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Second Track

Meanwhile, a parallel investigation is under way into who forged the Niger documents. They are known to have been passed to an Italian journalist by a former Italian defence intelligence officer, Rocco Martino, in October 2002, but their origins have remained a mystery. Mr Martino has insisted to the Italian press that he was “a tool used by someone for games much bigger than me”, but has not specified who that might be.

A source familiar with the inquiry said investigators were examining whether former US intelligence agents may have been involved in possible collaboration with Iraqi exiles determined to prove that Saddam Hussein had a nuclear programme.

Well now. That would be something, wouldn’t it?

Josh Marshall, who was once hot on the trail of this forgery story, wrote this a couple of weeks ago, the night O’Donnell revealed Rove’s name on the McLaughlin report:

One other note along these lines.

I’ve gotten hints or suggestions from several sources over the last month that new information is bubbling to the surface, not about who leaked Valerie Plame’s identity, but who was behind the underlying caper that started the whole drama afoot in the first place: those phoney Niger uranium documents.

As longtime readers of this site know, last year colleagues of mine and I were able to trace the documents back to a former Italian intelligence agent named Rocco Martino. Martino was the ‘Italian businessman’ who tried to sell the documents to Elizabetta Burba, the journalist who eventually brought them to the US Embassy in Rome.

We were able determine that the documents had been put into Martino’s hands by a then-serving member of SISMI — Italian military intelligence. And this SISMI colonel had done so using a women working in the Niger embassy in Rome, an Italian national, as a cut-out.

This was, as you might imagine, more than enough to make us want to know a lot more. But we were never able to develop any conclusive proof about who or what was behind the SISMI colonel or what the backstory was within SISMI.

Suspicions, we had plenty. But in terms of hard facts, we hit a wall just inside SISMI.

Just who forged the documents? And, more significantly, who put the whole process in motion? And why had SISMI or elements within it involved themselves?

This story and Plame ar running on different tracks, but they come to the same station eventually. And, once again, the spectre of Judith Miller hangs over it — she’s the Zelig of the iraq operation.

I don’t have enough information to speculate about this, but I think it is significant that information is leaking out about this case as well. It’s hard to know whether it’s because people are fed up or because the white house is weak or some combination of both. But the veil is lifting on this administration’s shenanigans, for sure. It’s going to be a very interesting time.

Here’s the immediate political result for Dear Leader:

Across the board, those stellar character ratings which supposedly meant Bush could weather any political storm have become mediocre to poor. And he’s lost the most ground among independents, only 38 percent of whom now believe Bush is trustworthy or cares about people like them. Even more amazing, less than half (48 percent) of indepedents now think Bush is a strong leader, which is a massive 24 point decline since Pew’s previous measurement.

And how about this: in February of this year, the two leading one word description of Bush were “honest” and “good”, cited by 38 percent and 20 percent of the public, respectively. Today, honest has declined to 31 percent, closely followed by “incompetent” (26 percent, up from 14 percent) and “arrogant” (24 percent, up from 15 percent).

Reality bites.

Update: Just to be clear, what’s new about the Guardian story isn’t that the FBI suspects Iraqi exiles of being involved, it the part about retired US intelligence being involved that I was unaware of.

Seymour Hersh has speculated that it was a sort of reverse sting by appalled ex-CIA operatives, but this would indicate a less byzantine explanation. People with common interests helping each other out.

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Waivering

Via Atrios I see that Steve Clemens has it on good authority that John Bolton is known to be a regular source for Judith Miller, although we don’t know if he was her source on this.

We know that whoever spoke with Miller waived his or her confidentiality. Does anyone know who all signed waivers?

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Too Tired To Be Outraged

This is just sad:

This morning the Wall Street Journal reported that Senate Democrats were planning “to grill Bush confidant Karen Hughes” about her involvement in the ever widening leak-case. But, Senate Democrats must have gotten lost on the way to the hearing. Not one showed up. Instead, according to the Associated Press:

“A scaled-back Senate Foreign Relations Committee showered praise Friday on Karen Hughes and put the former political adviser to President Bush on a fast track to confirmation as the State Department’s top public relations official.”

The absence of the Democrats is even more glaring considering just today the New York Times reported that Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald called Karen Hughes before the grand jury to testify as to her involvement in the leak-case. Of course, this begs the obvious question: Karen Hughes, did you have a role in leaking the name of an undercover CIA agent?

Instead of any substantive questions, the Democrats simply didn’t show up. But we did get this statement from ranking minority member Sen. Joe Biden (D-DE):

“Mr. Chairman, I regret that previous commitments prevent me from attending the confirmation hearing this morning.

I am particularly interested in and supportive of the nomination of Karen Hughes to be undersecretary of state for public diplomacy. What this job requires, among other things, is continuity. The last two undersecretaries have stayed six and 18 months, respectively.

I met with the nominee yesterday and understand that, barring unforeseen circumstances, she is willing to stay through the president’s term.

I believe that she is highly qualified because of her professional background, and, importantly, enjoys the full confidence of the president and the secretary of state…

Well, that’s awfully friendly of him. No need to provide the evening news or the Sunday news shows with footage of Karen Hughes being grilled about getting called before the grand jury in the Plame case. That would be what Republicans would do in our situation and that wouldn’t be nice at all.

Think Progress has a list of questions the Democrats might have asked if they could have gotten it up to attend the meeting. I assume they were too busy with their preparations to lionize John Roberts and didn’t have the time.

We just don’t have the killer instinct. They do. So they win and we lose. I guess we have to wait for total economic armageddon or nuclear meltdown in which case we will win by default.

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Executive Infallibility

It would appear that the president is sticking to his belief that he has the sole right to order torture, hold people indefinitely and secretly and make up the rules as he goes along. To hell with the congress. It doesn’t matter what Senator John McCain, former torture victim and POW says; it doesn’t matter what Senator Lindsey Graham, former JAG lawyer says; and it doesn’t matter what Senator John Warner,former Secretary of the Navy says. (I won’t even mention that “elections have consequences” and Democrats are supposed to STFU for the duration.)No one has any right to tell the president nothin’ bout prisoners in a time ‘o unending, ever-present war. And they have no right to ask any questions about it either.

The White House on Thursday threatened to veto a massive Senate bill for $442 billion in next year’s defense programs if it moves to regulate the Pentagon’s treatment of detainees or sets up a commission to investigate operations at Guantanamo Bay prison and elsewhere.

The Bush administration, under fire for the indefinite detention of enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and questions over whether its policies led to horrendous abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, put lawmakers on notice it did not want them legislating on the matter.

In a statement, the White House said such amendments would “interfere with the protection of Americans from terrorism by diverting resources from the war.”

“If legislation is presented that would restrict the president’s authority to protect Americans effectively from terrorist attack and bring terrorists to justice,” the bill could be vetoed, the statement said.

Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain, who endured torture as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, said after meeting at the Capitol with Vice President Dick Cheney that he still intended to offer amendments next week “on the standard of treatment of prisoners.”

South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, who was working on legislation defining the legal status of enemy combatants being held in Guantanamo, also said he would offer an amendment.

They were working with Armed Services Committee Chairman John Warner of Virginia on amendments intended to prevent further abuses in the wake of the scandal over sexual abuse and mistreatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison and harsh, degrading interrogations at Guantanamo.

And just look at what these unAmerican, commie bastards are trying to do:

Possible measures included barring the holding of “ghost” detainees whose names are not disclosed, codifying a ban against cruel, inhumane or degrading treatment, and using the Army manual as a basis for all interrogations.

Really, what business is this of the congress anyway? Who do they think they are — elected representatives of the people?

It would be very nice to see the president veto the defense bill over this but, needless to say, it will not happen. But someday, if the country survives this wretched radical era, people will look back on this with particular disgust, not just because the president of the United States openly seeks to preserve his right to torture (which is stomach churning) but also the total abdication of responsibility by the Republican congress.

And people say the Democrats are the chickenshits. Another big lie. Nobody, but nobody, is more gutless than a congressional Republican cowering at the feet of the flatulent Rove and his little dog George.

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Leaking Briefs

Talk Left has an excellent primer on how to figure out who’s doing the leaking.

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Overlooking The Obvious

In this week’s editorial The New Republic discusses the rightwing push back on Rovegate. They complain that the emphasis on Rove obscures the more important story of Iraq lies. I submit that without Rovegate, there would be no coverage of the Iraq lies at all, so we should not knock the hook that gives us the opportunity to talk about the bigger picture.

The editorial brings up something else, however, that I think is quite important. It mentions the single most important weapon in our arsenal when arguing about the bigger picture surrounding Wilson’s trip:

As that investigation has spilled onto the front pages in the last few weeks, supporters of the administration have picked up where they left off two years ago, saying that Wilson was unqualified for the Niger investigation and declaring that his credibility is in tatters. It’s true that Wilson has made himself an easy target for such accusations by posing with his wife for Vanity Fair magazine and taking a very public role advising the Kerry campaign last fall. But the most serious charge that Wilson’s critics level against him is the allegation that he was wrong in his assessment of Iraq’s dealing with Niger. Supporters of Rove have revived this accusation in an effort to claim that, when Rove spoke to reporters about Plame, he wasn’t trying to disparage Wilson so much as warn them off a “bad story.” But what, exactly, was “bad” about Wilson’s story?

Both the national security adviser and the CIA director at the time (Condoleezza Rice and George Tenet, respectively) issued public apologies for the Niger claim, admitting it was unsubstantiated. And the most authoritative report on the matter comes from the Iraq Survey Group (ISG), which spent a year combing the Iraqi countryside for alleged weapons of mass destruction. Its conclusion: “ISG has not found evidence to show that Iraq sought uranium from abroad after 1991 or renewed indigenous production of such material.”

Because of all the deliberate obfuscation coming from the Rove machine, this central piece of evidence has not been discussed nearly enough. Ivo Daalder on TPM cafe brought this up some time ago, but it’s worth repeating: Wilson’s conclusions have been born out by the Iraq Survey Group, who spent a year inside Iraq, looking at all the records and speaking to the parties. There is no point in speculating about meetings in 1999 or the Butler Report or any other reports that testify to evidence that Iraq sought to buy uranium from Niger. The fact is that it didn’t. Period. End of story. The non-believers were right, the true-believers were wrong, whatever their motives.

It’s two years later, we have a definitive report from the ISG, and people are still saying that Wilson was a flake, he was sent by his wife, he was trying to set up the Republicans, whatever. In a normal world, that fact that Wilson’s conclusions (along with others) were correct would have some salience in this argument — particularly since the Reublicans are basing theirs on the the mistaken premise that Wilson’s credibility is in question when quite clearly, he was right.

Rick Perlstein relayed in the comments of one of my other posts a comment from a right wing correspondent of his who said of Plame: “she was part of a CIA attempt to discredit the elected government. She should be swinging from a lamp post.” And yet, there was no uranium deal. There were no WMD. This comment therefore means that naysayers (in and out of the CIA, presumably) were trying to discredit the elected government with the truth.

It’s enormously frustrating to argue with people who have so little intellectual integrity, but that’s the way it is. They continue to dig themselves in on this point — even as the huge elephant holding a sign that says “there were no WMD in Iraq” is sitting in the middle of the room, mocking them.

But over time, through all the bickering and small bore detail and gossip, that elephant comes more and more into focus for average Americans. And it lays the groundwork for a scathing Democratic critique of Republican foreign policy for the first time in many years if we can just find the nerve to claim it. The Republicans are going to have Iraq hung around their necks like a burning rubber tire for a long time to come, as they should.

When you strip all the fulminating away, the Republican argument for the massive failure in both concept and execution of Iraq is that they didn’t do it on purpose — they just screwed up. That’s the same excuse Karl Rove is using, as well, and it’s no surprise. At this point, it’s realistically their best case scenario. Would you want to run on that record?

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Depends On What The Definition Of “Secret” Is

I confess that I’m feeling more than a bit of schadenfreude reading the rightwing bloggers’ responses to the Plame scandal over on the Daou Report. It so sucks being on the receiving end of the drip, drip, drip, doesn’t it?

Here’s one that’s fairly typically uninformed from Captain’s Quarters (all links available at the Daou Report), in which he, taking his cues from the RNC, piles on the ridiculous assertion that Plame was not covert, even if her status was labeled “secret.”

“Today’s Washington Post article on the State Department memo detailing Valerie Plame’s involvement in sending her husband to Niger lacks a great deal of context. Bloggers appear to assume that the (S) described in the article denotes the status of Plame’s identity, but a more careful read of a poorly-written article shows that it doesn’t mean that at all. Most people don’t understand that “secret” is the second-lowest classification grade possible. I would hope that NOC lists have much higher classification than that, and surely they do.

It all depends on how you look at it. It’s also the second-highest classification. There are only three levels of classified material: confidential, secret, top-secret. According to the very Washington Post article he quotes, covert agents are all classifed as “secret.”

Apparently, these people think that the government has a whole string of classified levels, many of which you don’t have to take seriously. Like “secret” which doesn’t really mean secret, it means kinda-sorta secret but not if you need to smear a political opponent. They assume that there also must be a bunch super-duper-double-cross-your-heart secret levels that you really, really, really shouldn’t tell the media about. But “secret?” Not a problem. Go ahead and spill your guts to Bob Novak.

Google is your friend:

Classified vs. Unclassified Information

In the U.S. information is called “classified” because it has been assigned one of the three levels, confidential, secret or top secret. Information which is not so labled is called unclassified information. The term declassified is used for information which has had its classification removed, and downgraded refers to information that has been assigned a lower classification level, but is still classified. Many documents are automatically downgraded and then declassified after some number of years. The U.S. government uses the term sensitive but unclassified (SBU) to refer to information that is not confidential, secret or top secret, but whose dissemination is still restricted. Reasons for such restrictions can include privacy regulations, court orders, and ongoing criminal investigations as well as national security. Information which was never classified is sometimes referred to as “open source” by those who work in national security.

Levels of Classification used by the U.S. Government

The United States Government classifies information according to the degree which the unauthorized disclosure would damage national security:

Top secret

This is the highest security level, and is defined as information which would cause “exceptionally grave damage” to national security if disclosed to the public. Despite public mystique, relatively little information is classified at “Top Secret” (when compared to the other levels of classification). Only that which is exceptionally sensitive (weapon design, presidential security information, nuclear-related projects, various intelligence information) is classified at the Top Secret level.

Secret

The second highest classification. Information is classified secret when its release would cause “serious damage” to national security. Most information that is “classified” is held at the secret sensitivity.

Confidential

The lowest classification level. It is defined as information which would “damage” national security if disclosed.

Unclassified is not technically a “classification”, this is the default, and refers to information which can be released to individuals without a clearance. Information that is unclassified is sometimes “restricted” in its dissemination. For example, the “law enforcement bulletins” often reported by the U.S. media when United States Department of Homeland Security raises the U.S. terror threat level are usually classified as “U//LES” or “Unclassified – Law Enforcement Sensitive.” This information is only supposed to be released to Law Enforcement groups (Sheriff, Police, etc.) Because the information is unclassified, however, it is sometimes released to the public as well. Information which is unclassified, but which the government does not believe should be subject to Freedom of Information Act requests is often classified as U//FOUO – Unclassified-For Official Use Only.

It is very serious if they were collecting and disseminating cheap political dirt from a classified document labeled “secret.” The definition of secret is secret, and it’s a big deal.

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Father Tim And The Leak

Two top White House aides have given accounts to the special prosecutor about how reporters told them the identity of a CIA agent that are at odds with what the reporters have said, according to persons familiar with the case.

Lewis “Scooter’’ Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, told special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald that he first learned from NBC News reporter Tim Russert of the identity of CIA agent Valerie Plame, the wife of former ambassador and Bush administration critic Joseph Wilson. Russert has testified before a federal grand jury that he didn’t tell Libby of Plame’sidentity.

White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove told Fitzgerald that he first learned the identity of the CIA agent from syndicated columnist Robert Novak, who was first to report Plame’s name and connection to Wilson. Novak, according to a source familiar with the matter, has given a somewhat different version to the special prosecutor.

If this is true, the wingnuts are going to have to call Father Tim and poor old Bob Novak liars. I have no doubt they will do it if they have to. But this game gets more and more dangerous for them every day.

And the thing about Libby is just delicious. WTF, did Scooter just blurt out Tim Russert’s name without thinking? If he lied about the Monsignor he was making a grave error. There aren’t many media figures in Washington who are viewed with any reverence anymore, but he’s one of them, as sad a comment as that is. It’s a fatal error to get into a he said/she said with a guy like him — if there’s a trial, he’s the guy who will be believed.

Oh what a hissy fit these allegedly slick operators had over this one piece of criticism. Anyone with any sense would have known this was just the beginning, as it was becoming obvious that there were no WMD to be found. If they’d have kept their poweder dry for a few days they probably could have come up with a better explanation, but they lost their heads, just like always do under pressure. There really could not have been a worse crew in charge after 9/11. This little episode, in microcosm, is why we are in Iraq today, throwing billions of dollars down the tube, losing our credibility by the boatload and seeing thousands of people die for with no end in sight. No grace under pressure.

Needless to say, this could also be bullshit. William Safire once famously claimed Hillary Clinton was going to be indicted. Rove (or a person who “has been briefed on the matter”) already revealed that he learned Plame’s name from Novak and then said “Oh I heard that too” or “Oh, you’ve heard about that?” depending on who’s telling the story. We’ve all been under the impression that Novak agreed that Rove confirmed the story, but maybe he didn’t. Or maybe there is some convoluted way in which his behavior can be explained as both learning about it and confirming it at the same time. There’s obviously more to this story than we know — perhaps Fitzgerald is putting together a bigger case than just perjury. Or maybe, as I said, this is bullshit.

But this is getting fun.

Update: According to the NY Times, friends of Rove and Libby are trying to make the case that the two were not trying to out Plame or discredit Wilson — they were working together on Tenent’s statement with Stephen Hadley. It’s hard for me to see how this helps them — it suggest coordination if not conspiracy.

There is one interesting little tid-bit, however: they say Ari testified that he never say the memo on AF One. We’ve certainly heard otherwise, so Ari may be in a little bit of a pickle too.

All this leaking is looking more and more like internecine fighting among the “subjects.” This could get ugly.

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Scandal As Metaphor

In an entertaining piece comparing the sad small scale corruption of Duke Cunningham to the titanic all encompassing corruption of Tom DeLay, Noam Scheiber brings up something I think is important:

But it’s worth pointing out that, if DeLay loses his job, it won’t be because of the machine he has built. It will be thanks to a handful of smaller offenses, such as allowing a lobbyist to pay for his overseas travel–offenses more in line with … Duke Cunningham’s.

How to explain these little perversities? The answer has to do with the press. Most news organizations are profoundly uncomfortable making subjective judgments, however obvious. Instead, the preoccupation is with small, easily provable allegations. When it comes to political discourse, as my colleague Jonathan Chait has pointed out, the result is that politicians get nailed for tiny embellishments but get away with statements that are technically true but spectacularly dishonest, such as George W. Bush’s claims about the size of his 2001 tax cut. Likewise with corruption, where the press practices a kind of literalism that dwells on what is officially illegal or improper (like an affair with an intern) while ignoring behavior that is technically OK but ethically obscene.

I think all of that is true, but it’s also because scandals that expose human frailty are easier to understand. A fall from grace is the original story, isn’t it?
And they are often emblematic of a bigger narrative that is instinctively understood but more complicated in detail than people need to know.

Just as a third rate burglary was a perfect window into an abusive and paranoid Nixon administration, Rovegate is a perfect illustration of the intimidation and arrogance that characterizes Bush. The Lewinsky matter could be said to show the indiscipline that characterized Bill Clinton; Iran-Contra the disconnectedness of an aging, disengaged president.

I’m not saying all those things are the only lessons to be taken from these scandals; far from it. But they engaged the public and the press because they spoke to bigger issues by using people’s highly developed instinctive understanding of human character. I don’t necessarily think it has to be this way, but it usually is. People seem to need to see and feel the human dimension in order to understand the big picture.

Rovegate is quite interesting in this way, not because it centers around the president but because it centers around the one person who most personifies the modern conservative movement’s strategy. And he is the one person who is feared and respected for his effectiveness by people on both sides — almost to the point of being gifted with magical abilities to tell the future and shape events.

He serves a purpose for both sides in this way, explaining for Democrats their sense of impotence and justifying for Republicans their excesses. None of this is really their doing, you see, and there is nothing they can do to change it; it the product of a brilliant political alchemist who is beyond the scope of normal human behavior or understanding. Fear him or follow him but do not question him.

So, Rove being exposed in a petty, unnecessary act of revenge and overreach, pathetically reaching for Clintonian legalisms and falling back on infantile excuses is a bit of a jolt. Whether by hubris or error, Rove’s naked vulnerability is a very useful parable with which to explode the myth of Republican omniscience and explain something that is vastly complex and difficult for average people, much less the compromised kewl kidz, to get their arms around.

Bush’s Brain is not omnipotent. The administration that sold itself on simple homespun values and manly virtues has been caught in an act of waspish backstabbing to cover its dishonesty. The war was based on lies and now we are losing it. How could this masterful white house screw this up so badly? These questions can now be asked outside the context of the simple narrative that’s been constructed about Bush’s honor and Rove’s supernatural talents. The scandal opens it up. What has, up to now, been hailed by both sides and in the press as unassailable political mastery is exposed as gross arrogance combined with gross incompetence. That’s the story: Mayberry Machiavellis.

Regardless of whether Karl escapes the noose, which he may very well do, Roveism — defined as politics of the supernatural — is dead. Cutthroat Republican tactics will be alive and well as they always has been. Roveism was actually never anything more than that.

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Feeling Safer

So they’ve released a few more prisoners from Guantanamo because they “no longer represent a threat to the United States.” I’m glad to hear that being as they must have been terrorists and all. Otherwise they wouldn’t have been in there in the first place, right?

So, how do we know they are “no longer a threat?” Did they promise never to be terrorists again, cross their hearts and hope to die? Did they swear on the Koran and the Bible and the TV Guide that they will be good-for-goodness-sake?

Gosh I sure hope they did because otherwise I might be tempted to think that they weren’t terrorists at all — which would mean we are holding innocent people down there for long periods of time without due process.

Surely, we wouldn’t do any such thing, now would we?