DID BUSH OUT PLAME? Leaked CIA Memo Contained Reference to Plame

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INTRODUCTION

In articles published the last couple of days, I have argued that a prima facie case can be made that Bush committed Obstruction of Justice by lying to Fitzgerald about authorizing Libby to disclose a classified CIA National Intelligence Estimate (NIE). During questioning by Fitz in June 2004, Dubya had denied any role in the White House effort to out Plame and discredit her husband, Ambassador Joseph Wilson. I said it was perhaps unwise at this point to make accusations beyond that simple and self-evident fact that Bush lied to Fitz when the President was interviewed. The leak of the NIE, I wrote, involves legal and factual issues that are more easily spun and confused by White House apologists, and that we might best keep the message simple. Bush lied - he committed Obstruction of Justice.

I did suggest, however, that alternative grounds for prosecuting Bush should be discussed. The article that follows traces out the evidence for prosecution of the President and his men for other charges, including conspiracy to reveal Plame as a covert CIA agent, a crime punishable under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act (IIPA) of 1982.

Did Bush Out Plame?

Last Thursday, the story broke that Libby had testified before the Plame Grand Jury that President Bush authorized him to disclose a classified 59-page CIA National Intelligence Estimate (NIE). That document, identifying Valerie Wilson as a CIA weapons analyst, was leaked by Libby to NYT reporter Judith Miller ten days before the Agency first declassified it in part.

By his summary declassification, prior to the normal action by the head of the Agency, Bush set off the chain of events that directly lead to the public disclosure by columnist Robert Novak of an non-official cover CIA analyst working under her maiden name, Valerie Plame. This leak also led to the CIA Director "taking it in the chest" for faulty Iraq WMD intelligence, and a bitter struggle between the CIA and the White House over blame for the failed Iraq occupation.

The prosecution of the Plame leak was originally requested by the CIA Inspector General following a report finding massive and long-tern damage had been done to the ability of the covert CIA nuclear proliferation unit Plame had been assigned to as an analyst working on Middle East WMD programs.

That classified NIE contained an annex referencing Valerie Wilson as a CIA analyst in a concluding memo prepared by the State Dept. challenging the assertion put forward by the White House that Iraq had sought uranium yellowcake from Niger as part of its alleged nuclear weapons program.

Bush started the ball rolling in outing Plame, lied about this to the Special Prosecutor, and committed the felony offense of Obstruction of Justice. He may have also opened himself to charges as a co-conspirator under the IAIPA.
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Minority Report: The Plame Dissent in the INR

Since publication of the July 12, 2003 Washington Post article we have heard periodic reference to declassification efforts related to an NIE dealing with Iraq's WMD program. The NIE was first publicly mentioned in the famous article that reported the Bush Administration had been forced to back off its assertions that Saddam Hussein had reconstituted his nuclear and chemical/bio weapons program, after no significant stockpiles were found in Iraq by occupying coalition forces.

That Post story reported that the White House had laid full blame for that misrepresentation on the CIA:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A45901-2003Jul11?language=printer
Bush, Rice Blame CIA for Iraq Error
Tenet Accepts Responsibility for Clearing Statement on Nuclear Aims in Jan. Speech

By Walter Pincus and Dana Milbank
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, July 12, 2003; Page A01

President Bush and his national security adviser yesterday placed full responsibility on the Central Intelligence Agency for the inclusion in this year's State of the Union address of questionable allegations that Iraq's Saddam Hussein was trying to buy nuclear materials in Africa.

The president defended use of the allegation by saying the Jan. 28 speech "was cleared by the intelligence services."

The Post story contains a background report on a press briefing given on board Air Force 1 by Condi Rice and Ari Fleisher the previous day -- the very day that Scooter Libby revealed sections of the NIE to Judy Miller over breakfast at the St. Regis Hotel in Washington, DC. The Post quotes Condi describing the NIE as containing an dissenting view in its classified annex. That document contained a State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) report. Condi discussed the INR report with reporters during a White House trip to Africa, in which she and other senior officials accompanied President Bush and then Secretary of State Powell.

Pincus and Milbank quote then National Security Adviser Condi Rice describing the NIE as the source of dissenting views from U.S. intelligence about Iraq weapons. Despite the reservations expressed in that document, President Bush had told the UN during the January General Assembly address that Iraq had attempted to purchased uranium yellowcake from Niger. Bush cited British sources for that allegation, a claim that was later proved false.

Rice discussed the issue for nearly an hour on Air Force One. Asked about the CIA efforts to discourage the British from making the claim , Rice said: "If there were doubts about the underlying intelligence in the NIE" -- the National Intelligence Estimate that mentioned "yellow cake," a term for uranium ore -- "those doubts were not communicated to the president."

She said the only mention of doubts was in a "standard INR footnote, which is kind of 59 pages away from the bulk of the NIE." INR is the State Department's intelligence arm, the Bureau of Intelligence and Research. "If there was a concern about the underlying intelligence there, the president was unaware of that concern, as was I," Rice said.

She said Secretary of State Colin L. Powell did not include the uranium allegation in the speech he gave to the United Nations on Feb. 5, eight days after the president spoke. She said that was because INR had questioned the matter. Neither Powell nor other State Department officials questioned its inclusion.

Release of the NIE and the White House Plot to Get Valerie Plame

A later report by Pincus co-written with Jim VanderHei makes it clear that the subject of the offending INR footnote was Valerie Plame. This raises the obvious conclusion that Plame was the target, and that Bush authorized the White House conspiracy to ruin her career by publicly revealing her identity as a covert CIA officer.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/20/AR2005072002517.html
Plame's Identity Marked As Secret
Memo Central to Probe Of Leak Was Written By State Dept. Analyst

By Walter Pincus and Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, July 21, 2005; Page A01

A classified State Department memorandum central to a federal leak investigation contained information about CIA officer Valerie Plame in a paragraph marked "(S)" for secret, a clear indication that any Bush administration official who read it should have been aware the information was classified, according to current and former government officials. Plame -- who is referred to by her married name, Valerie Wilson, in the memo -- is mentioned in the second paragraph of the three-page document, which was written on June 10, 2003, by an analyst in the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), according to a source who described the memo to The Washington Post.

The paragraph identifying her as the wife of former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV was clearly marked to show that it contained classified material at the "secret" level, two sources said. The CIA classifies as "secret" the names of officers whose identities are covert, according to former senior agency officials. Anyone reading that paragraph should have been aware that it contained secret information, though that designation was not specifically attached to Plame's name and did not describe her status as covert, the sources said. It is a federal crime, punishable by up to 10 years in prison, for a federal official to knowingly disclose the identity of a covert CIA official if the person knows the government is trying to keep it secret.

Prosecutors attempting to determine whether senior government officials knowingly leaked Plame's identity as a covert CIA operative to the media are investigating whether White House officials gained access to information about her from the memo, according to two sources familiar with the investigation.

SNIP

While the NIE was written months before the June 10, 2003 INR referenced in Pincus' 2005 article, it appears that the INR attachment is essentially the same document as the version that refers to Plame. If this is the case, and Fitzgerald would certainly have pinned that down, then Bush may well be indictable for playing a lead role in a conspiracy to out a covert CIA agent under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act (IIPA) of 1982.
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2006. Mark G. Levey