--that David Kelly knew? What could get the Bushites to call at least SIX reporters--at risk of treason charges--to get their own WMD monitoring capability shut down?

And what was Judith Miller very dramatically and visibly and publicly "hunting" for in Iraq with the US troops, on a special "embed" contract signed by none other than Donald Rumsfeld? (Was it a contract to get the "scoop" on the WMDs they were intending to plant on Iraq soil?)

Judith Miller had cultivated David Kelly as a WMD source, and had used him as a major quoted source in her book "Germs." In her news article on Kelly's death, for the NYT (7/21/03), she fails to disclose her close connection to Kelly or the "dark actors" email that she received from him just before his death. Why would she want to hide her connections to Kelly? (I also suspect her of planting words in Kelly's mouth, after he was dead--she has HIM saying that US troops weren't hunting hard enough for WMDs--just doesn't fit his whistleblowing state of mind at all.)

So...what's the final dot? Maybe she had nothing to do with his death, and/or nothing to do with PLANTING weapons evidence in Iraq--but merely suspected that it wasn't suicide, and tried to distance herself from Kelly, and merely was "played" by her Pentagon handlers and truly believed that WMDs would be found. Or she knew of things, but didn't participate (just stood to gain by them).

I don't know what to think of her, frankly--except that what she did to lead us into war on false evidence was one of the journalistic crimes of the ages.

--------

The poster "snot," above asks: Why they decided to stick so many Admin. necks out on the Plame outings? Then there is some discussion--as posters consider pride, arrogance and hubris. While there is certainly truth in these general allegations, they don't account for the risky, precipitous way in which Plame was outed. Why did they take such high risk of treason charges? Why did they involve six or more reporters? What was the hurry? And, I would add, why did they do it TWICE--with the SECOND outing, of the CIA company, carrying much more risk?

I think the answer may be staring us in the face, in this time-line:

July 7, 2003: Blair apprised of what Kelly "could say."
July 14, 2003: Plame outed.
July 18, 2003: Kelly found dead; his office and computers searched.
July 22, 2003: The entire CIA weapons monitoring capability shut down by the second outing (of the company).

We may have David Kelly to thank for not having had to listen to Bush's and Blair's triumphal speeches on their "find" of WMDs in Iraq, back in summer '03--and for their deep political troubles today. I like to think that Kelly didn't just know about it, but had a hand in foiling the plot. Whatever his full role was in exposing these liars, mass murderers and traitors, I hope we find out some day, and are able to honor him properly.

[Generator]

116. Condi

A girl can dream. (of course it sounds like Miller too..nuclear bogeymen..still I think Miller isn't just protecting herself..I just don't)

[Jane Austin]

121. How many bushco types have to have spread this meme before

it becomes a conspiracy?

Just asking . . . .

[Up2Late]

125. Please, If their is a God, Let it be V.P. Dick!!!!!

Oh Please, oh please, oh please!!!!!!!!!!!

[skip fox]

129. How could Bolton NOT be called to grand jury or be inerviewed by FBI???

In the CIA leak case, people talk about Judith Miller's source and the fact that Novak didn't go to jail as major quandaries in the case, but I'd like to pose one just as vibrantly interesting as the others:

Why HASN'T John Bolton been interviewed by the FBI or gone before the grand jury? He would seem to be one of the primary suspects.

1.) he was loyal to the administration that forced him on Powell's State Department (to keep an eye on Powell and report back . . . that was the speculation at the time);

2.) as an undersecretary in charge of arms control and national security his charge overlapped that of Plame's in the CIA (he even gave an interview to State's inspector about the Saddam-Niger-yellow cake affair);

3.) the State Department created a memo which contained the secret ("S/NF") information about the Plame-Wilson-Niger connection in 2003 in response to Wilson's article;


When Rove is interviewed by the FBI twice and then testifies in front of the grand jury three times, when all others have been called, when even the president himself has been interview, what the heck is going on with Bolton? Something is way out of whack here, and it ain't the prosecutor.

Could Bolton be a target?

Could Bolton be cooperating? (That way he could truthfully say he has not testified since he only gave a deposition.)


We should start asking before Bush makes Bolton an interim appointee as American Ambassador to the United Nations. At least that's what I think.

You?

[lovuian]

133. My Bet is Colin Powell!!! or Wolfawitz!!!

It is definitely looking more and more like a huge conspiracy & fraud!!!