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Facts on leak scandal turned upside down by Sarah
Littman
published July 26, 2005
It's official. The GOP has gone "Through the Looking Glass."
I was flicking through the cable news channels to see what the pundits were
saying about presidential adviser Karl Rove's involvement in the leaking of
covert CIA operative Valerie Plame's name to the media. You'll recall that this
was in retaliation for her husband, Joseph Wilson's, July 6, 2003, opinion piece
in The New York Times. In it, he disputed President Bush's January 2003 State of
the Union Address claim that Iraq was seeking uranium from the African nation of
Niger for a nuclear weapons program.
One has to wonder what U.S. Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., was smoking when he was
asked if Rove should be fired. He replied, "No, in fact, I think Karl Rove
should get a medal."
He justified this astonishing idea by saying that Joe Wilson was a liar and that
Rove was merely "trying to set the record straight for historical purposes and
to save American lives." King went on to say: "People like Tim Russert
... who
gave [Wilson] such a free ride, they're the ones who should be shot."
Yes, it's "Through the Looking Glass" time for this guy, and all the other GOP
operatives who were spouting the same nonsense practically verbatim in such a
Stepford wife manner that one had to wonder if the whole campaign had been
orchestrated by none other than the master of spin himself, Karl Rove.
I'm still trying to work out how the disclosure of the name of a covert CIA
agent can be construed as "saving American lives." This wasn't the view taken by
11 former intelligence officers, who in a three-page statement to congressional
leaders said the leaking of Plame's covert identity may have damaged national
security and the government's ability to gather intelligence.
A talking-points memo circulated by the Republican National Committee suggests
that officials take the tack that Plame was merely a desk jockey at Langley, was
not working undercover and therefore doesn't merit protection. However, a June
2003 memo written by an analyst in the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence
and Research clearly marked as "secret" the paragraph identifying Plame as the
wife of former ambassador Wilson. The CIA classifies the identities of officers
with covert status as "secret," according to former senior agency officials.
Thus, any Bush administration official who read the memo would have been aware
that this information was classified.
When I first wrote about this affair in February 2004, I told friends I was
convinced "Plamegate" would end up being the Bush administration's Watergate, or
even Waterloo. I thought it would lose Bush the election. Last summer, I
couldn't understand why no attention was being paid to this critical breach of
national security. I still believe that by the time Special Prosecutor Patrick
Fitzgerald finishes his investigation, the underhand, sleazy tactics of this
administration, headed by a president who appears to care more about protecting
his henchmen than our national security, will be revealed.
Whatever happened to, "If there is a leak in my administration, I want to know
who it is. And if the person has violated the law, the person will be taken care
of"? Mr. President, when you said "taken care of," I thought you meant fired,
prosecuted for treason and other suitable punishments for someone who leaked the
name of a covert operative for political revenge. I didn't think you meant
"taken care of" as in shielded from prosecution because he happens to be your
deputy chief of staff and chief political strategist/dirty trickster.
"Intelligence officers should not be used as political footballs," the former
officers wrote. "In the case of Valerie Plame, she still works for the CIA and
is not in a position to publicly defend her reputation and honor."
My feelings are best summed up by the president's father, George H.W. Bush, who
in April 1999 said: "The men and women of the CIA ... exemplified the best about
public service ... ever vigilant, always looking out for the nation's best
interests, but rarely getting the credit (they) deserve ... there out of love of
country... I have nothing but contempt and anger for those who betray the trust
by exposing the name of our sources. They are, in my view, the most insidious of
traitors."
Rep. Peter King and his Republican National Committee-programmed colleagues can
rant all they like about how Tim Russert, et al., should be shot. But the
insidious traitor here is Rove, and I would venture we'll soon find other
members of the Bush administration are too. Let King put that in his pipe and
smoke it.
Sarah Littman, who lives in Greenwich, is author of "Confessions of a Closet
Catholic," published by Dutton Children's Books.
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