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Profile: Valerie Plame Wilsona.k.a. Valerie Plame, Valerie Wilson, Valerie Flame, Val P. Related Entities:
Valerie Plame Wilson was a participant or observer in the following events:Valerie Plame, the 22-year old daughter of a military family that followed its Air Force father around the globe during her childhood, joins the CIA. She is one of only 250 or so recruits accepted in the elite Career Trainee Program, a relatively new program installed by CIA Director William Casey and future director Robert Gates. These recruits receive intensive training in everything from academics, government and political structures, and paramilitary operations. Plame is one of the first women accepted in the program. She acquits herself very well in training, winning the respect of her fellow recruits. Classmate Larry Johnson, who will himself go on to a long career in the agency, will later recall of the young woman he knows only as “Val P.”: “She didn’t try to pretend to be something that she was not. She didn’t shoot her mouth off. Looking back, for her age, how so damn young she was, she was remarkably mature, and very serious. It was clear she wanted to be taken seriously.” Only three recruits from the “survivors” of the original class of 250 will go on to work as NOCs—nonofficial covered officers. Plame will be one of those three. [Wilson, 2007, pp. 315-317] Entity Tags: Central Intelligence Agency, Valerie Plame Wilson, Larry C. Johnson Timeline Tags: Niger Uranium and Plame Outing  Valerie Plame, a young CIA case officer (see Fall 1985), begins her first tour of foreign duty in Athens, Greece. She will remain there for three years, functioning out of the US Embassy under diplomatic cover as, primarily, a recruiter of foreign nationals to serve as CIA assets. Athens is a beautiful but dangerous assignment, with the radical leftist group known as “November 17” having killed a number of US officials over the past years, including CIA station chief Richard Welch in 1975. Plame’s station chief, Doug Smith, will remember her as an ambitious agent who worked hard: “It’s rare that someone on a first tour does a really wonderful job. She did well.” Her deputy station chief, who only allows himself to be identified as “Jim,” will add that he has “a very high opinion of Valerie” and the caliber of her work. [Wilson, 2007, pp. 319-321] Entity Tags: Doug Smith, Central Intelligence Agency, Valerie Plame Wilson, “Jim” (CIA case officer) Timeline Tags: Niger Uranium and Plame Outing
Entity Tags: Valerie Plame Wilson, Ahmed Chalabi, Central Intelligence Agency, Robert Baer, Iraqi National Congress Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion Valerie Plame, a young CIA case officer working in the Europe Division at the agency’s Directorate of Operations following a tour in Greece (see Fall 1985 and Fall 1989), decides on a risky career move—becoming a NOC, or Nonofficial Covered Officer. As reporter Laura Rozen will later explain: “Becoming a NOC would require Plame to erase all visible connections to the US government, while, with the help of the agency’s Office of Central Cover, developing and inhabiting a plausible new private sector career and professional identity that would serve as useful cover for her to meet and develop potential sources of intelligence value to the agency without revealing herself as an agent of the US government. It also meant giving up the protection of diplomatic status should her covert activities be discovered.” “A NOC has no overt affiliation with the US government,” Plame will later write. “If he was caught, the United States would deny any connection.” The CIA accepts her as a NOC candidate, and in order to distance herself from her former association with her former “cover” career as a junior State Department officer in Athens, Plame begins pursuing double graduate degrees in international affairs and European studies. She studies at both the London School of Economics and at the College of Europe in Bruges, Belgium, where the entire curriculum is taught in French. By 1996 she is ensconced in an apartment in Brussels, where she begins a “career” as an energy executive and secret NOC. She has a far wider range of potential contacts within the corporate world as an apparent private citizen, and her new assignment introduces her to the world of weapons proliferation, WMD, counternarcotics, economic intelligence, technological developments, and counterterrorism. [Wilson, 2007, pp. 332-333] The CIA sets up a number of front companies with the intention of penetrating the nuclear proliferation ring founded by Pakistani scientist A. Q. Khan. One of the companies is Brewster Jennings & Associates (see Before May 22, 1994), which will be used as cover by Valerie Plame Wilson, a CIA officer outed in 2003. The precise way in which the CIA attempts to penetrate the network is not known. [Sunday Times (London), 1/27/2008] Former CIA Director George Tenet will hint at the methods used in a 2007 book: “The small unit working this effort recognized that it would be impossible to penetrate proliferation networks using conventional intelligence gathering tactics. Security considerations do not permit me to describe the techniques we used. Patiently, we put ourselves in a position to come in contact with individuals and organizations that we believed were part of the overall proliferation problem.” [Tenet, 2007, pp. 283] CIA agent Valerie Plame leaves Europe after a long and distinguished career as a nonofficial cover (NOC) agent (see Fall 1992 - 1996 and July 21, 2003) in Greece and Brussels. The New York Times will report in 2003 that Plame may have been forced to return to the US after her name was given to the Russians by double agent Aldrich Ames in 1994 [Vanity Fair, 1/2004] , though that possibility remains unconfirmed. Plame takes a position as a case officer with a new bureau in the agency, the counterproliferation division (CPD), a part of the covert Directorate of Operations. She is hand-picked by the division chief of CPD, James Pavitt, for the slot. The CPD is an unconventional entity, the first bureau without a geographical affiliation; Plame will affectionately refer to it as “the island of misfit toys.” CPD and its counterpart, the Counterterrorism Center (CTC), are tasked to deal with emerging unconventional threats from rogue nations, stateless terrorist, and extremist groups. “The older divisions eyed CPD with deep suspicion and distrust,” Plame will later recall. Pavitt’s decision to include former NOCs such as Plame is controversial, and creates something of a turf war between CPD and the Office of External Development, which generally deals with NOCs. Pavitt wins out because of his close relationship with CIA Director George Tenet. [Wilson, 2007, pp. 349-350] Entity Tags: New York Times, Aldrich Ames, James Pavitt, Valerie Plame Wilson, George J. Tenet Timeline Tags: Niger Uranium and Plame Outing Former US ambassador Joe Wilson and CIA officer Valerie Plame meet for the first time at a reception held at the Turkish ambassador’s residence. Wilson and Plame will marry a year later and will become involved in the “Plame Affair,” when Plame’s affiliation with the CIA is disclosed in the media. After her marriage, Plame will generally be referred to by the name Plame Wilson. Wilson, who is accompanied by General James Jamerson, is there to receive an award from the American-Turkish Council. The reason for Plame’s presence there is not known. [Wilson, 2004, pp. 240-1, 273] However, the American-Turkish Council will later be said to be involved in the smuggling of nuclear weapons material to Turkey and other countries (see Late 1990s-Early 2001 and Mid-Late 1990s), and Plame’s job at the CIA is in its non-proliferation section (see Late February 1999), so she may be there for operational reasons. [Sunday Times (London), 1/6/2008; Sunday Times (London), 1/27/2008] Entity Tags: American-Turkish Council, James Jamerson, Joseph C. Wilson, Valerie Plame Wilson Timeline Tags: A. Q. Khan's Nuclear Network, Niger Uranium and Plame Outing CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson uses the front company Brewster Jennings & Associates as cover for work against the nuclear proliferation network run by Pakistani scientist A. Q. Khan. Details of what exactly she does and whether other CIA officers use it as cover are not known. However, she is said to pose as an “oil consultant” and the company is also said to be involved in alternative energy in some way. [Sunday Times (London), 1/27/2008] According to former CIA officer Vincent Cannistraro, her specialty in the agency’s nonproliferation center is biological, chemical and nuclear weapons, and “recruiting agents, sending them to areas where they could access information about proliferation matters, weapons of mass destruction.” [New York Daily News, 1/27/2008] Plame Wilson makes a donation of $1,000 to Al Gore’s election campaign in 1999 giving the company’s name as her employer, and also lists it as her employer on her 1999 tax forms. [Sunday Times (London), 1/27/2008]
Entity Tags: Valerie Plame Wilson, Abdul Qadeer Khan, Osama bin Laden, Joseph C. Wilson Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline, A. Q. Khan's Nuclear Network, Niger Uranium and Plame Outing Former President George H. W. Bush, a former director of the CIA, speaks at the dedication ceremony of the new intelligence center bearing his name. In the course of his speech, Bush says: “We need more human intelligence. That means we need more protection for the methods we use to gather intelligence and more protection for our sources, particularly our human sources, people that are risking their lives for their country.… I have nothing but contempt and anger for those who betray the trust by exposing the name of our sources. They are, in my view, the most insidious, of traitors.” [Central Intelligence Agency, 4/26/1999] These remarks will later be unearthed in conjunction with the White House’s leaking of the identity of covert CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson (see June 23, 2003, July 7, 2003, 8:30 a.m. July 8, 2003, July 8, 2003, 11:00 a.m. July 11, 2003, Late Afternoon, July 12, 2003, and Before July 14, 2003), and the publication of her name and status by conservative columnist Robert Novak (see July 14, 2003). Entity Tags: George Herbert Walker Bush, Bush administration, Robert Novak, Central Intelligence Agency, Valerie Plame Wilson Timeline Tags: Niger Uranium and Plame Outing Former ambassador Joseph Wilson, who has spent much of his political career representing the US in West Africa, visits Niger at the behest of the CIA to investigate what a Senate investigation (see July 9, 2004) will later call “uranium-related matters.” Wilson is chosen in part because his wife, covert CIA official Valerie Plame Wilson, suggested that since he was going to Niger on business in the near future, he “might be willing to use his contacts in the region” to obtain information. The CIA is interested in a meeting between Niger’s former prime minister, Ibrahim Mayaki, and a delegation from Iraq to discuss “expanding commercial relations” between the two nations. Wilson will later say that the subject of uranium never comes up in a meeting he has with Mayaki (see May 2, 2004). However, CIA analysts will interpret Wilson’s information to mean that Mayaki “interpreted ‘expanding commercial relations’ to mean that the [Iraqi] delegation wanted to discuss uranium yellowcake sales.” The CIA will believe that Wilson’s report bolsters its own suspicions that Iraq is attempting to buy yellowcake uranium from Niger. An intelligence officer will later report that Mayaki indicated that the Iraqis had expressed an interest in buying uranium from Niger. [FactCheck (.org), 7/26/2004; FactCheck (.org), 7/22/2005] Entity Tags: Ibrahim Mayaki, Central Intelligence Agency, Valerie Plame Wilson, Joseph C. Wilson Timeline Tags: Niger Uranium and Plame Outing CIA case officer Valerie Plame Wilson (see 1997), returning to duty from maternity leave and now going by her married name, is one of two officers assigned to the Iraq desk of the counterproliferation division (CPD). Plame Wilson’s job involves extensive covert operational responsibility. She supervises and coordinates NOCs (nonofficial covered officers) in several areas of the globe, helping plan and execute operations to recruit Iraqi nationals as CIA assets, focusing on graduate students, scientists, and businessmen, hoping to find information about Iraq’s secretive quest for unconventional weapons parts and technologies. Shortly after the 9/11 attacks, Plame Wilson is made the chief of operations of the Iraq branch of CPD. That branch is renamed the “Joint Task Force on Iraq,” or JTFI. [Wilson, 2007, pp. 365-366] Entity Tags: Counterproliferation Division, Joint Task Force on Iraq, Central Intelligence Agency, Valerie Plame Wilson Timeline Tags: Niger Uranium and Plame Outing
Entity Tags: Sibel Edmonds, Valerie Plame Wilson, Philip Giraldi, US Department of State, Pakistan Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, Larisa Alexandrovna, Brewster Jennings & Associates, American-Turkish Council, Marc Grossman, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Central Intelligence Agency Timeline Tags: Complete 911 Timeline, A. Q. Khan's Nuclear Network, Niger Uranium and Plame Outing The CIA’s Joint Task Force on Iraq, headed by career officer Valerie Plame Wilson, sends approximately 30 Iraqi-American civilians back to Iraq to interrogate family members who are weapons scientists. The agency hopes that the operation will help close some gaps in the agency’s Iraq intelligence. The plan was devised by Charlie Allen, the CIA’s assistant director for collection. The operation produces a very accurate picture of Iraq’s weapons programs, though the CIA does not realize this at the time. Every single one of family members (see, e.g., May 2002-September 2002) participating in the program return from Iraq with the same information—that Iraq’s nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons programs have long since been abandoned. The program is short-lived. It is shut down by officials in the CIA’s Directorate of Operations who are reportedly jealous of Charlie Allen’s incursions onto its operational turf. The program’s results are buried and never distributed to other bodies within the intelligence community. [Risen, 2006, pp. 183-184; Isikoff and Corn, 2006, pp. 12-14] Entity Tags: Joint Task Force on Iraq, Central Intelligence Agency, Charlie Allen, Valerie Plame Wilson Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion, Niger Uranium and Plame Outing Vice President Dick Cheney asks his morning intelligence briefer, CIA briefer David Terry, about the Defense Intelligence Agency’s recent analysis (see February 12, 2002) of SISMI’s February 5 report (see February 5, 2002) suggesting that Iraq attempted to purchase uranium from Niger. [Time, 7/21/2003; New Yorker, 10/27/2003; US Congress, 7/7/2004] Cheney is reportedly dissatisfied with his briefer’s initial response, and asks the agency to take another look (see Shortly after February 12, 2002). [CIA Task Sheet, 2/13/2002; New Yorker, 10/27/2003] Cheney’s questions quickly reach the desk of senior CIA case officer Valerie Plame Wilson, who accepts the suggestion of another CIA officer to send her husband, Joseph Wilson, to Niger to investigate the claims (see February 13, 2002). [Wilson, 2007, pp. 108-110]
The CIA’s Directorate of Operations (DO) Counterproliferation Division (CPD) holds a meeting with former ambassador Joseph Wilson, intelligence analysts from both the CIA and State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), and several individuals from the DO’s Africa and CPD divisions. The purpose of the meeting is to discuss the merits of sending Wilson to Niger. Wilson is introduced by his wife Valerie Plame Wilson, who heads CPD’s Joint Task Force on Iraq (JTFI). [US Congress, 7/7/2004, pp. 59; Isikoff and Corn, 2006, pp. 94-95] A few days after the State Department determines that the reported secret uranium deal between Iraq and Niger is “unlikely” (see March 1, 2002), former ambassador Joseph Wilson returns from his fact-finding trip to Niger (see February 21, 2002-March 4, 2002). Wilson tells CIA officials that he found no evidence to show that any such deal ever took place. [Unger, 2007, pp. 241] Wilson’s wife, senior CIA case officer Valerie Plame Wilson, will later write that the debriefing actually begins shortly after Wilson’s arrival in the US, with “two clean-cut CIA officers, one of whom was the reports officer who had suggested sending Joe to Niger in the first place” (see February 13, 2002), arriving at the Wilson home, “clearly eager to debrief Joe so they could immediately write up an intelligence report on his trip.” Plame Wilson deliberately absents herself from the debriefing taking place in her living room, though she joins her husband and the two CIA officers for a late dinner of takeout Chinese food, where they discuss general subjects. [Wilson, 2004, pp. 29; Wilson, 2007, pp. 112] Based on Wilson’s information, the CIA’s Directorate of Operations (DO)‘s case officer writes a draft intelligence report and sends it to the DO reports officer, who adds additional relevant information from his notes. [US Congress, 7/7/2004] The report will be distributed by March 8, 2002 (see March 8, 2002). [Wilson, 2007, pp. 370] Entity Tags: Valerie Plame Wilson, Joseph C. Wilson, Central Intelligence Agency Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion, Niger Uranium and Plame Outing Senior CIA case officer Valerie Plame Wilson (see April 2001 and After), whose husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, has recently returned from a trip to Africa to find out the facts behind the allegation that Iraq had attempted to buy uranium from Niger (see February 13, 2002), receives a copy of the final intelligence report written about her husband’s trip (see March 4-5, 2002). In her 2007 book Fair Game, Plame Wilson says she receives the report “as a simple courtesy [from] the reports officer” who had suggested Wilson journey to Niger and investigate the allegations. Plame Wilson will recall the report as being “a couple of pages long and fairly straightforward, in the typical bland style of such reports.” She reads the report, makes “no changes,” and gives it back to the reports officer. [Wilson, 2007, pp. 113] Entity Tags: Central Intelligence Agency, Valerie Plame Wilson Timeline Tags: Niger Uranium and Plame Outing The CIA sends a one-and-a-half-page cable to the White House, the FBI, the Justice Department, the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Defense Intelligence Agency, with news that a CIA source sent to Niger has failed to find any evidence to back claims that Iraq sought uranium from that country (see February 21, 2002-March 4, 2002). The cable contains an initial report of the source’s findings in Niger. [Knight Ridder, 6/12/2003; ABC News, 6/12/2003; Knight Ridder, 6/13/2003; Washington Post, 6/13/2003; BBC, 7/8/2003; BBC, 7/8/2003; US Congress, 7/7/2004] Entity Tags: Joint Chiefs of Staff, Defense Intelligence Agency, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Ibrahim Mayaki, Condoleezza Rice, Joseph C. Wilson, Bush administration, Central Intelligence Agency, Valerie Plame Wilson, US Department of Justice, Mai Manga Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion, Niger Uranium and Plame Outing The National Estimate on Intelligence (NIE) on Iraq (see October 1, 2002 and October 4, 2002) suffers from what CIA case officer and Iraq WMD specialist Valerie Plame Wilson will call “intellectual sloppiness.” In her 2007 book Fair Game, Plame Wilson will write that it was intellectually dishonest for the NIE authors to relegate the deep dissensions and counterarguments over the WMD claims to “footnotes in tiny type at the bottom of the” report. The footnotes are not “adequate pushback when building a case for something as serious as war,” she will write. “The CIA failed to demonstrate convincingly to the administration that there was a serious and sustained debate over this issue.” [Wilson, 2007, pp. 123] Entity Tags: Valerie Plame Wilson, Central Intelligence Agency Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion CIA Director George Tenet sends a letter to Senator Bob Graham (D-FL), the chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee. In the letter, Tenet acknowledges declassifying some “material available to further the Senate’s forthcoming open debate on a joint resolution concerning Iraq” (see October 7, 2002). Tenet says that the declassified information supports the following contentions: Entity Tags: Bob Graham, George J. Tenet, Central Intelligence Agency, Valerie Plame Wilson, Al-Qaeda, Senate Intelligence Committee Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion Former ambassador Joseph Wilson, who went to Niger almost a year ago to determine the truth or falsehood of the story that Iraq attempted to secure 500 tons of uranium from Niger (see February 21, 2002-March 4, 2002), and his wife, CIA case officer and WMD specialist Valerie Plame Wilson, both watch President Bush’s State of the Union address (see 9:01 pm January 28, 2003). According to Plame Wilson’s 2007 book Fair Game, Wilson watches from a Canadian television studio, brought there to comment on the address immediately afterwards. His wife watches from their Washington, DC, home. Plame Wilson will recall being dumbstruck at Bush’s “16 words” claim that British intelligence had found a clandestine attempt by Iraq to purchase uranium from an African nation. She will write: “What? Had I heard him correctly? Hadn’t Joe’s report on his trip to Niger nearly a year ago (see March 4-5, 2002 and March 5, 2002), distributed throughout the intelligence community, including presumably the vice president’s office, proved the emptiness of these charges?” When Wilson returns home, he and his wife, according to Plame Wilson’s recollection, “briefly discussed what we thought the president’s claim could have meant. It seemed so odd.” The next day, Wilson asks a friend at the State Department about the claim, and notes that Bush’s assertion is not borne out by the facts. If Bush had indeed referred to Niger in the speech, then his report, along with those of the US Ambassador to Niger and General Carlton Fulford (see February 24, 2002), “had all been wrong. Or had the president misspoken? In that case, the record needed to be corrected.” Wilson’s friend replies that Bush may have been speaking of one of the other African countries that produce uranium—Gabon, South Africa, or Namibia. Wilson accepts the explanation for the time being. As a side note, Plame Wilson adds at this point in her book, “Several years later, the assistant secretary of state for African affairs told Joe, ‘You don’t think that if we had seen the State of the Union address before it was delivered, that we would have allowed that phrase to remain in it, do you?” [New York Times, 7/6/2003; Wilson, 2004, pp. 313-314; Wilson, 2007, pp. 125-126] Entity Tags: US Department of State, Valerie Plame Wilson, George W. Bush, Joseph C. Wilson Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion, Niger Uranium and Plame Outing Senior CIA official and WMD specialist Valerie Plame Wilson watches Secretary of State Colin Powell’s address to the United Nations (see February 5, 2003). In her memoir Fair Game (partially redacted by the CIA), she will later write: “I assumed Powell’s presentation would be, in a sense, a Kabuki-like performance, in which the secretary of state’s sterling reputation would persuade the world of the righteousness of a decision the administration had already made. Still, I had enormous respect for [Powell]—I had heard him speak in the Agency’s bubble-shaped auditorium and had been quite impressed with his eloquence and natural charisma.” Plame Wilson and several other analysts watch Powell’s presentation on a television in their CIA office complex. Plame Wilson calls Powell’s presentation a “bravura performance… but I knew key parts of it were wrong.” She finds “shocking” his claims about Iraq’s mobile bioweapons labs. She knows that information comes from an Iraqi defector code-named “Curveball,” who has already been discredited by CIA analysts. Plame Wilson will recall: “When the program ended and we all drifted back to our desks, I was deeply upset, my head was spinning. I was experiencing what I can only call cognitive dissonance: ‘a psychological phenomenon which refers to the discomfort felt at a discrepancy between what you already know or believe, and new information or interpretation.’ I had been tracking Iraqi WMD efforts carefully for some time [REDACTED] and the facts I knew simply did not match up with what Powell had just presented.” Powell had presented as direct and verified fact a body of arguments that had been seriously questioned and heavily caveated by CIA and other intelligence agencies’ analysts. His presentation was, Plame Wilson will observe, “at a minimum much too optimistic and almost glib. It seemed he had only used the most sensational and tantalizing bits as evidence, without any of those appropriate caveats or cautions.” Plame Wilson will later write that for the rest of the day, she attempts to come to grips with Powell’s presentation. She realizes that others above her have access to information of which she is unaware. “The idea that my government, which I had served loyally for years, might be exaggerating a case for war was impossible to comprehend. Nothing made sense.” [Wilson, 2007, pp. 128-130] Entity Tags: Central Intelligence Agency, ’Curveball’, Valerie Plame Wilson, Colin Powell Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion, Niger Uranium and Plame Outing A day after former ambassador Joseph Wilson appears on CNN questioning the validity of the administration’s claims about the Iraq-Niger uranium purchase (see March 8, 2003), Vice President Dick Cheney and Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley begin a campaign to discredit him. The information comes from senior sources within the State Department, the CIA, and the National Security Council (NSC), all with direct knowledge of the campaign, and from Wilson himself. The sources will say that they and other officials are directed to unearth or “invent” embarrassing information on Wilson that could be used against him in public. Aides in the Office of the Vice President and others, including the sources, prepare a “workup” on Wilson, including memos and classified material on him for Cheney and the NSC. Officials meet regularly in Cheney’s office to discuss the progress of the campaign with Cheney, Hadley, and other officials. Entity Tags: Office of the Vice President, National Security Council, David Albright, Lewis (“Scooter”) Libby, Joseph C. Wilson, John Hannah, Karl Rove, Richard (“Dick”) Cheney, CNN, Central Intelligence Agency, US Department of State, Newt Gingrich, Stephen J. Hadley, Valerie Plame Wilson Timeline Tags: Niger Uranium and Plame Outing Vice President Dick Cheney’s interest in former ambassador and current Iraq whistleblower Joseph Wilson is renewed when Wilson informs New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof that he was the special envoy who went to Niger in February 2002 to investigate the uranium claims (see February 21, 2002-March 4, 2002). When Kristof publishes the information (see May 6, 2003), according to a CIA official, “a request came in from Cheney that was passed to me that said ‘the vice president wants to know whether Joe Wilson went to Niger.’ I’m paraphrasing. But that’s more or less what I was asked to find out.” Cheney, of course, knew Wilson had gone to Niger (see (February 13, 2002)). The campaign to discredit and besmirch Wilson begins again (see March 9, 2003 and After), this time in a much more intensified manner. “Cheney and Libby made it clear that Wilson had to be shut down,” the CIA official will later say. “This wasn’t just about protecting the credibility of the White House. For the vice president, going after Wilson was purely personal, in my opinion.” Cheney is heavily involved in this second phase of the anti-Wilson campaign as well, pushing CIA officials to find out everything they can about Wilson. Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley also pressures State Department officials to send information they have on Wilson to his attention at the NSC. It is also at this time that Cheney and at least some members of his staff learn that Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame Wilson, is a covert CIA officer. At least one meeting is held in the Office of the Vice President to discuss possible strategies to use against Wilson. According to a State Department official, Cheney is not at this particular meeting: “Libby [Cheney’s chief of staff Lewis Libby] led the meeting. But he was just as upset about Wilson as Cheney was.” [USA Today, 4/29/2004; Truthout (.org), 2/9/2006] In a 2005 interview, Wilson will tell a reporter that he believes others in the White House’s communications and public relation staffs, including Karl Rove, Karen Hughes, Mary Matalin, and James Wilkinson, all become aware of Plame Wilson’s secret CIA status, as does Hadley, his boss, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, and White House chief of staff Andrew Card. “That would be the natural group because they were constituted to spin the war, so they would be naturally the ones to try to deflect criticism,” Wilson will say. [Raw Story, 7/13/2005] In 2008, current White House deputy press secretary Scott McClellan will acknowledge that “Cheney and his staff were leading a White House effort to discredit Joe Wilson himself.” [McClellan, 2008, pp. 171] Entity Tags: Office of the Vice President, Karen Hughes, Joseph C. Wilson, James R. Wilkinson, Condoleezza Rice, Central Intelligence Agency, Andrew Card, Lewis (“Scooter”) Libby, Nicholas Kristof, US Department of State, Valerie Plame Wilson, Scott McClellan, Mary Matalin, Richard (“Dick”) Cheney, Stephen J. Hadley Timeline Tags: Niger Uranium and Plame Outing Joseph Wilson, the former ambassador who journeyed to Niger to investigate groundless claims that Iraq had clandestinely bought uranium from that nation (see February 21, 2002-March 4, 2002), takes part in a retreat for Democratic senators. During a panel discussion with some of the senators and New York Times columnist Nicholas Kristof, Wilson discusses his trip and his findings. Kristof asks if he can write about Wilson’s trip (see May 6, 2003); Wilson agrees after stipulating that Kristof may only identify him as a “retired former ambassador.” Wilson’s wife, senior CIA case officer Valerie Plame Wilson, will write in 2007 that her husband’s reason for remaining anonymous “was not to hide from our government, but to avoid drawing attention to himself.” [Wilson, 2007, pp. 138] Entity Tags: Joseph C. Wilson, Nicholas Kristof, Valerie Plame Wilson Timeline Tags: Niger Uranium and Plame Outing
Former ambassador Joseph Wilson is infuriated by Condoleezza Rice’s June 9 claim (see June 9, 2003) that top officials were unaware of doubts over the Niger uranium claim. He contacts friends in the government and asks them to pass on the message that if Rice does not correct the record, he will (see May 29, 2003). [Vanity Fair, 5/2004, pp. 282] One of the people Wilson contacts is State Department official Marc Grossman (see June 10, 2003 and 12:00 p.m. June 11, 2003), who will later describe Wilson as “really mad” over Rice’s comments. Wilson tells Grossman that he is considering “going public.” [Marcy Wheeler, 1/24/2007] Wilson, according to his wife Valerie Plame Wilson, is so outraged at Rice’s assertions that they become “the final straw for Joe. He was angry that his government was lying.” [Wilson, 2007, pp. 138] He calls David Shipley, the editorial page editor of the New York Times, who offers him 1,500 words to tell his story (see July 6, 2003). Wilson will later write of Rice: “How does somebody whose job it is to track nuclear weapons developments, especially in rogue states, receive such critical information and then proceed to forget it? This was not a grade school homework assignment. The short answer is that they don’t forget it, unless they are derelict. Regrettably, disingenuousness is another possibility. Condoleezza Rice may be many things, but she is hardly derelict.” [Wilson, 2004, pp. 331-332] Entity Tags: David Shipley, Joseph C. Wilson, Valerie Plame Wilson, Condoleezza Rice, Marc Grossman Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion, Niger Uranium and Plame Outing Marc Grossman, the undersecretary of state for political affairs, prepares a memo about former ambassador Joseph Wilson’s trip to Niger to ascertain the truth or falsity of claims that Iraq had attempted to purchase uranium from that nation (see February 21, 2002-March 4, 2002). The memo refers explicitly to Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame Wilson, as a CIA official and identifies her as Wilson’s wife, using the name “Valerie Wilson.” The second paragraph of the memo is marked with an “S,” denoting that Wilson is a covert operative for the agency. [New York Times, 7/16/2005; Rich, 2006, pp. 180] Grossman prepares his memo based on information he receives from Carl Ford of the State Department’s in-house intelligence agency, the Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR). Ford, in a paragraph marked SNF for “secret, not foreign,” cites “Valerie Wilson, a CIA WMD manager and the wife of Joe Wilson.” [US Department of State, 6/10/2003 According to the investigation by special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, Vice President Cheney’s chief of staff, Lewis Libby, learns from Undersecretary of State Marc Grossman that former ambassador Joseph Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame Wilson, is an undercover CIA agent (see June 10, 2003). Grossman tells Libby that “Joe Wilson’s wife works for the CIA,” and that State Department personnel are saying that Wilson’s wife was involved in planning Wilson’s trip to Niger (see February 21, 2002-March 4, 2002). [Dubose and Bernstein, 2006, pp. 216; Marcy Wheeler, 1/23/2007] Plame Wilson was working on counterproliferation issues for the CIA, and Grossman is allegedly involved in a nuclear smuggling ring (see (1997-2002) and Summer 2001). Grossman tipped the ring off to Plame Wilson’s attempts to penetrate it in the summer of 2001 (see Summer-Autumn 2001). Libby also receives the same information from an unnamed senior CIA official. [MSNBC, 2/21/2007] According to Libby’s 2005 indictment for perjury and obstruction of justice (see October 28, 2005), “Libby spoke with a senior officer of the CIA to ask about the origin and circumstances of Wilson’s trip (see February 21, 2002-March 4, 2002), and was advised by the CIA officer that Wilson’s wife worked at the CIA and was believed to be responsible for sending Wilson on the trip.” The next day, according to the indictment, Cheney will tell Libby that Plame Wilson works for the CIA’s counterproliferation division (see (June 12, 2003)). [National Journal, 2/2/2006] Lewis “Scooter” Libby, chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney, phones senior CIA official Robert Grenier to ask about a recent trip to Niger by former ambassador Joseph Wilson (see February 21, 2002-March 4, 2002). Libby has just left a meeting with Cheney and Cheney’s press secretary, Cathie Martin. According to later testimony by Grenier (see January 24, 2007), Libby is “anxious” to learn about the trip, and obviously annoyed by Wilson’s claims that he was sent to Niger at the behest of Cheney. Grenier, the official in charge of the CIA’s actions as relating to Iraq, promises to look into the matter, but before he can speak again to Libby, the chief of staff pulls him out of a meeting with CIA Director George Tenet to ask him about Wilson. [Office of the Vice President, 6/11/2003 Vice President Dick Cheney informs his chief of staff, Lewis Libby, that Valerie Plame Wilson is a senior official for the CIA’s counterproliferation division. Cheney tells Libby that he has learned this information from CIA Director George Tenet. Cheney’s conversation with Libby wil be made public over two years later, when Libby is indicted for perjury and obstruction of justice in regards to the investigation of White House officials leaking Plame Wilson’s identity to the press (see October 28, 2005). According to the indictment: “On or about June 12, 2003, Libby was advised by the vice president of the United States that [former ambassador Joseph] Wilson’s wife worked at the Central Intelligence Agency in the counterproliferation division. Libby understood that the vice president had learned this information from the CIA.” Cheney is within the law to inform Libby of Plame Wilson’s CIA employment, information he can communicate to any government official with the proper security clearance. [National Journal, 2/2/2006] Libby will testify that Cheney tells him about Plame Wilson “in an off sort of, curiosity sort of, fashion,” according to other court documents later made public. [National Journal, 2/6/2006] Libby will soon inform a reporter of Plame Wilson’s CIA status (see June 23, 2003, 8:30 a.m. July 8, 2003, and Late Afternoon, July 12, 2003). He is aware of her covert status (see 12:00 p.m. June 11, 2003). Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward meets with Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, who informs Woodward that Valerie Plame Wilson is a CIA officer working on the issue of WMD in the Middle East. Plame Wilson is the wife of Joseph Wilson, who was sent to Niger to determine the truth behind the Iraq-Niger uranium claims (see February 21, 2002-March 4, 2002 and July 6, 2003). [Washington Post, 11/16/2005; New York Times, 8/23/2006; MSNBC, 2/21/2007] Armitage has just received the information from State Department intelligence officers, who forwarded him a memo marked “Secret” that included information about Wilson’s trip, his findings, and the fact that Wilson’s wife is a CIA agent (see June 10, 2003). [Los Angeles Times, 8/25/2005] Woodward asks Armitage why the CIA would send Wilson to Niger, and Armitage replies, “Because his wife’s a [expletive] analyst at the agency.” Woodward observes, “It’s still weird,” and Armitage retorts: “It’s perfect. That’s what she does. She is a WMD analyst.” Woodward does not report this piece of information. But Armitage’s divulgence may be the first time an administration official outs Plame Wilson, an undercover CIA agent, to a journalist. Woodward will later call the disclosure “casual and offhand,” and say, “it did not appear to me to be either classified or sensitive.” Woodward will note that “an analyst in the CIA is not normally an undercover position.” Woodward tells fellow Post reporter Walter Pincus that Plame Wilson is a CIA agent, but Pincus will later say he does not recall the conversation. Woodward will note that on June 20, he will interview a “second administration official” with a notation to ask about “Joe Wilson’s wife,” but according to the recording of the conversation, the subject never comes up. Woodward enjoys extraordinary access to the White House for the preparation of his second book on the Bush administration, Plan of Attack. [Washington Post, 11/16/2005; New York Times, 8/23/2006; Unger, 2007, pp. 310; MSNBC, 2/21/2007] According to the investigation by special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, Lewis Libby, discusses former ambassador Joseph Wilson (see February 21, 2002-March 4, 2002) and his wife, CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson (see 12:00 p.m. June 11, 2003 and Entity Tags: Valerie Plame Wilson, Lewis (“Scooter”) Libby, Craig Schmall, Patrick Fitzgerald, Joseph C. Wilson, Central Intelligence Agency Timeline Tags: Niger Uranium and Plame Outing An internal CIA memorandum addressed to CIA Director George Tenet states that the agency no longer believes allegations that Iraq attempted to purchase uranium from Niger. The highly classified memo, titled “In Response to Your Questions for Our Current Assessment and Additional Details on Iraq’s Alleged Pursuits of Uranium from Abroad,” reads in part, “[S]ince learning that the Iraq-Niger uranium deal was based on false documents earlier this spring we no longer believe that there is sufficient other reporting to conclude that Iraq pursued uranium from abroad.” Tenet asked for the assessment in part because of repeated inquiries from Vice President Dick Cheney and his chief of staff, Lewis Libby, regarding the Iraq-Niger matter and the mission by Joseph Wilson to determine the likelihood of such a purchase (see February 21, 2002-March 4, 2002 and May 29, 2003). However, neither Cheney nor Libby asked for the review. In addition, Tenet wanted the assessment because of the media attention being paid to Wilson’s trip to Niger, and his worry that Congress or the press might raise additional questions about the matter. Soon afterwards, Cheney and Libby are briefed on the memo, but both continue to question the veracity and loyalty of Wilson, and continue to insist that Iraq did, indeed, attempt to purchase Nigerien uranium. Libby is adamant that the CIA is trying to “whitewash” the “truth” behind the Iraq-Niger uranium allegations, and insists that the CIA’s WINPAC (Center for Weapons Intelligence, Nonproliferation, and Arms Control) is primarily responsible for the CIA’s “whitewashing.” He mistakenly believes that Valerie Plame Wilson, Wilson’s wife, works in WINPAC, and has already informed a reporter of his belief (see 8:30 a.m. July 8, 2003). Cheney and others in the Office of the Vice President also apparently believe that Plame Wilson works for WINPAC, though they have already been informed that she is a senior official for the CIA’s counterproliferation division (see (June 12, 2003)) and a covert agent (see 12:00 p.m. June 11, 2003). [The Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction (aka 'Robb-Silberman Commission'), 3/31/2005; National Journal, 2/2/2006] Entity Tags: Weapons Intelligence, Nonproliferation, and Arms Control, Richard (“Dick”) Cheney, George J. Tenet, Joseph C. Wilson, Valerie Plame Wilson, Lewis (“Scooter”) Libby, Central Intelligence Agency, Counterproliferation Division Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion, Niger Uranium and Plame Outing Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward has a telephone conversation with Vice President Cheney’s chief of staff, Lewis “Scooter” Libby. Woodward informs Libby that he is sending an 18-page list of questions for his upcoming book, Plan of Attack, that he wants to ask Cheney. One question is about “yellowcake” uranium, obviously a reference to the claims that Iraq had tried to purchase uranium from Niger (see Between Late 2000 and September 11, 2001, Late September 2001-Early October 2001, October 15, 2001, December 2001, February 5, 2002, February 12, 2002, October 9, 2002, October 15, 2002, January 2003, February 17, 2003, March 7, 2003, March 8, 2003, and 3:09 p.m. July 11, 2003), and another is about the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq (see October 1, 2002). Woodward will later testify that he does not discuss Valerie Plame Wilson, the covert CIA agent whom another government official had “outed” to him a few days before (see June 13, 2003). [Washington Post, 11/16/2005] Entity Tags: Bob Woodward, Lewis (“Scooter”) Libby, Valerie Plame Wilson Timeline Tags: Niger Uranium and Plame Outing Lewis “Scooter” Libby, chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, “outs” a covert CIA agent to a reporter. Libby tells New York Times reporter Judith Miller, who has been a reliable outlet for administration leaks and disinformation (see December 20, 2001, August 2002, and May 1, 2003), that Valerie Plame Wilson is a CIA official. Plame Wilson is a covert CIA officer currently working at CIA headquarters on WMD issues in the Middle East. More importantly for Libby, she is the husband of former US ambassador Joseph Wilson, who went to Niger to verify the administration’s claims that Iraq had attempted to purchase uranium there (see February 21, 2002-March 4, 2002), and who has become an outspoken critic of the administration’s war policies both on television and in print (see July 6, 2003). Entity Tags: Judith Miller, Richard (“Dick”) Cheney, Lewis (“Scooter”) Libby, Joseph C. Wilson, Valerie Plame Wilson, Central Intelligence Agency Timeline Tags: Niger Uranium and Plame Outing Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward meets with Vice President Cheney’s chief of staff, Lewis “Scooter” Libby, pursuant to their telephone conversation four days previously (see June 23, 2003). Although Woodward questions Libby about the prewar National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq (see October 1, 2002) and the Iraq-Niger uranium claims (see Between Late 2000 and September 11, 2001, Late September 2001-Early October 2001, October 15, 2001, December 2001, February 5, 2002, February 12, 2002, October 9, 2002, October 15, 2002, January 2003, February 17, 2003, March 7, 2003, March 8, 2003, and 3:09 p.m. July 11, 2003), he will later testify that the subject of “outed” CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson does not come up. Woodward will say that he may have asked Libby about either Plame or her husband Joseph Wilson (see February 21, 2002-March 4, 2002 and July 6, 2003), but he has nothing in his notes about Libby discussing the subject. [Washington Post, 11/16/2005] Entity Tags: Bob Woodward, Joseph C. Wilson, Lewis (“Scooter”) Libby, Valerie Plame Wilson Timeline Tags: Niger Uranium and Plame Outing Syndicated columnist Robert Novak, a well-established Washington conservative, lands an interview with Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage. Novak has been trying for some time to schedule an interview with Armitage without success, but Armitage calls him virtually out of nowhere and offers an interview. They agree to meet soon after the 4th of July holiday. It is at this meeting that Armitage will tell Novak that administration critic Joseph Wilson’s wife is a covert CIA agent (see July 8, 2003), just as he has previously told Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward (see June 13, 2003). [Unger, 2007, pp. 310] Entity Tags: Valerie Plame Wilson, Bob Woodward, Central Intelligence Agency, Robert Novak, Richard Armitage, Joseph C. Wilson Timeline Tags: Niger Uranium and Plame Outing White House press secretary Ari Fleischer has a telephone conversation with conservative syndicated columnist Robert Novak. Neither Fleischer nor Novak will reveal the contents of this conversation, though it takes place shortly after the publication of Joseph Wilson’s op-ed debunking the administration’s attempts to claim that Iraq tried to buy uranium from Niger (see July 6, 2003) and a week before Novak, using White House sources, reveals that Wilson’s wife is a CIA agent (see July 14, 2003). [New York Times, 7/19/2005] Fleischer will later testify that he learned that Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame Wilson, was a CIA agent from White House official Lewis “Scooter” Libby. Libby told him that the knowledge of Plame Wilson’s CIA status is not widely known. [MSNBC, 2/21/2007] Entity Tags: Bush administration, Ari Fleischer, Lewis (“Scooter”) Libby, Valerie Plame Wilson, Robert Novak, Joseph C. Wilson Timeline Tags: Niger Uranium and Plame Outing The State Department sends a memo (see June 10, 2003) to Secretary of State Colin Powell as he is traveling with President Bush and other senior White House officials to Africa. Powell is seen during the flight walking around Air Force One with the memo in his hand. The memo concerns the trip by former ambassador Joseph Wilson to Niger, where he learned that allegations of Iraqi attempts to purchase Nigerien uranium were false (see February 17, 2003, March 7, 2003, March 8, 2003, and 3:09 p.m. July 11, 2003), and reveals his wife to be a covert CIA agent. When Wilson’s op-ed debunking the uranium claim and lambasting the administration for using it as a justification for war appears in the New York Times (see July 6, 2003), Powell’s deputy, Richard Armitage, calls Carl Ford, the head of the State Department’s internal intelligence unit, the Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), at his home. Armitage asks Ford to send a copy of the memo, drafted by State Department official Marc Grossman, to Powell, who is preparing to leave for Africa with Bush. Ford sends a copy of the memo to the White House for transmission to Powell. The memo relies on notes by an analyst who was involved in a February 19, 2002 meeting to discuss whether to send someone to Africa to investigate the uranium claims, and if so, who (see February 19, 2002). The notes do not identify either Wilson or his wife by name, and erroneously state that the meeting was “apparently convened by” the wife of a former ambassador “who had the idea to dispatch” her husband to Niger because of his contacts in the region. Wilson is a former ambassador to Gabon. Plame Wilson has said that she suggested her husband for the trip, introduced him at the meeting, and left after about three minutes (see February 13, 2002). The memo identifies Wilson’s wife as Valerie Wilson; when conservative columnist Robert Novak outs her as a CIA agent (see July 14, 2003), he identifies her by her maiden name, Valerie Plame. The memo will later become a matter of intense interest to investigators attempting to learn how Plame Wilson’s identity was leaked to the press (see July 15, 2005). [New York Times, 7/16/2005; Rich, 2006, pp. 180] White House political adviser Karl Rove discusses former ambassador Joseph Wilson’s journey to Niger (see February 21, 2002-March 4, 2002) with syndicated columnist Robert Novak. In the conversation, Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame Wilson, is mentioned as a CIA agent (see Fall 1992 - 1996). Novak will publicly reveal Plame Wilson’s CIA status in his next column, apparently as part of an effort to discredit her husband (see July 6, 2003 and July 14, 2003). Novak has already learned of Plame Wilson’s CIA status (see July 7, 2003); when he mentions it to Rove, Rove replies, “I heard that, too.” Rove will deny leaking Plame Wilson’s name to any reporter, and will deny even knowing who she is. [New York Times, 7/15/2005; New York Times, 7/16/2005] Novak also discusses Plame Wilson with Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage (see Late June 2003). Novak asks Armitage, “Why in the world did [the CIA] send Joe Wilson on this?” and Armitage answers by revealing what he has learned from a State Department intelligence memo (see June 10, 2003), that Wilson’s wife is a CIA agent who works with the issue of weapons of mass destruction. Armitage also tells Novak that Plame Wilson “suggested” her husband for the Niger trip. [Wilson, 2007, pp. 256] Entity Tags: Richard Armitage, Robert Novak, Valerie Plame Wilson, Central Intelligence Agency, Joseph C. Wilson, Karl Rove Timeline Tags: Niger Uranium and Plame Outing Lewis Libby, the chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney, meets with New York Times reporter Judith Miller, during which time he gives her information he wants her to use to discredit administration critic Joseph Wilson (see 8:30 a.m. July 8, 2003). Libby tells Miller that Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame Wilson, is a CIA officer. After meeting with Miller, Libby returns to the White House and immediately consults with Cheney’s chief counsel, David Addington. At Miller’s request, Libby had promised her that he would try to find out more about Wilson and his wife, and apparently he goes to Addington for additional information about the two, asking, according to court papers filed as part of Libby’s later indictment (see October 28, 2005), “in sum and substance, what paperwork there would be at the CIA if an employee’s spouse undertook an overseas mission.” Four days after his meetings with Miller and Addington, Libby will speak with Miller again, and give her supplementary information about the Wilsons (see Late Afternoon, July 12, 2003). The information comes from court records and documents later made part of the special counsel’s investigation into the Plame Wilson leak. Nothing in these documents and records suggests that Addington broke the law, or had any role in, or knowledge of, leaking Plame Wilson’s identity to the press. However, as reporters Murray Waas and Paul Singer will later write: “Addington was deeply immersed in the White House damage-control campaign to deflect criticism that the Bush administration misrepresented intelligence information to make the case to go to war with Iraq, according to administration and Congressional sources. Moreover, as a pivotal member of the vice president’s office, Addington also attended strategy sessions in 2003 on how to discredit Wilson when the former ambassador publicly charged that the Bush administration misled the country in pushing its case for war, according to attorneys in the CIA leak probe” (see October 1, 2003). [National Journal, 10/30/2005] Lewis Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, meets with New York Times reporter Judith Miller at the St. Regis Hotel in Washington, DC. Libby has already learned that Joseph Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame Wilson, is an undercover CIA agent (see 12:00 p.m. June 11, 2003 and Two days after the New York Times publishes former ambassador Joseph Wilson’s op-ed debunking the Bush administration’s claims that Iraq attempted to buy uranium from Niger (see July 6, 2003), a business acquaintance of Wilson’s tells him of an encounter he just had with conservative columnist Robert Novak. The acquaintance sees Novak in the street and, recognizing him from his frequent television appearances, asks if he can walk with him, as they are going in the same direction. The two men do not know one another. After asking Novak about the Iraq-Niger uranium claims, the acquaintance asks Novak what he thinks of Wilson. Novak responds by blurting out: “Wilson’s an assh_le. The CIA sent him. His wife, Valerie, works for the CIA. She’s a weapons of mass destruction specialist. She sent him.” Novak has just discussed Plame Wilson with Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage and is about to receive confirmation from White House political strategist Karl Rove (see July 8, 2003). The acquaintance is shocked by Novak’s outburst and, after parting company with Novak, goes to Wilson’s office to tell the former ambassador what Novak has said. Wilson immediately calls the head of CNN, Eason Jordan, and complains. (Novak is employed by CNN.) Jordan suggests that Wilson speak directly to Novak. After two days of missed phone calls, Novak finally speaks to Wilson, apologizes for the insult, and then, according to Wilson’s wife Valerie Plame Wilson, “brazenly asked Joe to confirm what he had already heard from an agency source: that I worked for the CIA” (see July 14, 2003). Wilson refuses, and contacts his wife. She will describe herself as “uneasy knowing that a journalist had my name and knew my true employer.” She immediately informs her superiors in the counterproliferation division, who assure her that “it would be taken care of.” [Wilson, 2004, pp. 343-346; Dubose and Bernstein, 2006, pp. 214; Wilson, 2007, pp. 140-141; MSNBC, 2/21/2007] Entity Tags: Joseph C. Wilson, Robert Novak, CNN, Central Intelligence Agency, Eason Jordan, Valerie Plame Wilson, New York Times Timeline Tags: Niger Uranium and Plame Outing White House political adviser Karl Rove, leading the White House’s damage control operation to recoup the losses from Joseph Wilson’s recent op-ed about the fraudulent Iraq-Niger documents (see July 6, 2003), speaks to Time reporter Matthew Cooper. Rove has already discussed Wilson with columnist Robert Novak (see July 8, 2003). White House press secretary Ari Fleischer learns from White House communications director Dan Bartlett that Valerie Plame Wilson, the wife of former ambassador Joseph Wilson, is a CIA agent. Bartlett is unhappy with press reports that say Vice President Cheney is responsible for sending Wilson to Niger to investigate claims that Iraq was attempting to buy uranium from that country (see (February 13, 2002)). According to later testimony by Fleischer, Bartlett says: “I can’t believe he [Wilson] is saying the vice president sent him to Niger. His wife sent him, she works at CIA.” It is unclear whether Bartlett is speaking directly to Fleischer or merely speaking aloud in Fleischer’s hearing. [Marcy Wheeler, 1/29/2007; MSNBC, 2/21/2007] After this pronouncement, Fleischer begins reading the CIA report of Wilson’s trip (see March 8, 2002), which he has gotten from National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice. [Marcy Wheeler, 1/29/2007] Entity Tags: Joseph C. Wilson, Ari Fleischer, Bush administration, Central Intelligence Agency, Dan Bartlett, Valerie Plame Wilson Timeline Tags: Niger Uranium and Plame Outing Former ambassador Joseph Wilson, who recently wrote an op-ed for the New York Times revealing his failure to find any validity in the claims of a uranium deal between Iraq and Niger during a fact-finding trip to Africa (see July 6, 2003 and February 21, 2002-March 4, 2002), is pleased at CIA Director George Tenet’s admission that the Iraq-Niger uranium claim “should never have been included in the text written for the president” (see 3:09 p.m. July 11, 2003). According to his wife, senior CIA case officer Valerie Plame Wilson, “Joe felt his work was done; he had made his point.” [Wilson, 2007, pp. 140] Wilson himself will recall believing: “I honestly thought that my exposure in the matter would quickly fade, as the administration would now have to concentrate on the serious question of competence among the members of the president’s staff. I told any interested friends and all inquisitive journalists that as my charges had been satisfactorily answered, I’d have nothing more to say. I honored obligations for interviews that I had previously accepted, but I denied any others in order to allow the waters I’d roiled to still. I thought that surely the focus of the debate would shift away from me. How naive and mistaken I was on that score!” [Wilson, 2004, pp. 335] Entity Tags: George J. Tenet, Joseph C. Wilson, Valerie Plame Wilson, Bush administration, Central Intelligence Agency Timeline Tags: Niger Uranium and Plame Outing Referring to President Bush’s 2003 State of the Union address (see Mid-January 2003 and 9:01 pm January 28, 2003), CIA Director George Tenet says in a written statement: “I am responsible for the approval process in my agency.… These 16 words should never have been included in the text written for the president.” Tenet denies that the White House is responsible for the mistake, putting the blame squarely on himself and his agency. His statement comes hours after Bush blamed the CIA for the words making it into the speech (see July 11, 2003). [CNN, 7/11/2003; Central Intelligence Agency, 7/11/2003; New York Times, 7/12/2003] Entity Tags: George J. Tenet, Condoleezza Rice, CBS News, George W. Bush, Central Intelligence Agency, Ari Fleischer, Bush administration, Joseph C. Wilson, Karl Rove, Lewis (“Scooter”) Libby, Stephen J. Hadley, ABC News, Scott McClellan, Office of Special Plans, Richard (“Dick”) Cheney, Valerie Plame Wilson, Murray Waas Timeline Tags: Events Leading to Iraq Invasion, Niger Uranium and Plame Outing New York Times reporter Judith Miller again speaks to Lewis Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, in regards to the Iraqi WMD controversy and the recent op-ed by former ambassador Joseph Wilson (see July 6, 2003). In Miller’s notes, she writes the words “Victoria Wilson.” Libby has twice informed Miller that Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame Wilson, is a CIA agent (see June 23, 2003 and 8:30 a.m. July 8, 2003). Entity Tags: Lewis (“Scooter”) Libby, Judith Miller, Valerie Plame Wilson, Joseph C. Wilson, Central Intelligence Agency Timeline Tags: Niger Uranium and Plame Outing Government officials, most likely with the CIA, ask conservative columnist Robert Novak not to publish the name of covert agency official Valerie Plame Wilson in an upcoming column (see July 14, 2003). Two government officials will testify in February 2004 that they made the request (see February 2004). The officials warn Novak that by publishing her name and CIA affiliation, he risks jeopardizing her ability to engage in covert work, damaging ongoing intelligence operations, and risking sensitive overseas intelligence assets. According to the officials, Novak is told that Plame Wilson’s work for the CIA “went much further than her being an analyst,” and that publishing her name would be “hurtful,” could stymie ongoing intelligence operations, and jeopardize her overseas sources. [American Prospect, 2/12/2004] One of the officials will later be identified as CIA spokesman Bill Harlow. [McClellan, 2008, pp. 173-174] Plame Wilson’s husband, Joseph Wilson, will later write: “Lamely attempting to shirk responsibility, Novak [will claim] that the CIA no ‘was a soft no, not a hard no.’ On the wings of that ludicrous defense, he soared to new heights of journalistic irresponsibility.” [Wilson, 2004, pp. 347] Entity Tags: Joseph C. Wilson, Central Intelligence Agency, Robert Novak, Valerie Plame Wilson, Bill Harlow Timeline Tags: Niger Uranium and Plame Outing
Entity Tags: Central Intelligence Agency, Joseph C. Wilson, Valerie Plame Wilson, Robert Novak Timeline Tags: Niger Uranium and Plame Outing Author and liberal political columnist David Corn writes that he believes conservative columnist Robert Novak deliberately blew “the cover of a US intelligence officer working covertly in a field of vital importance to national security.” It seems as if Novak broke the law as well, Corn observes, all to “strike at a Bush administration critic and intimidate others.” Corn calls it a “smear” against Wilson and “a thuggish act” by “Bush and his crew [who] abused and misused intelligence to make their case for war. Now there is evidence Bushies used classified information and put the nation’s counterproliferation efforts at risk merely to settle a score. It is a sign that with this gang politics trumps national security.” Corn is referring to a recent column by Novak in which he outed Valerie Plame Wilson, the husband of former ambassador Joseph Wilson, as a CIA agent (see July 14, 2003). Corn believes the Novak column came about as part of a White House attempt to besmirch the reputation of Wilson, who recently wrote a column challenging the Bush administration’s claims that Iraq had attempted to purchase uranium from Niger (see July 6, 2003). Corn cites Wilson’s qualifications for such a task, and notes that ever since the June 12, 2003 revelation that “an unnamed ambassador” had gone to Niger to investigate the claims and reported that the uranium deal likely never happened, the questions over the veracity of the claims as touted by the Bush administration have grown far louder. Administration explanations that the claims were based on “faulty evidence” were not going over well. Corn believes that Novak’s revelation of Plame Wilson’s identity, and his supposition that she “sent” her husband to Niger, was triggered by a White House effort to impugn Wilson’s reliability and integrity. Corn also notes that Wilson refuses to answer questions about his wife’s career, saying only: “I will not answer questions about my wife. This is not about me and less so about my wife. It has always been about the facts underpinning the president’s statement in the State of the Union speech.” One of the first media-based attacks on Joseph Wilson and his wife Valerie Plame Wilson after her outing as a CIA agent (see July 14, 2003) comes from former Defense Secretary Caspar Weinberger, who writes a scathing op-ed for the Wall Street Journal. Weinberger accuses the opponents of the Iraq invasion of mounting a baseless smear campaign against the Bush administration by “using bits and pieces of non-evidence to contend that we did not have to replace the brutal regime of Saddam Hussein.” He asserts that President Bush was correct to say that Iraq had attempted to buy uranium from Niger (see 9:01 pm January 28, 2003), using the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (see October 1, 2002) and a review by a British investigative commission (see September 24, 2002) as support for his argument. He insists that WMD will be found in Iraq. Weinberger then writes that “the CIA committed a major blunder [by asking] a very minor former ambassador named Joseph Wilson IV to go to Niger to investigate” (see February 21, 2002-March 4, 2002). Weinberger correctly characterizes Wilson as “an outspoken opponent” of the invasion, but then falsely asserts that “Mr. Wilson’s ‘investigation’ is a classic case of a man whose mind had been made up using any opportunity to refute the justifications for our ever going to war.” He asserts that Wilson spent eight days in Niger drinking tea and hobnobbing with ambassadors and foreign service types. Weinberger continues, “Because Mr. Wilson, by his own admission, never wrote a report, we only have his self-serving op-ed article in the New York Times to go by” (see July 6, 2003). He is apparently unaware that Wilson was thoroughly debriefed on his return from Niger (see March 4-5, 2002). He writes, “If we are to rely on this kind of sloppy tea-drinking ‘investigation’ from a CIA-chosen investigator—a retired ambassador with a less than stellar record—then I would say that the CIA deserves some of the criticism it normally receives.” Weinberger concludes that the US had a choice of “either… letting [Saddam Hussein] continue his ways, such as spraying poison on his own people, and breaking every promise he made to us and to the UN; or… removing him before he used nuclear weapons on his neighbors, or on us.” [Wall Street Journal, 7/18/2003] Entity Tags: Valerie Plame Wilson, George W. Bush, Caspar Weinberger, Bush administration, Joseph C. Wilson, Wall Street Journal Timeline Tags: Niger Uranium and Plame Outing Former ambassador Joseph Wilson, whose wife Valerie Plame Wilson has recently been “outed” as a CIA agent by conservative columnist Robert Novak (see July 14, 2003), learns from NBC political reporter Andrea Mitchell that “senior White House sources” have told her that “the real story here is not the 16 words in the State of the Union address (see 9:01 pm January 28, 2003) but Wilson and his wife.” Mitchell does not reveal her sources. The next day, Wilson learns that White House political chief Karl Rove has declared his wife “fair game” (see July 21, 2003). [Wilson, 2004, pp. 5] Entity Tags: Valerie Plame Wilson, Andrea Mitchell, Joseph C. Wilson, Karl Rove, Robert Novak Timeline Tags: Niger Uranium and Plame Outing Columnist Robert Novak, whose earlier column outed undercover CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson (see July 14, 2003), confirms being given information about Plame Wilson by administration sources (see Late June 2003, July 8-10, 2003, and July 8, 2003). “I didn’t dig it out, it was given to me,” he says. “They thought it was significant, they gave me the name and I used it.” He does not name the individuals who provided him with the information. [Newsday, 7/22/2003; New York Times, 2006] Novak will later backtrack, claiming that the leak was less the result of White House pressure and more from his own initiative; he will also accuse Newsday’s Knut Royce, who first reports his statement, of quoting his words “out of context.” [American Prospect, 2/12/2004] Entity Tags: Robert Novak, Bush administration, Valerie Plame Wilson, Knut Royce Timeline Tags: Niger Uranium and Plame Outing Former ambassador Joseph Wilson, whose wife Valerie Plame Wilson was recently outed as a CIA agent in an apparent act of retribution by the White House (see July 14, 2003 and July 17, 2003), says that the intention of the outing was to intimidate others like him from speaking out against the Bush administration. “It’s a shot across the bow to these people, that if you talk we’ll take your family and drag them through the mud as well,” he says. “This might be seen as a smear on me and my reputation, but what it really is is an attempt to keep anybody else from coming forward” to reveal other intelligence lapses. [Newsday, 7/22/2003] In his 2004 book The Politics of Truth, Wilson will elaborate on this concept: “This attack on Valerie may have been the White House’s way of saying that yes, indeed, there would be consequences if anybody else dared to speak publicly. The message to mid-career intelligence officers was clear: Should you decide to speak, we will come after you and your family. Anyone not accustomed to the rough-and-tumble of Washington politics would naturally wonder if the game was worth the candle.” Wilson will call the attack “stupid,” since it is so easy to disprove any allegation that his wife sent him to Niger (see Shortly after February 13, 2002 and February 19, 2002). “It marked a terrible breach of faith between the clandestine services of the CIA and the government it served, and it made my wife a victim. What the White House seemed not to understand, however, was that this attempt to divert the media’s attention from the lie in the State of the Union address (see 9:01 pm January 28, 2003) was only going to complicate matters for them. In addition to the question of who was responsible for putting the offending sixteen words into the president’s speech, the press now had a possible violation of law to pursue, not to mention an ugly violation of the code of cowboy chivalry promoted by this administration as the warmer, fuzzier side of its image.” [Wilson, 2004, pp. 6-7] Entity Tags: Joseph C. Wilson, Valerie Plame Wilson, Bush administration Timeline Tags: Niger Uranium and Plame Outing White House deputy chief of staff Karl Rove declares that covert CIA case officer Valerie Plame Wilson, recently outed by conservative columnist Robert Novak (see July 14, 2003), is now “fair game,” presumably for media attacks. Plame Wilson learns of Rove’s declaration when she walks into her den to find her husband Joseph Wilson just getting off the phone. She will later write: “[H]e had a look on his face that I’d never seen before. He said he had just been talking with journalist and Hardball host Chris Matthews [the host of a political discussion show on MSNBC], who had told [Wilson] that he had just spoken with the powerful presidential adviser Karl Rove.” [Wilson, 2007, pp. 147] Wilson himself will later write that Matthews tells him: “I just got off the phone with Karl Rove. He says, and I quote, ‘Wilson’s wife is fair game.‘… I will confirm that if asked.” Wilson will write: “Those are fighting words for any man, and I’d just had them quoted to me.… Rove was legendary for his right-wing zeal and take-no-prisoners operating style. But what he was doing now was tantamount to declaring war on two US citizens, both of them with years of government service.… For a president who promised to restore dignity and honor to the White House, this behavior from a trusted adviser was neither dignified nor honorable. In fact, it was downright dirty and highly unethical even in a town where the politics of personal destruction are the local pastime.” He cannot be sure why he and his wife are being targeted. Surely, he muses, no one believes that his wife sent him on his mission to Niger (see Shortly after February 13, 2002 and February 19, 2002), or that his trip to one of the poorest countries in Africa had been some sort of pleasure jaunt. He realizes that the ultimate target might not be either his wife or himself, but others who may feel impelled to speak out against the administration, a point he makes later in the day to two reporters from Newsday (see July 21, 2003). [Wilson, 2004, pp. 1-5] Wilson will later write: “To make a political point, to defend a political agenda, to blur the truth that one of the president’s own staffers had scripted a lie into the president’s mouth, one of the administration’s most senior officials found it perfectly acceptable to push a story that exposed a national security asset. It was appalling.” [Wilson, 2004, pp. 351] Entity Tags: Karl Rove, Chris Matthews, Bush administration, Valerie Plame Wilson, Joseph C. Wilson Timeline Tags: Niger Uranium and Plame Outing
Entity Tags: Vicky Ward, Kenneth Pollack, Joseph C. Wilson, Frank Anderson, Central Intelligence Agency, Bush administration, Knut Royce, Newsday, Robert Novak, Timothy Phelps, Valerie Plame Wilson Timeline Tags: Niger Uranium and Plame Outing Former ambassador Joseph Wilson, whose wife Valerie Plame Wilson was recently outed as a CIA agent in an apparent attempt to discredit his debunking of the Iraq-Niger allegations (see February 21, 2002-March 4, 2002, July 6, 2003 and July 14, 2003), is interviewed by NBC’s Andrea Mitchell about the outing. Wilson is careful to hedge in his answers about his wife, saying, “If she were [a CIA agent] as [columnist Robert] Novak alleged, then…” and other such caveats. When the interview airs this evening, Wilson is dismayed to see that NBC has edited out all of his careful qualifiers, giving the false impression that he is verifying his wife’s CIA status. He asks Mitchell to provide an unedited transcript of the interview so he can prove he did not confirm his wife’s CIA employment; she says the network does not provide such transcripts, but agrees to preserve the unedited interview on tape in case questions later arise about his statements. [Wilson, 2004, pp. 350-351] Entity Tags: Valerie Plame Wilson, Andrea Mitchell, NBC News, Joseph C. Wilson Timeline Tags: Niger Uranium and Plame Outing A senior intelligence official confirms that outed CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson (see July 14, 2003) was not responsible for selecting her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, to go to Niger to determine the truth or falsity of charges that Iraq had sought to buy uranium from there (see Shortly after February 13, 2002 and February 19, 2002). While Plame Wilson worked “alongside” the operations officers who asked her husband to travel to Niger, the official notes, she did not recommend her husband to undertake the Niger assignment. “They [the officers who did ask Wilson to check the uranium story] were aware of who she was married to, which is not surprising,” the official says. “There are people elsewhere in government who are trying to make her look like she was the one who was cooking this up, for some reason. I can’t figure out what it could be.” [Newsday, 7/22/2003] Entity Tags: Valerie Plame Wilson, Central Intelligence Agency, Joseph C. Wilson Timeline Tags: Niger Uranium and Plame Outing The CIA requests that the Justice Department investigate the “outing” of one of its undercover agents, Valerie Plame Wilson. Plame Wilson was revealed as a CIA agent in a column by syndicated conservative columnist Robert Novak (see July 14, 2003). The CIA’s own Office of Security also opens an investigation. The FBI will handle the Justice Department’s investigation. [Central Intelligence Agency, 7/30/2004 Outed CIA case officer Valerie Plame Wilson (see July 14, 2003), fighting allegations that she was the officer responsible for sending her husband, Joseph Wilson, to Niger to investigate claims that Iraq had attempted to buy uranium from there (see February 13, 2002, February 19, 2002, and July 22, 2003), meets with one of her supervisors, the deputy chief of the CIA’s counterproliferation division (CPD). Plame Wilson only identifies him as “Scott.” He tells her that she is the victim of unfair charges, and that it is obvious to him she did not indulge in any nepotism or improper conduct. “In fact,” Scott tells her, “if we had asked you to take our message to Joe about coming in to headquarters to discuss possible options relating to the yellowcake allegations and you refused for some reason, you would have been derelict in your duty.” [Wilson, 2007, pp. 148] Entity Tags: Central Intelligence Agency, Joseph C. Wilson, Valerie Plame Wilson, Counterproliferation Division Timeline Tags: Niger Uranium and Plame Outing Former ambassador Joseph Wilson, whose wife Valerie Plame Wilson’s cover as a CIA agent was blown by two administration officials (see July 14, 2003), says that he believes deputy White House chief of staff Karl Rove is responsible for outing his wife. At a public forum in Seattle, Wilson names Rove as the person most likely to have leaked his wife’s covert identity and says he is keenly interested “to see whether or not we can get Karl Rove frog-marched out of the White House in handcuffs.” [Washington Post, 9/28/2003] As Wilson will later recall, the comment is greeted by a storm of boos and catcalls, “followed by applause at the thought of everyone’s favorite ogre being frog-marched.” Wilson’s wife is not pleased by Wilson’s turn of phrase, and later warns him to temper his words. [Wilson, 2004, pp. 372] Entity Tags: Karl Rove, Valerie Plame Wilson, Joseph C. Wilson Timeline Tags: Niger Uranium and Plame Outing When the media reports that six different reporters were told of Valerie Plame Wilson’s identity as a CIA officer in the days before conservative columnist Robert Novak publicly identified her as such (see July 14, 2003), New York Times bureau chief Philip Taubman asks reporter Judith Miller if she is one of the six. Miller denies that she was told of Plame Wilson’s identity. She is lying (see June 23, 2003, 8:30 a.m. July 8, 2003, and Late Afternoon, July 12, 2003). Taubman will later recall that Miller is rather equivocal in her denial. “The answer was generally no,” he will say. He will recall Miller claiming that the subject of Plame Wilson and her husband, Bush administration critic Joseph Wilson, had come up in casual conversation with government officials, but “she had not been at the receiving end of a concerted effort, a deliberate organized effort to put out information.” [New York Times, 10/16/2005] Entity Tags: Valerie Plame Wilson, Judith Miller, Philip Taubman, New York Times Timeline Tags: Niger Uranium and Plame Outing
Entity Tags: Valerie Plame Wilson, Russell Mokhiber, Joseph C. Wilson, Karl Rove, Scott McClellan Timeline Tags: Niger Uranium and Plame Outing The CIA submits a standard 11-part questionnaire to the Justice Department to determine whether an investigation of the Plame Wilson leak is warranted. Among the questions are: “whether the classified data disclosed is accurate”; “the extent of official dissemination of the data”; “whether the data has been the subject of prior official releases”; what effect disclosure has on national security; and “whether the material or portions thereof or enough background data has been published officially or in the press to make an educated speculation on the matter possible.” [Washington Post, 10/1/2003] Entity Tags: Valerie Plame Wilson, Central Intelligence Agency, US Department of Justice Timeline Tags: Niger Uranium and Plame Outing The Justice Department authorizes the FBI to open a criminal investigation into leaks of CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson’s covert identity by sources within the Bush administration (see July 14, 2003, July 30, 2003, and September 16, 2003). [MSNBC, 2/21/2007; Washington Post, 7/3/2007] The investigation is headed by the Justice Department’s counterespionage chief, John Dion. [Vanity Fair, 1/2004] Entity Tags: John Ashcroft, George W. Bush, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Charles Schumer, Bush administration, George J. Tenet, US Department of Justice, Valerie Plame Wilson, Scott McClellan, Robert McCallum, Karl Rove, Stephen Gillers, John Dion, Richard Armitage, Joseph C. Wilson Timeline Tags: Niger Uranium and Plame Outing Robert Novak, the conservative columnist who revealed Valerie Plame Wilson’s status as a covert CIA agent in one of his columns (see July 14, 2003), says that CIA sources have told him “it’s doubtful she’ll ever again have a foreign assignment.” He acknowledges being asked by a CIA official not to print her name: “They said if her name was printed, it might be difficult if she was traveling abroad, and they said they would prefer I didn’t use her name (see Before July 14, 2003). It was a very weak request. If it was put on a stronger basis, I would have considered it.” The CIA is still conducting an assessment of the damage that was done to its overseas information networks and foreign contacts by the revelation. [Washington Post, 9/28/2003] Entity Tags: Valerie Plame Wilson, Central Intelligence Agency, Robert Novak Timeline Tags: Niger Uranium and Plame Outing Eleven days after White House political strategist Karl Rove told press secretary Scott McClellan that he had not been one of the sources responsible for outing CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson (see September 16, 2003), the Washington Post prepares to print a story that alleges “a senior administration official” is claiming two senior White House officials spoke with at least six reporters about Plame Wilson (see September 28, 2003). The Post reporters do not yet know who those two officials are. In 2008, McClellan will write: “The implication of the Post story was clear: the White House had disclosed Plame’s identity to discredit or even punish Joseph Wilson. The story would put the leak of her identity right at the White House’s doorstep… implying the possibility of concerted effort by the White House to reveal Plame’s role and her involvement in her husband’s trip to Niger.” McClellan learns from his deputy, Claire Buchan, that Rove had indeed spoken to columnist Robert Novak. According to Buchan, Rove admits that Novak called him about Plame Wilson’s CIA status, but says he could not confirm it because he did not know; McClellan checks with Novak, who says the same thing to him as he told Buchan. McClellan will describe himself as “bewilder[ed]” by Rove’s contradictory statements to him and Buchan. He will write, “I felt that Rove should have disclosed this conversation to me previously, so I decided to call him.” He asks Rove, “Were you involved in this in any way?” and later writes: “I was clearly referring to the leaking of Valerie Plame’s identity—information that was believed to be classified—to any reporter.” Rove replies: “No. Look, I didn’t even know about his wife.” McClellan will later note that Rove does not mention his phone discussion of Plame’s CIA identity with Time reporter Matt Cooper (see 11:00 a.m. July 11, 2003). He will write: “Rove’s categorical ‘no’ gave me the assurance I needed to defend a fellow member of the Bush team and fellow Texan I had known for more than a decade, who was invariably a prime target of our most partisan critics.” [McClellan, 2008, pp. 180-181] Entity Tags: Robert Novak, Bush administration, Valerie Plame Wilson, Scott McClellan, Washington Post Timeline Tags: Niger Uranium and Plame Outing Shortly after the FBI launches its investigation into the Plame Wilson leak (see September 26, 2003), White House political strategist Karl Rove assures President Bush that he had no involvement in leaking Valerie Plame Wilson’s CIA identity to the press (see July 8, 2003 and 11:00 a.m. July 11, 2003). Rove also assures Bush that he had nothing to do with leaking information to the press concerning Plame Wilson’s husband, war critic Joseph Wilson. He does not tell Bush about his July 2003 conversation with Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper, in which he identified Plame Wilson as a CIA agent, nor does he tell him that he told Cooper that Plame Wilson had arranged for her husband to go to Niger (see February 19, 2002, July 22, 2003, and October 17, 2003). According to a 2005 story in the National Journal, Rove will also fail to disclose this information in his upcoming interviews with FBI investigators. Because of Rove’s assurances, Bush will tell White House press secretary Scott McClellan that he vouches for Rove’s non-involvement in the Plame Wilson affair (see September 29, 2003), and will give special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald the same assurances (see June 24, 2004). [National Journal, 10/7/2005] Entity Tags: Joseph C. Wilson, Federal Bureau of Investigation, George W. Bush, Matthew Cooper, Karl Rove, National Journal, Valerie Plame Wilson Timeline Tags: Niger Uranium and Plame Outing The Washington Post publishes an article stating that in July, two White House officials leaked the name and CIA employment status of Valerie Plame Wilson to at least six reporters, and told the reporters that Plame Wilson had been responsible for sending her husband to Niger (see Before July 14, 2003). The article is based on a leak of information by a “senior administration official.” Such an explosive leak is relatively rare from the Bush administration. Reporters Mike Allen and Dana Priest report: “It is rare for one Bush administration official to turn on another. Asked about the motive for describing the leaks, the senior official said the leaks [of Plame Wilson’s identity] were ‘wrong and a huge miscalculation, because they were irrelevant and did nothing to diminish [Joseph] Wilson’s credibility.’” [Washington Post, 9/28/2003] Entity Tags: Joseph C. Wilson, Mike Allen, Valerie Plame Wilson, Washington Post, Bush administration, Central Intelligence Agency, Dana Priest Timeline Tags: Niger Uranium and Plame Outing ABC News producer Andrea Owen asks White House political guru Karl Rove about leaking Valerie Plame Wilson’s identity: “Did you have any knowledge or did you leak the name of the CIA agent to the press?” Rove answers, “No.” When Owen asks, “What is your response to the fact that Justice is looking into the matter (see September 29, 2003)?” Rove shuts his car door without answering, and drives away. [ABC News, 9/29/2003] Entity Tags: ABC News, Valerie Plame Wilson, Karl Rove, Andrea Owen Timeline Tags: Niger Uranium and Plame Outing Many conservatives and Republicans continue to attack former ambassador Joseph Wilson and his wife, outed CIA case officer Valerie Plame Wilson. One Congressman, Jack Kingston (R-GA), tells CNN that Plame Wilson is nothing more than a “glorified secretary” and therefore no harm was done in revealing her CIA status (see July 21, 2003). Plame Wilson is in reality the chief of the Iraq section of the CIA’s counterproliferation division (see April 2001 and After) and one of the agency’s “non-official cover,” or NOC, agents (see Fall 1992 - 1996). Joseph Wilson will later calls Kingston “obtuse” and his remark a “sexist insult… not only to Valerie but also to secretaries and to women in general who may have benefited from the protections afforded by the Intelligence Identities Protection Act.” [Wilson, 2004, pp. 388] Entity Tags: Counterproliferation Division, Valerie Plame Wilson, Joseph C. Wilson, Jack Kingston Timeline Tags: Niger Uranium and Plame Outing
Entity Tags: Bush administration, Karl Rove, Scott McClellan, Andrew Card, John Ashcroft, US Department of Justice, Valerie Plame Wilson, George W. Bush Timeline Tags: Niger Uranium and Plame Outing White House press secretary Scott McClellan obtains a third confirmation from White House deputy chief of staff Karl Rove (see September 27, 2003) that he had “neither leaked nor condoned leaking [CIA agent Valerie] Plame [Wilson]‘s identity,” as McClellan will write in 2008. McClellan will add, “That day would be the last time I would talk to or hear from Karl about anything specifically related to the leak.” When McClellan asks President Bush about it, as he will later write: “‘Karl didn’t do it,’ the president reflexively said.… The ‘it’ clearly meant disclosing Plame’s identity to reporters.… ‘He told me he didn’t do it,’ the president continued.… Rove had already denied to me that he’d leaked Plame’s name, and now I was learning that he had also told the president that he was not involved.” Both Bush and McClellan catch sight of White House chief of staff Andrew Card, who, in McClellan’s recollection, “had raised his hands above his waist and was now gesturing down with both to indicate to the president that he should keep quiet and stop talking about what was fast becoming a sensitive subject.” Bush says, “with a slight hint of irritation in his voice: ‘What? That’s what Karl told me.’” Card responds: “I know. But you shouldn’t be talking about it with anyone, not even me.” McClellan believes Card is referring to the strictures imposed on the White House staff by the Justice Department investigation (see September 26, 2003 and September 30, 2003). In McClellan’s recollection, Bush has little interest in observing Card’s warning. McClellan tells Bush that though he has already told the press that Rove was not involved in the leak, he will undoubtedly be asked again. Then he asks Card, “Do we know anything more about the investigation?” Card says he knows of nothing new. McClellan will later write, “The discussion in the Oval [Office] that morning—the day we would learn that an investigation was indeed under way—was a moment Andy would later recollect for prosecutors, and that I would be asked to confirm under oath to a federal grand jury.” McClellan confirms the line to take during the morning “press gaggle” (see September 29, 2003): the leak “of classified information is a serious matter,” it should be “pursued to the fullest possible extent,” and “the Department of Justice is the appropriate agency to look into it.” Bush agrees, and adds, “And I hope they find who did it.” McClellan then asks Card, “I am still good to say that nothing has been brought to our attention to suggest White House involvement, beyond what we have read in the papers, right?” Card agrees, and adds, “[L]ast I heard from Al [White House counsel Alberto Gonzales], he did not either.” As McClellan will later write, “We were all on the same page.” [McClellan, 2008, pp. 182-185] Shortly after the FBI launched its investigation (see September 26, 2003), Rove had personally assured Bush that he had not disclosed Plame Wilson’s identity to anyone in the press (see After September 26, 2003). Entity Tags: Valerie Plame Wilson, Scott McClellan, Bush administration, Karl Rove, Andrew Card, Alberto R. Gonzales, US Department of Justice Timeline Tags: Niger Uranium and Plame Outing September 29, 2003: Conservative Columnist Claims to Have Known that Plame Wilson Was a CIA Employee
Conservative columnist Robert Novak, who first publicly outed Valerie Plame Wilson as a CIA agent (see July 14, 2003), denies being fed the information of Plame Wilson’s identity by White House officials (see June 13, 2003, July 7, 2003, July 8, 2003, and Before July 14, 2003). The subject arose when he was inquiring about her husband’s trip to Niger (see July 6, 2003), Novak says. Shortly after the leak, he said of Plame Wilson’s identity, “I didn’t dig it out, it was given to me” by White House officials (see July 21, 2003). However, Novak’s story is now quite different. He says of the outing: “Nobody in the Bush administration called me to leak this. In July, I was interviewing a senior administration official on Ambassador [Joseph] Wilson’s report when he told me the trip was inspired by his wife, a CIA employee working on weapons of mass destruction. Another senior official told me the same thing. When I called the CIA in July, they confirmed Mrs. Wilson’s involvement in a mission for her husband on a secondary basis… they asked me not to use her name, but never indicated it would endanger her or anybody else. According to a confidential source at the CIA, Mrs. Wilson was an analyst, not a spy, not a covert operative (see Before July 14, 2003 and February 2004), and not in charge of undercover operatives. So what is the fuss about, pure Bush-bashing?” [American Prospect, 2/12/2004; New York Times, 2006; National Journal, 5/25/2006] Entity Tags: Central Intelligence Agency, Bush administration, Valerie Plame Wilson, Robert Novak Timeline Tags: Niger Uranium and Plame Outing White House counsel Alberto Gonzales waits 12 hours after receiving formal notification of the FBI’s investigation of the Valerie Plame Wilson identity leak (see September 26, 2003) to formally notify the White House staff of the investigation, including notifying the staff of the Justice Department’s orders not to destroy documents related to the investigation (see September 30, 2003). Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) and other Democrats are angered by the delay. “Every good prosecutor knows that any delay could give a culprit time to destroy the evidence,” Schumer says. [New York Times, 9/30/2003] Conservative columnist Jonah Goldberg downplays the importance of the Valerie Plame Wilson leak investigation (see September 26, 2003), calling it a matter of little importance. Goldberg calls Plame Wilson, a covert CIA agent and senior case officer (see Fall 1992 - 1996 and April 2001 and After), a “desk jockey”; he also claims, without offering proof, that “much of the Washington cocktail circuit [already] knew” she was a CIA employee. Goldberg says the investigation is being driven by what he calls “[o]bvious Democratic opportunism and scandal-hunger,” “[m]edia opportunism as this is the first Bush ‘scandal’ that isn’t manufactured outside the White House,” and “[a] burning desire to flesh out a fleshless storyline that the Bush White House clamps down on ‘dissenters.’” [National Review, 9/30/2003] Entity Tags: Bush administration, Valerie Plame Wilson, Jonah Goldberg, Central Intelligence Agency Timeline Tags: Niger Uranium and Plame Outing The FBI publicly acknowledges that it has opened an investigation into the Valerie Plame Wilson identity leak (see September 26, 2003). The White House directs its staff to fully cooperate with the investigation (see September 29-30, 2003). President Bush tells the press: “If there is a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is. And if the person has violated the law, he will be taken care of.” [New York Times, 9/30/2003; New York Times, 2006] (In White House press secretary Scott McClellan’s later recollection, “he’d made clear that if anyone in his administration had been responsible for the leak, he or she would have to leave.”) [McClellan, 2008, pp. 216] Bush says there are “just too many leaks” from both the White House and Congress. The Justice Department instructs the White House, through White House counsel Alberto Gonzales, to preserve all records relating to the case, including any involving contacts with columnist Robert Novak (who first publicly outed Plame Wilson—see July 14, 2003), and two Newsday reporters, Timothy Phelps and Knut Royce (see September 30, 2003). Phelps and Royce wrote a July 2003 article claiming that “intelligence officials” had confirmed and expanded on Novak’s identification of Plame Wilson, and stated that Plame Wilson worked for the CIA in “an undercover capacity” (see July 21, 2003). Bush tells reporters that he is “absolutely confident that the Justice Department will do a very good job” of investigating the case, indicating that he will not support calls for an outside special counsel to take over the probe. The Justice Department has not ruled out asking for a special counsel, though Attorney General John Ashcroft says his department is more than capable of handling the investigation itself. Democrats say that Ashcroft’s Justice Department should not conduct any such investigation because of Ashcroft’s close connections to White House personnel who may be involved in the leak, such as White House political adviser Karl Rove. At a fundraising luncheon, Bush indirectly dismisses the controversy over the Plame Wilson outing as part of the “needless partisan bickering that dominates the Washington, DC, landscape.” A Republican source close to the White House tells the New York Times that the investigation will blow over within a matter of days. “The general view inside the White House among senior staff is that this is going to create a few rocky political days, that it’s mainly the Democrats pushing it and that if all the Republicans stay on board, the story goes away,” the source says. [New York Times, 9/30/2003; New York Times, 2006] Plame Wilson’s husband, former ambassdor Joseph Wilson, will later call this an “absurdly broad net, as there were only a very small number of people in the administration whose responsibilities overlap the national security and the political arenas, the best pool of possible suspects in which to start looking.” Wilson will note, “If the president really wanted to ‘come to the bottom of this,’ as he claimed to reporters on October 7 (see October 7, 2003), he could have acted like the strong chief executive he claims to be and brought his senior people into a room and demanded that they produce the leaker.” [Wilson, 2004, pp. 399] Senate Democrats attempt to pass a non-binding resolution asking Attorney General John Ashcroft to name a special counsel to investigate the Plame Wilson leak, but Republicans squelch the resolution on procedural grounds. Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY), the sponsor of the resolution, says, “This is not just a leak; this is a crime, plain and simple” and deserves an independent inquiry. Democrats say the Justice Department has an inherent conflict of interest in investigating the White House; they note that top Bush strategist Karl Rove, who has been accused of having a role in the leak, once was a consultant to Ashcroft. [Washington Post, 10/1/2003] US Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald will be named as special counsel for the investigation (see December 30, 2003). Entity Tags: John Ashcroft, Charles Schumer, US Department of Justice, Valerie Plame Wilson, Karl Rove Timeline Tags: Niger Uranium and Plame Outing Shortly after sending an e-mail to White House employees informing them of the FBI’s Plame Wilson investigation (see September 29-30, 2003), White House counsel Alberto Gonzales sends a second, more specific e-mail with instructions on saving any documents or materials that might be pertinent to that investigation. Gonzales writes: “This communication is a follow-up to the directive I sent you this morning regarding the preservation of certain materials in the possession of the White House, its staff, or its employees. Pursuant to a request from the Department of Justice, I am instructing you to preserve and maintain the following: [F]or the time period February 1, 2002 to the present, all documents, including without limitation all electronic records, telephone records of any kind (including but not limited to any records that memorialize telephone calls having been made), correspondence, computer records, storage devices, notes, memoranda, and diary and calendar entries, that relate in any way to: Senior CIA case officer Valerie Plame Wilson testifies to the Senate Intelligence Committee as part of its investigation into the failures and possible misuse of intelligence in the run-up to the Iraq invasion (see July 9, 2004). In 2007, Plame Wilson will write that she and her husband hope that the committee will “reveal how the administration cherry-picked intelligence to justify going to war with Iraq [and] show that the decision to go to war was premature; the intelligence community simply did not have the hard evidence from current, reliable human sources to match the confident rhetoric coming from the White House and its supporters.” Plame Wilson is accompanied in her appearance before the committee by a CIA attorney, whose job is to represent the agency’s interests, not hers. She is not questioned by any senators, but by four young staffers, two Democrats and two Republicans. When the staffers begin asking her about the story of the Iraq-Niger uranium connection and how she learned about it, it becomes obvious to her, as she will recall in her 2007 book Fair Game, that they “knew very little about how CIA cover actually worked, yet they acted as if they were veterans of the intelligence community.” One aggressive Republican staffer asks why she recommended her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, to go to Niger to investigate the uranium allegations (see February 13, 2002); Plame Wilson will recall, “In my desire to be as accurate and truthful as possible, I answered, stupidly, ‘I don’t believe that I recommended my husband, but I can’t recall who suggested him for the trip.” She fails to recall that a CIA records officer actually recommended her husband for the trip (see February 19, 2002). She also forgets during the interrogation that it was a phone call from Vice President Dick Cheney’s office that set the entire trip into motion (see (February 13, 2002)). And she forgets that it was her branch supervisor who asked that Wilson come in to the CIA to discuss the possibility of such a trip (see February 19, 2002). She does recall staying out of the initial CIA interview with her husband. In 2007, she will blame her memory failures on her own lack of composure, her lack of preparation for the interview, and her refusal to compare memories with her husband out of a sense of propriety. After 45 minutes or so, she leaves the interview, fairly sure that she handled herself well, but with “a little voice in my head [saying] it felt like a setup.” She will write: “In retrospect, it was clear they weren’t seeking information, but simply confirming their already closed conclusions. But in my naivete, my heart actually felt light because I believed in our democratic institutions. I believed that the truth would prevail, but I would soon find out that in Washington, the truth is not always enough.” [Wilson, 2007, pp. 167-169] Former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, re-reading the July 14, 2003 column by conservative columnist Robert Novak that outed covert CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson (see July 14, 2003 and October 1, 2003), realizes that he was one of Novak’s sources (see July 8, 2003). In Armitage’s words, Novak wrote that he learned of Plame Wilson’s identity from “a non-partisan gun slinger.” Armitage calls his boss, Secretary of State Colin Powell, and says, “I’m sure that was me.” Armitage tells the FBI investigators probing the leak of Plame Wilson’s identity of his role in outing the agent. “I told them that I was the inadvertent leak,” he will admit in 2006. But he does not hire a lawyer. He will explain: “First of all, I felt so terrible about what I’d done that I felt I deserved whatever was coming to me. And secondarily, I didn’t need an attorney to tell me to tell the truth. I was already doing that. I was not intentionally outing anybody.” [CBS News, 9/7/2006] Entity Tags: Federal Bureau of Investigation, Colin Powell, Valerie Plame Wilson, Richard Armitage, Robert Novak Timeline Tags: Niger Uranium and Plame Outing Syndicated columnist Robert Novak, who publicly outed former ambassador Joseph Wilson’s wife Valerie Plame Wilson as a CIA officer in one of his columns three months earlier (see July 14, 2003), writes that he is now forced to revisit that column since “repercussions” from it “have reached the front pages of major newspapers and led off network news broadcasts.” Today’s column, he writes, is to clarify his actions and those of the Bush White House, which have been “distorted” in media reports. Novak says he “did not receive a planned leak” (see Late June 2003, July 8-10, 2003, and July 8, 2003). He asserts that “the CIA never warned me that the disclosure of Wilson’s wife working at the agency would endanger her or anybody else” (see Before July 14, 2003 and September 27, 2003). And, Plame Wilson’s identity “was not much of a secret” (see Before July 14, 2003). Entity Tags: Joseph C. Wilson, Bush administration, Central Intelligence Agency, Valerie Plame Wilson, Robert Novak, Richard Armitage Timeline Tags: Niger Uranium and Plame Outing In the days after the Justice Department begins probing the Plame Wilson identity leak (see September 26, 2003 and September 29, 2003), Lewis “Scooter” Libby, the chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, finds a reference in his notes that indicates he learned from Cheney that Valerie Plame Wilson was a covert CIA agent. According to his later testimony, Libby immediately goes to Cheney with the notes, in defiance of instructions from the FBI and the White House counsel’s office not to discuss the matter with colleagues (see September 29-30, 2003). “It turns out that I have a note that I had heard about” Plame Wilson’s CIA identity “from you,” Libby tells Cheney. Libby will later testify that Cheney “didn’t say much” in response. “You know, he said something about, ‘From me?’ something like that, and tilted his head, something he does commonly, and that was that.” [National Journal, 2/19/2007; Associated Press, 11/2/2009] Libby tells Cheney that his public story is that he learned of Plame Wilson’s identity from NBC bureau chief Tim Russert (see July 10 or 11, 2003). Cheney knows that the Russert story is untrue, but does nothing to discourage Libby from telling that story to the FBI (see October 14, 2003 and November 26, 2003) and a grand jury (see March 5, 2004 and March 24, 2004). Cheney also encourages White House press secretary Scott McClellan to publicly exonerate and defend Libby (see October 1, 2003, October 4, 2003, October 4, 2003, and October 5, 2003), who complains that the White House is not doing enough to protect him. In 2007, law professor and former federal prosecutor Dan Richman will say that any criminal interpretation of Cheney’s reaction to Libby’s story depends on the exact words the two men exchanged, and exactly what Cheney knew at the time. “Only Cheney and Libby know the import of their conversation, and as is often the case, each could have even come away with a different impression of what was meant” by what the other said, Richman will observe. “If Cheney was merely showing surprise and interest at what Libby [was] indicating to him he was going to tell investigators, then the vice president is innocent in the exchange. But if he had reason to believe, or personal knowledge, that what Libby was planning to say was untrue then there is good reason to view Cheney’s conduct in an entirely different light—an obstruction interpretation.” Libby knew that Plame Wilson was a CIA official a month before his discussion with Russert (see 12:00 p.m. June 11, 2003 and 2:00 p.m. June 11, 2003), and Cheney confirmed Plame Wilson’s CIA status to Libby around the same time (see (June 12, 2003)). [National Journal, 2/19/2007] The Bush administration, prodded by polls showing that over 70 percent of Americans believe that someone in the White House leaked Valerie Plame Wilson’s CIA status to the press and almost that number is in favor of a special prosecutor to head an investigation, modifies its approach to its denials of involvement. According to the Washington Post, White House officials no longer proclaim the innocence of everyone employed by the executive branch, but now say that it is possible someone disclosed Plame Wilson’s identity without realizing that they were exposing a covert operative, and therefore no crime was committed. The first Congressional Republican to speak out against the administration’s handling of the issue is Senator Chuck Hagel (R-NE), who says that President Bush “needs to get this behind him” by taking a more active role. “He has that main responsibility to see this through and see it through quickly, and that would include, if I was president, sitting down with my vice president and asking what he knows about it,” Hagel says. Meanwhile, administration supporters outside the White House are stepping up their counteroffensive, telling reporters that the White House is fully cooperating with the Justice Department investigation and that the real story is Plame Wilson’s husband, Joseph Wilson, who is making “rash statements” denigrating the administration. Press secretary Scott McClellan is no longer denying a White House effort to discredit Wilson, a critic of the administration, but now tells reporters that the only issue “is whether or not someone leaked classified information.… I’m drawing a line here. I’m not going to play the game of going down other rabbit trails.” The White House has repeatedly insisted that it has no intention of appointing a special counsel to handle the investigation; critics say that Attorney General John Ashcroft’s Justice Department cannot lead an impartial probe. [ | ||||||||
“Our understanding of the relationship between Iraq and al-Qaeda is evolving and is based on sources of varying reliability. Some of the information we have received comes from detainees, including some of high rank.” 
