Just goes to show how certain versions become gospel which I’m guilty of recycling.

“journalists are not entitled to promise complete confidentiality – no-one in America is.”

Except doctors, lawyers and spouses. Why doesn’t a prosecutor know the law?

Sorry, Katie. There are circumstances in each of those categories where there is no confidentiality privilege. I don’t have time to delineate them for you right now.

First of all, the U.S. never claimed that Hussein actually obtained yellowcake from Niger, only that he sought to. The actual relevant passage from Bush’s 2003 State of Union address, which Joseph Wilson so vehemently objected to in his New York TImes op-ed, is as follows:

“The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.”

According to FactCheck.org, the Bush administration had good reason to believe that Hussein was indeed seeking uranium. They cite the following:

– A British intelligence review released July 14 [,2004,] calls Bush’s 16 words “well founded.”
– A separate report by the US Senate Intelligence Committee said July 7 [, 2004,] that the US also had similar information from “a number of intelligence reports,” a fact that was classified at the time Bush spoke.
– Ironically, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who later called Bush’s 16 words a “lie”, supplied information that the Central Intelligence Agency took as confirmation that Iraq may indeed have been seeking uranium from Niger.
– Both the US and British investigations make clear that some forged Italian documents, exposed as fakes soon after Bush spoke, were not the basis for the British intelligence Bush cited, or the CIA’s conclusion that Iraq was trying to get uranium.

I should point out that Joseph Wilson’s fact-finding mission to Niger was hardly conclusive. In his own words, this mission consisted of him “sipping mint tea” in a cafe with government officials who naturally denied that Hussein tried to purchase yellowcake from Niger.

But more bizarrely, Wilson himself undermined his own conclusions in a subsequent book. According to the April 30, 2004 Washington Post:

“It was Saddam Hussein’s information minister, Mohammed Saeed Sahhaf, often referred to in the Western press as “Baghdad Bob,” who approached an official of the African nation of Niger in 1999 to discuss trade — an overture the official saw as a possible effort to buy uranium.

“That’s according to a new book Joseph C. Wilson IV, a former ambassador who was sent to Niger by the CIA in 2002 to investigate reports that Iraq had been trying to buy enriched ‘yellowcake’ uranium. Wilson wrote that he did not learn the identity of the Iraqi official until this January, when he talked again with his Niger source.”

Now, I’m not arguing that Bush was right or that Wilson was wrong, only that there was substantial evidence for Bush to make the claim that he did when he made it.

Now that we’ve got that out of the way, let’s get to the substance of the journalism case:

The first thing to realize is that most legal observers don’t think the Plame disclosure was a crime, due to technicalities of the underlying law. Irony alert: It should also be noted that the prosecutor, Fitzgerald, was appointed largely due to the outraged howlings of the liberal left (prompted by Wilson’s own aggrieved noises) in the wake of Novak’s column.

Most legal observers believe this case has evolved (as so often happens) into a perjury case — that somebody lied to him at some point in the investigation, and that’s the reason the case continues to muddle along, despite the probable collapse of the original charge.

It might also provide helpful context to know that, while Robert Novak is indeed a conservative, he is no patsy of the Bush administration; in fact, he has opposed the Iraqi War from the beginning.

There has been much speculation on 1) what Novak has told the prosecutor, and 2) whether Karl Rove is the leaker. At this stage, however, it is mere speculation, so take anybody’s claims to know the truth in these areas with a huge grain of salt.

Justin claims that the prosecutor didn’t threaten Novak with prison the same as he did the other reporters. The fact is, we don’t know what sort of pressure the prosecutor may have applied. It’s quite possible — and has been suggested, though not proven — Novak may have buckled under and told the prosecutor what he wanted to know. If it is indeed a case of perjury, it’s also possible that Novak’s role may even be irrelevant at this point. We just don’t know, and before we do, it’s useless (though fun, admittedly) to speculate.

As a sometime journalist myself, I support the right to confidentiality for sources. But in the U.S., at least, this right is not absolute. It’s not even absolute for lawyers and doctors.

(One other little correction: Cooper wrote an article based on his source but Miller did not.)

Sidebar #1: It’s curious how un-undercover Ms. Plame has been since this scandal broke. She appeared with her plucky husband on the cover of Vanity Fair magazine at the time, her identity barely obscured with a pair of dark sunglasses. And just this month she appears again in the glossy pages of Vanity Fair, this time without even the sunglasses. So much for fearing for her life….

Sidebar #2: Mr. Wilson had been caught in a web of lies of his own throughout this affair. First, he denied that his wife had nothing to do with his trip to Niger, and later it was found she was the one who suggested to her superiors that he get the job. (Incidentally, Novak says this is the reason his source told him of Plame, not to “punish” Wilson for criticizing the White House.) The Senate report on the affair is very illuminating on Mr. Wilson’s character. Take this passage, for instance:

‘On at least two occasions [Wilson] admitted that he had no direct knowledge to support some of his claims and that he was drawing on either unrelated past experiences or no information at all.

‘For example, when asked how he “knew” that the Intelligence Community had rejected the possibility of a Niger-Iraq uranium deal, as he wrote in his book, he told Committee staff that his assertion may have involved “a little literary flair.”‘

Except doctors, lawyers and spouses. Why doesn’t a prosecutor know the law?

Plame was ‘undercover’ but less a covert agent than an analyst – and was so bothered about her cover that she and Joe did a photoshoot for Vanity Fair as the story broke. Obviously very worried about her identity being revealed.

Joe Wilson himself is a Democrat, who had previously written articles in The Nation and took up an adviser position for John Kerry’s campaign. The real oddity in all this is – why was he asked to do the job? Novak says that some (not all) of his sources stated that Plame suggested him for the role. If true, that would make Plame’s role of public interest – especially a wider context of the CIA at that time not exactly playing loyally to the President.

From what I’ve read, the federal offence that has been mentioned (part of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act) requires that the named person be a covert agent, and there’s some kind of seditious intent test as well. Bob Novak might be many things, but he’s probably not trying to undermine US national security.

As for your British analogy: much worse would be the way Alastair Campbell et al dumped on David Kelly. If Campbell had hatcheted Katharine Gun, it would’ve been less than the nauseating, juvenile, treacherous bitch deserved – which was a few years’ hard time.