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Scottie Doesn’t Deny Bush Authorized the Plame Leak

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Okay, I went out and bought the damn book (sadly, I even have an extra one coming from Amazon). And I take something I said yesterday back. I said, speaking of my title that "Bush authorized the leak of Valerie Wilson’s identity," that "Scottie McC doesn’t know it yet."

I was wrong. While Scottie doesn’t confirm that he knows that Bush authorized the leak of Valerie’s identity, he sure as hell doesn’t deny it either. Here’s how he addresses claims that Bush also authorized the leak of Valerie’s identity.

Questions were also raised about whether the president’s action had set in motion the unauthorized disclosure of Valerie Plame’s identity. Although we could not comment publicly, we did our best to distance him from this suggestion by pointing to the comments of Libby’s lawyer that Bush had only authorized Cheney to "get the information out." He hadn’t told him how to do it or what kinds of tactics to use. In other words, Bush hadn’t explicitly talked about leaking. It was a narrow and ultimately tenuous thread.

Do you see where Scottie McC says anything about what content Bush authorized Scooter and Shooter to leak? Me neither.

Scottie McC’s denial–which is not one, not by a long shot–only addresses the method of the leak, the fact that Scooter and Shooter leaked via the old A1 cut-out using Judy Judy Judy. After raising the question of whether or not Bush had authorized the content that Valerie was covert … Scottie McC said nothing.

George Bush Authorized the Leak of Valerie Wilson’s Identity

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Scottie McC doesn’t know it yet. But that’s basically what he revealed this morning on the Today Show (h/t Rayne).

During the interview, Scottie revealed the two things that really pissed him off with the Bush Administration. First, being set up to lie by Karl Rove and Scooter Libby. And second, learning that Bush had–himself–authorized the selective leaking of the NIE.

Scottie McC: But the other defining moment was in early April 2006, when I learned that the President had secretly declassified the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq for the Vice President and Scooter Libby to anonymously disclose to reporters. And we had been out there talking about how seriously the President took the selective leaking of classified information. And here we were, learning that the President had authorized the very same thing we had criticized.

Viera: Did you talk to the President and say why are you doing this?

Scottie McC: Actually, I did. I talked about the conversation we had. I walked onto Air Force One, it was right after an event we had, it was down in the south, I believe it was North Carolina. And I walk onto Air Force One and a reporter had yelled a question to the President trying to ask him a question about this revelation that had come out during the legal proceedings. The revelation was that it was the President who had authorized, or, enable Scooter Libby to go out there and talk about this information. And I told the President that that’s what the reporter was asking. He was saying that you, yourself, was the one that authorized the leaking of this information. And he said "yeah, I did." And I was kinda taken aback.

Now, for the most part, this is not new. We have known (since I first reported it here) that Scooter Libby testified that, after Libby told Dick Cheney he couldn’t leak the information Cheney had ordered him to leak to Judy Miller because it was classified, Cheney told Libby he had gotten the President to authorize the declassification of that information.

Thus far, though, we only had Dick Cheney’s word that he had actually asked Bush to declassify this information. We didn’t have Bush’s confirmation that he had actually declassified the information. In fact, we’ve had Dick Cheney’s claims that he–Dick–had insta-declassified via his super secret pixie dust declassification powers.

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Now This IS Interesting Scottie McClellan News

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Back in November, when Scottie McClellan’s publisher first started to pitch Scottie’s book, he made a stir when he posted the following blurb about the book.

The most powerful leader in the world had called upon me to speak on his behalf and help restore credibility he lost amid the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. So I stood at the White house briefing room podium in front of the glare of the klieg lights for the better part of two weeks and publicly exonerated two of the senior-most aides in the White House: Karl Rove and Scooter Libby.

There was one problem. It was not true.

I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice President, the President’s chief of staff, and the President himself.

That set off a minor firestorm, as people misread the plain language of the blurb to mean that Bush had knowingly asked Scottie McC to lie about Libby’s and Rove’s involvement in the leak of Valerie Wilson’s identity. As I pointed out then, the firestorm probably contributed to making little Scottie rich.

Scottie McC’s publisher has pulled off quite the coup–taken a detail that was, largely, already known, and used it to cause a stir about a book that will not yet be published for another 6 months. Already, Dodd is calling for an investigation, folks are calling for HJC or Waxman to hold a hearing. What the left has done is read one publishing blurb designed to generate this kind of buzz, and played right into the plan. Congratulations. You’re all making Scottie McC rich.

And while I still don’t advocate that you all go out and buy Scottie’s book (tell you what–I’ll buy it and tell you the interesting bits), this little revelation is interesting news.

McClellan also suggests that Libby and Rove secretly colluded to get their stories straight at a time when federal investigators were hot on the Plame case.

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Yoo Issued an Opinion on 9/11 about Scrambling Planes

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Still reading through the Yoo side of the Esquire transcript. At times, it’s very frustrating, since Esquire gave only Yoo’s side of the conversation, without the questions. But by putting this passage of the final article…

So let’s go back to that moment in the heat of battle. The way Yoo tells the story, he was sitting at his desk at the Justice Department when the first plane hit the World Trade Center. He had only been working there two months, hired to answer the White House’s questions on foreign-policy laws at a time when the biggest legal issue before him was a treaty about polar bears. When the order came to evacuate Washington and people began heading out into the streets, someone from the attorney general’s office told him to stick around.

Soon the questions came:

Is this a war?

Do we need to declare war?

Can we scramble planes?

And again: Is this a war?

Together with these two answers from the transcript…

Yes, that was a question [Can planes be scrambled to shoot down any remaining hijacked aircraft]. That was earlier: Can we use force?

I must have. I can’t tell you what I said. No, I don’t think that’s actually public. Can you use force in response? What kind of force? What are the standards that guide the use of force?

I think it’s fairly safe to say that sometime on 9/11, Yoo gave an opinion about whether or not the US could shoot down remaining hijacked planes.

Only he’s not going to tell us what that opinion said.

The opinion is relevant, of course, because one thing Dick Cheney attempted to hide from the 9/11 Commission was that he–without consulting George Bush–issued an order to shoot down any remaining planes. He even tried (unsuccessfully) to get the 9/11 Commission to reverse its finding that Cheney gave the shoot-down order before speaking to Bush.

Now, Yoo’s opinion almost certainly came after Cheney issued the order and after he told Bush he had made it. According to Libby’s notes, Cheney issued the order between 10:15 and 10:18; according to Ari’s notes, Cheney informed Bush of the opinion shoot-down order at 10:20. In other words, Yoo’s opinion probably didn’t contribute to Cheney’s extra-constitutional order.

Still, it’s notable that they went to Yoo for such an opinion, presumably after the fact. And it’s notable that this is yet another of Yoo’s opinions they haven’t released.

Update: Read more →

Condi’s Pissing Contest with Moqtada al-Sadr

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Siun and Spencer make what I believe to be the most important point about Condi’s taunt of Moqtada al-Sadr.

“I know he’s sitting in Iran,” Rice said dismissively, when asked about al-Sadr’s latest threat to lift a self-imposed cease-fire with government and U.S. forces. “I guess it’s all-out war for anybody but him,” Rice said. “I guess that’s the message; his followers can go [to] their deaths and he’s in Iran.”

Here’s Siun:

Hmmm … am I missing something here? Aside from the fact that it is only the U.S. military that keeps claiming al Sadr is always in Iran, I had not noticed the redeployment of the Bush White House and State Department to the streets of Iraq. Occasional drop-ins at the Green Zone, less occasional speed tours of locations outside the GZ (complete with air cover and hundreds of military escorts), sure, but … when did George and Condi move to Baghdad?

And here’s Spencer:

So Sadr is a coward for making threats from Iran… and Condoleezza Rice is a stateswoman for blustering Sadr into making a move that carries the potential of killing American soldiers. Why is this woman respected again?

Once again, this Administration’s claims of manlihood are so much empty fluff.

But I’d like to point out something else about Condi’s taunt. Back when Dick Cheney snuck off to Iraq to meet with Nuri al-Maliki, it remained unclear whether or not Cheney’s visit had some causal relationship with what came next: Maliki’s ill-fated offensive into Basra. It seemed like a pretty telling coincidence, but the Administration barely admitted the US was providing air support, much less admit that Dick at least approved–if not incited–the offensive.

I submit we will have no doubts about what comes next. Condi has made it very clear she owns–we own–whatever atrocities are about to happen in Sadr City.

Update: Here’s Scarecrow making the same point. He also notes that, by inciting more civil war, the US seems to be engaging in an effort to further empower Iran.

The Administration wanted this fight, and Petraeus’ first duty is to protect the Green Zone from rocket attacks. His only tactical complaint was his claim — which now appears disingenuous — that the Iraqis tried to move against Basra before US forces were ready. He blamed al Maliki’s impatience for the initial stumbles, but as soon as the offensive stalled, the Americans (and British) bailed out the Read more →

Did Cheney Rent One of Rummy’s Rent-A-Generals to Try to Refute Joe Wilson?

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I’m working on a catalog of Rummy’s Rent-A-Generals. But I couldn’t help but notice this particular Rent-A-General.

On Friday, April 14, with what came to be called the “Generals’ Revolt” dominating headlines, Mr. Rumsfeld instructed aides to summon military analysts to a meeting with him early the next week, records show. When an aide urged a short delay to “give our big guys on the West Coast a little more time to buy a ticket and get here,” Mr. Rumsfeld’s office insisted that “the boss” wanted the meeting fast “for impact on the current story.”

That same day, Pentagon officials helped two Fox analysts, General McInerney and General Vallely, write an opinion article for The Wall Street Journal defending Mr. Rumsfeld.

“Starting to write it now,” General Vallely wrote to the Pentagon that afternoon. “Any input for the article,” he added a little later, “will be much appreciated.” Mr. Rumsfeld’s office quickly forwarded talking points and statistics to rebut the notion of a spreading revolt.

“Vallely is going to use the numbers,” a Pentagon official reported that afternoon.

[snip]

Many also shared with Mr. Bush’s national security team a belief that pessimistic war coverage broke the nation’s will to win in Vietnam, and there was a mutual resolve not to let that happen with this war.

This was a major theme, for example, with Paul E. Vallely, a Fox News analyst from 2001 to 2007. A retired Army general who had specialized in psychological warfare, Mr. Vallely co-authored a paper in 1980 that accused American news organizations of failing to defend the nation from “enemy” propaganda during Vietnam.

“We lost the war — not because we were outfought, but because we were out Psyoped,” he wrote. He urged a radically new approach to psychological operations in future wars — taking aim at not just foreign adversaries but domestic audiences, too. He called his approach “MindWar” — using network TV and radio to “strengthen our national will to victory.”

[snip]

Back in Washington, Pentagon officials kept a nervous eye on how the trip translated on the airwaves. Uncomfortable facts had bubbled up during the trip. One briefer, for example, mentioned that the Army was resorting to packing inadequately armored Humvees with sandbags and Kevlar blankets. Descriptions of the Iraqi security forces were withering. “They can’t shoot, but then again, they don’t,” one officer told them, according to one participant’s notes.

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Who “We” Included in the Torture Briefings

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rincewind made an important point in my post on the torture briefings. At least one of the sources for the story must be one of the briefees, not a briefer. rincewind points to these two quotes that come from someone within the committee.

“It kept coming up. CIA wanted us to sign off on each one every time,” said one high-ranking official who asked not to be identified. “They’d say, ‘We’ve got so and so. This is the plan.’”

[snip]

“These discussions weren’t adding value,” a source said. “Once you make a policy decision to go beyond what you used to do and conclude it’s legal, (you should) just tell them to implement it.”

This source obviously considers himself as one of the people receiving the briefing, which further suggests this source is not in the CIA.

As luck would have it, via Troutfishing’s diary and this McGovern piece, I checked out this February 7, 2002 memo in which Bush declares that Al Qaeda will not be entitled to Geneva Convention protections. The memo seems to indicate that it is addressed to all the people who have participated–at least thus far–in discussions on torture; it refers to "our recent extensive discussions regarding the status of Al Qaeda and Taliban detainees." Now check out the list of addressees:

Dick Cheney
Colin Powell
Rummy
John Ashcroft
Andy Card
George Tenet
Condi Rice
Richard Myers

In other words, two of the people whom Bush noted as being involved in "extensive discussions regarding the status of Al Qaeda and Taliban detainees" are not included in the list ABC News gave of the attendees of the meetings that took place slightly later in 2002: Andy Card and Richard Myers. Either is a possibility to be the "high-ranking official" who objected to the repeated discussions of what techniques to use. Certainly, Myers is on the record as having opposed the decision not to extend Geneva Convention protections to Al Qaeda (most recently in reports from Feith’s book). And he would count as "high-ranking" in more than one sense (though neither he, nor Card, is still an official, after all).

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Remember the Torture Tapes?

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Just about everyone is talking about ABC’s confirmation of what we already knew: the torture was approved–in excruciating detail–by the most senior members of the Bush Administration.

In dozens of top-secret talks and meetings in the White House, the most senior Bush administration officials discussed and approved specific details of how high-value al Qaeda suspects would be interrogated by the Central Intelligence Agency, sources tell ABC News.

The so-called Principals who participated in the meetings also approved the use of "combined" interrogation techniques — using different techniques during interrogations, instead of using one method at a time — on terrorist suspects who proved difficult to break, sources said.

Highly placed sources said a handful of top advisers signed off on how the CIA would interrogate top al Qaeda suspects — whether they would be slapped, pushed, deprived of sleep or subjected to simulated drowning, called waterboarding.

The high-level discussions about these "enhanced interrogation techniques" were so detailed, these sources said, some of the interrogation sessions were almost choreographed — down to the number of times CIA agents could use a specific tactic.

The advisers were members of the National Security Council’s Principals Committee, a select group of senior officials who met frequently to advise President Bush on issues of national security policy.

At the time, the Principals Committee included Vice President Cheney, former National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell, as well as CIA Director George Tenet and Attorney General John Ashcroft.

Now, the article is actually incredibly vague about which of the high-value detainees the Principals discussed interrogating. For example, it suggests that Abu Zubaydah’s torture was planned by the Principals. But then–where elsewhere it asserts that all of the Principals approved the torture–it backs off that claim specifically with regards to Zubaydah.

But after Zubaydah recovered from his wounds at a secret CIA prison in Thailand, he was uncooperative.

[snip]

The CIA wanted to use more aggressive — and physical — methods to get information.

The agency briefed high-level officials in the National Security Council’s Principals Committee, led by then-National Security Advisor Rice and including then-Attorney General Ashcroft, which then signed off on the plan, sources said. It is unclear whether anyone on the committee objected to the CIA’s plans for Zubaydah.

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Cheney’s Lawyer Now Defending Haynes

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We’ve discussed the quiet omnipresence of Terry O’Donnell on this blog several times before. O’Donnell is, of course, Dick Cheney’s long-time personal lawyer. We know that David Addington informed Cheney when he discovered the "meatgrinder" note in the evidence being turned over to the FBI in the CIA Leak Case. We also know that O’Donnell took the lead on efforts to convince DOJ not to indict James Tobin–even though O’Donnell was not one of the named Williams & Connolly lawyers representing Tobin.

If the Tobin example didn’t already make it clear that O’Donnell’s job is not just to keep Cheney–but to keep the entire top Bush Administration out of jail–consider this news.

Terry O’Donnell is now representing the former General Counsel for DOD, William Haynes.

The panel notified the Pentagon in early February that it wanted to question Haynes. Before receiving any response, investigators learned on Feb. 25 that Haynes was leaving for Chevron in San Francisco. "How often does somebody like that give two weeks’ notice and leave town?" said one government source familiar with the sequence of events.

Haynes’s departure initially raised concerns about obtaining his testimony without a subpoena, especially after the panel learned that he had retained top criminal defense attorney Terrence O’Donnell, who represented Cheney during the Valerie Plame leak investigation. But O’Donnell told NEWSWEEK that Haynes has agreed to be interviewed, adding that the committee’s probe "had nothing to do" with his resignation.

This mind-boggling news appears in an Isikoff story about a secret Senate Armed Forces investigation into abuses of detainees in DOD custody (recall that Carl Levin Chairs Armed Forces and John McCain is the ranking member–which itself is cause for discussion).

Not surprisingly, Isikoff doesn’t bat an eye about the fact that the Vice President’s personal lawyer is now representing the guy at DOD who is at the nexus of policies permitting torture, the guy who stands between the policies at Abu Ghraib and Gitmo, and Rummy and Dick. Isikoff doesn’t consider the tremendous conflict that O’Donnell is likely to have, representing both the legal facilitator of the torture and the mastermind of the whole damned Unitary Executive itself.

Once again, this Administration appears to be defending itself as a collectivity. Read more →

Questions

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Shew! I did it! I survived for a full week without WiFi or wireless.

And it was nice.

A million thanks to bmaz for watching the blog this week–looks like you guys had a lot of fun without me. And a million thanks for the birthday wishes.

I’ll post more substantively once I wade through the accumulated emails and posts and news. But for now I’ve got the following questions as I read through what you’ve guys have been reading through.

  • If the White House destroys hard drives of people who move on, and the people from whom we wanted email in January 2006 included three people who had already left OVP (Cathie Martin, Jenny Mayfield, and Scooter Libby), then does that mean we still don’t have emails from the relevant period for these three people (particularly the last two)?
  • If Brent Wilkes’ complaints about improper leaks of his impending indictment win him a get out of jail free card, does that mean Eliot Spitzer is out of all legal danger (even while the DA is making it known that he suspects Spitzer perjured himself)?
  • What does Eric Lichtblau mean when he refers to Dick Cheney’s tense relations with the NYT in December 2005?

As New York Times Editor Bill Keller, Washington Bureau Chief Phil Taubman, and I awaited our meeting, we still weren’t sure who would make the pitch for the president. Dick Cheney had thought about coming to the meeting but figured his own tense relations with the newspaper might actually hinder the White House’s efforts to stop publication. (He was probably right.)

After all, this meeting took place just a month after Cheney’s Cheney had been indicted for lying to cover up Cheney’s apparent order to leak Valerie Wilson’s identity to Judy Miller. That indictment came after the NYT made an ill-advised attempt to protect Libby–even after they knew Judy’s testimony was proof that Libby lied under oath. After having been served so well by his selective A1 cutout leaks to the NYT, why was he so cranky right after Libby was indicted?