Armitage Was CIA Leak Source, Lawyer Confirms
Posted on Aug 29, 2006
Richard Armitage, Bush’s former deputy secretary of state, has confirmed through a lawyer that he was the original source in the CIA leak case. But he says he had no malicious intent. He was just gossiping with reporters.
How does this fit in with the theory that the Bush White House leaked Valerie Plame’s name as a revenge ploy against her husband?
The Washington Post has some info:
“Just because Armitage did this on his own, earlier, doesn’t mean that there wasn’t a White House conspiracy to ‘out’ Valerie [Plame] Wilson,” said Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, the group pressing a lawsuit on behalf of Plame/Wilson. “We don’t think it affects the case.”
The N.Y. Times:
Richard L. Armitage, a former deputy secretary of state, has acknowledged that he was the person whose conversation with a columnist in 2003 prompted a long, politically laden criminal investigation in what became known as the C.I.A. leak case, a lawyer involved in the case said on Tuesday.
Mr. Armitage did not return calls for comment. But the lawyer and other associates of Mr. Armitage have said he has confirmed that he was the initial and primary source for the columnist, Robert D. Novak, whose column of July 14, 2003, identified Valerie Wilson as a Central Intelligence Agency officer.
The identification of Mr. Armitage as the original leaker to Mr. Novak ends what has been a tantalizing mystery. In recent months, however, Mr. Armitage’s role had become clear to many, and it was recently reported by Newsweek magazine and The Washington Post.
Link
The Washington Post:
... Armitage’s involvement in the matter does not fit neatly into the assertions of Bush administration critics that Plame’s employment was disclosed as part of a White House conspiracy to besmirch Wilson by suggesting his Niger trip stemmed from nepotism at the CIA. Wilson and Plame have sued top administration officials, alleging that the leak was meant as retaliation.
But Armitage, the source Novak had described obliquely as someone who is “not a political gunslinger,” was by all accounts hardly a tool of White House political operatives. As the No. 2 official at the State Department from March 2001 to February 2005, Armitage was a prominent Republican appointee. But he also privately disagreed with the tone and style of White House policymaking on Iraq and other matters.
“Just because Armitage did this on his own, earlier, doesn’t mean that there wasn’t a White House conspiracy to ‘out’ Valerie [Plame] Wilson. We don’t think it affects the case,” said Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, the group pressing the lawsuit.
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By John Smith, September 8, 2006 at 12:25 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
Who told Armitage about V Plame’s identity?
Report thisBy john henry, September 7, 2006 at 12:57 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
I think Lance is on target. How is that Armitage is being considered an opponent of the Iraq War and an outsider to this administration? W. appointed him to a high post at State and he is a neocon. the more fundamental problem I have with this affir is that it seems to show the insincerity of this Administration in regard to the “War on Terror” which in other contexts is supposed to be of overwhelming import. We are supposed to allow W. to secretly spy on us, to incarcerate and torture anyone he says might be a terrorist and must elect Republicans etc. Yet we hear that the individuals which includes high ranking people appointed by W.( Libby, Rove and Armitage) are not guilty of a crime because they did not know Plame was covert. Well clearly they are admitting that when they disclosed that she was CIA they, none of them, bothered to determine whether this information should be kept secret. How completely inconsistent with the stated position on the war on terror and the stated need for intelligence and secrecy. How can anyone continue to believe that W. or his high ranking appointees believe what they are saying about the war on terror. Whenever one of them makes one of their usual speeches, the press should make them a laughing stock. If it were true that W’s administration beleives his own rhetoric --at least one of them- Libby,Rove or Armitage would have taken the obvious precaution of finding out if the CIA wanted her id kept secret before they spoke. Why this has not become a source of derisive ridicule tells me what the media is really about. Do you people on the “right” want an administration that is so careless about such matters? If yes, dont tell me you are so serious about the war on terror that we need to give W. powers to secretly spy, imprison and torture. I dont even begin to give credibilty to your position.
Report thisBy Dennis, September 6, 2006 at 7:51 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
I think it doesn’t matter who outed Plame, other than she outed herself. She had a website with the appropriate info on it.
Besides, if we consider outing Plame (if she hadn’t done so herself) treason, what do you call conspiring with the Chinese to trade rocket technology for campaign contributions? If you liberals weren’t trying to sell America out to the enemy every chance you get, maybe the rest of America would listen to you.
Report thisBy Lance, August 30, 2006 at 3:00 am #
(Unregistered commenter)
Please allow me the luxury of a repost on this one.
It amazes me that the press and the reading public continue to accept one after another admission of <oops!> innocent, idle “gossip” which “just happened” to be about the same low level CIA agent, and all “coincidentally” occured within a one to two week timeframe and <wink wink> just managed to get to as many as SIX different reporters!
Whoopsie!
C’mon...how much evidence do we need to conclude that this was a coordinated campaign? And Cheney - he...SHAZAYUM”...looks under his desk and finds...GLORYOSKY!...a copy of the Sunday Times with Wilson’s op ed article and his ruminating handwritten notes about whether a trip to Niger is a boondoggle. Are you kidding, Dickie? Do you know what Niger is like? You think that’s second choice to Palm Springs?
Please understand who these people are. They are greedy, imperialistic warmongers who lusted for the war in Iraq long before 911. They ginned the intel to make their case - all LYING to the American people in doing so, and they have spent the last four years covering their tracks. Outing Valerie Plame was a warning to the intel and diplomatic corps - “Fuck with us and you get fucked.” After all, you can’t give EVERYONE the Medal of Freedom, like they did George Tenet, to buy his silence.
Think I’m wrong about Dick Armitage being a Cheney stooge? Well, as I wrote in my last post on this subject, do the research.
Take a look at the website for the Project for the New American Century ("PNAC") - http://www.newamericancentury.org. Then look at the “Letters/Statements” section. Then check out the 1998 letter to President Clinton. This letter has been discussed at some length in the blogosphere (i.e. why should we believe it was 911 that motivated this crowd to attack Iraq when they were lusting to do so in 1998?). But the signers have not. Look at the signators of the letter.
There’s Dick Armitage. And also the following people, listed with their positions in the first Bush administration:
Elliott Abrams - Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Democracy, Human Rights and International Operations
John Bolton - Under Secretary of State, Arms Control and International Security (now you-know-who)
Paula Dobriansky - Under Secretary of State, Global Affairs
Francis Fukuyama - Member, President’s Council on Bioethics
Zalmay Khalilzad – US Ambassador to Afghanistan, headed the Bush-Cheney transition team for the Defense Department in 2000 and has been a Counselor to Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld.[2]
Richard Perle – Member and former chairman of the Defense Policy Board
Peter W. Rodman - Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs
Donald Rumsfeld – Secretary of Defense
William Schneider, Jr. - Chairman of the Defense Science Board
Paul Wolfowitz – Deputy Secretary of Defense
R. James Woolsey – Member of the Policy Advisory Board to the Secretary of Defense
Robert Zoellick - U.S. Trade Representative, member of President Bush’s cabinet.
The administration is crawling with PNAC people, including Mr. Armitage.
So...what’s this got to do with Cheney? After all, he didn’t sign the letter.
Oh...just this. Cheney is a cofounder of PNAC.
It’s so sad that this administration is so emboldened by the fecklessness demonstrated by the press in the runup to the war, and the sad, uninformed nature of our voting public (more knowing the names of the Three Stooges than two of our USSC judges) that they think...no, KNOW...that they can get away with this charade.
Report thisBy Auggie Fields, August 29, 2006 at 11:02 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
Give it up. It was not the white house. What do you expect people to say who are have a lawsuit agianst the white house? I might add that they are taking this action with knowledge that they will lose but have deftly asked the liberal left for donations for their legal expense. They will wind up with millions in spite of losing their suit.
Report thisBy harald hardrada, August 29, 2006 at 9:25 pm #
(Unregistered commenter)
i can’t get upset about the plame case—it shows bush’s hypocrisy but that’s all
why do we need so many different intelligence agencies if none of them can get it right & if our leaders go out of their way to fire spies who are good at speaking arabic or other critical languages?—it shows that these spies really spend their time harassing & persecuting innocent americans
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