something I find strange, maybe you know why (1 Viewer)

[mesue]

One of the stranger things about this Valerie Plame case is that the one reporter who did report her identity has been left out of all this. Wasn't it Robert Novak who first reported who she was and that she worked for the CIA? If it was why has he not been questioned and why do we hear nothing much about him in the news in regards to this story? I have heard all about Cooper and Judith Miller but not anything much about Novak, why? And does anyone have a link to the original piece that outed the CIA agent in the first place? TIA

 

[tecoyah]

WASHINGTON -- The CIA's decision to send retired diplomat Joseph C. Wilson to Africa in February 2002 to investigate possible Iraqi purchases of uranium was made routinely at a low level without Director George Tenet's knowledge. Remarkably, this produced a political firestorm that has not yet subsided.

Wilson's report that an Iraqi purchase of uranium yellowcake from Niger was highly unlikely was regarded by the CIA as less than definitive, and it is doubtful Tenet ever saw it. Certainly, President Bush did not, prior to his 2003 State of the Union address, when he attributed reports of attempted uranium purchases to the British government. That the British relied on forged documents made Wilson's mission, nearly a year earlier, the basis of furious Democratic accusations of burying intelligence though the report was forgotten by the time the president spoke.

Reluctance at the White House to admit a mistake has led Democrats ever closer to saying the president lied the country into war. Even after a belated admission of error last Monday, finger-pointing between Bush administration agencies continued. Messages between Washington and the presidential entourage traveling in Africa hashed over the mission to Niger.

Wilson's mission was created after an early 2002 report by the Italian intelligence service about attempted uranium purchases from Niger, derived from forged documents prepared by what the CIA calls a "con man." This misinformation, peddled by Italian journalists, spread through the U.S. government. The White House, State Department and Pentagon, and not just Vice President Dick Cheney, asked the CIA to look into it.

That's where Joe Wilson came in. His first public notice had come in 1991 after 15 years as a Foreign Service officer when, as U.S. charge in Baghdad, he risked his life to shelter in the embassy some 800 Americans from Saddam Hussein's wrath. My partner Rowland Evans reported from the Iraqi capital in our column that Wilson showed "the stuff of heroism." President George H.W. Bush the next year named him ambassador to Gabon, and President Bill Clinton put him in charge of African affairs at the National Security Council until his retirement in 1998.

Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction. Two senior administration officials told me Wilson's wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate the Italian report. The CIA says its counter-proliferation officials selected Wilson and asked his wife to contact him. "I will not answer any question about my wife," Wilson told me.

After eight days in the Niger capital of Niamey (where he once served), Wilson made an oral report in Langley that an Iraqi uranium purchase was "highly unlikely," though he also mentioned in passing that a 1988 Iraqi delegation tried to establish commercial contacts. CIA officials did not regard Wilson's intelligence as definitive, being based primarily on what the Niger officials told him and probably would have claimed under any circumstances. The CIA report of Wilson's briefing remains classified.

All this was forgotten until reporter Walter Pincus revealed in the Washington Post June 12 that an unnamed retired diplomat had given the CIA a negative report. Not until Wilson went public on July 6, however, did his finding ignite the firestorm.

During the run-up to the invasion of Iraq, Wilson had taken a measured public position -- viewing weapons of mass destruction as a danger but considering military action as a last resort. He has seemed much more critical of the administration since revealing his role in Niger. In the Washington Post July 6, he talked about the Bush team "misrepresenting the facts," asking: "What else are they lying about?"

After the White House admitted error, Wilson declined all television and radio interviews. "The story was never me," he told me, "it was always the statement in (Bush's) speech." The story, actually, is whether the administration deliberately ignored Wilson's advice, and that requires scrutinizing the CIA summary of what their envoy reported. The Agency never before has declassified that kind of information, but the White House would like it to do just that now -- in its and in the public's interest.

Robert Novak is a television personality and a columnist who writes Inside Report.


As requested

http://www.townhall.com/opinion/columns/robertnovak/2003/07/14/160881.html

as for his silence....I think this sums it up pretty well:

Carping about Novak was the only news, if it can be called that, in the aforementioned Times story. Here's the crux of it: "A growing number of media ethics specialists, lawyers and journalists are criticizing Mr. Novak as failing as a journalist by not outlining for the public his dealings with the investigation." Whining and mewling and backbiting follow, voiced by various and sundry representatives of the referenced disciplines. Novak's part of the story, but he won't talk. Novak started this mess and doesn't even express sympathy for Cooper and Miller. Novak this, Novak that.

Novak says he isn't talking "on advice of counsel," and our hat is off to him for following that advice, fundamental to any adversarial legal proceeding. His silence may indeed raise some ironies of journalism, but not of law. Anything he says to anyone other than his attorney could reduce or eliminate the protections that he is entitled to under the law. He's doing the right thing, doing it perfectly, and anyone who doesn't like that, including journalists with poor understanding of the law, should just shut up.

 

[mesue]

Well of course, he has the right to keep his mouth shut, I would too if I were in his shoes. But someone keeping their mouth shut has never really stopped the press before has it? How many times have we seen them following people around trying to get an interview, month after month, when all that person says is no comment. Novak is getting some special treatment from the press IMO. Novak is a major part of this story and instead I hear about Miller and Cooper, did they even write anything on it? I know Miller did not but when asked, she refused to give her source and went to jail. Has Novak revealed his source? Has anyone even asked him who his source was? Why was he not given the same treatment as Miller and Cooper? They were not talking either and was facing jail time and Miller did jail time for not talking. But Novak refused to talk and thats means he hands off, so the press leaves him alone, the courts leave him alone and............ why?

 

[cnredd]

Well of course, he has the right to keep his mouth shut, I would too if I were in his shoes. But someone keeping their mouth shut has never really stopped the press before has it? How many times have we seen them following people around trying to get an interview, month after month, when all that person says is no comment. Novak is getting some special treatment from the press IMO. Novak is a major part of this story and instead I hear about Miller and Cooper, did they even write anything on it? I know Miller did not but when asked, she refused to give her source and went to jail. Has Novak revealed his source? Has anyone even asked him who his source was? Why was he not given the same treatment as Miller and Cooper? They were not talking either and was facing jail time and Miller did jail time for not talking. But Novak refused to talk and thats means he hands off, so the press leaves him alone, the courts leave him alone and............ why?

G_g _rd_r

Wanna buy a vowel?...

 

[mesue]

G_g _rd_r

Wanna buy a vowel?...

I'm sorry, I'm not getting what you are trying to convey. Could you be more clear on that please?

 

[cnredd]

I'm sorry, I'm not getting what you are trying to convey. Could you be more clear on that please?

Sure!

Gag order!...:2wave:

Don't know if he has one on him or not, but that's a damn good reason not to talk if one exists...

 

[mesue]

Nope, no gag order except that he has repeatedly said that his attorneys have advised him not to say anything until this investigation is over. This is definitely one for the books, the press leaving him alone just because he refuses to talk, that tactic has never worked for anyone else.