Global Security Newswire

WASHINGTON — Former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson said yesterday that he believed his wife had been endangered by the leak of her identity and CIA status (see GSN, Oct. 3).

The outing of Wilson’s wife as a CIA operative became public soon after he published a commentary in the New York Times criticizing some of the intelligence used by the White House to justify going to war with Iraq. Last week, the Justice Department investigating the leak.

During an appearance yesterday on CBS’s Face the Nation, Wilson said he was concerned that the leak may have placed his wife in physical danger.

“In recent weeks, of course there has been this furor over the referral to the Justice Department and there have been a number of other people who have come out and suggested that perhaps this does make her a target. We of course as a consequence of that have begun to rethink our own security posture,” Wilson said.

According to Wilson, a former CIA operative has said that Wilson’s wife “was probably the single highest target of any possible terrorist organization or intelligence service that might want to do damage.”

Wilson said that the Bush administration has so far declined to provide security to his wife. “Nobody has offered security from the government, although my wife is a long-standing U.S. government employee,” he said.

“I would hope that the government was thinking its way through whether or not they wanted my wife exposed to any potential threat,” Wilson said.

Senator Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) also said yesterday that, if Wilson’s wife was in any kind of danger, then the Bush administration should provide her with security.

“If there is the least possibility, the most remote possibility of her life being in danger then the government owes that person protection security,” Hagel said on Face the Nation.

Wilson also said yesterday that his wife’s career had been affected by the leak.

“My wife’s career will certainly change as a consequence of this, but my wife is a star in her business,” Wilson said on NBC’s Meet the Press. “I have every expectation that her culture will embrace her and that she will continue to be a productive national security officer. But clearly her responsibilities will have to change as a consequence of this,” he said.

During his appearance on Face the Nation, Wilson suggested that the White House engineered the leak of his wife’s identity to intimidate others from criticizing the administration’s justifications for war with Iraq. In his New York Times column, Wilson described a visit he made to Niger last year to investigate claims that Iraq had sought to purchase uranium there — claims that he found to be improbable.

“It was clear to me that they had leaked my wife’s name for a reason. The only reason that I could think of that was logical was to discourage others who might want to come out and speak more openly about their concerns about the manipulation of intelligence. Keep them from doing so.  The message to them would’ve been, if you do what Wilson did we’ll do to your family what we’ve done to Wilson and his family,” Wilson said.

Wilson also said yesterday, however, that he did not believe U.S. President George W. Bush himself was involved in the leak.

“The president would never have condoned or been a party to anything like this,” he said.

Justice Department InvestigationMeanwhile, White House press secretary Scott McClellan said Friday that the Justice Department had sent the White House a request for certain types of material as part of its investigation into the leak. The request is being sent to all White House staff, he said during a White House press briefing.

The White House plans to fully comply with the new request, McClellan said.

“The president has directed everyone to cooperate fully with the Department of Justice. We want to get to the bottom of this, the sooner the better,” he said.

Late last week, however, Democrats continued their calls for the appointment of a special counsel to oversee the leak investigation. During a press conference Thursday, Senator Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) formally called on Attorney General John Ashcroft to recuse himself from the investigation. He noted the ties between Ashcroft and senior administration officials, as well as those between senior Justice Department staff who advise Ashcroft and the White House, the Republican National Committee and the Bush presidential campaign. 

For example, according to Schumer, acting Deputy Attorney General Robert McCallum was inducted along with Bush into the Skull and Bones student society at Yale University in 1968. In addition, Solicitor General Ted Olson served as lead counsel for Bush during the 2002 Florida presidential election recount, Schumer said.

“The bottom line is that the attorney general is so inextricably locked up with the people he’s investigating, he can’t do a fair job. It’s basically impossible.  And so special counsel is the best way to go until he decides that he should be recused — plain and simple,” Schumer said.

The White House Thursday, however, rejected Schumer’s call for Ashcroft to step down from the investigation.

“I would remind you that the career Justice Department officials are the ones who are leading this investigation. These are individuals with fast experience and are in the best position to get to the bottom of this. The Justice Department wants to get to the bottom of this,” McClellan said.

While defending Ashcroft’s objectivity, Hagel yesterday suggested that a special counsel might be needed to be appointed some time in the future.

“If a special prosecutor [or] special counsel might be warranted sometime in the future, that option is there. Right now, I think we should let the system play out the way it is and find out some answers,” Hagel said on Face the Nation.

Novak Defends HimselfIn addition yesterday, Robert Novak, the columnist who published Wilson’s wife’s name and CIA status in mid-July, defended his actions and denied that he was part of a coordinated effort to reveal Wilson’s wife’s identity.

During an appearance on Meet the Press, Novak said he did not believe that White House officials had attempted to intentionally leak Wilson’s wife’s identity to him.

“I have been a plantee in this town for over 40 years. I know when somebody is trying to plant a story,” Novak said. “This thing came up almost off handedly in the course of a very long conversation with a senior official about many things,” he said.

Novak also said that the purpose of his column had been to examine Wilson’s credentials for his trip to Niger.

“I thought that it was very strange that the mission … should be done by a diplomat with no experience in counterproliferation, who was regarded as a critic of the war, and really had no experience at the agency,” Novak said. “So in interviewing a senior administration official on a number of other subjects, I asked him if he could explain why, and he said, ‘Well, his wife works in the counterproliferation section at the CIA, and that she suggested it, his mission.’ And it was given to me as an off-hand manner and by a person who is not, as I wrote in the column — not a partisan gunslinger by any means,” Novak said.

Novak yesterday refused to comment on Justice’s investigation into leak, including whether the department had contacted him.

“My lawyers asked me not to talk about the investigation at all,” he said.