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Jewish World Review Nov. 7, 2005 / 5 Mar-Cheshvan, 5766 Spy case a thriller only for partisan hypocrites By Jonathan Gurwitz
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Now that special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald has issued his indictment of Lewis "Scooter" Libby, it's instructive — as they say in the intelligence community — to walk back the cat.
The saga begins more than two years ago when former Ambassador Joseph Wilson mounted a public relations campaign against the Bush administration and its rationale to go to war in Iraq. Wilson also happened to be an adviser to presidential candidate John Kerry.
At issue was President Bush's claim, in his 2003 State of the Union address, that British intelligence uncovered evidence Saddam Hussein had tried to procure uranium from Africa. As it happened, the CIA had sent Wilson to investigate this claim in 2002.
In an op-ed piece in the New York Times on July 6, 2003, Wilson skewered Bush for the uranium claim. "Some of the intelligence related to Iraq's nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat," he wrote.
In fact, investigations by the Senate Select Intelligence Committee and Britain's Butler Commission in 2004 confirmed the intelligence assessments on which Bush made his claim. That includes Wilson's own report from 2002, which — contrary to his later statements in the service of the Kerry campaign — tended to support the existence of uranium dealings.
About the contradictions between his official report and his public attacks, three senators who served on the investigative committee issued a statement saying Wilson "either by design or through ignorance, gave the American people and, for that matter, the world a version of events that was inaccurate, unsubstantiated and misleading."
Enter Washington insider Robert Novak, who in his July 14, 2003, column wrote these words: "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."
The allegation that Plame proffered her husband for the Niger assignment is no longer in dispute. The only legal issue is whether members of the Bush administration violated the Intelligence Identities Protection Act or the Espionage Act in leaking Plame's role, thereby indirectly revealing her identity, which may or may not have merited protection for "non-official cover" as an analyst at Langley.
Now, for testimony about his conversations with journalists — but not with Novak — Libby, who was the vice president's chief of staff, stands accused of one count of obstruction of justice, two counts of perjury and two counts of making false statements.
About the gravity of this indictment, prosecutor Fitzgerald is correct. If witnesses knowingly make false statements to grand juries investigating crimes, the wheels of justice grind to a halt. Unlike the bad old days when Philip Agee endangered the lives of covert agents abroad by intentionally disclosing their identities, members of the intelligence community must know that the law will protect them when or if political functionaries do not.
Beyond that certitude, a great deal of erroneous and often hypocritical judgment surrounds the Plame case. The mainstream media demonstrated a herd mentality in joining partisan calls for a special prosecutor. Insider leaks are the lifeblood of political journalism.
It wasn't until two reporters faced jail time — and one went to jail for 85 days — for protecting their sources that publishers and editorial boards began to recognize the consequence of their cheerleading effort. They then turned New York Times reporter Judith Miller into a contemporary Joan of Arc, a journalistic heroine defending first principles of the Fourth Estate.
Now it's the press that's prepared to burn Miller at the stake.
For partisan purposes, liberals who don't care a whit for the CIA, its people, its front companies or its mission are now duplicitously arguing for an outrageously broad interpretation of statutes that protect its clandestine operations.
You might think you need night vision goggles and a GPS unit to navigate all the twists and turns in the Valerie Plame saga. In reality, you only need a politically oriented compass.
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JWR contributor Jonathan Gurwitz, a columnist for the San Antonio Express-News, is a co-founder and twice served as Director General of the Future Leaders of the Alliance program at NATO Headquarters in Brussels, Belgium. In 1986 he was placed on the Foreign Service Register of the U.S. State Department.Comment by clicking here.
© 2005, Jonathan Gurwitz |
Arnold Ahlert | |||||||||||
