Former Aide Blames Bush And Cheney For CIA Leak

This is the case tonight as former White House press secretary Scott McClellan blames President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney for efforts to mislead the public about the role of White House aides in leaking the identity of a CIA operative.

In an excerpt from his forthcoming book, McClellan recounts the 2003 news conference in which he told reporters that aides Karl Rove and I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby were "not involved" in the leak involving operative Valerie Plame.


Let's Recap The Plame Affair:

The Plame affair (also known as the CIA leak scandal or the CIA leak case) is a political controversy in the United States, involving high-level officials of the George W. Bush administration and members of the media, and resulting in a federal grand jury investigation, a criminal trial, and a civil suit. Beginning in mid-June 2003, according to federal court records, Bush administration officials, including Richard Armitage and Scooter Libby, discussed with various reporters the employment of a classified, covert, Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer, Valerie E. Wilson (also known as Valerie Plame).

On July 14, 2003, a newspaper column entitled "Mission to Niger" by Robert Novak disclosed Plame's name and status as an "operative" who worked in a CIA division on the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Mrs. Wilson's husband, Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson, stated in various interviews and subsequent writings (as listed in his 2004 memoir The Politics of Truth) that his wife's identity was covert and that members of the administration knowingly revealed it as retribution for his op-ed entitled "What I Didn't Find in Africa", published in The New York Times on July 6, 2003.

On September 16, 2003 the CIA sent a letter to the US Department of Justice, asserting that Plame's status as a CIA undercover operative was classified information and requesting a federal investigation. Attorney General John Ashcroft referred the matter to the U.S. Department of Justice Office of Special Counsel, directed by Patrick Fitzgerald, who convened a grand jury. The CIA leak grand jury investigation resulted in the indictment and conviction of I. Lewis Libby, Chief of Staff of Vice President Dick Cheney. The indictment was on five counts of obstruction of justice, perjury, and false statements to the grand jury and federal investigators on October 28, 2005; Libby resigned hours after the indictment. The federal trial United States v. Libby began on January 16, 2007. On March 6, 2007, Libby was convicted on four counts of perjury, obstruction of justice, and making false statements, and was acquitted of one count of making false statements. Libby was sentenced to 30 months in prison, a fine of US$250,000, and two years of supervised release after his prison term.

After the verdict, Special Counsel Fitzgerald stated that he does not expect anyone else to be charged in the case: "We're all going back to our day jobs." On July 2, 2007, President Bush commuted Libby's sentence, effectively erasing the 30 months he was supposed to spend in jail. The probation and fines still remain. The Wilsons also brought a civil law suit against Libby, Richard Cheney, Karl Rove, and Richard Armitage. On July 19, 2007, the civil suit was dismissed in United States District Court for the District of Columbia. On behalf of the Wilsons, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington filed an appeal of the U.S. District Court's decision the following day.

And back to today's story:

"There was one problem. It was not true," McClellan writes, according to a brief excerpt released Tuesday. "I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest-ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice president, the president's chief of staff and the president himself." Bush's chief of staff at the time was Andrew Card.

The excerpt, posted on the Web site of publisher PublicAffairs, renews questions about what went on in the West Wing and how much Bush and Cheney knew about the leak. For years, it was McClellan's job to field, and often duck, those types of questions. Now that he's spurring them, answers are equally hard to come by. White House press secretary Dana Perino said it wasn't clear what McClellan meant in the excerpt. "The president has not and would not ask his spokespeople to pass on false information," she said. McClellan turned down interview requests Tuesday.

Plame maintains the White House quietly outed her to reporters. Plame and her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, said the leak was retribution for his public criticism of the Iraq war. The accusation dogged the administration and made Plame a cause celebre among many Democrats.

McClellan's book, "What Happened," isn't due out until April, and the excerpt released Monday was merely a teaser. It doesn't get into detail about how Bush and Cheney were involved or reveal what happened behind the scenes.

In the fall of 2003, after authorities began investigating the leak, McClellan told reporters that he'd personally spoken to Rove, who was Bush's top political adviser, and Libby, who was Cheney's chief of staff. "They're good individuals, they're important members of our White House team, and that's why I spoke with them, so that I could come back to you and say that they were not involved," McClellan said at the time.

Both men, however, were involved. Rove was one of the original sources for the newspaper column that identified Plame. Libby also spoke to reporters about the CIA officer and was convicted of lying about those discussions. He is the only person to be charged in the case.Since that news conference, however, the official White House stance has shifted and it has been difficult to get a clear picture of what happened behind closed doors around the time of the leak.McClellan's flat denials gave way to a steady drumbeat of "no comment." And Bush's original pledge to fire anyone involved in the leak became a promise to fire anyone who "committed a crime."

In a CNN interview earlier this year, McClellan made no suggestion that Bush knew either Libby or Rove was involved in the leak. McClellan said his statements to reporters were what he and the president "believed to be true at the time based on assurances that we were both given." Bush most recently addressed the issue in July after commuting Libby's 30-month prison term. He acknowledged that some in the White House were involved in the leak. Then, after repeatedly declining to discuss the ongoing investigation, he said the case was closed and it was time to move on, but if there was wrongdoing it would be taken care of. It seems that the wrongdoing may hit close to home, however, unless further excerpts are released or McClellan has a interview, we will just have to wait until April.

It is an interesting turn of events, and due to that the "leading us to war in Iraq" intelligence factor, carries grave consequences for the Bush adminstration, as well as for our country, and who it is that we are to believe or not believe, in the future. Perhaps we need to make double and triple sure of our intelligence as we make plans to strike Iran, before they can produce nuclear weapons. As Bush himself tried to say, but messed it up, "Fool me once, shame on you, Fool me twice shame on you, and should have said (shame on me)." If we allow anyone to fool us again it should be shame on us!! Let's not be fooled Again, People!!