| Rove and libby worked damage control { July 22 2005 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active) http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2005/07/22/MNG0VDS25U1.DTLhttp://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2005/07/22/MNG0VDS25U1.DTL
Bush aides worked on damage control at time of CIA leak They helped prepare response to criticism from agent's husband over nuclear allegation
- David Johnston, New York Times Friday, July 22, 2005
Washington -- At the same time in July 2003 that a CIA operative's identity was exposed, two key White House officials who talked to journalists about the officer were also working closely together on a related underlying issue: whether President Bush was correct in suggesting earlier that year that Iraq had been trying to acquire nuclear materials from Africa.
The two issues had become inextricably linked because Joseph Wilson, the husband of the unmasked CIA officer, had questioned Bush's assertion, prompting a damage-control effort by the White House that included challenging Wilson's standing and his credentials. A federal grand jury investigation is under way to determine whether someone illegally leaked the officer's identity and possibly into whether perjury or obstruction of justice occurred.
People who have been briefed on the case said that the White House officials, Karl Rove and Lewis Libby, had been helping to prepare what became the administration's primary response to criticism that a flawed phrase about the nuclear materials in Africa had been included in Bush's 2003 State of the Union address.
They had exchanged e-mails and drafts of a proposed statement by George Tenet, then the director of central intelligence, to explain how the disputed wording had gotten into the address. Rove, the president's political strategist, and Libby, the chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney, coordinated their efforts with Stephen Hadley, then the deputy national security adviser, who was in turn consulting with Tenet.
At the same time, they were grappling with the fallout from a July 6, 2003, New York Times op-ed article by Wilson, a former diplomat, in which he criticized the way the administration had used intelligence to support the claim in Bush's speech.
The work done by Rove and Libby on the Tenet statement, during this intense period, had not been previously disclosed. People who have been briefed on the case discussed the critical time period and the events surrounding it to demonstrate that Rove and Libby were not involved in an orchestrated scheme to discredit Wilson or disclose the undercover status of his wife, Valerie Plame, but were intent on clarifying the use of intelligence in the president's address. Those people who have been briefed requested anonymity because prosecutors have asked them not to discuss matters under investigation.
The special counsel in the case, Patrick Fitzgerald, has been examining this period of time to determine whether the officials' work on the Tenet statement led in some way to the disclosure of Plame's identity to syndicated columnist Robert Novak, according to the people who have been briefed.
It is not clear what information Rove and Libby might have collected about Plame as they worked on the Tenet statement.
Rove and Libby did not meet face to face while hammering out the critical points that were desired for the Tenet statement slightly more than two years ago, the people briefed on the case said.
In its final version, the Tenet statement, through its language and tone, supported the contention that senior White House officials were focused on addressing the substance of Wilson's claims. It did not mention Wilson or his wife, and Libby made it clear that Cheney had not sent Wilson to Africa. Their defenders assert that the Tenet statement underscores that they were not trying to punish Wilson.
A former government official, though, offered a somewhat different version of how the statement was prepared, saying that Tenet's own words had been used. The statement said that the "CIA's counterproliferation experts, on their own initiative, asked an individual with ties to the region to make a visit to see what he could learn."
In Wilson's article, he recounted a mission he undertook to Niger in 2002 seeking information about a purported effort by Iraqi President Saddam Hussein to acquire uranium there and Wilson's conclusion that the effort had not occurred.
In his State of the Union address in January 2003, Bush cited reports that Iraq had been seeking to acquire a form of uranium in Africa .
Lawyers with clients in the case said that Fitzgerald had shown interest in a classified State Department memo that was provided to then-Secretary of State Colin Powell as he left for Africa on Air Force One with Bush on July 7, 2003, a day after Wilson went public with his accusations.
The memo identified Plame by name -- as "Valerie Wilson" -- and described her as having a role in her husband's selection for the mission to Niger.
The investigators have been trying to determine who else within the administration might have seen the memo or learned of its contents. Among those asked whether he had seen the memo was Ari Fleischer, then the White House press secretary, who was on Air Force One with Bush during the Africa trip right after Wilson's article appeared. Fleischer told the grand jury that he had never seen the memo, a person familiar with the testimony said.
Fleischer's role has been scrutinized by investigators, in part because his telephone log showed a call on the day after Wilson's article appeared from Novak, the columnist who, on July 14, was the first to report Plame's identity.
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