The leak of a CIA operative's name has also exposed the identity of a CIA front company, potentially expanding the damage caused by the original disclosure, Bush administration officials said yesterday.
The company's identity, Brewster-Jennings & Associates, became public because it appeared in Federal Election Commission records on a form filled out in 1999 by Valerie Plame, the case officer at the center of the controversy, when she contributed $1,000 to Al Gore's presidential primary campaign.
After the name of the company was broadcast yesterday, administration officials confirmed that it was a CIA front. They said the obscure and possibly defunct firm was listed as Plame's employer on her W-2 tax forms in 1999 when she was working undercover for the CIA. Plame's name was first published July 14 in a newspaper column by Robert D. Novak that quoted two senior administration officials. They were critical of her husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, for his handling of a CIA mission that undercut President Bush's claim that Iraq had sought uranium from the African nation of Niger for possible use in developing nuclear weapons.
The Justice Department began a formal criminal investigation of the leak Sept. 26.
The inadvertent disclosure of the name of a business affiliated with the CIA underscores the potential damage to the agency and its operatives caused by the leak of Plame's identity. Intelligence officials have said that once Plame's job as an undercover operative was revealed, other agency secrets could be unraveled and her sources might be compromised or endangered.
A former diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity said yesterday that every foreign intelligence service would run Plame's name through its databases within hours of its publication to determine if she had visited their country and to reconstruct her activities.
"That's why the agency is so sensitive about just publishing her name," the former diplomat said.
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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A40012-2003Oct3.htmlhttp://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=147987Democrats seek assessment of damage caused by outing of US intelligence agent
WASHINGTON (AFP) - Leading Democrats sent a letter to the US agency tasked with safeguarding America's intelligence capability, seeking an immediate assessment of the damage caused by the outing of a CIA agent's identity.
Top Democrats in the US Senate, including Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle, asked the National Counterintelligence Executive headed by Michelle Van Cleave to undertake an immediate review of whether US intelligence has been compromised by the leak.
"The exposure of one of America's undercover intelligence officers by an official of the US government constitutes the most egregious form of betrayal," read the letter by Daschle, and fellow Senate Democrats Carl Levin, Joseph Biden, and John Rockefeller.
"Since this case involves the publication of classified information and the extent of the material disclosed is known, we believe that a damage assessment can and should be undertaken immediately," the lawmakers wrote.
"Swift action is needed to protect the individuals whose lives may be at risk," they said, requesting a copy of the findings within 30 days.
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http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/afp/20031015/pl_afp/us_cia_iraq_politics&cid=1521&ncid=1480http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=539395CIA seeks probe of White House
WASHINGTON, Sept. 26 — The CIA has asked the Justice Department to investigate allegations that the White House broke federal laws by revealing the identity of one of its undercover employees in retaliation against the woman’s husband, a former ambassador who publicly criticized President Bush’s since-discredited claim that Iraq had sought weapons-grade uranium from Africa, NBC News has learned.
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http://www.msnbc.com/news/937524.asp?0cv=CB10http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=135657Rice 'Knew Nothing' About CIA Agent Leak
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. national security adviser Condoleezza Rice said on Sunday she knew "nothing of any" White House effort to leak the identity of an undercover CIA officer in July, a charge now under review at the Justice Department.
On the "Fox News Sunday" program, the top aide to President Bush said, "This has been referred to the Justice Department. I think that is the appropriate place for it."
Rice said the White House would cooperate should the Justice Department, headed by Attorney General John Ashcroft, decide to proceed with a criminal investigation of the matter, which centers on the alleged public disclosure of the wife of former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson.
Wilson was sent by the CIA to Niger in 2002 to investigate a report that Iraq was trying to obtain uranium from Niger, but returned to say it was highly doubtful.
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http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20030928/ts_nm/iraq_intelligence_probe_dc&cid=564&ncid=1480http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=136932A White House smear
Did senior Bush officials blow the cover of a US intelligence officer working covertly in a field of vital importance to national security—and break the law—in order to strike at a Bush administration critic and intimidate others?
It sure looks that way, if conservative journalist Bob Novak can be trusted.
…
The sources for Novak’s assertion about Wilson’s wife appear to be “two senior administration officials.” If so, a pair of top Bush officials told a reporter the name of a CIA operative who apparently has worked under what’s known as “nonofficial cover” and who has had the dicey and difficult mission of tracking parties trying to buy or sell weapons of mass destruction or WMD material. If Wilson’s wife is such a person—and the CIA is unlikely to have many employees like her—her career has been destroyed by the Bush administration. (Assuming she did not tell friends and family about her real job, these Bush officials have also damaged her personal life.) Without acknowledging whether she is a deep-cover CIA employee, Wilson says, “Naming her this way would have compromised every operation, every relationship, every network with which she had been associated in her entire career. This is the stuff of Kim Philby and Aldrich Ames.” If she is not a CIA employee and Novak is reporting accurately, then the White House has wrongly branded a woman known to friends as an energy analyst for a private firm as a CIA officer. That would not likely do her much good.
This is not only a possible breach of national security; it is a potential violation of law. Under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982, it is a crime for anyone who has access to classified information to disclose intentionally information identifying a covert agent. The punishment for such an offense is a fine of up to $50,000 and/or up to ten years in prison. Journalists are protected from prosecution, unless they engage in a “pattern of activities” to name agents in order to impair US intelligence activities. So Novak need not worry.
Novak tells me that he was indeed tipped off by government officials about Wilson’s wife and had no reluctance about naming her. “I figured if they gave it to me,” he says. “They’d give it to others....I’m a reporter. Somebody gives me information and it’s accurate. I generally use it.” And Wilson says Novak told him that his sources were administration officials.
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http://thenation.com/capitalgames/index.mhtml?bid=3&pid=823http://www.arbiteronline.com/vnews/display.v/ART/2003/07/23/3f1f5fa79c206http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=18072&mesg_id=18072&page=http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=108&topic_id=5913&mesg_id=5913&page=…
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.”
Wilson and others said such a disclosure would be a violation of the law by the officials, not the columnist.
Novak reported that his “two senior administration officials” told him that it was Plame who suggested sending her husband, Wilson, to Niger.
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http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/ny-uscia0722,0,2346857.story?coll=ny-top-headlineshttp://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=103&topic_id=2326&mesg_id=2326&page=A War on Wilson?
http://www.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,465270,00.htmlhttp://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=18113&mesg_id=18113&page=White House striking back?
http://www.msnbc.com/news/942095.asp?0cv=CA01Schumer Urges FBI Probe Into Iraq Leaks
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030724/ap_on_go_ot/schumer_agent_1Probes Expected in ID of CIA Officer
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/nation/ny-uscia233384176jul23,0,5461415.story?coll=ny-nationalnews-printThe Bush Administration Adopts a Worse-than-Nixonian Tactic: The Deadly Serious Crime Of Naming CIA Operatives by John W. Dean
http://writ.news.findlaw.com/dean/20030815.html
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