Memo Gets Attention in Probe of CIA Leak

Yahoo! News
Memo Gets Attention in Probe of CIA Leak

By BARRY SCHWEID, AP Diplomatic Writer

A State Department memo that has caught the attention of prosecutors describes a CIA officer's role in sending her husband to Africa and disputes administration claims that Iraq was shopping for uranium, a retired department official said Tuesday.

The classified memo was sent to Air Force One just after former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson went public with his assertions that the Bush administration overstated the evidence that Iraq was interested in obtaining uranium from Niger for nuclear weapons.

The memo has become a key piece of evidence in the CIA leak investigation because it could have been the way someone in the White House learned — and then leaked — the information that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA and played a role in sending him on the mission.

The document was prepared in June 2003 at the direction of Carl W. Ford Jr., then head of the State Department's bureau of intelligence and research, for Marc Grossman, the retired official said. Grossman was the Undersecretary of State who was in charge of the department while Secretary Colin Powell and his deputy, Richard Armitage, were traveling. Grossman needed the memo because he was dealing with other issues and was not familiar with the subject, the former official said.

"It wasn't a Wilson-Wilson wife memo," said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation is still under way. "It was a memo on uranium in Niger and focused principally on our disagreement" with the White House.

Armitage called Ford after Wilson's op-ed piece in The New York Times and his TV appearance on July 6, 2003 in which he challenged the White House's claim that Iraq had purchased uranium yellowcake from Niger.

Armitage asked that Powell, who was traveling to Africa with Bush, be given an account of the Wilson trip, said the former official.

The original June 2003 memo was readdressed to Powell and included a short summary prepared by an analyst who was at a 2002 CIA meeting where Wilson's trip was arranged and was sent in one piece to Powell on Air Force One the next day.

The memo said Wilson's wife worked for the CIA and suggested her husband go to Niger because he had contacts there and had served as an American diplomat in Africa. However, the official said the memo did not say she worked undercover for the spy agency nor did it identify her as Valerie Plame, which was her maiden name and cover name at the CIA.

Her identity as Plame was disclosed first by columnist Robert Novak and then by Time magazine reporter Matt Cooper. The leak investigation by special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald is looking into who in the Bush administration leaked Plame's identity to reporters and whether any laws were broken.

A 1982 law prohibits the deliberate exposure of the identity of an undercover CIA officer.


Wilson believes the Bush administration leaked the name as retribution for his criticism.

President Bush said Monday he would fire any member of his staff who "committed a crime," a change from his previous vow to fire anyone involved in the leak.

The past two weeks have brought revelations that top presidential aide Karl Rove was involved in leaking the identity of Plame to Novak and to Cooper.

The former State Department official stressed the memo focused on Wilson's trip and the State Department intelligence bureau's disagreement with the White House's claim about Iraq trying to get nuclear material. He said the fact that the CIA officer and Wilson were husband and wife was largely an incidental reference.

The June 2003 memo had not gone higher than Grossman until Wilson's op-ed column for The New York Times headlined "What I Didn't Find In Africa" and his TV appearance to dispute the administration. Wilson's article asked the question: "Did the Bush administration manipulate intelligence about Saddam Hussein's weapons programs to justify an invasion?"

___

On the Net:

State Department: http://www.state.gov

White House: http://www.whitehouse.gov

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'25,000 civilians' killed in Iraq

BBC NEWS
'25,000 civilians' killed in Iraq

Nearly 25,000 civilians have died violently in Iraq since the US-led invasion in March 2003, a report says.

The dossier, based on media reports, says US-led forces were responsible for more than a third of the deaths.

The survey was carried out by the UK-based Iraq Body Count and Oxford Research Group - which includes academics and peace activists.

The Iraqi government criticised their conclusions, saying Iraqis were most at risk from terrorists who target them.

The Dossier on Civilian Casualties in Iraq 2003-2005 says 37% of all non-combatant deaths were caused by the US-led coalition.


Most of these occurred during the invasion phase, which it counts as ending on 1 May 2003.

But killings by anti-occupation and criminal elements also increased steadily over the entire two-year period.

Insurgents are said to have caused 9% of the deaths, while post-invasion criminal violence was responsible for another 36%.

Targets

The number of civilians who have died has almost doubled in the second year from the first, according to the report.

Almost a fifth of the 24,865 deaths were women or children and nearly half of all the civilian deaths were reported in the capital Baghdad.

"On average, 34 ordinary Iraqis have met violent deaths every day since the invasion of March 2003," said John Sloboda, one of the authors of the report.

"The ever-mounting Iraqi death toll is the forgotten cost of the decision to go to war in Iraq," he added.

Mr Sloboda also said: "It remains a matter of the gravest concern that, nearly two-and-a-half years on, neither the US nor the UK governments have begun to systematically measure the impact of their actions in terms of human lives destroyed."

The Iraqi government welcomed the attention the report gave to Iraqi victims, but said it was a mistake to claim that the "plague of terrorism" had killed fewer Iraqis than the multinational forces.

"The international forces try to avoid civilian casualties, whereas the terrorists target civilians and try to kill as many of them as they can," it said in a statement.

"The root cause of Iraq's suffering is terrorism, inherited from Saddam's fascist regime and from mistaken fundamentalist ideology.

"Everybody knows that international forces are necessary in Iraq, on a temporary basis and they will leave Iraq at a time chosen by Iraqis, not in response to terrorist pressure."

'Failure'

The IBC wants to see an independent commission set up in Iraq to give the best estimate of civilian deaths and full details of how each person died.

Human rights groups say the occupying powers in Iraq have failed in their duty to catalogue the deaths of civilians.

But the US and Britain say the chaos of war-torn Iraq has made it impossible to get accurate information.

More than 1,700 US soldiers and dozens of other coalition troops are known to have died.

The Iraqi government says 1,300 Iraqi police and military have been killed since security forces were set up in late 2003. But US think-tank the Brookings Institute puts the figure at almost twice this number.

More than half of all civilian deaths were said to have been caused by explosive devices, which disproportionately affected children.

At least 42,500 civilians were reported to have been injured.

The UK-based Iraq Body Count - run by academics and peace activists - is one of the most widely-quoted sources of information on the civilian death toll in Iraq.

The Oxford Research Group describes itself as an independent organisation "which seeks to develop effective methods whereby people can bring about positive change on issues of national and international security by non-violent means".

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/middle_east/4692589.stm

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Iraq's dangerous new friend

latimes.com

Iraq's dangerous new friend
Robert Scheer

On sunday, George W. Bush's war against terror was turned upside down — and this time the president might even notice. That's because when "our guys" in Iraq start firmly allying with an "axis of evil" nation, its got to ring some warning bells, no?

I am referring to the joint declaration issued in Tehran by the leaders of Iraq and Iran: "Today, we need a double and common effort to confront terrorism that may spread in the region and the world," said Iraqi Prime Minister Ibrahim Jafari, visiting Iran along with 10 of his ministers, following a similar visit from his defense minister. The statement he and his Iranian counterparts produced heralds mutual cooperation between the two neighbors, which will include a cross-border oil pipeline, joint security proposals and shared intelligence information.

Suddenly everyone's against terror!

I wish it were so. But it's not. Consider that while in Tehran, Jafari also paid tribute to the father of the Iranian theocracy, visiting the shrine of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. That the fanaticism of Khomeini is very much alive in today's Iran was clear from the election last month of one of his original Revolutionary Guards to be the country's new president.

In making a pilgrimage to Shiite Iran, the Shiite Iraqi government was also paying homage to the longtime refuge and supporter of Iraqi Shiite revolutionaries, including Jafari himself, who spent 10 years in exile there. Jafari also reiterated an earlier statement in which his government apologized for Iraq's role in the long war with Iran. (How awkward for Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, the U.S. envoy who carried a message of support to Saddam Hussein 20 years ago, when that war was considered by President Reagan's government as a convenient, if terribly bloody, way to distract and weaken Iran.)

Now, thanks to the U.S. invasion, a new alliance is being formed between Iran and Iraq that threatens to further destabilize the politics of the Mideast. It wasn't supposed to work out this way.


Forced democratization of Iraq, according to its neocon architects, was supposed to secure oil for the U.S., protect Israel, open markets to Western corporations and, oh yeah, maybe even decrease terrorism. After the invasion, however, the U.S., faced with decidedly more hostility and fewer flowers than expected, was loath to allow elections, because their outcome would probably not produce a pliant government.

Then Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the Shiite religious leader, threatened to take his followers into the streets against the foreign occupation if one-person-one-vote elections were not allowed. And when it became clear the "wrong" guys might win the elections the U.S. was forced to hold, the Bush White House, according to an investigative article by Seymour Hersh in the current New Yorker, tried to buy the vote for former CIA asset Iyad Allawi.

When Allawi's slate was soundly defeated, what was Bush to do? With absolutely nothing having gone right in Iraq between the successful military invasion and the inspiring election nearly two years later, he had no choice but to embrace the winners — mostly Shiite, mostly fundamentalists — as the saviors of a free and democratic Iraq.

Sadly, they are nothing of the sort. In Basra, where they have been in power since the U.S. invasion, religious thugs are in de facto control, applying more oppressive theocratic rules over women's behavior and other basic human rights than neighboring Iran.

Even worse, their victory has fueled fierce Sunni resentment, and the accompanying insurgency has begun targeting Shiite civilians with the clear goal of fomenting ethnic war. Over the weekend, more than 100 people were killed by suicide bombers. Sistani himself denounced what he ominously said was now a "genocidal war."

Facing that hideous possibility, is it surprising to find the Iraqi government looking for help from powerful Iran? No, but it certainly poses a problem for the White House, which now finds itself putting American soldiers' lives on the line every day to prop up an active ally of the country that we claim, with some plausibility, funds anti-Israeli and other terror groups and is bent on making its own nuclear bomb.

Somewhere a guy named Osama bin Laden must be laughing.

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States Trying to Blunt Property Ruling

Yahoo! News
States Trying to Blunt Property Ruling

By MAURA KELLY LANNAN, Associated Press Writer

Alarmed by the prospect of local governments seizing homes and turning the property over to developers, lawmakers in at least half the states are rushing to blunt last month's U.S. Supreme Court ruling expanding the power of eminent domain.

In Texas and California, legislators have proposed constitutional amendments to bar government from taking private property for economic development. Politicians in Alabama, South Dakota and Virginia likewise hope to curtail government's ability to condemn land.

Even in states like Illinois — one of at least eight that already forbid eminent domain for economic development unless the purpose is to eliminate blight — lawmakers are proposing to make it even tougher to use the procedure.

"People I've never heard from before came out of the woodwork and were just so agitated," said Illinois state Sen. Susan Garrett, a Democrat. "People feel that it's a threat to their personal property, and that has hit a chord."

The Institute for Justice, which represented homeowners in the Connecticut case that was decided by the Supreme Court, said at least 25 states are considering changes to eminent domain laws.

The Constitution says governments cannot take private property for public use without "just compensation." Governments have traditionally used their eminent domain authority to build roads, reservoirs and other public projects. But for decades, the court has been expanding the definition of public use, allowing cities to employ eminent domain to eliminate blight.

In June, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that New London, Conn., had the authority to take homes for a private development project. But in its ruling, the court noted that states are free to ban that practice — an invitation lawmakers are accepting in response to a flood of e-mails, phone calls and letters from anxious constituents.

"The Supreme Court's decision told homeowners and business owners everywhere that there's now a big `Up for Grabs' sign on their front lawn," said Dana Berliner, an attorney with the Institute for Justice. "Before this, people just didn't realize that they could lose their home or their family's business because some other person would pay more taxes on the same land. People are unbelievably upset."


Don Borut, executive director of the National League of Cities, which backed New London in its appeal to the high court, said government's eminent domain power is important for revitalizing neighborhoods. He said any changes to state law should be done after careful reflection.

"There's a rush to respond to the emotional impact. Our view is, step back, let's look at the issue in the broadest sense and if there are changes that are reflected upon, that's appropriate," he said.

In Alabama, Republican Gov. Bob Riley is drawing up a bill that would prohibit city and county governments from using eminent domain to take property for retail, office or residential development. It would still allow property to be taken for industrial development, such as new factories, and for roads and schools.

In Connecticut, politicians want to slap a moratorium on the use of eminent domain by municipalities until the Legislature can act.

One critic of the ruling has suggested local officials take over Supreme Court Justice David Souter's New Hampshire farmhouse and turn it into a hotel. Souter voted with the majority in the Connecticut case.

Arkansas, Florida, Illinois, Kentucky, Maine, Montana, South Carolina and Washington already forbid the taking of private property for economic development except to eliminate blight. Other states either expressly allow private property to be taken for private economic purposes or have not spoken clearly on the question.

Illinois state Sen. Steve Rauschenberger, a Republican who is considering a run for governor, said the state's blight laws need to be more restrictive.

"The statutory definition of blight in Illinois is broader than the Mississippi River at its mouth," he said. "They have taken everything from underdeveloped lakefront property to open green-grass farmfields as being defined as blighted."

Action also is taking place at the federal level, where a proposal would ban the use of federal funds for any project moving forward because of the Supreme Court decision. And the Institute for Justice said it will ask the Supreme Court to rehear the New London case, but acknowledged that the prospects of that happening are dim.

"One of the things, I think, that is elemental to American freedom is the right to have and hold private property and not to interfere with that right," Rauschenberger said. "For Americans, it's like the boot on the door. You can't kick in the door and come in my house unless I invite you."

___

On the Net:

Kelo v. New London: http://wid.ap.org/documents/scotus/050623kelo.pdf

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What the leaked JTAC memo means

timesonline.co.uk
London Bombs
Q&A: What the leaked JTAC memo means

Michael Evans, Times Defence Editor, says the leaked memo raises serious questions about the UK's intelligence service

What is the group that drew up this memo?

The Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre was set up in May 2003, at first mainly to foster closer co-operation between MI5 and the police. It was considered necessary to have some sort of central analysis centre in the wake of the September 11 attacks.

Now JTAC has broadened out and includes representatives from 11 Government departments including Transport, the Home Office, the Foreign Office and so on.

All of its officers are dedicated to gleaning information on international terrorism. They work around the clock, seven days a week. This is now the key analysis centre for all intelligence, covert and overt, foreign and domestic, that arrives in the UK. They compile their reports and that information is passed on to ministers.

Would lowering the threat status have had any practical effect in making us less safe?

If you lower the security level, it means that the intelligence services believe that there is no-one around posing a particular threat. There had been no evidence of any al-Qaeda chatter to indicate that there was a focus on Britain in any specific or even any general way.

Government officials are probably correct in saying that going down from "severe general" to "substantial" would not have any noticeable effect in terms of the number of police on the streets, but I think they are perhaps being a little disingenuous.


After all, if lowering the status makes no difference, why bother lowering it?

It's more likely to be a matter of the mindset of the intelligence officers: if you are poring over material and you believe that the general threat is not that great, maybe that would affect how seriously you treat the intelligence that you come across.

This looks embarrassing, but who is to blame?

If the leak is accurate it is highly embarrassing. This decision was made a month before the attacks took place and the most senior intelligence officers in Britain did not have any evidence.

Nevertheless, the fact is that they didn't know there was a terror attack imminent. There was nothing at all in the intelligence which showed there was a group of people from Leeds plotting to mount two bomb attacks in London.

The failure was not so much that they downgraded the response, but that they didn't have any intelligence at all. Whether that means that they are not doing their job properly is another matter.

Intelligence is not something which is going to land on your plate. It's quite clearly possible for a sophisticated terrorist group to plan something like this without letting on. In a democratic society you have to rely on information - electronic and human intelligence - before you can take any decisions.

So yes, it is a failure, but unless it can be proved that Agent A actually saw this intelligence and failed to act upon it, it's very difficult to say that anyone is to blame.

It's always easier to piece these things together in retrospect. JTAC and the police are now doing everything in hindsight. They are looking at every single intelligence report they received since 2001 to see if there was anything which indicated that July 7 was the day of the attack. The phrase they used to me is that so far they have found "absolutely nothing".

Had Britain become complacent when the long-predicted attack failed to materialise?

I don't think we can accuse the police or the intelligence services of being comeplacent. We know, thanks to Sir John Stevens - the former Metropolitan Police Commissioner - that the police have stopped eight terrorist attacks on this country since 2001. That figure has been disputed by the present Met commissioner, but certainly half a dozen terrorist attacks have been foiled.

By anyone's reckoning, that's an amazing achievement. The fact they failed on this occasion is devastating, but I don't believe they let their guard slip.

So, what can be done to prevent future terrorists slipping beneath the radar?

Other than hugely increasingly the number of people engaged in surveillance - which is what they are trying to do - it's difficult to know. It takes something like eight months to train someone to be a surveillance watcher, and it takes months and months to vet them beforehand. The only other option is to pour a lot of money in and get more people out on the streets.

The Conservatives are already calling for an inquiry. Will heads roll?

The opposition are reducing their demands a lot, and to all intents and purposes an inquiry is already being held. I don't think anyone is looking for heads to roll unless there is evidence that someone was professionally incompetent and totally failed to do his or her job properly. In that case, as in any organisation, that person should get the chop.

But the fact is we probably wouldn't get to hear about it. If they do hold a formal inquiry, I suspect it will be very much an internal investigation. The Home Secretary would have to make a statement in the Commons and that would probably lead to calls from the opposition for resignations, but I don't think that would really help.

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Changing Stories

From John Kerry:

How many more times will Karl Rove make President Bush eat his words and shred his credibility before Karl Rove does the honorable thing and leaves the White House?

Yesterday the President furiously backpedaled from his promise to fire anyone involved in leaking the identity of a covert CIA agent to the press. Now that it's known that Rove and Vice President Cheney's Chief of Staff Lewis Libby were involved, the President has lowered the bar and now says he'll only fire someone who is convicted of a crime.

President Bush is setting a terrible standard of leadership in the White House by protecting insubordinate aides who refused to come forward when the President demanded to know who in his administration leaked Valerie Plame's identity -- and he's sending a disturbing message about our national security.

The President should not wait to find out whether Rove is convicted in the end for his leak. Either Rove lied to the President about this matter of national security, which means he should be fired immediately, or the President is not being straight with the American people about his own involvement in this case.

With all the dissembling coming out of the White House, it's clear that the only way the American people can get to the bottom of this is through full Congressional hearings. I will call for hearings this week -- and you can strengthen this call by adding your name to our petition today:

http://www.johnkerry.com/firerove


With both the House and Senate in Republican hands it will be difficult to force Congressional hearings on the Bush White House. Having as many statements as possible from people in every state will help my colleagues and me show that this is what America wants. According to a poll released yesterday by ABC News, 75% of Americans believe that Karl Rove should be fired if he leaked classified information.

More than 300,000 people have signed on so far -- help us double our numbers by forwarding this email to your friends asking them to sign:

http://www.johnkerry.com/firerove

Thank you,

John Kerry

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Update: Bush nominates Roberts as next Supreme Court Justice

Update:
The press was wrong. What a surprise.
The president nominated Judge Roberts.

Here is a link to some of the decisions by Judge Roberts:
http://www.sctnomination.com/blog/archives/2005/07/selected_opinio.html


Earlier post:

President Bush is scheduled to announce his nomination to replace Justice O'Connor tonight at 9:00pm. The press believes it is going to be Judge Clement.

Here is a link to some of the decisions by Judge Clement:
http://www.sctnomination.com/blog/archives/2005/07/rolling_list_of.html

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Pro-war parents: How to get your kid into uniform

Pro-war parents: How to get your kid into uniform

By Beth Quinn
Times Herald-Record
bquinn@th-record.com

This one is for you parents who think our fight in Iraq is a really swell idea.
As you may know, the Army is having trouble getting kids to join up. Recruitment is down on account of all the soldiers dying in the desert. Go figure.
And you know whose fault it is? YOURS.
They need kids. They need YOUR kid!
But YOUR kid is still hanging around the house. Going to college, working, standing in front of the fridge. Unwilling to make the ULTIMATE SACRIFICE for … well, whatever it is we're fighting for.
Be honest. You're not doing your part as a parent, either. You're in favor of the war in Iraq but want to send someone else's kid instead of yours, right? What kind of American parent are you, anyway?
It's time to get that kid out of the house and into a uniform! And I'm here to tell you how. It's easy. The government has already done most of the work for you.
You might have noticed that recruiters have been calling your kid lately. That's because your school district gave them his name and number.
The school had to. Bush's No Child Left Behind Act says schools must give up every kid or they lose federal funding. Money talks, nobody walks.
Plus, the military is tracking your kid in a mega-database of its own. The Pentagon hired an outside marketing firm – really! – to create JAMR.
That stands for the Joint Advertising and Market Research Recruiting Database.
Cool name, Pentagon! But in the interest of truth in advertising, why not just call it Cannon Fodder?
So the recruiters are already out there, swarming around your kid like so many gnats. They're trying to smooth-talk him into signing up so he can go fight for … well, whatever it is we're fighting for.
But that's not enough. You need to get proactive. Instead of waiting for them to come to your kid, you should sit him down at the computer and go to the recruiters! Here are some sites you might want to hit.
www.usarec.army.mil/1stbde/1abn This is the site of the U.S. Army Recruiting Battalion Albany Eagles, which oversees local recruitment. Check out the Partnership in Education program, which is a little arrangement between the Army and school personnel to guide your kid into the military. It's an unholy alliance, but – hey! – we need warm bodies in those uniforms.

[NOTE: If you are located elsewhere, go to http://www.usarec.army.mil/bdemap.html to find the recruiting batallion near you.]


www.goarmy.com This site has nice graphics and warlike drum music – plus a whole section on the Army's Nascar and motorcycle racing teams. (Join the Army and get a Harley!) It also urges your kid to visit the nearest recruitment office. (In Middletown, it's at 453 Route 211 East, Suite 208. Directions provided.)
These folks know you've been to the site – even if you just looked – so it'll be hard to shake them. They send a lot of pop-up surveys. Just to be friendly. Really.
www.marines.com And who wouldn't want to be a Marine? The best part of this site is, when you contact a recruiter, you get a free official Marine Corps carabiner key chain – with no obligation! Semper fi.
www.navy.com Excellent music and shipboard sound effects. You can visit with your "virtual recruiter," who says it's his job to "help you." He's kind of like a protective big brother. Who could resist?
www.airforce.com Videos, downloads, wallpaper – all about flying the friendly skies and jumping out of airplanes. How much fun is that!
So there you have it, pro-war parents. All you need to know so your kid can be all that he can be – at least until he's dead.

P.S. For you anti-war parents who are against sending your kid to fight for … well, whatever it is we're fighting for, I have a couple of sites for you, too:
www.themmob.com This is Mainstreet Moms Operation Blue, which has launched the Leave My Child Alone Campaign.
www.militaryfreeschools.org This site includes the Student Opt-Out Form. If you fill it out and give it to the school, it prevents the district from giving your kid's name to the military. (No one can opt out of the Pentagon's Cannon Fodder database, though.)
http://mothersagainstthedraft.org Opt-out info and details about what the Pentagon knows about your kid.

Beth Quinn's column appears on Monday. Talk to her at 845-346-3147 or at bquinn@th-record.com.

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The Nixon White House Would Blush

Huffingtonpost.com
Rep. John Conyers
The Nixon White House Would Blush

Can there be any doubt after today that a president who rode into town promising “honesty and integrity” has brought our ethical standards to a new low?

We now have a White House operation in place that is a pure, unadulterated political machine, with no discernible ethical scruples. They think nothing of baselessly attacking any and all political opponents – just ask Senator Max Cleland and John McCain. And they will circle the wagons around their key loyalists, no matter how culpable – see Karl Rove and Scooter Libby.

We learned from Downing Street, that the White House was willing to “fix the facts around the policy,” no matter the cost in lives or our nation’s reputation. Rovegate involves the same modus operandi: When faced with a growing scandal before the election, Bush righteously promised to throw out any and all leakers. McClellan went so far as to tell us it would be “ludicrous” to accuse Rove or Libby of leaks. Now that there is no doubt that those statements are false and, presto, the standard has changed to “if someone committed a crime.”

The powers that be at the White House really can’t be so naive as to believe that the American public will fall for this charade, so the only possible conclusion is that they have entered into a “save Rove at all costs strategy,” even if it means making earlier statements “inoperative” and eliminating any and all White House ethical standards short of criminal misconduct. Apparently, “Bush’s brain” is so central to the White House operation, that Bush is willing to bet his presidency on the outcome of Fitzgerald’s investigation. To me that is truly scary.


Two articles [below] out today to bring to your attention. First, the AP has a story on Bush’s changing the ethical rules in the middle of the game, including a quote by the undersigned.

Second, the LA Times has an excellent overview of where we are and how we got here.

There is really no doubt at this point that two key political operatives in the White House, namely Karl Rove and I. Lewis Libby, set about to smear Joe Wilson. They used the media to out a CIA operative, vehemently denied they had done so, and now that they cannot deny it any more, Bush backtracked to change the standard for dismissal from leaking to criminal misconduct. Now they are simply hoping and praying that both the necessary level of legal willfulness cannot be shown and that the press and Democrats can be bullied or intimidated into thinking that ethics -- as well as internal security requirements -- don't matter.

Look for the White House to try to change the subject very soon.

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Rove and Cheney chief of staff were intent on discrediting Wilson

latimes.com
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-leak18jul18,0,4779848.story?coll=la-home-headlines

Top Aides Reportedly Set Sights on Wilson
Rove and Cheney chief of staff were intent on discrediting CIA agent's husband, prosecutors have been told.
By Tom Hamburger and Peter Wallsten
Times Staff Writers

WASHINGTON — Top aides to President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney were intensely focused on discrediting former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV in the days after he wrote an op-ed article for the New York Times suggesting the administration manipulated intelligence to justify going to war in Iraq, federal investigators have been told.

Prosecutors investigating whether administration officials illegally leaked the identity of Wilson's wife, a CIA officer who had worked undercover, have been told that Bush's top political strategist, Karl Rove, and Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, were especially intent on undercutting Wilson's credibility, according to people familiar with the inquiry.

Although lower-level White House staffers typically handle most contacts with the media, Rove and Libby began personally communicating with reporters about Wilson, prosecutors were told.

A source directly familiar with information provided to prosecutors said Rove's interest was so strong that it prompted questions in the White House. When asked at one point why he was pursuing the diplomat so aggressively, Rove reportedly responded: "He's a Democrat." Rove then cited Wilson's campaign donations, which leaned toward Democrats, the person familiar with the case said.

The disclosures about the officials' roles illustrate White House concern about Wilson's July 6, 2003, article, which challenged the administration's assertion that Iraq had sought to purchase nuclear materials. Wilson's article appeared as Rove and other Bush aides were preparing the 2004 reelection campaign strategy, which was built largely around the president's response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.

It is not surprising that White House officials would be upset by an attack like Wilson's or seek to respond aggressively. But special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald is examining whether they or others crossed the legal line by improperly disclosing classified information, or whether they perjured themselves in testifying later about their actions. Both Rove and Libby have testified.

News of the high-level interest in discrediting Wilson comes as White House defenders, most notably officials at the Republican National Committee, argue that Rove has been vindicated of suspicion that he was a primary source of the leak. Knowingly revealing the identity of a covert operative is a federal crime.

Regardless of Rove's legal liability, the description of his role runs contrary to earlier White House statements that Rove and Libby were not involved in the unmasking of Wilson's wife, and it suggests they were part of a campaign to discredit Wilson.


Wilson, a career Foreign Service officer who served in Iraq and several African nations, was sent by the CIA in 2002 to investigate whether Iraq had attempted to purchase nuclear materials from Niger. His New York Times article declaring that he had found no credible evidence of such an attempt despite the administration's continued claims that there had been one unleashed charges from White House officials that he was a partisan.

White House officials contended that he had wrongly indicated that he was sent on his mission by Cheney. In fact, Wilson had said in the article that the trip was inspired by questions raised by Cheney's office.

Eight days after Wilson's article was published, a syndicated column by Robert Novak questioned the credibility of Wilson's trip, suggesting that it had been arranged with the help of Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, at the CIA.

Rove's lawyer, Robert Luskin, has cited recent news reports that Rove heard about Wilson's wife from reporters and that he was not an original source. Those reports said that Rove in fact sought to dissuade Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper — one of the journalists with whom he discussed Wilson's wife — from writing a piece about Wilson's charge.

"Based on the information that has come out over the last several days, the one thing that's absolutely clear is that Karl was not the source for the leak and there's no basis for any additional speculation," Luskin said.

A White House spokesman, David Almacy, declined to comment Sunday. "This is an ongoing investigation, and we will be happy to talk about this once it is completed, but not until then," he said.

Prosecutors' intense questioning of witnesses about Rove and Libby casts doubt on assertions that the president's longtime political guru was not — at least at some point — in Fitzgerald's sights.

Fitzgerald is expected to conclude his investigation this year with a detailed report.

Bush said he would fire anyone responsible for any illegal leaks. Democrats have called on Bush to fire Rove, now a deputy White House chief of staff, or at least to revoke Rove's security clearance.

Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman said Sunday on NBC's "Meet the Press" that Rove and the White House deserved credit for cooperating with Fitzgerald. "Cooperate, cooperate, cooperate" was the policy, said Mehlman, who once was Rove's deputy at the White House.

Cooper, who testified last week before Fitzgerald's grand jury concerning his conversations with White House officials about Wilson, confirmed Sunday that prosecutors showed intense interest in the roles played by Rove and Libby in discussing Wilson's wife.

In an article in the latest issue of Time magazine titled "What I Told the Grand Jury," Cooper writes that the grand jurors investigated his interactions with Rove in "microscopic, excruciating detail."

He says he called Rove after Wilson's article appeared and asked about it. "I recall saying something like, 'I'm writing about Wilson,' before he interjected," Cooper writes. " 'Don't get too far out on Wilson,' he told me."

Cooper writes that his first knowledge of Wilson's wife came when Rove disclosed on "deep background" that she worked for the CIA, but that he did not learn her name until he read it in Novak's column several days later.

Novak was the first journalist to identify Plame by name, along with her role as "an agency operative on weapons of mass destruction." He wrote that two senior administration officials told him Wilson's wife suggested sending him to Niger.

"As for Wilson's wife, I told the grand jury I was certain that Rove never used her name and that, indeed, I did not learn her name until the following week, when I either saw it in Robert Novak's column or Googled her, I can't recall which," Cooper writes. "Rove did, however, clearly indicate that she worked at the 'agency' — by that, I told the grand jury, I inferred that he obviously meant the CIA and not, say, the Environmental Protection Agency. Rove added that she worked on 'WMD' (the abbreviation for weapons of mass destruction)issues and that she was responsible for sending Wilson. This was the first time I had heard anything about Wilson's wife."

In his article, Cooper also recalls that Rove ended their conversation with a cryptic caution: "I've already said too much."

"This could have meant he was worried about being indiscreet, or it could have meant he was late for a meeting or something else," Cooper writes.

As for Libby, Cooper writes that he told investigators in 2004 about a conversation in which the Cheney advisor seemed to confirm the identity of Wilson's wife. But the conversation was "on background." It is not clear from Cooper's account whether Libby's response was based on original information or gossip he picked up from other journalists.

"On background, I asked Libby if he had heard anything about Wilson's wife sending her husband to Niger," Cooper writes. "Libby replied, 'Yeah, I've heard that too,' or words to that effect. Like Rove, Libby never used Valerie Plame's name."

Based on what he was asked in the grand jury, Cooper speculates in his personal account that Fitzgerald might be pursuing Rove — or, perhaps just as likely, the person or document that provided the information to Rove and other administration officials.

Fitzgerald, Cooper writes, "asked me several different ways if Rove indicated how he had heard that Plame worked at the CIA. (He did not, I told the grand jury.)"

The intensity of Fitzgerald's inquiry has picked up in recent weeks, particularly since Cooper and New York Times reporter Judith Miller lost a court battle over shielding confidential sources. Cooper agreed to testify, but Miller refused to reveal her source and has been jailed for contempt of court.

Activities aboard Air Force One are also of interest to prosecutors — including the possible distribution of a State Department memo that mentioned Wilson's wife. Prosecutors are seeking to find out whether anyone who saw the memo learned Plame's identity and passed the information to journalists. Telephone logs from the presidential aircraft have been subpoenaed. Among those aboard was former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer, who has testified.

One of the sources familiar with the investigation said Saturday that prosecutors had obtained a White House call sheet showing that Novak left a message for Fleischer the day after Wilson's op-ed article appeared and the day Fleischer left with the president for Africa. Fleischer declined to comment for this article but has flatly denied being the source of the leak.

Wilson said in an interview Saturday he had known that Novak was interested in him a week or so before the column appeared. He said a friend who saw Novak on the street reported that Novak told him, "Wilson is an asshole and his wife works for the CIA."

As for the intensity of White House interest in him after the column, Wilson said: "I am sorry that 6,900 American soldiers have been injured and tens of thousands of Iraqis killed and injured all because these guys sent us to war under false pretenses."

Wilson speculated in a book he wrote last year that it was Libby who was "responsible for exposing my wife's identity." Libby has indicated to investigators that he learned the identity of Plame from journalists.

Rove has told investigators the same, although a person familiar with his testimony said that the possibility that Rove learned the information from the journalists indirectly — possibly even through Libby — could not be ruled out. The person said Rove simply had no firm recollection.

There have been other indications of a concerted White House action against Wilson. Two days before Novak's column, Washington Post reporter Walter Pincus was told by an "administration official" that the White House was not putting much stock in the Wilson trip to Africa because it was "set up as a boondoggle by his wife, an analyst with the agency working on weapons of mass destruction," according to an account of the conversation Pincus wrote for this summer's Nieman Reports, published by the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard University.

Pincus discussed the substance of the conversation with prosecutor Fitzgerald last fall under an arrangement where Pincus did not have to tell Fitzgerald who the administration source was.

And Fleischer also seemed attuned to a strategy of discrediting Wilson. Two days before Novak revealed Plame's identity, Fleischer questioned the former envoy's findings in remarks to reporters during a trip with Bush in Africa.

The transcript of that press gaggle (the term for an informal question-and-answer between reporters and the White House spokesman), which took place in the National Hospital in Abuja, Nigeria, has been requested by the prosecutors.

Times staff writer Richard B. Schmitt contributed to this report.

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Lowering the ethics: Bush Would Fire Leaker if Crime Committed

SF Gate - www.sfgate.com

Bush Would Fire Leaker if Crime Committed
- By JENNIFER LOVEN, Associated Press Writer


(07-18) 21:41 PDT WASHINGTON, (AP) --

President Bush qualified his pledge to dismiss any White House official found to have leaked the name of a CIA operative, saying Monday that "if someone committed a crime" he would be fired.

In September 2003, the White House had said anyone who leaked classified information in the case would be dismissed. Bush reiterated that promise last June, saying he would fire anyone found to have disclosed the CIA officer's name.

Democrats said Bush in his new comments had "lowered the ethics bar" for his administration.

Bush would not say whether he was displeased that Rove, the deputy chief of staff, told a reporter that the wife of administration critic Joseph Wilson worked for the CIA on weapons of mass destruction issues. A 2003 phone call with Rove was the first time that Matthew Cooper of Time magazine had heard that Wilson's wife worked at the agency, according to a first-person account by Cooper in the magazine.

The president, in an East Room news conference with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, said there was a "serious ongoing investigation."

"I think it's best that people wait until the investigation is complete before you jump to conclusions. And I will do so, as well," he said. "I don't know all the facts. I want to know all the facts."

Rove's involvement in the leak case has worried Republicans, already anxious about Bush's decline in opinion polls. Only a fourth of Americans believe the White House is fully cooperating with the investigation, according to an ABC News poll released Monday. That number has dropped from half in September 2003 when the probe began.

Democrats contended that Bush's comments indicated he was lowering the administration's ethical standards.

"It appears that an administration that came to office promising 'honesty and integrity' and to avoid 'legalisms' is now defining ethical standards downward," said Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich.

"In this White House, apparently no aide will be fired or forced to resign unless and until the jail cell door is locked behind him."


In July 2003, syndicated columnist Robert Novak, citing unnamed administration officials, wrote that Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, worked for the CIA.

A 1982 law prohibits the deliberate exposure of the identity of an undercover CIA official. Wilson has accused the White House of trying to orchestrate a dirty-tricks campaign to discredit him after he challenged the administration's assertion that Saddam Hussein was seeking material from Niger to make nuclear weapons and said the White House had manipulated pre-war intelligence to justify an Iraq invasion.

While Rove has not disputed that he told Cooper that Wilson's wife worked for the agency, he has insisted through his lawyer that he did not mention her by name.

Said Bush on Monday, "I would like this to end as quickly as possible so we know the facts, and if someone committed a crime, they will no longer work in my administration."

The phrasing was unusual for the president, who campaigned for office in 2000 on a pledge "to restore honor and dignity" to a White House he implied had been sullied by scandals of the Clinton administration.

White House press secretary Scott McClellan would not say whether Bush meant an indictment or a conviction when he referred to a crime, or whether he considered leaking itself to be a crime. Nor would McClellan acknowledge that the president created a standard different from previous statements out of the White House.

"I think that the president was stating what is obvious when it comes to people who work in the administration: that if someone commits a crime, they're not going to be working any longer in this administration," McClellan said.

Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., said Bush's standard for firing Rove was not consistent with a 2-year-old executive order governing the protection of national secrets. Under the order, Bush is required to impose administrative sanctions such as dismissal if anyone acted negligently in confirming information about Plame's identity.

Howard Dean, head of the Democratic Party, said Bush "lowered the ethics bar" and should go back to his earlier pledge.

URL: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/n/a/2005/07/18/national/w151107D57.DTL

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'Matter of time' before N.Y. hit

New York Daily News - http://www.nydailynews.com
'Matter of time' before N.Y. hit
BY ELLEN TUMPOSKY
SPECIAL TO THE NEWS

LONDON - It's "just a matter of time" before New York is the target of a terrorist attack similar to the London transit blasts, said a top city emergency management official after wrapping up a visit to Britain.

"Any major city in the U.S. should be expecting something of this nature to happen," said Calvin Drayton, first deputy commissioner of New York City's Office of Emergency Management.

Drayton and the emergency agency's Jake Cooper joined several Transit Authority managers, a Long Island Rail Road official and an MTA counterterrorism expert in meetings in London from Thursday to Saturday to draw lessons from the response to the July 7 bombings.

The New Yorkers examined how British officials shut down the transit system and the speed with which they restarted it. Buses and commuter trains were running by the evening rush hour on the day of the attacks.

Underground trains started the next morning, although the bombed lines still are closed.

"That's a struggle for New York City: How do we restart the system in a very timely fashion?" said Drayton, noting that New York has a 24-hour system, while London's tubes shut from 1 a.m. to about 5 a.m.

The officials studied the closed-circuit TV network that enabled British police to identify the bombers so quickly, as well as London's public-address and poster campaign to remind travelers about suspect packages.

"We need to change the culture of our riders" to make vigilance routine, said Dave Sumner, an operations officer with the LIRR who was on the trip.



Drayton said New Yorkers would respond with the spirit that Londoners showed if struck by transit terror.

"We're fighters. When someone takes a swing at you, you get up very quickly," he said.

"We did that through 9/11. I would like to think we would do the same thing if something like this happens in New York - or when something like this happens in New York.

"It's going to happen. It's just a matter of time."

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Bush Reiterates Firing Pledge on Leak Case

Yahoo! News
Bush Reiterates Firing Pledge on Leak Case

By PETE YOST, Associated Press Writer

President Bush said Monday that if anyone in his administration committed a crime in connection with the public leak of the identity of an undercover CIA operative, that person will "no longer work in my administration." At the same time, Bush again sidestepped a question on the role of his top political adviser, Karl Rove, in the matter.

"We have a serious ongoing investigation here and it's being played out in the press," Bush said at an East Room news conference.

Bush, appearing with visiting Prime Minister Manmohan Singh of India, spoke a day after Time magazine's Matthew Cooper said that a 2003 phone call with Rove was the first he heard about the wife of Bush administration critic Joseph Wilson apparently working for the CIA.

Bush said in June 2004 that he would fire anyone in his administration shown to have leaked information that exposed the identity of Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame. On Monday, however, he added the qualifier that it would have be shown that a crime was committed.

Asked at a June 10, 2004, news conference if he stood by his pledge to fire anyone found to have leaked Plame's name, Bush answered, "Yes. And that's up to the U.S. attorney to find the facts."

A tempest has swirled around the leak of the CIA agent's name, apparently by Bush administration officials, in July 2003.

Some Democrats have called for Rove, whose title is deputy chief of staff, to be fired. They have suggested that he violated a 1982 federal law that prohibits the deliberate exposure of the name of a CIA agent.

"It's best people wait until the investigation is complete before you jump to conclusions. I don't know all the facts. I want to know all the facts," Bush said Monday. "I would like this to end as quickly as possible. If someone committed a crime, they will no longer work in my administration."

It was the second time that Bush, when asked specifically about Rove's involvement in the matter, passed up an opportunity to come to his adviser's defense.

Sen. Charles Schumer (news, bio, voting record), D-N.Y., said Bush shouldn't wait for charges to be filed to take action.

"The standard for holding a high position in the White House should not simply be that you didn't break the law," he said. "It should be a lot higher and if Mr. Rove or anyone else aided and abetted the leaking of the name of an agent, even if they don't meet the narrow criminal standard, the president should ask for their resignation."


Bush has appeared with Rove at his side several times over the past week. And White House spokesman Scott McClellan has said Rove — as well anyone who works now at the White House — continues to have the president's confidence.

The president did not respond directly to a reporter's question on whether he disapproved of Rove's telling a reporter that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA on weapons of mass destruction issues.

Rove has not disputed that he told Cooper that Wilson's wife worked for the agency. But he has insisted through his lawyer that he did not mention her by name, nor did he intend to "out" her.

Cooper said Sunday that a 2003 phone call with White House political adviser Karl Rove was the first he heard about the wife of Bush administration critic Joseph Wilson apparently working for the CIA.

Giving a first-person account of his role in a case that nearly landed him in jail, the reporter disclosed that Vice President Dick Cheney's top aide, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, also was a source for the story mentioning Plame.

Cooper recalled that Rove told him, "I've already said too much" after revealing that the wife of the former ambassador apparently was with the CIA.

Cooper speculated in the piece, released Sunday, that Rove could have been "worried about being indiscreet, or it could have meant he was late for a meeting or something else."

"I don't know, but that signoff has been in my memory for two years," Cooper wrote. The White House and Rove's lawyer have stressed that Rove never mentioned Plame by name.

At issue in a federal grand jury investigation into whether someone in the administration violated a federal statute by publicly disclosing the identity of Plame as an undercover CIA operative.

The White House had insisted for nearly two years that neither Rove nor Libby had any connection with the leak. For the last two weeks, however, it has steadfastly declined to comment on the case, citing the ongoing probe by special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald probe.

It took the same tack Sunday, as spokesman David Almacy declined specifically to comment about Libby, citing an independent counsel's ongoing investigation of the case.

Writing an account of a conversation he had with Libby, Cooper said, "Libby replied, 'Yeah, I've heard that too' or words to that effect" when he asked if Libby had heard anything about Wilson's wife sending her husband to Africa to investigate the possible sale of uranium to Iraq for nuclear weapons.

As part of Fitzgerald's criminal investigation, Cooper testified about his conversation with Libby in a deposition at his lawyer's office in August 2004. Libby, as Rove did this month, provided a specific waiver of confidentiality. In a grand jury appearance last Wednesday, Cooper gave his account of what Rove told him.

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Abortion Distortions

factcheck.org
Abortion Distortions
Senators from both sides make false claims about Roe v. Wade

Summary

As President Bush considers exactly whom to nominate to succeed Justice Sandra Day O'Connor on the Supreme Court, Senators Barbara Boxer and Rick Santorum both have distorted some facts about the effect of Roe v. Wade.

Boxer, a Democrat, claimed that repeal of Roe "means a minimum of 5,000 women a year will die" from illegal abortions. But that's a 69-year-old figure dating to a time before penicillin and the birth-control pill. Experts say nowhere near that many women were dying from abortion complications even in the years just before Roe made abortions legal nationwide.

On the other side of the abortion debate, Republican Santorum says that suicides by women, and also crime, "got worse, much worse" after Roe. But in fact, the female suicide rate is one-third lower now than in 1973. And the Justice Department's annual survey on crime victimization shows a 69 percent drop in property crime and a 53 percent drop in violent crime since Roe.


Analysis

Boxer's False Statistic

On July 5, Sen. Boxer claimed that overturning Roe v. Wade would cost the lives of more than 5,000 pregnant women a year. That might have been true before the invention of penicillin and the birth control pill, but it's not true now. The best evidence indicates that the annual deaths from illegal abortions would number in the hundreds, not thousands.

Boxer made the claim to support her position that the repeal of Roe would be the sort of "extraordinary circumstance" that could justify use of the filibuster to stop the confirmation of a nominee to the Supreme Court. The Associated Press quoted her this way:

Boxer: It means a minimum of 5,000 women a year will die. So all options are on the table.

But Boxer was just wrong. The figure comes from a 1936 study by Dr. Frederick Taussig who estimated that abortion claimed the lives of 5,000 to 10,000 women a year. It is impossible to know if his figures are accurate, given that no reliable records exist on the total number of illegal abortions that occurred, much less the number of deaths. Taussig extrapolated the data from trends in New York City and Germany.

His estimate is at least plausible. Women had few means to prevent unwanted pregnancies, and illegal abortions were often performed in less than sanitary settings. Furthermore, penicillin wasn't in use until World War II, and not widely available to the civilian population until after the war ended in 1945. And Enovid, the first oral contraceptive, wasn't available until 1957. But whether Taussig's estimate was accurate or not, the conditions of the 1930's don't apply today.

From the 1940s through the 1960s, in fact, the best available evidence shows a dramatic decline in abortion-related deaths occurring even before the first states liberalized abortion laws in 1967. The Journal of the American Medical Association quotes official estimates from the National Center for Health Statistics showing an 89 percent decrease in abortion-related deaths by 1966. That is based on counting the number of death certificates that listed complications from abortion as the cause of death. The numbers reported for any given year are assuredly low since doctors could easily misstate the cause of death to protect the family. Still, these are the only figures that allow comparisons over time. There's no reason to think that the rate of under-reporting would vary from one year to another, and so little reason to doubt that a steep downward trend took place long before Roe was decided.

Christopher Tietze, one of the leading experts on abortion trends, wrote in 1969 that it was plausible that 5,000 women a year died from abortion in the 1930s, but concluded that "it cannot be anywhere near the true rate now." He said that, although the 235 formally listed on death certificates in 1965 was too low, "in all likelihood it (the actual number) was under 1,000." An abortion statistics expert at the Guttmacher Institute, Stanley Henshaw, is studying abortion rates during the first part of the century. Though his data collection is unfinished, Henshaw concurred that Tietze's estimate of fewer than 1,000 deaths is "reasonable."

Boxer would have been correct to say that some increase in deaths of pregnant women would result should abortions be made illegal. But the number is much lower than she claimed. In 1972, the last year before Roe v. Wade legalized abortion nationwide, CDC counted only 39 deaths from illegal abortions based on surveys of health care providers, medical examiners' reports, state and national records, and news reports. However, Henshaw said it's difficult to quantify the number of deaths that could result today if Roe were overturned. For one thing, it is not clear how many states would actually make abortions illegal again. And Henshaw noted it is unlikely that the numbers of deaths would be as high as they were before 1973 due to medical advances and emergency services available today. In any case, Boxer's 5,000 figure was nearly 70 years out of date, and clearly wrong

Santorum's Overreaching

Republican Senator Rick Santorum of Pennsylvania claims in a new book that a number of social ills got "much worse" after Roe was decided in 1973. He's clearly right about some, but wrong on at least one, female suicide, and possibly on another, crime.

The book is It Takes a Family: Conservatism and the Common Good, released on July 4. It devotes several chapters to abortion, and one of them includes this argument :

Santorum, p. 250: Back before 1973, there were all sorts of claims in favor of legal abortion. Legal abortion would lead to less domestic violence, since young women would not be forced into unhealthy and inappropriate marriages. Fewer desperate women would commit suicide. There would be fewer out-of-wedlock births. There would be fewer divorces. There would be fewer children in poverty, less crime, and less child abuse, since all children would be wanted and grow up in stable families. None of this happened. Not a single social ill improved as a result of legal abortion: in fact, they all got worse, much worse.

Santorum is right on some things: The percentage of children living in poverty is up, according to the Census Bureau. It was 15.1 percent in 1973 and 17.6 percent in 2003, the most recent year on record. The birth rate among unmarried women aged 15-44 has increased as well. It went from 24.5 per 1,000 unmarried women in 1973 to about 44 most recently, according to the Center for Disease Control's National Center for Health Statistics. And Santorum has a strong case regarding divorce: the number of divorced persons has risen from 3 percent of the adult population before Roe to 10 percent most recently. The divorce rate (per 1,000 population) rose for several years after Roe and didn't dip back below pre-Roe levels until 1999, according to Census Bureau figures.

Santorum may also be right about child abuse and domestic violence. We could find no reliable statistics on either that allow comparisons with 1973, and Santorum's Senate staff did not respond to several requests from us to say where he is getting his information. As things stand, we consider those claims unverified.

But not all the social problems Santorum cited have gotten worse since the Supreme Court decided Roe v. Wade. And at least one has actually gotten better.

Suicide Rates

Santorum says suicides by "desperate women" got "much worse" since 1973. Actually, the suicide rate for women has dropped by one-third since Roe was decided. According to the Center for Disease Control, the rate was 6.5 per every 100,000 women in 1973, and had fallen to 4.06 by 2001, the most recent year on record.

As seen in this chart, it is true that the female suicide rate went up after Roe , but only slightly -- by 0.4. It peaked in 1977 before plunging.

And those numbers refer only to the raw rate of suicides per 100,000 women. The National Center for Health Statistics also publishes an "age-adjusted" suicide rate. Statistics show that women in their 40's are more than twice as likely to commit suicide as women in their 20's, and the age-adjusted rates attempt to cancel out changes in the overall rate that might be due simply to a greater concentration of women in the population who have reached a suicide-prone age. The age-adjusted figure offers even less support for Santorum, however. It shows an even more dramatic decrease since Roe - a decline of 41 per cent, compared to a decline of 34 per cent for the unadjusted rate. Either way, Santorum was way off.

Crime

Santorum's claim that crime has gotten worse since Roe is also doubtful, though here the picture is a bit muddled.

According to the FBI's Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program the overall rate of crimes reported to police is actually 2 percent lower now, though it rose after Roe and is still higher for some categories of crime. But according to an annual survey conducted by the Department of Justice, the number of people saying they were crime victims has shown a huge and steady drop since 1973. The survey may be the more accurate, since it attempts to capture the large number of crimes that go unreported to police.

Santorum would be correct to say that the FBI's crime rate rose in the first years after Roe, continuing a trend that had been evident for more than a decade. But it plunged starting in 1992 and was about 2 percent below the 1973 level in 2003, the most recent year on record. And it is true that violent crimes reported to police are still 14 percent higher than in 1973, although reported crimes against property are down 3 percent, according to the FBI's statistics.

By another official measure, crime decreased dramatically since 1973 in both categories. The Bureau of Justice Statistics' (BJS) National Crime Victimization Survey shows that crime rates in 2003 are at the lowest levels recorded since the survey's inception, which coincidentally was the year Roe was decided.According to this annual survey, the number of people saying they were victims of property crime dropped steadily after Roe to, most recently, about 69 percent below 1973 levels. Meanwhile, the number of people who say they were victimized by violent crime has decreased by 53 percent since 1973 . Furthermore, by this measure the rate of violent crime was actually stable between 1973 and 1977, the first several years following Roe .

How can the FBI's statistics show an increase in violent crime while the Bureau of Justice Statistics survey shows it dropping by half? There's reason to believe that persons are simply more likely now than in 1973 to report certain crimes to police.

The survey collects responses from a statistical sample of the population, and is not an actual count of crime reports. It attempts to measure the large number of crimes that were never reported to police, as well as those that were. Even now, half of all violent crime goes unreported. Furthermore, the increase in the FBI's violent crime rate is due entirely to big jumps in the numbers of reported rapes and aggravated assaults, which may simply reflect that women are less likely to keep silent about such crimes than they were 30 years ago. The FBI's murder rate, meanwhile, has dropped more than 39 percent since 1973. That's one category of violent crime that is almost always reported, since a dead body is hard to ignore.

In any case, even using the FBI's crime statistics, there is less crime today overall than there was in 1973, contrary to Santorum's claim.

Santorum would have been correct to say that many of the arguments for legalizing abortion proved to be unfounded. But he doesn't have the facts to include female suicide and crime among his examples.

These false claims by Boxer and Santorum show that whoever is named to the current Supreme Court vacancy, truth is already a casualty in the confirmation fight.

--by Jennifer L. Ernst and Matthew Barge

Sources

Justin M. Norton, "Boxer: Filibuster To Block Anti-abortion Supreme Court Candidate," The Associated Press , 5 July 2005.
Christopher Tietze and Sarah Lewit, "Abortion," Scientific American: January 1969, 220(1).
Frederick J. Taussig, M.D., F.A.C.S., Abortion: Spontaneous and Induced, (St. Louis: C.V. Mosby Co., 1936) 25-28.
"Induced Termination of Pregnancy Before and After Roe v. Wade," Journal of the American Medical Association, 268 (Dec. 1992): 3231-3239.
Suzanne White Junod, Ph.D, "FDA's Approval of the First Oral Contraceptive, Enovid," Update, Food and Drug Law Institute: (July-August 1998).
Ricki Lewis, Ph.D, "The Rise of Antibiotic-Resistant Infections ," FDA Consumer Magazine, September 1995.
"Abortion Surveillance - United States, 2001," Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, Center for Disease Control: 26 Dec. 2004.
"Criminal Victimization, 2003 ," National Crime Victimization Survey, Bureau of Justice Statistics, September 2004
"Criminal Victimization, 1973-1995 ," National Crime Victimization Survey, Bureau of Justice Statistics, April 1997
"National Crime Victimization Survey Violent Crime Trends, 1973-2003," Bureau of Justice Statistics, website, 12 September 2004
"National Crime Victimization Survey Property Crime Trends, 1973-2003," Bureau of Justice Statistics, website, 12 September 2004
"Crime in the United States," Federal Bureau of Investigation, website, undated
Michael R. Rand and Callie M. Rennison, "True Crime Stories? Accounting for Differences in Our NationalCrime Indicators," Chance Vol. 15, No.1, 2002
"Reducing Suicide: A National Imperative," Institute of Medicine , 2002
"Leading Causes of Death 1900-1998 ," Center for Disease Control, website, undated
"Age-Adjusted Rates for 69 Selected Causes by Race and Sex Using 200 Standard Populatino: United States, 1968-78," National Vital Statistics System, Center for Disease Control/National Center for Health Statistics, undated
"Age-Adjusted Death Rates for 72 Selected Causes by Race and Sex Using Year 2000 Standard Population: United States, 1979-98," National Vital Statistics System, Center for Disease Control/National Center for Health Statistics, 2002
Center for Disease Control, Web-based Injury Statistics Query and Reporting System, website, accessed July 2005.

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Feds admit FBI has big files on rights and enviro groups

New York Daily News - http://www.nydailynews.com
Feds admit FBI has big files on rights and enviro groups

WASHINGTON - The FBI has thousands of pages of records in its files relating to the monitoring of civil rights, environmental and similar advocacy groups, the Justice Department acknowledges.

The organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union and Greenpeace, are suing for the release of the documents. The groups say the material will show they have been subjected to scrutiny by FBI task forces set up to combat terrorism.

The FBI has identified 1,173 pages related to the ACLU and 2,383 pages about Greenpeace, but it needs at least until February to process the ACLU files and until next June to review the Greenpeace documents, the feds said in a filing in U.S. District Court in Washington.

The ACLU's executive director, Anthony Romero, said the disclosure shows the FBI is monitoring law-abiding organizations.

"I know for an absolute fact that we have not been involved in anything related to promoting terrorism," Romero said.

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Bush stalls on CIA scandal firing

BBC NEWS
Bush stalls on CIA scandal firing

US President George W Bush has said he will sack anyone in the White House who committed a crime in relation to the leaking of the identity of a CIA agent.

A federal prosecutor is investigating whether any officials broke the law by revealing the name of a covert agent.

A Time magazine reporter said top presidential aide Karl Rove had been the first to hint at the identity.

Correspondents say Mr Bush's mention of crimes is a shift from his pledge to fire anyone involved in the leak.

CIA agent Valerie Plame is married to former US diplomat Joseph Wilson, who accused the Bush administration of distorting intelligence on Iraq.

Mr Rove has denied being behind the leaking of her identity to the media.

PLAME AFFAIR TIMELINE
Feb 2002 : Joseph Wilson looks into reports that Iraq tried to buy uranium in Niger
6 July 2003 : Mr Wilson goes public about investigation
14 July 2003 : Columnist Robert Novak writes the trip was inspired by Ms Plame - Matthew Cooper reports that he had similar information
30 September : Justice department launches probe
24 June 2004 : President Bush testifies in case
15 July : Cooper and Judith Miller ordered to testify about sources
10 August : Miller and Cooper sentenced for contempt of court
28 June 2005 : Supreme Court refuses to hear appeal
6 July : Miller jailed after appeals fail, Cooper agrees to testify

At the weekend, Time journalist Matthew Cooper wrote that Mr Rove did not disclose Ms Plame's name, but did say that the wife of a government critic worked for the CIA.

Mr Cooper also wrote in Time that he discussed Mr Wilson and his wife with Lewis Libby, a senior aide to Vice-President Dick Cheney.


Mr Bush told reporters he did not know all the facts and urged them to wait until the inquiry was complete before "you jump to conclusions".

"I would like this to end as quickly as possible so we know the facts, and if someone committed a crime they will no longer work in my administration," he said at a news conference.

The BBC's Oliver Conway in Washington says Mr Bush's statement appears to leave him some room for manoeuvre.

The evidence made public so far does not conclusively show a crime has been committed, he says.

The Democratic Party accused Mr Bush of lowering the "ethics bar".

Smear allegations

Newspaper columnist Robert Novak first publicly revealed that Ms Plame was a covert CIA agent in July 2003, citing two administration officials.

That was shortly after her husband wrote an opinion piece for the New York Times in which he accused Mr Bush's administration of twisting intelligence on Iraq.

Mr Wilson says he travelled to Niger to investigate a claim that Iraq had tried to buy nuclear material there, but found no evidence to prove it.

President Bush later used the Niger claim as part of the justification for the 2003 invasion.

Novak wrote that an official had told him the trip was inspired by Ms Plame.

Mr Wilson alleges that his wife's name was deliberately leaked in a bid to undermine him.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/americas/4695137.stm

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How much does a security breach actually cost?

theregister.co.uk
How much does a security breach actually cost?

By Mark Rasch, SecurityFocus

How much does a security breach actually "cost," and who pays for it? When the breach involves personal information, like credit card data, the answer is, a lot more than you may think. The problem is that the people who "pay" for the cost of the breach are rarely the ones responsible for preventing the breach.

A recent lawsuit filed in state court in San Francisco may, to a small extent, change that. The lawsuit was filed as an aftermath of the data breach by credit card processor Cardsystems, Inc., which resulted in the potential compromise of more than 40 million credit card numbers, and seeks to impose liability on Cardsystems for the true costs of failing to protect data.

We all know the familiar pattern of data theft, investigation, and begrudgingly, notification. In many cases, there is a general notification to the public about a data breach, which may or may not be followed by a specific notification to individual consumers that their information in particular was subject to compromise. Just in the past several months we have seen data losses or thefts from an alarming number of institutions: DSW Shoe Warehouse, BJ's Wholesale Club, Loewe's Hardware, Bank of America, Citigroup, Lexis/Nexis, and Atlanta-based Choicepoint. But nobody really knows the true cost of these data breaches - or for that matter, who really pays these costs.

The problem is, those responsible for securing our personal data are rarely the ones who pay the cost of securing it, and in many cases are not the same people with whom we have entrusted out data in the first place.


On June 27, Eric Parke of Marin County, California and Carmichael California bedding retailer "Royal Sleep" sued Cardsystems Solutions, Inc., as well as Merrick Bank, VISA and MasterCard in California State Superior Court as part of a class action lawsuit. Cardsystems had only days before announced that they had been the victim of a security breach involving as many as 40 million individual credit card numbers, but had delayed notification at the request of the FBI.

The FBI of course, announced that they had made no such request to delay notification to customers. Meanwhile, to date there have been no reports of any of the individual consumers whose credit card numbers were processed by Cardsystems having received notification that their credit card numbers were compromised. In fact, there is a dispute over how the fraud scheme itself was discovered - with Cardsystems claiming that they detected the fraud, MasterCard claiming that they detected the pattern of fraudulent charges and tracing it back to Cardsystems, and Australian credit card processors claiming that they detected and reported the fraudulent activity.

Now Eric Parke and Royal Sleep - as well as the class of people the purport to represent - may have suffered no loss at all. In fact, Mr. Parke is nothing more than a person who owns and has used a credit card. To date, there are a relatively modest number of people whose credit card numbers have been used without their authorization as a result of the breach at Cardsystems. But if you watch TV or read the papers, they all have the same advice for people who believe that their credit card numbers may have been compromised. First, review your statements carefully. Then get a copy of your credit report from each of the credit reporting agencies.

Obtaining such credit reports may be free, but then again it may not. A new U.S. federal law entitles some residents to a single free credit report (it is being rolled out nationwide) but even that may not be sufficient - particularly if you obtained your free report before the suspected break in. You are also entitled to a free credit report if you have been denied credit as a result of an application for credit - but what you really want is to know if you have been granted credit. Beware also of the services offered by the credit reporting agencies promising you a free credit report - this may not be the free credit report that you are entitled to under the law. Frequently these free credit reports are only free if you sign up for some other service - like credit watch services - which you are obligated to pay for if you do not cancel within a specified time period. So checking your credit report is not as easy as it appears.

Finally, you can put yourself of a credit fraud watch list or alerting list - meaning that before any credit is extended to you, you will be contacted by an "out of band" communications medium - like a phone. While this will help in the area of identity fraud, most companies will only allow you on the credit fraud watch list if you have been the victim of identity fraud already - and only for a short period of time. Sort of closing the barn door after the horse has been stolen. Moreover, if you are on such a fraud watch list, you might not be able to get your 10% "instant" savings at SEARS for opening a credit card there.

The final thing you can do if your credit card data has been compromised is to cancel all your credit cards, and get new ones. The cost of this is typically borne by you (in nuisance) and by your credit card issuing bank, and is estimated at from $3.00 to $35.00 for a simple reissuance to a reissuance plus credit fraud plus credit reports. Multiply that time 40 million numbers, and you can see why a lawsuit was filed. In general, the idea behind a civil tort system is to place the costs on the party best able to avoid the risk. In other words - you broke it, you bought it.

So, who bears the risk of loss for a stolen credit card number? Well, under what is called Regulation E, (for debit cards) or the Fair Credit Reporting Act (for credit cards) the cardholder's risk ranges from $50 to $500 (depending on the timeliness of notification) but is typically zero, as the card issuers want to keep their customers happy. If it is merely a credit card number that is compromised, the true risk of loss falls on the merchant that accepts the number over the phone, or the internet or possibly even accepts a cloned physical card. That is why the California bedding company is listed as a member of the class suing card systems.

But here is the irony. It was merchants themselves that decided to use Cardsystems as a processor. The credit card holder and the issuing bank had little control over who accessed the number and the transaction information after the transaction was inititated. The merchant is the one with the "privacy policy" promising consumers that their information will be protected. It was precisely such privacy policies that got companies like Victoria's Secret., Barnes and Noble, Guess Jeans, Petco and others in trouble with the Federal Trade Commission when there were security vulnerabilities or breaches that exposed personal data on these companies websites.

So, if you made a purchase with a company that had a privacy policy - saying something like "your information is safe with us" or "we will protect your personal data" and they then shared it with a processor (or processors) which were vulnerable, you might have a cause of action (a lawsuit) against the merchant themselves.

In law school, the rule of thumb for litigation was essentially this: if it moves, sue it. If it doesn't move: move it and then sue it. So everybody here is potentially at risk. The merchants are both plaintiffs (they have the risk for unauthorized cards being used at the store) and the defendants (they failed to protect the data processed by CardSystems.) The issuing banks (the name on your credit card) and VISA or MasterCard themselves run the risk that customers will be afraid to use credit cards because of fear of ID theft. The processors, these anonymous aggregators of massive amounts or transactional data, run risks to merchants, consumers, VISA and MasterCard, regulators, and issuing banks - particularly if it is found that they failed to comply both with the standards for security set by VISA and MasterCard, and the federal Gramm Leach Bliley Act for safeguarding financial information.

So we can expect an awful lot of finger pointing in the months and years ahead. We can also expect that the members of the class in the California lawsuit, even if the suit is successful, will get a mere pittance - a token amount. The only people who are sure to make out will be the lawyers. Avoiding that eventuality should certainly be a good enough reason to provide better security in the first place.

SecurityFocus columnist Mark D. Rasch, J.D., is a former head of the Justice Department's computer crime unit, and now serves as Senior Vice President and Chief Security Counsel at Solutionary Inc.

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Wilson: Bush 'Ought to Keep His Word,' Fire Rove

ABC News
Wilson: Bush 'Ought to Keep His Word,' Fire Rove
Ambassador Joseph Wilson Speaks Out on Rove's Role in CIA Leak Case

- In an interview with ABC News' Jake Tapper, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson said President Bush "really ought to keep his word to the American people" and fire deputy White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove.

Wilson criticized the White House's response to the disclosure that Rove, a top-level Bush aide, had a role in the leak to a news reporter that Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, was a CIA officer.

The following is a transcript of the interview:

JAKE TAPPER: Some might say, politically speaking, there's little upside in speaking out against the administration, because you're controversial and the White House is damaging itself. Why are you speaking out so much?

AMBASSADOR JOSEPH WILSON: At the end of the day, there's this smear campaign that they've launched is one that's very personal. It's a personal attack on my wife and myself. It is based on distortions and untruths. And I think it's important that the record be corrected. But let my just say that, by and large, this is not a political question. This is a national security question. It's a question of whether or not this country and this administration will tolerate somebody having leaked classified information to the press in a manner that is unethical and quite possibly illegal.

TAPPER: And you think that Karl Rove leaked your wife's identity to the press?

WILSON: What I've said all along is that I have information that, within a week of Mr. [Bob] Novak's article having appeared on July 14th of 2003, Mr. Rove was calling up reporters and pushing the story. I find the idea of a senior White House official engaged in political dirty tricks and smear campaigns to be below the ethical standards we have the right to demand of our senior public servants. With the release of this e-mail from Mr. Cooper, the Time magazine reporter, to his boss indicating that he had spoken to Mr. Rove about my wife several days before the Novak article appeared, I think there's real evidence there that he did in fact give away my wife's identity before Mr. Novak or any other article appeared.

TAPPER: Not specifically by name though, is what his defenders would say.

WILSON: I only have one wife and her name is Valerie Wilson so when he says "Wilson's wife" he's saying "Mrs. Wilson," and as I say, her name is Mrs. Wilson.

TAPPER: There are a lot of charges coming at you from the Republican Party in defense of Mr. Rove. One of them is that Karl Rove did not know what your wife's name was, so he couldn't have truly "identified" her.

WILSON: The Intelligence Identities Protection Act doesn't call for naming by name, it calls for identifying the individual. So when he said "Wilson's wife," he identified her. And her name, again, is Valerie Wilson.


TAPPER: But doesn't the Intelligence Identities Protection Act also call that he would have had to have known that she was undercover?

WILSON: That's something that the special council is obviously in the process of determining. Again, irrespective or whether or not what he said was criminal under in the context of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act, it's very clear that he knew from this e-mail that she worked for the CIA, and he knew that she was my wife, and he said "Wilson's wife," and her name is Valerie Wilson.

TAPPER: President Bush said that if anybody was found to have broken the law, they would be fired or dealt with. Do you think that phrasing was purposeful? The idea that he would say if they had broken the law as opposed to just if they had been involved in some sort of contribution to the leak?

WILSON: My understanding is last year he actually said that anybody who was involved in the leak would be fired and now we know that Karl Rove was involved in the leak. But I don't have the transcript of what he may have said or how they may be finessing it. The fact remains, however, that the president has indicated, in my judgment he indicated, that anybody involved in the leak would be fired. And the president who prides himself on being a man of his word really ought to keep his word to the American people and fire Karl Rove.

TAPPER: Well, I think his pledge actually was specifically if the law had been broken.

WILSON: I think we need to go back then and take a look at the transcripts from '04 because I think there's no ambiguity on that. That there are a number of instances where he was specifically asked the question "Would he be fired," and he said yes. And breaking the law was unincluded -- it was leaking the name.

TAPPER: The other thing the Republicans are putting out there is that Karl Rove wasn't leaking, he was trying to dissuade a reporter from writing an inaccurate story based on your op-ed.

WILSON: That's curious because, of course, my opinion piece said that the 16 words should never have been in the [president's 2003] State of the Union address. The day after my opinion piece appeared, the White House said that the 16 words shouldn't rise to the level of inclusion in the State of the Union address. In that e-mail, it says, "You should wait because George Tenet is going to say something." George Tenet did say something later in the week, and what he said was the 16 words should not have been in the State of the Union address. So it's hard to see how you make the argument that they were going to say something that was contradictory to the opinion piece I wrote. And indeed, they've never retracted the fact that the 16 words should never have been in the State of the Union address. If people remember, within a week, Stephen Hadley offered to resign because he had found in his files two faxes and a memorandum of a telephone conversation in which the director of Central Intelligence told him that he did not want the president to be a witness of fact on this case -- the uranium sales from Niger to Iraq -- because, he says, the evidence is weak and he believed that the British had exaggerated the case. That represented the view of the American Intelligence community.

TAPPER: In your op-ed, you state that, "it did not take long to conclude that it was highly doubtful that any such transaction had ever taken place." Is that your belief of how your report or your debriefs were received by the CIA?

WILSON: It certainly is my belief as to how they were received, and it's very clear that if you go back and look at the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Report, that the CIA on a number of occasions reported to both the Senate, that they didn't believe that there was substance to this, and to the White House that there was not substance to it. So I think that, in fact, my report was pretty clear. Mine, by the way, was one of three reports, all of which said the same thing. The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence's review of this quotes the U.S. Ambassador in Niger saying that the embassy view essentially was the same as mine on this.

TAPPER: But, as you know from reading this Senate Committee Intelligence report, conclusion 13 was that your conclusions from your trip were not received uniformly as shooting down the theory of a transaction.

WILSON: No, what the report actually says was inconclusive, which basically means that the case was not made that Niger had sent uranium to Iraq.

TAPPER: They said that some people in the CIA took your report as buttressing the argument.

WILSON: A couple of the analysts referred to a conversation that never took place related to uranium. If there was any ambiguity in the report on that particular matter, there was a case of the prime minister having met with an Iraqi businessman. The prime minister opining that, since they wanted to talk about a commercial relationship, perhaps they would want to talk about uranium. The subject of uranium never came up in the meeting and that was clear in my debriefing. However, if there was any ambiguity in the report as it was conveyed by the report's officer, they certainly had my phone number. They knew how to get a hold of me to clear up that, or any other question they might have had on the matter.

TAPPER: The White House has also been saying that you have falsely represented yourself either in your media appearances and perhaps, by implication, in your op-ed, as having gone to Niger at the behest of the vice president. What is your response to that?

WILSON: Actually it's in paragraph five of my opinion piece. Let me just read it: "In February 2002, I was informed by officials at the Central Intelligence Agency that Vice President Dick Cheney's office had questions about a particular intelligence report. While I never saw the report, I was told it referred to a memorandum agreement that documented the sale of Uranium yellowcake by Niger to Iraq in the late 60s." I was informed that Vice President Cheney's office had questions. I have said repeatedly that the vice president did not send me. The vice president has said that indeed he did ask the CIA briefer to follow up and find out what information they might have on this report. That is known in the business as a "tasker." The vice president says, "Anything on this?" The CIA briefer goes back to the CIA and says, "We have to provide an answer to the vice president."

TAPPER: So you never said that the vice- [interrupted]

WILSON: Of course not, of course not.

TAPPER: So why are the Republicans saying that? (2)

WILSON: The Republicans apparently have taken a part of a statement I made in a [CNN] Wolff Blitzer interview and they have cut out of the statement that they have released the full statement that I made. And I think if you go back to that statement, and there are transcripts available, you will see that, in fact, I made it very clear in that interview that it was not the vice president who said it. Or as they say, perhaps it's time to run the tape.

TAPPER: They also claim that you said the vice president and other senior White House officials were briefed on your report and dismissed it.

WILSON: In fact, I said that because it is my understanding from my 23 years' experience in government that the reports that are produced are distributed through senior levels of the government. The vice president is a member of the government, as far as I know. In fact, the vice president followed up on this matter on March 5 of 2002, and was told by the CIA briefer that there would be a report in a couple of days. That was my report. The vice president's office claims that the vice president never saw the report and never followed up on it.

TAPPER: But for you, this has now become a much larger ordeal.

WILSON: What we're really talking about is a cover-up, a cover-up of a web of lies that led to the justification for a war in Iraq, which war has resulted in 1,750 American deaths … think the president should fire Karl Rove as he had said he would do if in fact it was determined as he said he would do to any employee who was caught leaking.

TAPPER: What about the charge your wife picked you to go to Niger?

WILSON: The CIA has said she was not involved in my being chosen to go on that trip.

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Cooper Tells Russert About Rove, Libby, Other Sources

Editor and Publisher

Cooper Tells Russert About Rove, Libby, Other Sources

By Greg Mitchell

NEW YORKIn his first TV interview since testifying to the grand jury in the Plame case, Time magazine’s Matthew Cooper suggested to Tim Russert on NBC’s “Meet the Press” Sunday morning that he heard about Plame in July 2003 from more than just two administration officials, Karl Rove and “Scooter” Libby. He first said there "may have" been other sources, then confirmed that he had told the grand jury about them, indicating they did exist.

He would not identify them.

Cooper also told Russert that he first heard about Plame from Rove during their now famous interview, and that Rove said at the close of their conversation, “I’ve already said too much.” Cooper said he did not know what to make of that admission, but “I know it has stuck in my head for two years.”

He said that when Libby talked about Plame he “interpreted this as confirmation.”

Cooper has a cover story coming out Monday in Time on the case. In it, Cooper writes: "When [Rove] said things would be declassified soon, was that itself impermissible? I don't know. Is any of this a crime? Beats me.”

In that story he also indicates that he was impressed with the grand jury. The grand jury somewhat reflected the demographics of the District of Columbia. The majority were African-American women. He writes that one third of his 2 1/2 hours of testimony was spent answering their questions, not the prosecutor’s, although he posed them on their behalf.

Talking to Russert today, he said that he did not have many regrets, but he wished he’d been “more discreet in my emails.” His e-mail detailing his chat with Rove was turned over by Time Inc. to the prosecutor two weeks ago over his objections. Cooper affirmed that he still disagreed with that decision.


Asked what he thought of the significance of the case, Cooper said that sometimes he thought it was tremendously significant, and other times just “poltics as usual.”

Following Cooper on the show, Republican chairman Ken Mehlman called the criticism of Rove from Democrats and the press this week nothing but a “smear campaign” and “outrageous.” He claimed that the recent stories about Rove speaking to Robert Novak, who first outed Plame, did nothing but “exonerate” and “vindicate” him.

Russert then asked about an important element emerging, a form (known as SF 312) signed by those who, like Rove, have access to classified information. It says they must seek to determine if information they give out is not classified; they can’t just say later that they did not know one way or the other.

Mehlman replied that the Plame material may not have been classified, and anyway, Rove had heard it first from a journalist.

He added that the Democrats were pre-judging what the special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, a Republican, will find and said he had complete confidence in Fitzgerald. He wondered if Democrats did not share that confidence.

When Russert then asked if he would promise not to criticize Fizgerald if he brings indictments of administration officials, Mehlman demurred, saying he did not want to speculate.

Former Clinton White House aide John Podesta, another guest, then called for Rove’s dismissal, saying that at the very least he had lied two years ago, and since, when he said he had no involvement in this case. He also suggested that Rove’s attorney had admitted today that perhaps his client possibly first heard about Plame from someone other than a journalist.

Greg Mitchell (gmitchell@editorandpublisher.com) is editor of E&P.

Find this article at:
http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000980361

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