You know we're in trouble when The New York Times takes a conservative columnist who has outed a CIA officer at his word. On Monday, Bob Novak published a column in which he once again claimed that the CIA did little to convince him that blowing the cover of Valerie Wilson (a.k.a. Valerie Plame) would cause any trouble. On Tuesday, the Times echoed Novak's account and reported:

Any request that [Novak] withhold Ms. Wilson's name from his column of July 14, 2003, would have been "meaningless" once he had been told she was married to Mr. Wilson, Mr. Novak wrote on Monday, because she was openly listed in the directory. But Mr. Novak also wrote that he would never have used Ms. Wilson's name had anyone from the C.I.A. told him that doing so would endanger her or anyone else.

Do the editors at the Times not read The Washington Post? Last week, the Post reported that former CIA spokesman Bill Harlow had said that he had conveyed to Novak that disclosing Valerie Wilson's position at the CIA could cause harm. The Post noted:

Harlow, the former CIA spokesman, said in an interview yesterday that he testified last year before a grand jury about conversations he had with Novak at least three days before the column was published. He said he warned Novak, in the strongest terms he was permitted to use without revealing classified information, that Wilson's wife had not authorized the mission and that if he did write about it, her name should not be revealed.

Harlow said that after Novak's call, he checked Plame's status and confirmed that she was an undercover operative. He said he called Novak back to repeat that the story Novak had related to him was wrong and that Plame's name should not be used. But he did not tell Novak directly that she was undercover because that was classified.

Harlow's says he twice warned Novak. Novak says the CIA did not protest sufficiently. Who knows who's right. But the Times should have noted the contradiction between Novak's account and Harlow's--even if that would mean crediting the Post.
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If the CIA says a secret is a secret, isn't it a secret?. Secrecy News newsletter--a wonderful publication put out by Steven Aftergood--obtained a copy of the Pentagon's latest policy paper on the unauthorized disclosure of classified information. It has the expected boilerplate:

It is DoD policy that known or suspected instances of unauthorized public disclosure of classified information shall be reported promptly and investigated to decide the nature and circumstances of the disclosure, the extent of damage to national security, and the corrective and disciplinary action to be taken.

But attached to the paper was the "DOJ Media Leak Questionnaire"--the form that the Pentagon must fill out if a leak occurs and the DoD wants the Justice Department to investigate. The CIA had to fill out such a report when it asked the Justice Department to investigate the Plame/CIA leak. The form has eleven questions. Most are mundane, such as the first question: "What is the date and identity of the article containing classified information?" But the second question asks, "What specific statements in the article are classified and was the information properly classified?" Thus, it is clear that if the CIA requested that the Justice Department investigate the Plame leak that appeared in Novak's column because the information given to Novak--by Karl Rove and one yet-to-be-named senior Bush administration official--was classified.

Some Rove-backers have claimed that this leak was no big deal and really didn't blow any meaningful secret. I've previously refuted that canard and noted that Valerie Wilson's employment status at the CIA was indeed classified information. If anyone needs more evidence for the case that Rove handed classified information to a reporter--when he disclosed (or confirmed) that Valerie Wilson worked at the CIA -- here it is.

The questionnaire asks other questions:

* Did the information come from a specific document, and if so, what is the origin of the document and the name of the individual responsible for the security of the classified data discussed?

* What is the extent of official circulation of the information?

* Has the information been the subject of prior official release?

* Was prior clearance for publication or release of the information sought from proper authorities?

* Has the material, parts thereof or enough background data, been published officially or in the press to make an educated speculation on the matter possible?

* Will the information be made available for use in a prosecution, and if so, what is the name of the person competent to testify on its classification?

* Has declassification been considered or decided on before publishing the data?

The last question on the form is a key one:

* What effect the disclosure of the classified data might have on the national defense?

I'd like to see the answer to that question on the form the CIA sent to Justice regarding the CIA/Plame leak. The CIA would have looked damn silly if it had replied, "None."
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Waiting for Phase II. I've also repeatedly written that the Democrats--especially those on the Senate intelligence committee--have generally not played hardball when it comes to the nonexistent WMDs, the Bush administration's abuse and misrepresentation of the lousy prewar intelligence, and the Plame/CIA leak. So I was pleased to see today that Senator Diane Feinstein, a Democrat from California, wrote a letter to Senator Pat Roberts, the Republican chairman of the intelligence committee, and asked him--essentially--where the hell is the Phase II report he promised. You might recall that before the election Roberts said (to me and other reporters) that the second part of his committee's inquiry into the WMD intelligence failure--in which committee investigators would examine the Bush administration's use (or misuse) of the prewar intelligence--would be completed and made public after the election. And in March--that is, after Roberts had conveniently kicked this inconvenient can down the road--Roberts said he was no longer much interested in this part of the investigation. Months later, his committee has yet to complete and release the Phase II report. Democrats have groused about this intermittently but have failed to turn it into a media-worthy cat-fight.

Enter DiFi. In her letter to Roberts, she took Roberts to task for the delay and, moreover, added other items to the list of what the intelligence committee--on which she sits--should be investigating. She wrote,

I am increasingly dismayed by the delay in completing the Committee's "Phase II" investigation into intelligence prior to the Iraq War. As you know, the Committee voted unanimously on February 12, 2004 to investigate five questions on pre-war intelligence, including use of intelligence by policymakers. Nearly eighteen months later, much work remains before these questions will be satisfactorily answered.

It is important that the Committee complete its study of these questions, both to fulfill our oversight responsibilities and because there is no other body capable of doing this work. The Committee's report assessing the intelligence on Iraq's WMD capabilities was of outstanding quality and demonstrated both our ability to inform the American public and uncover needs for intelligence reform. I urge you to take whatever steps are needed to complete the Phase II investigation and produce a report as comprehensive and thoughtful as the first phase of the Committee's investigation. I stand ready to participate in this investigation in any way possible.

DiFi ain't no firebrand. If she can throw a stinkbomb, other Democrats can, too. And they should.
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Note to Readers: I'm going to be traveling for some well-deserved R&R. Blogging may suffer. So please keep the conversation going in the comments section. In other words, talk--and argue--among yourselves.