Administration officials who stayed behind in Washington also stepped up their efforts to counteract Wilson’s Op-Ed.
Libby later testified before a federal grand jury that he was told by Cheney that Bush had approved a plan in which Libby would brief a specific New York Times reporter about portions of a top-secret National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq’s WMD.
On July 8, Libby spoke again with Times reporter Judith Miller about the NIE and about the Wilsons. In a two-hour interview over breakfast at the elegant St. Regis Hotel near the White House, Libby told Miller that Wilson’s wife worked at a CIA unit responsible for weapons intelligence and non-proliferation.
Miller wrote down the words “Valerie Flame,” an apparent misspelling of Mrs. Wilson’s maiden name. [NYT, Oct. 16, 2005]
That same day, Novak had his interview with Armitage. Novak later recalled that Armitage divulged Plame’s identity toward the end of an hour-long interview.
Armitage “told me unequivocally that Mrs. Wilson worked in the CIA’s Counter-proliferation Division and that she had suggested her husband’s mission,” Novak wrote, adding that Armitage seemed to want the information published.
Armitage “noted that the story of Mrs. Wilson’s role fit the style of the old Evans-Novak column – implying to me that it [the column] continued reporting Washington inside information,” Novak wrote. [Novak’s column, Washington Post, Sept. 14, 2006]
Feeling encouraged by Armitage to disclose the Plame connection to Wilson’s trip, Novak contacted Bush’s chief political adviser Karl Rove, who confirmed the story as Novak’s second source.
“I didn’t dig it out, it was given to me,” Novak later told Newsday, adding that Bush administration officials “thought it was significant, they gave me the name.”
Meanwhile, to the administration’s dismay, the Niger-yellowcake deceit was dogging Bush’s Africa trip. At every stop, questions were asked about how the infamous “sixteen words” had ended up in the State of the Union speech.
Fleischer was finally forced to concede that the yellowcake allegation was “incorrect” and should not have been included in the speech. On July 11, CIA Director Tenet took the fall for the State of the Union screw-up, apologizing for not better vetting the speech.
“This did not rise to the level of certainty which should be required for presidential speeches,” Tenet said. The admission was one of the first times the Bush team had retreated on any national security issue. Administration officials were embarrassed, incensed and determined to punish Wilson.
Out of Africa
In later court testimony about the Plame leak, Ari Fleischer said he decided to give the CIA-wife-sent-Wilson-to-Africa tip to two reporters, NBC’s David Gregory and Time correspondent John Dickerson, as they strolled down a road in Uganda.
“If you want to know who sent the ambassador to Niger, it was his wife; she works there,” at the CIA, Fleischer said.
Dickerson said Fleischer was one of two administration officials who urged him to pursue the seemingly insignificant question of who had been involved in arranging Wilson’s trip.
But Dickerson didn’t recall Fleischer specifically identifying Wilson’s wife at that time, only prodding him to look in that direction. Both officials urged him to “go ask the CIA who sent Wilson” and that “Wilson had been sent by a low-level CIA employee,” Dickerson recalled.
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