The Man Who Said Too Much - Newsweek Confirms - Armitage Outed Plame

[kpete]

The Man Who Said Too Much

A book coauthored by NEWSWEEK's Michael Isikoff details Richard Armitage's central role in the Valerie Plame leak.

Sept. 4, 2006 issue - In the early morning of Oct. 1, 2003, Secretary of State Colin Powell received an urgent phone call from his No. 2 at the State Department. Richard Armitage was clearly agitated. As recounted in a new book, "Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War," Armitage had been at home reading the newspaper and had come across a column by journalist Robert Novak. Months earlier, Novak had caused a huge stir when he revealed that Valerie Plame, wife of Iraq-war critic Joseph Wilson, was a CIA officer. Ever since, Washington had been trying to find out who leaked the information to Novak. The columnist himself had kept quiet. But now, in a second column, Novak provided a tantalizing clue: his primary source, he wrote, was a "senior administration official" who was "not a partisan gunslinger." Armitage was shaken. After reading the column, he knew immediately who the leaker was. On the phone with Powell that morning, Armitage was "in deep distress," says a source directly familiar with the conversation who asked not to be identified because of legal sensitivities. "I'm sure he's talking about me."

Armitage's admission led to a flurry of anxious phone calls and meetings that day at the State Department. (Days earlier, the Justice Department had launched a criminal investigation into the Plame leak after the CIA informed officials there that she was an undercover officer.) Within hours, William Howard Taft IV, the State Department's legal adviser, notified a senior Justice official that Armitage had information relevant to the case. The next day, a team of FBI agents and Justice prosecutors investigating the leak questioned the deputy secretary. Armitage acknowledged that he had passed along to Novak information contained in a classified State Department memo: that Wilson's wife worked on weapons-of-mass-destruction issues at the CIA. (The memo made no reference to her undercover status.) Armitage had met with Novak in his State Department office on July 8, 2003—just days before Novak published his first piece identifying Plame. Powell, Armitage and Taft, the only three officials at the State Department who knew the story, never breathed a word of it publicly and Armitage's role remained secret.

Armitage, a well-known gossip who loves to dish and receive juicy tidbits about Washington characters, apparently hadn't thought through the possible implications of telling Novak about Plame's identity. "I'm afraid I may be the guy that caused this whole thing," he later told Carl Ford Jr., State's intelligence chief. Ford says Armitage admitted to him that he had "slipped up" and told Novak more than he should have. "He was basically beside himself that he was the guy that f---ed up. My sense from Rich is that it was just chitchat," Ford recalls in "Hubris," to be published in early September by Crown and co-written by the author of this article and David Corn, Washington editor of The Nation magazine.

more at:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/14533384/site/newsweek/

[fishnfla]

1. Novak outed Plame

Then he outed the other guy, who fell all over himself outing his own self out, until isikoff found out.

Perfecto

[JanusAscending]

2. This may all be true, but

my "gut" sense is telling me that he may be taking the fall for all the other "big guys" or falling on the knife so to speak.

[The Backlash Cometh]

12. Who told Armitage? Armitage seems to have the reputation of having

a big mouth. That means that he was a great candidate to be used to leak information that someone wanted him to leak. So, who told Armitage?

[Mr_Jefferson_24]

16. Exactly. This is supposed to divert attention away...

...from Cheney's office and make it sound like an accidental slip up.

[KoKo]

3. Oh....this is from "Spikey Issikoff" of Linda Tripp and Monica Blue Dress

fame. I thought the latest on this was that Armitage got it from Libby at a meeting before he talked to Bob Woodward for his book.

If Armitage outed Plame then why is Libby awaiting trial just for Lying? :shrug:

Must be more to it that this...especially coming from Isikoff who is a shill for the RW and hasn't broken much scandal in awhile.

[Major Hogwash]

8. I totally agree with what you said here about Issikoff.

He is a total bullshit artist.
Frankly, calling himself a journalist, requires one to have a vivid imagination.

Issikoff is more of a gossip columnist than a reporter.

This is nothing but a right-wing distraction from the truth - that it was Cheney and Libby who outed Valerie Plame.

Oh, sure, Armitage heard about who Plame was weeks later, but he wasn't privvy to that level of security.

Go back and read what Joe Wilson said in his book: there were only 3 men in the Bush administration who could have leaked this information - Rove, Libby, and Cheney.

Rove didn't have the security clearence necessary to know from the CIA directly who Valerie Plame was, but he could have been told by Cheney or Libby.

Libby has already been indicted.
And since Rove was not indicted, that only leaves Cheney to be the 2nd person that Novak referred to in his piece as his sources for that information as "two senior administration officials."

[Hamlette]

10. The odd thing about this book is David Corn of The Nation is the coauthor

sounds like such an odd pairing, Cork and Isikoff. What's up with that?

[Garbo 2004]

34. You forget the State Dept memo drafted in response to Libby's request

for info regarding Wilson's trip to Niger. The memo stated (incorrectly) that the meeting at the CIA to discuss sending Wilson to Niger was convened by Valerie Wilson and identified her as a CIA WMD manager and Wilson's wife. Libby was verbally briefed on the info by State dept staff on May 29 and the memo was fowarded to Libby on June 10, IIRC. Later this memo reappeared with a July 7 date when Powell requested info and was aboard Air Force 1 on Bush's trip to Africa.

Armitage was Deputy Secretary of State. Think he didn't have some fairly high level of security clearance and access to State's own activities and documents?

[The Backlash Cometh]

13. Follow the leak. Who told Armitage?

[Garbo 2004]

36. The State Dept did. State wrote memo to respond to Libby that

mentioned Valerie Wilson as a CIA "WMD manager." Armitage was Deputy Secretary of State with access to the memo.

[glitch]

4. and the wheels of the bus go round and round...k & r nt

[Kagemusha]

5. My memory says the "no reference to her status" is a stretch.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

So David Corn's involved in this book too...

[starroute]

9. David Corn . . .

. . . is the person who wrote up the story in detail on July 16, 2003, a scant two days after Novak's original column, essentially being the first one to present the Plame outing scenario as we've all since come to know it.

So it's *extremely* interesting that he would be involved now as well, along with Isikoff.

http://www.thenation.com/blogs/capitalgames?bid=3&pid=823

Soon after Wilson disclosed his trip in the media and made the White House look bad. the payback came. Novak's July 14, 2003, column presented the back-story on Wilson's mission and contained the following sentences: "Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his 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 to investigate" the allegation.

Wilson caused problems for the White House, and his wife was outed as an undercover CIA officer. Wilson says, "I will not answer questions about my wife. This is not about me and less so about my wife. It has always been about the facts underpinning the President's statement in the state of the union speech."

So he will neither confirm nor deny that his wife--who is the mother of three-year-old twins--works for the CIA. But let's assume she does. That would seem to mean that the Bush administration has screwed one of its own top-secret operatives in order to punish Wilson or to send a message to others who might challenge it.

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.

[Garbo 2004]

35. The classifed memo apparently didn't specify her covert status or ID her

as being in the Directorate of Operations rather than the Directorate of Intelligence. The brief section regarding Valerie Wilson, as with several other sections of the memo, was designated "S/NF" meaning "secret/no foreign release." The memo identified her as a CIA "WMD manager." No question however that the info was secret and not to be released.

Libby, however, as we know was specifically told by Cheney around June 12 precisely where Plame worked: the Counterproliferation Division in the Directorate of Operations. (Not WINPAC in the DI as he later told Judy Miller, no doubt to cover his knowledge that she really was in Operations.)

Copy of declassified June 10 State Dept memo here in .pdf format: http://truthout.org/imgs.art_01/fordmemo.pdf

[bananarepublican]

6. "Armitage... has never been far from the Bush family's side."

On page 132 of 'Crossing the Rubicon' Ruppert quotes the following from a WSJ article...

"Armitage (allegedly) a former Navy SEAL who reportedly enjoyed combat missions and killing during covert operations in Laos during the Vietnam War, has never been far from the Bush family's side. Throughout his career, ... , he has been perpetually connected to CIA drug smuggling operations."

To me, this speaks volumes to Armitage's character. It certainly does not preclude him from being involved in some way in the outing of 'Ambassador Wilson's wife'.

[The Backlash Cometh]

14. AND he is known to have a big mouth? Something isn't adding up here.

[druidity33]

19. just a fall guy...

pay no atention, nothing to see here, just an honest mistake...

no this isn't adition, this is division...

[mom cat]

31. Falling on his sword to protect ,,,????

[calimary]

7. Kick!

I suppose this guy is in line for a Presidential Medal now. All the worst ones get honored and promoted and assured job security - FOR FUCKING UP. Only the truth-tellers and those who really try to do the proper thing get shat upon, smeared, fired, ruined.

IMPEACHMENT NOW!!!

Either you're FOR accountability or you're AGAINST it.

[The Backlash Cometh]

11. William Howard Taft IV? The same Taft family as the American

president? He's the State Department's lawyer? The crooked State Department? Is there a Taft in Ohio that just faced major corruption problems?

My stink meter just went sky high.

What other crap do we have on Armitage? I seem to remember that he had a less than stellar performance at the 9/11 hearings.

[Fridays Child]

15. k/r

[opihimoimoi]

17. Devious shit...I don't trust any of them...they are full of CRAP

[w4rma]

18. Armitage doesn't have the security clearence to be a leaker. (nt)

[rman]

20. So they finally agreed who's going to be the fall-guy?

[many a good man]

21. Armitage cleared by Fitz -- didn't know Plame's status

Armitage was always a thorn in the side of the neocons and buddies with Wilkerson. Apparently he didn't know about Plame's covert status-- that would be confirmed by later Rove and Libby and maybe Cheney.

Armitage himself was aggressively investigated by special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, but was never charged. Fitzgerald found no evidence that Armitage knew of Plame's covert CIA status when he talked to Novak and Woodward. The decision to go to the FBI that panicky October afternoon also may have helped Armitage. Powell, Armitage and Taft were aware of the perils of a cover-up—all three had lived through the Iran-contra scandal at the Defense Department in the late 1980s.

Taft, the State Department lawyer, also felt obligated to inform White House counsel Alberto Gonzales. But Powell and his aides feared the White House would then leak that Armitage had been Novak's source—possibly to embarrass State Department officials who had been unenthusiastic about Bush's Iraq policy. 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. Armitage's role thus remained that rarest of Washington phenomena: a hot secret that never leaked.

[The Backlash Cometh]

22. Yes, but who told Armitage?

What if someone used Armitage to pass on the information, knowing his weakness for gossip?

Man, that sounds so wrong. How can they hold on to this guy for so long if they knew he had loose lips? Something is just not adding up. I think they're making some of this shit up as they go along.

[many a good man]

24. Probably Carl Ford

He was buds with Carl Ford, who was also pissed at the Neocons' destruction of the professional services. What doesn't make sense to me is I would figure Ford would know she's a NOC. Did Armitage have a hard time convincing Fitz he didn't know her covert status? Its no crime only if divulged unknowingly.

Thus it seems correct that Fitz knew 99% of the story the first few days on the job. He immediately turned to tracking down the officials who confirmed Armitage's slip, knowing of her protected status. Libby is already nailed, and we're all wondering if he's using Rove to get to Cheney.

[The Backlash Cometh]

25. Someone needs to be punished. If Fitz is using a stone soup approach

to get to the people who used the information maliciously, so be it.

[rosesaylavee]

23. Armitage wasn't a consistent team player

maybe that's why he is being thrown under the bus...

Found this part of the above article interesting:

Armitage routinely returned from White House meetings shaking his head at the armchair warriors. "One day," says Powell's former chief of staff Larry Wilkerson, "we were walking into his office and Rich turned to me and said, 'Larry, these guys never heard a bullet go by their ears in anger ... None of them ever served. They're a bunch of jerks'."

Bet Cheney et al didn't like being referred to as a bunch of jerks... esp if Armitage had a big mouth, that sort of attitude is hard to keep hidden.

[many a good man]

26. Armitage isn't being thrown anywhere

He didn't leak her status. He's in no legal jeopardy. He's on our side-- trying to stop the Neocons.

Of course, Fox News will probably try to proclaim case closed. Instead we should be hearing more from Armitage, Ford, Wilkerson, et.al.

[rosesaylavee]

27. I guess I misunderstood then

It sure looked like the Neocons were using him as a shield or least a distraction from who actually leaked Plame's identity (Cheney). :shrug:

[Oilwellian]

28. We know this....

Plame's name was being floated among journalists at least a month before Armitage talked with Novak. Armitage may have confirmed Plame worked for the CIA but he wasn't the original leaker.

[many a good man]

30. Before July 8th?

Its funny the article states Armitage told Novak on July 8th when the conspiracy began on June 12th. Somebody (purported to be Armitage) told Woodward between June 12-15. I wonder if Armitage knew this and fessed up any way hoping to get the ball in motion?

Where is a timeline when you need one?!

edit: Here's one!

Plame outed to reporters

June 12 to 15

* An administration official tells Bob Woodward of the Washington Post that Wilson's wife works for the CIA on weapons of mass destruction as a WMD analyst (WaPo). Woodward has described the date as "mid-June," and "a week to 10 days" before June 23.

June 13

* Richard Armitage meets with Bob Woodward.

* Kristof responds and sticks by his claim. Joseph Wilson is again not named in the article.

...


June 14

* Scooter Libby meets with a CIA briefer and they discuss the Niger trip (Libby Indictment, p. 5). The briefer's handwritten notes indicate that Libby referred to "Joe Wilson" and "Valerie Wilson" (Fitzgerald affadavit, p. 12; Tatel opinion, p. 31). The briefer is likely Craig Schmall (Libby motion, p. 8, Libby memo, p. 11).

...

June 20

* Bob Woodward of the Washington Post interviews an administration official for his book. Woodward's list of prepared questions include "Joe Wilson's wife." (WaPo)


June 23

* Judith Miller meets with Scooter Libby. Libby tells her that Wilson’s wife might work at a bureau of the CIA. (Libby Indictment, p. 6)

* Bob Woodward interviews Libby by phone for his book. (WaPo)


June 27

* Bob Woodward interviews Libby at Libby's office for his book. Woodward's typed notes from the interview make no reference to Wilson or his wife. (WaPo)

July 2003

early July

* Joseph Wilson begins writing the NYT op ed that becomes "What I Didn't Find in Africa." (VanityFair)


July 2

* New York Times reporter David Sanger interviews Scooter Libby about the 16-words controversy (Libby response, p. 23). Libby has a conversation with an unspecified journalist in which he discloses information from the NIE (Motion hearing).


July 5

* A male senior administration official tells Washington Post reporter Walter Pincus that Joseph Wilson's mission to Africa originated within the CIA's clandestine service after Vice President Dick Cheney aides raised questions during a briefing. "It was not orchestrated by the vice president," the official says. Also according to the official, the trip was reported in a routine way, and the report did not mention Wilson's name and did not say anything about forgeries. (WaPo)


Wilson's op-ed published

July 6

* The New York Times publishes an Op-Ed article by Joseph Wilson titled "What I Didn't Find in Africa", criticizing Bush's remarks on Iraq yellowcake purchase in Niger as relying on forged documents. He states the CIA provided this intelligence to the White House prior to the SOTU in Jan '03. (NYT, Dick Cheney's annotated copy)

Wilson also appears on Meet the Press, interviewed by Andrea Mitchell, and is quoted on the record about the trip in an article by Richard Leiby and Walter Pincus in the Washington Post.

* In response, Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage calls INR director Carl Ford at home, seeking explanation and background on the Wilson-Niger claims. Armitage asks Ford to forward this information to Secretary of State Colin Powell. (AP, NYT, WaPo)


July 7

* The White House retracts the Niger allegation, which is its sole admission to date of a flaw in the case for war, which was built on charges of an illegal Iraqi arsenal that has not been found.

* The Office of the Vice President sends talking points to White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer, that the Vice President didn't know about the trip before. (Motion hearing, p. 13)

* Ari Fleischer states at a press gaggle that the Vice President had not requested Wilson's trip, had not been aware of it, and had not seen the results. (White House)

* Robert Novak places a call to Ari Fleischer according to White House phone logs. It is not clear whether Fleischer returned the call, and Fleischer has refused to comment. (Bloomberg)

* At lunch, Scooter Libby tells Fleischer that Wilson's wife works at the CIA, and that the information is not widely known (Libby Indictment, p. 7; Fitzgerald affadavit, pp. 2, 12; Tatel opinion, p. 32). Fleischer will testify that the conversation was "weird".

* Evening - Bush leaves for his trip to Africa.

* State Department intelligence chief Carl Ford gets the INR to work on providing Powell the requested information and the June 10 INR memo, either because he remembers the memo, or Armitage does. Carl Ford essentially resends the June 10 memo, along with the analyst's notes about the meeting, to Colin Powell aboard Air Force One. (memo with analyst notes, AP, LA Times)

* Colin Powell is seen walking around Air Force One with the INR memo (NYT). Powell circulates the memo among those traveling with him in the front section of Air Force One (LA Times). Press Secretary Ari Fleischer at some point during the flight sees the memo (Bloomberg).


On or before July 8

* Dick Cheney aide Catherine Martin tells Scooter Libby that Wilson's wife works at the CIA (Libby Indictment, p. 7). Her source may be Bill Harlow (Libby Motion, p. 9).

* "People at the CIA" tell Andrea Mitchell that "high-level people at the CIA did not really know that it was false, never even looked at Joe Wilson's verbal report or notes from that report, didn't even know that it was he who had made this report, because he was sent over by some of the covert operatives in the CIA at a very low level, not, in fact, tasked by the vice president." (Capital Report)

A Reuters reporter is fed a similar story: "A U.S. intelligence official said Wilson was sent to investigate the Niger reports by mid-level CIA officers, not by top-level Bush administration officials. There is no record of his report being flagged to top level officials, the intelligence official said." (Josh Marshall)


July 8

* White House officials assemble a briefing book, which they fax to the Bush entourage in Africa in order to allow Condoleezza Rice to prepare on the long flight home to D.C for appearances on the Sunday talks shows upon her return from Africa. This briefing book was primarily prepared by her National Security Council staff. It contains classified information — perhaps including all or part of the memo from State. The entire binder is labeled TOP SECRET. (Newsweek)

* Scooter Libby meets with New York Times reporter Judith Miller over a two-hour breakfast the St. Regis Hotel in Washington, D.C., and discusses CIA operative Valerie Plame (Libby Indictment p. 7, NYT). Libby will testify that the purpose of the meeting is to disclose information from the NIE to Miller, and that the disclosure was authorized by his superiors (OSC letter, p. 6). Libby's notes seem to have some reference "tell Judith Miller" (Motion hearing, p. 31).

* Libby asks Counsel to the Vice President David Addington what paperwork would exist at the CIA if an employee's spouse undertook an overseas trip. (Libby Indictment p. 7; Fitzgerald affadavit, p. 12)

* Late Afternoon - Robert Novak talks to a nominative stranger (a friend of Wilson) who approaches him on the way to taping Crossfire, that he believes that Wilson's wife had something to do with Wilson's appointment to investigate the yellowcake claim in Africa.

My friend, without revealing that he knew me, asked Novak about the Uranium controversy. It was a minor problem, Novak replied, and opined that the administration should have dealt with it weeks before. My friend then asked Novak what he thought about me, and Novak answered: "Wilson's an asshole. The CIA sent him. His wife, Valerie , works for the CIA. She's a weapons of mass destruction specialist. She sent him."<1>

* Wilson's friend goes directly to Wilson's office and they document the exchange.

* Wilson contacts Eason Jordan, the head of the news division at CNN, and Novak’s titular boss, about the exchange.

July 8 or 9

* Robert Novak calls Karl Rove at the White House, ostensibly about a story on the promotion of Frances Fragos Townsend. Mr. Novak turns to the subject of Ms. Wilson, identifying her by the name Valerie Wilson. Novak claims to Mr. Rove that he knows that Joseph Wilson had been sent on the trip to Niger at the urging of Ms. Wilson. (NYT)

Rove responds by saying "Oh, you know about it." (Townhall)

In Rove's version of events he responds by saying "I heard that, too." (WaPo)

http://www.dkosopedia.com/wiki/Plame_Leak_timeline#June_12_to_15

[StaggerLee]

29. K&R

For more discussion.

:dem:

[Garbo 2004]

32. Here's David Corn's own article on this and about the book.

He notes the book is not about the Plame episode, but it is included since it was a part of the Administration's continuing "marketing" campaign for the Iraq war. A small snip from the article:

The Armitage leak was not directly a part of the White House's fierce anti-Wilson crusade. But as Hubris notes, it was, in a way, linked to the White House effort, for Amitage had been sent a key memo about Wilson's trip that referred to his wife and her CIA connection, and this memo had been written, according to special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, at the request of I. Lewis Scooter Libby, the vice president's chief of staff. Libby had asked for the memo because he was looking to protect his boss from the mounting criticism that Bush and Cheney had misrepresented the WMD intelligence to garner public support for the invasion of Iraq.

The memo included information on Valerie Wilson's role in a meeting at the CIA that led to her husband's trip. This critical memo was--as Hubris discloses--based on notes that were not accurate. (You're going to have to read the book for more on this.) But because of Libby's request, a memo did circulate among State Department officials, including Armitage, that briefly mentioned Wilson's wife.

Armitage's role aside, the public record is without question: senior White House aides wanted to use Valerie Wilson's CIA employment against her husband. Rove leaked the information to Cooper, and Libby confirmed Rove's leak to Cooper. Libby also disclosed information on Wilson's wife to New York Times reporter Judith Miller.

Full article here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/david-corn/the-meaning-of-the-armita_b_28097.html

[Stephanie]

33. it all traces back to Dick

I have no doubt. Still waiting for Dick's indictment.