The DOD/State Talking Point

by emptywheel

This is the post I've been promising for weeks, in which I will speculate wildly as to the source of Cheney's knowledge about Plame's role at CPD and in her husband's trip. Here's the argument, in brief:

• Cheney learns during the week of June 9 that "Defense and State expressed a strong interest in the Niger intelligence"
• At a time when Cheney presumably already knew that information, he tried to get CIA to repeat it in such a way that it could be published
• This suggests he could not use his original source for that information (either because the source refused to publish that information or because he wanted to hide the source itself)
• One possible explanation (this is speculation, mind you) is that Cheney saw Valerie Wilson's emails leading up to Wilson's trip to Niger--which would have informed him of key information--and would have made it clear that Valerie's identity was protected

Cheney could not use his original source

Libby has explained that his note recording Cheney's information about Plame records a discussion held in preparation for the Walter Pincus article. While there is no affirmative reason to believe a convicted perjurer, as I show in this post, all of the talking points that appear in the note appear in Pincus' story--save one, the information that DOD and State  were also interested in the Niger intelligence. This supports Libby's claim that the note did reflect a conversation in prep for the Pincus article (though I'll offer other wacky suggestions at some point in the future).

Assuming this is correct--that the note was prep for the Pincus article, but that for some reasons the DOD/State talking point didn't make it into the article--it suggests Cheney could not go back to the source who had shared the DOD/State info. After all, this is the Vice President we're talking about. The easiest way to get that talking point confirmed publicly would be if Cheney just called and made it happen. Given that it didn't happen, it's unlikely just calling Cheney's source was an option.

Cheney sought to bring the info out via another path

Furthermore, there's the evidence that Cheney and Libby did seek to bring this information out via another path--Robert Grenier. Libby claimed Cheney had learned the information in the note from the CIA. But we know from this email that Cheney first made inquiries of the CIA by June 10--and he had a meeting with John McLaughlin on June 11 at noon (most likely, at precisely the same time as Libby was learning of Plame's involvement in Wilson's trip from Marc Grossman). We know that Libby, Cheney, and Cathie Martin met for twenty minutes at 1:05; in the middle of that meeting, at 1:15, Libby first called Grenier (in fact, this was the first Libby had ever called Grenier). When Libby made that call, it's highly likely both Libby and Cheney knew of Plame's role in Wilson's trip (Cheney via McLaughlin, Libby via Grossman). And if Cheney learned of the trip from McLaughlin, then he had learned of it just before they decided to call Grenier. Libby called Grenier for the information he almost certainly already had.

Now when Libby finally speaks to Grenier later that afternoon, he asks precisely the questions that would cue Grenier to offer up the DOD/State talking point. Three times in Grenier's testimony at the trial, he emphasized that Libby asked whether the trip came about solely because of OVP's interest (this quote is from Jeff and Murray's book):

He wanted two things. He wanted me to verify for him whether or not there was truth to that story, whether, in fact, the CIA had sent Ambassador Wilson to Africa on the mission, and, secondly, whether it was, in fact, true that the only reason that the CIA had done so was because of interest expressed by the Office of the Vice President.

[snip]

There was a slightly accusatory tone in his voice when he mentioned about the story that people in CIA had stated this to Mr. Wilson, i.e., that it was only because of interest on the part of the Vice President that they were doing this.

[snip]

Again, he wanted--he wanted for me to try to verify whether or not the two parts of the story were true, i.e., that first we had sent Mr. Wilson off to Africa, and secondly,--whether or not it was true that we had only done so because of interest on the part of the Office of the Vice President.[my emphasis]

Given the form of Libby's question, for Grenier to answer it thoroughly, he was going to have to discover and share the State/DOD talking point. (Significantly, he was also likely to discover and share Plame's identity.)

There is, of course, the possibility I floated here--that the note is not actually Libby recording Cheney's information, but Libby recording Grenier's information. If Cheney and Libby were to review the note after his  Grenier conversation, then Cheney could tell Libby to hold the Pincus article (how?) until CIA had gotten back and approved the DOD/State talking point. But given the scenario described in the trial, in which Grenier informed Libby of the DOD/State talking point, then immediately put Harlow on the phone with Cathie Martin, there would have been no opportunity for Cheney to instruct Libby to hold the article. Even if Cheney were sitting in the room with Libby when Libby spoke to Grenier (the call appears to have occurred in the 20 minutes between Libby's meeting with [!] Chalabi and his meeting with Radi Naidanov, since the Harlow call seems to have been at 5:27), at that point it would have been a little late to "hold, get agency to say that." Such an instruction almost certainly came at a time--earlier the same day or before--when Libby and Martin weren't already right in the midst of getting the CIA to say it.

So it seems likely, both because Cheney didn't simply call his source himself, and because the whole Grenier call appears to have been an attempt to elicit information Libby already knew, that Cheney could not go back to his original source for that information.

Reasons why Cheney needed a new source

There are a number of reasons why Cheney might need a new source to spread the DOD/State talking point, including:

• McLaughlin refused to state the talking point on the record
• Cheney's original source wasn't someone in the CIA
• Cheney's original information came from a source that made it clear Plame was covert

These are not necessarily exclusive: after all, McLaughlin may have refused to state the talking point on the record because the only source for it was classified and/or made it clear that Plame's identity was classified. Or Cheney's original source--someone assigned outside of CIA like David Shedd or Fred Fleitz, perhaps--may have had learned the information via a source that made it clear that Plame was covert.

Valerie Wilson's memo to Niger is one of two known documents where the DOD/State information appears

Understand something about the DOD/State talking point: it comes from CPD. The SSCI report reports CPD officials repeating that detail:

Officials from the CIA's DO Counterproliferation Division (CPD) told Committee staff that in response to questions from the Vice President's Office and the Departments of State and Defense on the alleged Iraq-Niger uranium deal, CPD officials discussed ways to obtain additional information. [my emphasis]

Grenier also describes learning that information from someone in CPD. He first calls "Kevin," the Deputy Chief of the unit working on Iraqi WMD (this may or may not be the JTFI). Kevin doesn't call back--someone Grenier didn't know called back, but still within CPD. And that person tells Grenier (who tells Libby) of the interest on the part of DOD/State.

Now it's possible that the people in CPD were just working from memory, from having been intimately involved. But if they learned this information from documents, there are two known documents within CPD that mention the interest of State and DOD. There is the report, written by the reports officer, forwarded to Valerie and others, about the rising interest in the Niger intelligence. From the latest SSCI:

The report was forwarded in an e-mail from a CIA reports officer to Mrs. Wilson and a number of other recipients which said that the DO had received a number of calls from the Intelligence Community about the Iraq-Niger uranium report, citing the Department of State's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), and SOCOM, specifically. [my emphasis]

[Note, the report by the minority of the minority goes on to claim that CPD didn't tell SSCI about DOD/State's interest ... I guess they didn't read their own report.]

But this report doesn't use precisely the terms used in Cheney's talking point--State and DOD. Rather, it is more specific, mentioning INR and DIA and SOCOM.

However, Valerie Wilson's cable, sent to Niger to get concurrence for Wilson's trip, does include precisely that language.

Mrs. Wilson sent a cable that was sent overseas requesting concurrence with Ambassador Wilson's travel to Niger. ... the cable drafted by Mrs. Wilson was sent ... on February 13, ... Interestingly, the cable states that "both State and DOD have requested additional clarification and indeed, the Vice President's office just asked for background information. [my emphasis]

In other words, if Cheney's talking point came from a document (and not someone's direct memory), then it may well have come from this cable.

There are more reasons to track this talking point--and the possibility that Cheney saw this cable--that I'll lay out in some follow-up posts. But for now, consider what Cheney would know if he saw just the two documents (the cable to Niger and the memo to her supervisor) Valerie Wilson is known to have written before the February 19 meeting. He would know:

• Someone who worked in a sub-office of CPD had discussed her husband's qualifications for the trip (and note--the abbreviation used in Valerie's memo for CPD is simply CP, the same one used in Libby's note)
• Wilson was sent in response to an OVP request--but State and DOD were also interested
• This wife--who worked at CPD--sent her documents under some other name--this would have strongly suggested that her identity was protected

Now, Cheney would still have needed the trip report from Wilson's trip to know that the debriefing took place in the US (and I'm just presuming the report would reflect that--it is redacted now). But if he had those three documents--the two documents from Valerie and the trip report--he would probably have had everything he shared in that conversation with Libby.

And he would have had a pretty good idea that Wilson's wife's identity was protected.

Comments

[semiot]

And Cheney would also have had a basis to believe, in his crippled, paranoid mind, that this particular officer - this woman - was out to throw a monkeywrench in the wheels of world domnation. Ipso facto, she muct go.

The along comes the Wilson op ed. Crisis in Condi's NSC; opportunity in OVP.

[orionATL]

e'wheel

i think you're getting toward the end of the tunnel.

thank god for documents; would that congress would request court docs of judge walton, as someone here recently suggested might be a good idea.

[orionATL]

"defense and state expressed a strong intteret..."

defense i can understand,

but state?

would that be john bolton?

[semiot]

Or maybe PNAC mole Richard Armitage?

[orionATL]

never mind.

if it's inr it must be grossman.

but where WOULD john bolton be in all this?

[JohnJ]

One cynical note I would make is; assume Cheney and his crew are reading EVERYTHING! To assume otherwise does not account for the audacity of Cheney and his people. All Big Dick would need is one "personal" operative in the NSA, and he could fish for and monitor any subject and everyone he likes. Everything we've seen about this thug says that operation would be a given. When this stuff operates on a one person to one person basis, the chances of any type of trail are about nil.

[BillE]

If Cheney saw the cable or the email, then the info had to come from someone in the agency? Or does NSA spy on the CIA as well. When a secure cable is sent what players are allowed to see info about it? It must be logged someway for audit purposes.

[BillE]

JohnJ

You sent yours while I was typing. same wavelengths.....

[Swopa]

I'll defer to Mr. T:

http://mrt.sciamachy.net/jibbajabba/on_jazz.wav

[emptywheel]

orion

Grossman is not INR. Different side of State.

Given the stated skepticism of INR about this intell, I still think it's likely to be Fleitz--pushing through INR to raise the profile of this info.

[lll]

marcy, without having read the entire post (i want to save it for when i have enough time to absorb it all), i still want to pose this observation.

no one makes enough - to my feeble mind - about the fact that plame's specific role at the agency was itself of particular interest to the big dick.

in other words, if her beat was counterterrorism focusing on iraq, she was in a position to be at least one of the people who was analyzing intel on this essential topic. my bet is that she was never inclined to 'sex it up' at all, let alone to cheney's satisfaction.

of course, she was not in a position to go public, but her husband was, and did. and when he did, and cheney realized the connection to plame, he jumpted at the chance to 'neutralize' her (legally, of course).

it's my humble opinion that THIS was as much his agenda as it was to shame wilson, hence the totally bizarre and limp accusatin of nepotism. had crashing wilson been the sole and top priority, they'd have come up with a much better story than that.

bottom line: i just think we're foolish to overlook plame's role at the agency and how she likely resisted much of his agenda in the runup. of course, we'll probably never know because she's not at liberty to say, and neither has wilson been on this point. still....

for what it's worth.....

[orionATL]

thanks

you've had to help me keep these apart before.

[earlofhuntingdon]

Why is it so important for the OVP not to have been the sole source for the inquiry into whether Niger supplied yellowcake to Sadam? Cheney doesn't share credit when things go well, so this is damage control.

If Cheney had asked for information, he would have gotten it, or whomever he asked would have immediately been in the unemployment line. That not so One Minute Manager style was well known at Halliburton and in Washington. So if Cheney asked for it, he got, and he couldn't credibly claim not to have done. He would have been deemed to know information that directly contradicted his claims for war. But if three or more agencies asked for routine info, who's to say whether Big Dick ever got the report or considered it credible?

It also seems a way to dissociate Cheney from an investigation itself and not just its fruits. It also supported later smears, such as Rove's characterization to Novak that the report based on Wilson's trip was "not definitive". That was correct only in the technical sense that Wilson’s trip report was one of at least three, including one each from DOD and State, which were consistent in debunking the rumors. But it deceptively suggested shoddy, incomplete and factually incorrect work when that was not true.

It also supports, I think, EW's larger point. Cheney probably knew the information he was asking for from the CIA, so why ask for it? One of Cheney's Commandments is that individual people are policy, or the law, or the opposition. (Hence, his creation of a shadow government via his – not Bush’s - network of personal appointees to top posts throughout government.) Intelligence is people too. If you don't like the intelligence you get, you trash the providers of it before you fire them. (As Bush does with his generals in Iraq.)

That means that Plame was a target, not just Wilson, as others have argued for some time. The CIA's CPD was providing intelligence that directly contradicted one of the OVP's main justifications for war. Cheney already distrusted the CIA and had made his intense displeasure known via his frequent pre-Iraq invasion visits to Langley. The Wilson report, which first publicly raised its head via Kristoff's OpEd in May, told Cheney that CIA was "at it again".

If Cheney already had the information about Plame and Wilson, then asking for the CIA for it was political theater designed to tie Plame's name to the process, which allowed for her inevitable outing. Conveniently but probably not coincidentally, exposing government corruption - the purported boondoggle of Plame getting her out-of-work hubby a freebie from the Agency, work he “failed” to perform adequately because he was, well, a hubby whose wife had to get him work (in the Cheney lexicon) – blowing the whistle, is an honorable, de facto or legal exception to the rules prohibiting unauthorized disclosure of classified information.

The irony that this gambit was used for a corrupt purpose by the greatest foe whistle blowers have ever faced must make Big Dick's snarl foam a tad more than usual.

[orionATL]

e of h

"one of cheney's commandments is that individual people are ...
policy ... law ... opposition ...intelligence."

now that is a fascinating observation; one well worth storing away.

a sort of cliff's notes of the cheney saga.

and of the sequel to follow,

as his follies and the enemies he has made in committing them slowly undo him

(with the assistance of the substantial analytical intelligence and passion his bone-headed "best laid plans" stirred up against himself).

[joel hanes]

As long as we're speculating wildly:

I have long suspected the Cheney had Rove produce the yellowcake forgeries that were fed to SISMI to be laundered and stovepiped.

I have long suspected that Rove produced the TANG records memo "forgeries" that Powerline deconstructed to take down Dan Rather.

Absolutely Rove's MO. I have no other basis for these allegations.

[emptywheel]

joel

Rove didn't produce the Niger forgeries--some folks in Italy did.

[JohnJ]

I second the opinion of JH above. Wasn't Rove the one that bugged his own office before a close election, just to infer it was the opposition?

Who in the world would have forged the yellowcake documents when they had such limited application?

My take on the Dan Rather stuff was that Roves minions found the real thing and "faked" the copies to discredit any true copies floating around. Now if someone comes up with real copies, they would be called corrected fakes.

[JohnJ]

Sorry EW, our posts crossed on the yellowcake.

[Boo Radley]

"i just think we're foolish to overlook plame's role at the agency".... "my bet is that she was never inclined to 'sex it up' at all, let alone to cheney's satisfaction."

Have you read emptywheel's book, ANATOMY OF DECEIT?

I agree with you that Cheney was already pissed off at Plame and the Counter Proliferation Division BEFORE Wilson's op-ed (July 2003), but as the evidence confirms, it wasn't enough to make him risk an IIPA violation. You're speculating about Dick's state of mind four months into the war. We're past the "sex-it-up" stage. IMVHO, Dick is still deep in denial and believes that they will find WMD and then he'll get to give Joe, Valerie, Brewster Jennings, and the Counter Proliferation Division a big "I effin' told you so."

[Ken Muldrew]

If your goal is to collect intelligence that implies the presence of WMDs and to stovepipe intelligence that debunks the presence of WMDs (and that was certainly one of Cheney's goals), then you would place yourself at great advantage by performing surveillance on the people who were collecting and analyzing said intelligence. My guess is that Cheney had access to Valerie's email.

Joel: Rather had the originals, he justed didn't take time to confirm. Take a look at:

http://www.dod.mil/pubs/foi/bush_records/

Especially page 6 of the documents released on Sept. 24, 2004, where you can see the same proportional font that was alleged to be such an obvious error in the forgery. A cynic might also note the dates at which the military released these FOI documents and compare them to the date when Rather caved.

[maunga]

I think Marcy may have written a while ago about the possiblity of its being Valerie Plame herself The Lobby/Cheney were after, all along the way, because her job was to know the truth about Iran's nuclear efforts and whether or no Saddam had re-constituted his WMD (biological) efforts post-1991.

[Alison]

Joel, there is no other reason for the forgeries to have appeared, especially within the Ledeen/PNAC supply chain, other than a Cheney purchase order.

I have wanted to know for a long time how the Italian neo-fascist insitutions have persisted and stayed so powerful since WWII. How do we get recurrent connections between US and Italian right wing scandals? There are some strange connections and associations that outlast governments. They accrue capital and power, ensure their people are inside powerful organizations, and hand down these resources from generation to generation.

How does Cheney know that if he calls up the right person, the capacity of Propaganda Due will be devoted to his request? I don't know, and my tinfoil hat is not strong enough to find out.

But these guys are ready to work together in more powerful ways than simple democratic institutions can even begin to.

[Jodi]

Wow,

emptywheels within emptywheels!

Must things be so convoluted? Could they possibly be?

I just have to think that there was a much simpler stream of events. Such complications would only lend to greater chance of exposure which you will note hasn't happened.

Just like the emails you presume must exist showing great misdeeds. I believe that much of this is just wishful thinking.

You and Fitzgerald as well are trying to prove things by connecting step 1, step 2, step 3, ..., and most of life isn't that way. Especially for real movers/doers like Cheney, and then it is step 1, leap to step 4, go on to end game,...

[P J Evans]

Ah, our troll is telling us that actually thinking things through is so quaint and old-fashioned.

Wrong again.

[John Lopresti]

There was an article July 2007 in the Independent discussing a newly emerging scandal in IT about judges' telephone communications compromise. Suppose Cheney had a listening post ova theya.