Well now we know...

The Administration wasn't against the International Criminal Court because of fears that US citizens will be tried for things that they didn't do. They're afraid they'll be tried for the things they knew we were doing:

WASHINGTON, May 12 Ñ The Central Intelligence Agency has used coercive interrogation methods against a select group of high-level leaders and operatives of Al Qaeda that have produced growing concerns inside the agency about abuses, according to current and former counterterrorism officials.

At least one agency employee has been disciplined for threatening a detainee with a gun during questioning, they said.

In the case of Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, a high-level detainee who is believed to have helped plan the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, C.I.A. interrogators used graduated levels of force, including a technique known as "water boarding," in which a prisoner is strapped down, forcibly pushed under water and made to believe he might drown.

Harsh C.I.A. Methods Cited in Top Qaeda Interrogations (NYTimes)
(10:28) [/War] #

Questions not asked, never mind answered...

Forget the tin-foil hat theories... why can't they just answer the basic questions.
(20:00) [/War] #

More movement on the Plame front

WASHINGTON (AP) - Attorney General John Ashcroft will recuse himself from an investigation into who leaked the name of a CIA operative, Justice Department sources said Tuesday.

The investigation will be headed by the U.S. attorney in Chicago, Patrick Fitzgerald, who will report to Ashcroft's new deputy, James Comey, the officials said.

It was not immediately clear why Ashcroft made the decision.

Well, isn't that interesting...

Ashcroft Recuses Self From CIA Leak Probe (AP via myway.com)
(11:37) [/War] #

Plame probe continues?

The Justice Department has added a fourth prosecutor to the team investigating the leak of an undercover CIA officer's identity, while the FBI has said a grand jury may be called to take testimony from administration officials, sources close to the case said.

Administration and CIA officials said they have seen signs in the past few weeks that the investigation continues intensively behind closed doors, even though little about the investigation has been publicly said or seen for months.

Looks like things are moving along out of the public eye... all good, but it will be nice to eventually hear what happened... preferably before this November...
Leaks Probe Is Gathering Momentum (Washington Post)
(19:05) [/War] #

Here's how I see it

After the two stories (Novak and Time) came out in the same week, the White House noticed. "Two senior administration officials" outing a CIA agent could not have gone unnoticed. They have the daily clipping services and people to read them. So the WH definitely knew about it after the leak was published in June. They (and almost all of the media) then studiously ignored it until the Post came out.

Now what can we infer from that? Here are the possibilities I see:

1. WH didn't follow up, doesn't know anything. They just ignored it.
2. The CIA agent wasn't undercover. No laws broken regardless. WH certainly would have got that out and Justice most likely wouldn't have opened the investigation. Instead we have multiple confirmations that she was a NOC.
3. Someone else leaked, WH knows. Why are they protecting the leaker? Why wouldn't they have nipped it in the bud and avoided the scandal?
4. WH leaked, WH knows who, what and when. Obvious reasons for stonewalling and trying to let it blow over.

(1) would be nothing to be proud of, but that seems like best case scenario at this point. (2) is, as they say, inoperative now. (3) would give them an obvious way of getting out in front and turning this into a WH victory.

That leaves (4)...

Is there a 5th option?
(14:29) [/War] #

Not that this proves anything

But it's an interesting graph:

Study: Wrong impressions helped support Iraq war (philly.com)
(18:44) [/War] #

Krugman is: Public Enemy #1

Here's Krugman on Bush's reaction to the outing of the CIA agent:

An outraged President Bush immediately demanded the names of those responsible for exposing Ms. Plame. He repeated his father's statement that "those who betray the trust by exposing the names of our sources" are "the most insidious of traitors." There are limits to politics, Mr. Bush declared; Mr. Wilson's decision to go public about his mission had embarrassed him, but that was no excuse for actions that were both felonious and unpatriotic.

Everything in the previous paragraph is, of course, false. It's what should have happened, but didn't. Mr. Bush took no action after the Novak column. Before we get bogged down in the details Ñ which is what the administration hopes will happen Ñ let's be clear: we already know what the president knew, and when he knew it. Mr. Bush knew, 11 weeks ago, that some of his senior aides had done something utterly inexcusable. But as long as the media were willing to let the story lie Ñ which, with a few honorable exceptions, like David Corn at The Nation and Knut Royce and Timothy Phelps at Newsday, they were Ñ he didn't think this outrage required any action.

'Slime and Defend' (NYTimes)
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What we're talking about

Here's the opening of the AG and President's letter to Congress regarding leaking national security secrets. I'll leave it as an exercise to the reader as to whether outing a CIA agent counts as one of those...

The President and I place deterring, detecting, and punishing unauthorized disclosures of U.S. national security secrets among our highest priorities, at all times, but especially in this time of war against terrorism of global reach. There is no doubt and ample evidence that unauthorized disclosures of classified information cause enormous and irreparable harm to the Nation's diplomatic, military, and intelligence capabilities. They impair, especially, the Intelligence Community's ability to provide essential support to U.S. national security policymakers and our military's ability to provide for the national defense. We need an effective Government-wide program to curtail these damaging disclosures and to hold the persons who engage in unauthorized disclosures of classified information fully accountable for the serious damage they cause to intelligence sources and methods, military operations, and to the nation. Those who would break faith with the American people and disclose classified information without authority to do so will face severe consequences under the law.

Report to Congress on Unauthorized Disclosures of Classified Information (fas.org)
(17:43) [/War] #

Yep, it is bad

Remember back when Robert Novak "outed" Joseph Wilson's wife as a cia agent, based on an tip from "two senior administration officials"? Well, the CIA does... and they just forwarded it to the Justice Department...

NBC News' Andrea Mitchell reported Friday night that the CIA has asked the Justice Department to investigate whether White House officials blew Plame's cover in retaliation against Wilson. Revealing the identities of covert officials is a violation of two laws, the National Agents' Identity Act and the Unauthorized Release of Classified Information Act.

CIA seeks probe of White House (MSNBC)
(15:50) [/War] #

More liberal media bias...

Yup, that liberal media is at it again... After Bush finally came out and said that Iraq/Hussein had nothing to do with the 9/11 attacks::

Of America's 12 highest-circulation daily papers, only the L.A. Times, Chicago Tribune, and Dallas Morning News ran anything about it on the front page. In The New York Times, the story was relegated to page 22. USA Today: page 16. The Houston Chronicle: page 3. The San Francisco Chronicle: page 14. The Washington Post: page 18. Newsday: page 41. The New York Daily News: page 14.

The New York Post and The Wall Street Journal didn't mention it at all.

(Editor and Publisher)
(14:01) [/War] #