Talking Points on Intimigate Story
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5 Minute Guide on Intimigate Story
Top administration officials leaked the identity of a covert CIA operative to punish her husband for telling the truth about Iraq.
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Bush included discredited intelligence in his 2003 State of the Union, claiming, "the British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." American intelligence agencies knew that the claim was false, and had warned the administration against making it.
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The 2003 State of the Union Address was a call to war with Iraq. Much of the administration’s case for war has been discredited. [Powers, New York Review of Books 12/4/03]
The claim that Iraq had tried to purchase uranium from Africa was clearly wrong. [Hersh, The New Yorker 3/31/03]
The State Department didn’t believe it, and Colin Powell wouldn’t repeat it. The State Department appended an annex to the National Intelligence Estimate noting that the claim was "highly dubious." [The Washington Post 10/24/03]
The CIA knew it was false, and told the administration. [Washington Post 3/22/03] "[T]he CIA 10 months [before the State of the Union] sent a former senior American diplomat to visit Niger who reported that country's officials said they had not made any agreement to aid the sale of uranium to Iraq and indicated documents alleging that were forged" [The Washington Post 6/22/03]
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The CIA had sent former ambassador Joe Wilson — a "hero" from the first Gulf War — to Africa to check out the Niger story. Wilson had found the claim to be groundless, and informed the administration. He blew the whistle in the New York Times when Bush repeated the false allegations.
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Senior administration officials retaliated against Wilson by revealing his wife’s status as a covert CIA operative to multiple journalists. Novak published the information in his syndicated column.
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Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame, was an asset in the fight to stop the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. The White House sacrificed her lifetime of work to intimidate future critics of the administration.
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Plame was a NOC, a "non-official cover" operative, one of the most secretive in the CIA. Revealing her identity wastes millions of government dollars and risks the lives of significant human resources. [Knight Ridder 10/10/03] She worked on weapons of mass destructions, posed as an energy industry employee.
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George W. Bush’s father called people who "burn" CIA operatives "the most insidious of traitors." The Department of Justice has appointed a prosecutor to find who unmasked Plame.
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George H.W. Bush, a lifelong CIA man, denounced the burning of CIA operatives at the Dedication Ceremony for the George Bush Center for Intelligence. [Remarks by George Bush 4/26/99]
Revealing the identity of a CIA operative is "illegal." Other administration activities are also potentially criminal. [Findlaw.com 10/10/03]
The CIA asked the Department of Justice to investigate the leak. [MSNBC 9/26/03] John Ashcroft eventually recused himself from the investigation, and appointed Patrick Fitzgerald to lead the investigation. [Findlaw.com 1/6/04]
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George W. Bush, despite pledging full cooperation with the DoJ investigation, has done nothing to find the traitor within his midst.
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The investigation reaches into the highest levels of the Bush administration. [American Prospect] The Department of Justice has had to subpoena records from Air Force One, as well as over two years worth of records from 25 different officials in the White House. [Washington Post 3/6/04] Bush has not kept his pledges to cooperate with the investigation. [Misleader 1/6/04]
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Footnotes
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- Integer vel lorem.
- Integer rutrum
- Proin in mi eu nulla sagittis
Further Reading
