What happened : 911 investigation, Energy Panel (Iraq map), CIA outing.

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,92372,00.html
Cheney Energy Task Force Documents Detail Iraqi Oil Industry
Friday, July 18, 2003

WASHINGTON — Vice President Dick Cheney's energy task force appeared to have some interest in early 2001 in Iraq's oil industry, including which foreign companies were pursuing business there, according to documents released Friday by a private watchdog group.

Judicial Watch (search), a conservative legal group, obtained a batch of task force-related Commerce Department papers that included a detailed map of Iraq's oil fields, terminals and pipelines as well as a list entitled "Foreign Suitors of Iraqi Oilfield Contracts."

The papers also included a detailed map of oil fields and pipelines in Saudi Arabia and in the United Arab Emirates and a list of oil and gas development projects in those two countries.

The papers were dated early March 2001, about two months before the Cheney energy task force completed and announced its report on the administration's energy needs and future energy agenda.<more>

http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,999737,00.html
The spies who pushed for war
Julian Borger reports on the shadow rightwing intelligence network set up in Washington to second-guess the CIA and deliver a justification for toppling Saddam Hussein by force
Thursday July 17, 2003
The Guardian

As the CIA director, George Tenet, arrived at the Senate yesterday to give secret testimony on the Niger uranium affair, it was becoming increasingly clear in Washington that the scandal was only a small, well-documented symptom of a complete breakdown in US intelligence that helped steer America into war.

It represents the Bush administration's second catastrophic intelligence failure. But the CIA and FBI's inability to prevent the September 11 attacks was largely due to internal institutional weaknesses.

This time the implications are far more damaging for the White House, which stands accused of politicising and contaminating its own source of intelligence.

According to former Bush officials, all defence and intelligence sources, senior administration figures created a shadow agency of Pentagon analysts staffed mainly by ideological amateurs to compete with the CIA and its military counterpart, the Defence Intelligence Agency. <more>


http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,3604,1004773,00.html
Don't blame September 11 on spy failures, says report
Gary Younge in New York
Thursday July 24, 2003
The Guardian

Nothing could have been done to stop the terrorist attacks on September 11 even though an FBI informant had contact with two of the suicide hijackers a year before they were carried out, according to a congressional report into intelligence lapses preceding the destruction of the twin towers, to be published today.

But despite objections from some senators a crucial 28 pages of the 900-page report, which criticises Saudi Arabia for its lack of interest in clamping down on Islamist extremists, has been removed from the final document.

Saudi Arabia was home to 15 of the 19 hijackers yet remains a close and important ally of America in the region. The omission of criticism of Saudi Arabia was condemned by the Democratic senator and presidential hopeful, Bob Graham, a former chairman of the joint house and Senate intelligence committee.

"I start from the premise that in a democracy, the people should know as much as the government knows unless there is a very compelling case that the information threatens American security interests," he said. <more>



http://www.nynewsday.com/news/ny-uscia0722,0,2289800.story?coll=nyc-topnews-short-navigation
Columnist Names CIA Iraq Operative
By Timothy M. Phelps and Knut Royce
Washington Bureau
July 21, 2003, 9:48 PM EDT

Washington -- The identity of an undercover CIA officer whose husband started the Iraq uranium intelligence controversy has been publicly revealed by a conservative Washington columnist citing "two senior administration officials."

Intelligence officials confirmed to Newsday Monday that Valerie Plame, wife of retired Ambassador Joseph Wilson, works at the agency on weapons of mass destruction issues in an undercover capacity -- at least she was undercover until last week when she was named by columnist Robert Novak.

Wilson, while refusing to confirm his wife's employment, said the release to the press of her relationship to him and even her maiden name was an attempt to intimidate others like him from talking about Bush administration intelligence failures.

"It's a shot across the bow to these people, that if you talk we'll take your family and drag them through the mud as well," he said in an interview.<more>

Will the CIA Protect the White House?
08/16/2003 @ 12:32am
David Corn

<snip>So if a crime of this sort has been committed, where's the investigation? In a July 24 letter to FBI director Robert Mueller, Senator Charles Schumer, a New York Democrat, requested that the FBI "immediately launch an investigation to determine the source of this information and assess whether there is enough evidence to refer the matter for criminal prosecution." In a statement, Schumer noted that investigations into such leaks are not unusual. In June 2002, the FBI investigated the allegation that someone had leaked classified congressional testimony provided by Lt. General Michael Hayden, the head of the National Security Agency. The Bureau, according to Schumer, questioned 37 members of the House and Senate intelligence committees and about 60 staffmembers. Vice President Dick Cheney had been one of the instigators of that inquiry. "The current scandal," Schumer says, "is just as serious as the one from June 2002." He adds, "This is one of the most reckless and nasty things I've seen in all my years of government. Leaking the name of a CIA agent is tantamount to putting a gun to that agent's head. It compromises her safety and the safety of her loved ones, not to mention those in her network and other operatives she may have dealt with. On top of that, the officials who have done it may have also seriously jeopardized the national security of this nation." (Without knowing exactly what Wilson's wife did for the CIA, it is not possible to judge fully the consequences of this leak. But Schumer's melodramatic appraisal could well be justified.)

Is the FBI hot on the trail? Not exactly, not yet. And that's partly because the CIA gets to say whether there is a full-fledged criminal inquiry. In other words, the CIA will determine if the Justice Department and the FBI investigate Bush administration officials. According to several government sources familiar with leaks investigations, this is how it usually works: if the CIA learns of an authorized disclosure of classified information and wants to see the case pursued, it refers the allegation to the Justice Department. The DOJ then evaluates the legal issues and decides whether to have the FBI investigate. After Schumer made his formal request to Mueller, the FBI kicked the matter over to the CIA, according to a government source monitoring the case. Does the CIA want an investigation? Mark Mansfield, a spokesman for the CIA, declined to comment. And what about the congressional intelligence committees? A Senate intelligence committee source says that committee members have made inquiries but that nothing major is likely to happen until the CIA informs the Justice Department that it suspects the law was broken.

<snip>

No official--as far as I can tell--has yet publicly broached the possibility of a special counsel. The independent counsel law no longer exists. But the Bush administration could still on its own appoint a special counsel to examine the Wilson leak. The Bush White House, though, has shown little interest in determining if vindictive administration officials did disclose classified information to harm Wilson and his family. Once summer is over and Congress returns to Washington, several Democratic legislators--including Schumer--are expected to ask if an appropriate investigation is under way. If one is not, they might have no recourse other than to call for a special counsel. <more>