Bush's Culture of Unaccountability

Editor's Note: The following is an email interview conducted with Ambassador Joseph Wilson on Friday, July 8. From the moment that what's now known as "Plamegate" emerged on the horizon, alternative media outlets have demanded accountability from the White House. Although the mainstream corporate media is now focusing on the legal issue of whether Karl Rove or other White House staffers will be indicted, the more preeminent issue is that the Bush White House committed treason by betraying the national security of the United States of America.

BuzzFlash: There are at least three dimensions to the outing of your wife as a CIA operative: legal, national security and moral. Let's put aside the swirling legal issues, for a moment, and start with the national security issue of what happened in the summer of 2003. "Two senior administration officials" confirmed to columnist Robert Novak in the summer of 2003 that your wife was a CIA operative. She was working undercover, tracking the trade in weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), including illicit trafficking. The Bush Administration had told the American people that we were attacking Iraq because Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and we needed protection from him. Here's the question: Whatever the legal issues, isn't this a prima facie betrayal of the national security interests of the United States, to "out" your wife, who was working to protect us from weapons of mass destruction, at a time that the White House was launching a war allegedly to prevent the use of weapons of mass destruction that didn't even exist?

Ambassador Wilson: The question of whether the outing of Valerie was a betrayal of our national interests is precisely what the special counsel, Pat Fitzgerald, is trying to ascertain. I have great confidence in his commitment and professionalism. It should be clear that the CIA would not have referred the case to Justice, if it had not believed a crime was committed.

What about the moral dimensions of the "leak" to Novak? Karl Rove was quoted as telling a reporter that your wife was "fair game." Isn't national security, our ability to protect ourselves as a nation, a game that takes second place to vengeance and intimidation for the senior administration officials in question? What is the morality of such an attitude and action in terms of an administration's sacred duty to protect the citizens of the United States? Even if senior White House officials are not indicted, aren't they morally culpable for betraying our safety?

In my judgment, a smear campaign operated out of the White House is unethical, to say the least. The First Amendment specifically says that nothing should be done to abridge a citizen's right to petition his government to redress a grievance. The attack on me, through the compromise of Valerie's identity, is an assault on not just my petition to redress a grievance, but it is also a deterrent to other citizens who might step forward. That is why I have always argued that Rove should be fired, even if no indictments are forthcoming. It goes without saying that I found his comment to Chris Matthews, that Valerie was fair game, to be repugnant.

Again, let's put aside the legal investigation for the time being. At the time that this became an issue -- due to David Corn's reporting and repeated editorials on BuzzFlash -- Bush demurred from taking any personal action to find out who on his staff endangered national security. For two years, whoever did this has presumably still been working at the White House. Hasn't Bush left us vulnerable, by having senior administration officials still on staff, who betrayed the citizens of the United States of America? Hasn't this made possible another potential security breach? Couldn't Bush just have called his senior staff into his office and said: "I have taken a solemn oath to protect every American. Whoever did this, come forward, you're fired?"