Karl Rove, Plame and the Bush Presidency: Watergate II?

by F. William Engdahl

A curious story is gaining momentum in Washington and the establishment media in recent days which many thought had all but been laid dead for more than a year. The story involves Karl Rove and a Time magazine reporter, Matthew Cooper. Cooper is now testifying before a Grand Jury proceeding about what Presidential confidant Karl Rove actually said to Cooper about CIA agent Valerie Plame in their July 2003 interview. Rove, who nominally holds the title White House Deputy Chief of Staff, is the person Washington insiders refer to as ‘Bush’s brain.’

Rove is the architect of all spin doctoring campaigns, deceits, dirty tricks and such to keep his man in power. He ran every Bush campaign since Bush was Texas Governor, and has been at Bush’s side since 1973. Rove is the architect of Bush’s bizarre and politically powerful alliance with the Christian Right. It was Rove who reportedly said a short time after the Iraq war, ‘There will be no more wars before the 2004 elections.’ The reason had nothing to do with dangers of terror states or WMD or Al Qaeda, but rather a cold-blooded political calculation that a second war before November 2004 would hurt the re-election bid.

What is the Plame affair, and could it become the Watergate for Bush II? Plame was an undercover CIA agent whose identity was leaked by reporter Bob Novak during the Iraq war. It was allegedly leaked by Rove as White House revenge for the report her Ambassador husband, Joe Wilson, delivered to the White House stating there was no evidence that Saddam had secretly sought to buy Uranium yellowcake from the African government of Niger.

Despite Ambassador Wilson’s report back to the CIA, Bush ignored (or Rove suppressed) the report and went on to declare that ‘British intelligence reports Iraq has obtained vital uranium from an African country for its nuclear program.’

There is significant evidence that Rove violated several Federal laws in his conduct and the fact that Wilson is not keeping quiet makes it explosive potentially. For almost two years the White House has tried to silence the affair. The timing of the new revelations suggests that major factions within the US establishment, likely including Republicans, are using the affair to decapitate the Bush Presidency.

Bush’s revenge?

The assumption till now had been that the Plame leak by the White House to Novak who first broke the story in July 2003, had been Bush’s revenge against her husband Joe Wilson, for not only submitting a report of no uranium deal in Niger, but of having the gall to write a prominent OpEd in the New York Times to that effect, letting the ugly cat out of the bag and forcing Rove to work overtime in spin doctoring. Wilson at the time had also told press that the White House Niger business, ‘begs the question what else they are lying about …’

Some argue the Rove campaign of character assassination against Joe Wilson and wife was also aimed at silencing other potential critics of the regime.

But the central point which is beginning to come to light now is the White House misuse of false charges of an Iraqi nuclear bomb threat in making the case to the American public and Congress for war.

The Plame-Rove affair surfaces just as leaks of confidential British documents by the Times show that Blair knowingly also faked the case for going to war in Iraq, telling his Cabinet in July 2002 that senior US officials had confided to Blair that intelligence on Iraq and WMD was being ‘fixed’ by the White House around a policy of war, suggesting he coordinated with Bush on it. So far US media has all but blacked out the Blair story. Bush’s popularity is falling dangerously low in recent weeks, making the Rove affair especially bad for him.

The Iraq a-bomb threat was faked and, as it now turns out, deliberately placed in a National Intelligence Estimate on White House orders to force the Yes vote in Congress in October 2002. Significantly, Bush Republicans also won control of the Senate the next month on a war theme. The Niger lie and Rove are thus at the center of the entire Iraq deception story that has been brought into the open in Blair’s England.

Two years ago the Attorney General was forced to appoint an independent Special Prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, to run the investigation. As neo-conservative William Kristol recently remarked, Fitzpatrick is ‘the problem for the White House; we (sic) have no idea what he knows.’ It was he who has summoned Rove to testify and also Matt Cooper, and New York Times reporter Judith Miller, who refused and now sits in jail for contempt of a Grand Jury.

Indication that this is becoming a major scandal for Bush is the fact that devastating new leaks keep appearing now in the Washington Post and other major media. Attacking Rove has suddenly become allowed in Washington media politics. A year ago such was unheard of. On July 21, senior Post colmnist Walter Pincus runs a story ‘Memo central to probe spelled out information’s status: Plame’s identity marked as secret.’

He reports that a ‘classified State Department memorandum central to a federal leak investigation contained information about CIA officer Valerie Plame in a paragraph marked “(S)” for secret, a clear indication that any Bush administration official who read it should have been aware the information was classified, according to current and former government officials.’ He adds, ‘The paragraph identifying her as the wife of former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV was clearly marked to show that it contained classified material at the “secret” level, two sources said. The CIA classifies as “secret” the names of officers whose identities are covert, according to former senior agency officials.’ The Federal statute makes it illegal for any official to leak the name of a secret or covert CIA agent knowingly.

With this leak the alibi of Cheney that he never knew the wife was a secret agent loses major credibility. The sharks are gathering.

Excerpts of several statements pertaining to who knew what in the Plame case are useful here:

“The fact is, Karl Rove did not leak classified information.” So said Ken Mehlman, head of the Republican Party.

“I didn’t know her name. I didn’t leak her name.” So said Karl Rove of Valerie Wilson/Plame last year on CNN.

“He did not tell any reporter that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA.” So said Robert Luskin, Rove’s attorney, after Newsweek reported Rove had been a source for Time magazine’s Matt Cooper but before Newsweek revealed a Cooper email that said Rove had told Cooper that “Wilson’s wife...apparently works at the agency on wmd issues.”

At a July 19 White House press briefing, Bush press spokesman Scott McClellan was asked only one question: Does Bush still stick to his promise to fire anyone found guilty of having leaked secret agent identity? A reading of that transcript reveals openly how the White House is now sweating that its carefully constructed circle of lies and cover-ups begins to unravel. One week before no reporter asked one question of Rove’s role.

The Rove camp – aided by its conservative media – has built the twin-foundation for his defense: he did not mention Valerie Wilson/Plame ‘by name’; he did not disclose classified information. The first of these two assertions is misleading and irrelevant; the second is wrong.

The Intelligence Identities Protection Act makes it a crime for a government official to identify ‘a covert agent’ of the United States. The law defines ‘covert agent,’ in part, as ‘a present or retired officer or employee of an intelligence agency or a present or retired member of the Armed Forces assigned to duty with an intelligence agency whose identity as such an officer, employee, or member is classified information.’ Plame’s status was classified and she was a covert status CIA agent. According to Time magazine’s Cooper e-mail, then, Rove leaked classified information on Plame, a criminal act under the law. The point about the name is irrelevant as Rove called her ‘Wilson’s wife’ which under the law identifies her. The name is a diversion issue a red herring Rove & Co invented to defuse the exploding story.

Eight blank pages

The case now is focussed on ‘eight blank pages’ of a February decision by Judge David Tatel, which decision demanded Cooper and Miller reveal their sources. Judge Tatel earlier had indicated he did not see the issue as a danger to national security, until that was, he read the prosecution’s evidence, and then concluded that ‘press privilege had to give way to the gravity of the suspected crime.’ What was so grave? That the President of the United States and his subordinates knowingly lied when he gave the State of the Union January 2003 report that Niger proved Iraq was still building the bomb? That the President knowingly lied the Nation into war with subsequent loss of thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollar costs?

The Bush-Rove-Cheney team destroyed the credibility of Treasury Secretary Paul O’Neill when the latter revealed that Bush planned to invade Iraq from the first day in office in January 2001. The Bush-Rove team destroyed the credibility of anti-terrorist expert Richard Clarke, dismissing him as a Kerry ‘mole’ in 2004, when Clarke disclosed that the Bush White House wanted to use September 11 as pretext to go after Iraq as early as September 12, 2001. They trashed former Marine Corps head and Middle East envoy General Zinni when Zinni attacked the strategy of Rumsfeld and the Neo-cons for a Blitzkrieg ‘shock and awe’ war strategy. Similarly with General Shinseki who protested the inadequate forces for an occupation.

Senator John Kerry plans to call for Congressional hearings into the entire affair. As one former Reagan official who since has broken with the neo-conservatives, Jude Wanniski puts it, ‘There is something VERY big being covered up here.’ Coming from a Reagan Republican, this suggests we could see this scandal envelop the White House and make Bush a definitive lame duck far earlier than planned.