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September 30, 2006

Hubris (and Woodward) on Cheney's Desperate WMD Search

It was the middle of the night in Baghdad. There was a pounding on the door. David Kay got out of bed, A staff officer of the Iraq Survey Group was at the door. He had an important message for the man who had been sent to Iraq to find Saddam's weapons of mass destruction: the vice president's office had called....

As the pre-publication PR blitz for Bob Woodward's new book, State of Denial rolls on, the news accounts of the book's disclosures have referred to an episode in the summer of 2003 when Dick Cheney's aides urged Kay to check out a particular place where Saddam Hussein might have hid WMDs. As The New York Times noted on Friday:

Vice President Cheney is described as a man so determined to find proof that his claim about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq was accurate that, in the summer of 2003, his aides were calling the chief weapons inspector, David Kay, with specific satellite coordinates as the sites of possible caches. None resulted in any finds.

I happen to know something about this because a book published weeks ago--HUBRIS: THE INSIDE STORY OF SPIN, SCANDAL, AND THE SELLING OF THE IRAQ WAR, written by Michael Isikoff and me--disclosed this same story. The lines at the start of this item come from the opening page of its sixteenth chapter. Here's the rest of the tale:

Kay looked at the message. Cheney's office had a burning question for him: Had he seen a particular signals intercept? It was a highly sensitive communications intercept that had captured a snippet of conversation between two unidentified people. Cheney's aides were reading raw transcripts straight from the National Security Agency. And a Cheney staffer who had gotten hold of this piece of unanalyzed intelligence thought that it contained a reference to a WMD storage site in Iraq, even though the captured exchange didn't specifically mention weapons. What made the intercept most promising was that it had come with geographic coordinates for one of the unidentified persons. Here was a road map--finally--to Saddam's WMDs. Kay ordered his analysts to review the coordinates and went back to bed.

The next morning, his analysts checked the coordinates and discovered they referred to a site in the Bekka Valley in Lebanon--not anywhere in Iraq. This was no lead. It was nothing. But as Kay was overseeing the search for weapons in the summer months of 2003, the vice president's office urgently wanted him to come up with evidence that Saddam had maintained arsenals of weapons of mass destruction--so much so that, just as Cheney and Libby had done before the war, the vice president's aides were rummaging through top secret, unprocessed intelligence in the hope of discovering what everyone else in the U.S. government had missed. "They were reaching down and reading raw intelligence and putting their own meaning on it," said a CIA official familiar with the incident.

Hubris recounts other examples of the Bush team's desperate attempt to find evidence in post-invasion Iraq to justify the war. In one episode, Cheney's aides believed that a spy satellite had captured an image of a WMD hiding place. They sent the shot to Kay. But Cheney's office wasn't close. The satellite imagery showed a watering hole for cows. The incident's details are rather amusing.

I have yet to obtain a copy of State of Denial. But the news is that Woodward has taken a much more critical approach toward the commander in chief than he did in his two previous Bush-at-war books. (And see page 207 of Hubris for what Woodward said about WMDs in Iraq during the final run-up to the invasion.) Better late than never? You decide. I urge people to read State of Denial--after reading Hubris, of course.

Posted by David Corn at 05:36 PM

The Hackers Lose; HUBRIS on Charlie Rose; and a Woodward Tease

The hackers have failed. A few days ago one or more miscreant tried to shut down this site by bombarding it with hundreds of thousands of comments (which caused us to suspend down the comments section). But the site survived the attack, and traffic has exploded, due to links to the waterboarding photos below. Dozens of sites linked to the images, and close to 100,000 people have come to this site to see what waterboarding actually looks like. That's rather gratifying.

Here's another Internet spot you might want to visit. Michael Isikoff and I were on The Charlie Rose Show last night discussing our new book, HUBRIS: THE INSIDE STORY OF SPIN, SCANDAL, AND THE SELLING OF THE IRAQ WAR. You can watch it here. We appear in the second segment of the show.

Another programming note: later today I expect to post an item about a revelation in Bob Woodward's new book. . Check back soon.

Posted by David Corn at 11:10 AM

September 29, 2006

Respect and Reality

I see the Republicans of the United States Senate (and a few Democratic senators) weren't moved by the photos below to reconsider voting for legislation that would permit the United States to use evidence obtained by waterboarding in military tribunals for suspected terrorists. The bill they passed last night also grants the president tremendous authority in defining a suspect as an unlawful enemy combatant and then allows him to detain that person for, well, forever. Even if that person is an American citizen. The Washington Post summed up this historic turn for the worse with an accurate but ho-hum headline on the front-page aout the approved legislation: "Many Traditional U.S. RIghts Absent." So much for tradition.

I'm in Princeton today for a small gabfest of foreign policy thinkers to discuss whether liberals and progresives can join together beneath the banner of "progressive realism"--a foreign policy notion that falls between harsh realism (think Kissinger) and messianic neoconservatism (think Iraq). It's practical internationalism--without unnecessary invasions.As Robert Wright, an organizer of this get-together, wrote in The New York Times in July,

Is progressive realism salable? The administration's post-9/11 message may be more viscerally appealing: Rid the world of evil, and do so with bravado and intimidating strength. But his approach has gotten some negative feedback from the real world, and there is a growing desire for America to regain the respect President Bush has squandered. Maybe Americans are ready to meet reality on its own terms.

I don't know about that. But certainly congressional Republicans are still not feeling the desire to regain respect. That's one reality to contend with.

Posted by David Corn at 11:38 AM

September 28, 2006

This Is What Waterboarding Looks Like

As Congress has debated legislation that would set up military tribunals and govern the questioning of suspected terrorists (whom the Bush administration would like to be able to detain indefinitely), at issue has been what interrogation techniques can be employed and whether information obtained during torture can be used against those deemed unlawful enemy combatants. One interrogation practice central to this debate is waterboarding. It's usually described in the media in a matter-of-fact manner. The Washington Post simply referred to waterboarding a few days ago as an interrogation measure that "simulates drowning." But what does waterboarding look like?

Below are photographs taken by Jonah Blank last month at Tuol Sleng Prison in Phnom Penh, Cambodia. The prison is now a museum that documents Khymer Rouge atrocities. Blank, an anthropologist and former Senior Editor of US News & World Report, is author of the books Arrow of the Blue-Skinned God and Mullahs on the Mainframe. He is a professorial lecturer at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and has taught at Harvard and Georgetown. He currently is a foreign policy adviser to the Democratic staff in the Senate, but the views expressed here are his own observations.

His photos show one of the actual waterboards used by the Khymer Rouge. Here's the first:

Here's another view:

How were they used? Here's a painting by a former prisoner that shows the waterboard in action:

In an email to me, Blank explained the significance of the photos. He wrote:

The crux of the issue before Congress can be boiled down to a simple question: Is waterboarding torture? Anybody who considers this practice to be "torture lite" or merely a "tough technique" might want to take a trip to Phnom Penh. The Khymer Rouge were adept at torture, and there was nothing "lite" about their methods. Incidentally, the waterboard in these photo wasn't merely one among many torture devices highlighted at the prison museum. It was one of only two devices singled out for highlighting (the other was another form of water-torture--a tank that could be filled with water or other liquids; I have photos of that too.) There was an outdoor device as well, one the Khymer Rouge didn't have to construct: chin-up bars. (The prison where the museum is located had been a school before the Khymer Rouge took over). These bars were used for "stress positions"-- another practice employed under current US guidelines. At the Khymer Rouge prison, there is a tank of water next to the bars. It was used to revive prisoners for more torture when they passed out after being placed in stress positions.

The similarity between practices used by the Khymer Rouge and those currently being debated by Congress isn't a coincidence. As has been amply documented ("The New Yorker" had an excellent piece, and there have been others), many of the "enhanced techniques" came to the CIA and military interrogators via the SERE [Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape] schools, where US military personnel are trained to resist torture if they are captured by the enemy. The specific types of abuse they're taught to withstand are those that were used by our Cold War adversaries. Why is this relevant to the current debate? Because the torture techniques of North Korea, North Vietnam, the Soviet Union and its proxies--the states where US military personnel might have faced torture--were NOT designed to elicit truthful information. These techniques were designed to elicit CONFESSIONS. That's what the Khymer Rouge et al were after with their waterboarding, not truthful information.

Bottom line: Not only do waterboarding and the other types of torture currently being debated put us in company with the most vile regimes of the past half-century; they're also designed specifically to generate a (usually false) confession, not to obtain genuinely actionable intel. This isn't a matter of sacrificing moral values to keep us safe; it's sacrificing moral values for no purpose whatsoever.

These photos are important because most of us have never seen an actual, real-life waterboard. The press typically describes it in the most anodyne ways: a device meant to "simulate drowning" or to "make the prisoner believe he might drown." But the Khymer Rouge were no jokesters, and they didn't tailor their abuse to the dictates of the Geneva Convention. They-- like so many brutal regimes--made waterboarding one of their primary tools for a simple reason: it is one of the most viciously effective forms of torture ever devised.

The legislation backed by Bush and congressional Republicans would explicitly permit the use of evidence obtained through waterboarding and other forms of torture. Khalid Sheikh Muhammad and other top al Qaeda leaders have reportedly been subjected to this technique. They would certainly note--or try to note--that at any trial. But with this legislation, the White House is seeking to declare the use of waterboarding (at least in the past) as a legitimate practice of the US government.

The House of Representatives voted for Bush's bill on Thursday, 253 to 168 (with 34 Democrats siding with the president and only seven Republicans breaking with their party's leader). The Senate is expected to vote on the bill today. Its members should consider Blank's photos and arguments before they, too, go off the deep end.

******

To comment on this item--or read comments about this item--click on the time stamp at the end of the posting...Scratch that. I'm told that someone is actively trying to shut down this site by bombarding it with comments. "I think this is not coincidental with the release of your book," my web wizard says. Nearly 300,000 came in last night from the perp--in a massive attempt to crash the site. Consequently, comments are off, and we're figuring out what to do next.

Posted by David Corn at 02:09 PM

September 27, 2006

In a Country Far, Far Away....

Here's my latest "Loyal Opposition" column from TomPaine.com. Don't forget to check out that site regularly....

The GOP's Distance Strategy
David Corn
September 27, 2006
www.tompaine.com

Distance. That's the goal--what Karl Rove wishes for when it comes to the American public and the war in Iraq. Clearly, the White House's electoral strategy is to wrap the Iraq debacle in the anti-terrorism banner. The public tends to dislike the war in Iraq but favors the effort to nail al-Qaida and any wannabe allies. So it's a no-brainer for the White House: Do everything possible to confuse the two. Make apple-and-orange juice and sell it to the voters. That task became harder when The New York Times revealed the existence of the National Intelligence Estimate that concludes the Iraq war has fueled the spread of global jihadism. This is not the sort of merging White House aides had in mind, but they are not deterred.

The White House stratagem to meld Iraq with President George W. Bush’s "global war on terror" can only succeed if there is distance—distance between Americans and the true horror and ugliness of the war in Iraq. Though newspapers do cover the daily tragedies of Iraq, these stories often get lost in the media wash. When Bush delivered a series of speeches trumpeting his anti-terrorism efforts recently, he knocked news of Iraq's murderous chaos out of the leading papers. And when such news does appear, it is frequently not page-one stuff. Carnage in Iraq--that's dog-bites-man material. Another car-bomb in Iraq. Another shoot-out between Sunnis and Shiites. Another dozen headless bodies dumped in the street. It's easy to turn the page. Cable news shows devote more time to reality show twist-and-turns than to the hell of Iraq.

This ongoing horror is merely one channel among hundreds carried by the national media machine. Even recently, Bush diminished the bloody strife. Last week, CNN's Wolf Blitzer asked the president about the recent setbacks and violence in Iraq, and the president said, "I like to tell people when the final history is written on Iraq, it will look like just a comma." Bush was referring to a period when thousands of Iraqi civilians are being brutally murdered as a blip. No, it's a national catastrophe. In pure body count, it's two Hurricane Katrinas a month.

Consider one grisly episode. On Saturday, an explosion killed at least 38 people waiting on line to buy kerosene. The account by Amit Paley and Salih Dehema of The Washington Post noted:

The horrific blast sent women engulfed in flames screaming through the streets. Two preteen girls embraced each other as they burned to death, witnesses said. Later, wailing mourners thronged the scene of the blast, which was strewn with the shoes of victims and a woman's bloodied cloak, and voiced doubt that the reprisal violence would ever end.

"We carry our death certificates with us now, waiting only to fill in the date of death," said Bayan Jasem al-Kaaby, 40, a minibus driver, after he was burned by the explosion that rocked the Shiite Muslim slum of Sadr City.

Two preteen girls burning to death. It's reminiscent of the famous 1972 shot of the naked 9-year-old Vietnamese girl running down a street, fleeing a napalm attack—but worse. Kim Phuc, the girl in the Pulitzer Prize winning photo, survived. But there have been no similar iconic photos--or video footage--of the Iraq war. Why do the horrors of Iraq not sear the nation's consciousness as did the horrors of Vietnam (for many Americans)? Perhaps it's because this is a more cynical age. Perhaps it's because Americans in the post-9/11 period do not want to confront the full costs of the country's national security policies. Perhaps it's because in this new media universe it's so damn easy to surf past such troubles.

The fact that regions of Iraq have turned into a nightmare is no secret. But most Americans do not experience this reality viscerally. Many have no connections to a killed or wounded American soldier. And we can get through the day without ever encountering a graphic reminder of what is transpiring in Iraq. It is a cheap calculation to compare the monthly civilian death toll in Iraq with that of 9/11. But imagine a country collectively witnessing--and grieving over--the murder of 3,000 or so civilians every month? (In per capita terms that would be more than 30,000 killings a month in the United States.) As bad as life was for some Iraqis in the years before the U.S. invasion, the current situation--which was brought on by Bush's war--is a profound tragedy that does not completely register here.

Bush is responsible for setting off the chain of events that has turned Iraq into a land of bedlam and blood. The terrorists and sectarian murderers of Iraq, of course, are guilty for their crimes. But it was the invasion and, most important, the Bush administration's complete and utter botching of the post-invasion challenges that gave the killers the opportunity to serve their bloodlust. Every problem that has arisen in Iraq since the invasion was predicted prior to the war by policy experts at the CIA, the State Department and the Pentagon. Yet none of the warnings were heeded by the White House or the civilian leaders of the Defense Department. Because of their negligence, preteens are burning to death in Baghdad.

This is not a connection that Bush, Rove and the Republicans want voters to make when they enter voting booths in five weeks. And the White House is helped in its electoral strategy by the media's coverage of the violence and murder in Iraq. I am not accusing anyone in the news business of purposefully downplaying the terror in Iraq. But our media culture generally cannot maintain sustained shock and outrage. (The day after the bombing described above, The New York Times placed its account of this event, as did the Post, on the inside of the paper; a story recounting Donald Rumsfeld's squash-playing habits--he sort of cheats--was on the front page.) Much of the public is uneasy about the war and aware of the ongoing deadly chaos in Iraq--and probably conflicted about what to do now. But the full horror is not in our face day to day. You have to look to see it. And who wants to look?

Bush's invasion has unleashed furies neither he nor the Iraqi government can control. Consequently, thousands of civilians are dead. Yet Bush and his party remain in the political hunt; they could well maintain control of the House and Senate. That's only because the death and disorder of Iraq seem so far away.

Posted by David Corn at 11:31 AM

September 26, 2006

Comments and More

Michael Isikoff and I taped a segment today on HUBRIS for the Charlie Rose Show. It should air soon. When I know, you will know....There are still problems with the infrastructure of this site. Comments are working--kind of. To get to the comments, click on the posting time at the end of an item. The web wizards are still working on it.

Posted by David Corn at 11:46 PM

Corn versus Hitchens

I said I would eventually get to Christopher Hitchens and his claims that Iraq had indeed sought uranium in Niger and that the Plame leak was not connected to a White House vendetta against Joe Wilson (and that I had promoted this "delusion.") Today's Slate contains a lengthy response from me that contends that Hitchens' Niger theorizing is contradicted by various facts he conveniently ignores. (These facts are covered at great length in Hubris: the Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War.) The piece also reminds (or, attempts to remind) Hitchens of other facts he never references when he writes about the Plame case: namely, that Karl Rove and Scooter Libby were out to undermine Wilson and in doing so leaked classified information about his wife's CIA employment. If you're interested in the details, you can go to the piece. Here's the finale:

For more than two decades, I have seen Hitchens weave facts and assertions into stylistically brilliant copy as he attempts to intuit great truths. But when he comes to believe that he can outthink the facts, he ends up enwrapped in creative conspiratorial fantasies. This past February, I participated in a radio debate with him on whether the Bush administration had misguided the nation into war. Hitchens largely avoided the question at hand and instead argued the necessity of the invasion. When he did address the issue of the absent WMDs in Iraq, he took a strange turn. "Doesn't anything ever strike you as odd," he said, "about the figure of zero for [WMD] deposits found in Iraq?...Isn't it odd that none after all this? None? Doesn't that suggest a crime scene that has been pretty well dusted in advance, the fingerprints wiped? Well, it does to me." Read that quote carefully. It is revealing. Hitchens was saying that the fact that no weapons had been uncovered in Iraq (after nearly three years of searching) was evidence that there had been weapons. How can one argue with a person of such intellectual prowess that he can turn absence into presence by mere deduction?

On the Niger and Plame matters, his accounts rely on the same conceit: that his deductions, as Byzantine as they might be, trump the known facts. In this manner, Hitchens has become a full-fledged ally of the reality-defying advocates of the Iraq invasion. I sadly count that as another casualty of the war.

Hitchens, of course, replied--mainly be repeating his previous assertions, without addressing the inconvenient facts I presented. As might be expected, he offers a caricature of my original argument, claiming that I adhere to a "simple-minded presumption of Iraqi innocence" on the matter of its alleged pursuit of uranium in Niger. He did not read my response carefully enough. I did not state Iraq was innocent because it claimed to be. I pointed out that the facts--those developed primarily by Charles Duelfer and his Iraq Survey Group (and recently endorsed by the Republican-controlled Senate intelligence committee)--contradict Hitchens' charges. He wisely avoids that reality and instead swings his scythe at a straw man of his own construction.

Hitchens also belittles the work of special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald. But here he again ducks a significant slice of reality, such as Libby's alleged lying to the FBI and the grand jury. Does Hitchens, a crusader for the (that is, his) truth, believe that government officials who lie to federal prosecutors deserve a pass?

As for the missing WMDs, Hitchens writes,

Corn seems to believe that the dictator who not only acquired and concealed them, but who actually used them, must be granted the benefit of the doubt.

Why does such a brilliant man have such a difficult time with a simple concept? I do not grant Saddam any benefit. Nor did Duelfer or David Kay, his predecessor as ISG chief. I merely cite the conclusions of their investigations. If these two men--who both supported the war and believed there were WMDs in Iraq--determined there were no unconventional weapons (or WMD programs) in Iraq after 1991, then Hitchens must bring more to the table than his presumptions. Accepting the findings of Duelfer and Kay (as even George W. Bush reluctantly did; though I'm not sure about Dick Cheney) is not a sign of softness on Saddam. By conflating the two, Hitchens is resorting to disingenuous wordplay. It is a rhetorical tactic he should not have to resort to--unless he is on the ropes.

All in all, Hitchens' reply was in keeping with the columns that prompted my article. He still believes his deduction and analysis can trump the facts. That places him in fine company, for it was just that sort of thinking that landed the United States in the mess in Iraq.

Posted by David Corn at 09:34 AM

September 25, 2006

HUBRIS News

Michael Isikoff and I are taping an interview with Charlie Rose on Tuesday. I'm told it may run on his show Wednesday or Thursday. Also on Tuesday, look for a piece by me in Slate....And comments are still not working on new items. My hot-shot team is on it.

Posted by David Corn at 08:09 PM

Release the NIE

From my "Capital Games" column at www.thenation.com....

Reality intrudes again. President Bush and his allies keep insisting that the invasion of Iraq was essential to winning the fight against anti-American Islamic jihadists. The government's top experts on terrorism and Islamic extremism disagree. As The New York Times reported on Sunday, a National Intelligence Estimate produced earlier this year noted that the Iraq war has fueled Islamic radicalism around the globe and has caused the terrorist threat to grow. In other words, Bush's invasion of Iraq has been counterproductive. Or put this way: the ugly war in Iraq that has claimed the lives of thousands of American troops and tens of thousands of Iraqi civilians has placed the United States more at risk.

Times reporter Mark Mazzetti noted in his front-page article that he had spoken to "more than a dozen" U.S. government officials and outside experts who had either seen the NIE or who had participated in its creation. That's a lot of footwork. But he did not quote from the document itself, except to note that the NIE describes a radical Islamic movement of "self-generating" cells. (An NIE is the intelligence community's most definitive assessment of a major strategic issue and is supposed to represent the consensus view of the government's various intelligence agencies. This particular NIE is the first evaluation of global terrorism since the invasion of Iraq.)

The White House has claimed that the Times's account of the NIE did not represent the complete document. And Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte has declared--in response to the news of this NIE--that the Bush administration has scored significant success against the "global jihadist threat."

Well, is the threat now worse because of Bush's war in Iraq? Does the NIE say the war has made the jihadist threat more dangerous? The White House could resolve this very quickly by declassifying the NIE. If the report contains nuances or success stories not conveyed by the Times report (and those of other newspapers), releasing the report will clear things up.

The report is classified. But an NIE of this sort is probably more of an analytical document than a run-down of secret intelligence. And, certainly, the real secrets in the report--particularly references to sources and methods--can be redacted.

There is precedent for a partial release of an NIE. Months into the war in Iraq, when no WMDs had been found and the Bush administration was being accused of having misrepresented the prewar intelligence to hype the Iraq threat, the White House did declassify portions of the NIE on Iraq's WMDs. The point was to show that the intelligence community had informed the White House that Saddam Hussein was sitting on stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons. But that flawed NIE also contained dissents and conflicting information indicating there were serious questions about the WMD case. And before the White House released these slices of the NIE, Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney authorized Scooter Libby to disclose potions of the NIE to friendly reporters--most notably, Judith Miller of The New York Times. Libby, though, made sure not to share the dissents and contradicting material. Libby's highly selective leak to Miller did not end up helping the White House, and Bush's press operation subsequently made public whole chunks of the NIE. That, too, didn't get Bush out of the where-are-the-WMDs jam, for these excerpts showed there had been questions about key parts of the WMD case. (For more on all this, see the book I co-wrote with Michael Isikoff: Hubris: the Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War.)

If the White House was able to release parts of that NIE on WMDs, it can do the same with the NIE on Iraq and terrorism. It may, though, not be motivated to do so.

Posted by David Corn at 12:27 PM

September 23, 2006

No Comments, No Cry

Sorry, not only did the server blow in Virginia on Friday; there was another problem with the site. My web wizards tell me it had something to do with an ad template gone ad. I don't quite know what that means. But once again, commerce sabotages substance. In any event, the site is partially working now. I can post entries, but the comment section is kaput for the moment. I'm told that come Monday all should be well. Save all you pearls and gems until then.

Posted by David Corn at 02:02 PM

September 22, 2006

HUBRIS Meets Bloggingheads....And Why This Site Went Dark

As goes Virginia, so goes this website. I'm not talking about the Virginia Senate race between George Allen, who recently discovered his mom was Jewish, and Jim Webb, the one-time Reaganite-and-novelist-turned Democrat. (By the way, did you know that "macaca" is a Yiddish word for someone who doesn't know where he or she come from?) No, I'm talking about the server for this website. It's based, as I learned today, in Virginia. Thus, a power blackout in that state took this site down for several hours earlier today. Apologies for any inconveniences. For me, it was a good excuse to ignore the blog for a while, do some reporting and catch up on several days of newspapers that had piled up.

But let me point you to the latest installment of Bloggingheads.tv--probably the most eagerly anticipated edition of that pundit-versus-pundit reality show. Byron York of the National Review and I go at it over Hubris and the CIA leak case. It was a rather testy exchange. So if you don't have a taste for testiness, don't click here. Though the hour-long exchange is now all a blur to me--and I don't want to live through it again--I do recall that York did his best to diminish the anti-Wilson actions (including the leaking of classified information) by Karl Rove and Scooter Libby. He dutifully brought up the Rovians various lines: the leak was no big deal; Rove didn't say all that much to Matt Cooper of Time; it was really me who revealed that Valerie Wilson was a clandestine CIA officer; the White House was justified in its efforts to discredit Joe Wilson, and so on. See for yourself whether he was convincing.

Meanwhile, the Hubris express rolls on. Look for Michael Isikoff and me on the Charlie Rose Show on Tuesday.

Posted by David Corn at 08:54 PM

September 21, 2006

New Thread

Working on a story, peddling the book, attended a Senate hearing today on Afghanistan. The US commander there was scheduled to testify but pulled out at the last minute. I'm sure he had a good reason not to face questions about what's going on (or not) in Afghanistan. Be back soon.

Posted by David Corn at 09:06 PM

September 20, 2006

A Question for Wolf (for Bush); An American Name

Wolf Blitzer of CNN interviewed George W. Bush today. And yesterday CNN was soliciting its viewers for questions for the president. It reminded me of the old Saturday Night Live skit during which President Jimmy Carter (played by Dan Aykroyd) was appearing on a live radio show and taking questions from citizens. A fellow on a bad acid trip called in, and Carter, who was able to suss out exactly what sort of acid the guy had taken, talked him down. I doubt anything that amusing transpired when Blitzer put audience questions to Bush. But I'd like to propose a very simple and obvious query that did not get asked at last week's White House press conference:

Mr. President, during your speech commemorating the fifth anniversary of 9/11, you defended the war in Iraq by saying that Saddam Hussein had been a "clear threat." We now know--thanks to the final report of the Iraq Survey Group, led by Charles Duelfer--that Iraq had no WMDs and its WMD capacity was "essentially destroyed" after 1991. We also know--thanks to the recent report of the Republican-controlled Senate intelligence committee--that there was no significant connection between Saddam's brutal regime and al Qaeda. So no WMDs, no relationship with al Qaeda. So then what made Saddam Hussein, as brutal as he was, a "clear threat" to the United States? Can you please cite specific facts to support that assertion?

How might Bush respond to a question like that? Feel free to answer that in the comments section below.

******
AN AMERICAN NAME: My new assistant, Juhi Sonrexa, shared this amusing tale with me:

About six months ago, my Dell Inspiron 600m (not a plug, but rather a warning to never buy this model, or for that matter, anything made by Dell) hard drive crashed. I panicked at the thought of losing 20 GB of music (oh, and that 11-page midterm paper) and immediately called support. Not surprisingly, I was connected to an Indian--"Tom"--although his accent was well on its way to being "neutralized," which is what I hear they are calling the Americanization process in the training sessions for call-center employees in India. He recognized my name as Indian, and we got into a brief conversation about where I was from, where he was from, how hot it was over there, etc....

We lost connection somewhere along the way, and I called support again. A fluke reunited "Tom" and me, as I recognized his voice. But now he answered the phone, "My name is David, how may I help you?" I said, "Tom, it's Juhi. We just got disconnected." He laughed timidly and said, "Oh, right, right. I just forget which American name I am using sometimes, sorry about that." Why do his employers insist that he switches his "American name"? "Tom" (or is it "David"?) did not explain. But he did say he prefers "Roger" above all, though. It's the closest to his actual name: Raj.

I think I should probably change my name as well. If I get mistaken for Hispanic one more time and called "Hooey," I might have a public fit.

Posted by David Corn at 05:03 PM

September 19, 2006

My New Ally: Jon Stewart

In my tussle with Robert Novak (see below), I have a new ally: Jon Stewart. Last night he ripped into the crusty conservative columnist, who had derided Stewart on the same C-SPAN show during which he also assailed me. (See it here.) It's comforting to be in such good company. Now if Stewart would only put me on his show....

Posted by David Corn at 10:14 PM

Bush at the UN

I posted this in my "Capital Games" column at www.thenation.com....

When George W. Bush addressed the United Nations General Assembly on Tuesday, he glowingly referred to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which was adopted by the UN in 1948. He said:

This morning, I want to speak about the more hopeful world that is within our reach, a world beyond terror, where ordinary men and women are free to determine their own destiny, where the voices of moderation are empowered, and where the extremists are marginalized by the peaceful majority. This world can be ours if we seek it and if we work together.

The principles of this world beyond terror can be found in the very first sentence of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. This document declares that "the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom and justice and peace in the world."

One of the authors of this document was a Lebanese diplomat named Charles Malik, who would go on to become president of this assembly. Mr. Malik insisted that these principles applied equally to all people, of all regions, of all religions, including the men and women of the Arab world that was his home.

In the nearly six decades since that document was approved, we have seen the forces of freedom and moderation transform entire continents....The words of the Universal Declaration are as true today as they were when they were written.

That is some endorsement. But how familiar is Bush with the entire document? Let's start with Article 5:

No one shall be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment.

Bush claims that his adminsitration has not tortured any terrorist suspect. But that claim has been challenged. (In the book I co-wrote with Michael Isikoff, Hubris, we recount the tale of a captured al Qaeda commander handed over by the CIA to Egyptian authorities, who was aggressively questioned--perhaps tortured--and provided false information linking Saddam Hussein to al Qaeda. This information was then used by Colin Powell during his now infamous UN speech before the invasion of Iraq.)

Article 7:

All are equal before the law and are entitled without any discrimination to equal protection of the law.

Terrorist suspects detained as enemy combatants by the United States were not afforded equal protection of the law.

Article 9:

No one shall be subjected to arbitrary arrest, detention or exile.

The Bush White House has argued that the president has the power to arrest and detain anyone suspected of being an enemy combatant and that a detainee can be held as long as the president deems fit, without any due process. The Supreme Court, though, has not gone along with that view.

Article 10:

Everyone is entitled in full equality to a fair and public hearing by an independent and impartial tribunal, in the determination of his rights and obligations and of any criminal charge against him

Did Bush's original idea of using a military tribunal to try suspected terrorists jibe with this provision? Is his current proposal to try detainees with secret evidence in sync with this article?

Article 12:

No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

Bush keeps insisting on the right to wiretap people--including American citizens (under certain circumstances)--without a warrant, not even a secret warrant. As for the right not to have one's honor and reputation assailed, the drafters of this declaration must have forgotten to put in a clause exempting the targets of political campaigns.

Article 30:

Noting in this Declaration may be interpreted as implying for any State, group or person any right to engage in any activity or to perform any act aimed at the destruction of any of the rights and freedoms set forth herein

In other words, not even a wartime president gets a pass. So did Bush read this document before he praised it? Or was he just reading a speech?

Posted by David Corn at 04:24 PM

Washingtonian to the Rescue

It's nice to be noticed when you're not noticed. Harry Jaffe in the Washingtonian wonders why The Washington Post neglected to credit Hubris for breaking the Armitage story whenever the paper referred to this news. And he notes that the paper's ombudsman believes the Post shortchanged the book. Read it here.

Posted by David Corn at 03:27 PM

New Thread...No Mention of Novak

I've been busy working on several stories today, pitching the book (I hope you saw the C-SPAN show), and spending time with an out-of-town friend. I'll be back on Tuesday sometime. In the meantime, continue comments on this new thread.

Posted by David Corn at 12:36 AM

September 17, 2006

Novak Slimes Me

This was first posted in my "Capital Games" column at www.thenation.com....

Robert Novak was on C-SPAN on Friday, and he took the opportunity to slime me. I don't know what the conservative columnist has against yours truly. Countless times in the past three years I've explained to outraged White House critics that Novak could not be charged under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act (which applies mainly to government officials and only to journalists who engage in a pattern of identifying undercover CIA officers with the intent of harming the spy service). I haven't even criticized him much--if at all--for publishing the Plame leak, for, as a journalist, I assign more culpability to the leakers in this case (Richard Armitage, Karl Rove, Scooter Libby) than the leak conveyors (Novak, Matt Cooper). Yet Novak has a bug up his keister about me, and he let it fly on C-SPAN.

I suspect his antipathy has something to do with his legal bills. He seems to blame me for the investigation that proceeded the leak he published--an inquiry that caused him to hire a lawyer and say nothing for two-and-a-half years. On C-SPAN, he declared,

There was an enormous hue and cry that was ginned up by left-wing journalists such as David Corn of The Nation and a left-wing investigative team from Newsday. And with Senator Chuck Schumer leading the way, some very partisan Democrats hyped up the case.

And, in Novak's telling, this all led to "a very unnecessary investigation." While presenting his paranoid account--a "left-wing investigative team" from Newsday?--he failed to mention that the CIA first examined the leak and then asked the Justice Department for an FBI investigation. I find it difficult to believe that my one web-column or the remarks of Senator Schumer somehow caused the CIA lawyers to do something they would not have otherwise done. Maybe I am too modest.

Novak was not content to assail me for concocting a scandal (would if I could!); he got personal when referring to the new book I wrote with Newsweek's Michael Isikoff, Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War:

That's a very odd couple: Isikoff and Corn. Isikoff says he is non-ideological and nonpartisan. I think he is. I think he's a great investigative reporter....Corn is a left-wing ideologue from The Nation magazine. In Mr. [Joseph] Wilson's memoir, he has Corn advising him, telling him that a law was broken, egging him on. So he was a part of the whole buildup of this story. And its deeply ironic that his book is the book that is being used to indicate that there was no conspiracy. You can't in your wildest imagination imagine Armitage as part of a plot to undermine the Wilsons. So, of course, Corn is frantic. He's writing blogs and writing in The Nation saying there was another track. Which is a great conspiracy theory. There's always another track.

Being called an "ideologue" by Robert Novak is like being called a "cheat" by Jack Abramoff. Worse, Novak has his facts wrong. I was no adviser to Wilson and did not egg him. As Hubris makes clear--and let me remind readers once again, this book is about the selling of the war, not only the leak case--I called Wilson after the Novak column appeared and asked if he knew of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act. Wilson said that he didn't and that he wasn't at this point looking to draw additional attention to the Novak column. The next day, I called him again to see if anyone had yet written about this angle. Wilson said no one had; he still was not eager to publicize the leak. When I mentioned I intended to write about the leak and the possible legal (criminal, that is) ramifications, Wilson said, "It's up to you." There was no egging going on--from either side.

Spouting on C-SPAN, Novak ignored this part of the story--just as he ignored whole sections of the book that show that Rove (Novak's friend) and Libby were hell-bent on discrediting Wilson and that during the push-back campaign they waged against Wilson, they each disclosed classified information about his wife's CIA employment to reporters (before the leak appeared in Novak's column). This is not a conspiracy theory. It's a documented narrative that appears in Hubris--with new details. Our account expands on a well-established public record. Special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald filed court papers earlier this year noting that senior White House officials (meaning Rove and Libby) mounted a campaign to discredit or punish Joseph Wilson, who had criticized the administration's handling of the prewar intelligence on Iraq's WMDs. Is it Novak's position that Rove did not leak to Cooper? That Libby did not leak to Judith Miller of The New York Times? Novak ought to get out more--or, at least, read.

Novak went on:

Mr. Corn is a nasty piece of work--let me tell you that. And he was the one who really built this story up. He is in what I think is a deliciously ironic situation because he was one of the people--much more I believe than Chris Matthews--for building this story up from the outset....And he is in a position where most of the investigative work done by his partner Isikoff he is a party to breaking down this story....which must actually destroy him.

Destroyed? Having a book hit the No. 1 spot on the Amazon.com bestseller list and reach the bestseller lists of The New York Times and The Washington Post is hardly destruction. But see the bind Novak is in? He attributes the disclosure in Hubris that he fancies--that Armitage was his first source--solely to Isikoff; he disregards what the book (co-written by at least one great investigative reporter, according to Novak) reveals about Rove's and Libby's critical involvement in the leak affair. Talk about cherry-picking.

Novak then addressed my recent column on his cat fight with Armitage by attacking me--not by explaining the contradiction I pointed out. He told Brian Lamb:

[Corn] is so outraged at me with this that he seems to be taking Armitage's side....My account is completely truthful.

Novak should look at that column again. I did not take Armitage's side in this disagreement. To recap that tussle: after our book outed Armitage, the former deputy secretary of state confessed but said his leak to Novak was an inadvertent slip. Novak in a column this past week claimed the leak was a deliberate act. Here's how I sussed out the conflict:

Novak's current account may well be an accurate recollection. There's no reason to take Armitage's quasi-face-saving version at face-value.

How is that taking Armitage's side? Novak might need to hone his reading comprehension skills. But I did note that Novak had changed his story significantly. In an October 1, 2003 column, Novak described the leak this way:

It was an offhand revelation from this [unnamed] official, who is no partisan gunslinger.

Yet now Novak maintains that Armitage was slipping him the Plame info purposefully and even suggesting Novak use it in a column. What accounts for this flip-flop? Novak has not explained it. I suggested one possible reason for this change of tune. When Novak in 2003 characterized the leak as idle chitchat, the news had just broken that the White House was being investigated for the leak--and Rove was a possible target of that criminal probe. So Novak, who is close to Rove, had an interest in downplaying the significance of the leak and any intentionality behind it. Now that Bush-backers are exploiting (and misusing) our book to lay all the blame on Armitage's broad shoulders in order to absolve Rove of any wrongdoing, Novak is piling on by depicting Armitage's leak as deliberate. My hunch might be wrong. But Novak has yet to reconcile his recent column with his October 1, 2003 offering. Instead, he attacks me.

I'd rather not be in assorted pissing matches with fact-ignoring conservatives about the leak case. (See here for a rebuttal of a silly charge thrown at me by The Wall Street Journal and Victoria Toensing.) Our book, as I constantly note, is about so much more than the Plame affair. For instance, I'd like to see Novak and other White House allies respond to the scene in our book in which the new Iraqi intelligence chief--a year after the invasion--visits Bush in the Oval Office and tells him the security situation in Baghdad is hellish and getting worse and Bush asks him no question. But White House defenders are only interested in selectively mis-citing the book to help White House aides who share the responsibility for the current mess in Iraq. How shocking.

By the way, there is another contradiction for Novak to explain. On C-SPAN, he repeatedly dismissed me as an "ideologue" and "editorialist" with no reporting skills:

I don't think he's really interested in getting facts. He's interested in getting out a line.

Please don't laugh at the thought of Novak assailing anyone else on such terms--until I reach the punch line. After hearing Novak say that about me, I went to my bookshelf and found a copy of his last book, Completing the Revolution: A Vision for Victory in 2000, which was released in 2000. A book that is certainly the work of an ideologue. (That's "Revolution" as in "Conservative Revolution.") And I located a page describing me as a "bright, young left-wing journalist." (Emphasis added.) High praise indeed from a right-wing ideologue--especially the "young." (I was in my early 40s at the time.) What went wrong? Perhaps Novak simply does not appreciate journalism when it is applied to him and his self-contradicting columns.

Posted by David Corn at 08:03 PM

September 16, 2006

A Break in the Action...for Public Art

I interrupt my book promotion and tussles with facts-defying critics to bring you news of avant-garde culture. My wife, Welmoed Laanstra, is unveiling a new public art project this weekend. Readers in the Washington, DC, area, please pay attention. It's called Art not Ads. She has placed blowups of painting and poems and video pieces (created by a variety of artists and writers) on mobile billboards, and these trucks are driving through the Washington metropolitan area this weekend. The idea is to present Washington tourist, residents and workers with unexpected art experiences. You're stuck in traffic, walking down the street, or waiting for the bus and--shazaam!--there's a poem or painting passing by you. (The poems have been curated by local poetry whiz E. Ethelbert Miller, who selected the work of contemporary poets.) Welmoed didn't take my suggestion and put T.S. Eliot's "The Hollow Men" on one of the trucks and have it circle the White House. ("The eyes are not here/There are no eyes here/In this valley of dying stars.")

The Washington Post has a nice spread on the project in today's paper. The website for the project is here.

If you haven't seen my retort to Victoria Toensing and The Wall Street Journal, check out the below item. My reply to Bob Novak is coming soon (if I decide to bother).

Posted by David Corn at 04:18 PM

September 15, 2006

Toensing and WSJ: Corn Outed Plame (Here We Go Again)

Throughout my years in Washington, I've debated a lot of conservatives and Republicans. There are some for which I have no regard. There are others whom--though I disagree with them on politics and policy--I've considered friendlies: not quite friends, but people who are smart and whose company I enjoy, who are fun to drink and argue with. Among that group has been GOP lawyer Victoria Toensing. It certainly helped our relationship that years ago I was a friend of her daughter, a wonderful photojournalist. But I considered Toensing an intelligent and engaging lawyer, and we were able to hold civil conversations. I could even call her as a source--not that she ever provided any scoops.

So I am disheartened to see her embracing a rather idiotic conservative talking point and ignoring basic facts to tag me as the true culprit in the outing of Valerie Plame Wilson. It is an argument that defies logic and the record. But it is an accusation that pro-Bush spinners have used to defend the true leakers and columnist Bob Novak, the conveyor of the leak. By propounding this charge, Toensing leads me (regretfully) to believe that she cares more about scoring points than serving the truth. Here is what she wrote in today's Wall Street Journal:

The first journalist to reveal Ms. Plame was "covert" was David Corn, on July 16, 2003, two days after Mr. Novak's column. The latter never wrote, because he did not know and it was not so, that Ms. Plame was covert. However, Mr. Corn claimed Mr. Novak "outed" her as an "undercover CIA officer," querying whether Bush officials blew "the cover of a U.S. intelligence officer working covertly in...national security." Was Mr. Corn subpoenaed? Did Mr. Fitzgerald subpoena Mr. Wilson to attest he had never revealed his wife's employment to anyone? If he had done so, he might have learned Mr. Corn's source.

This is a canard that has been previously advanced by other conservatives--all to absolve Novak and the actual leakers (mainly Karl Rove and Scooter Libby, not Richard Armitage). And you see the suggestion: that Joe Wilson told me that his wife was an undercover CIA officer and that I then disclosed this information to the public. I've debunked this before. But for Toensing's benefit, I'll go through this again--though I doubt it will do much good.

Here's what Novak, citing "two senior administration officials," wrote on July 14, 2003:

[Joseph] Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction.

Novak's column is syndicated and is posted on the web. This information appeared, I assume, in hundreds of places. Other nations and foreign intelligence services now knew that Valerie Wilson was a CIA operative. At this point, her cover--whatever it might have been--was blown to bits. The fact that Novak did not state she was a "covert" operative is utterly meaningless. (Does the CIA employ non-secret "operatives"?)

As is now known--thanks to Hubris, the new book by Michael Isikoff and me--Valerie Wilson had been chief of operations for the Joint Task Force on Iraq within the CIA's clandestine Directorate of Operations. She was working under nonofficial cover (a deep version of covert status), but she no longer needed this NOC status and was shifting to official cover (meaning she would pretend to be a government official--say, a State Department officer--but not a CIA employee). In short, she was indeed an "operative." She had traveled overseas in the previous two years to oversee and monitor operations aimed at gathering intelligence on Iraq's supposed WMD programs. Novak didn't have information on her specific job, but he came quite close with his generic description of her.

Two days after the Novak column appeared, I published an article that was the first piece to suggest that the leak to Novak could be evidence of a White House crime--that is, a possible violation of Intelligence Identities Protection Act. That law makes it a felony for a government official to disclose identifying information about an undercover intelligence officer (if that government official knows the officer is covert). In the piece, I did not state as a fact that Valerie Wilson was a "covert" officer or a CIA employee of any kind. I did not know. After all, I hadn't spoken to Armitage, Rove or Libby about it. In my piece, I merely speculated that she might be a NOC and explored the possible ramifications of this outing (if indeed she was a NOC).

The reasoning underlying my supposition that Valerie Wilson might be a NOC was simple. Before I wrote the article, I spoke to Joe Wilson. He would not confirm or deny that what Novak wrote was true. He would not say whether or not his wife worked at the CIA. Wilson noted that his wife was known to friends as an energy analyst for a private firm, and added, "I will not answer questions about my wife." I placed that quote in the piece.

In the article, I noted that if Novak had gotten it right and if Valerie Wilson was a CIA operative, she had to be a NOC. Why? CIA officers who have "official cover" (and who, by the way, are sill considered "covert") tell people they work for the Defense Department, the State Department or some other part of the government. CIA officers working under nonofficial cover tell friends, relatives, associates that they are businesspeople, writers, consultants, tour guides or whatever--anything but a government official. So a CIA officer who informed acquaintances that she worked for a private energy firm would have to be a NOC. It's elementary.

Consequently, I noted in the article that Valerie Wilson was "apparently" a NOC--that is, if she were a CIA officer at all. The piece noted that if she were not in the CIA, "then the White House has wrongly branded a woman...as a CIA officer." That line is proof that I was supposing, not reporting. Unlike Novak, I had no facts about Valerie Wilson's CIA employment to disclose.

Feel free to look at that original article. If you do so, you will be conducting research that Toensing seemingly did not. And you will see that the article did not "reveal" anything about Valerie Wilson's position at the CIA. It was not the product of any investigative work. It was a piece of analysis. Thus, there was no need for special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald to come knocking on my door. He chased after the reporters who received the real leaks. But clearly he could tell I was not in that elite category. I was never subpoenaed.

Toensing is flat-out wrong--sloppy wrong. Any intelligent lawyer who bothered to peruse the piece I wrote could discern that I was engaging in a thought exercise, not an act of disclosure. Besides, how can you out a CIA operative who has already been identified as a CIA operative in newspapers across the country?

Why would Toensing disregard the obvious? That's for her to explain. But I do hope she is more careful with evidence when it comes to her legal work. And I'm sorry that we will likely not be enjoying each other's company any time soon.

Posted by David Corn at 09:22 PM

September 14, 2006

Waiting for Novak To Explain...and HUBRIS Media Appearances

No major posting today. I'm still trying to figure out whether Bob Novak was giving the real scoop when he said (on October 1, 2003) that the Plame leak he obtained was an "offhand revelation" or when he said (on September 13, 2006) that the Plame leak was a deliberate act. I called him yesterday to ask about this and to thank him for the straightforward mention of Hubris in his column of this week. Yet I did not hear back. I was told by a friend that Novak said something unflattering about me this morning on the Washington Post radio station. I don't know why. Throughout the whole Plame saga, I've explained countless times to folks that he had not violated the law by publishing the leak. And in one of his books, he praised me as a decent journalist. (Several times I co-hosted CNN's Crossfire with him, and we got on fine--as fine as could be expected.) He's appearing on C-SPAN on Friday morning. I'll be promoting the book at that time and doing various radio interviews. (Isikoff and I have over two dozen radio interviews tomorrow.) If anyone watches Novak, drop a line.

Other upcoming media appearances include my quasi-usual spot on Eye on Washington, which airs on the CBS affiliate in Washington, DC, on Saturday night and Sunday morning and on PBS stations across the nation (see that list here); a guest shot on CNN's Reliable Sources on Sunday morning; and C-SPAN's Washington Journal on Monday morning, 7:45 to 8:30 am (Eastern time). I'm also supposed to be on NPR's On the Media this weekend. Keep watching--and please keep buying. The book sales are strong, but I can tell that literally thousands of you who come to this site have not run out to bookstores to stock up on copies of Hubris. Don't make me beg.

Posted by David Corn at 11:16 PM

September 13, 2006

Novak vs. Armitage

From my "Capital Games" column at www.thenation.com....

The book I co-wrote with Michael Isikoff, Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War, has set off a dispute between conservative columnist Bob Novak and former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage.

The book--which recounts the behind-the-scenes battles that went on within the CIA, the State Department, Congress and the White House over the administration's case for war before and after the Iraq invasion--discloses that Armitage was the original source for the Novak column of July 14, 2003, which outed Valerie Plame Wilson as a CIA "operative on weapons of mass destruction." (The book also reveals that Valerie Wilson was operations chief for the clandestine Joint Task Force on Iraq and oversaw espionage operations aimed at gathering intelligence on Saddam Hussein's supposed WMDs.) Following the book's release, Armitage publicly confessed and apologized to Valerie Wilson and her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson. He said that the leak had been an inadvertent slip, an act of gossip that came during an interview with Novak about Colin Powell and the State Department. Armitage claimed he had merely told Novak--in an off-the-cuff fashion--"I think his wife works out there," meaning the CIA.

In a column published on Wednesday, Novak accuses Armitage of not telling the truth. The former No. 2 at the State Department, Novak insists, "obscured what he really did." Novak writes:

First, Armitage did not, as he now indicates, merely pass on something he had heard and that he "thought" might be so. Rather, he identified to me the CIA division where Mrs. Wilson worked, and said flatly that she recommended the mission to Niger by her husband, former Amb. Joseph Wilson.

Second, Armitage did not slip me this information as idle chitchat, as he now suggests. He made clear he considered it especially suited for my column.

This account depicts Armitage as deliberately leaking information on Valerie Wilson. In our book, Isikoff and I raise the possibility that Armitage might have told Novak about Wilson's wife and her CIA employment to distance the State Department from the burgeoning Wilson imbroglio--as a way of saying, We here at State had nothing to do with that trouble-causing Wilson trip to Niger. Novak claims that Armitage "told me unequivocally that Mrs. Wilson worked in the CIA’s Counter-Proliferation Division and that she had suggested her husband's mission." (Valerie Wilson's role in her husband's mission has been overblown; Isikoff and I lay this out in the book.)

Novak, as he acknowledges, did not take notes of this hour-long conversation, which might strike some reporters as odd, given that he had been endeavoring for years to snag an interview with Armitage. So outsiders are left with a he-said/he-said tussle. But Novak's latest account does seem to contradict an earlier version.

In his recent column, Novak contends that Armitage intentionally passed him information on Wilson and went so far as to suggest the material might be good fodder for a column. Yet in an October 1, 2003 column, Novak said of the leak,

It was an offhand revelation from this [unnamed] official, who is no partisan gunslinger.

"Offhand revelation" doesn't quite cover Novak's (current) depiction of the exchange as a deliberate leak. Novak's October 1, 2003 column--written days after the news broke that the FBI had launched a criminal investigation of the leak that was targeting the White House--seemed intended to downplay the leak as significant or intentional. (That article also stated, "It was well known around Washington that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA.") Novak's recent column, written at a time when White House defenders are trying to dump all the blame on Armitage, claims the leak was purposeful. Which was it?

Novak's current account may well be an accurate recollection. There's no reason to take Armitage's quasi-face-saving version at face-value. But perhaps Novak can explain in yet one more column why he first called the leak an "offhand revelation"?

At the end of his new column, Novak excoriates Armitage:

Armitage's silence the next 2 1/2 years caused intense pain for his colleagues in government and enabled partisan Democrats in Congress to falsely accuse Rove of being my primary source.

Novak neglects to note that Karl Rove was the source he used to confirm the leak he had received from Armitage--and that Rove also leaked classified information on Valerie Wilson to Matt Cooper of Time magazine before the leak appeared in Novak's column. Nor does Novak mention that Scooter Libby leaked information on Valerie Wilson to Judith Miller of The New York Times weeks before Novak entered Armitage's office--and also confirmed Rove's leak to Cooper. (A source close to Rove is quoted in Hubris saying that Rove "probably" learned about Valerie Wilson from Libby.) Like Armitage, Rove and Libby kept silent, even as the White House claimed they were not involved in the leak. Maybe it's time for all leakers to come clean and tell what happened.

Posted by David Corn at 11:44 PM

HUBRIS in Pajamas

As part of its new Politics Central section, the redesigned and ramped-up Pajamas Media has posted a podcast interview with me on Hubris. You can listen to it or download it here. For those of you in the Bay Area, Michael Isikoff and I are scheduled to be on KGO-AM radio 3:00 to 4:00 pm (San Francisco time) on Wednesday afternoon. And I'm scheduled to appear on The Big Story with John Gibson on Fox News on Thursday (between 5:00 and 6:00 pm, Eastern time). Other major television bookings are in the works. Preliminary sales figures for the book, I'm told, are strong. Please do your part to keep that so.

Posted by David Corn at 11:13 AM

September 12, 2006

For Bush, a 9/11 Anniversary Changes Nothing

For those of you dying to know what I thought of Bush's speech less-than-inspiring speech last night, below is a quick commentary I was asked to do for the Comment Is Free blog of the Guardian. The editor encouraged me to plug the book--and I did.

A tragedy of his own making
George Bush's inability to explain his invasion of Iraq poisons whatever he says about 9/11 and the threat to America.
David Corn

The fifth anniversary of 9/11 changed little - particularly how the president of the United States talks about the war in Iraq. George W. Bush used the occasion to deliver a primetime speech to the nation (and, I suppose, to the world) in which he once again tried to connect 9/11 to the war he initiated in Iraq. Bush, though, has been left without much of a case. The new book that I co-wrote with Newsweek's Michael Isikoff, offers many behind-the-scenes stories of how the White House misrepresented the threat posed by Saddam Hussein. Still, the president pushes on.

In the speech, he reiterated his claim that Saddam was a direct threat to the United States:

On September the 11th, we learned that America must confront threats before they reach our shores - whether those threats come from terrorist networks or terrorist states. I am often asked why we are in Iraq when Saddam Hussein was not responsible for the 9/11 attacks. The answer is that the regime of Saddam Hussein was a clear threat.

But what is the president's evidence for that? As our book notes, the final report of the Iraq Survey Group - the CIA-Defense Department unit that searched for WMDs in Iraq - concluded that Saddam's WMD capability "was essentially destroyed in 1991" and Saddam had no "plan for the revival of WMD." The book also quotes little-noticed congressional testimony that Vice Admiral Thomas Wilson, then head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, gave in March 2002. He noted that Iraq was not among the most pressing "near-term concerns" to U.S. interests and that as a military danger Iraq was "smaller and weaker" than during the Persian Gulf War. Wilson testified that Saddam possessed only "residual" amounts of weapons of mass destruction, not a growing arsenal. In an interview for the book, he told us, "I didn't really think [Saddam and Iraq] were an immediate threat on WMD."

And days ago, the Senate intelligence committee (which is run by Republicans) released a report that said there had been no operational ties between Baghdad and al-Qaida - and that Saddam had even rebuffed requests of assistance from al-Qaida.

Without WMDs, with no connections to al-Qaida, was Saddam so dangerous? He was, of course, a brutal tyrant and a problem for the global community. But three years after the invasion of Iraq, the question won't go away: what made him a direct threat to the United States? The president has no clear answer that's consistent with the known facts.

It's Bush's inability to explain his invasion that poisons whatever he has to say about 9/11 and the serious challenge posed to the United States and other nations by global jihadism. He has turned 9/11 into the justification for a costly war that was based on unproven assertions and that has gone poorly (in part because of the lack of any responsible planning for the post-invasion period). In some ways, Bush's war in Iraq (an elective fiasco) has come to overshadow the horror of September 11. That is a tragedy of Bush's own making.
******

A longer piece on Bush's speech that I wrote and that teases out some of the same themes can be found at TomPaine.com

Posted by David Corn at 04:12 PM

HUBRIS Appearances

On Tuesday [note: I had originally said Wednesday here], Michael Isikoff and I appeared on Democracy Now to discuss Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War. You can hear or watch the show here. Next, I'm scheduled to appear on Fox News today between 1:00 and 2:00 pm. Other bookings are under way. The book, by the way, was No. 1 at Amazon.com for a stretch this past weekend. Thank you to all who have supported us by rushing to the computer or the book store to buy a copy.

Posted by David Corn at 12:06 AM

September 11, 2006

Cheney, 9/11 and the Truth about Iraq

From my "Capital Games" column at www.thenation.com....

Dick Cheney commemorated the fifth anniversary of 9/11 by sticking to the MO that he and his running-mate used to lead the nation into the current mess in Iraq.

Appearing on Meet the Press on Sunday, Cheney encountered a decent grilling from host Tim Russert, who pressed him on how Cheney and George W. Bush had justified the war in Iraq. "Based on what you know now, that Saddam did not have the weapons of mass destruction that were described, would you still have gone into Iraq?" Russert asked. Yes, indeed, Cheney said, hewing to the company line. And he pointed to what appeared to be evidence that supported that no-regrets stance:

Look at the Duelfer Report and what it said. No stockpiles, but they also said he has the capability. He'd done it before. He had produced chemical weapons before and used them. He had produced biological weapons. He had a robust nuclear program in '91. All of this is true, said by Duelfer, facts.

Well, let's look at the report of Charles Duelfer who headed up the Iraq Survey Group, which was responsible for searching for WMDs after the invasion. (Duelfer took the job following David Kay's resignation in late 2003.) It just so happens that in our new book, Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War, Michael Isikoff and I quote from that report, and it noted that Saddam's WMD capability

was essentially destroyed in 1991.

That is the opposite of what Cheney told Russert the report said. Cheney went on to remark,

Think where we'd be if [Saddam] was still there...We also would have a situation where he would have resumed his WMD programs.

Yet Duelfer reported that at the time of the invasion, Saddam had no

plan for the revival of WMD.

Cheney even justified the invasion of Iraq by citing an allegation that was just debunked in a Senate intelligence committee report released on Friday. Claiming there was a significant relationship between Saddam's regime and al Qaeda, he cited the case of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi (who was recently killed in Iraq). After the US attacked the Taliban and al Qaeda in Afghanistan, Cheney said, Zarqawi

fled and went to Baghdad and set up operations in Baghdad in the spring of '02 and was there from then, basically, until basically the time we launched into Iraq.

The implication here is that Baghdad sanctioned the terrorist activity of Zarqawi, a supposed al Qaeda associate. But the Senate intelligence committee report--released by a Republican-run panel--noted that prior to the invasion of Iraq Zarqawi and his network were not part of al Qaeda. (That merging came after the invasion.) More important, the report cites CIA reports (based on captured documents and interrogations) that say that Baghdad was not protecting or assisting Zarqawi when he was in Iraq. In fact, Iraqi intelligence in the spring of 2002 had formed a "special committee" to locate and capture him--but failed to find the terrorist. A 2005 CIA report concluded that prior to the Iraq war,

the [Saddam] regime did not have a relationship, harbor, or turn a blind eye toward Zarqawi and his associates.

So why is Cheney still holding up Zarqawi as evidence that Baghdad was in cahoots with Osama bin Laden? If he knows something the CIA does not, perhaps he should inform the agency.

During the Meet the Press interview, Cheney blamed the CIA for his and Bush's prewar assertions that Iraq posed a WMD threat. That's what the intelligence said, Cheney insisted. Our book shows that this explanation (or, defense) is a dodge. There were dissents within the intelligence community on key aspects of the WMD argument for war--especially the charge that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear weapons program. Cheney dwelled on that frightening possibility before the war, repeatedly declaring that the US government knew for sure that Iraq had revved up its nuclear program. Yet there was only one strong piece of evidence for this claim--that Iraq had purchased tens of thousands of aluminum tubes for use in a centrifuge that would produce enriched uranium for a nuclear bomb. And that piece of evidence was hotly contested within the intelligence community.

One CIA analyst (whom we name for the first time in Hubris) was fiercely pushing the tube case. Yet practically every other top nuclear expert in the US government (including the centrifuge specialists at the Department of Energy) disagreed. This dispute was even mentioned in The Washington Post in September 2002. But neither Cheney nor Bush (nor national security adviser Condoleezza Rce) took an interest in this important argument. Instead, they kept insisting the tube purchases were proof Saddam was building a bomb. They were wrong. And the nuclear scientists at the Department of Energy (again, as our book notes) were ordered not to say anything publicly about the tubes.

This is but one example of how the Bush White House rigged the case for war by selectively embracing (without reviewing) convenient pieces of iffy intelligence and then presenting them to the public as hard-and-fast proof. But Cheney is right--to a limited extent. The CIA did provide the White House with intelligence that was wrong (which the White House then used irresponsibly). The new Senate intelligence report, though, shows that this was not what happened regarding one crucial part of the Bush-Cheney argument for war: that al Qaeda and Iraq were in cahoots.

Before the war, Bush said that Saddam "was dealing" with al Qaeda. He even charged that Saddam had "financed" al Qaeda. The Senate intelligence report notes clearly that the prewar intelligence on this critical issue said no such thing.

The report quotes a CIA review of the prewar intelligence: "The data reveal few indications of an established relationship between al-Qa'ida and Saddam Hussein's regime." The lead Defense Intelligence Analyst on this issue told the Senate intelligence committee that "there was no partnership between the two organizations." And post-invasion debriefings of former Iraqi regime officials indicated that Saddam had no interest in working with al Qaeda and had refused to meet with an al Qaeda emissary in 1998.

The report also augments the section in our book on Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, a captured al Qaeda commander who was taken by the CIA to Egypt where he was roughly--perhaps brutally--interrogated and claimed that Iraq had provided chemical weapons training to al Qaeda. Though there were questions about al-Libi's veracity from the start, Secretary of State Colin Powell used al-Libi's claims in his famous UN speech to argue that Saddam and Osama bin Laden were partners in evil--that there was a "sinister nexus" between the two. Al-Libi later recanted, and the CIA withdrew all the intelligence based on his claims. In other words, the Bush administration had hyped flimsy intelligence to depict Saddam and bin Laden as WMD-sharing allies.

The Senate intelligence report concluded that "Saddam Hussein was distrustful of al-Qa'ida and viewed Islamic extremists as a threat to his regime, refusing all requests from al-Qa'ida to provide material or operational support."

What did Cheney tell Russert? Saddam, he insisted, "had a relationship with al Qaeda." When Russert pointed out that the intelligence committee "said that there was no relationship," Cheney interrupted and commented, "I haven't had a chance to read it."

Perhaps he should beforehe talks about 9/11 and Iraq again.

Posted by David Corn at 08:51 AM

September 08, 2006

Tony Snow's Exceptional Reading Skills; HUBRIS on Hardball

I'm reading through the new Senate intelligence committee reports on the prewar WMD intelligence and the role of Ahmad Chalabi's INC in intelligence production. It looks as if there are some good nuggets--despite White House press secretary Tony Snow's claim there's nothing new here. I wonder why he said that? And did he read these 359 pages before issuing that definitive judgment? If so, I salute his internal word-processing skills. It takes me a lot longer to read so many pages. Still, I'm sure the president, the vice president, the secretary of state, the secretary of defense, and the national security adviser will each read every word of these reports--even if there were no surprises for Snow--to make sure that they (as a dutiful public servants) learn every single lesson there is to learn from the prewar intelligence screw-up. It's the least they can do.

The reports come out at a fortunate time for a certain book. HUBRIS is a narrative (anecdote-ridden) account of the dramatic intrigue and behind-the-scenes battles that led to the foul-ups that are recounted dryly in these committee reports. And sales are going well, thanks to Chris Matthews who hosted Michael Isikoff and me on Hardball tonight. He praised the book (in which he plays a cameo role) and told viewers to buy it. And many did.

I'm going to get back to those intelligence reports--and will report back to you later about them. I'm scheduled to be on CNN on Saturday afternoon (about 5:30) and on Fox News on Sunday (about 3:40). And there will be more book-promo appearances next week. Stay tuned and take Matthews' sage advice.

Posted by David Corn at 10:21 PM

September 07, 2006

A Simple Question

Now that Richard Armitage has confessed and explained his role in the Plame leak, a simple question: will Karl Rove do the same? I tease this out further here.

Posted by David Corn at 11:50 PM

HUBRIS News

So now Richard Armitage comes clean. He was on CBS News this evening confessing he was he original leaker for Bob Novak's column. And he granted an interview to The New York Times, saying, "It was a terrible error on my part. There wasn't a day when I didn't feel like I had let down the President, the Secretary of State, my colleagues, my family and the Wilsons. I value my ability to keep state secrets. This was bad and I really felt badly about this." Alas, neither CBS nor the Times article mentioned a certain book that broke the news that Armitage had been the leaker. And as far as I can tell, neither news entity--nor other major media outlets--have followed up that same book's disclosure that Valerie Wilson had been operations chief of the Joint Task Force on Iraq and had overseen espionage operations aimed at obtaining evidence about Saddam Hussein's supposed nuclear weapons program.

Some conservatives continue to blast away at me on the leak case. I'll respond eventually. I'm busy promoting the book--which (as noted repeatedly below) is about much more than the leak case. (It's funny how some partisans have seized on our Armitage scoop but have said nothing about the Valerie Wilson scoop.) Today, David Broder of The Washington Post joined the Bush-backers with a column demanding that Rove-bashers apologize to Karl Rove for besmirching him during the Plame affair. He obviously has not read the portions of our book--or studied the available public record--that show indisputably that Rove and Scooter Libby were fiercely trying to discredit Joe Wilson, who had criticized the Bush administration's case for war. Perhaps after he does look at our book, he'll reconsider. But for a more detailed rebuttal than I'm going to provide here, see Michael Tomasky's retort at the American Prospect website.

On to happier news, our appearance on The Diane Rehm Show (hear it here) drove sales today. And we have other media appearances being scheduled--including Hardball on Friday (on MSNBC, sometime between 5:00 and 6:00 pm, Eastern time). Check back here for news of other appearances. We are scheduled to do Democracy Now on Tuesday. I will also be appearing--as I do most weekends--on Eye on Washington, which airs on the CBS affiliate in Washington, DC on Saturday night and Sunday morning and on PBS stations across the nation (see that list here).

England been good to us today. The Guardian of England had a nice piece on another one of the book's revelations: how the CIA planned a provocation to start a war with Iraq. (Click here.) In the end, the provocation was not needed. And the Guardian's blog asked me for a piece in which I would consider whether the disclosures in our book would have any political consequences. (Click here for my answer.)

Some have complained this blog has turned into a promotional vehicle for HUBRIS. Well, what would you expect? I'll get back to the regular blogging soon. But now I have a book to sell. Which reminds me: please buy a copy. If you enjoy coming to this site, you can support it by purchasing copies of the book. That's hardly too much to ask for all the hours of enlightenment, education, or exasperation you receive when you stop by. If sales go well, maybe I'll send a copy to Broder for free.

Posted by David Corn at 09:37 PM

September 06, 2006

HUBRIS on NPR

On Thursday, September 7, Michael Isikoff and I will be guests on NPR's Diane Rehm Show to discuss HUBRIS: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War. The first hour of the show will be devoted to our book. The show air lives in Washington and many other cities at 10:00 am (Eastern time). Click here to see a list of affiliates that carry Diane Rehm. Or listen to it on your computer at WAMU. Or catch it later on the show's website here.

Posted by David Corn at 11:55 PM

HUBRIS: The Press Release

HUBRIS: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War starts arriving in bookstores today--though it may take a day or two to reach all the stores (given that the release date was pushed up). Below is a copy of the press release that is being sent out by Crown. It teases just some of the revelations in the book. As for the boilerplate language hailing the book, the Crown PR team is responsible for this. But, of course, it's all true.

******

"Hubris is a bold and provocative book that will quickly become an explosive part of the national debate on how we got involved in Iraq." -- Tom Brokaw

"The selling of Bush's Iraq debacle is one of the most important-and appalling-stories of the last half-century, and Michael Isikoff and David Corn have reported the hell out of it." -- Hendrik Hertzberg, Senior Editor, The New Yorker

March 2003: The United States invades Iraq.
September 2006: The world finds out why.

HUBRIS
The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War
by Michael Isikoff and David Corn

What was really behind the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq? As George W. Bush steered the nation to war, who spoke the truth and who tried to hide it? HUBRIS: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War (Crown, September 8, 2006) takes us behind the scenes at the Bush White House, the CIA, the Pentagon, the State Department, and Congress to answer all the vital questions about how the Bush administration came to invade Iraq. HUBRIS, a gripping narrative, is filled with new revelations. The book disclosures include:

* President Bush was driven by a visceral hatred of Saddam Hussein, which he privately demonstrated in expletive-laden tirades against the Iraqi dictator. In May 2002--months before he asked Congress for authority to attack Saddam-Bush bluntly revealed his ultimate game plan in a candid moment with two aides. When told that reporter Helen Thomas was questioning the need to oust Saddam by force, Bush snapped: "Did you tell her I intend to kick his sorry mother fucking ass all over the Mideast?" In a meeting with congressional leaders, the President angrily thrust his middle finger inches in front of the face of Senator Tom Daschle to illustrate Saddam's attitude toward the United States.

* As part of an aggressive prewar covert action program--codenamed Anabasis (after an ancient text about a botched invasion of Babylon)--the CIA was authorized by the White House in the winter of 2002 to blow up targets in Iraq and engage in "direct action" (an agency euphemism for assassination) to weaken Saddam's regime and to prepare for his ouster by the U.S. military. For Anabasis, the agency smuggled Iraqi exiles to a top-secret site in the Nevada desert and trained them in sabotage and explosives. The Iraqi force, known as the Scorpions, was being trained to seize an isolated Iraqi military post-in order to create a provocation that could trigger a war with Iraq.

* When Bush was first briefed that no WMDs had been found in Iraq, he was totally unfazed and asked few questions. "I'm not sure I've spoken to anyone at that level who seemed less inquisitive," the briefer told the authors.

* Colin Powell remains intensely bitter and angry about his UN Security Council Speech, during which he presented the case for war. After it became clear that much of his speech was wrong, he refused to have anything to do with CIA director George Tenet. "It's annoying to me," Powell told the authors. "Everybody focuses on my presentation....Well the same goddamn case was presented to the U.S. Senate and the Congress and they voted for [Bush's Iraq] resolution....Why aren't they outraged....The same case was presented to the President. Why isn'' the President outraged? It's always, 'Gee, Powell, you made this speech to the UN.'"

* After the invasion, Dick Cheney's aides desperately sifted through raw intelligence nuggets in search of any evidence that would justify the war. On one occasion they sent the WMD hunters in Iraq a satellite photo that they suspected showed a hiding place for WMDs. But it was only an overhead photo of a watering hole for cows.

* A critical memo in the CIA leak case was based on notes of a State Department official that were (as this official told the authors) inaccurate. This memo reported that former ambassador Joseph Wilson's wife was a CIA employee who played a key role in sending him on his trip to Niger. Yet the State Department official now acknowledges his notes did not describe Valerie Wilson's role accurately.

* At the time of her outing, Valerie Wilson was an undercover officer in the CIA whose mission had been to gather intelligence about WMDs in Iraq. She was the operations manager of the Joint Task Force on Iraq, a unit in the clandestine service of the CIA. This unit desperately tried to obtain evidence to back up the Bush administration's assertions about Saddam's WMDs, yet it found no such evidence.

* Richard Armitage, the deputy secretary of state, was the original leaker in the CIA leak case. But as he was disclosing information to columnist Robert Novak, Karl Rove, Scooter Libby and other top White House aides were engaged in a fierce campaign to discredit Joseph Wilson. Rove even told MSNBC anchor Chris Matthews that the Wilsons "were trying to screw the White House so the White House was going to screw them back."

* Many of the White House's most dramatic claims about the threat posed by weapons of mass destruction were repeatedly questioned by senior members of the U.S. intelligence community-but these dissents and views were suppressed or ignored by the White House. Admiral Thomas Wilson, the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency until May 2002, is quoted in the book as casting doubt on virtually the entire White House case for an invasion of Iraq. "I didn't really think [Iraq] had a nuclear program," retired Admiral Wilson told the authors. "I didn't think [Saddam and Iraq] were an immediate threat on WMD."

* The CIA missed an obvious clue that showed that the infamous Niger documents--the basis for Bush's false statement in a State of the Union speech--were crude forgeries. The clue was a bizarre companion document detailing a supposed global alliance of rogue nations (including Iraq and Iran)--a notion so unlikely that one State Department intelligence analyst immediately labeled it a hoax. The CIA also blew the call on these documents partly because an officer misplaced the papers.

* U.S. intelligence officials suspected Iranian intelligence was trying to influence U.S. decision-making through Ahmad Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress-yet they felt they could do nothing about it because the INC had support within the White House and Pentagon.

* Congressional leaders on both sides of the aisle seriously doubted the case for war-and questioned the top-secret briefings they received directly from Cheney. One senior Republican, House Majority Leader Dick Armey, warned the President in a September 2002 meeting that Bush would be stuck in a "quagmire" if he invaded Iraq. But Armey and others were afraid for political reasons to challenge the White House on the prewar intelligence.

* An obscure academic, derided as a virtual crackpot by U.S. law enforcement and the intelligence community, greatly influenced top Bush administration officials, who adopted her farfetched theory that Saddam was the source of most of the terrorism in the world, including the 9/11 attacks. But, oddly, this researcher, Laurie Mylroie, had once been a Saddam apologist and had engaged in secret, back-door diplomacy aimed at brokering a peace accord between Israel and Iraq. After Saddam invaded Kuwait, Mylroie developed bizarre allegations about Saddam and terrorism. Her theories were debunked by the CIA and FBI, yet Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz embraced them, cited them in official meetings, and repeatedly pressed the agency and bureau to come up with evidence to substantiate Mylroie's work.

* The intelligence community's top nuclear experts were afraid to challenge publicly the Bush administration's claim that Iraq had obtained aluminum tubes for a nuclear weapons program, though they disagreed with this assessment. The tubes case was relentlessly pressed by one CIA analyst whose technical expertise did not match those of these scientists and whose name is revealed for the first time in HUBRIS.

* The CIA came close to recruiting Saddam Hussein's foreign minister, Naji Sabri, to be an American spy. Through a Lebanese journalist, Sabri passed word to the CIA's station chief in Paris that Iraq had no active nuclear or WMD programs. But senior CIA and White House officials dismissed the intelligence and opposed the effort to recruit Sabri, fearing it would undercut the case for an invasion. The chief of the CIA's Iraq Operations Group told the Paris station chief, "One of these days you're going to get it. This is not about intelligence. This is about regime change."

* Even as colleagues of Judith Miller at The New York Times were suspicious of her reporting on Iraq's WMDs, her editors stubbornly stood by her. HUBRIS details how some of the Times' most significant-and wrong-stories about Saddam's WMDs came to be written.

* CIA analysts, over the objections of other intelligence community analysts, rigged a post-invasion report to show that a trailer found in Iraq was a mobile bioweapons lab.

* Before the invasion, Bush and General Tommy Franks only briefly discussed how Iraq would be secured after the invasion-and did so in the most general terms. The one idea they discussed--appointing a "lord mayor" in each Iraqi city and town--was not even shared with the military officers in charge of drawing up the plans for a post-invasion Iraq.

* Karl Rove and his lawyer did not turn over a critical piece of evidence in the CIA leak case (a document covered by a subpoena from the special prosecutor) for nearly a year.

HUBRIS connects the dots between George W. Bush's outbursts at Saddam Hussein, the bitter battles between the CIA and the White House, the fights within the intelligence community over Saddam's weapons of mass destruction, the real reason Valerie Plame was outed, and a top reporter's ties to wily Iraqi exiles trying to start a war. Written by veteran reporters Michael Isikoff and David Corn, this is the inside story of how President Bush took the nation to war using faulty and fraudulent intelligence. It is a news-making account of conspiracy, backstabbing, bureaucratic ineptitude, journalistic malfeasance, and, especially, arrogance.

Posted by David Corn at 11:38 AM

September 05, 2006

What Valerie Wilson Really Did at the CIA

Another mystery solved. Last week a Newsweek excerpt from HUBRIS: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal and the Selling of the Iraq War, by Michael Isikoff and David Corn (and out this week), revealed that Richard Armitage was the original source for the Robert Novak column that outed Valerie Plame Wilson as a CIA officer. Today, a new excerpt of the book discloses what Valerie Wilson did at the CIA.

She was operations chief of the Joint Task Force on Iraq, a unit of the Counterproliferation Division of the clandestine Directorate of Operations. For the two years prior to her outing, Valerie Wilson worked to gather intelligence that would support the Bush White House's assertion that Saddam Hussein's Iraq was loaded with WMDs. This means that Armitage--as well as Karl Rove and Scooter Libby--leaked classified information about a CIA officer whose job it had been to look for evidence of Saddam's WMD programs. During this part of her career, Valerie Wilson traveled overseas to monitor operations she and her staff at JTFI were mounting. She was no analyst, no desk-jockey, no paper-pusher. She was an undercover officer in charge of running critical covert operations.

This is all explained in an article based on HUBRIS that is appearing in the next issue of The Nation and that has been posted on the magazine's website today. Click here to see the full story.

Some Bush-backers have dismissed the CIA/Plame leak as unimportant and claimed that Valerie Wilson was an analyst and not truly a covert CIA officer. In an October 1, 2003 column, Novak reported she was "an analyst, not in covert operations." HUBRIS and The Nation article, citing CIA sources, reveal that she was in covert operations and that--ironically--she had spent two years trying to find proof of the administration's claims that Iraq posed a WMD threat. She and the Joint Task Force on Iraq, of course, came up empty-handed. The article notes:

Valerie Wilson and other JTFI officers were almost too overwhelmed to consider the possibility that their small number of operations was, in a way, coming up with the correct answer: There was no intelligence to find on Saddam's WMDs because the weapons did not exist. Still, she and her colleagues kept looking. (She also assisted operations involving Iran and WMDs.)

When the war started in March 2003, JTFI officers were disappointed. "I felt like we ran out of time," one CIA officer recalled. "The war came so suddenly. We didn't have enough information to challenge the assumption that there were WMDs....How do you know it's a dry well? That Saddam was constrained. Given more time, we could have worked through the issue....From 9/11 to the war--eighteen months--that was not enough time to get a good answer to this important question."

HUBRIS and The Nation piece also report new revelations that undermine the charge that Valerie Wilson sent her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, on his trip to Niger.

HUBRIS--which chronicles the inside intelligence battles that occurred at the CIA, State Department, Capitol Hill and the White House in the run-up to the war--arrives in bookstores in a day or two. It contains many other revelations that are unrelated to the leak case. I'll have more on some of those later. But not so much more. You're going to have to buy the book. It will start arriving in bookstores on Wednesday.

Posted by David Corn at 01:52 PM

Yet Another HUBRIS Tease

Stay tuned. Watch this space. Wait for it....If all goes as planned, there will be more news out of HUBRIS today. Meanwhile, the book should start arriving in bookstores on Wednesday or Thursday. Check back here again.

Posted by David Corn at 11:05 AM

September 03, 2006

New Thread: HUBRIS News Coming

The thread below got rather long for comments. So start again here. As for the new HUBRIS news, it's still on its way and should pop very soon. Check back here after the holiday for a possible heads-up. Now back to the beer and burgers.

Posted by David Corn at 09:45 PM

September 01, 2006

HUBRIS: There's More News To Come

News coverage of HUBRIS continues. The Los Angeles Times had a good piece yesterday that noted at the top that the Armitage news came from a "new book" and then identified the book and its authors. The Washington Post, though, has twice covered the Armitage leak this week--in a news story and in an editorial--and neither time did it mention the story had been broken by our book. The liberal media-pokers of Media Matters posted a round-up of much of the conservative media reaction to the Armitage news and argued that rightwingers were mugging facts and context to help out Karl Rove, Scooter Libby and the White House. Over at Slate, Mickey Kaus picked up on the fight that did not happen yesterday between National Review's Byron York and me on Bloggingheads.tv, noting that this non-battle had "all the simmering hostility of a pre-fight weigh-in ceremony!" We'll get to York soon enough. Maybe Hitchens, too.

In the meantime, there should be more news out of HUBRIS next week--just as the book goes on sale. The book has revelations to discomfort folks on both sides of the aisle. But I wonder if the cons who embrace (and miscast) the Armitage news out of the book as absolution of the White House regarding the leak case will so eagerly accept the implications of these other disclosures. We might just see some end-of-summer cherry-picking. Which reminds me, enjoy this last (soggy where I am) end-of-summer weekend. Next week will mean business.

Posted by David Corn at 04:12 PM