I am reading a lot about Karl Rove, Scooter Libby and the search to pin the tail on the slimeball (or slimeballs) who outed Valerie Plame as a CIA operative. That includes a very long, very helpful summary of the story by two Washington Post reporters carried by the Albuquerque Journal Sunday, July 24.
It’s all quite complicated and one can get lost in the details. I conclude, however, that who leaked Plame’s name is less important than why.
It’s public record now that the White House set out to destroy the credibility of Joseph Wilson, her husband almost immediately after his Op Ed piece appeared in the New York Times. It questioned why President Bush’s State of the Union speech included an allegation that Iraq was looking to buy yellow cake from Niger long after Wilson had investigated that report and told the CIA it wasn’t true. (Other probes reached the same conclusion.)
This galvanized the White House. Why? Because the Administration was arguing it had to war on Iraq because Saddam Hussein had WMD and was close to getting nuclear weapons.
Wilson’s challenge suggested the White House was cooking intelligence to fit the policy. (Exactly the case, as we now know from many sources.)
Who did the dastardly deed is not of the essence. Nor where Plame’s name came from. Nor Time, Inc.’s failure to defend the First Amendment after examining its corporate interests .Nor Judith Miller’s stay in prison.
No, the Bush policy was to exploit 9/11, conflate it with Iraq and wrap both under the "War on Terror" rubric. Wilson’s Op Ed raised questions about that, so the White House went after him.
That’s the importance of the Plame story.