Bush's once-mighty empire springs a serious leak

The White House is full of secrets, even secrets predating 9/11. The list of corporate cronies who wrote the Bush/Cheney energy policy hasn't been divulged yet. President Bush made ''loyalty'' the chief virtue of his administration, and loyalty's first test is the ability to keep a secret.

After 9/11, White House secrecy wasn't just a matter of personal, partisan loyalty, it became a matter of national patriotism, and the Patriot Act is all about secrets: how to keep the government's and how to find out yours.

The Bush administration's leak of the name of a CIA officer wasn't so much a secret being disclosed as a fact that the ''senior'' leaker wanted made known.

The leak dovetailed with another reigning aspect of the Bush administration: the predominant male culture of the White House's inner circle.

The import of the leak of Joseph Wilson's wife's profession wasn't that she was a CIA operative, but that she got her husband a job: the trip to Niger to investigate Iraq's nuclear ambitions. It's a schoolyard putdown, if you went to an all-boy's school like Phillips Academy: Wilson couldn't even get a job without his wife's help.

Secrets and testosterone are a powerful mix. Ambassador Wilson, apparently, is aware of the combination's potency. He, too, seems to be supplied with an excess of each.

Wilson outed in the N.Y. Times the Bush administration's bogus claim about the Niger yellowcake that Bush used in his State of the Union address, and the Bush White House outed Wilson's wife for that display of alpha-male behavior. Tit for tat.

That it took nearly three months for the leak to become a big story is a story in itself. In July, when Wilson's commentary ran, followed by Robert Novak's column containing the information about Wilson's wife and her alleged help in getting her husband employment, Bush still seemed ready to cakewalk into a second term.

But the facade of great competence at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue was already beginning to crack. Where was Saddam Hussein? Where was Osama bin Laden? Where were the weapons of mass destruction? Where were the jobs lost in America?

In the three months since Novak's leak-inspired column, the news that six journalists in all had been fed the leak leaked. And the Democratic primary contest became more serious. Gen. Wesley Clark's late entry into the field underscored the change: A political race is too serious to be left to civilians.

The Bush administration has made a much better show of being civil to women than the new governor-elect of California, but Bush sets the overall tone: The White House is a very guy place. It is his most attractive attribute. Bush looks good in a flight suit. His national security adviser Condi Rice is single, which allows her to run with the boys. Karen Hughes, once part of the inner circle, had to return to her family in Texas.

The claim that Wilson needed his wife's help to be taken seriously is the sort of off-handed insult that the guy-world produces. The leaker most likely was being no more malicious than that: He was putting Wilson down, not putting out a contract on his wife.

But in 2003, wives do work for the CIA -- and even for the Bush administration, though some of the president's men chose to forget it or overlook it.

Bush's continuing decline in the polls has given previously timid Democrats permission to lash out, and they have.

The president has come a long way in a short time from last May's flight deck celebration aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln. Cracks are multiplying and new weeds are sprouting. Political life has become more serious all around.

I suspect that when Wilson was sent on his trip February 2002, there was skepticism about the likelihood, seriousness or importance of the British report that Iraq was pursuing purchasing uranium from Africa in 2001 (http://abcnews.go.com/sections/world/US/uranium030714_timeline.html).

I suspect, based on reports, that Wilson was selected and briefed by a small group of CIA officials. I suspect, based on reports, that Plame worked alongside Wilson's CIA "handlers" for the trip and therefore that Foley's office was involved in Wilson's selection, briefing, and de-briefing. I suspect that the skepticism by those involved at the CIA with sending Wilson led to a minimal and poor investigation by Wilson, the unacceptable requirement for an oral de-brief, minimal if any reporting of the trip/report up the chain of the command, and the questionable financial arrangement of a CIA "expenses paid" trip.

I suspect that the WMD proliferation community was divided, as reflected in the CIA Jan-Jun 2002 report (http://www.cia.gov/cia/reports/721_reports/jan_jun2002.html#4). I suspect that a division among analysts, among operatives, and between analysts and operatives probably is not that unusual. I suspect that a war over the interpretation of intelligence between CIA, State and Pentagon intelligence officials is also probably not that unusual - and the added fact that the interpretation would be the basis for attacking Iraq may have increased passions starting late in 2002. I suspect that the proscribed aluminum tubes which violated UN sanctions but divided the CIA and nuclear experts about their use for conventional weapons or uranium enrichment centrifuges late in 2002, with the dissenting view publicly led by David Albright (http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/LEO306D.html), deepened the divisions, heightened suspicions, and raised personal stakes as sides were chosen.

I suspect as the war rhetoric picked up and the Bush administration emphasized the official "consensus" opinion, without equally publicizing the "minority" dissenting view, administration (CIA and State Department?) leaks of the dissenting view began showing up more frequently in the press.

Some were critical: http://www.usatoday.com/usatonline/20020917/4453830s.htm

Some articles represented a free-for-all of anonymous analytical thought in the public forum: http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A42876-2002Dec11&notFound=true

Wilson is on the record as early as October 01, 2002, (http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:5h2Jt1xkTHUJ:www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,64731,00.html) saying Saddam has biological and chemical weapons, and "He doesn't have nuclear weapons, to the best of anybody's knowledge, even though he has an aggressive program to try and get them." He is also on record at that time (http://www.mepc.org/public_asp/forums_chcs/30.asp) providing a balanced, reasoned, even prescient discussion of our options in Iraq and potential outcomes. He continued to publicly interview on the networks, PBS (Now with Moyers) and wrote editorials leading up to and through the war. He promoted military action without ground forces to force disarmament. He does not seem to change his position on WMD in Iraq or use of military force during this time.

By June 2003, there was a very public "war" being played out between "doves" that had previously wanted the illegal no-fly zones and sanctions lifted, "hawks" that had wanted to maintain the low intensity conflict of containment seeing victory in renewed inspections (Wilson and Scowcroft among this group), and "ultra-hawks" that had wanted to finish the war put on hold in 1991 (http://www.counterpunch.org/jensen0830.html). Some of this debate over ideology and who was right about pre-war conditions Iraq and developing post-war conditions came from within the CIA and State Department with some analysts pointing fingers at the White House.

On June 12, 2003, the Washington Post reported Wilson's trip but did not name him (http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A46957-2003Jun11&notFound=true). The story quotes "senior administration officials and a former government official" as the source for the trip with commentary from a "senior intelligence official", "a senior CIA analyst", and "knowledgeable sources".

I suspect the following excerpt from the article represents the division and frustration among some in the intelligence community:

A senior intelligence official said the CIA's action was the result of "extremely sloppy" handling of a central piece of evidence in the administration's case against then-Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. But, the official added, "It is only one fact and not the reason we went to war. There was a lot more."

However, a senior CIA analyst said the case "is indicative of larger problems" involving the handling of intelligence about Iraq's alleged chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs and its links to al Qaeda, which the administration cited as justification for war. "Information not consistent with the administration agenda was discarded and information that was [consistent] was not seriously scrutinized," the analyst said.

As the controversy over Iraq intelligence has expanded with the failure so far of U.S. teams in Iraq to uncover proscribed weapons, intelligence officials have accused senior administration policymakers of pressuring the CIA or exaggerating intelligence information to make the case for war. The story involving the CIA's uranium-purchase probe, however, suggests that the agency also was shaping intelligence on Iraq to meet the administration's policy goals.

I'd like to know what role Foley, or CIA agents in his office, played in leaking information for this article. I find it suspicious that at the same time, June 14, 2003, Wilson's rhetoric changes to become more vitriolic and he puts himself in the center of the firestorm with fiery addresses such as this one: http://www.oscarjr.us/archives/000269.html.

The breadth and starkness of the statements above are striking. I would be very worried if this was true, but it is contradicted weeks later by Richard Kerr's preliminary report. Despite Richard Kerr finding on July 2, 2003, that the intelligence community did a good job (http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/6222067.htm) on Iraq leading up to the war and that the Bush administration did not pressure or alter intelligence analysis, the debate raged on whether the administration lied or exaggerated the intelligence they were given.

On July 6, 2003, Wilson named himself (http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0706-02.htm) and questioned the accuracy of the uranium from Africa claim in the British whitepaper and SOTU writing, "I have little choice but to conclude that some of the intelligence related to Iraq's nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat." Wilson made himself, via his trip to Niger, a vocal, public, political, and persistent figurehead in the debate.

I suspect there were communications between Foley's office and Wilson leading up to the June Washington Post story and Wilson's July New York Times column. I suspect there were communications within the CIA to determine who leaked details of Wilson's trip and ties to the Vice President. I suspect there were communications between the White House and CIA to determine the accuracy of the Washington Post article and Wilson's New York Times column.

I suspect as Wilson gained public attention there were questions being asked by "senior administration" officials in the CIA and White House about this trip. I suspect there were questions why Wilson was chosen, and whether there were other, more preferable candidates with more recent contacts and who were more qualified in WMD proliferation/investigation. I suspect they were told (or reminded?) that Wilson's wife of 5 years worked in the office that selected him and debriefed him. I know that it has been public domain information for several years that Wilson "is married to the former Valerie Plame and has two sons and two daughters." (http://www.mideasti.org/html/bio-wilson.html) It appears that it was not uncommon knowledge that Valerie Plame worked at the CIA. The question remains whether there was a knowledgeable leak of an undercover CIA agent's identity, and if there was, what was the motivation.

I find the timing of Wilson's increasingly vitriolic language with the leaks about his trip from the CIA suspicious. I want to know if the "leak" to Novak was the result of political retribution, or an answer to Novak's query why Wilson was sent to Niger based on information from the CIA. I am suspicious because of Wilson's reasoned analysis and position up to June 2003 changed to a sudden predilection to get politically carried away, calling neocons assholes before his wife was named by Novak and later and expressing an interest in seeing Rove frogmarched (http://www.house.gov/inslee/meetings.htm) from the White House after his wife was named. I am also suspicious based on the fact that Wilson has since said that he doesn't believe Bush was involved at all and has no evidence that Rove was involved.

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