csua.org/u/dv3 -> realclearpolitics.com/Commentary/com-10_25_05_CKI.html
Print This Article October 26, 2005 The Untold Story: Joseph Wilson, Judith Miller and the CIA By Cliff Kincaid The savage left-wing attack on Judith Miller from inside and outside of the New York Times completely misses the point. She is under attack for being a lackey of the Bush Administration when she failed to do the ad ministration and the public a big favor. She could have done a potentia l Pulitzer Prize-winning story that could have broken the Joseph Wilson case wide open. It is a story exposing the Wilson mission to Africa as a CIA operation designed to undermine President Bush. For 85 days in jail, Miller protected her source, Lewis Libby, Vice Pres ident Dick Cheney's chief of staff, but the fact remains that she never used the explosive information Libby gave her. Now we know, according to Miller's account, that Libby told her about a CIA war with the Bush Administration over Iraq intelligence and that he vociferously complain ed to her about CIA leaks to the press. But Miller decided that what Li bby told her was not newsworthy. We were critical of Miller from the start because she went to jail rathe r than testify under oath and tell the truth before a grand jury. Event ually, she did testify, under questionable and mysterious circumstances . She claims she insisted that her testimony be restricted to her conve rsations with Libby. Clearly, Miller had a relationship with Libby as a source. But the media atta cks on Miller really show her critics do not regard Libby as a source w orth protecting. Libby, according to columnist Frank Rich, is a "neocon " who misled the nation to get us into the Iraq War. On the other hand, Wilson is supposed to be a hero and whistleblower. He came back from A frica, after investigating the Iraq-uranium link, and concluded that th e Bush Administration was lying. His wife, CIA employee Valerie Plame, had her identity revealed by conservative columnist Robert Novak becaus e Bush officials were upset that her husband had told the truth. But if Miller was too cozy with the White House, why didn't she rush int o print with Libby's version of events and use him as an anonymous sour ce? Miller couldn't even be counted on to do a story based on high-leve l information provided to her by the vice president's top aide. It was information that was not only true but explosive. Libby was letting Mil ler in on the real story of the Wilson affair--that the CIA was out to get the President, and that the agency was using Wilson to get Bush. The fact that she didn't write a story has been cited many times, suppos edly to prove that Miller should never have been called by Special Pros ecutor Patrick Fitzgerald before the grand jury. If she didn't write a story, we were told, she shouldn't have to be ordered to talk about her sources. Fitzgerald obviously believed the information she had about h er sources was relevant to the case. That's mighty strange behavior for a pawn of the administration. In my recent special report on this matter, former prosecutor Joseph diG enova called the Wilson mission a CIA "covert operation" against Bush. Like the Novak column, a Miller story about this matter could have rais ed questions about the purpose of the trip and who was behind it. But i f Miller had done such a story for the Times, the impact could have bee n enormous. After all, the Times was the chosen vessel for Wilson to wr ite his column claiming there was no Iraq uranium deal with Niger. Miller could have revealed that Wilson was recommended for the mission b y his own wife, a CIA employee. His wife's role was critically importan t because a truly undercover CIA operative would not recommend her husb and for an overseas trip and then expect to maintain her "secret" ident ity as he proceeded to write an article for the New York Times and beco me a public spectacle because of it. Her role in the trip means that sh e was not undercover in any real sense of the word. As I have noted previously, Herbert Romerstein, a former professional st aff member of the House Intelligence Committee, says that Plame's invol vement in sending her husband on the CIA mission to Africa meant that w hen Wilson went public about it, foreign intelligence services would in vestigate all of his family members for possible CIA connections. Those intelligence services would not simply assume that he went on the miss ion because he was a former diplomat. And that would inevitably lead to unraveling the facts about Valerie Wi lson, or Valerie Plame, and her involvement with the CIA. Romerstein sa ys that Plame's role in arranging the mission for her husband is solid proof that she was not concerned about having her "cover" blown because she was not truly under cover. Plame's "cover," a com pany called "Brewster-Jennings & Associates," was so flimsy that she us ed it as her affiliation when she made a 1999 contribution to Al Gore f or president. She identified herself as "Valerie Wilson" in this case. The same Federal Election Commission records showing her contribution t o Gore also reveal a $372 contribution to America Coming Together, when the group was organizing to defeat Bush. If Miller had done some extra digging, she would have discovered that, c ontrary to what Wilson said publicly in the Times, his findings were in terpreted by many officials as additional evidence of an Iraqi interest in obtaining uranium. This kind of story, if it had been published in the New York Times, could have completely undermined Wilson's credibili ty. It would have made it ridiculous for the Times to subsequently dema nd the appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate the Bush Whit e House. The Times went ahead and made that editorial demand, only to h ave it backfire on the paper when Fitzgerald demanded Miller's testimon y The CIA obviously knew the facts of the case. Nevertheless, with Wilson and the media, led by the Times, generating a feeding frenzy over the p ublication of his wife's name and affiliation, the agency pushed for a Justice Department investigation, on the false premise that revealing h er identity was a crime. It was the perfec t way to divert attention from a much-needed investigation of the CIA, the ultimate source of the questionable intelligence that the administr ation used to make the case for the Iraq War. Eventually, some members of the press caught up with some parts of the t ruth. Susan Schmidt of the Washington Post was honest enough to admit, when the evidence came out, that Wilson had misrepresented his wife's r ole. Schmidt reported that the Senate Intelligence Committee report fou nd that he was specifically recommended for the mission by his wife, "c ontrary to what he has said publicly." By then, however, the media feed ing frenzy was well underway and the facts of the case were being burie d or shunted aside. And this takes us to where we are today--wondering whether Fitzgerald will indict Bush officials for making conflicting st atements about the facts of the case. If the investigation was a real d esire for truth and justice, Fitzgerald would drop the case and accuse the CIA of pursuing the matter for an illegitimate political reason. It 's the CIA--not the White House--that should be under investigation. If Miller deserves criticism, it is for failing to write the story when Libby handed it to her on a silver platter. She had the perfect opportu nity to set the record straight about some misinformation that had alre ady appeared in her own paper. After all, it was Times columnist Nichol as Kristof who had asserted, in a May 6, 2003, column, that "I'm told b y a person involved in the Niger caper that more than a year ago the vi ce president's office asked for an investigation of the uranium deal, s o a former US ambassador to Africa was dispatched to Niger." We now k now that Wilson was the source of this information, and that it was fal se. He whitewashed the nature of the CIA role in the trip because he wa nted to protect his wife. Wilson wanted people to think that the Vice P resident's office was somehow behind his mission. We also know, because of Miller's account of her testimony under oath, t hat it ...
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