Well, they can’t find weapons of mass destruction. They can’t find Saddam Hussein. They can’t find Osama Bin Laden. They can’t find a coherent, concise policy in dealing with Iraq. They can’t find allied forces who want to fight in Iraq along side our troops or even attempt to keep the peace there. They can’t find enough votes in the UN to even pass a resolution. And of course, they can’t find the leak in the White House.
Of course, they want to find weapons of mass destruction. They want to find Saddam Hussein. They want to find Osama Bin Laden. They want to find allies to put troops in Iraq to fight along side ours. They want to find allies that will vote for a resolution in the UN supporting our actions. Of course, they don’t want to find the leak.
The media of course has not done its job in this area either. You have the conservative media, spearheaded by the Fox Network and the Murdock Newspaper empire. They long ago chose sides and might as well be considered an arm of the right wing of the Republican party. The last thing that they want is to find the leaker unless that leaker somehow should be a Democratic or a holdover from the Clinton Administration, which obviously does not exist. You have the regular media whether leaning ideologically towards the right or the left that have given the Bush Administration a free pass in virtually everything and continue to do so on this issue.
When you think about all of the facts surrounding the leak, this quite honestly should be one of the biggest national scandals that we have ever had. However, the Bush Administration with their conservative media storm troopers have done their best to make this into a “accidental mistake” or an issue trumped up by the liberal media and the Democrats. Next, this issue needs to and should be viewed upon as totally non-partisan.
What you have here, is simply this: The Vice-President’s office contacted the CIA asking it to determine whether Niger was providing yellow cake uranium to Saddam Hussein in Iraq, or whether Saddam Hussein and Iraq had attempted to purchase yellow cake uranium from Niger. The Central Intelligence Agency hired Ambassador Wilson to go to Niger to check it out. Wilson did not ask for the assignment, his wife did not ask for him to be assigned to this issue, but rather as an American citizen who had given most of his life to the service of this country, Ambassador Wilson went to Niger to do the best that he could and to get the information as he saw it.
Ambassador Wilson was a logical choice. A former ambassador to African nations, once posted in Niger, apparently with more contacts in Africa, more credibility with African nations, then anyone else the CIA could think of, he was sent. He came back with Niger with a report that the information was false. There was no attempt to purchase yellow cake uranium from Niger by the Hussein regime. He didn’t make it public. He turned over the information to the Central Intelligence Agency and was done with his job. Only after the President’s State of the Union Address in which this disproved fact was issued as fact did he make his disagreement with George W. Bush’s statement known. One must also remember he waited nearly six months before he openly disagreed with George W. and only after six months of waiting for the administration to disavow the falsity that they knew to be false.
For this act of being a patriot, for this act of doing his duty, for this act of simply doing what he was asked to do by the government, his wife an undercover operative for the Central Intelligence Agency “outed” by the member of the administration as retaliation for him not allowing Bush’s administration’s lies to continue.
Because of the actions of someone within the administration, a highly trained operative is an operative no longer. Contacts of this operative are now looking over their shoulders, and the rest of our covert operatives and the sources they use are wondering whether their anonymity will be disclosed, whether they are going to be put in physical danger, and whether they can trust this government.
If this had happened during the Clinton Administration, somehow Kenneth Starr would be investigating it. If this had happened during the Clinton Administration, it would have led Fox newscast as the main feature for months. If this had occurred during the Clinton Administration, Robert Novak who published the leak, would be screaming for heads to roll and claiming that this action alone had set back U.S. intelligence by years. Novack would also be championing how disgusting this was that politicos within the administration were interfering with national security.
Rather, what you have from the political right in the media, is the justification that since Wilson was a Democrat somehow he and his wife were fair game. Yet, they have never been able to make the case as to why Wilson being a Democrat has any bearing on his wife’s undercover status being exposed. Rather, the politicos in the White House somehow justify that since Wilson was a Democrat, he obviously went to Niger with the intent of not finding the yellow cake uranium trail, that somehow he was the wrong man for the job, and no in hindsight can we really believe his report.