Tangled Webs (26 page)
Authors: James B. Stewart
Tags: #History, #United States, #General, #Law, #Ethics & Professional Responsibility
“I assumed they were talking about one of the other countries and not Niger since we had, I believed, at the time effectively debunked the Niger arms uranium sale.”
“So they knew months and months before they passed on these allegations that, in fact, that particular charge was not true. Do you think, based on all this, that the intelligence was hyped?”
“My judgment on this is that if they were referring to Niger when they were referring to sales from Africa to Iraq, that information was erroneous and that they knew about it well ahead of both the publication of the British white paper and the president’s State of the Union address.”
Wilson’s comments and delivery annoyed Novak, who later called it an “obnoxious performance.” Novak thought Wilson was reveling in the attention and controversy, which Novak found distasteful in someone who’d been entrusted with a presumably confidential CIA mission. Given Wilson’s selfaggrandizing personality and apparent hostility to the Bush presidency and the war in Iraq, Novak wondered, Why on earth had the CIA chosen Wilson for such a sensitive assignment? That was exactly the kind of unanswered question he liked to write about.
A
ny hopes on Cheney’s or Libby’s part that the record would get corrected were dashed by Wilson’s op-ed piece and his appearance on
Meet the Press
on July 6. Wilson said explicitly that his mission had been requested by the vice president. He had delivered his report to the CIA and, based on his experience in government, assumed it had been conveyed to the source of the request, which was the vice president.
ny hopes on Cheney’s or Libby’s part that the record would get corrected were dashed by Wilson’s op-ed piece and his appearance on
Meet the Press
on July 6. Wilson said explicitly that his mission had been requested by the vice president. He had delivered his report to the CIA and, based on his experience in government, assumed it had been conveyed to the source of the request, which was the vice president.
To Libby, Wilson’s conclusions were flatly wrong. Wilson had no actual knowledge that the vice president had requested his mission, nor did he know what the CIA did with his findings. He was speculating and making unfounded assumptions. Libby was “upset,” “disturbed by the article, didn’t like the article. Upset’s a fair word, I guess,” he recalled. Still, he thought if the administration could just get the facts out, Wilson might recant, and the record might be corrected.
The vice president was at his home in Jackson Hole, Wyoming, for the Fourth of July weekend. Cheney read Wilson’s article in the
Times
on Air Force Two while flying back to Washington. He underlined several passages and wrote alongside them, “Have they done this before? Send an ambassador to answer a question? Do we ordinarily send people out pro bono to work for us? Or did his wife send him on a junket?” Cheney folded the page and, back in Washington, placed it in the small safe in his office.
Times
on Air Force Two while flying back to Washington. He underlined several passages and wrote alongside them, “Have they done this before? Send an ambassador to answer a question? Do we ordinarily send people out pro bono to work for us? Or did his wife send him on a junket?” Cheney folded the page and, back in Washington, placed it in the small safe in his office.
The vice president was “upset,” Libby recalled, and he and Libby spoke about Wilson and his claims every day that week. The vice president was “very keen to get the truth out,” Libby recalled. “He wanted to get all the facts out about what he had or hadn’t done, what the facts were and were not. He was very keen on that and said it repeatedly.”
Cheney’s and Libby’s determination to get the facts out caused the vice president’s press office to redouble its efforts. Early Monday morning Cathie Martin e-mailed White House press secretary Ari Fleischer a list of talking points–essentially the same ones Cheney had already dictated to Libby–on the assumption that reporters would ask Fleischer about Wilson at that morning’s White House “gaggle,” or press briefing. The vice president told Martin he wanted the press closely monitored, including network and cable television, for any mention of Wilson and the vice president. The press office ordinarily prepared a daily written summary of print articles mentioning the vice president, but this effort was now expanded, with a press assistant watching and then transcribing broadcast reports.
The vice president also dictated to Martin the specific talking points he wanted disseminated on his role in the Wilson affair, which had now expanded to eight.
“Not clear who authorized his travel,” Martin wrote. “2. He did not travel at my request. Don’t know him. 3. He was apparently unpaid. 4. Never saw the document he was allegedly trying to verify. 5. Said he was convinced Niger could not have provided uranium to Iraq, but, in fact, they did in 1980s, 200 tons, currently under IAEA seal. 6. No written report. 7. V.P. was unaware of Joe Wilson, his trip or any conclusions he may have reached until spring ’03 when reported. 8. As late as last October, the considered judgment of the intel community was that Saddam Hussein had indeed undertaken a vigorous effort to acquire uranium from Africa . . . according to NIE.” Martin added a question mark to the last item, since the NIE (National Intelligence Estimate) was classified, and she wasn’t sure she could mention it.
Martin was again dispatched to ask the CIA’s Bill Harlow what he was hearing. He seemed less cooperative this time, but told her he knew NBC’s Andrea Mitchell and David Martin of CBS were working on stories about the Wilson mission. Martin reported this to Cheney and Libby, asking whether they wanted to “make sure we are a part of the story,” to “make sure they don’t repeat the stuff that we thought was false,” and Cheney asked Libby to call both reporters. Increasingly, Cheney was insisting Libby handle the Wilson issue. Libby went into his small White House office just off the vice president’s, and called both as Martin stood by.
T
he next day, on July 7, the White House conceded that the State of the Union address had been flawed, and that the sixteen words should not have been included in President Bush’s address, or relied upon as a justification for invading Iraq. The concession only heightened media interest in Wilson’s allegations.
he next day, on July 7, the White House conceded that the State of the Union address had been flawed, and that the sixteen words should not have been included in President Bush’s address, or relied upon as a justification for invading Iraq. The concession only heightened media interest in Wilson’s allegations.
That same Monday, July 7, Libby had lunch with press secretary Ari Fleischer in the White House mess. Libby had scheduled it as a farewell lunch, since Fleischer had announced his departure and was leaving at the end of the week. Fleischer reported that he’d been asked questions about Wilson’s op-ed piece. He’d dismissed it as old news, saying there was “zero, nada, nothing new here,” other than that Wilson had come forward as the previously unnamed ambassador. He assured Libby that he’d followed the talking points from the vice president, and said that the CIA had sent Wilson on the mission “on their own volition.”
Libby emphasized again that the vice president had not sent Wilson to Niger, and Fleischer said he understood that; it was in Martin’s talking points, which he’d used that morning. But Libby continued anyway. “Ambassador Wilson was sent by his wife. She works at the CIA.” He added that she worked in counterproliferation and used her name, Valerie Plame. “This is hush-hush,” Libby cautioned. “This is on the QT. Not very many people know about this.”
This was news to Fleischer. So it was nepotism at the CIA; that’s why Wilson was sent to Africa. It was another “nugget,” he thought, that backed up the vice president’s claim that he didn’t send Wilson on the mission.
Other than describing it as “hush-hush,” Libby didn’t say anything about the information being classified or say that Fleischer couldn’t use it. Fleischer’s experience was that when administration officials told him something, they wanted him to pass it on. After all, his job was to talk to the press. But he didn’t think the revelation about Wilson’s wife was all that important, or that anyone in the press would be very interested. Reporters were focused on whether the president had deceived the American public, not who sent Wilson to Africa.
Later that day, on his last foreign trip as press secretary, Fleischer accompanied the president, Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, and a large entourage on a five-day goodwill trip to sub-Saharan Africa. Even on the plane, reporters kept asking about the accuracy of the State of the Union address. After sidestepping the question, Fleischer that night finally conceded, “Now, we’ve long acknowledged–and this is old news, we’ve said this repeatedly–that the information on yellowcake did, indeed, turn out to be incorrect.”
As the Wilson-fueled controversy continued unabated, the mounting frustrations within the administration were evident at the next morning’s senior staff meeting back in Washington. Libby’s notes indicate that the Wilson story was “becoming a question of the president’s trustworthiness” and was “leading all the news.” Rove complained that “now they have accepted Joe Wilson as [a] credible expert” and “we’re one day late with getting [the] CIA [to] write [a] response.” Cheney and Libby were among those in the White House insisting that the CIA, and George Tenet in particular, accept responsibility for the intelligence on which the president had relied. High-level efforts were under way to get Tenet to make a public statement, which they hoped would take the pressure off the vice president’s office.
Among the galling misperceptions, in their view, was that Wilson’s findings actually rebutted the idea that Iraq was trying to procure uranium in Niger. On the contrary, Wilson had reported that an Iraqi delegation had tried in 1999 to establish “commercial relations,” which in Niger could mean only one thing: yellowcake uranium. The CIA report based on Wilson’s debriefing made this clear. Wilson hadn’t mentioned anything about forged documents. Moreover, the NIE–the intelligence community’s most authoritative report–stated unequivocally that Iraq had tried to buy uranium. Cheney felt that getting these documents to reporters would lay the issue to rest. As he said to Libby and Stephen Hadley (the president’s deputy national security adviser) that week, “Anything less than full and complete disclosure is a serious mistake.” Both were classified, secret intelligence documents, but Cheney said he’d get President Bush to declassify them. Libby checked with David Addington, Cheney’s counsel, who assured him the president had the legal authority to do so.
Cheney and Libby selected Judy Miller of the
Times
as the recipient of the newly declassified documents. It isn’t clear who first suggested her, but Cheney explicitly authorized Libby to call her and give her the classified National Intelligence Estimate. Plans for the meeting were shrouded in secrecy. Neither Cheney nor Libby told Cathie Martin or anyone else in the office about it. Libby arranged to meet Miller away from his office, at the St. Regis hotel on K Street. He’d suggested lunch, but they settled on coffee at 8:30 a.m. His calendar said only “office time,” but someone wrote in “Private meeting @ St. Regis.”
Times
as the recipient of the newly declassified documents. It isn’t clear who first suggested her, but Cheney explicitly authorized Libby to call her and give her the classified National Intelligence Estimate. Plans for the meeting were shrouded in secrecy. Neither Cheney nor Libby told Cathie Martin or anyone else in the office about it. Libby arranged to meet Miller away from his office, at the St. Regis hotel on K Street. He’d suggested lunch, but they settled on coffee at 8:30 a.m. His calendar said only “office time,” but someone wrote in “Private meeting @ St. Regis.”
When they met in the hotel’s dining room, Miller found Libby to be “frustrated and somewhat quietly agitated.” Unlike their prior meeting, where Libby was content to be identified as an administration official, he now wanted more protection. She could refer to him only as a “former Hill staffer.” Libby reviewed for Miller in exhaustive detail the evolution of the administration’s belief that Iraq was pursuing uranium in Africa, referring often to both the CIA report of Wilson’s debriefing and the NIE. In response to her questions, he stressed that the classified version of the NIE was unequivocal. As he had in their earlier conversation, Libby mentioned that Wilson’s wife worked at the CIA, this time referring to her job at WINPAC, an acronym for Weapons, Intelligence, Nonproliferation, and Arms Control. Even though her pen wasn’t working very well, Miller made note of this, which to her was a new detail.
A
ndrea Mitchell delivered her report on the NBC
Nightly News
that evening, emphasizing the CIA’s lapses, and the next morning Stephen Hadley told the senior White House staff that CIA director Tenet was “not happy” with it, and that trying to blame the CIA for the uranium controversy was “not helpful” and they should stop doing it. As he made this point, Hadley turned and stared directly at Cathie Martin, clearly marking her as a suspect; Libby, who had actually spoken to Mitchell and blamed the CIA, said nothing and “looked down,” Martin noticed. Hadley asked Martin and other press aides to join him in his office after the meeting, and again stressed that “we shouldn’t be making any suggestion that this was the CIA’s fault in any way, shape or form.” Martin promptly reported this to Cheney; Libby was again with him in his office. But their attention was now focused on influencing the upcoming Tenet statement, a process from which Martin was excluded.
ndrea Mitchell delivered her report on the NBC
Nightly News
that evening, emphasizing the CIA’s lapses, and the next morning Stephen Hadley told the senior White House staff that CIA director Tenet was “not happy” with it, and that trying to blame the CIA for the uranium controversy was “not helpful” and they should stop doing it. As he made this point, Hadley turned and stared directly at Cathie Martin, clearly marking her as a suspect; Libby, who had actually spoken to Mitchell and blamed the CIA, said nothing and “looked down,” Martin noticed. Hadley asked Martin and other press aides to join him in his office after the meeting, and again stressed that “we shouldn’t be making any suggestion that this was the CIA’s fault in any way, shape or form.” Martin promptly reported this to Cheney; Libby was again with him in his office. But their attention was now focused on influencing the upcoming Tenet statement, a process from which Martin was excluded.
Meanwhile, thanks to the intensified monitoring in the office, the vice president was receiving a stream of transcripts from broadcast reports on the Wilson issues. Especially annoying were several from
Hardball
, hosted by Chris Matthews. Matthews was hammering away on the uranium issue, repeating without any qualification that the vice president had requested the mission, even alleging that Libby himself was responsible for the sixteen words: “Why would the vice president’s office, Scooter Libby or whoever is running that office, why would they send a CIA effort down to Niger to verify something, find out there wasn’t a uranium sale, and then not follow up by putting that information–or correcting that information–in the president’s State of the Union?” Matthews demanded.
Hardball
, hosted by Chris Matthews. Matthews was hammering away on the uranium issue, repeating without any qualification that the vice president had requested the mission, even alleging that Libby himself was responsible for the sixteen words: “Why would the vice president’s office, Scooter Libby or whoever is running that office, why would they send a CIA effort down to Niger to verify something, find out there wasn’t a uranium sale, and then not follow up by putting that information–or correcting that information–in the president’s State of the Union?” Matthews demanded.
Libby felt Matthews had to be reined in, but he didn’t know him, so he spoke to Adam Levine, who’d worked as producer for Matthews before coming to the White House. Levine called Matthews, but Matthews ended up yelling at him. Libby also called Mary Matalin for advice. She warned that “the story has legs” and that the White House needed to address Wilson’s motivation. She suggested Libby call Tim Russert, NBC’s Washington bureau chief: “Call Tim. He hates Chris. He [Russert] needs to know it all. He needs to know the whole story and that Chris Matthews is not getting it right.” Libby left word for Russert, who returned his call on July 10. They were interrupted, but continued the next day.
Libby was unusually direct. “What the hell is going on with
Hardball
?” he said. “Damn it, I’m tired of hearing my name over and over again. What’s being said is not true.” Libby seemed “agitated,” Russert thought.
Hardball
?” he said. “Damn it, I’m tired of hearing my name over and over again. What’s being said is not true.” Libby seemed “agitated,” Russert thought.
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