Time Magazine Reporter Agrees to Testify About Conversation She Had With Rove's Attorney

At left: Time magazine reporter Viveca Novak, in a recent publicity shot for the book "Inside the Wire" which she co-wrote with Erik Saar, a military offiicial stationed at Guantanamo. Novak is said to be cooperating with Special Prosecutor Patrick FItzgerald's probe into the leak of CIA agent Valerie Plame. He is interested in questioning her about a conversation she had with Robert Luskin, Karl Rove's attorney, beginning in May 2004.


By Jason Leopold
t r u t h o u t | Investigative Report

Continuing his two-year-old investigation into the leak of Valerie Plame Wilson's identity as a covert CIA agent, Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald will present evidence to a second grand jury this week that could lead to a criminal indictment being handed up against Karl Rove, President Bush's deputy chief of staff, sources inside the investigation said over the weekend.

For the past month, Rove has remained under intense scrutiny by Fitzgerald's office. During that time Fitzgerald, according to these sources, has acquired evidence that Rove tried to cover up his role in the leak by withholding crucial facts from investigators and the grand jury on three separate occasions, beginning in October 2003, about a conversation he had with Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper, as well as not being truthful about the reasons that call was not logged by his office.

Rove's conversation with Cooper took place a week or so before Plame Wilson's identity was first revealed, in a July 14, 2003, column published by conservative journalist Robert Novak. Cooper had written his own story about Plame Wilson a few days later.

During previous testimony before the grand jury, Rove said he first learned Plame Wilson's name from reporters - specifically, from Novak's column - and only after her name was published did he discuss Plame Wilson's CIA status with other journalists. That sequence of events, however, as described by Rove during his grand jury testimony, has turned out not to be true, and his reasons for not being forthcoming have not convinced Fitzgerald that Rove had a momentary lapse, according to sources.

Still, Robert Luskin, Rove's lawyer, maintains that his client has not intentionally withheld facts from the prosecutor or the grand jury but had simply forgotten about his conversations with Cooper, the sources said.

Luskin would not return calls for comment.

Fitzgerald will present evidence to the grand jury later this week, obtained from other witnesses who were interviewed by the Special Prosecutor or who testified, showing that Rove lied during the three times he testified under oath and that he made misleading statements to Justice Department and FBI investigators in an attempt to cover up his role in the leak when he was first interviewed about it in October 2003, the sources said.

The most serious charges Rove faces are making false statements to investigators and obstruction of justice, the sources said. He does not appear to be in jeopardy of violating the law making it a crime to leak the name of a covert CIA agent, because it's unlikely that Rove was aware that Plame Wilson was undercover, the sources said.

However, according to the sources, two things are very clear: either Rove will agree to enter into a plea deal with Fitzgerald or he will be charged with a crime, but he will not be exonerated for the role he played in the leak, based on numerous internal conversations Fitzgerald has had with his staff. If Rove does agree to enter into a plea, Fitzgerald is not expected to discuss any aspect of his probe into Rove, because Rove may be called to testify as a prosecution witness against Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney. Libby was indicted last month on five counts of lying to investigators, perjury, and obstruction of justice related to his role in the leak.

Moreover, a second high-ranking official in the Bush administration also faces the possibility of indictment for making false statements to investigators about his role in the leak: National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley.

Hadley had been interviewed in 2004 about his role in the leak and had vehemently denied speaking to reporters about Plame Wilson, the sources said. However, these sources have identified Hadley as sharing information about Plame Wilson with Washington Post editor Bob Woodward, whose stunning revelation two weeks ago - that he was the first journalist to learn of Plame Wilson's identity in mid-June 2003 and had kept that fact secret for two years - led Fitzgerald to return to a second grand jury. A spokeswoman at the National Security Council denied that Hadley was Woodward's source. Hadley, on the other hand, would neither confirm nor deny that he was Woodward's source when he was questioned by reporters two weeks ago. Woodward testified two weeks ago about what he knew and when he knew it. Woodward would not publicly reveal the identity of his source.

Rove had emailed Hadley following the conversation he had with Cooper in July 2003 regarding former Ambassador Joseph Wilson's trip to Niger to investigate allegations Iraq had tried to purchase uranium from the African country, which President Bush had referred to in his January 2003 State of the Union address, and which many critics believe was the silver bullet that convinced the American public and Congress to support a pre-emptive strike against Iraq.

Wilson, who is married to Plame Wilson, was a critic of the administration's pre-war Iraq intelligence. It was during Rove's conversation with Cooper that Wilson's CIA agent wife was discussed with the reporter, in an attempt to discredit Wilson and dissuade him from continuing to criticize the administration's rationale for war.

Earlier this month, the sources said, Fitzgerald received additional testimony from Rove's former personal assistant, Susan B. Ralston, who was also a special assistant to President Bush. Ralston said that Rove instructed her not to log a phone call Rove had with Cooper about Plame Wilson in July 2003.

Ralston previously worked as a personal secretary to Jack Abramoff, the Republican power lobbyist being investigated for allegations of defrauding Indian tribes and who was recently indicted on conspiracy and wire fraud charges. While working with Abramoff, Ralston arranged fundraisers and events at Washington MCI Center skyboxes for members of Congress. Ralston communicated with Rove on Abramoff's behalf on tribal affairs, though she is not accused of wrongdoing.

Ralston provided Fitzgerald with more information and some "clarification" about several telephone calls Rove allegedly made to a few reporters, including syndicated columnist Robert Novak, lawyers close to the investigation say.

Ralston testified in August that Cooper's name was not noted in the call logs from Rove's office, those familiar with the case say, testifying that because Cooper's call was transferred to Rove's office from the White House switchboard it was not logged. If Cooper had called Rove's office directly, the call would have been logged, Ralston testified.

But sources say that Fitzgerald has obtained documentary evidence proving that that scenario does not jibe with other unrelated calls to Rove's office that were also transferred to his office by the switchboard but were logged.

As Rove's senior adviser, Ralston screened Rove's calls. Her additional testimony may help Fitzgerald prove that there were inconsistencies in Rove's account of his role in the leak and assess why he withheld a crucial fact from the prosecutor: that Rove had spoken with Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper as well as Novak about Plame and confirmed that she was an undercover CIA agent.

Viveca Novak wrote about the Plame leak for the first time in October 2004, when Time magazine posted a story on its web site about Rove's testimony before the grand jury for the third time. So it's unclear why Fitzgerald is suddenly interested in questioning her. But her upcoming testimony proves that Fitzgerald is keeping the pressure on Rove.

How Pre-War Iraq Intel Was Cooked

By Jason Leopold
t r u t h o u t | Report

Democrats leading the charge into the second phase of a bipartisan investigation into pre-war Iraq intelligence have said this week that they will spend the next month or so working with Pentagon officials who last week agreed to probe a top secret spy shop once headed by Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith that many longtime CIA and FBI officials and other intelligence analysts believe was responsible for providing the Bush administration with bogus intelligence used to justify war with Iraq.

When the probe is complete, which aides to Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) and Senator Carl Levin (D-Mich.) - both of whom are aggressively working to collect pre-war intelligence documents that undercut administration's claims that Iraq posed a grave threat to national security - said will likely be in early 2006, there could be some sort of "public reprimand" brought against lower-level administration officials who work or worked at the Defense Department, the National Security Council, and in the office of Vice President Dick Cheney, for "cherry-picking" questionable intelligence on Iraq and using it to win public support for the war.

Based on the way the probe is starting to shape up, it's clear the administration, particularly Feith, who resigned earlier this year, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, and possibly Cheney will bear the brunt of the blame, because the three of them sidestepped the usual intelligence gathering process that historically was handled by the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency in favor of their own clandestine intelligence gathering operations in which questionable information on the so-called Iraqi threat was collected and used by administration officials to build a case for war but wasn't vetted by career intelligence analysts, said a senior aide to McCain who requested anonymity for fear of angering members of the GOP.

Last month, under pressure from Democrats and some Republicans, and with public support for war eroding, the Pentagon's Inspector General agreed to probe Feith's secret spy group, the Office of Special Plans, and whether the operation played a role in manipulating pre-war Iraq intelligence in addition to knowingly passing dubious intelligence from defectors from Ahmad Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress to the White House to convince lawmakers and the American public into backing the war.

The White House has been dogged by questions since the start of the Iraq war more than two years ago regarding whether the intelligence information it had relied upon was accurate and whether top White House officials knowingly used unreliable intelligence in the buildup to war.

The furor started when President Bush said in his January 2003 State of the Union address that, according to British intelligence, Iraq had tried to purchase uranium ore from Africa. The intelligence was based on forged documents.

In July 2003, CIA Director George Tenet took responsibility for allowing Bush to cite the 16 words in his State of the Union, despite the fact that he had warned Rice's office that the claims were likely wrong. Later that month, then-Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley said he had received two memos from the CIA in 2002 alerting him to the fact that the uranium information should not be included in the State of the Union address. Hadley, who also took responsibility for failing to remove the uranium reference from Bush's speech, said he forgot to advise the President about the CIA's warnings.

The White House and the Pentagon seized upon the uranium claims before and after Bush's State of the Union address, telling reporters, lawmakers and leaders of other nations that the only thing that could be done to disarm Saddam Hussein was a pre-emptive strike against his country.

The only White House official at the time who didn't cite the uranium claim as proof Iraq intended to obtain a nuclear bomb was Secretary of State Colin Powell. Greg Thielmann, who resigned in 2002 from the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research - whose duties included tracking Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programs - says he personally told Powell that the allegations were "implausible" and the intelligence it was based upon was a "stupid piece of garbage."

What's interesting about the Office of Special Plans is that, two years ago, Levin had called on his Republican colleagues to investigate the operation after a number of CIA agents came forward and complained that the unit had been cherry-picking intelligence information that was questionable at best. The probe never got off the ground.

But back in 2003, just a few months after the start of the Iraq war, numerous Democratic lawmakers had called on the Republican-controlled Senate and Congress to launch an immediate investigation into the OSP's activities.

In a July 9, 2003, letter to Congressman Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.), chairman of the Armed Services Committee, Congresswoman Ellen Tauscher (D-Calif.) said Feith's OSP appeared to be competing with "other United States intelligence agencies respecting the collection and use of intelligence relating to Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and war planning."

"I also think it is important to understand how having two intelligence agencies within the Pentagon impacted the Department of Defense's ability to focus the necessary resources and manpower on pre-war planning and post-war operations," Tauscher's letter said.

Congressman David Obey (D-Wis.) agreed. Back in 2003, he had also called for a widespread investigation of Feith and the OSP to find out whether there was any truth to the claims that the OSP willfully manipulated intelligence on the Iraqi threat. During a July 8, 2003, Congressional briefing, Obey described what he knew about Special Plans and why an investigation into the group was crucial.

"A group of civilian employees in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, all of whom are political employees, have long been dissatisfied with the information produced by the established intelligence agencies both inside and outside the Department. That was particularly true, apparently, with respect to the situation in Iraq," Obey said. "As a result, it is reported that they established a special operation within the Office of the Secretary of Defense, which was named the Office of Special Plans. That office was charged with collecting, vetting, and disseminating intelligence completely outside the normal intelligence apparatus. In fact, it appears that the information collected by this office was in some instances not even shared with the established intelligence agencies and in numerous instances was passed on to the National Security Council and the President without having been vetted with anyone other than (the Secretary of Defense)."

"It is further alleged that the purpose of this operation was not only to produce intelligence more in keeping with the pre-held views of those individuals, but to intimidate analysts in the established intelligence organizations to produce information that was more supportive of policy decisions which they had already decided to propose."

Republicans successfully thwarted a probe back then, but now some high-ranking Republican lawmakers are saying that their "hands are tied" and that they must go along with the intelligence investigation, no matter how bad it may turn out for the White House, because they risk losing their seats in the Senate and Congress, come the November mid-term elections, if they are perceived as thwarting the probe - this in addition to a number of scandals that have plagued the White House, notably the leaking of Valerie Plame Wilson's covert CIA status to reporters as retribution against her husband for speaking out against the administration.

Moreover, with public support for the war waning and with the US soldier body count surpassing 2,000, Senator Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, has agreed to take a look at Feith and the OSP. In September, Roberts informed the Pentagon's Inspector General that the OSP, an important part of the second phase of the pre-war intelligence probe, must become part of the overall investigation.

By working with the Inspector General, Democrats argue, Republicans are hoping some information about the OSP's work won't become public knowledge because Rumsfeld still presides over the Pentagon. However, Levin's office said a preliminary probe launched two years ago into the OSP has already turned up explosive details about the operation.

The OSP, which was also headed by Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, described the worst-case scenarios on Iraq's alleged stockpile of chemical and biological weapons and claimed the country was close to acquiring an atomic bomb, according to four of the CIA agents, speaking on the condition of anonymity because the information is still classified.

The agents said the OSP was responsible for providing then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, Cheney, and Rumsfeld with the bulk of the intelligence information on Iraq's weapons program that turned out to be wrong. But White House officials used the information it received from the OSP anyway, despite warnings from intelligence officials at the CIA and analysts at the State Department.

The agents said the OSP told the National Security Council in 2002 that Iraq's attempt to purchase aluminum tubes were part of a clandestine program to build a nuclear bomb. The OSP and the White House Iraq Group (another top secret operation headed by Bush's Chief of Staff Andrew Card and his deputy Karl Rove) leaked the aluminum tube story to Judith Miller, the former reporter for the New York Times, who resigned this month after spending 85 days in jail for refusing to testify about her source in the Plame Wilson case.

Miller wrote the aluminum tube story, which was published on the front page of the Times in September 2002. Shortly after the story was published, Bush and Rice both pointed to the piece as evidence that Iraq posed a grave threat to the United States and to its neighbors in the Middle East, even though experts in the field of nuclear science, the CIA, and the State Department advised the White House that the aluminum tubes were not designed for an atomic bomb.

Furthermore, the CIA had been unable to develop any links between Iraq and the terrorist group al-Qaeda. But under Feith's direction, the Office of Special Plans came up with information of an Iraq/al-Qaeda relationship by looking at existing intelligence reports that they felt might have been "overlooked or undervalued," according to a 2002 Defense Department briefing headed by Rumsfeld, who added that he had "bulletproof" evidence that Iraq was harboring al-Qaeda terrorists.

In the months leading up to the war in Iraq, Rumsfeld became increasingly frustrated that the CIA could not find any evidence of Iraq's chemical, biological and nuclear weapons program, evidence that would have helped the White House build a solid case for war in Iraq.

In an article in the New York Times in October 2002, the paper reported that Rumsfeld had ordered the Office of Special Plans to "to search for information on Iraq's hostile intentions or links to terrorists" that might have been overlooked by the CIA.

At a Defense Department briefing following the Times report, Rumsfeld downplayed the allegation, saying that whenever Feith handed him intelligence on Iraq's WMDs, Rumsfeld would respond by saying, "Gee, why don't you go over and brief George Tenet? So they did. They went over and briefed the CIA. So there's no there's no mystery about all this."

CIA analysts listened to the Pentagon team, nodded politely, and said, "Thank you very much," said one government official, according to a July 20 report in the New York Times. That official said the briefing did not change the agency's reporting or analysis in any substantial way.

Several current and former intelligence officials told the Times that they felt pressure to tailor reports to conform to the administration's views, "particularly the theories Feith's group developed."

Moreover, the agents said the OSP routinely rewrote the CIA's intelligence estimates on Iraq's weapons programs, removing caveats such as "likely," "probably" and "may" as a way of depicting the country as an imminent threat. The agents would not identify the names of the individuals at the OSP who were responsible for providing the White House with the wrong intelligence. But, the agents said, the intelligence the committee gathered was personally delivered by Feith to the White House, to Cheney's office, and to Rice without first being vetted by the CIA.

Feith, who has since returned to work in the private sector, did not return calls made over the past week.

In cases where the CIA's intelligence wasn't rewritten, the OSP provided the White House with uncorroborated intelligence it obtained from Chalabi, who the CIA has publicly said is unreliable, the CIA agents said, and Iraqi defectors employed by his agency.

Several other current and former CIA analysts working in the counter proliferation division prior to the Iraq war said they were pressured by the Pentagon and the OSP to hype and exaggerate intelligence to show Iraq as being an imminent threat to national security.

Patrick Lang, the former head of worldwide human intelligence gathering for the Defense Intelligence Agency, which coordinates military intelligence, said OSP "cherry-picked the intelligence stream" in a bid to portray Iraq as a grave threat. Lang said that the CIA had "no guts at all" to resist the allegedly deliberate skewing of intelligence by a Pentagon that he said was now dominating US foreign policy.

Vince Cannistraro, a former chief of CIA counter-terrorist operations, said he had spoken to a number of working intelligence officers who blame the Pentagon for playing up "fraudulent" intelligence, "a lot of it sourced from the Iraqi National Congress of Ahmad Chalabi."

In an October 11, 2002, report in the Los Angeles Times, several CIA agents "who brief Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz on Iraq routinely return to the agency with a long list of complaints and demands for new analysis or shifts in emphasis."

"There is a lot of unhappiness with the analysis," usually because it is seen as not hard-line enough, one intelligence official said, according to the paper.

Another government official said CIA agents "are constantly sent back by the senior people at Defense and other places to get more, get more, get more to make their case," the paper reported.

By last fall, the White House had virtually dismissed all of the intelligence on Iraq provided by the CIA, which failed to find any evidence of Iraq's weapons programs, in favor of the more critical information provided to the Bush administration by the Office of Special Plans

In a rare Pentagon briefing recently, Office of Special Plans co-director Douglas Feith said the committee was not an "intelligence project," but rather a group of 18 people who looked at intelligence information from a different point of view.

Feith said that when the group had new "thoughts" on intelligence information, it was given; they shared it with CIA director Tenet.

"It was a matter of digesting other people's intelligence," Feith said of the main duties of his group. "Its job was to review this intelligence to help digest it for me and other policy makers, to help us develop Defense Department strategy for the war on terrorism."

Woodward Provides Clues about His Source

By Jason Leopold
t r u t h o u t | Perspective

Embattled Washington Post editor Bob Woodward provided an important clue that may help shed light on the identity of the person who told him in June 2003 that Valerie Plame Wilson was a CIA agent.

In an interview with "Larry King Live" Monday night, Woodward said he realized that he was the first journalist to learn of Plame Wilson's covert CIA status when Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald announced the indictment last month of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, contradicting evidence that said former New York Times reporter Judith Miller, who was jailed for 85 days for refusing to testify to a grand jury about her source, was the first reporter who was told about Plame Wilson.

At that news conference, Fitzgerald said that Libby was the first known government official to disclose Plame Wilson's identity to a member of the media - Judith Miller - on June 23, 2003.

"I went, 'Whoa,' because I knew I'd learned about this in mid-June, a week, 10 days before," Woodward said. "I then went into incredibly aggressive reporting mode and called the source the beginning of the next week," and the source said to Woodward at least three times "I have to go to the prosecutor."

During that time, specifically on June 12, 2003, Washington Post reporter Walter Pincus had written an in-depth account of former Ambassador Joseph Wilson's - Plame Wilson's husband - fact-finding trip to Niger a year earlier to investigate what turned out to be false claims that Iraq had tried to purchase yellowcake uranium from the African country. Wilson told Pincus that the administration knowingly included the phony uranium claims in President Bush's January 2003 State of the Union address to get Congress and the American public to back the Iraq war.

Pincus didn't name Wilson in his story, but his report set off a chain of events that angered top aides in Cheney's office and led many of those officials to leak Plame Wilson's identity and CIA status to a handful of reporters, including Woodward, in an attempt to silence Wilson from speaking out against the administration.

Woodward, the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter whose investigative stories on the Watergate scandal forced the resignation of President Richard Nixon, made a stunning announcement last week when he revealed that he was told about Plame Wilson in mid-June 2003 by "current or former administration officials."

Now that Woodward has narrowed the date of his conversation with the unnamed administration official to June 13 and June 16, 2003, the list of potential suspects can easily be boiled down to two: National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley and former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage.

On June 10, 2003, a classified State Department memo containing information about Plame Wilson was drafted by Bureau of Intelligence and Research head Carl Ford for Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs Marc Grossman and was sent to Libby. Plame, who in this memo was identified by her married name, Valerie Wilson, is listed in the second paragraph of the three-page memo, which was marked "(SNF)" for secret, non-foreign.

The INR memo was promptly sent to Libby that day. Libby, according to attorneys close to Fitzgerald's investigation, had shared its contents with then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and her deputy at the time, Stephen Hadley, who a month later would take responsibility for not omitting the reference to Niger and Iraq's attempts to purchase uranium there from Bush's State of the Union address. Rice, through her spokeswoman, has denied speaking to Woodward about Plame Wilson. Hadley would neither confirm nor deny that he was Woodward's source when pressed by reporters last week.

However, attorneys close to Fitzgerald's probe have fingered Hadley as Woodward's source. Still, there are media reports citing Armitage as being Woodward's source because, unlike other key administration officials, including President Bush, his Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove, Vice President Dick Cheney, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Armitage hasn't issued a vehement denial saying otherwise. But Armitage was out of the country last week and Hadley is a known source for Woodward's previous books that were written after 9/11.

Two days after the INR memo was sent to Libby, June 12, 2003, Pincus published his story about Wilson's Niger trip in the Post. The same day, Armitage asked INR to draft a memo on what Pincus had reported. Ford sent Armitage the same memo he had sent to Libby, which was also sent to John Bolton, the United Nations ambassador who at the time had been Undersecretary of State for Arms Control and International Security.

"After Pincus," a former intelligence officer told Time magazine in a story published July 31, "there was general discussion with the National Security Council and the White House and State Department and others" about Wilson's trip and its origins.

Time reported that a source familiar with the memo says neither Powell nor Armitage spoke to the White House about it until after July 6.

Since the catalyst for the leak had been the Niger allegations Wilson had called into question, it's important to note that the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research had long expressed doubts about the veracity of the documents purporting to show an attempt by Iraq to purchase uranium from Niger.

Greg Thielmann, a former official at the INR, had said he was "quite confident" that the INR had shared its doubts about the authenticity of the Niger documents with top officials at the State Department, including Powell and Armitage, who, behind the scenes had been battling with senior officials in the Defense Department and at the White House over dubious intelligence it was forced to rely upon before the war that showed Iraq as being an imminent threat as well as having a cache of biological and chemical weapons, all of which has been proven to be untrue.

That makes it difficult to comprehend Armitage being Woodward's source on Plame Wilson. Although Woodward says he believed the information about Plame Wilson was passed on to him in a "casual" manner by his source while he was doing research for his book Plan of Attack, it seems more likely that if Armitage told him anything it would have been something along the lines of how his agency disagreed with the administration's intelligence on Iraq and the infighting that took place behind the scenes.

Meanwhile, Hadley's role in the Niger forgeries has been well-documented, and it would appear that a successful campaign to discredit Wilson by leaking information about his wife's CIA status to Woodward, and perhaps other reporters, would save the former Deputy National Security Adviser from being publicly humiliated a month later.

It was after all the authenticity of the Niger documents that Wilson had challenged that led to his wife's outing.

In September 2002, Hadley had met with the head of Italian intelligence, Nicollo Pollari, who was implicated in pushing the bogus claims that Iraq had sought uranium from Niger. Hadley denied that he discussed uranium, but numerous reports say otherwise.

Pollari had been trying to provide the CIA with evidence that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear weapons program, citing the now-debunked documents. The CIA had previously rebuffed his claims, asserting they were unfounded.

On January 28, 2003, Bush claimed that Iraq had attempted to purchase uranium from Africa in his State of the Union address. It is the very claim that Hadley had seen from Pollari and the very claim that the CIA rejected.

Two days later, the Washington Post reported that Hadley was acting as liaison between the White House and the Senate Intelligence Committee in helping to "sift through intelligence with the help of the CIA, and trying to determine what can be released without damaging the agency's ability to gather similar information."

In a June 13, 2003, column written by New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristoff in response - a month before Plame Wilson's name was published for the first time by conservative columnist Robert Novak and around the time that Woodward says his source revealed her identity to him - to public claims by Rice that the NSC was totally unaware the Niger documents were forgeries, Kristoff said he was told by his sources that the NSC, particularly Stephen Hadley, knew all along the documents were phony.

"My understanding is that while Director of Central Intelligence George Tenet may not have told Mr. Bush that the Niger documents were forged, lower CIA officials did tell both the Vice President's office and National Security Council staff members."

Armitage may very well issue that denial when he returns to the US.

Jason Leopold spent two years covering California's electricity crisis as Los Angeles bureau chief of Dow Jones Newswires. Jason has spent the last year cultivating sources close to the CIA leak invesigation, and will be a regular contributer to t r u t h o u t.

Fitzgerald Going Back to Grand Jury

By Jason Leopold
t r u t h o u t | Investigative Report

Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald will present evidence next week to a grand jury in his two year-old investigation into the outing of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson in the hopes of securing a criminal indictment against an undetermined number of senior officials in the Bush administration for playing some sort of role in the leak, attorneys who have been working on this case since its inception said.

Adding a new wrinkle in the ongoing drama surrounding a federal probe into the Plame Wilson leak, Bob Woodward, the assistant managing editor of the Washington Post, disclosed that he testified under oath this week before Fitzgerald, stating that he too was told about Plame Wilson’s CIA status in June 2003 by an administration official.

Plame Wilson had recommended that her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, an outspoken critic of the administration’s pre-war Iraq intelligence, be sent to Niger to investigate allegations that Iraq had tried to purchase uranium from the African country. President Bush had cited the Iraq-uranium claims in his January 2003 State of the Union address. Wilson had told reporters privately in May 2003 that he had been the CIA’s special envoy sent to Niger to look into that rumor, reporting back to the CIA that the charges were false.

Woodward’s testimony contained information about several individuals at the White House that led Fitzgerald directly back to another grand jury, the substance of which sources would not divulge saying it could taint the case. Sources said the evidence involved additional aides in the Vice President’s office as well as senior officials who were part of a clandestine faction known as the White House Iraq Group, which was set up by President Bush’s Chief of Staff Andrew Card in August 2002 to "market" the Iraq war to the public via selective leaks to major newspapers about Iraq’s alleged weapons of mass destruction program.

In January 2004, Fitzgerald sent the White House subpoenas seeking documents from July 6 to July 30, 2003 of the little-known White House Iraq Group. Now, according to sources, he’s going to use that evidence in his grand jury proceedings, which may unintentionally shed some light on how the Niger claims ended up in Bush’s State of the Union address.

The WHIG had operated under the radar for quite some time. In August 2003, the Washington Post published the only account of the group's existence. During its very first meetings, Card's Iraq group ordered a series of white papers showing Iraq’s arms violations. The first paper, "A Grave and Gathering Danger: Saddam Hussein's Quest for Nuclear Weapons," was never published. However, the paper was drafted with the assistance of experts from the National Security Council and Cheney's office.

"It met weekly in the Situation Room, The Post said, and its regular participants included senior political adviser Karl Rove; communication strategists Karen Hughes, Mary Matalin and James Wilkinson; legislative liaison Nicholas Calio; policy advisers led by national security adviser Condoleezza Rice and her deputy Stephen Hadley; and Lewis "Scooter" Libby, chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney," according to a March 5, 2004 report in Newsday.

According to two intelligence officials at the CIA with knowledge of the inner workings of the White House Iraq Group, Vice President Dick Cheney was present at several of those meetings and personally discussed with those individuals in attendance at least two interviews Wilson gave to New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristoff and Washington Post reporter Walter Pincus, claiming that the administration "twisted" pre-war intelligence, and what the response from the administration should be.

When Wilson wrote an op-ed in the New York Times on July 6, 2003 attacking the administration’s assertion that Iraq tried to purchase uranium, CIA Director George Tenet was forced one day later to take responsibility for not omitting the Niger claim from Bush's State of the Union speech, citing pressure from the National Security Council. Within days of Tenet’s mea culpa, NSC deputy Stephen Hadley admitted he forgot seeing two memos from the agency expressing doubts about the intelligence related to Niger.

Although bulletproof evidence has surfaced during the past few months that proves Cheney played an active role in obtaining information from administration officials about the then-unnamed CIA official, and disseminating the classified material to senior aides - perfectly legal - there are doubts that the Vice President himself was the source who leaked the information to Woodward.

In a statement published in the Washington Post Wednesday, Woodward, the Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter whose investigative stories on the Watergate scandal forced the resignation of President Richard Nixon, said he had first learned about Plame Wilson’s identity in mid-June 2003, during a time when Cheney and his senior aides had gone to great lengths to find out her identity in the hopes of silencing Wilson, who at the time had been causing a stir behind the scenes by calling into question the veracity of the administration’s pre-war intelligence.

Woodward said that he had spoken with two administration officials on June 20 and June 23, 2003. It is unclear which of these dates Woodward had spoken with Cheney and Hadley, whether it was in person or during a phone interview. Cheney was in Boca Raton, Fla., on June 20, 2003 speaking to the International Petroleum Association about the war on terror and the ongoing war in Iraq. On June 23, 2003 Cheney was the headliner at a fundraiser for the 2004 presidential campaign in Hopkinton, Mass. The vice president’s office would not return calls seeking information as to whether Cheney returned to Washington following the fundraiser and speech.

On Friday, Hadley refused to respond to questions from the Associated Press denying he was Woodward’s source. A spokeswoman for the National Security Council said Hadley categorically denied being Woodward’s source, adding that the two did not meet in June 2003. However, the spokeswoman refused to go on the record and asked that her statements be attributed to a "White House official" because of the sensitivity of the matter. When asked why her statement could not be attributed to the NSC she said, "This situation is too sensitive and that is the line we are telling other reporters."

The New York Times reported Thursday that Cheney and Hadley hadn’t joined the chorus of top administration officials who have publicly denied speaking to Woodward about Plame. Those ruled out or who have issued statements saying they did not speak to Woodward include President Bush; Bush's Deputy Chief of Staff Andrew Card; former Secretary of State Colin Powell; John McLaughlin; Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove, who remains in legal limbo for his role in the leak; and White House Communications Director Dan Bartlett.

At the time Woodward had spoken with Hadley, he was writing a book, "Plan of Attack," about the invasion of Iraq. Ironically, it was during the 30th anniversary of Watergate when Woodward was told about Plame Wilson. However, the reporter seemed to be unaware that the disclosure would become, next to Watergate, one of the biggest scandals in White House history.

In his statement, Woodward said he met with I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Cheney’s former chief of staff, who was indicted on five counts of obstruction of justice and lying to a grand jury, about his role in the leak, "at 5:10 p.m. in his office adjacent to the White House. I took the 18-page list of questions with the Page-5 reference to 'yellowcake' to this interview and I believe I also had the other question list from June 20, which had the 'Joe Wilson's wife' reference."

With Hadley and Libby being named as the administration officials who shared classified information with Woodward in June 2003, as well as other top reporters covering the White House, the theory that there was a coordinated effort within the office of the vice president to pummel Wilson seems credible.

---

Jason Leopold spent two years covering California's electricity crisis as Los Angeles bureau chief of Dow Jones Newswires. Jason has spent the last year cultivating sources close to the CIA leak invesigation, and will be a regular contributer to t r u t h o u t.

Democrats Have Proof Pre-War Intel Was Manipulated

By Jason Leopold
t r u t h o u t | Investigative Report

Senate Democrats have dug up additional explosive evidence over the past week that they say will help prove the Bush administration deliberately manipulated pre-war Iraq intelligence that was used to convince Congress and the public to support a pre-emptive strike against the Middle East country in March of 2003.

Specifically, Carl Levin, the senior Democrat who sits on the Senate Intelligence Committee, is interested in permanently debunking the administration's assertion that it "mistakenly" included the 16-word reference in President Bush's January 2003 State of the Union address claiming that Iraq tried to purchase yellowcake uranium - the key component to building an atomic bomb - from Niger. Levin's aides said the administration knew months before that the veracity of the allegations was dubious because it was based on forged documents.

Many critics of the war cite those 16 words in the State of the Union address as the silver bullet that convinced Congress and the American public to back the war against Iraq. The Niger uranium allegations are also at the heart of a federal probe into the outing of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson, whose husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, was the envoy sent to Niger in February 2002 to investigate the uranium rumor and reported back to the CIA that there was no truth to it. The leak of Wilson's wife's identity and undercover CIA status was an attempt to muzzle Wilson, a vocal critic of the war, who had accused the Bush administration of citing the phony Niger uranium documents to dupe Congress into supporting the war.

The probe has so far resulted in a five-count criminal indictment against I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, who resigned from his position last month following the indictment for lying to prosecutors about his role in the leak.

Since Libby's indictment, the Bush administration has launched a full-scale public relations campaign to shore up Bush's sagging poll numbers. In doing so, senior officials at the White House and the National Security Council have publicly attacked Democratic critics of the war, as well as the bipartisan investigation into pre-war intelligence, claiming Democrats saw the exact same intelligence as those in the White House and voted in favor of military action.

On Wednesday, Cheney called critics of the war "dishonest" and "reprehensible" and said Democrats accusing the Bush administration of manipulating intelligence were "opportunists."

But aides to Sen. Levin rebutted that, saying they have smoking-gun proof that they were lied to by Bush and Cheney about not only the existence of weapons of mass destruction but also claims that Iraq had tried to obtain yellowcake uranium from Niger.

In building their case against the administration, Levin, with the help of Congressman Henry Waxman, D-Calif., has obtained the December 2002 letter sent to the White House and the National Security Council by Mohammed ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, warning that the Niger claims were bogus and should not be cited by the administration as evidence that Iraq was actively trying to obtain WMDs.

Waxman had written ElBaradei in March 2003, inquiring about the Niger documents and the allegations that Iraq tried to purchase uranium there in order to determine if the Bush administration manipulated the intelligence it had relied upon. Waxman received a three-page response from ElBaradei on June 20, 2003, around the same time that Joseph Wilson had started to publicly question the Bush administration's rationale for war and around the same time White House officials had disclosed his wife's CIA status to a handful of reporters. Baradei's response letter lays out in full detail the play-by-play in his attempt to get to the bottom of the Niger uranium story.

ElBaradei said, when the Niger claims were included in the State Department fact sheet on the Iraqi threat in December 2002, "the IAEA asked the U.S. Government, through its Mission in Vienna, to provide any actionable information that would allow it to follow up with the countries involved, viz Niger and Iraq." ElBaradei said he was assured that his letter was forwarded to the White House and to the National Security Council. ElBaradei added that he and his staff were suspicious about the Niger documents because it had long been rumored that documents pertaining to Iraq's attempt to obtain uranium from Niger had been doctored.

The evidence that Iraq sought to purchase uranium from an African country was first revealed by the British government on September 24, 2002, when Prime Minister Tony Blair released a 50-page report on Iraqi efforts to acquire weapons of mass destruction. This report ultimately became a significant part of the US case against Iraq.

ElBaradei had said he repeatedly requested copies of the Niger documents prior to Bush's State of the Union address but never received anything. When he finally did receive the documents - six weeks later - on February 4, 2003, a week after Bush's State of the Union address, his suspicions turned out to be on the money. He was the person who first revealed that the Niger documents cited by the Bush administration to win support for the war were crude forgeries.

ElBaradei told Waxman that the White House had turned over the Niger material "without qualification" and provided no specific comments on whether US intelligence considered the documents to be authentic.

In conversations and correspondence with Waxman, ElBaradei said he personally had tried to contact Stephen Hadley, then Deputy National Security Adviser, and aides to former Secretary of State Colin Powell, warning them not to rely on the Niger documents as evidence of the Iraqi threat, but was continuously rebuffed. He said the White House officials pledged to cooperate with United Nations inspectors but repeatedly withheld evidence from them.

Cheney did the rounds on the cable news outlets, and tried to discredit ElBaradei's conclusion that the documents were forged.

"I think Mr. ElBaradei frankly is wrong," Cheney said. "[The IAEA] has consistently underestimated or missed what it was Saddam Hussein was doing. I don't have any reason to believe they're any more valid this time than they've been in the past."

Four months later, Hadley, as well as former CIA Director George Tenet, took responsibility for allowing the Niger uranium claims to be included in Bush's speech. Aides to Levin said that when the bipartisan investigation is complete there will be ample proof that the Bush administration, specifically, Hadley, Cheney, and other top officials, knowingly manipulated intelligence to fit their agenda in launching a war.

National Security Adviser was Woodward's source, attorneys say

By Larisa Alexandrovna and Jason Leopold

RAW STORY

National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley was the senior administration official who told Washington Post Assistant Managing Editor Bob Woodward that Valerie Plame Wilson was a covert CIA officer, attorneys close to the investigation and intelligence officials tell RAW STORY.

Testifying under oath Monday to Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, Woodward recounted a casual conversation he had with Hadley, these sources say. Hadley did not return a call seeking comment.

Woodward said he was told that it was ?no big deal? that former Ambassador Joseph Wilson was sent to Niger to investigate the veracity of the Bush Administration?s claims that Iraq was seeking uranium from Niger. According to the attorneys, he said Hadley dismissed the trip by saying his wife, a covert CIA officer who worked on WMD issues, had recommended him.

At the time, Hadley was working under then National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice.

?We think that Mr. Woodward was going to write a story about it, but discussed it with some other people within the Bush Administration and was told that it wasn?t anything big,? one attorney told RAW STORY.

Woodward did not return a call for this article. He did not identify his source in an article in today?s Washington Post, instead dubbing him a ?senior administration official.? The veteran Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter made his name investigating the Watergate burglary which eventually led to the resignation of President Richard Nixon.

Woodward got access to classified information

In his most recent book, Bush at War, Woodward says he was given access to classified minutes of National Security Council meetings. Both Rice and Hadley were major players in these meetings.

President Bush sat for lengthy interviews for his book, often speaking about classified information, Woodward later said. The Post editor added that he was surprised by Bush?s frankness.

"Certainly Richard Nixon would not have allowed reporters to question him like that,? he said. ?Bush's father wouldn't allow it. Clinton wouldn't allow it.?

Hadley served as Deputy National Security Advisor during the first term of the Bush presidency under then-National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice. Former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, I. Lewis ?Scooter? Libby, who is now under indictment in Fitzgerald?s case for obstruction of justice and perjury, along with Rice and Hadley, were members of the National Security Council and of the White House Iraq Group, which was tasked with selling the war in Iraq to the public.

In March 2003, the White House Iraq Group began doing a work-up on Joseph Wilson. Hadley was present at some of these meetings.

Hadley has previously drawn fire for a meeting in September 2002 with the head of Italian intelligence Nicollo Pollari, who was implicated in pushing bogus claims that Iraq had sought uranium from Niger. Hadley denies they discussed uranium.

?Nobody participating in that meeting or asked about that meeting has any recollection of a discussion of natural uranium, or any recollection of any documents being passed,? he told reporters earlier this month.

Pollari had been trying to provide the CIA with evidence that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear weapons program, citing the now debunked documents. The CIA had previously rebuffed his claims, asserting they were unfounded.

Prior to the Iraq Niger claims, a strange meeting in late 2001 whose purpose is unknown links a former Iran Contra figure and Iranian arms dealer with Michael Ledeen, then an alleged consultant to the Under-Secretary of Defense, Douglas Feith. Feith informs Hadley (Hadley later claims that Ghorbanifar was not involved).

CIA director George Tenet later intervenes, and Hadley asks Ledeen to end the meetings. The agency believed Ghorbanifar was a serial liar and barred its officers from engaging him; the meetings continue regardless.

Timeline of events

On Jan. 28, 2003, Bush claimed that Iraq had attempted to purchase uranium from Africa in his State of the Union address. It is the very claim that Hadley had seen from Pollari and the very claim that the CIA rejected.

Two days later, the Washington Post reports that Hadley is acting as liaison between the White House and the Senate Intelligence Committee in helping to ?sift through intelligence with the help of the CIA, and trying to determine what can be released without damaging the agency?s ability to gather similar information.?

In March 2003, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) discredits these documents as forgeries. It is also in March that the US begins combat operations in Iraq.

According to sources, Woodward?s meeting with Hadley occurs in mid-June of 2003, around the same time that Libby begins to meet with New York Times? Judith Miller, who has since left the paper.

In early July, Wilson writes his New York Times op-ed, entitled ?What I did not find in Niger.? The White House responds on two fronts, according to an article published at the time in the Washington Post.

?Behind the scenes, the White House responded with twin attacks: one on Wilson and the other on the CIA, which it wanted to take the blame for allowing the 16 words [on uranium] to have remained in Bush's speech. As part of this effort, then-national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley spoke with Tenet during the week about clearing up CIA responsibility for the 16 words, even though both knew the agency did not believe Iraq was seeking uranium from Niger, according to a person familiar with the conversation.

A former senior CIA official said yesterday that Tenet's statement was drafted within the agency and was shown only to Hadley on July 10 to get White House input. Only a few minor changes were accepted before it was released on July 11, this former official said. He took issue with a New York Times report last week that said Rove and Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, had a role in Tenet's statement.?

Several days later, columnist Robert Novak outs Valerie Plame as a CIA operative.

On July 22, Hadley takes full responsibility for the Niger claims in the President?s State of the Union, even though Tenet had already done so on July 11.

The same day, Pat Roberts (R-KS), chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, calls Hadley to testify in closed door hearings.

?The chairman of a key congressional committee says he will look closely at new evidence that aides in the White House mishandled communications from the CIA casting doubts on information used by President George Bush to support his case for military action in Iraq,? Voice of America reported.

Roberts has yet to complete the second stage of his investigation into prewar intelligence.

Rediscovered testimony given by CIA director in 2001 suggests manipulation of pre-war intelligence

By Jason Leopold
RAW STORY

President George W. Bush’s attempt Friday to silence critics who say his administration manipulated prewar intelligence on Iraq is undercut by congressional testimony given in February 2001 by former CIA Director George Tenet, who said that Iraq posed no immediate threat to the United States or other countries in the Middle East, RAW STORY has found.

Details of Tenet’s testimony have not been reported before.

Since a criminal indictment was handed up last month against Vice President Dick Cheney’s former Chief of Staff, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, for his role in allegedly leaking the name of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson to reporters in an attempt to muzzle criticism of the administration’s rationale for war, questions have resurfaced in the halls of Congress about whether the president and his close advisers manipulated intelligence in an effort to dupe lawmakers and the American public into believing Saddam Hussein was a grave threat.

The White House insists that such a suggestion is ludicrous and wholly political. It has launched a full-scale public relations effort to restate its case for war by saying Democrats saw the same intelligence as their Republican counterparts prior to the March 2003 invasion.

But as a bipartisan investigation into prewar intelligence heats up, some key Democratic lawmakers, including Sen. Carl Levin (D-MI), have unearthed unreported evidence that indicates Congress was misled. This evidence includes Tenet’s testimony before Congress, dissenting views from the scientific community and statements made by members of the administration in early 2001.

Tenet told Congress in February 2001 that Iraq was “probably” pursuing chemical and biological weapons programs but that the CIA had no direct evidence that Iraq had actually obtained such weapons. However, such caveats as “may” and “probably” were removed from intelligence reports by key members of the Bush administration immediately after 9/11 when discussing Iraq.

“We do not have any direct evidence that Iraq has used the period since (Operation) Desert Fox to reconstitute its WMD programs,” Tenet said in an agency report to Congress Feb. 7, 2001. “Moreover, the automated video monitoring systems installed by the UN at known and suspect WMD facilities in Iraq are still not operating… Having lost this on-the-ground access, it is more difficult for the UN or the U.S. to accurately assess the current state of Iraq’s WMD programs.”

In fact, more than two dozen pieces of testimony and interviews of top officials in the Bush administration, including those given by former Secretary of State Colin Powell, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz prior to 9-11, show that the U.S. never believed Saddam Hussein was an imminent threat to anyone other than his own people.

Powell said the U.S. had successfully “contained” Iraq in the years since the first Gulf War. Further, he said that because of economic sanctions, Iraq was unable to obtain WMD.

“We have been able to keep weapons from going into Iraq,” Powell said during a Feb. 11, 2001 interview with “Face the Nation.” “We have been able to keep the sanctions in place to the extent that items that might support weapons of mass destruction development have had some controls.”

“It's been quite a success for ten years,” he added.

During a meeting with German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer in February 2001, Powell said the UN, the U.S. and its allies “have succeeded in containing Saddam Hussein and his ambitions.”

Saddam’s “forces are about one-third their original size. They don't really possess the capability to attack their neighbors the way they did ten years ago,” Powell said.

Powell added that Iraq was “not threatening America.”

Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld seemed to agree with Powell’s assessment. In a Feb. 12, 2001 interview with the Fox News Channel, Rumsfeld said, “Iraq is probably not a nuclear threat at the present time.”

Ironically, just five days before Rumsfeld’s Fox News interview, Tenet told Congress that Osama bin Laden and his al-Qa’ida terrorist network remained the single greatest threat to U.S. interests. Tenet eerily describes in the report a scenario that six months later would become a grim reality.

“Terrorists are also becoming more operationally adept and more technically sophisticated in order to defeat counter-terrorism measures,” the former CIA director said. “For example, as we have increased security around government and military facilities, terrorists are seeking out "softer" targets that provide opportunities for mass casualties.”

“Osama bin Laden and his global network of lieutenants and associates remain the most immediate and serious threat,” he added.

Between 1998 and early 2002, the CIA’s reports on the so-called terror threat offered no details on what types of chemical and biological weapons Iraq had obtained. After 9/11, however, these reports radically changed. In October 2002, the agency issued another report, this time alleging Iraq had vast supply of chemical and biological weapons. Much of that information turned out to be based on forged documents and unreliable Iraqi exiles.

The October 2002 CIA report stated that Iraq had been stockpiling sarin, mustard gas, VX and numerous other chemical weapons. This was in stark contrast to Tenet’s earlier reports which said the agency had no evidence to support such claims. And unlike testimony Tenet gave a year earlier, in which he said the CIA had no direct evidence of Iraq’s WMD programs, Tenet said the intelligence information in the 2002 report was rock solid.

“It comes to us from credible and reliable sources,” Tenet said during a 2003 CIA briefing. “Much of it is corroborated by multiple sources.”

The intelligence sources turned out to be Iraqi exiles supplied by then-head of the Iraqi National Congress Ahmed Chalabi, who was paid $330,000 a month by the Pentagon to provide intelligence on Iraq. The exiles’ credibility and the veracity of their reports came under scrutiny by the CIA but these reports were championed as smoking gun proof by President Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and other members of the Bush administration.

Unanswered questions remain. Democrats are increasingly suggesting that the Administration may have known their intelligence was bad.

Sen. Levin’s office directed RAW STORY to a statement the senator released Friday, claiming that the administration’s assertion that al-Qaeda was providing Iraq with chemical and biological weapons training was based on bogus evidence and a source who knowingly lied about al-Qaeda’s ties to Iraq. The Michigan Democrat also released a newly declassified report from the Defense Intelligence Agency to back up his allegations that the Bush administration misled the public.

“The CIA’s unclassified statement at the time was that the reporting was ‘credible,’ a statement the Administration used repeatedly,” he said. “What the Administration omitted was the second half of the CIA statement: that the source was not in a position to know whether any training had taken place.”

That issue, along with other reports, is now the cornerstone of the bipartisan investigation into prewar intelligence.

Levin’s office said the senator is going to provide the committee investigating prewar intelligence with reports from experts who warned officials in the Bush administration before the Iraq war that intelligence reports showing Iraq was stockpiling chemical and biological weapons were unreliable.

Rove aide called back to testify as inquiry into Rove's role wraps up, lawyers say

By Jason Leopold and Larisa Alexandrovna
RAW STORY

Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald will soon conclude his investigation into whether President Bush’s deputy chief of staff Karl Rove gave false statements to a grand jury investigating the leak of a covert CIA agent, attorneys close to the case say.

According to lawyers familiar with the case, Fitzgerald is trying to convince the grand jury that Rove made false statements during the three times he testified under oath and misleading statements to Justice Department and FBI investigators when he was first interviewed about his role in the leak in October 2003.

The attorneys told RAW STORY that Fitzgerald has called Rove’s former personal assistant, Susan B. Ralston -- who was also a special assistant to President Bush -- to testify before the grand jury for a third time, perhaps as early as Monday. She is not said to be in legal jeopardy.

Fitzgerald spokesman Randall Samborn would neither confirm nor deny that Ralston would appear before the grand jury. Ralston’s attorney could not be reached for comment.

Ralston previously worked as a personal secretary to Jack Abramoff, the Republican power lobbyist being investigated for allegations of defrauding Indian tribes who was recently indicted on conspiracy and wire fraud charges. While working with Abramoff, Ralston arranged fundraisers and events at Washington MCI Center skyboxes for members of Congress. Ralston communicated with Rove on Abramoff’s behalf on tribal affairs, though she is not accused of wrongdoing.

Fitzgerald wants to question Ralston again about several telephone calls Rove allegedly made to a few reporters, including syndicated columnist Robert Novak, lawyers close to the investigation say. Novak first disclosed the identity of undercover CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson in his July 14, 2003 column.

Furthermore, the attorneys said that Fitzgerald wants Ralston to clarify some of her previous testimony regarding statements she made about a phone call Rove had with Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper.

Ralston testified that Cooper’s name was not noted in the call logs from Rove’s office, those familiar with the case say.

Ralston told the grand jury that Cooper’s call to Rove was transferred to Rove’s office by the White House switchboard. She testified that the call was not logged by Rove’s office because Cooper had not called Rove’s office directly.

Sources say that Fitzgerald has obtained documentary evidence proving that scenario does not jibe with other unrelated calls to Rove’s office that were also transferred to his office by the switchboard but were logged.

RAW STORY called the White House today, trying to ascertain whether calls were logged. The White House switchboard operator would not transfer this reporter to Rove’s office and instead transferred the call to the White House comment line. A spokesman for the White House office of media affairs did not return a call seeking comment.

Ralston, 38, testified in the leak case twice this past summer. The Phillipine News, which first reported that Ralston would be called back to testify and is keeping tabs on Ralston because of her Philippine heritage and her previously high profile role in the administration, noted that Rove aide Israel Hernandez was asked similar questions.

Hernandez, 35, testified before the grand jury in August. He was tapped by Bush to be Assistant Secretary of Commerce, and was formerly a close aide to Rove.

As Rove’s senior adviser, Ralston screened Rove’s calls. Her additional testimony may help Fitzgerald prove that there were inconsistencies in Rove’s account of his role in the leak and assess why he withheld a crucial fact from the prosecutor: that Rove had spoken with Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper as well as Novak about Plame and confirmed that she was an undercover CIA agent.

Despite the emergence of new information in the case, there remains a chance that Rove will not be charged. In that event, Fitzgerald is not expected to discuss any aspect of his probe into Rove because he may be called to testify as a prosecution witness against Lewis “Scooter” Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney. Libby was indicted two weeks ago on five counts of lying to investigators, perjury and obstruction of justice related to his role in the leak. The sources said that the situation surrounding Rove remains fluid and changes with each passing day.

In recent days, Fitzgerald seems to have come to the conclusion that Rove may still be misleading the prosecution, the attorneys said. They would not elaborate.

During previous interviews, Rove said he first learned Plame's name from reporters and only after her named was published did he discuss Plame with other reporters. But Rove changed his story when he testified before the grand jury for a fourth time in September.

Robert Luskin, Rove’s lawyer, continues to maintain that his client has not intentionally withheld facts from the prosecutor or the grand jury but has simply forgotten about his conversations with the reporters, the attorneys said.

Luskin could not be reached for comment.

John Byrne contributed reporting for this story.

Prosecutor in Leak Case Keeps Focus On Rove

By Jason Leopold

The special prosecutor investigating the outing of CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson is trying to determine whether Deputy White House chief of staff Karl Rove lied to the FBI when he was first interviewed by agents about his role in the case in October 2003, attorneys close to the case said.

News reports in recent weeks have suggested that Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has narrowed his criminal inquiry into whether Rove purposely failed to tell the grand jury hearing evidence in the case that he spoke with Time Magazine reporter Matthew Cooper in July 2003 and revealed the identity of the undercover CIA agent.

But Fitzgerald hasn’t resolved another important element in the case: what appears to be misleading statements Rove made to FBI investigators on Oct. 8, 2003, less than two weeks after the Justice Department announced that it had launched a criminal probe into Plame’s outing, the attorneys said.

Those close to the case say that Rove was caught up in a game of semantics when he was questioned by FBI investigators, insisting to federal agents that he was not the individual who had leaked Plame-Wilson’s identity to conservative columnist Robert Novak. Novak was the first to make public her name and CIA status in a July 14, 2003 column.

Rove told investigators that he merely passed along information about Plame-Wilson to other journalists and White House officials after it had already appeared in Novak’s column, the attorneys said. He maintained, they added, that it was entirely within his right to do so being that Plame-Wilson’s husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, was publicly criticizing the Bush Administration and had claimed in a New York Times op-ed that it had “twisted” prewar intelligence to build public support for a preemptive military strike against Iraq.

According to lawyers, Rove did not tell FBI investigators in 2003 that he had spoken with Novak prior to his column being published and had been one of the two “senior administration officials” cited in Novak’s column as having confirmed Plame’s identity and CIA employment.

Rove was named as “Official A,” the person who confirmed Plame’s CIA status for Novak, in the 22-page indictment against Vice President Cheney’s erstwhile chief of staff.

Fitzgerald is now trying to piece together evidence as to whether Rove obstructed the investigation into Plame’s outing, a felony, during that first interview he had with the FBI, as well as allegedly lying to the federal agents, the attorneys said.

A Mar. 8, 2004 story in the American Prospect related to Rove’s testimony noted that, “Rove also adamantly insisted to the FBI that he was not the administration official who leaked the information that Plame was a covert CIA operative to conservative columnist Robert Novak last July.”

RAW STORY has independently confirmed a Prospect report which said that Rove told the FBI that the White House undertook an aggressive campaign to undercut Wilson’s credibility by leaking disparaging information about Wilson and his wife to the press. Rove disclosed that the Administration enlisted conservative interest groups and the Republican National Committee to get the job done, suggesting that perhaps dozens more individuals than previously known were aware of Plame-Wilson’s classified CIA status. Still, Rove did not reveal to investigators that he spoke with Novak before his column was published, the lawyers said.

Fitzgerald has been working tirelessly over the past two weeks examining Rove’s grand jury testimony and interviews Rove had with the FBI to determine if there is evidence that Rove knowingly made false statements to officials investigating the case, the sources said.

Meanwhile, Rove’s attorney, Robert Luskin, is laboring to convince Fitzgerald that any information related to Plame’s outing that Rove may have not been forthcoming about was the result of an innocent bout of forgetfulness on the part of his client. Luskin has spoken to Fitzgerald at least once over the phone about Rove’s legal position since Libby’s indictment, the attorneys said.

Fitzgerald spokesman Randall Samborn told RAW STORY he could not comment on the specifics of the investigation or whether there would be any public announcement when the probe is completed.

According to the attorneys close to the case, the chips are still stacked against Rove, unless he decides to cut a deal before the probe wraps up. Fitzgerald is also investigating whether Rove withheld another important element from investigators during that very first interview on Oct. 8, 2003, and from the grand jury during the three times he testified: that he'd had a conversation with Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper—on background—about Plame-Wilson just three months earlier.

It would be nearly a year after Rove was questioned by the FBI in October 2003 that his attorney, Robert Luskin, contacted Fitzgerald to say that Rove had recalled the conversation he'd had with Cooper about Plame-Wilson and her husband, Joseph. It was only after Cooper had been forced to testify about his conversation with Rove this past summer that Rove recalled the interview, even though the conversation had taken place just three months before the October 2003 interview with the FBI.

Jason Leopold is the author of the explosive memoir, News Junkie, to be released in the spring of 2006 by Process/Feral House Books. Visit Leopold's website at www.jasonleopold.com for updates.

Vice President lied as White House sought to defuse leak inquiry

By Jason Leopold

Did Vice President Dick Cheney help cover-up the outing of covert CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson in the months after conservative columnist Robert Novak first disclosed her identity?

That’s one of the questions Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald is likely trying to figure out. It’s unclear what Cheney said to investigators back in 2004 when he was questioned—not under oath—about the leak, particularly what he knew and when he knew it.

Friday’s grand jury indictment sheds new light on a pattern of strategic deception by the Vice President and the White House to defuse an inquiry into who leaked the name of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson to the press. Months after Plame’s identity was disclosed by conservative columnist Robert Novak, Cheney continued to hide the fact that he and his aides were intimately involved in disseminating classified information about her to journalists.

What the Vice President denied knowing

The indictment against Cheney’s Chief of Staff, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, clearly states that Cheney and Libby discussed Plame’s undercover CIA status and the fact that her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, traveled to Niger to investigate claims that Iraq tried to acquire yellowcake uranium from the African country in early June of 2003.

Yet the following month, Cheney and then-White House press secretary Ari Fleischer asserted that the vice president was unaware of Wilson’s Niger trip, who the ambassador was, or a classified report Wilson wrote about his findings prior to the ambassador’s July 6, 2003 op-ed in the New York Times.

We now know, courtesy of the 22-page Libby indictment, that Cheney wasn’t being truthful. Cheney did see the report; he knew full well who Wilson was. He also knew that the CIA arranged for Wilson to travel to Niger, and he personally sought out information about Wilson’s trip to Niger, was briefed about the fact-finding mission, and even obtained classified information about Plame’s covert CIA status. He also came to know one other important nugget: that Plame may have recommended her husband for the trip.

Cheney’s public campaign and that of other White House officials to discredit Wilson and strategically lie about the Plame leak started on Sept. 14, 2003, during an interview with Tim Russert of NBC's “Meet the Press.”

During the interview, Cheney maintained that he didn’t know Wilson or anything about his trip.

“I don’t know Joe Wilson,” Cheney said, in response to Russert who quoted Wilson as saying there was no truth to the Niger uranium claims. “I’ve never met Joe Wilson. And Joe Wilson—I don’t who sent Joe Wilson. He never submitted a report that I ever saw when he came back... I don’t know Mr. Wilson. I probably shouldn’t judge him. I have no idea who hired him and it never came...”

“The CIA did,” Russert said, interjecting.

“Who at the CIA? I don’t know,” Cheney said. “He never submitted a report that I ever saw when he came back.”

What happened once Cheney received information on Plame and Wilson in June 2003 remains unclear. But the indictment illustrates—in no uncertain terms—that the vice president’s office staged a concerted effort to undermine Wilson for questioning the veracity of the Niger claims.

Fitzgerald has eyed Cheney in seeking to ascertain who ordered the leak, as RAW STORY previously reported. While the Vice President stands accused of no wrongdoing, his role may come into greater focus during a trial.

In an interview with the syndicated radio program “Democracy Now,” Wilson argued that Cheney may have been lying to Russert when he said he didn’t know about the ambassador’s Niger trip.

“While we've never met, he certainly knows who I am and should know unless his memory is flawed and faulty,” Wilson said during the Sept. 16, 2003 interview. “There were at a minimum three reports that had been generated shortly after the Vice President had asked the question, ‘what do we know about this?’”

The Vice President certainly must have known Wilson during his tenure as secretary of defense during the first President Bush’s administration. In the weeks leading up to the first Gulf War, Wilson served as the acting U.S ambassador on the ground in Baghdad. In fact, Wilson was the only line of communication between Washington and Saddam Hussein. The White House held daily briefings with Wilson, and Cheney sat in on a majority of those briefings.

White House suggested investigation was waste of time

In hindsight, it now seems that the White House, including President Bush, attempted to steer reporters away from covering the Plame leak by saying the “leaker” would never be found.

On October 7, 2003, Bush and his spokesman, Scott McClellan, said that the White House ruled out three administration officials - Rove, Libby and Elliot Abrams, a senior official on the National Security Council, as sources of the leak - a day before FBI questioned the three of them - based on questions McClellan said he asked the men.

The very next day, however, Rove was questioned by FBI investigators and said that he spoke to journalists about Plame for the first time after Novak’s column was published - a lie, it appears - based on Time reporter Matthew Cooper’s emails which stated that Rove told Cooper about Plame.

Bush told reporters the same day he doubted that a Justice Department investigation would ever turn up the source of the leak, suggesting that it was a waste of time for lawmakers to question the administration and for reporters to follow up on the story.

"I mean this is a town full of people who like to leak information," Bush said. "And I don't know if we're going to find out the senior administration official. Now, this is a large administration, and there's lots of senior officials. I don't have any idea.”

Senator Frank Lautenberg (D-NJ) responded to the president’s statement in the New York Times.

“If the president says, 'I don't know if we're going to find this person,' what kind of a statement is that for the president of the United States to make?” Lautenberg asked. “Would he say that about a bank robbery investigation?”

Facing a deadline on turning over documents, emails and phone logs to Justice Department officials, Bush said that the White House could invoke executive privilege and withhold some “sensitive” documents related to the leak case. Democrats speculated that the White House had something to hide.

Classified leak or truthful rebuttal?

Unable to keep emails from investigators, the White House mounted a defense. They would seek to distinguish between “unauthorized leaks” and something perfectly legal: “setting the record straight.”

On Oct. 6, 2003, in response to questions about whether Rove was Novak’s source, McClellan tried to explain the difference between unauthorized disclosure of classified information and "setting the record straight" about Wilson’s public criticism of the Administration’s handling of intelligence on Iraq.

“There is a difference between setting the record straight and doing something to punish someone for speaking out,” McClellan said.

"There were some statements made (by Wilson) and those statements were not based on facts," McClellan said. "And we pointed out that it was not the vice president's office that sent Mr. Wilson to Niger.”

Wilson, it turned out, had never said that the vice president’s office had sent him to Niger.