A reoccurring theme that I’ve written about on this site has been the war by national security apparatchiks in the CIA, the State Department, and even in the Department of Defense against the Bush Administration’s foreign policy. Powerline, among others, has covered this subject in great detail – a subject largely ignored by the mainstream press. This is unfortunate because most of the Administration’s actions in the Plame Affair need to be understood in this context if one is interested in getting to the heart of the motivations behind what was going on.
This is not to say that the “outing” of Valerie Plame was in any way a justifiable act. Even if, as some claim, it was common knowledge that Joe Wilson’s wife worked for the CIA, naming CIA employees in print is unconscionable. This has been a favorite gambit of the left for more than 30 years, done to undermine the agency’s effectiveness and can simply never be countenanced.
But the question unanswered by the President’s critics is how do you pushback against unelected bureaucrats who are not only undermining policy, but also attacking the credibility of the Chief Executive of the United States of America? Do you sit in the Oval Office and simply take it? Do you allow these partisans who used selective leaking of classified information in order to deliberately try and defeat a political rival at the polls, to operate with impunity while American men and women are fighting and dying overseas?
The arrogance and hubris exhibited by the leaking clique in the CIA and State Department – unelected, unaccountable, unhinged – demonstrates the dysfunctionality of those vital departments. This incompetence and bureaucratic game playing led directly to the tragedy of 9/11 and will, if not stopped, be the death of many more of us.
Scooter Libby evidently felt he had permission to leak parts of the classified National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq that showed the consensus of the government – not the selected, cherry-picked leaks of opposing viewpoints that came out later during the Presidential campaign – was that:
- Iraq is continuing, and in some areas expanding its chemical, biological, nuclear and missile programs contrary to UN resolutions.
- We are not detecting portions of these weapons programs.
- Iraq possesses proscribed chemical and biological weapons and missiles.
- Iraq could make a nuclear weapon in months to a year once it acquires sufficient weapons grade fissile material.
This was not “twisted” intelligence. It was not invented out of whole cloth. This was the best guess of our intelligence professionals gleaned from hundreds of discussions, thousands of pages of documents, and discussion and debate at the highest levels of our intelligence apparatus. It was then presented to the President and it was up to him – the elected leader of the government – to act on it or not.
The President chose to act. And when some of that NIE turned out to be wrong or overblown, the leakers, the bureaucratic ass coverers, the partisans, and the ideologues crawled from underneath the rock they were hiding and unleashed a blizzard involving the most brazenly criminal and incontrovertibly illegal dissemination of classified material in memory. Not since Nixon had to deal with our SALT fallback negotiating position showing up on the front page of the New York Times has a President had to scramble to stem the flow of damaging leaks.
This is the context in which Joe Wilson wrote his little editorial heard ‘round the world – a screed that his since been shot so full of holes that swiss cheese is whole by comparison. Wilson was lying. The Vice President did not send him to Niger. His junket was not an exercise in fact finding. If it was, one must ask why Wilson’s “report” was never disseminated to the White House. And of course, Wilson mis-characterized his own findings when he said that there was no evidence that Saddam was seeking uranium in Africa. Two separate inquiries – one in the Senate and one British – concluded that in fact Saddam was seeking to buy yellowcake uranium to augment the 500 tons he already possessed and had in storage at the Al-Tuwaitha nuclear facility.
We know all of this. The fact that it has to be repeated time and time again says more about how the media and the left continue to flog the dead horse of pre-war intelligence than it does about the White House pushback against the leakers. By dressing the same pig up in different couture, the President’s critics seek to raise long dead charges under different auspices in order to damage his credibility further and undermine support for the Iraq War with the American people.
Even the New York Times recognizes there’s nothing new to the Scooter Libby “revelations” except to grouse that their own publishing of classified information is not getting a pass:
The testimony by the former official, I. Lewis Libby Jr., cited in a court filing by the government made late Wednesday, provides an indication that Mr. Bush, who has long criticized leaks of secret information as a threat to national security, may have played a direct role in authorizing disclosure of the intelligence report on Iraq.The disclosure occurred at a moment when the White House was trying to defend itself against accusations that it had inflated the case against Saddam Hussein.
The president has the authority to declassify information, and Mr. Libby indicated in his testimony that he believed Mr. Bush’s instructions — which prosecutors said Mr. Libby regarded as “unique in his recollection” — gave him legal cover to talk with a reporter about the intelligence.
The fact that the President “has the authority to declassify information” seems to have escaped the notice of people like Andrew Sullivan, David Corn,, and Christy Hardin Smith among others. The Washington Post is even more definitive in its judgement on the legality of the issue:
Legal experts say that President Bush had the unquestionable authority to approve the disclosure of secret CIA information to reporters, but they add that the leak was highly unusual and amounted to using sensitive intelligence data for political gain.“It is a question of whether the classified National Intelligence Estimate was used for domestic political purposes,” said Jeffrey H. Smith, a Washington lawyer who formerly served as general counsel for the CIA.
Indeed, a tough case to make either way regarding “domestic political purposes.” Was there an element of politics involved in the leak? I don’t doubt it. But – and this is something the President’s critics never, ever give him credit for – was there also an effort to pushback against those who sought to undermine Bush’s credibility?
The answer to that question is clearly yes. And I think the overwhelming evidence points to this being the major reason for the Plame Affair, this particular NIE leak, and other actions taken by the Administration to defend their good name. To not acknowledge these facts – as the left and media never do – is to beggar belief. Bush’s critics would have him sitting in the oval office emasculated, his credibility in tatters, while his enemies flitted from reporter to reporter leaking a steady stream of classified information with the President’s men constrained from responding because in order to do so, they must leak back. Meanwhile, our men and women are fighting in Iraq and watching as their Commander in Chief twists slowly in the wind, hung by a cabal of shameless, partisan, witchhunters who worked against the interests of the United States as determined by her elected leaders.
A totally unsatisfactory state of affairs but one not of the President’s making. I’ve had major differences with the President on Iraq. But this partisan effort to alter the historical record on pre-war intelligence time and time again for political purposes sticks in my craw. This is one issue on which I will continue to defend the President’s actions until the record is set straight.
UPDATE
With all my growling about motivations for the leaks, I never addressed the fact that this story has absolutely nothing to do with the Plame Affair except in a tangential way. Tom McGuire quoting from the Times article I linked above:
More air is let out of the balloon in paragraph six:
Mr. Libby did not assert in his testimony to a grand jury, first reported on the Web site of The New York Sun, that Mr. Bush or Mr. Cheney had authorized him to reveal the name of an undercover C.I.A. officer, Valerie Wilson.
That is a wildly significant point. However, the Times fails to cover the comment made by Special Counsel Fitzgerald (p. 27 of his filing), which is even stronger than a failure by Libby to assert something in testimony:
During this time, while the President was unaware of the role that the Vice President’s Chief of Staff and National Security Adviser [i.e., Libby, who had both jobs] had in fact played in disclosing Ms. Wilson’s CIA employment…
That is not just Libby asserting that the President was uninvolved in Libby’s leaks of the Plame info; it is Fitzgerald saying so too.
This hasn’t stopped some of the most amatuer, one dimensional, analysis I’ve ever seen on the web taking place at some of the top lefty websites:
Firedoglake: CONSPIRACY!! CONSPIRACY!!
Huffpo: NEENER! NEENER! NEENER!
War and Piece: HYPOCRITE! HYPOCRITE!
Austin Bay is a little more nuanced in his analysis. But then, a three toed sloth would be more nuanced in their analysis of this issue than anyone I’ve seen so far on the left:
Presidents and vice-presidents can declassify information based on their own good (or bad) judgment. That is a privilege and responsibility of the office. Their authority is near-absolute.Disseminating unclassified information isn’t a crime — no matter the technique used. The information can be disseminated at a press conference, in a press release, in a speech, or — yes– via leak. (UPDATE: Background links I should have included in the original post– though the president’s power in the sphere is common knowledge. The president is at the top of the Classification Authority hierarchy– he holds the ultimate clasification/declassification power. The vice-president is granted authority from the president. See this link to the relevant executive order regarding the vie-president. And I just found this article by Byron York which details the estension of presidential powers to the vice-president. York’s article emphasizes the formal codification of the vice-president’s classification powers, which is a change from past administrations.)
Reporters thrive on “leaks†because a leak usually means “scoop.†A leak can also mean “spin†but that’s an understood aspect of Washington’s political carnival. However, leaking properly declassified material isn’t a crime. Leaking classified material is illegal– and so is publishing classified material in a press release.
1:56 pm
i will not argue that Bush did not have the authority to declassify material. He did. But there are a couple points of contention:
1) he selectively declassified it to be “leaked” to certain friendly journalists while still withholding it from the rest of the world claiming it was still classified. Why? It was not “declassified” officially until 10 days after it was leaked by Libby.
2) it was not common knowledge that Plame was a CIA agent. The is a misleading talking point, not the truth. That is why Fitzgerald specifically went back to confirm that she was indeed covert and it was unknown. He interviewed all of her friends and neighbors. Just because Rush says one thing, that doesn’t mean it is true (read the indictment)
3) Wilson has never, ever claimed he was sent by Cheney. Another misleading talking point. Re-read the editorial. It says he was asked to go when the vice president’s office requested more information be gathered by the CIA. This is all confirmed and is public record now. The VP asked the CIA and then the CIA decided to send Wilson. You cn’t make this claim any longer.
4) Bush knew that Libby was directed to “leak” the NIE. Bush knew that the same persona who leaked the NIE was responsible for leaking Plame’s name. Bush claimed he had no idea who leaked the name both to the American people and to the investigators when interviewed. Either he really is that dumb to have put 2 and 2 together, or he flat out lied. And, even if he is that dumb, you can’t expect that no one else figured it out and informed him.
the long and short of it is, he didn’t break the law by declassifying the info. But he lied. We all know it, and unless he wants to claim tht he really is that dumb, he has to either cop to it or be seen as continuing the cover up. If he activley withheld matirial information from Fitzgerald, he may also be guilty of obstruction of justice. He does not need to be under oath for that.
3:20 pm
This incompetence and bureaucratic game playing led directly to the tragedy of 9/11
Possibly receiving an intelligence alert titled, “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.” and going on vacation instead of doing anything about it had something to do with it, too?
As to Bush’s decision to invade – Remember, there were weapons instpector IN IRAQ AT THE TIME telling us that there were no WMD programs.
So the question is was invading Iraq based on a lie or a mistake? I submit that it doesn’t matter – a President who made a mistake of that magnitude – launching a poorly-planned invasion that cost tens of thousands of people their lives and up to a trillion dollars when all the costs are added up, including ongoing medical for Vets, not to mention handing Iraq over to Iran! – should have resigned in disgrace long ago.
5:09 pm
The President Declassified
So, what is the breaking news story here? Properly declassified information has been released to the press who have demanded it ad nauseam. And? Equally if the President had not declassified the information the same accusers would be shouting him down …
6:48 pm
Dingo:
1. Duh. No wonder you didn’t address the thrust of my post – that the WH was pushing back against leakers.
2. What part of “Even if, as some claim,” appears to be me stating that? READ THE FRICKING POST!
3. You’re serious aren’t you? Who the eff cares whether it was the VEep himself or his office – the point is that neither of them asked anyone to go anywhere period. The CIA (Wilson’s wife) took it upon themselves to send him to Niger.
4. “Bush knew that the same person who leaked the NIE was responsible for leaking Plame’s name.” This is a false conclusion extrapolated from evidence that is not only murky but contradictory (See Tom McGuire’s excellent analysis of this “evidence.)
All this makes your conclusion a bunch of BS.
And of course you didn’t even bother to address the main thrust of my post – selective leaking of classified material by partisans on your side of the debate led to the WH forced into the role of leakers themselves.
No answer by you to what the WH was supposed to do. ANd the reason is you can’t answer is that you have zero interest in the truth and are interested only in the same thing the criminal leakers at CIA and State were interestd in – bringng down this President.
9:58 pm
For dingo:
Clarice Feldman writes regarding alleged outing of Plame by Libby:
“We don’t intend to offer any proof of actual damage.†(Fitzgerald, responding to defense motions, 2-24-06)
Feldman continues,
“Good thing that, because he’d be hard pressed to find any. By Bob Woodward’s account the (CIA) has done an informal assessment and found no damage. The history of Ms. Plame’s employment, during which she was twice outed—once by Ames and a second time by the agency—means that if she still was at work in 2003 doing undercover work (the only way revealing her identity might create harm) a lot of people at the agency were criminally negligent.
...
“Despite repeated reference in the indictment to Mrs.Plame’s “classified†status, the prosecutor refuses to produce any evidence of it.”
For Dave:
This incompetence and bureaucratic game playing led directly to the tragedy of 9/11.
Precisely. Your so-called Bin Ladin alert was nebulous. There was no concrete evidence to base actions on. The Gorolik Wall saw to that.
And your tired WMD red herring has lost its aroma. There are credible links to Saddam having shipped his nucular weapons program out of Iraq, likely to Libya, using Russian spetznaz troops, and assuredly involving Syrian complicity. Why he did it is an enigma, but the evidence is mounting that he did. His own field commanders were kept in the dark. Aside from the nucular issues, you must have had your head up your ass the last two years not to recognize that Iraq had the capability and the intent to both develop and deliver biological and chemical weapons systems. The component parts were found.
11:32 pm
“The history of Ms. Plame’s employment, during which she was twice outed—once by Ames and a second time by the agency—means that if she still was at work in 2003 doing undercover work (the only way revealing her identity might create harm) a lot of people at the agency were criminally negligent.”
Hear, hear!!
I will go further – no one working at Langley can seriously be called a covert operative. When you drive to Langley five days aweek, pass throught the front gate, and park yourself at a desk in the headquarters of the CIA, how “covert” can you claim to be? Please! Plame was no more covert than any other desk-bound analyst.
Even all the “spies” are not really “covert.” Those with official covers work out of American embassies and consulates under diplomatic immunity. Evdry country has “Official Cover” agents and every country knows it and who they are. These are the “diplomats” we see being expelled from various countries for espionage from time to time. The official cover is nice because you have immunity when you get caught, but it also is pretty transparent and therefore limiting.
It is the Non-Offcial Cover agents that people think of when they hear the word spy. They are the covert operatives who are on their own, and if caught, often simply disappear. The first rule for these agents is to NEVER go near an embassy or consulate, or anything else connected with your country, including its diplomats. So the man that “outed” Valerie was Joe Wilson. The day he married her, any possible covert career came to an end. The CIA, in spite of any claims over the “leak,” admitted as much – she had not been assigned outside the US since her marriage to Wilson.
Now just why do we think the prosecutor has not furnised any evidence regarding her “classified” status?
The exact nature of the projects she worked on might be classified, but her employment by the CIA was out there for anyone willing to look.
12:20 am
GWOT - Plamegate Round III
The LL and the MSM have finally outed themselves as patsies and stooges of the enemy in the GWOT
OK! This does it. This is a non-starter. The LL and the MSM, however, will be falling all over themselves. Perhaps thei…
7:44 am
The most insidious part of this entire episode is that President Bush thought to bring to Washington a kinder, gentler administration. Ergo: Leftist holdovers from the Clinton administration remained in place. Far from merely destroying computer keyboards the Clintonistas made their top prioity the sinking of the Bush Administration. The moral of the story is simple, Washington politics have in fact become “A Blood Sport” as James Stewart so aptly wrote. The sad fact is that there can be no Kinder and Gentler government therefore it must be harsher and more punitive to exist. I am loathe to see the result of this new government.
5:25 pm
Tony,
“The sad fact is that there can be no Kinder and Gentler government therefore it must be harsher and more punitive to exist. I am loathe to see the result of this new government.”
Actually what you would see is the government as it was before we created a the “Bureaucrats of Life.” It used to be that a new administration could and did replace the B’crats with its own people.
Then we created our Civil Service. In doing so, we created a fourth branch of government with all the drawbacks of the supreme court and none of the advantages. The civil service has become pretty much a lifetime job, like the SCOTUS. It is an independent organization like the SCOTUS, but without the appointment/confrimation process.
The idea was to depoliticize the bureaucracy, but that certainly didn’t happen.