What Wasn't In Tenet's Statement: The January 24 Document

by emptywheel

This morning I posted a summary of the various drafts of George Tenet's July 11, 2003 statement taking some of the blame for the 16 Words in the SOTU. I suggested that Cheney was the one who was unsatisfied with the CIA draft (and so almost certainly the final statement). But I promised I'd come back and talk about what wasn't included. I think it's very telling that CIA would not put two specific things into the statement.

• More specific mention that OVP was not the source of the trip
• Specific mention of the January 24 document

OVP Not Source of Trip
Now, I'm guessing about the first bullet--that OVP would have wanted something more specific disavowing their role as a source of the trip. I think it's a fair guess, given that as early as June 11 (or sometime thereabouts), Libby was trying to get CIA to say that State and Defense had been interested in the Niger intelligence. Curiously, by the week of July 6, Cheney had dropped his efforts to make that claim (I think he dictated these talking points on July 8)--and I'm not sure if that story ever made it into any official statements save the SSCI report. So instead of saying, as he had tried to a month earlier, that State and Defense were also behind Wilsons trip, Tenet's statement said only that,

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.

I find this curious for two reasons. First--did CIA refute the argument that anyone at State and Defense (besides, perhaps, John Bolton and Dougie Feith) were interested in the claim? In which case OVP couldn't refute Wilson's claims using that approach. Instead, the statement says only that CP sent WIlson, without a discussion of why, of whose question they were trying to answer.

The January 24 Document
There has been no discussion, at least thus far, of why a specific disavowal of OVP's role didn't appear. But Cathie Martin was asked about something else--the January 24 document reiterating the claims from the NIE.

W It was your personal position that the Tenet statement didn't go far enough. There was more detail he could have put into it. How close in time they had told the WH that this was still good evidence.

W Were you referring ot the fact that on Jan 24 a doct had been giving to WH setting forth certain information. You thought that should have been referenced.

Some kind of discussion about this.

4:17

W During the period you were aware of the Jan 24, I'm going to show you what, there are a number of redactions, this is the one that has been declassified for purpose of trial. She looks unsure. Asks for something else. He gives her something. She smiles.

W You have seen this.

M I have.

Puts doc up. Huge redaction, most of it [sorry eriposte!].

W This document, where the cover sheet is dated Jan 24, 2003 shows the WH was told Iraq had 550 tons of yellowcake and low-enriched uranium at Tuwaitha which is inspected annually by IAEA. Iraq also started trying to vigurously procure uranium ore and yellowcake; procuring either would shorten the time to produce nuclear weapons. [The document also includes the"early 2001" intell and the Congo and one other Africa one.]

M Neither you nor Libby were succesful at getting Hadley to include it. 

Then, Wells and Martin went over her notes on the Niger intelligence. This is one section of those notes.

January 24 Document

• We reiterated our statement in NIE that Iraq was vigorously pursuing
• That restates language used in October

W You and Libby were taking the position that he should include this.

In other words, Wells elicited Martin to say that she wanted Tenet to include mention of the January 24 document in his statement, but Tenet did not. (Elsewhere, Martin explained that she wanted Hadley to include mention of the same document in Condi's talking points for the Sunday shows.) As with the OVP reference, the absence of such a reference in Tenet's mea culpa seems significant, particularly given that Libby and Martin were pressing so hard for its inclusion. Why wouldn't Tenet mention the January 24 document?

The document, as we've long known, is basically a restatement of the Niger claims from the NIE. As such, the document itself is not all that interesting. But check out the cover letter to it. [Here's a copy of the addressees viget did--it fixes the distortions in the names.]

It appears that this chunk (orignally 34 pages) of material was sent from Robert Walpole, the National Intelligence Officer on Strategic and Nuclear Programs, to the White House Situation Room on Friday, January 24, 2003 at 8:47 PM. He (or the staffer who sent it) noted "they" needed to receive it by Saturday morning, January 25. He calls their attention to pp. 2-3 (though it's not clear whether those pages are the same two pages still included here).

But now look at the "they" in question: we can see Steve Hadley and Scooter Libby listed as recipients. Then the list of recipients gets all mangled. But the third name appears to be Bob, which would presumably be Bob Joseph, not least because Bob Joseph was Walpole's effective counterpart at NSC. And there there may be a fourth name which is totally unreadable. (Could it be Alan Foley??) [update: viget says it's Will Tobey]

Now, understand three things about this document.

1. Libby has always claimed to be uninvolved in the drafting of the SOTU, or at least the part relating to Niger intelligence; he has claimed he was busy with Colin Powell's UN speech.
2. Libby has used this document to justify using the Niger claim in the SOTU.
3. Robert (Bob) Joseph is the guy known to have inserted the 16 words into the SOTU. He is also the guy who negotiated its continued inclusion in the SOTU with Alan Foley, head of WINPAC, who tried to get it taken out.

In other words, this cover letter belies Libby's claim to have been uninvolved in the SOTU. Since the Niger claims were purportedly not included in Powell's speech, the only reason to have received this on January 24, 2003 is if he was intimately involved in the drafting of the SOTU.

Also consider--this document repeats verbatim the Niger claims made in the NIE. It was sent urgently just four days before the SOTU, in respose to a request from Stephen Hadley, at a time when they were already drafting the speech. And presumably, just before or after they received the NIO from Africa's warning that the Niger claims should not be used, and at about the same time as Alan Foley said the Niger claim should not be used. The inclusion of Libby, Hadley, and Joseph on the recipient list of this fax, and the urgency with which it was sent, supports a speculation that many of us have voiced: That the January 24 restatement of the Niger claims was an attempt to give backup to a claim that had already been dismissed.

Tenet did not include that document in his statement of July 11. Which suggests he didn't put much stock in the document at that date, either. (I need to go check whether Hadley submitted it to Condi for use on the Sunday shows, but I don't think so.) If this document was so solid, why were Tenet and Hadley unwilling to use it?

One more thing about this document. Going back to the last page of Martin's notes (they rehearsed this in the trial), you can see the timeline she understood wrt the Niger intelligence.

March 2002 Evidence Joe Wilson trip

September 02 Brit report

October 01 02 NIE

October 7 02 Cincinnati Speech [in different colored ink]

January 24 03 Document restates NIE

Jan 28 03 SOTU

Feb 5 Powell UN

This is--in Cathie Martin's own understanding--the lead-up to the inclusion of the Niger claim in the SOTU. It appears that she did not know about or include the Cincinnati speech (in which Hadley was told clearly not to use the Niger claims) until this notetaking process. But she did know that the January 24 document "reiterated our statement in the NIE that Iraq was vigorously pursuing uranium." Looked at from this perspective, as Martin learned that Hadley had been told in October not to use the Niger intelligence, it becomes clear what purpose that January 24, 2003 document served. It allowed those writing the SOTU to use a claim they knew had been debunked the previous October.

Side note: The pages have curious refax marks, from the WH Situation Room to someone else during leak week. But they weren't sent together. The cover leter was sent on July 11, at 10:23, as page 59 of a bunch of pages. Whereas the report itself was sent after midnight, on July 12, at 12:26 AM, as page 1 and 2 of a fax. Was this more prep for Condi for the Sunday shows?

Comments

[chris]

EW, why does this document look like someone cut and pasted the middle section? From just below "They need by Saturday morning" to just above the name "Joseph"? When I shift over the mid section, the loop for the "y" in Saturday and the "g" in morning shift over fine- but bottom of the "T" in They and the "y" in by are now out of place. Was this part of the redaction process?

[emptywheel]

chris

No, I suspect it was part of the faxing process.

[viget]

The fourth name is Will Tobey, one of Bob Joeseph's deputies at the time. I realigned the names in photoshop, sorry I'd post a jpg, but I'm not quite sure how to. If you want me to email it to you EW, I'd be happy to.

BTW, I found this WaPo article dated August 10, 2003 and bylined by Gellman and Pincus explaining the debunking of the aluminum tubes story while googling Will Tobey to find out who he is. EW or Polly, has this article ever come up before for any significant reason?

[emptywheel]

viget Yes please: emptywheel at gmail dot com

[Denise K]

Thanks, emptywheel! I have not been following this stuff that closely, but I have just ordered your book so I can from now on. I have always been bothered by the whole Tenet blame-taking, medal-receiving resignation -- even before the Plame investigation. It is nice to know that my radar was functioning. Tenet got his medal for falling on the sword and then he quit -- leaving this investigation behind??? Was the CIA the real target of the Plame outing for raining on VP's parade? To punish it -- as much or more than Wilson?

[eriposte]

EW,

Per the SSCI report, the Jan 24 fax was sent over to help prepare for Powell's speech. Later on, SSCI says that the WH added a bunch of garbage to Powell's speech which got stripped out. So, it is entirely possible that this Jan 24 doc was used by NSC really for the Powell speech but they may have also decided to take something from it to include in the SOTU speech. Either way, the fact that even Alan Foley objected to the inclusion of the claim prior to SOTU indicates that they can't just rely on the Jan 24 document for supporting their fraud.

The SSCI report never stated exactly when the Foley Joseph exchange occurred. Based on the history of what we've seen, it must have been to hide the chronology (Jan 24 vs. Foley-Joseph exchange).

[Santa Monica Jeremy]

Got a question... might be interesting.

Larry Johnson is pointing out that this memo introduced at the Libby trial shows that Cheney was being briefed on an ACCORD between Iraq and Niger to supply 500 tons of yellowcake. Not "trade contacts", not "aggressively seeking", but "HAS A SIGNED ACCORD".

Something that's been bothering me about Joe Wilson's report... if he was sent to check out rumors of "seeking uranium", his report DOES seem a little thin. That's one of the things the White House has been flogging him with; he didn't do enough deep digging, meet with enough people, to discredit all possibilities (note: you can't disprove a negative, of course).

BUT....

What if he was sent to check out the existence of the (spurious) Iraq/Niger Uranium ACCORD?

Suddenly, it makes perfect sense. If there was a claim that Iraq had actually signed an agreement with Niger, that would be pretty easy to debunk - and that's PRECISELY what Wilson does, meeting with the main Nigerien officials and ascertaining that

* no accord has been signed, and
* considering the way the Nigerien industry is structured, there's no way for an accord like that to function.

The Admin's whole take on this, from the beginning, was misdirection, no?

* He lied! It wasn't the Vice President's office that sent him!
* The OVP never got an official report stamped with "From Joe Wilson, Amb (ret)"!
* And anyway, his report was inconclusive! He wasn't able to definitively prove that Iraq WASN'T "actively seeking Uranium in Africa" (the classic "You can't disprove a negative")

But... if he was sent (at the prodding of the OVP) to debunk the ACCORD, then that explains a lot. And it particularly explains why they would switch the focus to "Who sent him?" - because the whole thing really highlites just how thin their arguments were. They went from "There is a definite agreement for 500 tons of yellowcaked" to "an Iraqi wanted to come and talk trade, which MUST MEAN yellowcake, although of course, that meeting didn't happen."

Pretty pathetic reason to start a war, eh?

[Jeff]

Document questions: 1. What do you make of the printed text on the upper right of the cover page that seems to read: "WHITE HOUSE SITUATION ROOM" and below it, more intriguingly, "2003 JAN 24 PM [?] 0:53"? My initial thought was that the written time was not 20:47 but 00:47. But that looks really a lot like a 2. Also, is the "See pp. 2-3" in the same handwriting as the rest of the writing on the cover page? It's hard for me to tell. But it seems important, because if it's not, if it reflect some later notation from July 2003, it would suggest that the faxer and possible the faxees were less specifically focused on the uranium claim (since the document appears to have been 34 pages). By the same token, if that is, say, Walpole pointing Libby, Hadley, Joseph and the other guy to just those pages out of 34 pages, that means they were really quite focused on it.

Great work, viget, by the way. I'm impressed.

The thing we would want to know also is, was Bob Joseph working on the UN presentation at this time? Because if he wasn't, and I have a hard time imagining he was, what with the SOTU coming up, it points that much more to this document being directed at the SOTU process, not the UN presentation process, as the SSCI sort of claims.

[Nan]

Thanks for your investigative and analytical energies, all!

EW - received the five copies of your book I ordered and will be leaving two in a few local cafes for patrons to read and donating two to area schools. The local bookstore has stocked a few extras and I'll encourage friends to buy it. It looks great on the scan - I look forward to reading it tomorrow night. Thanks for cranking the book out!

[jody]

this is the only place i can think of to ask for help, because i'd like to read the liveblogging of the trial. however,
for the past ten days (but not before then -- i followed the first few days), i've been getting the
following message every time i try to go to firedoglake
Access forbidden!
You don't have permission to access the requested directory. There is either no index document or the directory is read-protected.
If you think this is a server error, please contact the webmaster.
Error 403
firedoglake.com
Mon Feb 5 06:16:31 2007.

I'm in Paris -- i know the problem isn't all overseas sites because Avedon Carroll isn't having a problem. None of the computers in my network can reach it -- and there is no reason i can think of for that, unless they've locked out non-anglophone IPs??
all mail to webmaster there bounces as well.
i have cleared my cache and all the other things i think i'm supposed to check.
what am i doing wrong?
thanks

[viget]

Jeff--

Thanks for the compliment. I didn't think that it was that big a deal, but thanks anyway.

Regarding your other document questions, I can't make out the stamp, but I think it's got to be an 8, as there is clearly a "PM" in front of it. You wouldn't put 0:53 PM, that makes no sense. And since it was faxed over from the CIA at 8:47 per the notation (which is the same handwriting as the message number, so I think it's from whomever actually does the faxing at CIA, a secy or assistant type), the 8:53 stamp would be by the person at the other end, indicating that it had been received.

"See pp.2-3" is tough one.... not so sure what to make of it. It doesn't look like Bob Walpole's handwriting (or the handwriting from the other person who filled out the fax sheet), but I can't be sure. Not enough exemplars.

However, I also don't think it's from whomever refaxed it on July 11th either, as if you notice in the refax marks, the cover page was p.56 of some fax, whereas the report pages were pages 1 and 2 of a different fax. So, see pp.2-3 would be ambiguous in that case. My guess is that it's from someone in the WH Sit room (either Hadley, Libby, etc.) who had first looked at the report and then passed it on to someone else to peruse (maybe the Veep?) and noted that pp.2-3 were the salient parts.

[John Casper]

Jody, are you trying this address
http://www.firedoglake.com ?

There's an old site, firedoglake.blogspot.

Traffic is very high, but no one is reporting your problem.

[John Casper]

Jody,
Nothing much happening right now. They are arguing about whether to let Scooter's GJ testimony go public. Fitz doesn't care.

You can email Christy at

reddhedd AT firedoglake DOT com

and tell her you're in Paris and that you are having problems.

[John Casper]

Jody,

FWIW, have you tried switching browsers? I find fdl works better for me with Firefox browser, but I'm in the US.

[Jim E.]

So are the GJ tapes of Scooter's testimony--audio versions--going to be released to the public? Am I reading the liveblogging correctly?

If so, that would be one of the most interesting things to happen in this saga yet. Hopefully someone with tech skills would be able to condense the hours of testimony into a "best of" version that is only an hour or so long, rather than 7 hours.

[John Casper]

Jody, another idea is to try to get through using THE NEXT HURRAH link to FDL to your right on this page.

[Jeff]

I can't make out the stamp, but I think it's got to be an 8

Ah, got it, I think you're right, that's helpful.

It doesn't look like Bob Walpole's handwriting (or the handwriting from the other person who filled out the fax sheet)

I tend to agree, which is why it's so intriguing.

[jody]

thank you John. I can't get it from any link, though i can read google cashes. not really up-to-date. i'm using firefox, but i tried with IE and that doesn't work either. have emailed -- at least it hasn't bounced back yet, like email to webmaster there.

[John Casper]

You are very welcome Jody.
I commented your tnh message over at FDL into the comments, so Christy should see it around the time she gets your email.

This is all that has happened so far:

It's 9:41.

Judge Walton: The first matter is press access to the grand jury tapes… it would appear to me that this circuit has given a level of importance to the public's right of access to exhibits. Considering the importance that our circuit has given to this right, [legalese for saying he's going to give press copies].

Jeffress objects, saying that the precedents don't really justify this step, and that the jury will find it impossible to avoid the publicity resulting from the release of tapes. (You mean they won't be able to avoid re-hearing the testimony they already heard in court??)

Walton doesn't see the difference between overhearing commentary on the tapes versus overhearing commentary on the transcripts.

Jeffress says that the intense media desire to get the tapes shows the greater play that they will receive. (He's got a point there.)

Fitz: We've stayed on the sidelines, letting Mr. Libby's attorneys and the press argue this… we take no position.

Walton says that the potential for greater media coverage is a concern — is he reconsidering?

Now a prosecutor is saying that the media coverage is unavoidable, but the context of having the whole tapes will be helpful. The press here in the media room, having a proverbial dog in this fight, occasionally bursts into kibitzing and brief arguments back at the screen.

The prosecutor now repeats my point about the jurors being exposed to the exact same material they've already heard. :)

It's 9:56.

Jeffress is now back up, reiterating that the higher level of discussion in general will result in accidental jury contamination.

Walton: I do have my concerns about the use of these tapes by the media… it's an awesome task to ensure that media coverage does not interfere with a fair trial, which is my paramount responsibility… but based on my reading of previous cases, I think the circuit (e.g., in an appeal) would rule that the tapes should be released, and it's not my job to speculate otherwise.

(I guess he wasn't really reconsidering; the exchange above was just a Socratic exercise of some sort. Let the record show that it took less than half an hour for me to become totally confused by what was going on in the courtroom.)

W: "The next matter…" Ooops, no, there's a break to address unspecified other matters. The reason for taking the break now has to do with a specific court reporter being available to handle the matter, whatever it is.

It's 10:06.

Still on break. But, um, I'm here just in case anything happens.

It's 10:32.

[John Casper]

Jody, Christy confirmed to me in the FDL comments that she got your email. She's looking into it.

[John Lopresti]

William "Will" H. Tobey, oversees $1.6 Billion budget for nuke nonproliferation as undersecy (jobtitle here) in Dept of Energy, nominated to post and approved by US Senate committee summer 2006. Baccalaureate Northwestern, another later degree from Harvard school of public policy; worked in Reagan administration and subsequent republican administration. His current agency post's biography of him and several other searchengine links are broken, but there is plenty on him on the internet, to begin research.

[kim]

Good job on NPR Marcy, I drove around an extra 30 minutes today listening to you and York. The only comment I'd make is that York blurred the distinction between the President and VP regarding declassification, follow that up!, and maybe even the President needs to talk to Tenet before declassifying an agent's ID.

[peanutgallery]

Hey John Lopresti! Wanna bet this guy was the procurer of materials under Nunn Lugar?

[John Lopresti]

pg, a complicated issue, best left to the experts, above. As a minimum two repulbicans cobbled together something about nuke materials which became Nunn Lugar in the early 1990s. I would have to check a while to find out what the $1.6b accomplished. A cursory search yielded a bureaucratic site with speeches by a spectrum of arms experts. I had thought that the proximity of Tobey's expertise and responsibilities to those of CPD might make likely the appearance of his name on the covernote; good effort, viget. Additionally, I was mindful of the Grenier comment pseudotranscribed last week by our reporter ew characterizing CPD as likely almost all undercover folks though maybe with some nonundercover individuals.