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Lawyer: Armitage Was the Leaker

A lawyer involved in the Valerie Plame leak case has confirmed that Armitage was the primary source for Bob Novak's column outing Valerie Plame and the source of Washington Post Bob Woodward. [Note: Edited to reflect that the article may be referring to a lawyer involved in the case rather than Armitage's lawyer. Thanks to Patriot Daily for pointing this out to me.]

But the lawyer and other associates of Mr. Armitage have said he has confirmed that he was the initial and primary source for the columnist, Robert D. Novak, whose column of July 14, 2003, identified Valerie Wilson as a Central Intelligence Agency officer.

The Times says this ends the mystery. I disagree. The question remains of whether there was a concerted effort to use Valerie Plame Wilson's undercover or classified employment status with the CIA in an attempt to smear Joe Wilson and his public statements that Iraq was not attempting to acquire uranium from Niger, as Bush erroneously claimed in his 2003 State of the Union Address.

The Times reports:

In the accounts by the lawyer and associates, Mr. Armitage disclosed casually to Mr. Novak that Ms. Wilson worked for the C.I.A. at the end of an interview in his State Department office. Mr. Armitage knew that, the accounts continue, because he had seen a written memorandum by Under Secretary of State Marc Grossman.

Mr. Grossman had taken up the task of finding out about Ms. Wilson after an inquiry from I. Lewis Libby Jr., chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney. Mr. Libby's inquiry was prompted by an Op-Ed article on May 6, 2003, in The New York Times by Nicholas D. Kristof and an article on June 12, 2003, in The Washington Post by Walter Pincus.

Grossman's memo was prepared at the request of Scooter Libby. It was Cheney and Libby who wanted to know about Valerie Plame Wilson -- see the copy of the news article (pdf) posted by Empty Wheel with Cheney's handwritten questions.

Novak insists Armitage did not tell him Valerie Wilson was undercover. Who did? Novak says he learned her maiden name from Who's Who. But Who's Who did not say she was a CIA operative. Who told Novak she was an operative?

Fitzgerald has also investigated Novak and Rove's telephone call of July 9 that preceded the publication of Novak's July 14 column. One of the things he wanted to know was whether Novak and Rove coordinated their stories about the call in September, 2003. Murray Waas reported the details here.

Rove told the grand jury that during the September 29 call, Novak said he would make sure that nothing similar would happen to Rove in the CIA-Plame leak probe. Rove has testified that he recalled Novak saying something like, "I'm not going to let that happen to you again," according to those familiar with the testimony. Rove told the grand jury that the inference he took away from the conversation was that Novak would say that Rove was not a source of information for the column about Plame. Rove further testified that he believed he might not have been the source because when Novak mentioned to Rove that Plame worked for the CIA, Rove simply responded that he had heard the same information.

Asked during his grand jury appearance his reaction to the telephone call, Rove characterized it as a "curious conversation" and didn't know what to make of it, according to people familiar with his testimony.

My post about Novak's wiggling on his source is here.

Rove's lawyer says Rove has been cleared of criminal liability.

What might all of this mean? To me it says that Novak has another source -- one that told him Plame Wilson was an operative in the CIA. Joe Wilson said on CNN's Paula Zahn:

"Bob Novak called me before he went to print with the report and he said a CIA source had told him that my wife was an operative," Wilson said. "He was trying to get a second source. He couldn't get a second source. Could I confirm that? And I said no."

Even if you buy Novak's "Who's Who" explanation for knowing Valerie Plame Wilson's maiden name, how can you buy his self-professed casual use of the word "operative."

And then there's this.

The Washington Post quoted a "senior administration official" in a story Sunday as saying that two top White House officials disclosed the identity of Wilson's wife in calls to at least six Washington journalists. Novak was the only recipient of the information who published it, the Post reported.

Media Matters had more on Novak's wiggling. And how about this Novak statement from July, 2003, before there was a criminal investigation:

Novak, in an interview, said his sources had come to him with the information. "I didn't dig it out, it was given to me," he said. "They thought it was significant, they gave me the name and I used it."

Another unresolved question, posed by Swopa at Needlenose:

And why did Libby tell Ari Fleischer the exact information that Novak would attribute to his primary source just one day before Novakula met with Armitage?

Fleischer will be one of Fitzgerald's key witnesses against Scooter Libby. I discuss how and why here.

It's not just that Libby allegedly told Fleischer at lunch on July 7 before Fleischer left for Africa with President Bush that Joseph Wilson's wife worked in the Counterproliferation area of the CIA and that she was involved in the decision to send Wilson to Niger. It's that Fleisher told Fitz and the grand jury that Libby told him the information was "hush-hush" and "on the qt.

For his part, Libby's lawyers have indicated they will call Armitage as a defense witness.

So, did Novak also have a CIA source? Libby's lawyers have said in pleadings:

"On or about June 11, 2003, Libby was informed by a senior CIA officer [possibly Robert Grenier or John McLaughlin] that Wilson's wife was employed by the CIA and that the idea of sending him to Niger originated with her."

From the May 12 the pleading:

The government has stated that "[t]he central issue at trial will be whether
defendant lied when he testified that he was not aware that Mr. Wilson's wife worked at the CIA prior to his purported conversation with Tim Russert about Mr. Wilson's wife on or about July 10, 2003." Gov't Resp. at 11. The government has made clear that it will rely heavily in its proof at trial on testimony from six witnesses - all current or former government officials - regarding conversations with Mr. Libby in which Ms. Wilson's CIA employment was allegedly mentioned. These witnesses and alleged conversation dates include: (1) Under Secretary of State Marc Grossman (June 11 or 12); (2) CIA official Robert Grenier (June 11); (3) CIA briefer Craig Schmall (June 14); (4) White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer (July 7); (5) Counsel to the Vice President David Addington (July 8); and (6) Cathie Martin (on or before July 8).

Bottom line: Fitz has not closed his investigation. Armitage is just a distraction from the real inquiry. I'll repeat myself: The question remains of whether there was a concerted effort to use Valerie Plame Wilson's undercover or classified employment status with the CIA in an attempt to smear Joe Wilson and his public statements that Iraq was not attempting to acquire uranium from Niger, as Bush erroneously claimed in his 2003 State of the Union Address.

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    Re: Lawyer: Armitage Was the Leaker (none / 0) (#1)
    by Che's Lounge on Wed Aug 30, 2006 at 11:19:26 AM EST
    So I guess all the phone calls, faxes to AF-1 and margin notes were all just coincidental. Then why did Libby lie to cover his ass? Why hasn't the Fitz concluded?

    Re: Lawyer: Armitage Was the Leaker (none / 0) (#2)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Wed Aug 30, 2006 at 11:39:41 AM EST
    statements that Iraq was not attempting to acquire uranium from Niger, as Bush erroneously claimed in his 2003 State of the Union Address.
    Beg pardon? That's not what the infamous 16 words say.
    The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.
    As Factcheck.org notes:
    At this point the CIA also had received "several intelligence reports" alleging that Iraq wanted to buy uranium from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and from Somalia, as well as from Niger. The Intelligence Committee concluded that "it was reasonable for analysts to assess that Iraq may have been seeking uranium from Africa based on Central Intelligence Agency reporting and other available intelligence."
    Bush's "16 Words" on Iraq & Uranium: He May Have Been Wrong But He Wasn't Lying

    Re: Lawyer: Armitage Was the Leaker (none / 0) (#3)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Wed Aug 30, 2006 at 11:41:17 AM EST
    Was there a concerted effort? Yes. Absolutely. No questions asked. I did a blog post on that here, but the basic gist is this: Cheney told Libby about Wilson's wife on June 12th. Then, on July 6th, he wrote questions about Valerie sending Joseph on a "junket" (Can you take a junket to Niger? Would a wife send a husband away when she's still dealing with two young babies? But never mind that...). Those questions were not questions about facts; if they were factual questions, he'd have already gotten the answers. They were questions about how to spin the story.

    Re: Lawyer: Armitage Was the Leaker (none / 0) (#4)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Wed Aug 30, 2006 at 11:54:46 AM EST
    Anonymous, even the Bush Administration has acknowledged the 16 words were false. Please don't troll here, particularly anonymously.

    Re: Lawyer: Armitage Was the Leaker (none / 0) (#5)
    by jimakaPPJ on Wed Aug 30, 2006 at 12:00:25 PM EST
    Che - Libby says he didn't lie. I have no idea as to why the SP hasn't concluded, but perhaps he has beyond his attempt to justify charging Libby. The real question is why he kept going after he knew that Armitage was the leaker. It appears that he and his staff knew about Armitage while he was pressing Libby. In the meantime, Hitchens says it best in this article from Slate that cover both the beginning, and the end.
    I have now presented thousands of words of evidence and argument to the effect that, yes, the Saddam Hussein regime did send an important Iraqi nuclear diplomat to Niger in early 1999. And I have not so far received any rebuttal from any source on this crucial point of contention.
    And he won't. The British were right, and even Wilson himself told the CIA in his debriefing that Iraq had sent a man.
    The CIA's DO gave the former ambassador's information a grade of "good," which means that it added to the IC's body of understanding on the issue,................................ ..... He said he judged that the most important fact in the report was that the Nigerien officials admitted that the Iraqi delegation had traveled there in 1999, and that the Nigerien Prime Minister believed the Iraqis were interested in purchasing uranium, because this provided some confirmation of foreign government service reporting.
    Link But, like the husband caught in bed with a naked woman, Wilson's position became, "Who you gonna believe? Me, or your lying eyes?"
    After you have noted that the Niger uranium connection was in fact based on intelligence that has turned out to be sound, you may also note that this heated moral tone ("thuggish," "gang") is now quite absent from the story. It turns out that the person who put Valerie Plame's identity into circulation was a staunch foe of regime change in Iraq. Oh, that's all right, then. But you have to laugh at the way Corn now so neutrally describes his own initial delusion as one that was "seized on by administration critics."


    Re: Lawyer: Armitage Was the Leaker (none / 0) (#6)
    by jimakaPPJ on Wed Aug 30, 2006 at 12:25:24 PM EST
    TL - I am aware that Tenet said that he should not have let Bush make the statement, but it is my understanding his reason was that it could not be confirmed, not that it was "false." Can you provide some background?

    Re: Lawyer: Armitage Was the Leaker (none / 0) (#7)
    by Patrick on Wed Aug 30, 2006 at 01:36:08 PM EST
    So can I get my prize for winning the Karl Rove indictment contest yet?

    Re: Lawyer: Armitage Was the Leaker (none / 0) (#8)
    by Patrick on Wed Aug 30, 2006 at 01:38:34 PM EST
    I found this interesting tidbit too...
    I have speculated for a while that Armitage is the person Patrick Fitzgerald refers to in pleadings as "the innocent accused." [Again here.]
    The innocent accused?

    Re: Lawyer: Armitage Was the Leaker (none / 0) (#9)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Wed Aug 30, 2006 at 05:38:27 PM EST
    Comment by Richard Aubrey
    The Brits say they believe SH sought uranium ore in Africa. Are they wrong? If not, what about quoting them is wrong? And if they are wrong but don't know it, saying this is they believe to be true is correct. They believe it. The crux of this is that the Brits still believe it and Bush said they do. You'd have to prove the Brits didn't say it. And it wasn't the adminstration, TL. It was the CIA, Tenet, to be specific.


    Re: Lawyer: Armitage Was the Leaker (none / 0) (#10)
    by jimakaPPJ on Wed Aug 30, 2006 at 06:06:42 PM EST
    Richard A - Here is what the British Butler report had to say on the subject.
    Uranium from Niger British intelligence on the claim that Iraq had sought uranium from Niger was "credible". There was not conclusive evidence Iraq actually purchased the material, nor did the government make that claim.
    Link So the Brits continue to say that Iraq tried to purchase.

    Re: Lawyer: Armitage Was the Leaker (none / 0) (#11)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Wed Aug 30, 2006 at 07:25:23 PM EST
    Comment by Two Rivers:
    There were plenty of people (State Department and others) who expressed serious doubts about the Niger uranium story, but Bush chose to ignore them.
    If you want to hang your hat on semantics to make the point that Bush didn't technically lie (he just mislead) during the SOTU, that's fine - whatever gets you through the night.
    But what's plain is the fact that Bush and his administration engaged in some pretty serious intelligence cherrypicking, thereby misleading the American public (by providing them with an incomplete, biased view of the situation) and hyping the threat Iraq posed to the US.
    I hardly see this as any vindication of Bush.


    Re: Lawyer: Armitage Was the Leaker (none / 0) (#12)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Wed Aug 30, 2006 at 09:00:53 PM EST
    Comment by pj29
    This revelation doesn't put an end to the story. It increases the likelihood that there was a conspiracy to out Plame and to cover it up. The 800 lb gorilla in the corner of the room is that if Armitage immediately went to State, and then to the FBI and truthfully disclosed his role, there would - in effect - be no there here - and that would have been the end of it. But rather, the investigation deepened and became more serious. Ashcroft recused himself and Comey brought in Fitzgerald. And he has so far spent all this time investigating the issue when the "initial leaker" was known? Lets again hearken back to Comey's letter to Fitzgerald on February 6, 2004: "...and includes the authority to investigate and prosecute violations of any federal criminal laws related to the underlying alleged unauthorized disclosure, as well as federal crimes committed in the course of, and with intent to interfere with, your investigation, such as perjury, obstruction of justice, destruction of evidence, and intimidation of witnesses; ... Serious stuff, espescially if Fitzgerald & the FBI already knew the initial leaker. This one is far from done.


    Re: Lawyer: Armitage Was the Leaker (none / 0) (#13)
    by jimakaPPJ on Thu Aug 31, 2006 at 06:28:15 AM EST
    Two Rivers - What Bush said was:
    The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.
    Link The British, as I showed above, have not retracted that statement.
    British intelligence on the claim that Iraq had sought uranium from Niger was "credible".
    We also know that:
    Nigerien Prime Minister Ibrahim Mayaki .. said, however, that in June 1999,( ) businessman, approached him and insisted that Mayaki meet with an Iraqi delegation to discuss "expanding commercial relations" between Niger and Iraq. The intelligence report said that Mayaki interpreted "expanding commercial relations" to mean that the delegation wanted to discuss uranium yellowcake sales. The intelligence report also said that "although the meeting took place, Mayaki let the matter drop due to the UN sanctions on Iraq."
    We also know that Wilson himself told the CIA during his debriefing (see my 1:00PM comment) about the visit. What Wilson did not do in his now infamous NYT article was make any mention of what the ex-PM had said, and what he told the CIA. So, if you want to talk about semantics and misleading, you would do well to study your side of the discussion more closely. I think you will discover that the night is long, dark and cold. Indeed, perhaps we could call it, "A Missing Information Dog Night." Or, change the name of the NYT article to "What I Told the CIA, But Am Not Going to Tell You." pj29 - You use the word "if" Armitage had come forward there would be no one "here..." Well, per the Slate article I provided above:
    So Taft told Gonzales the bare minimum: that the State Department had passed some information about the case to Justice. He didn't mention Armitage. Taft asked if Gonzales wanted to know the details. The president's lawyer, playing the case by the book, said no, and Taft told him nothing more. "[P]laying the case by the book" is, to phrase it mildly, not the way in which Isikoff and Corn customarily describe the conduct of the White House.
    So why?
    Perhaps for that reason, Justice sat on the referral for two months after Novak's original column. But then, rather late in the day, at the end of September 2003, then-CIA Director George Tenet himself sent a letter demanding to know whether the law had been broken. The answer to that question, as Patrick Fitzgerald has since determined, is "no." But there were plenty of senior people who had known that all along. And can one imagine anybody with a stronger motive to change the subject from CIA incompetence and to present a widely discredited agency as, instead, a victim, than Tenet himself?


    Re: Lawyer: Armitage Was the Leaker (none / 0) (#14)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Thu Aug 31, 2006 at 09:49:13 AM EST
    JimakaPPJ Some questions: If, as you argue, Bush didn't lie during the SOTU and the Administration's path was righteous or at the very least well-intentioned, why weren;t they above board about it? Why did they resort to secretly letting slip to select journalists (off the record, of course) the fact that Plame worked for the CIA? Why didn't they make an argument similar to the one you're making now? And why did Libby lie under oath about it, if the Administration had nothing to hide? I find it interesting that the best they could do to rebut Wilson at the time was to bring up his wife.

    Re: Lawyer: Armitage Was the Leaker (none / 0) (#15)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Thu Aug 31, 2006 at 03:00:04 PM EST
    Just because Armitage was the first to reveal, doesn't mean the others who also revealed would or should be off the hook (?). The law about revealing CIA operative status isn't a contest about who let it out first, but to sanction the criminal behavior of letting it out at all (?)--so in theory, all of the leakers prior to Novak's column (which then turned the info into the public domain) should be eligible for punishment (?). I would think.

    Re: Lawyer: Armitage Was the Leaker (none / 0) (#16)
    by Richard Aubrey on Thu Aug 31, 2006 at 03:00:04 PM EST
    Two rivers. "The best"? Are you sure? The administration made the case they made. Wilson lied about it. What does the admin do? It was Armitage who leaked the non-news that Plame worked for the CIA. The question Novak was implicitly asking and answering was who sent this unqualified hack to do this job, and why? The answer was that the CIA sent him. Why him?, one might reasonably ask, him not being CIA and all. His wife suggested it. Recall it wasn't the administration which made a big deal out of Plame's employment. It was Novak who spilled the beans, having heard if from Armitage, if only indirectly. But not from the administration. If the left hadn't jumped on this as a way to get Bush, the big deal wouldn't have been a big deal. Since you didn't get Bush, since there was nothing to get. Once the administration made the case it made, the case was made, as far as they were concerned. If anybody wanted to know about Wilson and why he was not suitable for the job, it certainly is the right of the administration to make that case, too. The big deal about his wife's involvement wasn't a big deal until you all figured you could get Bushco for outing a covert agent. Which, according to Fitz, she wasn't. Didn't work. But your original question is moot. The point is that Bush was right about the Brits' views, and the Brits' views seem to have been right, or at least, according to Butler, credible. Worrying about how the administration made its case doesn't change that. In fact, given the easily and early available information, including the fact that everybody with a pc could read Bush's words for himself, to call Bush a liar about this is to lie. Since nobdy could not know better. Among other things, even if Wilson took Niger off the board completely, Bush said "Africa", which includes at least two other countries which export uranium ore in some form.

    Re: Lawyer: Armitage Was the Leaker (none / 0) (#17)
    by Che's Lounge on Thu Aug 31, 2006 at 03:41:15 PM EST
    it is my understanding his reason was that it could not be confirmed, not that it was "false." Oh brother. What a load.

    Re: Lawyer: Armitage Was the Leaker (none / 0) (#18)
    by Che's Lounge on Thu Aug 31, 2006 at 03:48:09 PM EST
    Uranium Yellowcake would have been as useful to the Iraqis as a screen door on a submarine. Yellowcake is not hard to get. They could have purchased several tons, but why? They had absolutely NO ability to reprocess it. It would have been impossibly expensive for them to hide or store it. The very idea was ludicrous. It defied logic. It was a waste of time. It's a red herring, and the right wing apologists here know it. If they don't, they need to read some Shakespeersssesseses.

    Re: Lawyer: Armitage Was the Leaker (none / 0) (#20)
    by Che's Lounge on Thu Aug 31, 2006 at 04:02:07 PM EST
    The answer was that the CIA sent him. Why him?, one might reasonably ask, him not being CIA and all. His wife suggested it. She susggested it. She didn't make the decision. Splitting hairs? See Jims's comments and go bug him. Wilson was eminently qualified. He knew who to talk to. He knew where to go. Name me a more qualified person? He was a patriot who called out Saddam in his own yard, with a noose around his neck, and DARED SH to come and get him. To call this man a liar is certainly the act of a person who is blinded to the warped homicidal fantasies of the neocon agenda. How sad for you RA, that you cannot step back and see the big picture. Why are you so afraid of the truth? The truth is that the CIA sent Wilson to Niger, not his wife. Was she trying to do the best she can for her country, or was she just trying to mess things up? I'll wait while you email Mehlman for an answer.

    Re: Lawyer: Armitage Was the Leaker (none / 0) (#21)
    by Sailor on Thu Aug 31, 2006 at 05:05:45 PM EST
    Libby says he didn't lie.
    Ha ha ha, good one ppj.

    Re: Lawyer: Armitage Was the Leaker (none / 0) (#22)
    by Sailor on Thu Aug 31, 2006 at 05:08:51 PM EST
    BTW, anyone else notice that TL didn't fall for ppj's fake request? An example for us all.

    Re: Lawyer: Armitage Was the Leaker (none / 0) (#19)
    by Edger on Thu Aug 31, 2006 at 06:49:18 PM EST
    The War They Wanted, The Lies They Needed Vanity Fair
    The Bush administration invaded Iraq claiming Saddam Hussein had tried to buy yellowcake uranium in Niger. As much of Washington knew, and the world soon learned, the charge was false. Worse, it appears to have been the cornerstone of a highly successful "black propaganda" campaign with links to the White House. ... The Bush administration made other false charges about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction (W.M.D.)--that Iraq had acquired aluminum tubes suitable for centrifuges, that Saddam was in league with al-Qaeda, that he had mobile weapons labs, and so forth. But the Niger claim, unlike other allegations, can't be dismissed as an innocent error or blamed on ambiguous data. "This wasn't an accident," says Milt Bearden, a 30-year C.I.A. veteran who was a station chief in Pakistan, Sudan, Nigeria, and Germany, and the head of the Soviet-East European division. "This wasn't 15 monkeys in a room with typewriters."


    Re: Lawyer: Armitage Was the Leaker (none / 0) (#24)
    by jimakaPPJ on Thu Aug 31, 2006 at 07:06:38 PM EST
    Che - Whatever he was, he wasn't a CIA professional. If you want to claim that's not important, fine. Just encase it a claim that we don't need the CIA. And beyond that, admit that he was less than forthcoming in his NYT article. Leaving out his telling the CIA about the meetuing establishes a very defined reason to challenge his motives, and his "facts." You may claim all you want. You may posture, as dear Sailor does, but this central fact defines this what it was.

    Re: Lawyer: Armitage Was the Leaker (none / 0) (#23)
    by Talkleft Visitor on Thu Aug 31, 2006 at 07:43:15 PM EST
    "What does the admin do? It was Armitage who leaked the non-news that Plame worked for the CIA." I ask again If everything's on the up and up, why did Libby lie about what he told Judith Miller? Oh, that's right, he has "memory problems"

    Re: Lawyer: Armitage Was the Leaker (none / 0) (#25)
    by Sailor on Thu Aug 31, 2006 at 07:49:18 PM EST
    then why did libby lie?

    Re: Lawyer: Armitage Was the Leaker (none / 0) (#26)
    by Che's Lounge on Thu Aug 31, 2006 at 11:07:14 PM EST
    So an agency like the CIA never uses outside resources to gain information? How utterly stupid.

    Re: Lawyer: Armitage Was the Leaker (none / 0) (#27)
    by Che's Lounge on Thu Aug 31, 2006 at 11:15:37 PM EST
    Whatever he was, he wasn't a CIA professional. If you want to claim that's not important, fine. Just encase it a claim that we don't need the CIA. No, it's most certainly NOT important. And who claimed we don't need the CIA? Stop making stuff up again. It's called interagency cooperation. It's a good thing Martha. Think about it for just a sec. But don't hurt yourself. Man you are really grasping at straws aren't you? You can't even debate the point. You only attack the messenger.

    Re: Lawyer: Armitage Was the Leaker (none / 0) (#28)
    by Richard Aubrey on Fri Sep 01, 2006 at 07:34:21 AM EST
    In no particular order: Libby hasn't been convicted of anything. Whether he is or not has nothing to do with the facts of the case, which are that the Brits believe SH sought uranium in Africa. Che. SH already had yellowcake. Remember how y'all sneered when it was looted? So he must have thought he had some use for it. But, whatever you think, the point is the Brits though he was trying to get it and they still think so and Bush said they think so. Hard to see any seams in that. edger VH got it wrong. The assertion was "Africa", not Niger. Wilson went to Niger earlier and missed A. Q. Khan altogether. Hell of a fact-finder he turned out to be. Sorry, guys. This was a loser from the beginning. Unfortunately for you, Armitage and Powell didn't step up and prevent you from having three years to hang yourselves daily. You ought to be mad at them, not Bush.

    Re: Lawyer: Armitage Was the Leaker (none / 0) (#29)
    by demohypocrates on Fri Sep 01, 2006 at 09:09:35 AM EST
    Wow. WaPo devastates:
    Nevertheless, it now appears that the person most responsible for the end of Ms. Plame's CIA career is Mr. Wilson. Mr. Wilson chose to go public with an explosive charge, claiming -- falsely, as it turned out -- that he had debunked reports of Iraqi uranium-shopping in Niger and that his report had circulated to senior administration officials. He ought to have expected that both those officials and journalists such as Mr. Novak would ask why a retired ambassador would have been sent on such a mission and that the answer would point to his wife. He diverted responsibility from himself and his false charges by claiming that President Bush's closest aides had engaged in an illegal conspiracy. It's unfortunate that so many people took him seriously.


    Re: Lawyer: Armitage Was the Leaker (none / 0) (#30)
    by Che's Lounge on Fri Sep 01, 2006 at 09:33:56 AM EST
    SH already had yellowcake. Remember how y'all sneered when it was looted? Links please. Sorry, guys. This was a loser from the beginning. You should tell that to the CIA. They demanded the investigation. But I guess they're just a bunch of losers too, huh?

    Re: Lawyer: Armitage Was the Leaker (none / 0) (#31)
    by squeaky on Sat Sep 02, 2006 at 04:47:36 PM EST
    Che's Lounge-
    SH already had yellowcake. Remember how y'all sneered when it was looted? Links please.
    Yes, which is further proof that Wilson was correct and for Saddam to seek more yellowcake
    would have been as useful to the Iraqis as a screen door on a submarine.
    Odd that for something that was suppose to send us all into a "mushroom cloud" the US military did nothing to secure the stuff when they found it. link