From The Associated Press, 7/19/05:
http://www.11alive.com/news/usnews_article.aspx?storyid=66414
Details of Memo in CIA Leak Disclosed
By BARRY SCHWEID
AP Diplomatic Writer
WASHINGTON (AP) --
A State Department memo that has caught the attention of prosecutors
describes a CIA officer’s role in sending her husband to Africa and
disputes administration claims that Iraq was shopping for uranium, a
retired department official said Tuesday.
The classified memo was sent to Air Force One just after former U.S.
Ambassador Joseph Wilson went public with his assertions that the Bush
administration overstated the evidence that Iraq was interested in
obtaining uranium from Niger for nuclear weapons.
The memo has become a key piece of evidence in the CIA leak
investigation because it could have been the way someone in the White
House learned--and then leaked--the information that Wilson’s wife
worked for the CIA and played a role in sending him on the mission.
The document was prepared in June 2003 at the direction of Carl W.
Ford Jr., then head of the State Department’s bureau of intelligence
and research, for Marc Grossman, the retired official said. Grossman
was the Undersecretary of State who was in charge of the department
while Secretary Colin Powell and his deputy, Richard Armitage, were
traveling. Grossman needed the memo because he was dealing with other
issues and was not familiar with the subject, the former official
said.
"It wasn’t a Wilson-Wilson wife memo," said the official, who spoke on
condition of anonymity because the investigation is still under way.
"It was a memo on uranium in Niger and focused principally on our
disagreement" with the White House.
Armitage called Ford after Wilson’s op-ed piece in The New York Times
and his TV appearance on July 6, 2003 in which he challenged the White
House’s claim that Iraq had purchased uranium yellowcake from Niger.
Armitage asked that Powell, who was traveling to Africa with Bush, be
given an account of the Wilson trip, said the former official.
The original June 2003 memo was readdressed to Powell and included a
short summary prepared by an analyst who was at a 2002 CIA meeting
where Wilson’s trip was arranged and was sent in one piece to Powell
on Air Force One the next day.
The memo said Wilson’s wife worked for the CIA and suggested her
husband go to Niger because he had contacts there and had served as an
American diplomat in Africa.
However, the official said the memo did not say she worked undercover
for the spy agency nor did it identify her as Valerie Plame, which was
her maiden name and cover name at the CIA.
Her identity as Plame was disclosed first by columnist Robert Novak
and then by Time magazine reporter Matt Cooper.
The leak investigation by special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald is
looking into who in the Bush administration leaked Plame’s identity to
reporters and whether any laws were broken.
A 1982 law prohibits the deliberate exposure of the identity of an
undercover CIA officer.
Wilson believes the Bush administration leaked the name as retribution
for his criticism.
President Bush said Monday he would fire any member of his staff who
"committed a crime," a change from his previous vow to fire anyone
involved in the leak.
The past two weeks have brought revelations that top presidential aide
Karl Rove was involved in leaking the identity of Plame to Novak and
to Cooper.
The former State Department official stressed the memo focused on
Wilson’s trip and the State Department intelligence bureau’s
disagreement with the White House’s claim about Iraq trying to get
nuclear material.
He said the fact that the CIA officer and Wilson were husband and wife
was largely an incidental reference.
The June 2003 memo had not gone higher than Grossman until Wilson’s
op-ed column for The New York Times headlined "What I Didn’t Find In
Africa" and his TV appearance to dispute the administration.
Wilson’s article asked the question: "Did the Bush administration
manipulate intelligence about Saddam Hussein’s weapons programs to
justify an invasion?"
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Another piece of the Bush White House treason scandal puzzle.
Harry
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