I'm finding the entire Plame Wilson Novak Rove mess to be pretty much awful from start to finish. Nobody looks good in this, and I mean nobody as a person or institution -- except Tom Maguire, who's been all over this story since day one and is the only person, Ambassador Wilson included, who can keep track of all the different stories Joe Wilson has told and who he told them to. But back to the story,as I wrote back when this first broke:
Joe Wilson served our country ably and courageously during the Gulf War as acting ambassador to Iraq for which he got zero public notice; Valerie Plame served our country ably and courageously for years for which she got (understandably) zero public notice. What they are recognized for now has been on his part a willingness to criticize President Bush beyond any factual basis (the more strident the criticism, the greater the recognition); and on her part simple victimization. This is crazy. Talk about your perverse incentives.
The CIA looks bad for several reasons. First, they send somebody out on a super secret mission who's investigative technique is to talk to old friends, and since he apparently has done this sort of thing for them in the past and he is currently married to the person who recommended him they pretty much know this is what he will do. Now it isn't a bad technique in itself, but when he does report his findings, they are deemed inconclusive in part because: "We also had to consider that the former Nigerien officials knew that what they were saying would reach the U.S. government and that this might have influenced what they said." So what was the point of sending somebody to talk to former Nigerien officials if we weren't going to believe what they told to our investigator because they knew he was on a super secret mission from the US government?
Second, they seem to have real troubles with opsec. In addition to having had a string of former bosses caught with classified material in their possession when it shouldn't have been, you have somebody go on this mission and then blab all about it when he gets back. Ambassador Wilson filed a classified report, and then turn around and leaked it and eventually wrote not just an oped on the subject, but a book. No attempt was made to stop him (and please don't cite the first amendment - if he has a security clearance, he signed an agreement not to disclose classified info). Yeah, I know his defense would be that nothing he said afterward had any resemblence to what was in his report (or the truth) as he lied about everything, who sent him, why he was sent, what he reported, and who saw his report.
Third, they seem to be a little cavalier with the identities of their covert operatives. How the heck did Karl Rove find out about Valerie Plame?
There are two possibilities - one is that the CIA told the White House. I imagine when Joe Wilson's op ed hit the fan, the White House asked the CIA who the heck is this guy and what's he doing going on CIA missions. And they (meaning Tenet or whoever answers the phone when the White House calls) could have told them that he was married to a CIA analyst who got him the job - no name mentioned - which squares with Rove told Cooper. Of course, in the words of Joe Biden, it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out who Joe Wilson's wife is, especially since Ambassador Wilson included it in his web bio.
Now perhaps her identity as a covert operator was so well guarded that the person passing along this info from the CIA didn't know that under that mild mannered analyst cover was a covert operative. Which then raises the question, is it really a good idea to have covert operatives go to work as regular CIA employees? And there's another question - did the CIA impress upon the White House the need for secrecy in regards to Ms. Plame's identity?
I'll get to the other possibility in a moment because there are two loose ends. One is Novak himself. We know Rove was Cooper's source, but who was Novak's? I don't think it was Rove for several reasons - one is that Novak said the person wasn't a political operator, which Rove is; Novak seems to have already given up his source before Cooper was forced to, and if it were Rove, Cooper wouldn't have held out let alone have pressure applied; and Rove told Cooper she was an analyst, but Novak said operative - two very different things; and I think Rove denied being a source of the leak because he wasn't Novak's source and didn't think any one else (i.e. Cooper) would ever be forced to.
Now we come to the question, raised by Bryan Preston at Junkyard Blog, of why Judith Miller is still in jail. If Rove were her source, she could get out of jail. So I doubt he is. And if not Rove, than who? Well, Ms. Miller wrote a lot of articles about WMD before the war in Iraq. Where'd she get her info? Could some have come from CIA sources? Perhaps from a WMD analyst? Perhaps from a co-worker who outed Ms. Plame? Perhaps from Valerie Plame herself? I don't know, but it's interesting that Ms. Miller is going to the mat on protecting her source when apparently all others have been given up.
She has the key to unravel the whole mystery, and yet she chooses silence. I'm supposed to be happy that a journalist is refusing to tell what she knows? I'm supposed to be informed by her silence? That's the craziest part of this whole sordid mess.
