Miller Talks; Confessional Contradicts Prior Reports of Libby's Role

New York Times reporter Judith Miller tells us what she told the grand jury investigating the Valerie Plame leak. In short, I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, told her that Joseph Wilson's wife worked for the CIA in WINPAC (Weapons Intelligence, Non-Proliferation, and Arms Control).

As for who she was talking with when she wrote "Valerie Flame" in her notebook, she says she doesn't think it was Libby but she can't recall who it was; she also assumed Plame was an analyst. Given that Miller says she suggested the paper persue the story (the then-Washington bureau chief denies such a recommendation was made), it seems very odd that Miller would forget who provided this key bit of data. Very odd.

Miller's firsthand story differs dramatically from a 30 September summary of Libby's testimony, from the Washington Post:

Libby told Miller he heard that Wilson's wife had something to do with sending him but he did not know who she was or where she worked, the source said.

Miller also concedes that she agreed to refer to Libby as a "former Hill staffer" at their second meeting, as he proceeded to rant (my characterization of her narrative) about Wilson. This shows how extensively "off the record" sourcing is abused inside the Beltway.

The final revelation: two weeks before Wilson published his now-famous essay in the New York Times, Libby discussed Wilson's trip -- and wife -- with Miller.

Miller's chronology
In their first meeting, Miller said Libby told her that Wilson's wife may have worked at the CIA. In Miller's account, Libby blamed the CIA for "selective leaking" of information about pre-war intelligence, and he denied that the Administration had "embraced skimpy intelligence about Iraq's alleged efforts to buy uranium in Africa." Wilson asserts his report debunked the African uranium claim in 2002.

Miller says that Libby acknowledged that the CIA "took it upon itself to try and figure out more" about Africa by sending a "clandestine guy" to investigate the claim. Libby said that the CIA had not reported the results of Wilson's trip to the White House. Miller writes: "No briefer came in and said, 'You got it wrong, Mr. President.'" At this point in the narrative, it's worth a reminder that the CIA is an executive branch agency and its head reports to the President. Also, Wilson says he also briefed the State Deparment, which did reject the African claims.

This first meeting took place two weeks before Wilson's essay ran in the Times -- and yet the discrediting, the politics of personal attack, had already begun. Miller paints a picture of an Administration on the defensive -- and yet she did nothing with the story, despite telling us that it occurred to her that the Administration might be trying to destroy the messenger of bad news. Moreover, she doesn't ask: "Scooter, how did you come to know about Wilson's trip, if his report never made its way to the White House?"

"Distant" background
Miller's second meeting with Libby, a two-hour breakfast meeting, occurred two days after Wilson's op-ed ran in the NY Times. Libby asserted that Wilson's essay was not accurate. Miller's first-person account suggests that Libby wanted to distance himself from his words: on the Wilson matter, he wanted to be referenced as a "former Hill staffer" not a "senior administration official." She agreed; she doesn't explain to us why she agreed - perhaps she explained to the grand jury.

It was at this meeting that Miller's notes show the Plame worked at WINPAC. Miller writes in the Times:

But I told the grand jury that I believed that this was the first time I had heard that Mr. Wilson's wife worked for Winpac. In fact, I told the grand jury that when Mr. Libby indicated that Ms. Plame worked for Winpac, I assumed that she worked as an analyst, not as an undercover operative.

Miller says that Libby insists that Wilson's report never made it to the White House nor did it make it to the then-head of the CIA, George Tenet. Wilson wrote in 2003:

Though I did not file a written report, there should be at least four documents in United States government archives confirming my mission. The documents should include the ambassador's report of my debriefing in Niamey, a separate report written by the embassy staff, a C.I.A. report summing up my trip, and a specific answer from the agency to the office of the vice president (this may have been delivered orally). While I have not seen any of these reports, I have spent enough time in government to know that this is standard operating procedure.

So, if the report didn't make it to Libby, who in the Vice President's office saw or heard it? Will we ever discover the truth in this matter?


Resolving conflicting claims
What do we make of Libby's claims? There have been persistent allegations that the CIA told the White House what it wanted to hear. Reports of unqualified civilians being placed in positions of responsiblity abound; those allegations take on credibility in light of the credentials of FEMA chief Mike Brown.

According to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (pdf), pre-2002 intelligence reports do not mention any attempts to purchase uranium abroad. The October 2002 NIE assessment reversed this position, despite State Department rejection of these reports. The 2002-2003 UN findings indicate that the documents supporting the African claim were forgeries.

Moreover, we now know that Ahmed Chalabi and Aras Karim Habib were primary sources for Iraq's weapons of mass destruction claims; both have subsequently been discredited. According to a 2004 US News and World Report article, Under Secretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith and Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz were Chalabi's "most ardent supporters, along with former Pentagon adviser and prominent neoconservative Richard Perle."

In May 2003, Seymour Hersh described the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans (OSP), the brainchild of Wolfowitz:

[By fall 2002,] the operation [OSP] rivalled both the C.I.A. and the Pentagon’s own Defense Intelligence Agency, the D.I.A., as President Bush’s main source of intelligence regarding Iraq’s possible possession of weapons of mass destruction and connection with Al Qaeda.

Hersh quotes a Pentagon advisor who claims any criticism of OSP was "bureaucratic whining:"

“They beat ’em—they cleaned up against State and the C.I.A. There’s no mystery why they won—because they were more effective in making their argument. Luti is smarter than the opposition. Wolfowitz is smarter. They out-argued them. It was a fair fight. They persuaded the President of the need to make a new security policy. Those who lose are so good at trying to undercut those who won.� He added, “I’d love to be the historian who writes the story of how this small group of eight or nine people made the case and won.�

Yes indeed; the historian will have an interesting story and I don't think it will focus much on "winning," at least not in the classic sense of the word. Finally, Hersh summarizes interviews with CIA analysts:

“George knows he’s being beaten up,� one former officer said of George Tenet, the C.I.A. director. “And his analysts are terrified. George used to protect his people, but he’s been forced to do things their way.� Because the C.I.A.’s analysts are now on the defensive, “they write reports justifying their intelligence rather than saying what’s going on. The Defense Department and the Office of the Vice-President write their own pieces, based on their own ideology. We collect so much stuff that you can find anything you want.�

Miller's explanation, and her sympathetic portrayal of Libby, raises more questions than it answers. The Times unsympathetic portrayal of Miller is equally ambiguous.

See Miller's Security Clearance, The Blogosphere on Miller, Editor & Publisher: Fire Miller, Miller and Plame: One More, Miller Talks; Confessional Contradicts Prior Reports of Libby's Role, Plame Timeline.

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