Tenet's Correspondence

by emptywheel

I'm increasingly convinced that the correspondence between Tenet, Libby, and Hadley the week of July 7 is one of the remaining keys to the Plame Affair. I say that for three reasons:

• There was a leak battle in the papers last summer regarding what really happened in this correspondence
• We now know that, in spite of this correspondence, Libby did not inform Hadley or Tenet of everything he was leaking at the time
• Nevertheless, Tenet's mea culpa includes a good chunk of the information Libby was trying to leak and/or declassify

The Leak Battle

The leak battle played out on the pages of the NYT and the WaPo last July, in the same period Luskin and Tate were busy leaking a bunch of other information to set up their clients' defense. First, in an article by Scott Shane (which I erroneously attributed to Doug Jehl recently), after describing a battle between NSC and CIA over who would take blame...

Behind the scenes, the Central Intelligence Agency and the National Security Council were skirmishing over who would take the blame for inaccurate intelligence.

...then including the public comments by Bush and Condi that revealed CIA would take the blame...

In Uganda, two days later, [Bush] was asked whether ''somebody should be held accountable'' for the inaccurate reference in the State of the Union address. He replied, ''I gave a speech to the nation that was cleared by the intelligence services.''

Aboard the plane that Friday evening, Ms. Rice spoke at length with reporters, elaborating on the president's point by saying repeatedly that the C.I.A. had approved his text.

...Shane includes a passage suggesting Libby and Rove were closely involved with the negotiations over Tenet's eventual mea culpa, and were involved all week:

Back at the White House, Mr. Rove and Mr. Libby had been at work all week, along with Ms. Rice's deputy, Stephen Hadley, helping to craft a statement that was issued on Friday by George Tenet, the C.I.A. director. Mr. Tenet did precisely what the White House needed: he took responsibility for the inclusion of the 16 words on uranium in the president's speech, and he made clear that Mr. Cheney had neither dispatched Mr. Wilson to Niger nor been briefed on what he found there. [emphasis mine]

A rather nondescript passage, perhaps, but enough to piss off the CIA, which the following week gave Pincus and VandeHei their description of the genesis of Tenet's statement.

Harlow was also involved in the larger internal administration battle over who would be held responsible for Bush using the disputed charge about the Iraq-Niger connection as part of the war argument. Based on the questions they have been asked, people involved in the case believe that Fitzgerald looked into this bureaucratic fight because the effort to discredit Wilson was part of the larger campaign to distance Bush from the Niger controversy.

[snip]

Behind the scenes, the White House responded with twin attacks: one on Wilson and the other on the CIA, which it wanted to take the blame for allowing the 16 words to remain in Bush's speech. As part of this effort, then-deputy national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley spoke with Tenet during the week about clearing up CIA responsibility for the 16 words, even though both knew the agency did not think Iraq was seeking uranium from Niger, according to a person familiar with the conversation. Tenet was interviewed by prosecutors, but it is not clear whether he appeared before the grand jury, a former CIA official said.

On July 9, Tenet and top aides began to draft a statement over two days that ultimately said it was "a mistake" for the CIA to have permitted the 16 words about uranium to remain in Bush's speech. He said the information "did not rise to the level of certainty which should be required for presidential speeches, and the CIA should have ensured that it was removed."

A former senior CIA official said yesterday that Tenet's statement was drafted within the agency and was shown only to Hadley on July 10 to get White House input. Only a few minor changes were accepted before it was released on July 11, this former official said. He took issue with a New York Times report last week that said Rove and Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, had a role in Tenet's statement. [emphasis mine]

Taken together, these passages provide a heavy emphasis on the squabbling between NSC and CIA; the Harlow-sourced story even admits what we now know in detail, that CIA no longer stood by the Niger claims at the time the SOTU was drafted.

But the substantive disagreement here relates to the involvement of Rove and Libby, and to the timing. The NYT source claims Rove and Libby were involved in generating a Tenet response all week, perhaps as early as July 7 or 8. Whereas the Harlow version dates the drafting of the statement to July 9, and specifically denies Rove's and Libby's involvement. Given my questions about timing yesterday, the difference is significant. After all, at some point during or leading up to this week, Dick would authorize Libby to leak information that would later show up in Tenet's statement (Dick approved the NIE leak before July 8, but it's less clear when he instructed Libby to leak the CIA report on Wilson's trip) .

The Double Secret Declassification

Before I review the recent weirdness related to this, consider the way Shane refers to the WH involvement in Tenet's statement: "Mr. Rove and Mr. Libby had been at work all week, along with Ms. Rice's deputy, Stephen Hadley." Mr. Rove and Mr. Libby along with Stephen Hadley. As if Rove and Libby took the lead.

Now look at the way we first learned of Libby's involvement leaking the NIE:

As we discussed during our 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). We also note that it is our understanding that Mr. Libby testified that he was authorized to disclose information about the NIE to the press by his superiors.

I include the full passage for two reasons. First, Fitzgerald separates Libby's admission of leaking the NIE in June and July (therefore presumably to Woodward and Judy and possibly Cooper) from Libby's claim he was authorized to leak it. So this passage doesn't help answer my questions about the timing of Dick's authorizations as compared to Libby's leaks (that is, did Dick authorize the June Woodward NIE leak?). But it's the rest of that passage, the "caused at least one other government official to discuss the NIE with the media in July 2003," that I've been puzzling over. Is this Tenet? What does Fitzgerald mean by "cause to discuss"? Does "cause to discuss" include declassification?

And no mention here of whether or not Hadley was involved in helping Libby cause a government official to discuss the NIE. Which is relevant given that we now know that Libby left Hadley in the dark on this issue. From Fitzgerald's most recent filing,

Defendant fails to mention, however, that he consciously decided not to make Mr. Hadley aware of the fact that defendant himself had already been disseminating the NIE by leaking it to reporters while Mr. Hadley sought to get it formally declassified. There is no reason to root around in the files of the NSC or CIA or State Department given that no one at any of those three agencies was aware of any declassification of the NIE prior to July 18, 2003. Since Mr. Hadley was involved in efforts to declassify what Mr. Libby testified had already been declassified, Mr. Hadley’s files will create confusion rather than providing context. The government is producing to defendant Mr. Hadley’s notes of meetings and conversations in which both defendant and Mr. Hadley participated, and in which the potential declassification of the NIE was discussed.

Libby was leaking the NIE while Hadley was busy trying to declassify the NIE, and Libby testified that he didn't tell Hadley about it (I'm going to leave open the possibility that Libby is protecting everyone here, and therefore lying about what he did and didn't tell Hadley, but for the moment let's take Libby at his-cough-word). Elsewhere in the same filing, Fitzgerald makes the timing a little more clear:

Defendant testified in the grand jury that he understood that even in the days following his conversation with Ms. Miller, other key officials – including Cabinet level officials – were not made aware of the earlier declassification even as those officials were pressed to carry out a declassification of the NIE, the report about Wilson’s trip and another classified document dated January 24, 2003.

That is, in the days after July 8, when he first started leaking the NIE and the contents of the CIA trip report (and, for all we know, the contents of the January 24 document), Libby kept more than one Cabinet level official in the dark that he had already started leaking this and--ostensibly, at least--gotten it Cheney-declassified. Are Hadley and Tenet these Cabinet-level officials? Dunno. The Deputy NSC and DCI are not now included among those of cabinet-level rank, but things have changed in the interim period.

Let's assume that it includes at least Tenet. This makes the Tenet correspondence more interesting. Because it might explain how Libby and Rove would be exchanging emails about items that later appeared in Tenet's statement, before the time when the CIA says it was developing that statement. In other words, the leak battle may have been an attempt (perhaps on the part of Rove, not Libby?) to explain away discussions about the NIE and the CIA trip report from early in the week of July 7. Content-wise, they relate to the content of Tenet's statement. But they come too early in the week, at least according to the CIA, to be related to the statement.

Tenet's Mea Culpa

Which brings us to Tenet's mea culpa. On two levels accounts at least, it appears to reflect precisely the documents Libby was simultaneously leaking and attempting to declassify. It appears to include the entirety of the section of the NIE relating to the Niger claim.

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."

Now, this was not declassified publicly until July 18, which is one of the reasons why I think Tenet is the official whom Libby "caused" to leak portions of the NIE. Did Tenet know it had been technically declassified? How much coercion did it take to convince Tenet to leak something that may or may not have been declassified yet?

Whether or not Tenet knew it had been Cheney-declassified already, his description of the NIE is remarkable. Tenet uses the word, "vigorously," a word Libby specifically mentioned in his description of the Cheney-declassification. Tenet admits that the Niger claim didn't appear in the key judgments, but that it did appear in the body of the report. But he also gives the passage a bit of a spin, putting it in a more threatening light than the NIE itself. As I described in an earlier post,

First, Tenet quotes verbatim in this passage almost the entirety of the section of the NIE relating to Iraqi acquisition of uranium, at least according to the SSCI report. With two significant differences. Tenet, in his statement, claims the NIE also discussed, "how [uranium] could be diverted while under IAEA safeguard." Yet the passage of the NIE quoted in the SSCI report states, "Iraq has about 550 metric tons of yellowcake and low enriched uranium at Tuwaitha, which is inspected annually by the IAEA." That is, at least as the SSCI reports it, the NIE makes no mention of Iraq being able to divert its existing yellowcake. Also, Tenet claims that the statement, "We cannot confirm whether Iraq succeeded in acquiring uranium ore and/or yellowcake from these sources" related specifically to the two other countries, Somalia and Congo. But the SSCI shows that statement as a comment relating to both preceding bullets. Meaning that, when the NIE referred to being unable to confirm whether Iraq got uranium, it referred to both the Niger allegations and the Somalia/Congo ones.

Of course, this could have come through Hadley (and by all accounts, Hadley got to review the statement). But the misrepresentations of the NIE are certainly worthy of Libby's work.

Then there's the mention of the CIA report on Joe Wilson's trip, one of the two other documents Libby was trying to declassify.

In an effort to inquire about certain reports involving Niger, CIA's counter-proliferation experts, on their own initiative, asked an individual with ties to the region to make a visit to see what he could learn. He reported back to us that one of the former Nigerien (sic) officials he met stated that he was unaware of any contract being signed between Niger and rogue states for the sale of uranium during his tenure in office. The same former official also said that in June 1999 a businessman approached him and insisted that the former official meet with an Iraqi delegation to discuss "expanding commercial relations" between Iraq and Niger. The former official interpreted the overture as an attempt to discuss uranium sales. The former officials also offered details regarding Niger's processes for monitoring and transporting uranium that suggested it would be very unlikely that material could be illicitly diverted. There was no mention in the report of forged documents -- or any suggestion of the existence of documents at all.

Tenet introduced the element of the CIA trip report that Ari distorted further the next day and that Dick presumably asked Libby to emphasize with reporters on July 12--the meeting between Baghdad Bob (here, "a businessman") and Mayaki (the "former official"). Though at least Tenet noted that Wilson offered reasons why the Niger claims were unlikely. (Also note--Wilson is reported to have said Iran tried to buy uranium from Niger, but Tenet's version would seem to dispute that claim.)

While Hadley (or whomever) continued to work on declassifying the NIE after Tenet's statement, Tenet's description of the CIA trip report seems to have sufficed. As Waas tells us,

These officials say the White House abandoned its attempt to declassify all or part of the March 2002 report when Tenet released his statement.

Thus, on July 8, Libby leaked a distorted view of this report. On July 9 he tried to get Addington to get more information on it. Also on July 9, Rove presumably told Novak that this report would be declassified. on July 10 it was presumably in Tenet's draft statement, which he delivered on July 11. And by July 12, Dick had Libby point to Tenet's statement and Ari's further misrepresentation of it, and leak it directly (though Libby appears to have been backpedaling on his claims about it to Judy). At this point, Dick and Libby appear to have given up any attempt to declassify the statement. To review Fitzgerald's statement,

Defendant testified in the grand jury that he understood that even in the days following his conversation with Ms. Miller, other key officials – including Cabinet level officials – were not made aware of the earlier declassification even as those officials were pressed to carry out a declassification of the NIE, the report about Wilson’s trip and another classified document dated January 24, 2003.

Consider: Tenet would almost certainly have been the person who could have declassified the CIA trip report. While Cheney-declassification of it may have worked, this would be an area directly relating to sources and methods, one that would be even more scandalous for the Veep to declassify unilaterally. What kinds of conversations did Libby have with Tenet about declassifying this document? And what is reflected in the drafts or discussions residing solely at CIA right now, the drafts that Fitzgerald won't hand over to Libby? Did Tenet and Libby come to an agreement on the degree to which Tenet would describe the Wilson report?

It's questions like these that I suspect the Tenet correspondence would answer.

It might answer one more question, too--what was the third document Libby wanted to declassify.

Tenet mentions only two more early 2003 documents, Powell's speech (though only as a passing mention) and the SOTU. His description of the SOTU drafting is carefully parsed. Early in the speech Tenet takes responsibility for the approval process that led to the 16 words being included in the SOTU, even while he doesn't say he approved it directly.

First, CIA approved the President's State of the Union address before it was delivered. Second, I am responsible for the approval process in my Agency.

Later in the statement, Tenet uses a series of mostly passive sentences that hide the identity of those involved in the approval process as well as the critical details.

Portions of the State of the Union speech draft came to the CIA for comment shortly before the speech was given. Various parts were shared with cognizant elements of the Agency for review. Although the documents related to the alleged Niger-Iraqi uranium deal had not yet been determined to be forgeries, officials who were reviewing the draft remarks on uranium raised several concerns about the fragmentary nature of the intelligence with National Security Council colleagues. Some of the language was changed. From what we know now, Agency officials in the end concurred that the text in the speech was factually correct--i.e. that the British government report said that Iraq sought uranium from Africa. This should not have been the test for clearing a Presidential address.

But he makes clear that the substantive vetting took place, as I've suggested it probably did, in discrete parts.

Now, Tenet's inclusion of this strained description may support my initial speculations as to what Libby was trying to declassify--that it was an early fragment of the SOTU (I do think this is still quite possible). In that case, Tenet's statement would have made reference to all three documents Libby tried to declassify. Or, the mystery January 24 document may be one of the other likely candidates (quite likely the NIO-NSC document Jeff identified). In which case Tenet may have dismissed or objected to declassification in his correspondence.

In short, I suspect the Tenet correspondence would reveal not only who participated how during the week of July 7, but it may well clarify the questions about Libby's declassification games.

 

Comments

[John Casper]

Welcome home ew, great post.

[John Casper]

Rove's attorney, "gold bars" Luskin is back trying his case in public: http://www.nysun.com/article/31062

[Jeff]

John Casper! Thank you - the INR memo has been declassified, and the Sun has a link up to a copy of the declassified version. Reading it now.

[emptywheel]

First thing about the Sun/INR memo: the mystery INR analyst was the West African analyst (not an Iraqi one), and he was reassigned.

[emptywheel]

That, and there is some protection of Bolton/Bolton's shop. Which increases the likelihood that they got to vet this the first time around, as I have been speculating.

[Jeff]

On the INR memo. 1. At least in the context of sending it to Powell on July 7, the point was to confirm that INR did not get a report from Wilson on his trip - remember that Wilson had made claims about reporting to State as well as CIA. 2. The document refers to "Valerie Wilson, a CIA WMD manager, and the wife of Joe Wilson." 3. The INR person at the meeting, who appears to have been the one who drafted the notes after the fact and who, the memo notes, was not present to go over what happened, appears to have been INR's West Africa analyst. 4. As Tom Maguire has been arguing for a while, at the Feb. 19 2002 meeting, INR was pissed that the CIA thought that the Embassy in Niamey and the U.S. Ambassador - State folks - were not likely to get the truth on the Niger-Iraq allegatioins from their contacts. 5. The INR memo gives what looks to me like an accurate read on the status of the Niger claims, and nuclear claims more generally, in the Octobver 2002 NIE. 6. Perhaps most interesting is the paragraph at the top of p. 3, which discusses claims regarding uranium-procurement end of 2003-early 2003. here things seem to get ugly and disputed between State and Winpac. In any case, check this out - the internal quotations seem to come from the April 7, 2003 CIA retrospective on the Niger story:

On January 12, 2003, INR "expressed concerns to the CIA that the documents pertaining to the Iraq-Niger deal were forgeries." The conclusion may, however, have been reached and communicated for the first time somewhat earlier: the record is not clear on this point.

So INR was suspicious certainly before the SOTU that the documents were forgeries. I don't think this is news, but it may be. In any case, it goes on to detail the absence of the claim from Powell's UN speech, attributing it, however, to CIA doubts:

After considerable back and forth between the CIA, the Department, the IAEA, and the British, Secretary Powell's briefing to the UN Security Council did not mention attempted Iraqi procurement of uranium "due to CIA concerns raised during the coordination regarding the veracity of the information on the alleged Iraq-Niger agreement."

The INR memo goes on to note that there are other retrospective accounts differing somewhat from that CIA one. I bet those are interesting.

7. Best as I can tell, as has been reported, the whole document is Secret/ORCON,NOFORN (though there is also some indication, perhaps retrospective and from now, "S/ES"); and the paragraph that Valerie Wilson appears in is marked "S//NF".

8. What's unclear is whether the entirety of the document simply reproduces the INR memo as originally produced in June 2003, or is modified - in particular, whether the first paragraph was produced in June 2003 or especially for Powell in July 2003.

9. Finally, why was this declassified and published now?

[Jeff]

A question: would the identification of Valerie Wilson as a manager at the CIA be at all indicative of her status there, in particular that she was, say, not an analyst and/or that she worked on the DO side, or at CPD as opposed to Winpac, and so on? Is "manager" a term of art in this context, and what does it mean?

[Jeff]

The Sun has apparently seen the attachments as well, including the notes from the INR analyst, whom it identified as Douglas Rohn.

And it turns out that the Sun got the documents in response to a FOIA request they put it in July 2005. Apparently whoever handles those requests works Saturdays, as the Sun got the documents this past Saturday.

[Mimikatz]

My guess is (and has been) that Libby and Rove worked on Tenet's mea culpa before Tenet even knew he was going to issue one; that Hadley worked with Tenet and with one or more of Libby/Rove, but that Tenet did not know about at least one of them. That accounts for the different ersions of who worked with whom.

I wonder if before Wilson's op-ed made it clear who he was, Tenet and CIA were trying to downplay him and his role to protect "sources and methods," including Valerie. Just a thought.

[Jeff]

Gerstein's article quotes from one of the documents attached to the INR memo, the INR analyst's notes on the February 19 2002 meeting, so presumably Gerstein got that document as well, though the Sun has so far only posted the INR memo itself. One of the other attachments to the INR memo was the CIA report from Wilson's trip - wouldn't it be interesting if that has been declassified and Gerstein got a copy of it. Wouldn't it be even more interesting if he shared it with the public.

[ed]

Actually, there was a second document link at the end of the article this morning. I only got through the INR memo before the second link dissapeared, so I don't know what that was.

[emptywheel]

I'm guessing there are two discrete versions of this. Note that the classification date is 7/6, by Carl Ford. ANd yes, the first paragraph seems to be rewritten.

Also, I think the term manager gives rank--I believe either Wilson or Johnson has said that makes her the equivalent of a major.

[kaleidescope]

Or Rove and Libby could've been working on a version of Tenet's mea culpa that Tenet refused to give, so Tenet wrote his own.

[peanutgallery]

A propos of the last thread, revelations to the Sun and their timing should be considered vis a vis revelations in the WaPo and NYT vs. revelations to Waas and Leopold.

[William Ockham]

Try this link:

http://www.nysun.com/pics/31062_1.php

I have the images saved, just in case they disappear

[Jeff]

William - Awesome! How'd you find that last document? And is that the only one of the original tabbed attachments that seems to be included?

[William Ockham]

Part of my job is know how to hack urls (purely on the side of the good guys, I'm responsible for software application security, among other things).

That's the only thing I've found so far.

[Jeff]

William - Next question: How do I save that image, as a pdf, say?

[JohnLopresti]

It saves as a mhtml file

[William Ockham]

Each individual original page can be saved as a JPEG file. You can use your favorite PDF tool to stitch them together as a PDF if you really need to.

[Jeff]

Got it, thanks.

[viget]

Minor thing, but S/ES is not a classification mark. It refers to the specific office at the Department of State that the memo was addressed to, in this case, the Executive Secretariat, which is sort of the go-between for the offices of the Secretary, Deputy Secretary and the Under Secretaries and the rest of the world. So anything addressed to Secy. Powell would have to go through this office first. It's kind of like the bureaucratic nerve center of the deparment, if I understand it right.

What is kind of weird to me is that the classification status of the document is SECRET//ORCON,NOFORN, BUT there's this HUGE white space between the "SECRET" and the "ORCON,NOFORN", meaning that there's a possibility that there are other classification marks we're not seeing? And that space isn't shaded with a redaction box, yet clearly there was something there. From the little research I've been able to do, I think the missing dissemination controls might have to do with SCI. Which, of course, would bolster the idea that maybe Valerie Wilson's identity was not to be made widely known.

Plus, in the third graf, there is definitely a classification mark we're not seeing, it's under a redaction box.

[lukery]

EW - Tenet's statement says that Iran didnt sign a contract with Niger - Wilson merely claims that there were overtures to do so.