The President, The Leak, And The War

Well it's Sunday and the big talk is still about the leak revelations.

There's also news about the forged Iraq-Niger documents that led us to war and this scandal.

Here's to me a point that is getting lost in all of this... When the Plame name was first leaked, the White House was indignant. "This is a national disgrace! I'll fire the leaker!", the President proclaimed. The Plame leak was painted to be the random act of some mysterious administration official; the President and his staff had no clue how this could've happened. Yet what all these new revelations show, besides the President's hypocrisy on leaking (as emphasized by McClellan's insulting good leak v. bad leak lecture), is that the conspiracy to discredit Joseph Wilson was far bigger than we first realized and went all the way up to the President himself. Whether he ordered Cheney to have specific material leaked to reporters or simply told him to 'get it out', the point remains that he was highly involved in this effort. The leaking of Plame's name to the press was simply another part of this campaign. So considering the President was on top of all of this and knew who was working the anti-Wilson front (people like Cheney, Libby, Rove, and others), it becomes ridiculous to believe that a) Bush was surprised by the Plame leak, and b) he had no clue at all who could be responsible. Assuming we believe (naively) that the President didn't know who the leaker(s) were, he would have just called into his office the involved staffers (Libby, Rove, etc.) and say "Raise your hand, who did it?". But he didn't do that... because the leak was not a surprise nor did he care about it other than how the backlash would affect him politically.

As the revelations in this case continue to come in, they merely reveal what was suspected all along... This was a politically-motived breach of national security by the White House to silence its top critic at the time. As usual, they didn't bother to think about the consequences of their actions (as we've seen with the war itself), all they cared about was getting what they wanted for the moment. And their defense is predicated on the same theory as their warrantless wiretapping and torture policy- that as the President/Commander In Chief, anything that is done is perfectly okay as long as the President insists it's in the 'national interest'.

The defense is also basically 'He didn't leak, he declassified'. But even that is highly questionable. As the questions asked at the McClellan press briefing on Friday showed, the NIE was stated previously to have been declassified on July 18, 2003. Yet the information was given to Judy Miller on July 8. So technically, wasn't it still classified? McClellan tried to play fast and loose with the previous statement, insisting that what he meant at the time was that July 18 was the date it was made public. The Press Corps rolled their collective eyes at that one and refused to buy it. What was the official date of declassification on the document then, they asked. McClellan refused to answer, playing the "ongoing investigation" card. I think it's therefore safe to say it was after the July 8 Libby/Miller meeting.

So their defense then becomes 'Well, if the President speaks about it or asks others to do so, then it's technically declassified'... even if it really isn't. A declassification is something public that everyone in the government knows about. This leak to the willing-and-able Judy Miller was something only a select (Bush, Cheney, Libby) knew about. The White House, still refusing to deny the main leak charges, insists the President just wanted the information out because it was in the national interest to know it. Yet the circumstances betray that revisionist history. If that was the case, it would've been officially declassified and they would've made a public statement. They didn't; they engaged in a behind-the-scenes anonymous leak (no name of the source was revealed in Miller's article). The sneaky, secret way this was done was in no one's interest but the White House's... Furthermore, they only revealed bits and pieces of the NIE- the parts that helped their case for war. The other parts of that same document- that would appear to discredit them- remained secret until the official declassification.

As for how this relates to the perjury/obstruction charges against Mr. Libby, that all goes back to his defense that as a busy man, he merely forgot things and therefore didn't lie intentionally. What these revelations reveal, though, is that his lunch with 'Run Amok' Judy Miller was no random meeting (nor were other conversations with other reporters like Tim Russert), the details surrounding which he might not fully recall. This was part of a campaign ordered on him by the President and Vice President, an extraordinary set of circumstances, the details of which he was likely to remember.

It is clear that these people are sneaks and liars. They knew their case for war was bogus before the war even began and they were even more desperate to conceal that information after the war began. This whole Wilson/Plame/Libby/Rove saga exposes a lot about how this White House operates and what they will do to protect themselves and keep their secrets. If the President is ever held accountable for this war, the findings in this case will be a big part in that.

Here are some relevant links to this saga...

Washington Post: A 'Concerted Effort' to Discredit Bush Critic

Newsweek: The Leaker in Chief?

Is he a CEO who stays above the fray? Or did he give the go-ahead to strike back at critics over prewar intel? A presidential mystery.

AP: Lawyer: Bush Left Leak Details to Cheney

David Fiderer (HuffPo Blog): Leaks Against Joe Wilson Never "Rebutted" Anything

NY Times: Iraq Findings Leaked by Cheney's Aide Were Disputed

Sunday Times (Britain): 'Forgers' of key Iraq war contract named

[PS- Digby has a great analysis of this whole saga up.]