Nov 19 2005
Is Deep Throat II Hadley?
UPDATE:
Mac Ranger pointed out a glaring problem with the Sunday Times article – it was written by serial forger Micheal Smith. We were on of the early blogs that pointed out the insanity of the Downing Street Forgeries which caught Michael Smith making up ridiculous excuses for the forgery efforts – including the question of why type these memos on a ancient typewriter that is hard to find, age the documents through a series of copier cycles, all to hide the source when all that required was re-typing them into anyone’s MS Word to lose all source forensics?
Micheal Smith is a poor forger and a poor liar. He is probably a candidate for the poor Niger forgeries than a source of accurate news.
END UPDATE
The Sunday Times UK is reporting that the secret source for Bob Woodward in the Plame Game, which caused Woodward’s recent public mea culpa, is supposedly Steve Hadley.
THE mysterious source who gave America’s foremost journalist, Bob Woodward, a tip-off about the CIA agent at the centre of one of Washington’s biggest political storms was Stephen Hadley, the White House national security adviser, according to lawyers close to the investigation.
Suffice it to say ‘lawyers close to the investigation’ have had a mixed track record. If it is Hadley I would expect a resignation to Bush. Holding back this long is not going to be excused.
Some of our readers had suspicions it was Rand Beers, lead foreign affairs point for the Kerry campaign. And I still put Beers high in the running. And this reporting is not yet solid:
A spokeswoman for the National Security Council (NSC) denied that Hadley was the journalist’s source. However, in South Korea on Friday during an official visit with President George W Bush, Hadley dodged the question.
…
A White House official said the national security adviser’s ambiguity was unintentional and repeated that Hadley was not Woodward’s source. But others close to the investigation insisted that he was.
Well, if they are Wilson’s lawyers forget about it. Who cares? This is the problem with these ‘sources’. Without information on why they might leak the reporting is suspect at best.
My money is on Richard Armitage. However, the left-wing blog sites have been saying Hadley was the source for sometime now……
From RawStory on 24 Oct: ….. Those close to the investigation say that Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has been told that David Wurmser, then a Middle East adviser to Vice President Dick Cheney on loan from the office of then-Under Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security Affairs John Bolton, met with Cheney and his chief of staff I. Lewis “Scooter†Libby in June 2003 and told Libby that Plame set up the Wilson trip. He asserted that it was a boondoggle, the sources said. Libby then shared the information with Karl Rove, President Bush’s deputy chief of staff, the sources said. Wurmser also passed on the same information about Wilson to then-Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley……..
And on Nov 15: National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley was the senior administration official who told Washington Post Assistant Managing Editor Bob Woodward that Valerie Plame Wilson was a CIA officer, attorneys close to the investigation and intelligence officials tell RAW STORY. Testifying under oath Monday to Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, Woodward recounted a casual conversation he had with Hadley, these sources say. Hadley did not return a call seeking comment. Woodward said he was told that it was “no big deal†that former Ambassador Joseph Wilson was sent to Niger to investigate the veracity of the Bush Administration’s claims that Iraq was seeking uranium from Niger. According to the attorneys, he said Hadley dismissed the trip by saying his wife, a CIA officer who worked on WMD issues, had recommended him. http://rawstory.com/news/2005/National_Security_Adviser_was_Woodwards_source_1116.html
However, The WSJ today has other ideas………. Speculation Over Woodward Source Draws Denials By JOHN D. MCKINNON and ANNE MARIE SQUEO Staff Reporters November 18, 2005; Page A3
…. Others suspected of being sources for Mr. Woodward yesterday denied their involvement. Douglas Feith, former undersecretary of defense for policy, said he didn’t talk to Mr. Woodward about Mr. Wilson and his wife, as did Carl Ford Jr., former assistant secretary of state for intelligence and research. A spokesman for former CIA Director George Tenet and his former deputy, John McLaughlin, said neither provided that information to Mr. Woodward.
A person speaking on behalf of former Secretary of State Colin Powell said he didn’t share that information with the reporter, and a National Security Council official eliminated Stephen Hadley, the head of the NSC, as a possibility. Spokesmen for Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who was National Security Adviser at the time, and John Bolton, a former top State Department official and now U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, said neither was Mr. Woodward’s source.
Marc Grossman, a former undersecretary of state for political affairs known to have discussed Mr. Wilson’s trip to Niger and his wife’s CIA role with Mr. Libby, didn’t respond to phone calls or an email seeking comment. A spokesman for Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove, who remains under investigation in this case, said his client didn’t discuss Ms. Plame with Mr. Woodward.
One official among those who knew of Ms. Plame’s identify is former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage. He was out of the country and hasn’t responded to recent requests for comment on this subject…..
http://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB113227748020100890-3acGTmkoo9BgDl5lxmsmuznHu7Y_20061117.html?mod=tff_main_tff_top
Plame Game – Downing/Bush Guard Copy Memo Meister
According to the Sunday Times UK, the mysterious Bob Woodward source is Dep. National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley.
My conclusion de soir is that Hadley dodged the question in a way that suggested he was not the source but that he knows who the source is.
That and 3$ will get you a cup of coffee at Starbucks.
It’s one of Colin Powell’s clique.
My money is on “former Admin offical” Richard Clarke as the source.
Ordi–I like that one.
It appears that the Washington Post has removed a transcript entirely from their website. The transcript dated October 1, 2003 was titled The White House, Congress and the CIA.
Mel Goodman, former CIA analyst and senior fellow at the Center for International Policy, discusses the misuse of intelligence and the need to protect CIA operatives.
Clearly the Washington Post does not want this transcript to be read since it has gone through the trouble of removing it from its’ server.
The transcript for this date is titled “untitled” and leads to a page not found.
Not Found Link
The entire transcript, which I found on the Lexis database, is full of the Plame Game lies which are presented as fact. It includes personal attacks on Novak and clearly attempts to exonerate the rest of the media in the leak aftermath.
“Mel Goodman: At least six journalists had the story and refused to use the name. But journalists must protect their sources or freedom of the press will wither. The lawbreakers are the administration officials and not the journalists. Novak’s transgressions are of the ethical variety and presumably he can live with what he did.”
It’s a misleading international Bush bashing affair that is made to look as if it was the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but.
Unfortunately for Mel, we now know better.
Link to my post on Free Republic
SBD
Ah, we meet again Mr. Smith. Have we gotten a copy of that Downing Street Memo yet? No? Shucks.
It’s funny, the Left thinks it odd that the CIA would believe “verbatim text” from another intelligence agency based on some documents, but they will believe the very same thing coming from a journalist who has obvious problems with the truth…