Paying Homage to Truth and Its Consequences

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A32462-2003Oct15.html

Paying Homage To Truth and Its Consequences

By Reilly Capps
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, October 16, 2003; Page C01

(Wilson receives Ridenhour award from Daniel Ellsberg)

...The awards are named for Ron Ridenhour, the soldier in Vietnam who exposed the 1968 My Lai massacre. After hearing the stories of soldiers mowing down civilians in a hamlet called "Pinkville," Ridenhour wrote a three-page letter to federal officials. An official probe got underway a year later, and war crimes charges were brought against 13 officers and enlisted men. Ridenhour went on to become an award-winning investigative reporter. In 1998, at the age of 52, he died of an apparent heart attack while playing handball.

In their remarks, Wilson and Ellsberg leveled blistering criticism at the Bush administration.

The decision to go to war, Wilson said, "ought to be based on a commonly accepted body of facts, and if the commonly accepted facts aren't based on facts at all, then we have poorly served our country and our men and women in uniform."

Thirty years after the Nixon administration, Ellsberg compared the Wilson scandal to the Nixon era. "I believe this situation is exactly parallel," Ellsberg said. "By trying to punish him and his wife, they're trying to intimidate those who might be thinking about coming forward."

Nixon administration operatives broke into the office of Ellsberg's psychiatrist looking for a way to discredit him, Ellsberg recalled.

"Hopefully the trajectory of this episode will end very similarly," he said, "with indictments, resignations."

(more at the links below, at the site of this article. )

__ Intelligence Leaks and WMD __


• Judge Orders Reporters to Reveal Sources (Post, Oct. 15, 2003 )

• Probe Focuses on Month Before Leak to Reporters (Post, Oct. 12, 2003 )

• 4 Senators Criticize Leak Probe (Post, Oct. 10, 2003 )

• Full Coverage From The Post

___ Video ___
• Video: Secretary Powell on Leaks
• Video: President Bush on WMD
• Video: The Post's Dana Priest

___ Q & A ___
• The Leak and Its Consequences: A Guide to the Investigation

___ White House E-Mail ___
• Full Text: Message from White House counsel to staff to "preserve all materials" related to probe.
• Full Text: Follow-up message from counsel's office naming specific subjects of the investigation.

___ U.S. Law ___
• Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982 (from FindLaw)

___ Robert Novak Columns ___
• Oct. 1: The CIA Leak
• July 14: Mission to Niger

Joe Wilson gets award named for the soldier who exposed the My Lai massacre. Valerie Plame Wilson was there, at the National Press Club, and Joe addresses her during his acceptance speech, both of them with tears in their eyes.