The January 24 Document, the NIE, and the WSJ

by emptywheel

Let me admit, straight off, that I was wrong. Last month, I speculated that the January 24 document that Libby was apparently trying to declassify might be an early draft of the SOTU. I did so because, while there were many examples in the post-leak time period of a Bush official referring to the drafting process of the SOTU, I didn't know of any evidence of someone trying to leak one of the January 24 documents mentioned in the SSCI report. But now Fitzgerald has provided that evidence to us, all wrapped up in a big bow. In his response detailing which news articles he may introduce as evidence, he describes this WSJ column.

In addition, the government’s evidence at trial (including the defendant’s grand jury transcript) will refer to a July 17, 2003, Wall Street Journal editorial entitled “Yellowcake Remix,” which contained quotations from the 2002 National Intelligence Estimate (“NIE”). This editorial resulted from the defendant’s transmittal, through another government official, of a copy of portions of the NIE to the Wall Street Journal shortly before the editorial was published. This evidence is relevant to establish that during the relevant time frame in July 2003, the defendant, notwithstanding other pressing government business, was heavily focused on shaping media coverage of the controversy concerning Iraqi efforts to obtain uranium from Niger. The government does not intend to offer in evidence a copy of the editorial itself, and will not contend that the defendant’s actions in this regard were criminal or otherwise unauthorized.

There are several points of interest in this WSJ column, but this passage Jeff pointed to...

But we are told that language identical to what was in the NIE is what the CIA presented to the White House last January 24 in preparation for President Bush's State of the Union address.

...provides the evidence I was looking for. A column driven by a Libby-orchestrated leak draws a connection between the NIE and the January 24 document from NIO to NSC mentioned in the SSCI.

(U) On January 24, 2003, in response to a request from the NSC for additional details regarding IC input to "the case for Saddam possessing weapons of mass destruction," the NIO for Strategic and Nuclear Programs faxed a packet of background information to the NSC. The fax contained the information from the October 2002 NIE on Iraq's vigorous attempts to procure uranium ore and yellowcake from Niger and other countries in Africa. The information was used to prepare for Secretary Powell's presentation of intelligence to the UN in February 2003.

So it appears increasingly likely that this January 24 document is the document mentioned in Fitzgerald's statement. This column answers two more remaining loose ends in this case. First, it explains why WSJ writers Greg Hitt and Paul Gigot appear in the subpoena list issued in January 24. And it probably explains a reference in Fitzgerald's first published mention of the NIE leaking, where he said:

At this time, we do not intend to offer any evidence of "other crimes" pursuant to Rule 404(b). As we discussed during out telephone conversation, Mr. Libby testified in the grand jury that he had contact with reporters in which he disclosed the content of the National Intelligence Estimate ("NIE") to such reporters in the course of his interaction with reporters in June and July 2003 (and caused at least one other government official to discuss the NIE with the media in July 2003).

Whatever "government official" Libby used as a cut-out to leak to the WSJ is probably the one referred to here, as well. I say cut-out, btw, because of the ham-handed way the WSJ denies any involvement of the WH in this column, almost as if they were attributing it to a former Hill staffer

This information, by the way, does not come from the White House, which to our mind has handled this story in ham-handed fashion.

So why was Libby leaking causing to have leaked the NIE and the January 24 document? First of all, it was an attempt to recover from the damage done by certain caveats in Tenet's mea culpa on July 11. The column twice claims Tenet didn't portray the NIE's discussion of the Niger allegation accurately.

We're reliably told that that now famous NIE, which is meant to be the best summary judgment of the intelligence community, isn't nearly as full of doubt about that yellowcake story as the critics assert or as even CIA director George Tenet has suggested.

[snip]

Mr. Tenet's carefully calibrated statement and disclosure last Friday accepting responsibility for this "mistake" was more tortured than warranted by the assertions in the NIE.

To make this claim, the WSJ column provides several of Scooter Libby's favorite quotes from the NIE.

The section on Iraq's hunt for uranium, for example, asserts bluntly that "Iraq also began vigorously trying to procure uranium ore and yellowcake" and that "acquiring either would shorten the time Baghdad needs to produce nuclear weapons."

Regarding the supposedly discredited Niger story, the NIE says that "a foreign government service reported that as of early 2001 Niger planned to send several tons of 'pure uranium' (probably yellowcake) to Iraq. As of early 2001, Niger and Iraq reportedly were still working out arrangements for this deal, which could be for up to 500 tons of yellowcake. We do not know the status of this arrangement."

Apparently, either the WSJ or Scooter Libby believes that, by presenting these quotes out of context, they will be more forceful than if you present the same exact quotes with some context, as Tenet did.

In October, the Intelligence Community (IC) produced a classified, 90 page National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq's WMD programs. There is a lengthy section in which most agencies of the Intelligence Community judged that Iraq was reconstituting its nuclear weapons program. Let me emphasize, the NIE's Key Judgments cited six reasons for this assessment; the African uranium issue was not one of them.

But in the interest of completeness, the report contained three paragraphs that discuss Iraq's significant 550-metric ton uranium stockpile and how it could be diverted while under IAEA safeguard. These paragraphs also cited reports that Iraq began "vigorously trying to procure" more uranium from Niger and two other African countries, which would shorten the time Baghdad needed to produce nuclear weapons. The NIE states: "A foreign government service reported that as of early 2001, Niger planned to send several tons of pure "uranium" (probably yellowcake) to Iraq. As of early 2001, Niger and Iraq reportedly were still working out the arrangements for this deal, which could be for up to 500 tons of yellowcake." The Estimate also states: "We do not know the status of this arrangement." With regard to reports that Iraq had sought uranium from two other countries, the Estimate says: "We cannot confirm whether Iraq succeeded in acquiring uranium ore and/or yellowcake from these sources." Much later in the NIE text, in presenting an alternate view on another matter, the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research included a sentence that states: "Finally, the claims of Iraqi pursuit of natural uranium in Africa are, in INR's assessment, highly dubious."

The exact same quotes. But somehow the WSJ finds Tenet's statement lacking, presumably because he also notes that the uranium claim did not appear in the key judgments, and that the INR found the uranium claims highly dubious. The WSJ goes on to babble about consensus reports, as if this will somehow raise the uranium claims to the level of key judgment. But the article is, frankly, weak. Also note, on the other details here, Tenet's statement overstates the case, making the existing yellowcake stockpile more threatening and pretending the non-confirmation of the deals only applied to the two other African countries. So it's not like Tenet didn't try to make this damning.

Another thing the WSJ did to salvage Bush's SOTU was to claim, erroneously, that Britain was the foreign government that relayed the Niger claim.

"a foreign government service reported that as of early 2001 Niger planned to send several tons of 'pure uranium' (probably yellowcake) to Iraq. As of early 2001, Niger and Iraq reportedly were still working out arrangements for this deal, which could be for up to 500 tons of yellowcake. We do not know the status of this arrangement."

That foreign government service is of course the British, who still stand by their intelligence.

In other words, the WSJ tries to rewrite the history of the NIE to suggest that the central uranium claim came from the Brits, and not Italy, as was the case. This is stunning. Even Bob Novak correctly describes Wilson's trip and the British intelligence to be based on the Italian forgeries. And even the Bush Administration's public descriptions of the source for the Niger allegation claims there were two pieces of intelligence, one from the Brits and the other in the NIE.

And as I said on Friday, the explanation for that was that we had obviously at that point two separate data points or source points in order to reference.  One was the intelligence underlying in the NIE, or the British government.

But the WSJ conveniently pretends the NIE intelligence did come from the Brits, thereby clearing the allegation (and with it Bush's 16 words) of any association with the Niger forgeries. I'm very curious whether Fitzgerald has evidence that this claim came from Libby. And I'm curious whether Libby made similar claims when he was leaking the NIE to Judy...

And then there's the claim they make about the January 24 document. For some reason, the WSJ claims the January 24 document was submitted as material for the SOTU.

But we are told that language identical to what was in the NIE is what the CIA presented to the White House last January 24 in preparation for President Bush's State of the Union address.

The SSCI passage cited above, this really helpful eRiposte comment, and Hadley's description all make it clear, the January 24 document was background for Powell's speech, not Bush's.

Q     Steve, part of the story I still can't get my head around is the NIE comes out October 1st.  And even if you hadn't read it then -- and I'm not sure if you did read it in that first week -- you got a call from the Director between the 5th and the 7th saying, we've got problems in the Niger element of this.  And the NIE, we are told, is the gold standard of your intelligence assessments.  Less than a week after it's published the Director is walking it back?  And then on January 24th, four days before the speech, you get another member from the CIA quoting the NIE, presumably without some of the caveats, suggesting that it's back in.

Now, does that tell me that the CIA's story kept changing?  What am I supposed to conclude from that?

MR. HADLEY:  I guess the best I can do for you, actually, is George tries to address that in the statement issued last Friday and in the statements he gave in connection with the Senate Intelligence Committee.  And I think that's an issue he -- is best addressed in --

Q     Steve, let me put it another way.  Knowing what you now know, and given the memos that you've now read, should the statement ever have been in the NIE?

MR. HADLEY:  That's not a judgment for me to make.

MR. BARTLETT:  You know, I think, in fact, that's part of the motivation behind the IG investigation that Director Tenet has launched internally in the CIA to determine the process of how this was vetted, the whole issue with the NIE.

Q     But we do have this right, don't we, that a week later the Director of Central Intelligence is walking back one of the central facts that he put in the summary of the NIE that you've declassified, and then it comes back to you again, three months later?  Do I have that right -- from the CIA?

MR. BARTLETT:  The information that you're referring to in this memo was actually information that was provided for a parallel process that was going on --

Q     For the Powell speech.

Now, these two apparently erroneous claims--that the foreign service named is British and that the NIO-NSC document provided background for the SOTU rather than Powell's speech raises two possibilities.  First, it's possible the WSJ or their government official are just lying about the content of both to try to make the SOTU claim appear more valid, coming directly from intelligence that restated the Niger-Iraq claim. In which case they'd be lying about the content, the Brits, too.

But we haven't, to my understanding, ever seen a copy of the NIO-NSC document. It is described simply as, "contain[ing] the information from the October 2002 NIE" in "language identical to what was in the NIE." That refers to the content of the Niger allegation. What if, in addition to the language identical to the NIE, the NIO-NSC document included one more statement, that the British had passed on that intelligence? Then the document would not only be a restatement of the NIE, but it would pull the same gimmick Robert Joseph was trying to pull, referencing it to the Brits to be able to sustain the claim.

FWIW, eRiposte doesn't buy this, so I'm skating on thin ice with this speculation. But according to journalists grilling Hadley and Bartlett, Foley objected to the use of the British intelligence.

Q     Let me just ask you one other question.  You said -- if I understand the conversation between Bob Joseph and Alan Foley, of the CIA, correctly, Joseph said that he wanted to cite the British report. And Foley at that point said, we told the Brits that they shouldn't be saying that.

Robert Joseph has a different story, of course, but I think we can assume that BushCo officials who have received promotions are generally pathological liars. Is it possible, then, faced with Foley's objections, the NSC basically got Robert Walpole to launder the NIE, source it newly to the British claim, to provide backup for the SOTU claim? As an National Intelligence Officer, Walpole's memo would basically be treated as an update to the NIE. Which would mean the SOTU, by referring to the British, would be referring to what was purported to be the consensus understanding of the Intelligence Community.

Let me make clear what I'm suggesting. I'm suggesting that, contrary to the claim in the SSCI and the claim peddled by Hadley and Bartlett, the NIO-NSC document pertained to the SOTU, not Powell's speech. It would not take much to get away with this charade, particularly since the drafts of speeches were one of the things that Libby and Addington and Dick managed to withhold from the SSCI investigation.

Vice President Cheney and his chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, overruling advice from some White House political staffers and lawyers, decided to withhold crucial documents from the Senate Intelligence Committee in 2004 when the panel was investigating the use of pre-war intelligence that erroneously concluded Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, according to Bush administration and congressional sources.

Among the White House materials withheld from the committee were Libby-authored passages in drafts of a speech that then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell delivered to the United Nations in February 2003 to argue the Bush administration's case for war with Iraq, according to congressional and administration sources. The withheld documents also included intelligence data that Cheney's office -- and Libby in particular -- pushed to be included in Powell's speech, the sources said.

By all accounts, the SOTU drafting and the Powell speech drafting occupied the same people at the same time. So--absent the notes of the guy most actively involved, Scooter Libby--it would be almost impossible to say whether a document received on January 24 was intended for Bush's speech or Powell's, or both.

But this suggestion--that the document was originally intended to justify the SOTU claim but then was described as support for Powell's speech after the fact--would answer several outstanding questions. First, if the document really did attribute the Niger claim to the Brits (and that's just a wildarsed guess), it would explain why Libby was trying to declassify in addition to the NIE. It made his point about the 16 words more directly than the NIE. But they couldn't release it as defense for the 16 words themselves, at least not after Alan Foley and Condi Rice had both revealed how the Niger reference came to be attributed to the British without making any reference to the NIO-NSC document. Further, by suggesting the NIO-NSC document supported the Powell speech, then you get out of responsibility for using the claim, since Powell didn't mention the Niger allegation.

In any case, it's still not clear how the NIO-NSC document helped their case. But it's clear they used it as part of an effort to get the helpful shills at the WSJ to salvage their claims on the 16 words.

Comments

[Jeff]

We still don't know enough of what was going on in January 2003, so at this point I would find it believable either that 1)the NSC got Walpole to launder the NIE in the form of a fax to make it seem like the intel community stood behind the Niger and/or uranium from Africa story more firmly than was the case - especially if, say, the White House got wind of the NIC's declaration that the Niger story was baseless on, say, January 24, first thing in the morning; or 2)somebody (say, Hadley when he was doing the July 2003 review of the whole process, or meticulous Libby) rediscovered the January 24 fax, presumably meant for Powell's prep, and recognized that it could be deployed in summer 2003 to make the case that right before Bush's January 2003 SOTU the intel community was still standing by its Niger/uranium story, absolving the White House of guilt, which is what I still see as its basic argumentative function in summer 2003, and which is how the WSJ uses it. Glossing over the fact that the January 24 fax may have had no causal role in the SOTU, it is still supposed to be an emblem of the fact that the intel community was giving the White House no contrary signals. Which, again, is why I'm interested to know whether the January 2003 NIC memo the WaPo recently reported on was in fact sending the White House just those contrary - diametrically opposed - signals.

[emptywheel]

I'm just curious how Libby and Hadley, in particular, could claim the NIO-NSC memo didn't affect the SOTU. Did they segment off the intell saying, "this is BS, let's save it for Colin"?

I don't know whether we'll find out what happened in January. They're not telling, and they're not having over the documents, either.

I am curious, though, if the SSCI looked at the NIO-NSC document itself. It seems like they did. Which I guess would rule against my suspicion that it referenced the Brits.

[kim]

FYI, Rove's talking at the AEI right now on C-SPAN.

[Jeff]

I don't want to get sidetracked by this, but can I just observe that the left has a very long way to go to catch up with the right in terms of how important the expectations game is in politics, and how to play that game, and how to do political strategy more generally. The blogosphere should be abuzz with the fact that the Vice President of the United States was writing notes on Wilson's op-ed detailing the key item of the pushback against Wilson that stepped over the line and led to the entire investigation. Instead, everyone's expectations about Rove having been raised sky high by a report, now everyone is spending all their time on the fact that no one can confirm one ounce of that report. Having invested in it, the failure to confirm it will be a blow. That's silly. The default expectation should be that Rove is not going to get indicted. Now it will be perceived as a downright vcitory for Rove over the left, whose blogosphere will suffer a blow to its credibility, if he is not indicted this week. That's crazy.

[eriposte]

EW,

Nice post as usual, but as you have hinted, I don't buy this Walpole theory.

Also, we need to remember that Walpole was at the NIE coordination session where the dissent on the uranium claim was aired and where the decision was made to keep it out of the key judgements. He also testified to the SSCI on Oct 4, 2002 - supposedly conveying INR's view - that the British claim was not considered credible. (SSCI Report p. 54). His talking points were probably also used in a CIA fax to the WH on Oct 6, 2002 (p. 56) after Tenet intervened. So, for him to ignore all that and peddle the British claim again on Jan 24, 2003 would have been rather dangerous and wouldn't have made him look good in Tenet's eyes.

[peBird]

Jeff:

Good point - we shall see. If the WH knew there wasn't going to be an indictment would they have leaked that there would? If there is going to be one, the timing isn't as critical if it's next week or this week, but if there isn't going to be one, you're right.

[emptywheel]

Jeff,

I did my part!! I cross-posted my Smoking Guns diary. (And you'll note that the MSM is catching up, having only taken about 24 from your discovery of Cheney's notes until it made Newsweek and NYT and the like.) But I agree, we've totally wasted the spin on Cheney's notes in favor of getting sucked into a credibility war with Rove's minions.

eR

I'm not sure I'm all that invested in this Brits theory, just trying it out for size. I am, however, trying to explain why Libby wanted to declassify it. Declassifying just because it repeats the NIE doesn't seem enough. Though I am rather suspicious of the timing/impact on SOTU.

[Mimikatz]

The Leopold story does seem to have been a plant by someone eager to either divert atttention from Cheney or discredit the blogs or both. The fact that some major blogs didn't fall for it is lost in the shuffle. But it has had the desired effect, as Jeff points out.

How about Bolton or the others at State for the WSJ leak?

[Jeff]

I did my part!!

Oh I totally agree, and I was taking it for granted that any website that is hashing over, in exquisite detail, the causes and effects, the uses and abuses, of the January 24, 2003 NIO-to-NSC fax is exempt from my criticism of the left blogosphere. Speaking of which, why isn't my suggestion enough - that Libby et al wanted to declassify that fax because they could offer it as evidence for their claim, "See, not only was no one from the CIA coming in to tell us we were wrong to use the 16 words in the SOTU, a mere four days before the SOTU, the CIA was officially standing by the very claims and intelligence we were basing ourselves on." It could be used this way regardless of whether the fax was prompted by questions for Bush's SOTU or for Powell's UN.

[Redshift]

Okay, this is pure speculation (and may have long since been discussed here):

But we haven't, to my understanding, ever seen a copy of the NIO-NSC document. It is described simply as, "contain[ing] the information from the October 2002 NIE" in "language identical to what was in the NIE."

Another possibility is that the NIO-NSC document contained "language identical to what was in the NIE," just not all the language from the NIE. That is, it was a way to "sanitize" the NIE of contrary opinions in an effort to get Powell to use more of the patently false administration talking points, perhaps leading to his much-reported "this is bullshit" outburst.

I'm just trying to think like a Straussian here -- if lying to the people to achieve "correct" goals is a virtue, then lying to people in your own administration who are unwilling to do the same must be as well.

[Jeff]

One other question in connection with the WSJ leak: did the person who leaked to the WSJ know that the NIE had been declassified by Bush's authorization? Would it even matter - was there nothing in the WSJ article that was not in Tenet's statement from the 11th? Did the WSJ see more, and just not use it? If the answer to both of these questions is no, then Libby didn't actually use the cutout to transmit parts of the NIE that depended on Bush's authorization for leaking, right? The fax is another story, though.

[William Ockham]

I'm sticking to my theory. The whole NIE leak (and the Jan. 24 document) is a red herring. The only reason Fitzgerald will bring it up is to suggest that Libby's notes which apparently say "leak to Judy Miller" aren't about the NIE at all, but about Plame. That's why Fitzgerald was so surprised by the Libby/Miller June 23rd meeting. It predates Libby's official go ahead to leak about Plame.

[JohnLopresti]

I was thinking as part of the CIA IG office reviewing the Tenet mea speechcrafting, McCarthy may have found notes of Libby and Rove conversationsDemands, faxes, or cut and paste from a wide range of documents not yet available in the public realm, not to congress; like the NIO-NSC document referenced in this diary. Fire McCarthy; end the investigation.

I keep re-reading Cornyn's frendly questioning at Gonzales' NSAwiretap hearing about how the DIA, NSA and other agencies (not CIA) have their own IG based on congress' passing a law 1998 creating an IG for those other security agencies; and, wondering what happens to an investigation when the firer and firee quit are fired.

[emptywheel]

Ah, Redshift, now you're talking! It's the new and improved NIE, with the marginalia turned into key judgments! With that, Jeff, I'd take the leak as sufficient.

William

I think you're right, the most important aspect of the NIE story is the way it disproves Libby's excuse for the July 8 conversation. But there is additional classified information (such as Wilson's trip report) that will be corroborating evidence that these guys broke the law. And, I suspect, there is record of a fight between Libby and Tenet over whether Tenet would use Libby's favorite word, "vigrous" (comes from writing pedophile/bestiality novels, you know).

Mimikatz

Yeah, I kind of like Wurmser for this leak. Particularly given the reference to Wohlstetter in the article. The only one who loves Wohlstetter more than Wolfowitz is Wurmser.

[Jeff]

Yes, and the other possibility is Hannah. And probably not someone at State, since Fitzgerald makes it sound like no one at State knew what was going on with regard to the pre-July 18 declassification of the NIE. And although strictly speaking it's possible that someone at State could have done it without such knowledge (if, as I wondered above, the WSJ's leak was only of portions of the NIE already declassified in connection with Tenet's July 11 statement), I doubt Fitzgerald would put things the way he has if that were the case. So I think State is ruled out. What does that mean with regard to Wurmser - didn't he have some funky loaner status or something?

For what it's worth, independent of all that, while the Post reported out of the blue last fall that Hannah was reportedly worried about being indicted, I've come to believe that those old reports of Hannah and Wurmser copping pleas and cooperating were probably bs floated by people who just didn't like them. Sorta like the people who were pushing Hadley as Woodward's source.

[emptywheel]

The Wurmser on loan notion was floated by the same folks who floated some other unverified stuff. So, no, he was DOD, then State, then moved in mid-September 2003 to OVP.

If it's not state, then I saw DOD. Why not Wolfie, since I pointed out the Wohlstetter love?

[Jeff]

DoD seems like a real possibility, along with OVP (which the WSJ might not consider part of the White House, for their purposes) or perhaps someone from Congress. I see no reason why it couldn't have been Wolfowitz, but I think we would have heard about him testifying, and we haven't, have we? I am assuming the person who did this leak has been interviewed in the investigation. So are you saying that Wurmser was at DoD in July 2003, or had he moved to State by then? If the latter, again, I think that might rule him out. I'm going with Hannah as my guess (and nothing more), for the moment. It could just as easily have been Martin, or Cheney.

[emptywheel]

Wurmser was at State in July 2003.

[obsessed]

Via Atrios, it looks like a new Waas article is coming our way shortly.

In this interview -- when Waas is asked about his next article, he says:

It's another story about the level of knowledge among high-level administration officials about attempts to discredit Wilson and when they knew about it. [emphasis mine]

[Jim E.]

Waas is the man, but I doubt that article will say much. Elsewhere in that same interview linked to by Atrios, Waas says that there are virtually no sources for the Plame investigation and that most of his reporting comes from public documents that other reporters ignore.

[obsessed]

most of his reporting comes from public documents that other reporters ignore.

I find it hard to believe that there are any public documents that the heavy hitters here don't give the full forensic treatment within hours of their availability. Of course, maybe old Jack Anderson taught him how to find the ones that never make it online.

[emptywheel]

obsessed

I still take Waas' scoop on the NIE as a good example of what he's got at this point. I actually reported that Libby's superiors had authozied his NIE leak (I think) before anyone else--a full 9 days before Waas. Because I'm a blog, I also felt free to speculate, "Libby's superiors ... gosh, Bush and Dick are his superiors." That's what I'll get out of a document like that.

Well, Waas was able to call sources at WH and say, "what's the deal with the NIE?" and expand that data point into one that encompassed the previous Fall. I don't work the phones and I don't have sources, Waas does, which means he combines the obsessiveness of us here with some additional hard work to make bigger stories.

[obsessed]

Fitz has updated his site with a rash of documents. Maybe something you guys haven't fully devoured??

Fitz Link