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another snippet from Publishers Weekly latest e-newsletter. No article at website -- this is how it was sent out this afternoon:Wilson: Leak Explanation Will "Touch People Close to the President" Joseph Wilson, whose upcoming book is beginning to cause a Suskind-ian stir, says there could be some substantial consequences from his take on how last July's leak, which led to the outing of his CIA-agent wife, went down. "I expect that it will touch people close to the president," Wilson said in an interview. "I don't know if it will topple anyone," he added, but a "theory of and how why this happened will," he said, "spur a lot of questions hard to quash." A grand-jury investigation about the source of the leak is ongoing, with several administration members reportedly testifying in recent weeks.
Wilson's comments came as part of a lengthy interview with PW, after we reported on Monday that he will offer these nuggets in his new book, due in May from Carroll & Graf. The publisher said that the book will be at the presses by next week (more on the book's positioning in an upcoming Book News story).
The man who, at least at one time, was probably higher on the list of administration targets than John Kerry and Jason West combined, said he thought it very possible that the grand-jury investigation about the leak would lead to indictments, though he said that would turn, in part, on how serious the DOJ is in rooting out the leak's sources in the first place.
Wilson's wife name was leaked to Chicago Sun-Times columnist Robert Novak after the former ambassador had written a NY Times op-ed titled "What I Didn't Find in Africa," which told of his CIA-sponsored fact-finding trip to Africa in early 2002 and which debunked the president's claims that Saddam Hussein had tried to buy uranium from the continent.
In the interview, Wilson suggested that he believed the Bush administration leaked to Novak not simply as punishment to him but as a deterrent to others. The chill, he said, can still be felt, with many government officials now "more circumspect" in offering up information because of the specter of outing. "It's safe to say it's cause-and-effect," he said.
Asked if he felt resentful toward the Bush administration as a result of the outing, Wilson said, "I wouldn't say anger is the way I'd describe it. It's more disgust. My own government could do this?" He also said he felt "irritation" ", and called the leak "totally exogenous."
As for Novak, Wilson said that he strongly supports freedom of press generally but had doubts about the columnist's motives. "I have two questions for Novak. First, what does add to the story? It's a throwaway paragraph and a throwaway sentence." (The piece alleged that Wilson went to Niger to investigate WMD charges only because of CIA nepotism; Novak wrote that Wilson's 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 second question," Wilson continued, "is Novak called the CIA and the CIA said no. I want to ask Novak: 'What part of no didn't you understand?'" Wilson added, "If there's a further erosion of source-protection , then Novak is to blame." Novak did not return a call seeking comment.
Wilson, in his straight-talking manner, also spoke about the July ordeal that affected his family. He says his wife still works for the CIA, though in a more limited role. "She can't hang out on streetcorners or alleys around the world anymore--not that I know that she ever did," he added with a laugh. "But it's hard. Her job has been circumscribed." He says his book won't be a portrait of life as an operative's spouse; it will, however, describe both their states-of-mind as the storm gathered.
The book, which is called The Politics of Truth and is under embargo, is said by the publisher to begin with the outing of Wilson's wife, then flashes back to the author's time as an ambassador to Africa in the 1970's as well as the last Gulf War. Wilson was the last American diplomat to meet with Saddam Hussein (whom he characterizes, with jokey understatement, as being "surly" at the time of the invasion of Kuwait). Wilson says he actually remains friends with George Bush Sr.
Politics will also contain a detailed explanation of Wilson's view about the current administration's policy in Iraq and, of course, the snitch sitch. The title also covers the issue of African uranium production and the efforts--or, according to Wilson, lack of efforts--by the Hussein government to acquire some. Wilson filed his report on the alleged Niger buy in March 2002, ten months before the State of the Union cited it.
Despite Wilson's status as a poster-child for shoddy administration WMD claims, he says he does believe Iraq had "stockpiles of chemical weapons and pre-cursors to biological weapons" though not even the raw material for nuclear weapons.
Finally, of the controversy's effect on his wife, he said, "It's not easy to wake up and see your name is in the nation's newspaper above the fold," he said. "Most poignantly, how do you deal with your friends who thought they knew you so well?" Then, after a pause, "But you don't get into this business unless you're accustomed to dealing with stressful situations."--Steven Zeitchik
www.publishersweekly.com
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