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Plame Case: The Plot Thickens

There’s long been speculation about Richard Armitage’s role in the ongoing Valerie Plame saga, which has already forced the resignation of Dick Cheney's chief of staff, Scooter Libby, and, to an extent, ensnared the Veep himself. In the past two weeks, though, the former deputy secretary of state has emerged not just as a bit player in the leak case but as a central figure. Last week the AP reported that an entry in Armitage's State Department calendar reflects a one-hour appointment with Bob Woodward (who has acknowledged having an informal discussion about Plame with an administration official) on June 13, 2003, not long before Plame’s status as a covert CIA operative was blown in a column by Robert Novak. Today Newsweek, plugging a new book by Michael Isikoff and David Corn, is reporting that Armitage was Novak's primary source, the “senior administration official” Novak has previously referred to as “not a partisan gunslinger.” According to the story:

Armitage, a well-known gossip who loves to dish and receive juicy tidbits about Washington characters, apparently hadn't thought through the possible implications of telling Novak about Plame’s identity. “I'm afraid I may be the guy that caused this whole thing," he later told Carl Ford Jr., State's intelligence chief. Ford says Armitage admitted to him that he had “slipped up” and told Novak more than he should have. “He was basically beside himself that he was the guy that f---ed up. My sense from Rich is that it was just chitchat,” Ford recalls….

While Armitage’s disclosure of Plame’s identity may have come about during a bull session with Novak and perhaps Woodward too, there is certainly evidence to suggest that in the hands of White House officials this information was not dispensed accidentally, but rather used in an effort to discredit Plame’s husband, Joseph Wilson, for his criticism of the Bush administration’s use of pre-war intel on Iraq. Expect many more interesting revelations about the Plame affair with the publication of Isikoff and Corn’s book, “Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War,” which will be out in October.

Posted by Daniel Schulman on 08/27/06 at 10:20 AM | E-mail | Print

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Comments

Daniel Schulman,

Thanks for your article about this crucial issue.

Armitage, Novak and Woodward should all be thrown in jail along with the rest of Bush's inner circle for all their secrecy and lies.

Jail for a lifetime seems about right.

Posted by: Bob DAmico on 08/27/06 at 11:46 AM

Haven't we seen enough of these CYA scenarios? Armitage, being a "Team Player", takes the blame. That takes Libby off the hook, Cheyney fades back to the 'dark side' and all the other conspirators breath a sigh of relief. Just an inadvertant slip of the tongue by a talkative apparatchik. No big deal fellas! Everybody move on!
In the meantime, all those connected to Plame and the front corporation is either in prison, on their way to prison or dead.

Posted by: S.F.Wilson on 08/27/06 at 1:10 PM

Either way you slice it, this story is yet another blow to the administration’s credibility. If we roll with the righty spin and say that the Plame affair began with just a simple case of a chatty Deputy Secretary of State, then the fact that Armitage retained his job despite a reputation for such careless disregard for national security secrecy is pure hypocrisy in the face of this administration’s attacks on the media and critics of it’s extra-constitutional surveillance by repeating the mantra of “loose lips sink ships”.

On a more realistic track, one has to ask why the name & status of such a low-profile covert operative should rise to the level of being the topic of Executive gossip in the first place. Oh yeah, that’s right- because the hawks were looking to attack her husband. If he were not on the forefront of their minds, then his wife would have not been the focus of Armitage’s attention in the first place.

So it comes back to the unnatural attention spent on a single critic by this administration at a time when such attention should have been focused on planning and prosecuting the war they pushed so hard for.

Posted by: bone on 08/28/06 at 9:05 AM

"evidence to suggest" you've got to be kidding?!? Is this all you've got?? Its amusing observing they nutball Left going deer in headlights over this Armitage news. At least we can be thankfull that a dye in the wool Leftwinger is co-author on this book otherwise we'd have to endure an additional bunch of "rightwing media" nonsense.
"The plot thickens"? Your brain has thickened.

Posted by: hugh maguire on 08/28/06 at 6:39 PM

The silence from the Bush Haters, those wearers of head-gear crafted from tin (aluminum) is deafening!

Posted by: Triumphant George on 08/30/06 at 5:53 AM

It finally comes out in the wash Wilson is an absolute phony who was only sent to Niger by virture of his wife! I hope they throw out the suit they filed what a crock

Posted by: ddemeri@aol.com on 09/01/06 at 4:29 PM