FOCUS | A CIA Cover Blown, a White House Exposed

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FOCUS | A CIA Cover Blown, a White House Exposed

Thu, 25 Aug 2005 11:36:50 -0700

 

 

 

FOCUS | A CIA Cover Blown, a White House Exposed

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/082505Y.shtml

 

 

A CIA Cover Blown, a White House Exposed

By Tom Hamburger and Sonni Efron

Los Angeles Times

 

Thursday 25 August 2005

 

Washington - Toward the end of a steamy summer week in 2003,

reporters were peppering the White House with phone calls and e-mails,

looking for someone to defend the administration's claims about

weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.

 

About to emerge as a key critic was Joseph C. Wilson IV, a former

diplomat who asserted that the administration had manipulated

intelligence to justify the Iraq invasion.

 

At the White House, there wasn't much interest in responding to

critics like Wilson that Fourth of July weekend. The communications

staff faced more pressing concerns - the president's imminent trip to

Africa, growing questions about the war and declining ratings in

public opinion polls.

 

Wilson's accusations were based on an investigation he undertook

for the CIA. But he was seen inside the White House as a " showboater "

whose stature didn't warrant a high-level administration response.

" Let him spout off solo on a holiday weekend, " one White House

official recalled saying. " Few will listen. "

 

In fact, millions were riveted that Sunday as Wilson - on NBC's

" Meet the Press " and in the pages of the New York Times and the

Washington Post - accused the administration of ignoring intelligence

that didn't support its rationale for war.

 

Underestimating the impact of Wilson's allegations was one in a

series of misjudgments by White House officials.

 

In the days that followed, they would cast doubt on Wilson's CIA

mission to Africa by suggesting to reporters that his wife was

responsible for his trip. In the process, her identity as a covert CIA

agent was divulged - possibly illegally.

 

For the last 20 months, a tough-minded special prosecutor, Patrick

J. Fitzgerald, has been looking into how the media learned that

Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, was a CIA operative.

 

Top administration officials, along with several influential

journalists, have been questioned by prosecutors.

 

Beyond the whodunit, the affair raises questions about the

credibility of the Bush White House, the tactics it employs against

political opponents and the justification it used for going to war.

 

What motivated President Bush's political strategist, Karl Rove;

Vice President Cheney's top aide, I. Lewis " Scooter " Libby; and others

to counter Wilson so aggressively? How did their roles remain secret

until after the president was reelected? Have they fully cooperated

with the investigation?

 

The answers remain elusive. As Fitzgerald's team has moved ahead,

few witnesses have been willing to speak publicly. White House

officials declined to comment for this article, citing the ongoing

inquiry.

 

But a close examination of events inside the White House two

summers ago, and interviews with administration officials, offer new

insights into the White House response, the people who shaped it, the

deep disdain Cheney and other administration officials felt for the

CIA, and the far-reaching consequences of the effort to manage the crisis.

 

July 6, 2003

 

Ten weeks after Bush landed aboard an aircraft carrier in front of

a banner that proclaimed " Mission Accomplished " in Iraq, Wilson

created his own media moment by questioning one of the central reasons

for going to war.

 

He told how he was dispatched by the CIA in February 2002 to

investigate the claim that Iraq had sought large quantities of uranium

from the African nation of Niger. Wilson told " Meet the Press " that he

and others had " effectively debunked " the claim - only to see it show

up nearly a year later in the president's State of the Union speech.

 

Wilson appeared to be an eyewitness to administration dishonesty

in the march to war.

 

The State of the Union speech had been a pillar of the

administration's case for war, and Wilson was raising questions about

one of its key elements: the claim that Iraq was a nuclear threat.

 

At the time of Wilson's disclosure, US and United Nations

officials had yet to turn up evidence of biological, chemical or

nuclear weapons. A ragtag Iraqi insurgency had begun to strike back.

 

In public, the White House was predicting that weapons of mass

destruction would be found. But behind the scenes, officials were

worried about the failure to find those weapons and the possibility

that the CIA would blame the White House for prewar intelligence failures.

 

Wilson seemed a credible critic: His diplomatic leadership as

charge d'affaires in the US Embassy in Iraq just before the 1991

bombing of Baghdad had earned him letters of praise from President

George H.W. Bush.

 

That made him dangerous to the administration.

 

July 7, 2003

 

Within 24 hours, the White House reversed its view of the damage

Wilson could do. He began to receive the attention of Rove, a man with

a reputation for discrediting critics and disciplining political

enemies, and of Libby, a longtime Cheney advisor and CIA critic.

 

There were grounds to challenge the former diplomat on the

substance of his uranium findings: Wilson had no special training for

that kind of mission; his conclusions about Niger were not definitive

and were based on a few days of informal interviews; and they differed

from the conclusions of British intelligence.

 

But it appears Rove was more focused on Wilson's background,

politics and claims he ostensibly had made that his mission was

initiated at the request of the vice president.

 

Rove mentioned to reporters that Wilson's wife had suggested or

arranged the trip. The idea apparently was to undermine its import by

suggesting that the mission was really " a boondoggle set up by his

wife, " as an administration official described the trip to a reporter,

according to an account in the Washington Post.

 

This approach depended largely on a falsehood: that Wilson had

claimed Cheney sent him to Niger. Wilson never made such a claim.

 

Libby reportedly told prosecutors that he did not know Plame's

identity until a journalist told him. His lawyer did not return calls

for comment.

 

Rove's lawyer has said his client did not know Plame's name or her

undercover status when he first talked with reporters after Wilson's

public statements.

 

" The one thing that's absolutely clear is that Karl was not the

source for the leak and there's no basis for any additional

speculation, " attorney Robert Luskin said, adding that he was told

Rove was not a target of the inquiry.

 

A Rove ally has said it was necessary for Rove to counter Wilson's

exaggerated claims about the import of his mission.

 

However, some of Rove's colleagues say that he and others used

poor judgment in talking about Wilson's wife.

 

" With the benefit of hindsight, it's clear our focus should have

been on Wilson's facts, not his conclusions or his wife or his

politics, " said one official who was helping with White House strategy

at the time.

 

In one White House conversation, investigators have learned, Rove

was asked why he was focused so intently on discrediting the former

diplomat.

 

" He's a Democrat, " Rove said, citing Wilson's campaign

contributions. By that time, Wilson had begun advising Sen. John F.

Kerry's presidential campaign.

 

Wilson's Mission

 

Joe Wilson's mission was launched in early 2002, after the Italian

government came into possession of documents - later believed to have

been forged - suggesting Iraq was trying to buy yellowcake uranium

from Niger.

 

Cheney had been briefed about this, a Senate Intelligence

Committee report said, and had asked for more information.

 

At CIA headquarters, agency officials cast about for ways to

respond to the vice president's interest. An official recommended

sending Wilson to Niger because of his experience there, including a

previous mission for the CIA.

 

What role Plame played in securing the mission for her husband has

become a noisy sideshow to the substantive questions his trip raised

about prewar intelligence. It is not clear why Plame's role would have

been relevant to Wilson's uranium findings. But it was very important

in the campaign to discredit him.

 

Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper wrote that when he first

asked Rove about Wilson on July 11, the presidential advisor told him

Wilson's wife was " responsible " for her husband's trip.

 

Plame was then working in Washington under " nonofficial cover, "

meaning she posed as a non-government employee. A review of official

documents shows that she had mentioned her husband as a possible

investigator, emphasizing his familiarity with Niger and later writing

a note to the chief of the CIA's counter-proliferation division.

 

" My husband has good relations with both the PM [prime minister]

and the former Minister of Mines (not to mention lots of French

contacts), both of whom could possibly shed light on this sort of

activity, " she wrote. Wilson says his wife wrote that note at the

request of her boss after he was suggested by others. There are

contradictory accounts of Plame's role, but CIA officials have said

she was not responsible for sending Wilson.

 

Wilson was not an intelligence officer or investigator, but his

resume suggested he was a logical candidate. He had served as

ambassador to Gabon and in US embassies in Congo and Burundi; he had

experience with the trade of strategic minerals; and he was senior

director for Africa on the National Security Council in the Clinton

administration.

 

On his trip, he interviewed Niger officials and citizens and

talked with French mine managers. He also spoke with the US ambassador

to Niger, Barbro Owens-Kirkpatrick, who recently had examined the Iraq

uranium claim herself - as had a four-star general, Carlton W. Fulford

Jr., deputy commander of the US European Command.

 

Like Fulford and the ambassador, Wilson said, he concluded that

there was little reason to believe Iraq had tried to purchase

yellowcake from Niger. He did learn, however, that Iraqi officials had

previously met with counterparts from Niger.

 

Back in the US, Wilson presented his report orally to CIA

officers. They wrote up his findings, gave him a middling " good "

rating for his performance and, on March 9, routinely sent a copy to

other agencies - including the White House - without marking it for

the attention of senior officials.

 

Wilson would write later that his trip led him to believe that the

administration had lied about the reasons for going to war. But in

reading his report, some analysts thought that evidence of previous

Iraqi visits to Niger was a sign of interest in that country's most

valuable export, uranium. Others thought Wilson's report put to rest a

dubious claim. The Senate Intelligence Committee and top CIA officials

said his report was inconclusive.

 

Cheney, Libby and the CIA

 

At the Pentagon and in Cheney's office, a profound skepticism of

the CIA produced what one State Department veteran termed an ongoing

" food fight " over prewar intelligence.

 

The atmosphere prevailed even though the CIA joined the White

House and Pentagon in concluding, incorrectly, that Iraqi President

Saddam Hussein was making progress developing weapons of mass destruction.

 

An ingrained antipathy toward the CIA may help explain the hostile

reaction to Wilson's public claim that he and others had debunked the

reported Iraqi interest in uranium from Niger.

 

That skepticism was validated for Cheney and Libby by more than a

decade of CIA blunders they had observed from their days at the Pentagon.

 

" It's part of the warp and woof and fabric of DOD not to like the

intelligence community, " said Larry Wilkerson, a 31-year military

veteran who was former Secretary of State Colin L. Powell's chief of

staff.

 

When Hussein invaded Kuwait in August 1990, Cheney was secretary

of Defense and Libby was a deputy to Paul D. Wolfowitz, then

undersecretary of Defense for policy.

 

After the 1991 Persian Gulf War, UN inspectors discovered that

Hussein had far greater capabilities in chemical, biological and

nuclear weapons than the CIA had estimated.

 

For Cheney and Libby, this experience shaped their skepticism

about the CIA and carried over to preparations for the war in Iraq,

said a person who spoke with Libby about it years later.

 

" Libby's basic view of the world is that the CIA has blown it over

and over again, " said the source, who declined to be identified

because he had spoken with Libby on a confidential basis. " Libby and

Cheney were [angry] that we had not been prepared for the potential in

the first Gulf War. "

 

In the view of these officials, who would go on to form George W.

Bush's war cabinet, the CIA had stumbled through the 1990s, starting

with the failure to predict the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991.

In 1995, Hussein's son-in-law defected and led UN inspectors to an

previously unknown biological weapons cache. In 1998, the agency

failed to anticipate a nuclear weapon test by India.

 

Later that year Rumsfeld - then a corporate chief executive who

served on defense-related boards and commissions - wrote what

Brookings Institution scholar Ivo H. Daalder called " one of the most

critical reports in the history of intelligence, " arguing that the

ability for enemies to strike the United States with ballistic

missiles had been grossly underestimated.

 

On the eve of the Iraq war, with Rumsfeld as Defense secretary,

these men were fighting yet another battle with the CIA, this time

over the credibility of Iraqi exile leader Ahmad Chalabi.

 

Rumsfeld, Libby and Wolfowitz were longtime supporters of Chalabi,

the Iraqi National Congress leader who was a key source of the

now-discredited intelligence that Hussein had hidden huge stockpiles

of weapons of mass destruction. The CIA viewed Chalabi as a " fake, "

said Daalder, a former Security Council staffer.

 

Rumsfeld's Pentagon established an independent intelligence

operation, the Office of Special Plans, which essentially provided the

Defense Department and White House with an alternative to CIA and

State Department intelligence. The competing operations would create

confusion in preparations for the invasion of Iraq.

 

When the disclosure of Wilson's CIA mission to Niger put the White

House on the defensive, one administration official said it reminded a

tight-knit group of Bush neoconservatives of their longtime battles

with the agency and underlined their determination to fight.

 

Many of those officials also were members of the White House Iraq

Group, established to coordinate and promote administration policy. It

included the most influential players who would represent two elements

of the current scandal: a hardball approach to political critics and

long-standing disdain for CIA views on intelligence matters.

 

The group consisted of Rove, Libby, White House Chief of Staff

Andrew H. Card Jr., then-national security advisor Condoleezza Rice

and her deputy, Stephen Hadley, and Mary Matalin, Cheney's media

advisor. All are believed to have been questioned in the leak case;

papers and e-mails about the group were subpoenaed.

 

Before the war, this Iraq group promoted the view that Hussein had

weapons of mass destruction and was seeking more. In September 2002,

the White House embraced a British report asserting that " Iraq has

sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. "

 

But the CIA was skeptical. When White House speechwriters showed

the CIA a draft of a presidential speech in October that made

reference to Iraqi uranium acquisition, then-CIA Director George J.

Tenet asked that the reference be removed. The White House pulled it.

 

While Tenet expressed skepticism, the national intelligence

estimate he ordered up to assess Iraq's weapons programs before the

war seemed to embrace a different view - perhaps because of a mistake

in assembling the document.

 

The national intelligence estimate on " Iraq's Continuing Programs

for Weapons of Mass Destruction, " released in October 2002, was meant

to reflect a consensus of the nation's intelligence-gathering

agencies. It included the consensus view that Iraq sought weapons of

mass destruction and a description of Britain's account of the Niger deal.

 

The British information went unchallenged in that chapter of the

intelligence estimate. But the State Department's intelligence arm,

the Bureau of Intelligence and Research, disagreed with much of the

nuclear section of the estimate and decided to convey its views in

text boxes to highlight the dissent.

 

However, the text box on the African uranium claim was

" inadvertently separated " and moved into another chapter of the

intelligence estimate, where it could be overlooked, the Senate

Intelligence Committee said.

 

A couple of months later, a White House speechwriter consulted the

estimate while preparing the State of the Union speech, according to

one source familiar with the process.

 

The Speech

 

As the Jan. 28, 2003, speech - and the invasion of Iraq - drew

near, CIA officials decided the uranium allegation was " overblown " and

not backed by US intelligence; they notified the White House. But the

decision was made to leave it in the address, attributed to the British.

 

Wilson was at a Canadian television network's Washington studio

that night, providing commentary on the speech and preparations for

war. He remembers being puzzled on hearing the now-famous 16 words:

" The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently

sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa. "

 

At first, Wilson thought, " Either they are wrong, or I'm wrong and

there is some additional evidence I don't know about from some other

country in Africa. "

 

When he learned later that the speech was based on the claims

about Niger, his puzzlement turned to resolve to make the government

correct the record. " The allegation was false but the US went to war

anyway after President Bush first deceived the nation and the world, "

he would later write in a book.

 

In coming months, he would talk to reporters and others to get the

word out about his mission to Niger.

 

Powell at the UN

 

Two weeks later, on Feb. 5, Powell appeared before the UN and made

the case for war. Although his much-anticipated speech was tough, he

did not mention the British intelligence on African uranium. He did

say, generally, that Iraq had sought weapons of mass destruction.

 

The original outline of the speech, given to Powell by Libby, had

been much stronger.

 

The competing intelligence estimates created a nightmare for

Powell's top aide, Wilkerson. His job was to make sure Powell got his

facts right.

 

A week before the speech, Powell had walked into Wilkerson's

office with the 48-page document provided by Libby that laid out the

intelligence on the Iraqi weapons program.

 

Most of it was rejected because its facts could not be verified.

Wilkerson believes that draft was based at least in part on data

provided to Cheney by Rumsfeld's intelligence group.

 

" Where else did they get this 48-page document that came

jam-packed with information that probably came first from the [iraqi

National Congress], Chalabi and other lousy sources? " Wilkerson asked.

 

To sort out the conflicting intelligence, Wilkerson convened a

three-day meeting at CIA headquarters. Its rotating cast included the

administration's major foreign policy players: Libby, Hadley, Powell,

Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage, Tenet, Deputy CIA John E. McLaughlin and Rice.

 

Wilkerson was told that Libby had said the 48-page document was

designed to offer Powell " a Chinese menu " of intelligence highlights

to draw from for his speech. Powell and his team were skeptical of

most of it. Rice, Tenet and Hadley were trying to reinsert bits of

intelligence they personally favored but that could not be

corroborated. Hadley offered an unsubstantiated report of alleged

meetings between Sept. 11 hijacker Mohamed Atta and an Iraqi

intelligence officer in Prague shortly before the attacks.

 

" The whole time, people were trying to reinsert their favorite .

pet rocks back into the presentation, when their pet rocks weren't

backed up by anything but hearsay, or Chalabi or the INC or both, "

Wilkerson said.

 

In the end, Powell agreed with Tenet to rely mainly on the

national intelligence estimate on Iraq, which had been vetted by the

CIA. Wilkerson came to believe that the Pentagon officials, and their

allies in the White House, doubted what the intelligence community

said because " it didn't fit their script " for going to war.

 

The day of Powell's speech, US officials provided the UN's nuclear

watchdog arm, the International Atomic Energy Agency, with documents

supporting the assertion that Iraq had tried to acquire uranium ore

from Niger. Within weeks, the agency determined the documents were

clumsy fakes. The episode has never been explained.

 

" It was very clear from our analysis that they were forgeries, "

Melissa Fleming, a spokeswoman for the atomic energy agency, said in

an interview. " We found 20 to 30 anomalies within a day. "

 

But the British have stood by their claim that Hussein sought

uranium from an unnamed African country as late as 2002.

 

Two weeks after the atomic energy agency report, Bush issued a

statement saying Iraq continued " to possess and conceal some of the

most lethal weapons ever devised. "

 

Two days after that, on March 20, he sent troops into Iraq.

 

Wilson Goes Public

 

At first, Wilson worked behind the scenes to press his case.

 

He says he spoke to Walter Pincus of the Washington Post and to

New York Times columnist Nicholas D. Kristof on a not-for-attribution

basis, telling both about his mission and questioning why the

administration would continue to cite the Niger connection.

 

As news reports proliferated about the CIA fact-finding trip to

Niger, more people in the administration became familiar with Wilson

as the unnamed source for these accounts.

 

By summer 2003, the stories were creating a problem for a White

House trying to cope with the failure to find weapons of mass

destruction. Bush's poll ratings were beginning to take a hit. The

Republican nominating convention was a year away, and the basis for

the president's principal first-term act - going to war - was being

undermined.

 

After a June 12 Washington Post story made reference to the Niger

uranium inquiry, Armitage asked intelligence officers in the State

Department for more information. He was forwarded a copy of a memo

classified " Secret " that included a description of Wilson's trip for

the CIA, his findings, a brief description of the origin of the trip

and a reference to " Wilson's wife. "

 

The memo was kept in a safe at the State Department along with

notes from an analyst who attended the CIA meeting at which Wilson was

suggested for the Niger assignment. Those with top security clearance

at State, like their counterparts in the White House, had been trained

in the rules about classified information. They could not be shared

with anyone who did not have the same clearance.

 

Less than a month later, Wilson went public with his charges.

 

The next day, July 7, this memo and the notes were removed from

the safe and forwarded to Powell via a secure fax line to Air Force

One. Powell was on the way to Africa with the president, and his aides

knew the secretary would be getting questions.

 

Fitzgerald has become interested in this memo, the earliest known

document seen by administration officials revealing that Wilson's wife

worked for the CIA. Powell told prosecutors that he circulated the

memo among those traveling with him in the front section of Air Force

One. It is believed that all officials in that part of the aircraft

had high-level security clearance.

 

At first, White House personnel responding to Wilson's New York

Times op-ed article July 6 made no reference to Wilson's wife.

Then-Press Secretary Ari Fleischer told reporters the next day that

the former diplomat's article contained nothing new - " zero, nada,

nothing " - and that the vice president knew nothing about Wilson's

trip to Africa. But Fleischer acknowledged that the president's State

of the Union statement on African uranium may have relied on bad

information.

 

That evening, as Air Force One streaked toward Africa, officials

decided that to defuse the pressure, they would issue a formal

acknowledgment to selected journalists that, as the New York Times

reported the next morning, the White House " no longer stood behind Mr.

Bush's statement about the uranium - the first such official

concession on the sensitive issue of the intelligence that led to the

war. "

 

But that only fueled interest in Wilson's charges and the broader

concern about the reliability of pre-war intelligence. Soon, however,

the public's attention would turn away from Wilson's charges and

toward him and his wife.

 

Enter Bob Novak

 

Early that week, someone in the administration told syndicated

newspaper columnist Robert Novak that Wilson's CIA operative wife had

instigated his trip to Niger. " I didn't dig it out; it was given to

me, " Novak said later about the leak. " They thought it was significant. "

 

On July 9, according to a source close to Rove, Novak told Rove

what he had heard.

 

" I heard that too, " or words to that effect, Rove replied,

according to the source. Rove said Novak told him Plame's name, the

first time Rove had heard it, the person said.

 

The Blame Game

 

The delegation to Africa was distracted daily by reporters

pressing Bush for his reply to Wilson's allegations and the mistake in

the State of the Union address.

 

On July 11, the traveling White House launched a coordinated

effort to end the controversy.

 

First, Rice told Tenet that she and the president planned to tell

the media that Bush's speech " was cleared by intelligence services, "

as the president said that day in Uganda.

 

Hours later, Tenet - traveling in Idaho - released his own

statement that at first appeared helpful to the White House. It took

responsibility for allowing the uranium claim into the State of the Union.

 

" This did not rise to the level of certainty which should be

required for presidential speeches, and CIA should have ensured that

it was removed, " Tenet said. He also described Wilson's trip as

inconclusive, and said it was authorized by lower-level CIA officials

and was never flagged for review by top officials.

 

But Tenet added that the CIA had earlier provided cautions about

using the Niger evidence to conclude Iraq had obtained uranium. In

effect, he was pointing a finger at the White House for failing to

heed previous warnings.

 

" We're screwed, " said one White House official, reading the

statement on his Blackberry. Blame-shifting intensified amid media

speculation about how the words got into the speech.

 

That same day, Rove took the call from Time's Cooper and, in

response to a question, told him that Wilson's wife was in the CIA and

was responsible for her husband's mission. Cooper says that Rove did

not use her name.

 

Afterward, Rove e-mailed Hadley to tell him he had the

conversation and had " waved Cooper off " Wilson's Niger claims.

 

The next day, a Saturday, Libby, responding to a question, told

Cooper that he had heard the same thing about Plame. Another official,

whose identity is not publicly known, mentioned Wilson's wife in

passing to Pincus, telling him that she had arranged the trip.

 

The message: Contrary to the image the White House said Wilson

promoted, he was not a well-qualified analyst who was sent to Niger by

the vice president. He went to Niger on a boondoggle arranged by his wife.

 

On Monday, July 14, Wilson was at his breakfast table in

Georgetown when he saw Novak's column, which said in part: " Wilson

never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency

operative on weapons of mass destruction. Two senior administration

officials told me Wilson's wife suggested sending him to Niger to

investigate the Italian report. The CIA says its counter-proliferation

officials selected Wilson and asked his wife to contact him. "

 

Wilson later recalled that Plame suppressed her anger by compiling

a list of the things she had to do to protect information and two

decades' worth of contacts overseas. An entire career, she told her

husband, had gone down the tubes, " and for no purpose. "

 

Wilson says there was a purpose: to smear him, intimidate critics

and distract the public from charges that prewar intelligence had been

manipulated.

 

Novak's disclosure touched off a flood of questions about prewar

intelligence, the State of the Union speech and the release of Plame's

identity. The following week, Bush spokesman Scott McClellan denied

any White House role in leaking Plame's name. " I'm telling you,

flatly, that that is not the way this White House operates. "

 

Later, he qualified the statement to deny any role in " illegally "

leaking information. Months later, Bush said " yes " when asked whether

he would fire whoever was responsible for the leak. He would also

qualify this later to say he would take such action " if someone

committed a crime. "

 

But on July 21, according to Wilson, NBC's Chris Matthews said

that Rove had told him Plame was " fair game. " McClellan later called

suggestions of Rove's involvement " ridiculous. "

 

On July 30, the CIA notified the Justice Department that federal

law might have been breached with the disclosure of Plame's identity.

By the end of December 2003, Atty. Gen. John Ashcroft, a former client

of Rove's, recused himself from the matter; the department named

Fitzgerald, US attorney for Chicago, as a special prosecutor.

 

Those who knew Fitzgerald predicted he would charge hard and range

far. Nonetheless, his investigative sweep startled the White House. He

asked immediately for White House telephone logs, call sheets,

attendance lists for meetings of the Iraq group, party invitation

lists and even phone logs from Air Force One.

 

Fitzgerald also asked for something unusual: a generic waiver of

confidentiality agreements from all White House employees for the

journalists with whom they spoke during the period in dispute.

 

When most reporters made it clear that the generic waiver was

unacceptable because it was viewed as coercive, the prosecutor worked

with individual sources, reporters and their lawyers to get their

testimony.

 

Pincus testified after being assured that he would not have to

name his source, even though Fitzgerald knew who it was. Washington

Post reporter Glenn Kessler and NBC's Tim Russert also testified after

getting assurances from Libby.

 

After reading about their testimony, Cooper approached Libby about

a waiver for himself.

 

Without a personal waiver, Cooper and his editors believed they

could not reveal the source - which meant that the news organization

would join the New York Times in a losing court battle.

 

Cooper did not ask Rove for a waiver, in part because his lawyer

advised against it. In addition, Time editors were concerned about

becoming part of such an explosive story in an election year.

 

Rove's attorney, meantime, took the view that contacting Cooper

would have amounted to interfering with the ongoing court battle

between reporter and prosecutor.

 

Although Fitzgerald said Cooper's testimony was necessary to

conclude his investigation, he did not ask Rove to give the reporter a

waiver, according to Rove's attorney, Luskin.

 

The result was that Cooper's testimony was delayed nearly a year,

well after Bush's reelection. " The reason this resolution was delayed

had nothing to do with anything Karl [Rove] did or failed to do, " he said.

 

Rove granted the waiver this summer after Cooper's attorney called

Luskin hours before Cooper was to be sent to jail; the reporter

testified on July 13. Reporter Judith Miller of the New York Times,

meanwhile, was jailed for refusing to testify.

 

Cooper wrote afterward that he told the jury he had called Rove in

July 2003 and that, in response to his query about Wilson and his

claims, Rove informed him that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA and

" she was responsible for sending Wilson. "

 

Individuals close to the case say that Fitzgerald is likely to

wrap up his inquiry this fall.

 

Chronology

 

Events surrounding the White House's role in the leak of Valerie

Plame's identity as a CIA agent:

 

2002

 

February: Vice President Dick Cheney asks whether Iraq sought

uranium from Niger.

 

Feb. 12: The CIA sends Joseph Wilson to Niger.

 

March 9: Wilson says he finds little evidence for such claims,

but notes a prior visit to Niger by Iraqi officials.

 

Aug. 26: Cheney says: " We now know that Saddam [Hussein] has

resumed his efforts to acquire nuclear weapons. "

 

Oct. 5-6: CIA Director George Tenet persuades the White House

to remove the uranium claim from a Bush speech.

 

2003

 

Jan. 28: President Bush's State of the Union cites a British

report that Iraq sought uranium.

 

March 7: A UN nuclear agency finds uranium documents are " not

authentic. "

 

March 20: The US invades Iraq.

 

July 6: Wilson goes public on his Niger trip and findings.

 

July 7-8: Administration sources tell columnist Robert Novak

about Wilson's CIA wife.

 

July 7: The White House admits to a mistake in citing the

uranium claim.

 

July 11: Karl Rove tells Time's Matthew Cooper that Wilson's

wife arranged the Niger trip.

 

July 14: A Novak column unmasks Valerie Plame.

 

July 30: The CIA asks the Justice Department to investigate

the leak of the agent's identity.

 

Sept. 16: The White House says suggesting Rove leaked her

identity is " ridiculous. "

 

Sept. 29: A White House spokesman says the leaker will be fired.

 

Sept. 30: Wilson endorses John Kerry for president.

 

Dec. 30: Patrick Fitzgerald is named special prosecutor.

 

2004

 

Jan. 23: Weapons inspector David Kay says there are no weapons

of mass destruction in Iraq.

 

July 10: A Senate panel faults prewar intelligence and calls

Wilson's report inconclusive.

 

Nov. 2: Bush is reelected.

 

2005

 

Feb. 15: A court orders journalists Judith Miller and Cooper

to cooperate with a grand jury.

 

July 6: Miller refuses to testify and is jailed; Cooper agrees

to testify after getting express permission from his source, Rove.

 

July 18: Bush says the leaker will be fired if a crime was

committed.

 

Sources: Times reporting, media reports, White House and Senate

documents.

 

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