[Mb-civic] Rove Leak Is Just Part of Larger Scandal By Daniel Schorr The Christian Science Monitor

[Michael Butler]

Also see below:    
Rove Tied to House Lobbying Scandal    €

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    Rove Leak Is Just Part of Larger Scandal
    By Daniel Schorr
    The Christian Science Monitor

    Friday 15 July 2005

    Washington - Let me remind you that the underlying issue in the Karl
Rove controversy is not a leak, but a war and how America was misled into
that war.

    In 2002 President Bush, having decided to invade Iraq, was casting about
for a casus belli. The weapons of mass destruction theme was not yielding
very much until a dubious Italian intelligence report, based partly on
forged documents (it later turned out), provided reason to speculate that
Iraq might be trying to buy so-called yellowcake uranium from the African
country of Niger. It did not seem to matter that the CIA advised that the
Italian information was "fragmentary and lacked detail."

    Prodded by Vice President Dick Cheney and in the hope of getting more
conclusive information, the CIA sent Joseph Wilson, an old Africa hand, to
Niger to investigate. Mr. Wilson spent eight days talking to everyone in
Niger possibly involved and came back to report no sign of an Iraqi bid for
uranium and, anyway, Niger's uranium was committed to other countries for
many years to come.

    No news is bad news for an administration gearing up for war. Ignoring
Wilson's report, Cheney talked on TV about Iraq's nuclear potential. And the
president himself, in his 2003 State of the Union address no less,
pronounced: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently
sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

    Wilson declined to maintain a discreet silence. He told various people
that the president was at least mistaken, at most telling an untruth.
Finally Wilson directly challenged the administration with a July 6, 2003
New York Times op-ed headlined, "What I didn't find in Africa," and making
clear his belief that the president deliberately manipulated intelligence in
order to justify an invasion.

    One can imagine the fury in the White House. We now know from the e-mail
traffic of Time's correspondent Matt Cooper that five days after the op-ed
appeared, he advised his bureau chief of a super-secret conversation with
Karl Rove who alerted him to the fact that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA
and may have recommended him for the Niger assignment. Three days later, Bob
Novak's column appeared giving Wilson's wife's name, Valerie Plame, and the
fact she was an undercover CIA officer. Mr. Novak has yet to say, in public,
whether Mr. Rove was his source. Enough is known to surmise that the leaks
of Rove, or others deputized by him, amounted to retaliation against someone
who had the temerity to challenge the president of the United States when he
was striving to find some plausible reason for invading Iraq.

    The role of Rove and associates added up to a small incident in a very
large scandal - the effort to delude America into thinking it faced a threat
dire enough to justify a war.

    Daniel Schorr is the senior news analyst at National Public Radio.

 

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    Rove Tied to Tom DeLay Lobbying Scandal
    Campaign for a Cleaner Congress | Press Release

    Thursday 14 July 2005

    Washington - Karl Rove's involvement in leaking the name of a CIA
operative for political advantage during wartime could be just the tip of
the iceberg as far as unethical behavior, since his web of influence extends
to the most notorious figure of the House Lobbying Scandal.

    "It's widely known that Karl Rove has been pulling strings all over
Washington for years, obviously not just in the case of the Plame leak,"
said Peter L. Kelley, manager of the Campaign for a Cleaner Congress.

    "What is not widely known, however, is his close connection with Jack
Abramoff, who is at the center of the lobbying scandal in which Washington
is now embroiled. Rove let archconservative operatives like Grover Norquist
call shots at the White House. And just this week, a Texas judge ruled that
a former Rove lieutenant must face felony charges of money laundering for
Tom DeLay's political operation.

    "Without further ethics reforms, the public has virtually no ability to
find out what is really going on in Washington these days," Kelley said.
"But what we do know is starting to smell, and it offers a starting point
for further investigation."

    * When Rove got to the White House in 2001, he hired as his personal
assistant Susan Ralston, previously Abramoff's personal assistant. Ralston
has since become an insider's insider.

    * Norquist reportedly made a deal in which Ralston would take messages
for Rove at the White House, then call Norquist to tell her whether she
should put the caller through.

    * John Colyandro wrote direct mail pieces for Rove in the 1980s. When he
was hired as executive director of the Texans for a Republican Majority PAC,
he was described as a "longtime pal of Rove's." This week, a judge said
Colyandro must stand trial for laundering over $600,000 in corporate
campaign contributions.

    "Could party leaders' abrupt about-face on the Plame case have anything
to do with the other ethics scandals that have been grabbing headlines for
months now?" said Kelley. "It seems there are more than a few bad apples in
this barrel, and they don't like it that the public is starting to find
out."

    For sources, see CleanerCongress.org.