Dear friends,
In all of
the recent media coverage of Karl Rove's possible involvement in revealing
the name of CIA agent Valerie Plame, I have been amazed that an exceedingly
small number of journalists have touched upon the reasons behind this incident.
I am incredibly thankful to the Christian Science Monitor, which, in
the article below, spells out clearly just what happened, and why it happened.
The war in
Iraq almost certainly would not have happened if Bush administration had failed
to convince the public that Saddam Hussein harbored dangerous weapons of mass
destruction (WMDs). We now know that there were no WMDs. Why aren't more
reporters pointing out the fact that the CIA knew this before the war started;
that Joseph Wilson clearly informed the administration of this; that the administration
disregarded this vital information and lied to the public in order to promote
their war agenda; and that most importantly, when Joseph Wilson exposed these
lies, someone in the administration retaliated by revealing to the press that
Wilson's wife was a CIA agent.
The loss
of the lives of thousands of American soldiers and many more innocent Iraqi
civilians could have been avoided if the administration had given heed to
Wilson's information. To learn more about how those in power have often
lied to the public and manipulated us into supporting war, see our War
Information Center, and especially a highly revealing two-page essay by
a former US general at www.WantToKnow.info/warcoverup
Please help to play the role at which our media is so sadly failing by sending
this information on to your friends and colleagues. Together, we can and will
build a brighter future.
With best
wishes,
Fred Burks for the WantToKnow.info
Team
http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0715/p09s02-cods.html
Rove leak is just part of larger scandal
By Daniel
Schorr
from the July 15, 2005 edition
WASHINGTON
– Let me remind you that the underlying issue in the Karl Rove controversy
is not a leak, but a war and how America was misled into that war.
In 2002
President Bush, having decided to invade Iraq, was casting about for a casus
belli. The weapons of mass destruction theme was not yielding very much until
a dubious Italian intelligence report, based partly on forged documents (it
later turned out), provided reason to speculate that Iraq might be trying
to buy so-called yellowcake uranium from the African country of Niger.
It did not seem to matter that the CIA advised that the Italian information
was "fragmentary and lacked detail."
Prodded by
Vice President Dick Cheney and in the hope of getting more conclusive information,
the CIA sent Joseph Wilson, an old Africa hand, to Niger to investigate.
Mr. Wilson spent eight days talking to everyone in Niger possibly involved
and came back to report no sign of an Iraqi bid for uranium and, anyway,
Niger's uranium was committed to other countries for many years to come.
No news is
bad news for an administration gearing up for war. Ignoring Wilson's report,
Cheney talked on TV about Iraq's nuclear potential. And the president himself,
in his 2003 State of the Union address no less, pronounced: "The British
government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities
of uranium from Africa."
Wilson
declined to maintain a discreet silence. He told various people that the president
was at least mistaken, at most telling an untruth. Finally Wilson directly
challenged the administration with a July 6, 2003 New York Times op-ed headlined,
"What I didn't find in Africa," and making clear his belief that
the president deliberately manipulated intelligence in order to justify an
invasion.
One can imagine
the fury in the White House. We now know from the e-mail traffic of Time's
correspondent Matt Cooper that five days after the op-ed appeared, he advised
his bureau chief of a supersecret conversation with Karl Rove who alerted
him to the fact that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA and may have recommended
him for the Niger assignment. Three days later, Bob Novak's column appeared
giving Wilson's wife's name, Valerie Plame, and the fact she was an undercover
CIA officer. Mr. Novak has yet to say, in public, whether Mr. Rove was
his source. Enough is known to surmise that the leaks of Rove, or others
deputized by him, amounted to retaliation against someone who had the temerity
to challenge the president of the United States when he was striving to find
some plausible reason for invading Iraq.
The role
of Rove and associates added up to a small incident in a very large scandal
- the effort to delude America into thinking it faced a threat dire enough
to justify a war.
• Daniel Schorr
is the senior news analyst at National Public Radio.
