1. Anonymous says:

    What exactly was â€unsatisfactory†to Cheney? Perhaps it was the fact that the statement, wherein Tenet takes total responsibility on himself and the CIA for the 16 words â€slipping in†the SOTU, doesn’t â€make some heads roll†for the â€slip up.†What Cheney was demanding, I’ll hypothesize, is that those in the CIA who were responsible for the pushback were allowed to get their message out to the public in such a way that the president – and worse yet – Cheney himself were â€in the neckgrinder†now.

    This hypothesis fits with a corresponding hypothesis that links past efforts by people in the CIA to pushback against Cheney manipulations to the results that occurred over the following days in July 2003. Cheney knew about Valerie Plame and her work well before may or June or July 2003. Let’s look at the possible opportunities for her to attract the â€Eye of Sauronâ€: Curveball; October Bush speech in Cincinnati; SOTU back and forth over yellowcake and aluminum tubes. Then, on March 8, Wilson starts pushing back in public. He was vetted by OVP. He’s not only a long-haired big mouth with a penchant for grandstanding, he’s also – Oh My God! – the husband of that hot blonde and the agc who has been one of the biggest pains for years. Bingo! Crisis, meet opportunity.

    By this hypothesis, Cheney and the gang knew about â€Valerie Plame†for quite a while by May or June or July 2003. But it was in the late Winter or Spring of 2003 that they put her together with Joe Wilson. When Ari hit the panic button on July 8, Cheney and Scooter, with assists from Rove and Hadley, turned the tap on the leak. The story was already out there among some, such as Armitage and Woodward and Novak and Miller. In July, post the Wilson op ed, that fact was seized on to create the obvious cover story – the journalists told Scooter, and Scooter just said â€I heard that tooâ€! Meanwhile Cheney was pulling the lever connected to the leaky tap, and the so-called President was given enough info to implicate him and bring him on board with the caper without compromising public denialbility.

  2. Anonymous says:

    This may be old news for the Plamaniacs, I’m thinking Hadley makes sense as â€1†in the 1×2×6 article — he comes across in these stories as one of very few people who have some integrity in the Administration. I used to think Powell was â€1â€, ages ago it seems, Tenet would also be a possibility.

  3. Anonymous says:

    Marcy,
    I tried to buy your book at Barnes and Noble yesterday, Feb. 3rd, 2007. They did not have it.They informed me they had 12 on order. They didnt know when they would be arriving. They told me that there weren’t any of your books at any Barnes and Noble yet. They had no explanation of why.
    I know it is available at Amazon, but I like to buy my books at the store. Is there another bookstore selling the book?
    I will check online and see if I can find it near my home in Durham, NH.
    I read about creating your own publishing company. Maybe this has something to do with it.
    Keep up the good work live blogging!
    HMRoberts

  4. Anonymous says:

    Help me understand this — why did they care whether the President had told a lie in the SOTU? Any normal human with a lively curiousity and access to the internet knew by early 2002 (1) that the President and the Administration were lying across the board about Iraq as a threat. That was not news — Wilson simply supplied a new piece.

    Was it all just various power centers within our ruling factions not wanting to be on the hook as the source of a particular falsehood? That is, was it an insider fight?

    It didn’t really matter much to the rest of us, US and Iraqi, which little part of the whole lying apparatus furnished which falsehood — the results were quite clear. And while I know there are people of professional integrity involved in developing these government estimates, at the level this went on at, truth was simply never one of the criteria used to determine what was a â€fact.â€

  5. Anonymous says:

    Some of the things you noted as changed in the draft to final was a matter of placement – moving items from the penultimate and last paragraph to the beginning.

    Putting aside Tenet’s statement, looking again at Martin’s notes brought to mind something I missed at first review: Specifically:

    “…that the CIA cProlif Task Force asked an individ with ties to Niger to gho and inquire…“

    The noteworthy item is “…CIA cProlif Task Force….â€

    The first time anyone every heard of a “Task Force†was from Hubris when Isikoff and Corn added detail to Plame’s job.

    “…Though Cheney was already looking toward war, the officers of the agency’s Joint Task Force on Iraq–part of the Counterproliferation Division of the agency’s clandestine Directorate of Operations–were frantically toiling away in the basement, mounting espionage operations to gather information on the WMD programs Iraq might have. The JTFI was trying to find evidence that would back up the White House’s assertion that Iraq was a WMD danger. Its chief of operations was a career undercover officer named Valerie Wilson….â€

    http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060918/corn

  6. Anonymous says:

    HMRoberts

    I know someone who bought the book from an NYC B&N yesterday, so it will hopefully be in NH shortly.

    The timing has more to do with delays in the printing than anything else–but that’s life with books. It’s hard to time these things perfectly.

  7. Anonymous says:

    DCgaffer

    Not exactly–it’s not a simple move of text from the end to the beginning. The text was changed along the way. I think you could make an argument either way, as to whether it softened or strengthened the statement. But it is a slightly different take on the speech, one that looks more attuned to NSC goals than OVP.

    Also, Corn’s was not the first mention of JTFI. It was mentioned in both SSCI and Robb-Silberman. What was new with Corn was tying it to Plame.

  8. Anonymous says:

    EW:

    I agree – not exactly. Also if you compare para 3 in the draft to para 2 in the final (excluding the 1 sentence [para) – you’ll see how the OVP’s talking points got more fully inserted.

    I would suggest to you that Martin’s note goes to the heart of knowledge and intent.

    While one could (and I would) argue that just because someone works in Counterproliferation (which is in DO) that does not axiomatically mean one was classified or covert (though likely most were). However, when you couple counterproliferation, DO, â€joint task force,†â€mounting espionage operations†there starts to become a preponderance of evidence that knowledge of said JTFI (at that moment in time) would have resulted in knowledge of said JTFI senior manager, and duties and responsibilities thereto.

  9. Anonymous says:

    After the (apparent) call from Libby, Mitchell says this on her July 8 Capitol Report:

    High-level people at the CIA did not really know that it was false, never even looked at Joe Wilson’s verbal report or notes from that report, didn’t even know that it was he who had made this report, because he was sent over by some of the covert operatives in the CIA at a very low level, not, in fact, tasked by the vice president.

    This is White House talking points, slightly disguised. But it’s not sourced to Administration Official: it’s purportedly â€people at the CIA†that said it.

    If Libby is putting a slightly disguised White House/OVP view of it into the CIAs mouth, no wonder George Tenet was not happy. No wonder Libby is looking at his shoes as Cathie Martin gets the blame for it.

    And if Andrea Mitchell, in â€reporting†on a CIA/White House pissing match, is willing to go along with putting one sides view in the mouth of the other: what a tool.

    (If anyone happens to have a complete transcript of Capitol Report for July 8: please post a link?)

  10. Anonymous says:

    MT, thank you for taking on this important job. I learn something new everyday. Today I am leaning toward the theory that someone in Winpac sabotaged the work done by the rest of the CIA. This is based on Eriposte’s detailed and wonderful analysis of the evidence coming out of the trial.

    (1)He makes it clear that certain redactions to testimony presented to the Senate Security Committee were made, not for security reasons, but to support the WH position that Iraq had indeed sought to buy yellowcake. GOP Senator Pat Roberts was the one who made those those strategic redactions. An example: The British informed the CIA of the Niger claim. REDACTED: The CIA expressed doubts about the reliability of that information.

    (2)Eriposte’s analyses also seem to prove that the CIA HAD REPEATEDLY found the Iraq Niger story presented by the Italians not to be creditable. The only way it could have gotten into WH statement would be if it was inserted/suggested by a rogue CIA member of WINPAC.

    (3)There is also an interesting note of an unprecedented meeting between the Italian Secret Service and Bush. The sequence then, seems to go like this: the Italians had tried to get the CIA to accept their story of the attempted yellowcake buy, the CIA kept refusing to do so. Someone in Winpac told the pres to go with the 16 words, and had the Italians meet with him to assure him the story was true.

  11. Anonymous says:

    Clearly

    There is no doubt that WINPAC was central in sustaining the bad intell claims.

    But that doesn’t mean someone from WINPAC put it into the SOTU. Someone from WH had to do that–almost certainly Robert Joseph and (maybe) Stephen Hadley. WINPAC sustained the claim, but then WH used it.

    And in the period we’re talking about, OVP is making entirely unrelated issues to avoid taking the blame.

  12. Anonymous says:

    Wheel, I love the live blogging, but it’s great to have you back doing analysis. Question: didn’t Hadley make a statement a week or two later where he accepted some responsibility? What motivated that? Also, I think it was last year around this (Super Bowl) time that I was trying to get you to check out â€K Street,†which was in the process of being shot when a lot of this broke. Mary Matalin’s role is especially revealing (basically her biggest concern is that good people are going to have to get lawyers).

  13. Anonymous says:

    empywheel, thanks for the live blogging. (And I like you without any plucking, very natural and wholesome.)

    I have to still come back to how complicated this damn trial is. â€Don’t think about that except as to mind set.†â€Ignore that.†â€Look at this in this way.â€

    That is why they don’t put technical people on juries. We don’t forget detail, and we challenge idiots, and we look for the truth, and we don’t pay attention to idiotic instructions.

    I have never sat on a Panel. Dumbheads, simpletons, crazies, malcontents, maniacs sat, but not me.

    (… ok maybe I am worse or less than all those …)

  14. Anonymous says:

    Saltin

    I did get K Street. Didn’t get very far in it, though. I’ll have to revisit it.

    Hadley was forced into that mea culpa bc, after Tenet was made to take the fall, CIA leaked the details of the October 2002 discussion about the Niger claims, in which Tenet told Hadley to â€take it the fuck out.†In other words, Hadley knew he was wrong, knew the Niger claims were wrong, and CIA was leaking that he knew.

  15. Anonymous says:

    Loose at 10:40

    Love reading your stuff at FDL.

    Don’t hold your breath—Union Leader, right? If THEY get an inkling, you aren’t gonna find it in NH. Grew up in Manchester, and got out as soon as I could.

    Am in Europe, but—whaddaya know…. after twenty years’ respite, it’s the same old, same old, and the big corporations took over.

    Sorry EW. You do give me hope, but sometimes I could just throw in the towel.

  16. Anonymous says:

    I ordered AOD from Barnes & Noble online (first time I’ve ever ordered from them) when it first became possible to do so because amazon didn’t have it yet … it still hasn’t come … I should have waited for amazon … B&N online sucks.

  17. Anonymous says:

    I ordered from Amazon in late Dec. and was notified on Friday they’re finally shipping it. It should arrive by the end of the week. *sigh*
    I’m not very patient.

  18. Anonymous says:

    I cannot figure out why Tenet acquiesced to the mea culpa in the first place. That CIA quickly forced Hadley to apologize subsequently only adds to my frustration.

    Though Tenet throws in hints in his mea culpa that CIA were less than willing to agree to the 16 words, Tenet still went out of his way to repeat most of OVP talking points re: Wilson. (WH did not send Wilson, WH not briefed on findings of Wilson’s trip, even if WH had been notified Wilson’s trip was not conclusive, even if Wilson found out thises things Nigerien officials would have had reason to be less than truthful to Wilson knowing it would get back to Washington, etc).

    If Bush/Cheney have something on Tenet, so what? Now is the time to get it out there. The Wilsons have already shown the way to sacrifice in the name of American democracy. Wish that Tenet (with or without his Medal of Freedom) would publish his book already–lift up a major rock and allow us to look on as all the critters scurry for safety.

    It has always bothered me that the CIA talks about intelligence â€product†which it provides to its â€customers†in the government. Taking the business analogy too far leads to the well worn phrase â€the customer is always right.†(as in this real world case). Stop pleasing the customer, CIA. Your customer is corrupt.

  19. Anonymous says:

    Pdaly, I agree, the same thing was bothering me this morning. Cheney snarling at Tenet to change something didn’t mean he had to, although there does seem to be something about Cheney that’s very intimidating to a lot of powerful people. Still, it’s possible the very fact that we’re having this trial is Tenet’s revenge and the reason so much is now coming to light– without him, there probably never would have been an investigation into outing a C.I.A. agent in the first place.

  20. Anonymous says:

    Mitchell says this on her July 8 Capitol Report:

    High-level people at the CIA did not really know that it was false, never even looked at Joe Wilson’s verbal report or notes from that report, didn’t even know that it was he who had made this report, because he was sent over by some of the covert operatives in the CIA at a very low level, not, in fact, tasked by the vice president.

    holy chit! I didn’t realize that Mitchell was reporting on July 8 that Joe Wilson was sent by â€covert operatives in the CIAâ€.

  21. Anonymous says:

    There is still so much here that doesn’t make sense. Why should Cheney be so upset about being connected to the yellowcake claim? Why did the Italians do the forgery in the first place, and even if Rocco Martini or whatever his name is did it for money, why did they keep pushing it on the US? Are these things related? Is there something else here we aren’t supposed to find?

    Libby really is a coward, isn’t he, hiding behind Cathie Martin’s skirts. What a first class jerk.

  22. Anonymous says:

    p luk

    Yup. Maguire’s been using that as proof that CIA outed Plame. Only now we know it probably came from Libby.

    I think Mitchell was interviewed by the FBI. I wonder how forthcoming she was…

  23. Anonymous says:

    There’s a time problem with Libby sourcing Mitchell on that (from EW’s liveblogging)

    DB Yes. Believed he contacted Mitchell after 7/10 more likely after 7/14, according to Libby Mitchell had made negative comments about OVP, and he wanted to discuss them. He said he spoke to her. Mr Libby told us he explained to her about . Mitchell asked question about why VP sent him to Niger. may have told her what reporters were telling him that Wilson’s wife worked at CIA. Said it in way that she wouldn’t ask him how he found out, didn’t want her to know he learned it from Russert. Libby told us he thought it might be awkward, if he said he learned it from Russert.
    3:24
    DB Told us he didn’t speak to Novak week of 7/7. Talked to him later, around 7/25.

    —–

    There would be a problem with Libby telling Mitchell that Wilson was sent by covert operatives, in that Fitzgerald says he has no evidence that Libby knew Plame was covert, and Libby was saying Plame sent Wilson. So we don’t â€know†Libby was Mitchell’s source, unless we â€know†more than Fitzgerald.
    Note also that he did not speak to Novak the week you mentioned on CSPAN.

  24. Anonymous says:

    I need to be clearer about the timing problem:P Luk’s quote is from July 8, Libby said he didn’t talk to her until later. Of course, Libby might have lied about this but he wasn’t charged with that, nor was he the only one talking about Plame/Wilson/the CIA. In fact, the CIA was/is the entity that said Wilson wasn’t sent by Plame, but by others in her group.

  25. Anonymous says:

    What I think you’re missing, MayBee, is that Cathie Martin testified that on July 8, apparently during the day, Libby was tasked by the Vice President to call Mitchell and David Martin, whom Martin had heard were both working on stories for the evening news. Martin witnessed Libby talking to one of them over the phone – and in light of the story that was done that evening by Mitchell, Martin was suggesting LIbby had talked with her, especially since Hadley was pissed and accused her, while Libby looked down at his notes at the meeting.

    I don’t know what time Libby might have spoken with Mitchell, or what time the relevant show we’re discussing was on or was taped. But the point is that if the show happened after this newly disclosed phone call Martin was suggesting happened, that means that Libby has to enter the pool of candidates for having revealed information that Mitchell used – it at least throws into somewhat more doubt the use Maguire has been making of Mitchell’s appearance for a long time, to presume that the CIA gave her that information.

  26. Anonymous says:

    it at least throws into somewhat more doubt the use Maguire has been making of Mitchell’s appearance for a long time, to presume that the CIA gave her that information.

    Not really. As I said, Mitchell says covert operatives sent Wilson. That hasn’t been Libby’s story. We know that Libby spoke to reporters without mentioning the wife, and we know other people were talking about the wife sending Wilson (State), as well as some saying operatives sent Wilson (the CIA’s story). We’ve never heard Libby said anything about covert operatives sending Wilson- that would actually implicate him in knowing that Plame was covert. The universe of possibilities has neither been increased nor decreased, and we absolutely don’t know that it PROBABLY came from Libby.

    Just as we didn’t ever ’know’ that Novak talked to Libby the week of July 6th, an idea Bond’s testimony seems to contradict.

  27. Anonymous says:

    MayBee

    I agree it doesn’t mean that what Mitchell got probably came from Libby. But it certainly raises the probability that it could have – since the probability had seemed to be zero, in the absence of knowledge that Libby had spoken with her at the precise time and the assertion that Mitchell’s sourcing was in State principally and also CIA.

    I’d also mention that the following is misleading in a couple of respects:

    We know that Libby spoke to reporters without mentioning the wife, and we know other people were talking about the wife sending Wilson (State), as well as some saying operatives sent Wilson (the CIA’s story).

    We know that Libby spoke to reporters without mentioning the wife and he spoke to reporters while mentioning the wife, just as we know State people were at different times talking about the wife and not talking about the wife. Also, if your source for the CIA’s story is Tenet’s July 11 statement, that needs to be reconsidered in light of the substantial role we’re learning OVP played in its production – which at least gave OVP access to that information and that formulation, if not a role in its formulation in the first place.

  28. Anonymous says:

    MayBee

    I should also mention that Bond was reporting Libby’s testimony, not vouching for its accuracy. Indeed, it’s quite clear that in numerous respects that she thinks Libby was providing false information, at least some of it deliberately. I didn’t focus on what she had to say about Libby-Novak, so i don’t know if you can read anything about the status off of that. But it is important not to take what she reports Libby saying as testimony as to what actually happened back in July 2003.

  29. Anonymous says:

    Also, if your source for the CIA’s story is Tenet’s July 11 statement

    No, my source is at a minimum Harlow, who seems to have said co-workers sent Wilson and denied to Novak that Plame sent Wilson. I believe Grenier said the same thing. Furthermore, Wilson says the same thing. They all deny Plame sent Wilson, and say her co-workers did.

  30. Anonymous says:

    Jeff re your 22:45- True. But at the same time, Libby hasn’t been charged with perjury on any of that testimony, and that is the testimony Fitzgerald sought to highlight at trial.

  31. Anonymous says:

    But MayBee, I can cite back to you White House folks saying the same thing: Fleischer and Bartlett both were doing it during that week. And you seem to be making a distinction between the storyline that someone within CIA sent her and the storyline that Wilson’s wife sent him. But of course those two storylines were far from necessarily mutually exclusive.

    But at the same time, Libby hasn’t been charged with perjury on any of that testimony, and that is the testimony Fitzgerald sought to highlight at trial.

    The notion that Libby would have been charged specifically for each and every false statement that the investigators judged to be a lie is clearly incorrect. So your comment is neither here nor there on the question of whether we should take Libby at his word on that. There’s a bunch of stuff that has come up that Fitzgerald is not highlighting that he clearly believes to be false testimony on Libby’s part.

  32. Anonymous says:

    But MayBee, I can cite back to you White House folks saying the same thing: Fleischer and Bartlett both were doing it during that week. And you seem to be making a distinction between the storyline that someone within CIA sent her and the storyline that Wilson’s wife sent him. But of course those two storylines were far from necessarily mutually exclusive.

    All true. I’m really just trying to augment my point- which you have mostly agreed with- that we don’t seem to now know that it was probably Libby that told Mitchell.
    Although I do think there is a point where the storyline about Wilson’s wife sent him diverges from the CIA-coworkers sent him storyline. That is, the â€wife sent him†story line doesn’t necessarily exclude the â€co-workers sent him†storyline, while the â€co-workers sent him†storyline often seeks specifically to exclude the idea that the wife sent him.
    What that means about why Mitchell reported it the way she did, I don’t know.

    The notion that Libby would have been charged specifically for each and every false statement that the investigators judged to be a lie is clearly incorrect. So your comment is neither here nor there on the question of whether we should take Libby at his word on that.
    Again, true. I have no idea how Fitzgerald decided to make his charges. He didn’t seem to hesitate to charge on some very fine points, though I don’t know how he determined which ones were important.
    And absolutely, I don’t mean to imply that we know exact dates of various conversations- few of the witnesses have been stellar in that regard. I’m sure Libby got some dates wrong, just as most of those testifying against him have done.

  33. Anonymous says:

    Oh Wait!
    I want to reiterate this point, which is I think the better evidence pointing away from Libby being Mitchell’s source on:

    because he was sent over by some of the covert operatives in the CIA

    If Libby truly told Mitchell covert agents sent Wilson, I think Fitzgerald would have investigated that vigorously.

  34. Anonymous says:

    MayBee

    I think it might help to review what Fitz charged on and what he didn’t to get an understanding of why. The odder of the two charges is the Cooper one. But the alleged lie in question: that he said he heard from journalists and he said he didn’t know if it was true–goes right to obstruction of IIPA. It is Libby lying to prevent any IIPA charge. Plus, with Martin Fitz has more than a he said she said (however weak Martin’s testimony is).

    And then the Russert charge has many more people as witnesses (part of this alleged lie is that he didn’t know about Wilson). But again, it goes to the heart of the IIPA obstruction.

    Other known lies–such as about telling Kessler–goes to a conspiracy or cover-up that Fitz isn’t after. And the suspected lie that Cheney told Libby to leak the NIE to Judy, when he actually leaked Plame, depends too much on Judy and he otherwise has not credible witnesses for.

    If he wanted to go after the Mitchell lie, it would be the same as the case with Judy–one less than credible witness (give Mitchell’s public statements) and otherwise Cheney and Libby’s word. That of course doesn’t prove that Libby did leak to Mitchell, but it provides some explanation for why not charging it would be consistent.

  35. Anonymous says:

    Thanks, ew. I guess I’m not really saying I literally don’t understand why he charged the way he did, I’m saying I don’t understand why he charged the way he did. I don’t know how to put that in writing so it makes sense. Maybe if I said– you say the Cooper charge is odd and I say it seems incredibly weak and small. I’m sure we’ll differ on that.

  36. Anonymous says:

    Let me put it this way.

    Fitzgerald is arguing that Libby lied in a way that specifically took the IIPA off the table. He allegedly did so by lying about where he learned of Plame (Russert lie), and he did so by lying about how he presented his knowledge to reporters when he passed on that news (Cooper lie), which reinforced his alleged efforts to admit to spreading the Plame news, but doing so in such a way that IIPA would be off the table.

    In other words, while the Cooper charge may appear â€weak and small,†it is a fundamental part of making the argument that Libby lied specifically to take the IIPA off the table.

    That seems to be the deciding factor on whether Fitz did or didn’t charge known lies.

  37. Anonymous says:

    EW –
    Great post and follow-up discussion. I’m wondering though: I agree that the method emerging from the indictment seems to be picking out the lies that most clearly impeded any effort to determine whether an IIPA violation was committed and if so who did it. But if we were to assume (1) that Libby told Mitchell on July 8 that undercover officers sent Wilson on his mission, and (2) lied by denying that contact with Mitchell, I would find that to be a significant lie in the terms outlined above. That would constitute burying an incrediby inculpatory conversation.
    That may mean that Libby was not the source for Mitchell’s â€reporting†(or not the juiciest bit) or it may mean that a Libby lie about this piece was particularly hard to prove. Perhaps Mitchell’s testimony was even more facially unreliable than Judy’s, no mean feat that (I shudder at the prospect of constructing a case out of this den of mendacious vipers). But the main point here is that if we assume Libby dished to Mitchell that â€covert agents†sent Wilson, and then lied about it, that would be a hell of an obstructive lie (as the lie would obscure a key element of an IIPA violation — i.e., Libby’s knowledge of the covert status of the person who sent Wilson, which when combined with other facts means Plame). There would have to be an alternative expalination.