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Bob Novak's Plame Source Identified

By David Corn, TheNation.com. Posted August 28, 2006.


Conservative columnist Bob Novak's first source on the identity of Valerie Plame in 2003 was former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage.
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One mystery solved.

It was Richard Armitage, when he was deputy secretary of state in July 2003, who first disclosed to conservative columnist Robert Novak that the wife of former ambassador Joseph Wilson was a CIA employee.

A Newsweek article -- based on the new book I cowrote with Newsweek correspondent Michael Isikoff, Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal and the Selling of the Iraq War -- discloses that Armitage passed this classified information to Novak during a July 8, 2003 interview. Though Armitage's role as Novak's primary source has been a subject of speculation, the case is now closed. Our sources for this are three government officials who spoke to us confidentially and who had direct knowledge of Armitage's conversation with Novak. Carl Ford Jr., who was head of the State Department's intelligence branch at the time, told us -- on the record -- that after Armitage testified before the grand jury investigating the leak case, he told Ford, "I'm afraid I may be the guy that caused the whole thing."

Ford recalls Armitage said he had "slipped up" and had told Novak more that he should have. According to Ford, Armitage was upset that "he was the guy that fucked up."

The unnamed government sources also told us about what happened three months later when Novak wrote a column noting that his original source was "no partisan gunslinger." After reading that October 1 column, Armitage called his boss and long-time friend, Secretary of State Colin Powell, and acknowledged he was Novak's source. Powell, Armitage and William Taft IV, the State Department's top lawyer, frantically conferred about what to do. As Taft told us (on the record), "We decided we were going to tell [the investigators] what we thought had happened." Taft notified the criminal division of the Justice Department -- which was then handling the investigation -- and FBI agents interviewed Armitage the next day. In that interview, Armitage admitted he had told Novak about Wilson's wife and her employment at the CIA. The Newsweek piece lays all this out.

Colleagues of Armitage told us that Armitage -- who is known to be an inveterate gossip -- was only conveying a hot tidbit, not aiming to do Joe Wilson harm. Ford says, "My sense from Rich is that it was just chitchat." (When Armitage testified before the Iran-contra grand jury many years earlier, he had described himself as "a terrible gossip." Iran-contra independent counsel Lawrence Walsh subsequently accused him of providing "false testimony" to investigators but said that he could not prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Armitage's misstatements had been "deliberate.")

The Plame leak in Novak's column has long been cited by Bush administration critics as a deliberate act of payback, orchestrated to punish and/or discredit Joe Wilson after he charged that the Bush administration had misled the American public about the prewar intelligence. The Armitage news does not fit neatly into that framework. He and Powell were not the leading advocates of war in the administration (even though Powell became the chief pitchman for the case for war when he delivered a high-profile speech at the UN). They were not the political hitmen of the Bush gang. Armitage might have mentioned Wilson's wife merely as gossip. But -- as Hubris notes -- he also had a bureaucratic interest in passing this information to Novak.

On July 6 -- two days before Armitage's meeting with Novak -- Wilson published an op-ed in The New York Times on July 6, 2003, that revealed that he had been sent by the CIA to Niger to investigate the charge that Iraq had been trying to buy uranium in that impoverished African nation. Wilson wrote that his mission had been triggered by an inquiry to the CIA from Vice President Dick Cheney, who had read an intelligence report about the Niger allegation, and that he (Wilson) had reported back to the CIA that the charge was highly unlikely. Noting that President George W. Bush had referred to this allegation in his 2003 State of the Union speech, Wilson maintained that the administration had used a phoney claim to lead the country to war. His article ignited a firestorm. That meant that the State Department had good reason (political reason, that is) to distance itself from Wilson, a former State Department official. Armitage may well have referred to Wilson's wife and her CIA connection to make the point that State officials -- already suspected by the White House of not being team players -- had nothing to do with Wilson and his trip.


Digg!

David Corn is the Washington editor of The Nation and author of "The Lies of George W. Bush: Mastering the Politics of Deception." He writes a blog at davidcorn.com.

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disgraceful
Posted by: rsaxto on Aug 28, 2006 1:47 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
More evidence that the Bushies are running a disgraceful, unethical and criminal enterprize whose prime product is mass murder in Iraq, Lebanon and elsewhere. This is a result of simple greed, mindfreeked dominion and a hatred of the unrich. It is antidemocracy propagandizing itself as prodemocracy. It is pretend government brought to power by deceit, vote fraud and monied bribery. It is hundreds of counts of illegal treachery. It is impeach now or be under the thumb of neofascists forever.

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Armitage is Cheney/Rove/Bush and the Neocon's planned fall guy for their outing of Plame.
Posted by: doinaheckuvajob on Aug 28, 2006 2:27 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
They don't like Armitage. While he signed the PNAC letter to Clinton in the '90's and was part of the "Vulcans" foreing policy group, he's been very critical of the ridiculous PNAC Mideast war plans Bush has followed and has blasted the Bush Admin. ever since he and Powell left the Admin.

How convenient that all these media stories are coming out blaming the original outing on Armitage. But Armitage was not part of the Cheney/Rove/Bush cabal that wanted to smear Wilson.

Let's remember who is indicted so far. Libby, Cheney's 2nd hand man, not Armitage nor Powell. How many times has Armitage been called to Fitzgerald's grand jury versus Rove or the others?

I submit that these stories are ultimately a smear to deflect the blame from where it really belongs.

These stories about Armitage smell of Rove/Cheney as thick as the humidity in DC in summer.

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Quick Question for David Corn
Posted by: hquain on Aug 28, 2006 3:03 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Why didn't Armitage fess up years ago?

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Bob Novak
Posted by: Ellie1 on Aug 28, 2006 3:21 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
has long been a White House shill. He should be in jail, as well as Bush, Cheney, and the whole damned bunch of them. This administration makes me ashamed of this country (notice I will not say MY country).

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» Why jail? Posted by: YogiBear
I smell a plant....
Posted by: NonnyO on Aug 28, 2006 3:42 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
A planted "source" who is a "known gossip" from Iran-Contra days (where 41 was up to his eyeballs in behind-the-scenes-tactics) who could be counted on to tell his story far and wide.... Or, was Armitage, good PNAC member that he is, told to "let slip" facts about Plame's position...? Outing a NOC is still a crime and the administration is implicated every which way.

How much is Armitage being paid to take the fall for spreading the story...?

Why hasn't Novak spent any time in jail for first publishing the information?

What will the WhizCo kids come up with this week to deflect talk away from this story... which, naturally, leads back to questions about the LIES that led to the invasion and occupation of Iraq, the illegal concentration camps at Gitmo, the illegal torture being done there, which are all war crimes that could lead to impeachment...?

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» RE: I smell a plant....sickofsleaze Posted by: ladybug1@carrollsweb.com
LIKE IT MATTERS.
Posted by: ssegallmd on Aug 28, 2006 3:44 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
So what? It's not like anybody is going to seriously investigate someone from the court of the spirochete king for high crimes and misdemeanors. This is America, where some classes of people are above the law. Not on paper, mind you, just in fact.

When the only court that can indict you is the US House of Representatives - well, have fun. It's on the taxpayer anyway. So let's shit-can all that pretend 'liberty and justice for all' stuff because it is *so* twentieth century.

As long as we're at it, is it right to call a nation that shrieks likes a schoolgirl and wets itself over the loss of a couple of buildings and the number of people killed on the highways in a drunken fourth of July weekend, and then responds by tossing away its rights as fast as it can while cringing and shuddering at every orange alert - should such people still be calling themselves and their country the "the land of the free and the home of the brave"?

'Cause really, it's getting kind of embarrassing what with nobody else in the world saying it or thinking it. Bullies are seen as cowards, and what is picking a fight with the Stone Age Iraqis if not bullying? Picking a fair fight?

Have you ever seen an ocean documentary showing a sea cucumber? This strange tube-shaped creature ejects its intestines - so called evisceration - at perceived enemies when it is afraid, and then grows a new colon or whatever.

It seems like a high price for the cuke to pay for such a shitty weapon - his digestive track. That is why it reminds me of the simpering post-911 American people frantically casting off their hard won liberties at a boogieman thousands of miles away (if it exists at all) as a similarly meaningless gesture of self-defense. The brave and the free indeed!

And the corrupt. The whole country is overrun with an elitist criminal class that flouts the law. And why not? Somebody just declared that the president was in violation of the constitution (separation of powers), the 1st (expression) and 4th (privacy) amendments to the constitution, and the FISA laws - a felony. Me, when I get caught making a rolling stop, it's a ticket. But when syphilitic boy violates the whole friggin' constitution, amendments and all, well, just move along - nothing to see here. Above the law.

So, back to 'so what if they found Novak's source'. Let me speak for Cheney: "What are you going to do about it, huh punk? Mwa-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha!!" Let's get real and stop pretending that we all still live under the rule of law. Maybe you do, but our aristocracy most certainly does not.

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» RE: LIKE IT MATTERS. Posted by: macdon1
» RE: LIKE IT MATTERS. Posted by: Metesh-ah
» RE: LIKE IT MATTERS. Posted by: ssegallmd
» RE: LIKE IT MATTERS. Posted by: missionimp
» RE: LIKE IT MATTERS. Posted by: ssegallmd
» RE: LIKE IT MATTERS. Posted by: missionimp
» RE: LIKE IT MATTERS. Posted by: aussidawg
» RE: LIKE IT MATTERS. Posted by: leftisright
» RE: LIKE IT MATTERS. Posted by: ssegallmd
» RE: LIKE IT MATTERS. Posted by: wildmon
» I'll tell you what MATTERS. Posted by: common intelligence
Armitage a dupe?
Posted by: Democritus on Aug 28, 2006 4:38 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Richard Armitage has always been a loyal servant of his country. But he is also known as not being that smart. By his own admission, he's a gossip. What better way for Cheney and Libby to get the word out about Joe Wilson's wife being CIA than to have Libby memo it to Armitage? Then there's a good chance that Armitage will spill the beans, and the news will get out to discredit Wilson, while the real leakers have their rear-ends covered. Too bad for Libby that he over-reached and was caught fibbing to the special prosecutor.

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» Mycos Posted by: Mycos
"Gossip Martyr" Armitage
Posted by: Mycos on Aug 28, 2006 5:52 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
No. Too pat. If Armitage were half the gossip that he's being presented as, then why is he still being told such sensitive information? Right up to this day he still hears about matters not only of state security, but matters far more important to career politicians....matters that can get them or their bosses in deep crap.
I tend more to the idea that because Armitage already admitted to being a gossip once in the cause of saving political face in the past, then who better to let know of whatever is happening around the Beltway? Precisely this kind of story can appear to save the day again in the future, should any Special Prosecutor get too close.
In fact, I would bet dollars to donuts that Armitage is in truth a tight-lipped team player among those in the know. But because he is known by journos as a gossip, they trade on this with him by letting him in on all kinds of juicy tid-bits. He probably knows more scuttlebutt on more backroom political dealings that any man in Washington. He's thought of as an escape hatch for high-risk operations , the Wilson smear campaign being the only *at this time* that has rewquired use of his special service..designated gossip-martyr for senior staff.

Mycos

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a REAL team player
Posted by: ChrisBieber on Aug 28, 2006 7:03 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Mr. Armitage has been a loyal servant of the Elite for many years.

Jonathon Kwitneys important expose book Crimes of Patriots, details the cabal of 'patriots" who organize, run, and cover up the Golden Triangle opium production/distribution/ financial entanglements with Mr. Armitage being a key player.

Not a secret.

And it is not a secret that Mr. Armitage is a team player.

but WHICH team?

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» RE: a REAL team player Posted by: longlivecheney
It will end up..sickofsleaze
Posted by: ladybug1@carrollsweb.com on Aug 28, 2006 8:58 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
being Clinton's fault, they have tried to smear him with every thing else in which the Bushes were caught short

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Jason Leopold and TruthOut.org
Posted by: lwelsch on Aug 28, 2006 10:02 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
I wonder what this story does to TruthOut's belief that Rove has been indicted by Fitzgerald and most recently Mark Ash. If accurate then this might end their fantasy.

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I don't believe this
Posted by: bookwoman on Aug 28, 2006 10:22 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Richard Armitage, like his boss, Colin Powell, was never really a Bush Buddy. A review of his comments over the four years he was working with the Bush Administration show a man who was very uncomfortable with the role he had to play in a State Department which was running around putting its fingers in the dam to stop the flow of truth about pre Iraq war intelligence.

Now, all of a sudden, Novak claims it was Armitage who first told him about Valerie Plame. That means that all of the reporters who turned up names like Libby, Rove and even Cheney himself never heard about the Armitage connection. Please give the American public credit for some good sense. Its time to stop the lying.

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Novak is slime
Posted by: babs on Aug 28, 2006 10:51 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
My mother had a great expression for people like Novak - she said you'd find them under a rock with all the other worms and insects.

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I think this article could use a re-write
Posted by: thoughtcriminal on Aug 28, 2006 2:11 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
David Corn has, by the end of the article, come up with the phrase "The Armitage Leak" which no doubt sounds better to some ears than "The Bush Administration Leak" which is really what it was.

The notion that the outing of Armitage after the outing of Plame somehow protects the President from blame is complete nonsense - this is just an effort to put another screen in between the President and his well-deserved impeachment. Why didn't Fitzgerald go after Armitage, if this story is really true?

Another recent example of this overall strategy is the White House legal attempt to re-write the laws relating to torture and illegal eavesdropping - a technique favored by Ken Lay. When you are in trouble for breaking the law, just get your cronies to change the law.

David Corn should know better than to use the phrase "Armitage Leak" so prominently, unless he knows exactly what it is he is doing... in which case, why would he try and help protect the President? Using that phrase in that manner is an example of the 'Fait accompli' propaganda technique - repeatedly slipping a phrase into the discussion until the phrase becomes the basis for the discussion - this is called 'framing the issue' in PR circles. Why not use the phrase "the Bush Leak" or "the White House Leak" instead? Is this just a shallow attempt to help transfer blame from Bush to Armitage?

Consider also the following story that Corn relates:
"Ford recalls Armitage said he had "slipped up" and had told Novak more that he should have. According to Ford, Armitage was upset that "he was the guy that fucked up.""


Slipped up? Just an accident? Oops, here are some diagrams for nuclear weapons that I accidentally dropped in the mailbox to China - Gosh darn it! I really fucked up this time!

Somehow I find that hard to believe, especially coming from a government spy official speaking 'on the record' - would he speak on the record if it hadn't been cleared by Rove for dissemination?

Valerie Plame was an undercover CIA spy whose job was observing the nuclear weapons and reactor traffic around the world, and the whole operation was shut down because of this retaliation, wasn't it? Personal vendettas are more important to Bush and Rove then keeping an eye on nuclear traffic, apparently. Corn doesn't specfically mention mention what Plame's job was in this article - other than 'CIA' - another case of kid glove treatment of the Bushies.

Consider this paragraph as well:
"The Plame leak in Novak's column has long been cited by Bush administration critics as a deliberate act of payback, orchestrated to punish and/or discredit Joe Wilson after he charged that the Bush administration had misled the American public about the prewar intelligence. The Armitage news does not fit neatly into that framework. He and Powell were not the leading advocates of war in the administration (even though Powell became the chief pitchman for the case for war when he delivered a high-profile speech at the UN). They were not the political hitmen of the Bush gang."


How does Corn know who the 'political hitmen' were? Has Woodward verified that this is true? Most importantly, why wasn't Bob Novak prosecuted for revealing the identity of a CIA agent, when Judith Miller was? That's a lot for Mr Corn to gloss over in this article. The general message seems to be that it was all just a mistake, with a few caveats about Bush and Rove thrown in.

Corn's claim that "Though Armitage's role as Novak's primary source has been a subject of speculation, the case is now closed" - I'd expect that kind of lead-in from FOX News, not from the editor of The Nation. Weird and suspicious... case closed? Hardly. The case for Presidential Impeachment based on this and several other issues is still wide open.

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The Big Story
Posted by: beeatch on Aug 28, 2006 4:06 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Don't I recall someone telling the nation that the leaker would be found and dealt with?

Who was that person/

Could it be Satan?

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Culpability
Posted by: marileev on Aug 28, 2006 6:58 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
beetach makes a good point, how is this going to be dealt with? Rove's had sighs of relief since June on the matter is Armitage going to get the same sweet deal?

I'd like to side with babs's comment about them flocking "under a rock with all the other worms and insects"

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who gives a f*k?
Posted by: Franco33 on Aug 28, 2006 7:14 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Christ, how many years ago did this happen? A typical american scandal - talk talk talk and nothing happens. The wheels of justice grind slow to not at all. All the liberals squeeling about Fitzmas as if they could win in the courts what they can't win in elections - pathetic.

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These people care how we feel? These people concerned with what we think?
Posted by: constitution516 on Aug 28, 2006 8:28 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
The people running our goverment think we are idiots and that they own us. Our servant goverment has no tolerance for its people. No tolerance for our questioning their policies. No tolerance for us questioning their Ilegal laws. They have no tolerance for us questioning them abriding our Civil Rights. We are a means for their friends and families to stay in power. Uncovering Valieri Plame is not even a drop in the bucket of what has occured in this country over the past 6 years. Who can we believe any of them? After 911/Iraq WMD. Scandle after scandle. Cover up after cover up. Honestly I don't even believe Bob Woodward? These people are all criminals. Criminals are incharge of our justice system. They are writing our laws. Criminals watching over trillions of our dollars. These people are nothing more then Mobsters. Out and Out Calculated Theives and Crooks. They have no problem killing your children spending your grand childrens money (which is no more then taxation without representation) Your kids/kid are going to be flipping the Bill for this mess. Its ok? A trillion and a half dollars later making its way into the super wealths pockets from the American Slave populice. You own your land? Not according to our goverment. We are taxed at about 60% with all the taxs we pay. The surfs gave the King only 30% so if they were almost slaves what does that make us? Now the Mega Rich who think they are the land owners take your bounty and your kids bounty and their kids. This country is going to fall apart and what do they care? They can live in whatever country they like! They have Castles in Europe and South America. They care?

I think not

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Quit shilling for your book.
Posted by: Artaraxl on Aug 29, 2006 2:19 AM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Author mentions his book numerous times, then writes, "you're going to have to read the book for more on this." It doesn't matter whether we agree with him or not, this is less like journalism and more like publicity to boost his sales. This kind of piece ought to be written by a third party, or without harping on the title of his book.

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NEW LIES for OLD @ AMERIKA CORP
Posted by: Hal on Aug 29, 2006 12:49 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
Armitage is just the latest burnt offering from this gang of MSM cowards and self-serve White House poodles. All of them put in surface charge of a DC-MSM toady complex for their corporate Mafiosi clients.

And David Corn is a poster boy of a limited hangout gatekeeper for the faux left. Not only is he peddling new lies for old in his book, he has defended 911 cover-up by attacking real journalists and citizen-journalists for honest attempts to get at the truth.

As for Novak – like so many others – he is no “conservative” but a treacherous little neo-con MSM whore that carries sewage water for more important fascist cartel puppets in Karl Rove and Dick Cheney.

Truth is, the entire DC-MSM is a serial brothel for corporate Mafiosi dons that profit most from its actions.

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The problem with the Plame case ...
Posted by: Kate_24 on Aug 30, 2006 2:20 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
... is, and has always been, that it is much ado about nothing. Or let me put it another way: It's one of the lesser problems the White House is or should be facing. The damage done in the Plame case - intentionally or unintentionally - is much less drastic than the effects of the Iraq war, than Guantanamo and secret prisons in Europe, than tapping phone calls and bank accounts, than constantly blaming the press for doing their job.

I have a lot of sympathy for the Wilsons, who really seem to have become a victim in all this (Valerie certainly more so that her husband) - blamed by either side. This whole issue has become so politically charged that it is hard to keep track of what has actually happened and what was just accusations from one side again the other.

But what if the Plame case was just distraction for the most part? I have followed the story closely since its beginning, and you wouldn't believe just how much space it occupied in major newspapers and magazines. Yet, the only telling thing about it is that you would actually _believe_ that the White House was capable of plotting it. Now, are we disappointed because maybe it really was just an accident? Why don't you get over the Plame leak, leave the Wilsons alone, don't listen to Novak any longer, and finally start addressing real issues?

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Now What's Your Excuse?
Posted by: longlivecheney on Aug 30, 2006 10:29 PM   
Current rating: Not yet rated    [1 = poor; 5 = excellent]
You guys are hilarious. Armitage was a well-known Bush critic and hated his war policy. This absolutely blows the whole conspiracy about Bush retaliating against Joe Wilson out of the water. It wasn't Rove, it wasn't Bush - it was someone who disagreed with Bush! What a surprise!
So what's the new conspiracy theory? Now you guys need to get creative...

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