CIA Leak Case: German Media on a Frenzy of Bush Bashing

The leak of pre-war intelligence on Iraq sends the German media - lead by press agency dpa - on a frenzy of Bush bashing. According to dpa, President Bush approved the leak of Valerie Plame-Wilson's name to the press ("Bush genehmigte Enttarnung von CIA-Agentin").

Well, not quite.

In a remarkable interview, CNN's national security correspondent David Ensor sets the record straight:

What the most recent document and the one that we're talking about here is the government's response to the defendant, Mr. Libby's request for an effort to get these documents out. And in it -- and I'm going to quote here -- the government says that "the vice president thought" -- Vice President Cheney -- "thought that it was very important for the key judgments of the NIE" -- and that's the National Intelligence Estimate about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction -- "to come out."

"The defendant further testified that he had first advised the vice president that he could not have this conversation with reporter Miller" -- that would be Judy Miller of The New York Times -- "because of the classified nature of the NIE. The defendant testified that the vice president later advised him that the president had authorized the defendant to discuss the relevant portions of the NIE."

So what's involved here, Jim, is that this document from the government says that the vice president informed Mr. Libby that the president himself had authorized Mr. Libby to leak certain information or give out certain information that came out of this document, this National Intelligence Estimate, on what the intelligence community thought Iraq had in the way of weapons of mass destruction.

So, it had nothing to do with Valerie Plame-Wilson's name. It was simply about this matter of intelligence in the lead-up to the war.

And in that matter, the president, according to this document, authorized Mr. Libby to give out some information to Judy Miller.

And by the way, he is legally entitled to do so.

If the president decides to declassify information, he has that legal right. So, it's not about a law being broken here, and it's not about Valerie Plame-Wilson's name. But it does show us the first evidence that the president himself wanted some of this information put out in the media. (...)

And, you know, after all, the -- Ambassador Wilson -- [former] Ambassador [Joseph] Wilson being Valerie Plame-Wilson's husband -- had put out a piece [a July 2003 editorial in The New York Times] in which he said -- in which he attacked the administration for suggesting Iraq was going after uranium in Africa.

The administration wanted to highlight certain parts of this until-then-classified document that suggested that Iraq was aggressively pursuing some aspects of a nuclear weapons program, was looking for ways of getting uranium.

And so, they wanted to have that evidence out there to help their case in the run-up to war. Selective leaking authorized at the highest level, that's -- I'm afraid that is business as usual in Washington. It's been practiced by Republicans and Democrats alike.

So President Bush - in a response to Joseph Wilson's disclosures - simply felt it was necessary to make the National Intelligence Estimate about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction public. He is legally entitled to it. No leaking of Valerie Plame-Wilson's name was approved by President Bush, as alleged by dpa.

Yawn.

Next dpa blunder, please...

Comments

[Pamela]

Joe Wilson didn't disclose anything. He is a demonstrated, manifest liar.

[Dave]

Why are you so focused on the reporting on Bush in the german media? I recall a broad appearance of him in our media before the last elections in america, but since two weeks after that election, noone I know has ever spoken about him anymore.

[garydausz]

@Dave
Oh, come on Dave. there has not been a single day where there hasn't been at least one article, program or comment (and 99,9% of them in a negative content) about Bush in the german media.
Where do you live? In a cave?

[Dave]

garydausz

I cant tell how many articles there were since I dont read every newspaper. Whenever I watched the Tagesschau oder Tagesthemen in the last few months though, I never heard anything about Bush himself. And I havent heard anyone talking about Bush in any private discussion either since a few weeks after the last elections.
So I guessed he really is no issue here anymore.

Note from David: You may want to check this.

[JJfromBa]

vor 1 Stunde gefunden, vor 1 Stunde gefunden, vor 2 Stunden gefunden, vor 4 Stunden gefunden, vor 4 Stunden gefunden, vor 4 Stunden gefunden, vor 4 Stunden gefunden, vor 4 Stunden gefunden, vor 4 Stunden gefunden, vor 5 Stunden gefunden...

This is just the first page of David's google news search. It appears that the German media averages about 4 Bush mentions per hour.

[garydausz]

@Dave
I think you are watching only the Tagesthemen from 25 years ago which are repeated every night in the public channel, otherwise I would think you are a lier.
Dave, who are you trying to fool? I would be very impressed if your german friends haven't talked about Bush since the elections. Are you sure that your friends are real?

[Mike H.]

I would have voted against Schroder but nobody sent me the ballot. Dave could you work on that please? We need 300,000,000 ballots over here at the next German election. Thank you, you're a fantastic person. BTW, you realize that the off-year US elections are coming up, are you registered for an absentee ballot yet?

[unhinged]

No leaking of Valerie Plame-Wilson's name was approved by President Bush, as alleged by dpa.

And how exactly does that follow from David Ensor's report?

The only thing you can say is that if GWB did authorize blowing Valerie Plame's cover -- a felony, even if authorized by the President -- it has not been proven yet, as alleged by dpa.

[James W.]

@unhinged

If my memory serves me, Valerie Plame was not undercover at the time of "the leak"--therefore, not a crime.

Furthermore, one is innocent in America until proven guilty. In other words, if you have no proof, it didn't happen--period. So the statement--No leaking of Valerie Plame-Wilson's name was approved by President Bush, as alleged by dpa.--is valid.

[unhinged]

If my memory serves me, Valerie Plame was not undercover at the time of "the leak"--therefore, not a crime.

Oh, O.K. So why was there a grand jury investigation?

Actually, Valerie Plame was in fact an undercover CIA agent until her cover was blown by Robert Novak, who presumably got this information from someone in the administration who leaked it to him.

[Cousin Dave]

@unhinged: The special prosecutor has conceded that no crime was committed in the disclosure of Plame's identity. The grand jury investigated and found no cause to indict anyone for it. That's what grand juries are for; prosecutors turn cases over to a grand jury when they know that the case is weak.

Plame had not been undercover for about eight years (I don't recall the exact timeline) at the time her name was disclosed. That was because her cover had previously been blown by the notorious traitor Aldrich Ames. But even if that had not occurred, she would have been removed from cover assignments as a matter of policy when she married Joe Wilson.

[unhinged]

@Cousin Dave: You're right, the special prosecutor didn't indict anyone for blowing Valerie Plame's cover. However, the fact that the evidence, or lack thereof, wasn't enough for an indictment does not mean that no felony has been commited. Valerie Plame still had the status of an undercover CIA agent at the time the Novak article appeared. She was thus protected by special legislation enacted to protect the identity of undercover CIA agents. If her cover had been previously blown, as you claim, by Aldrich Ames is irrelevant to the point here. In my opinion, nobody will ever be charged with blowing her cover, but the only reason for this is that the special prosecutor will never be able to put together a case that is strong enough for an indictment. A felony was commited nonetheless.

[Cousin Dave]

@unhinged: I hereby accuse you of the murder of Natilee Holloway in the first degree. What, you say, there's no evidence? Well, that doesn't mean you didn't do it!

[James W.]

Oh, O.K. So why was there a grand jury investigation?

Well, I don’t know—I’m sure politics would have nothing to do with it.

Here’s an excerpt from a WAPO article that, in my opinion, puts this all in perspective.

It's time for a timeout on a misguided and mechanical investigation in which there is serious doubt that a crime was even committed. Federal courts have stated that a reporter should not be subpoenaed when the testimony sought is remote from criminal conduct or when there is no compelling "government interest," i.e., no crime. As two people who drafted and negotiated the scope of the 1982 Intelligence Identities Protection Act, we can tell you: The Novak column and the surrounding facts do not support evidence of criminal conduct.

When the act was passed, Congress had no intention of prosecuting a reporter who wanted to expose wrongdoing and, in the process, once or twice published the name of a covert agent. Novak is safe from indictment. But Congress also did not intend for government employees to be vulnerable to prosecution for an unintentional or careless spilling of the beans about an undercover identity. A dauntingly high standard was therefore required for the prosecutor to charge the leaker.

At the threshold, the agent must truly be covert. Her status as undercover must be classified, and she must have been assigned to duty outside the United States currently or in the past five years. This requirement does not mean jetting to Berlin or Taipei for a week's work. It means permanent assignment in a foreign country. Since Plame had been living in Washington for some time when the July 2003 column was published, and was working at a desk job in Langley (a no-no for a person with a need for cover), there is a serious legal question as to whether she qualifies as "covert."

The law also requires that the disclosure be made intentionally, with the knowledge that the government is taking "affirmative measures to conceal [the agent's] relationship" to the United States. Merely knowing that Plame works for the CIA does not provide the knowledge that the government is keeping her relationship secret. In fact, just the opposite is the case. If it were known on the Washington cocktail circuit, as has been alleged, that Wilson's wife is with the agency, a possessor of that gossip would have no reason to believe that information is classified -- or that "affirmative measures" were being taken to protect her cover.

There are ways of perceiving whether the government was actually taking the required necessary affirmative measures to conceal its relationship with Plame. We can look, for example, at how the CIA reacted when Novak informed the press office that he was going to publish her name. Did the general counsel call to threaten prosecution, as we know has been done to other reporters under similar circumstances? No. Did then-Director George Tenet or his deputy pick up the phone to tell Novak that the publication of her name would threaten national security and her safety, as we know is done when the CIA is serious about prohibiting publication? No. Did some high-ranking government official ask to visit Novak or the president of his newspaper syndicate to talk him out of publishing -- another common strategy to prevent a story? No.

Novak has written that the CIA person designated to talk with him replied that although Plame was probably not getting another foreign assignment, exposure "might cause difficulties if she were to travel abroad." He certainly never told Novak that Plame would be endangered. Such a meager response falls far legally shy of "affirmative measures."

Read the entire article here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A2305-2005Jan11

[unhinged]

@Cousin Dave

I hereby accuse you of the murder of Natilee Holloway in the first degree. What, you say, there's no evidence? Well, that doesn't mean you didn't do it!

That's not the correct analogy. The analogy would be that you'd say that Natilee Holloway was not killed, even if she was in fact killed. So you would not even investigate her murder.