In October 2003, I wrote a piece entitled "I Am No Novak" in which I noted that there was one White House staffer, a fellow who was not known to the public, whom the Plame leak special prosecutor ought to interview. This person was then working on the National Security Council staff on nonproliferation matters. What made him special was that prior to that assignment, he had worked with Valerie Wilson at the CIA. I wrote:

This NSC staffer might--I emphasize, might--play a role in the Wilson leak scandal. I know of no reason to suspect he or she is one of the leakers. (A recent Newsweek story referred to this NSCer, but it did not name the staffer.) But perhaps this individual--whom I was told is a CIA officer assigned to the NSC--mentioned Valerie Wilson's CIA connection to one or more White House colleagues during the period in which Joseph Wilson was causing the White House discomfort....Consequently, investigators probing the Wilson leak ought to ask this NSC officer--if they have not already done so--whether he or she talked about Valerie Wilson with anyone in the White House? If the Justice Department investigators can figure out how individuals in the White House came to know about Wilson's wife (if they did), then the gumshoes might be able to find a trail leading to the leakers.

I tried reaching this individual and could not get past the NSC receptionist, who referred me to NSC press spokesman Sean McCormack. He returned my call once, missed me, and then did not return subsequent calls.

I did not name the individual because I did not want to engage in Rove-like conduct. (Hence, the headline of my article.) But now it can be told: the name of this NSC staffer is David Shedd. And he no longer is undercover. Larry Johnson, former CIA analyst and current Valerie Wilson champion, shared with me today an interesting fact. On June 23, 2005, Facts on File World News Digest published a short item that disclosed Shedd's CIA affiliation. It reads:

[John] Negroponte May 18 was sworn in as national intelligence director, a post created by a 2004 law restructuring the U.S. intelligence community. Also sworn in was Negroponte's deputy, former National Security Agency Director Lieutenant General Michael Hayden Jr.

Negroponte May 6 had made appointments to four senior positions within his office. They were CIA veteran and National Security Council staff member David Shedd, named Negroponte's associate director and chief of staff.

So with Shedd outed, inquiring minds can ask, when the Joseph Wilson story broke, did Shedd tell anyone on the White House staff about Valerie Wilson and what did he say? Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has been trying to find out how the leakers knew of Valerie Wilson's post at the CIA. Karl Rove's defense seems to be that he heard about Joseph Wilson's wife (and her CIA connection) from reporters. But there was a classified State Department memo that mentioned Valerie Wilson's CIA position, and this document was aboard Air Force One shortly before the leak. (The memo cited her as Valerie Wilson, not Valerie Plame, the name that appeared in Bob Novak's July 14, 2003 column.) But might Shedd have been the source? Did he tell the people he worked with at the NSC--Condoleezza Rice (national security adviser then) or Stephen Hadley (deputy national security adviser at the time and now the national security adviser)--about Valerie Wilson's CIA connection?

I realize I'm just speculating. But this is a critical matter, in part because Fitzgerald may need to show that the leaker(s)--including Rove--realized Valerie Wilson was undercover at the CIA. If Shedd, who apparently was undercover there, told anyone, "hey, I worked with Joseph Wilson's wife at the CIA," would that be an indication that Valerie Wilson also was undercover at the CIA? You be the judge.

What makes the Shedd connection intriguing is the use of Valerie Wilson's maiden name in the Novak column that triggered this scandal. Novak hasn't said how he came to refer to Joseph Wilson's wife as Valerie Plame when at the time she was mostly known as Valerie Wilson. He has hinted--though not said definitively--that he looked her up in a who's who entry for Wilson that listed her by her maiden name. But Larry Johnson points out that people who had worked with Valerie Wilson for years at the CIA--like Shedd--knew her as Valerie Plame. (She had only been married to Wilson for a few years.) Did Shedd, then, put Plame into play--wittingly or not? Given Fitzgerald's doggedness, he has probably pursued Shedd. Perhaps reporters should as well.
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Novak Goes Wild. The big question regarding Novak has been, what did he tell special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald. He obviously cooperated with Fitzgerald. Otherwise, he'd face the same predicament encountered by Matt Cooper and Judith Miller. But the other obvious question has been, whatever Novak told Fitzgerald, does Fitzgerald believe him? As the leak investigation has intensified, one can imagine that Novak--who has essentially refused to discuss the case (except for a recent self-serving column that did not address the two questions noted above)--feels the heat. And today Novak acted like a fellow under pressure--when he stormed off the set of CNN before the anchor could ask him any questions about the Plame/CIA case. If you missed it, click here.
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"War On Terror" Re-declared. I am so glad when George W. Bush doesn't disappoint.

Last week, when I was guest hosting Linda Chavez's daily radio show in Washington, DC, the producer booked me a guest to discuss the arrests of several bombing suspects in London: Harvey Kushner, terrorism expert. I wasn't too familiar with him. But a Googgle search revealed that he is a rightwinger who believes that liberals (not al Qaeda) are ruining the fight against Islamic extremists. But we did agree on one thing: the recent news that the Bush had jettisoned the phrase "war on terror" was a good thing (though neither one of us much fancied the supposed substitution: the "global struggle against violent extremism"). For both Kushner and I, the "war on terror" is a meaningless term, for it does not identify the enemy. It calls for countering a methodology (terror) not a particular set of folks (say, Islamic extremists). As David Frum, a former Bush speechwriter, has observed, Bush declaring the post 9/11 effort a "war on terror" was akin to FDR, after Pearl Harbor, calling for a "war on sneak-attackism." It's a comic-book phrase that lumps all "terror" together. (Is America waging a war on the terrorism used by Sikh separatists?) But it sure sounds grand and noble. But it's rather misleading.

So there I was with Kushner complimenting the Bush administration for finally doing something right--even a small thing--at least rhetorically. We were premature. As the New York Times reported--after Larry Johnson first blogged about this--Bush has decided to stick with the "war on terror" bumpersticker. In a way, I'm delighted. Now I don't have to credit him for anything.
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Note to Readers. I'm still on the road. Forgive the intermittent blogging. Pick up the slack yourself in the comments section.

Posted by David Corn at August 4, 2005 10:10 PM