America Conor O'CleryIt used to be the thing in left-wing American journalism to unmask agents of the Central Intelligence Agency, especially in the post-Vietnam protest days when the CIA was perceived, in the words of Senator Frank Church, to be "a rogue elephant on the rampage".
In 1975 an embittered former CIA operative, Philip Agee, published a hostile memoir called Inside the Company: CIA Diary, which identified approximately 250 agents. A publication called CounterSpy revealed more names.
Then in December 1975 Richard Welch, the CIA station chief in Athens, was assassinated after being "outed". The atmosphere changed. At the urging of CIA director George HW Bush, Congress passed a law in 1982 that provided for a $50,000 fine and 10 years in prison for exposing a CIA operative where the disclosure was made intentionally about someone known to be a covert agent.
Based on what we have learned, Karl Rove may not have broken the law by telling journalist Matthew Cooper of Time on "double super secret background" (ie, don't mention the source) that former ambassador Joseph Wilson's wife (whom he didn't name though this could be easily established) was a CIA operative. Valerie Plame was under official cover at the time, but proving that Rove knew this would be well-nigh impossible.
Her role was of significance to the White House because her husband had investigated claims on behalf of the CIA that Saddam Hussein was trying to buy uranium in Niger, and he had subsequently accused the administration of manipulating intelligence to justify the war with Iraq.
It was clearly in the interests of the West Wing to portray Wilson as someone inadequate who could only get such an assignment through his wife.
Rove spoke to Cooper shortly before conservative columnist Robert Novak first outed Plame in a July 14th, 2003, column, citing not one but two senior administration officials as his sources. With this article the wheel had turned full circle: here was someone on the right doing a "Philip Agee" and compromising a CIA agent, and the disclosure caused a furore, leading to the appointment of a special prosecutor.
Novak wrote: "Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an agency operative on weapons of mass destruction. Two senior administration officials told me his wife suggested sending Wilson to Niger to investigate the Italian report."
Yesterday it emerged for the first time that Rove was also a source for Novak, but that the president's aide was claiming he got the information from the columnist, not the other way around.
Sources close to Rove disclosed that he had told the grand jury investigating the case that Novak had called him on July 8th and that it was the columnist who first mentioned Wilson's wife by name and that she worked for the CIA. Rove testified that he replied to Novak: "I heard that, too." This was at least indirect confirmation by Rove of Plame's identity and status.
Novak later explained in a second column on October 1st, 2003, that one source gave him the story and that the second - whom we now know to be Rove - answered: "Oh, you know about it." So Rove was at least aware of the information the other "senior administration official" had supplied to Novak.
But Rove also told the grand jury that he had known that only because he had heard it from another journalist. Could this be Judith Miller, the New York Times reporter now confined to an overcrowded Washington jail - sleeping on a mattress on the floor - for not revealing her sources despite not writing a story, and known to be in good standing in the White House for her authoritative pre-war assertions that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction?
These revelations raise a number of questions. Who is the real "Deep Throat" in the administration if it is not Rove. Could it be "Scooter" Libby, Dick Cheney's chief of staff, who has also been called to testify to the grand jury? And what did Rove tell the president, who said last year the leaker should be fired?
Rove has been an adviser and strategist for Bush for decades, as close, as loyal, and as useful to his master as was PJ Mara to Charles Haughey. His firing is highly unlikely. Whatever the truth in this murky affair, the political fallout has been very damaging for the administration.
Identifying a CIA agent, even indirectly, provides an attractive target for terrorists. The Senate was engulfed on Thursday by partisan sniping, with Democratic minority leader Harry Reid talking of "cover-up" and "an abuse of power", and Senate majority leader Bill Frist accusing Democrats of resorting to "partisan war chants".
Bush's press secretary Scott McClellan took a hiding from the White House press corps this week for his earlier assurances that it was "ridiculous" to suggest Rove had any role in the affair.
McClellan's refusal to comment because of an "ongoing investigation" has been seen as a classic case of stonewalling. Jon Stewart on Comedy Central's World News Tonight played a collage of the miserable press secretary citing "ongoing investigation" like a mantra to deflect dozens of indignant questions. Jay Leno on NBC's Tonight Show wisecracked: "Everybody knows Karl Rove was the source of the CIA leak - except the CIA".
Defenders of the president stepped up their attacks on the credibility of Joe Wilson, calling him a partisan and a liar. The former ambassador responded by going on every television news show to accuse the White House of conducting a smear campaign against him to distract attention from the real issue - that the administration lied about weapons of mass destruction.
In each interview he extracted from his pocket, with a flourish, a letter from George H W Bush, praising him for his role as a diplomat. "I made my bones confronting Saddam Hussein and securing the release of over 2,000 Americans," Wilson said, referring to his Baghdad posting during the first Gulf War. "Karl Rove made his bones doing political dirty tricks."
Among the Republicans arguing that Karl Rove was just trying to steer Cooper away from giving Wilson too much credence has been Congressman Peter King.
In a rather unfortunate mixing of metaphors, given his well-known association with a certain party in Northern Ireland, King said indignantly that "Republicans should stop holding back and go on the offence: fire enough bullets the other way. . ."