hillnews.com/thehill/export/TheHill/Comment/ByronYork/071405.html
There's a lot we don't know yet about the CIA flap Please allow me to share with you some of the things I dont know. I dont know what Valerie Plames status with the CIA was in July 2003 wh en Robert Novak wrote his column mentioning that she was an agency oper ative and had recommended her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, for a fact-finding trip to Niger. I also dont know whats going on with The New York Times Judith Miller. Since top presidential adviser Karl Rove and top vice-presidential advise r Lewis Libby signed strongly worded waivers releasing all reporters fro m any pledges of confidentiality, why hasnt Miller testified? Does that mean her source was someone else who has not signed a confidentiality w aiver? I also dont know why Miller is involved in all this at all, since she ne ver wrote a story about it. Was she some sort of carrier, as is now be ing theorized, and actually helped spread word of Plames identity? For that matter, I dont know what Time magazines Matthew Cooper was doi ng either. Roves lawyer says Rove signed the waiver about a year and a half ago and has never changed it. Why was that waiver not acceptable to Cooper for 18 months and then, on the brink of going to jail, Cooper ag reed to testify? I dont know anything about the role the other journalists caught up in t he case Tim Russert, Walter Pincus and Glenn Kessler played. Apparen tly on the basis of waivers signed by sources, they all gave information to special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald. And of course I also dont know what is happening with Novak. Given Fitzg eralds aggressiveness in dealing with all figures in this case, Novak m ust have made some sort of accommodation. I also dont know why many in the press, most notably The New York Times, were once so enthusiastic about the Fitzgerald investigation. And then, why did the Times change its position and condemn Fitzgerald wh o, the paper said, cant even say whether a crime has been committed. Why would the Times say that, when it had once been so sure that a crime had been committed? For example, in his book, The Politics of Truth, he wrote, The assertion that Valerie had played any substantive role in the decision to ask me to go to Niger was false on the face of it.
and the former Minister of M ines (not to mention lots of French contacts), both of whom could possib ly shed light on this sort of activity. So why did Wilson say his wife played no substantive role in it? I also dont know why Wilsons defenders accuse the White House of smear ing him. Was it a smear to say that Wilson got the Niger assignment, at least in part, because his wife recommended him? And finally, I dont know about Karl Roves public statements on the case . Last year on CNN, he said of Plame, I didnt know her name and didnt leak her name. Even if he hadnt passed on Plames name just mention ed her as Wilsons wife why not just say nothing, especially since the whole thing is under criminal investigation? The bottom line is, some of the most critical facts in the whole Wilson/P lame/CIA matter are just not known, at least not known by anyone outside of the Fitzgerald investigation. At least we can be sure that we will someday know them, right? York is a White House correspondent for National Review.
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