Robert Novak, Apologize!
I urge everyone to write Robert Novak and demand that he apologize on air to former Ambassador Wilson and particularly to Wilson's wife, a CIA operative specializing in weapons of mass destruction, for damaging her career and jeopardizing her safety.
Novak published the name of Wilson's wife in a July article that attempted to examine Wilson's role in investigating whether Iraq tried to obtain uranium from Niger. Now that the CIA has formally requested an investigation and the media has caught the scent of scandal, Novak is trying to shield the Bush administration from accusations that the White House was behind outing Wilson's wife with the release of this statement:
Nobody in the Bush administration called me to leak this. In July I was interviewing a senior administration official on Ambassador Wilson's report when he told me the trip was inspired by his wife, a CIA employee working on weapons of mass destruction. Another senior official told me the same thing. As a professional journalist with 46 years experience in Washington I do not reveal confidential sources. When I called the CIA in July to confirm Mrs. Wilson's involvement in the mission for her husband -- he is a former Clinton administration official -- they asked me not to use her name, but never indicated it would endanger her or anybody else. According to a confidential source at the CIA, Mrs. Wilson was an analyst, not a spy, not a covert operator, and not in charge of undercover operatives.
First of all, does anyone wonder why Novak feels it necessary to point out that Wilson is a "former Clinton administration official?" That is no more relevant to the story than the name of Wilson's wife was to the initial story. Further, this statement contradicts Novak's previous remarks on the issue.
In his July article, Novak refers to Wilson's wife as "an agency operative on weapons of mass destruction." Note that he referred to her as an operative, not an analyst. One of the definitions of operative as provided by the American Heritage Dictionary is "A secret agent; a spy," and certainly when putting "operative" and "CIA" in the same sentence, one assumes that's the meaning intended.
According to David Corn of The Nation, Novak told him that:
...he was indeed tipped off by government officials about Wilson's wife and had no reluctance about naming her. "I figured if they gave it to me," he says. "They'd give it to others....I'm a reporter. Somebody gives me information and it's accurate. I generally use it." And Wilson says Novak told him that his sources were administration officials.
Administration refers to the Bush administration. Senior official suggests someone high up in the Bush administration. It may not be Karl Rove, but it's certainly someone in the upper ranks, and Wilson and his wife deserve to know who. Her name, position, and relationship with Wilson were released in an attempt to discredit Wilson by suggesting he was given the Niger job only because of her influence. In the National Review, Clifford May suggests that Wilson wasn't a qualified investigator and repeats the claim that Wilson got the job not on his own merits but because his wife recommended him. Novak's "senior administration officials" made this same allegation but the CIA told Novak the claim was false and that the CIA selected Wilson and his wife's involvement was merely to pass along the request.
Ambassador Wilson had extensive experience working with African governments. His first African assignment was in 1976. He spent two years in Niger, followed by one in Togo; two years in the State Department Bureau of African Affairs; one year in Pretoria, South Africa; and in 1982 was appointed Deputy Chief of Mission in Burundi, followed by the same position in the Congo from 1986 to 1988. Wilson received extensive praise from president Bush for performing heroically in negotiating the release of Americans from Iraq just prior to the Gulf War, evacuating thousands of foreigners from Kuwait, and protecting 800 American citizens at the US embassy in Iraq. Following this, he served the Clinton administration as Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for African Affairs at the National Security Council from June 1997 until July 1998.
While Wilson was not a covert operative, the CIA concluded that a seasoned diplomat with extensive experience with African governments was best suited for the task. Conservative columnists attempt to discredit Wilson simply because he contradicted the Bush administration. They have leveled shameless charges against someone whose character has been unimpeachable.
Now Drudge and Novak are trying to portray the outrage over this incident as nothing more than partisan Bush bashing, with Drudge pointing out that in May Wilson donated $1,000 to John Kerry's campaign. However, it is difficult to believe that the CIA is calling for an investigation due to partisan politics when there are clear indications that laws were broken, putting lives at risk.
White House spokesperson Scott McClellan claims that "The president believes leaking classified information is a very serious matter and it should be pursued to the fullest extent by the appropriate agency and the appropriate agency is the Department of Justice." Yet when this story broke in July and reports queried McClellan asked about it in July and September, the only action taken by the White House was to issue a denial. Now the Bush administration is refusing to conduct an internal investigation and dismissing calls for an independent investigator, prefering to allow the Justice Department to handle it. This hardly sounds like an administration that wants to get to the bottom of the issue. It is difficult to imagine that John Ashcroft, staunch Bush supporter and Bush appointee, will undertake a serious investigation and reach any conclusion other than one favorable to the White House.
Today Novak said "There is no great crime here" because nobody called him to leak the information. The crime wasn't the phone call, it was the release of the information. Regardless of whether it happened during an in-person interview or over the phone, revealing the name of a CIA operative to a journalist is a crime that jeopardized not only American lives but the war on terror, since Wilson's wife's specialty is weapons of mass destruction and she was actively involved in covert investigations in July.
An administration official verified to the Washington Post that two White House officials released the information to several journalists in July, attempting to discredit Wilson. The Washington Post reports that one journalist who was contacted by the White House has come forward, although the journalist refuses to be identified or to identify his/her sources. Wilson states that several reporters contacted him with the same information that Novak published, and one mentioned Rove as stating that Wilson's wife was "fair game."
Rove, re-christened "turd blossom" by the president, has a history of playing dirty political tricks from as far back as the 1970s. These include stealing the campaign stationery of an election rival and printing false invitations that promised free beer and women at campaign headquarters, bugging his own office in order to accuse a rival, and using an FBI contact to initiate investigations of two democratic opponents. And that's only a portion of Rove's alleged unethical practices. It is alleged that in 1992, Rove was fired from Bush Sr.'s campaign after leaking information to...Robert Novak.
That the president would hire such an individual calls his own integrity into question and does not bode well for a fair investigation into whether Rove or another Bush official outed Wilson's wife. Lewis "Scooter" Libby is another name being bandied about, particularly after former CIA agent Larry Johnson, a republican, claimed to know the identity of the leaker and said it was someone in the Old Executive Office Building, which happens to be where the vice president's offices are located.
Former head of the CIA George Bush Sr. had a name for people who outed operatives, people such as Novak and the "senior administration officials," and that word was 'traitor.'
