Judith Miller: Hero or Villain?

[chequita guevara]

Arianna Huffington
Judy Miller: Do We Want To Know Everything or Don't We?

Not everyone in the Times building is on the same page when it comes to Judy Miller. The official story the paper is sticking to is that Miller is a heroic martyr, sacrificing her freedom in the name of journalistic integrity.

But a very different scenario is being floated in the halls. Here it is: It's July 6, 2003, and Joe Wilson's now famous op-ed piece appears in the Times, raising the idea that the Bush administration has "manipulate[d]" and "twisted" intelligence "to exaggerate the Iraqi threat." Miller, who has been pushing this manipulated, twisted, and exaggerated intel in the Times for months, goes ballistic. Someone is using the pages of her own paper to call into question the justification for the war -- and, indirectly, much of her reporting. The idea that intelligence was being fixed goes to the heart of Miller's credibility. So she calls her friends in the intelligence community and asks, Who is this guy? She finds out he's married to a CIA agent. She then passes on the info about Mrs. Wilson to Scooter Libby (Newsday has identified a meeting Miller had on July 8 in Washington with an "unnamed government official"). Maybe Miller tells Rove too -- or Libby does. The White House hatchet men turn around and tell Novak and Cooper. The story gets out.

This is why Miller doesn't want to reveal her "source" at the White House -- because she was the source. Sure, she first got the info from someone else, and the odds are she wasn't the only one who clued in Libby and/or Rove (the State Dept. memo likely played a role too)… but, in this scenario, Miller certainly wasn't an innocent writer caught up in the whirl of history. She had a starring role in it. This also explains why Miller never wrote a story about Plame, because her goal wasn't to write a story, but to get out the story that cast doubts on Wilson's motives. Which Novak did.

This version of events has divided the Times into two camps: those who want to learn everything about this story, and those who want to learn everything as long as it doesn't downgrade the heroic status of their "colleague" Judy Miller. And then there are the schizophrenics. Frank Rich is spending his summer in the second camp, while at the same time writing some of the most powerful and brilliant stuff about the scandal: "This case is about Iraq, not Niger. The real victims are the American people, not the Wilsons. The real culprit… is not Mr. Rove but the gang that sent American sons and daughters to war on trumped up grounds… That's why the stakes are so high: this scandal is about the unmasking of an ill-conceived war."

But this unmasking -- if it is to be complete -- has to include Judy Miller and the part she played in the mess in Iraq. Of course, the division over Miller is nothing new… it predates her transformation into media martyr by many months. For an early look at this rift, check out Howard Kurtz' May 2003 reporting on the way Miller ferociously fought to keep Ahmad Chalabi, her top source on WMD, to herself and the anger it caused at the paper. And also the paper's extraordinary mea culpa from May 2004, in which its editors admitted that the Times' reporting on Iraq "was not as rigorous as it should have been" -- yet steadfastly refused to even mention the less-than-rigorous reporter whose byline appeared on 4 of the 6 stories the editors singled out as being particularly egregious. "It looks," the Times' public admission concluded, "as if we, along with the administration, were taken in." And yet just two months earlier, Times Executive Editor Bill Keller called Miller, who was one of the main reporters "taken in" a "smart, well-sourced, industrious and fearless reporter." Nothing about her less than "rigorous" reporting. Nothing about her reliance on Chalabi being less than "well-sourced."

Any discussion of Miller's actions in the Plame-Rove-Libby-Gonzalez-Card scandal must not leave out the key role she played in cheerleading for the invasion of Iraq and in hyping the WMD threat. Re-reading some of her pre-war reporting today, it's hard not to be disgusted by how inaccurate and pumped up it turned out to be. For chapter and verse, check out Slate's Jack Shafer. For the money quote on her mindset, look to her April 2003 appearance on The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, where, following up on her blockbuster front page story about an Iraqi scientist and his claims that Iraq had destroyed all its WMD just before the war started, Miller said the scientist was more than a "smoking gun," he was the "silver bullet" in the hunt for WMD. The "silver bullet" later turned out to be another blank -- and the scientist turned out to be a military intelligence official.

Amazingly, however, even as her reporting has been debunked -- and her sources discredited -- Miller has steadfastly refused to apologize for her role in misleading the public in the lead up to the war. Indeed, in an interview with the author of Bush's Brain, James Moore, she, in the words of Moore, "remained righteously indignant, unwilling to accept that she had goofed in the grandest of fashions," telling him: "I was proved ****ing right."

As recently as March 2005, in an appearance at Berkeley, she stubbornly refused to express regret. Indeed, she showed that she shares a key attitude with the Bush administration: an unwillingness to admit mistakes when faced with new realities. She even compared herself to the president, saying that she was getting the same information he was getting… and suggested that since he hadn't apologized, why should she? Maybe she's angling for the Tenet treatment: promote faulty intel, get a Medal of Freedom. Miller also echoed the words of Don Rumsfeld ("You go to war with the Army you have") when she justified her flawed reporting on WMD by saying "You go with what you've got." Really? Wouldn't it be better to wait until what you've got is right?

It's nice that Bill Keller is visiting Judy in jail giving updates about how hard this is for her, having to be away from her family and friends. But it would be even nicer if we'd had some acknowledgement from Miller of her complicity in sending 138,000 American soldiers away from their family and friends. And, unlike Miller, they won't be returning home in October. Indeed, as of today, 1,785 of them won't be returning home at all.

This story gets deeper with every twist and revelation, including the reminder (via Podhoretz) that Fitzgerald had a previous run in with Miller over her actions in a national security case, and the speculation (via Jeralyn at Talk Left) that Fitzgerald is considering seeking to put Miller under criminal contempt, rather than the civil contempt she's now under.

But one thing is inescapable: Miller -- intentionally or unintentionally -- worked hand in glove in helping the White House propaganda machine (for a prime example, check out this Newsweek story on how the aluminum tubes tall tale went from a government source to Miller to page one of the New York Times to Cheney and Rice going on the Sunday shows to confirm the story to Bush pushing that same story at the UN).

So, once again, the question arises (and you can't have it both ways, Frank): when it comes to this scandal, do you want the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth or do you want the truth -- except for what Judy Miller wants to keep to herself?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/theblog/archive/arianna-huffington/judy-miller-do-we-want-_4791.html

[chequita guevara]

Some follow-up

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/theblog/archive/arianna-huffington/judy-miller-how-deep-do_4845.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/theblog/archive/arianna-huffington/the-judy-file_4933.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/theblog/archive/arianna-huffington/judy-miller-bloggers-on-_5001.html

[Drake Tungsten]

This may be Rove's best operation yet...

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Naaah the Jayson Blair operation stung NYT better.

Rove source of all evil in the world.

[Winston]

J. Miller is a bit more of a hero than a villain, after all.

J. Mileer

[lord of the mark]

the secrecy of reporters sources is holy, and reporters who go to jail are holy, until its a reporter who doesnt go by the approved wisdom of the press.

Look, you want to get to substance, you got to address the sources OTHER than the fake memo that indicated Iraq was pursuing uranium in Niger, and the evidence that Wilson WAS partisan. Sure, you can get Judith Miller, but you can no longer get whoever originally did the leak. You want to stand on principle, and focus on lawbreaking, you got to stand on principle when it comes to reporters as well.

and BTW, Huffington is as much of jerk on the left as she was on the right.

[lord of the mark]

"This case is about Iraq, not Niger. The real victims are the American people, not the Wilsons. The real culprit… is not Mr. Rove but the gang that sent American sons and daughters to war on trumped up grounds… That's why the stakes are so high: this scandal is about the unmasking of an ill-conceived war."


No, its about Niger. In this country we dont send people to jail for supporting a war some dont like, anymore than we send people to jail for opposing a war some like. Huffington used to be the kind of person who wanted to throw lefties in jail for opposing the right - now she wants to throw people in jail for not taking a left line. Through it all, Huffington remains the same.

[lord of the mark]

from Belgravia Dispatch

"Steven Weisman, in yesterday's NYT in a piece on the latest Bolton going-ons, writes thusly:

The State Department has admitted that, as Mr. Biden charged, Mr. Bolton had been interviewed in a previous inquiry into one particular intelligence failure on Iraq, the finding that Iraq had tried to buy raw uranium from Niger for a nuclear arms program. That finding turned out to be based on forged documents. [emphasis added]
Over at W 43rd Street, I guess, the Butler Report (PDF) has been consigned to the dustbin of history or, at least, appears to be blissfully ignored. Let's quote, at length, from said report:

6.4 URANIUM FROM AFRICA
490. There has been significant controversy surrounding the reliability of Government statements about Iraqi attempts to buy uranium from Africa. We have therefore studied this issue in detail.

493. In early 1999, Iraqi officials visited a number of African countries, including Niger. The visit was detected by intelligence, and some details were subsequently confirmed by Iraq. The purpose of the visit was not immediately known. But uranium ore accounts for almost three-quarters of Niger’s exports. Putting this together with past Iraqi purchases of uranium ore from Niger, the limitations faced by the Iraq regime on access to indigenous uranium ore and other evidence of Iraq seeking to restart its nuclear programme, the JIC judged that Iraqi purchase of uranium ore could have been the subject of discussions and noted in an assessment in December 2000 that:

. . . unconfirmed intelligence indicates Iraqi interest in acquiring uranium. [JIC, 1 December 2000]

494. There was further and separate intelligence that in 1999 the Iraqi regime had also made inquiries about the purchase of uranium ore in the Democratic Republic of Congo. In this case, there was some evidence that by 2002 an agreement for a sale had been reached [ed. note: Recall, just for the record and not related to Weisman's piece, that the infamous 16 words in Bush's SOTU spoke of Africa writ large, not Niger specically].

495. During 2002, the UK received further intelligence from additional sources which identified the purpose of the visit to Niger as having been to negotiate the purchase of uranium ore, though there was disagreement as to whether a sale had been agreed and uranium
shipped.

496. This evidence underlay the statement in the Executive Summary of the Government’s dossier of September 2002 that:

As a result of the intelligence we judge that Iraq has...:

- tried covertly to acquire technology and materials which could be used in the production of nuclear weapons;

- sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa, despite having no active civil nuclear power programme that could require it...

and in Chapter 3 of Part 1 of the Government’s dossier that:

The main conclusions are that:

- This visit was separate from the Iraqi-Nigerien discussions, in the margins of the mid-1999 Organisation of African Unity meeting in Algiers, attested to by Ambassador Wilson in his book “The Politics of Truth” (Carroll & Graf, NY 2004, p28).

- Saddam continues to attach great importance to the possession of weapons of mass destruction and ballistic missiles which he regards as being the basis for Iraq’s regional power. He is determined to retain these capabilities;

- Iraq continues to work on developing nuclear weapons,in breach of its obligations under the Non-Proliferation Treaty and in breach of UNSCR 687. Uranium has been sought from Africa that has no civil nuclear application in Iraq.

and:

Iraq’s known holdings of processed uranium are under IAEA supervision. But there is intelligence that Iraq has sought the supply of signicant quantities of uranium from Africa. Iraq has no active civil nuclear power programme or nuclear power plants and therefore has no legitimate reason to acquire uranium.

497. In preparing the dossier, the UK consulted the US. The CIA advised caution about any suggestion that Iraq had succeeded in acquiring uranium from Africa, but agreed that there was evidence that it had been sought.

498. The range of evidence described above underlay the relevant passage in the Prime Minister’s statement in the House of Commons on 24 September 2002 that:

In addition, we know that Saddam has been trying to buy signicant quantities of uranium from Africa, although we do not know whether he has been successful.

499. We conclude that, on the basis of the intelligence assessments at the time, covering both Niger and the Democratic Republic of Congo, the statements on Iraqi attempts to buy uranium from Africa in the Government’s dossier, and by the Prime Minister in the House
of Commons, were well-founded. By extension, we conclude also that the statement in President Bush’s State of the Union Address of 28 January 2003 that:

"The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa" was well-founded.

500. We also note that, because the intelligence evidence was inconclusive, neither the Government’s dossier nor the Prime Minister went on to say that a deal between the Governments of Iraq and Niger for the supply of uranium had been signed, or uranium shipped.

501. We have been told that it was not until early 2003 that the British Government became aware that the US (and other states) had received from a journalistic source a number of documents alleged to cover the Iraqi procurement of uranium from Niger. Those documents were passed to the IAEA, which in its update report to the United Nations Security Council in March 2003 determined that the papers were forgeries:

The investigation was centred on documents provided by a number of States that pointed to an agreement between Niger and Iraq for the sale of uranium to Iraq between 1999 and 2001. The IAEA has discussed these reports with the Governments of Iraq and Niger, both of which have denied that any such activity took place. For its part, Iraq has provided the IAEA with a comprehensive explanation of its relations with Niger, and has described a visit by an Iraqi official to a number of African countries, including Niger, in February 1999, which Iraq thought might have given rise to the reports. The IAEA was able to review correspondence coming from various bodies of the Government of Niger, and to compare the form, format, contents and signatures of that correspondence with those of the alleged procurement-related documentation. Based on thorough analysis, the IAEA has concluded, with the concurrence of outside experts, that these documents, which formed the basis for the reports of recent uranium transactions between Iraq and Niger, are in fact not authentic. We have therefore concluded that these specific allegations are unfounded.

502. We have asked the IAEA what were their grounds for concluding that the visit paid by an Iraqi official to Africa was not for the purpose of acquiring uranium. The IAEA said:

...the Director General explained in his report dated 7 March 2004 [sic] to the UN Security Council that Iraq ”described the visit by an Iraqi official to a number of African countries, including Niger, in February 1999,which Iraq thought might have given rise to the reports”. On a number of occasions in early 2003, including in a
letter dated 1 February 2003, the IAEA requested Iraq to provide details of all meetings held between Iraqi officials and officials from Niger around the year 2000. The Director of Iraq’s National Monitoring Directorate responded in a letter of 7 February 2003 to the Director of the IAEA’s Iraq Nuclear Verification Office. (It should be noted that at the time of Iraq’s response Iraq had not been provided by the IAEA with any details contained in documents alleging the existence of a uranium contract.) The Iraqi response referred to above explained that, on 8 February 1999, Mr. Wissam Al Zahawie, Iraq’s then Ambassador to the Holy See, as part of a trip to four African countries, visited Niger as an envoy of the then President of Iraq to Mr. Ibrahim Bare, the then President of Niger,in order to deliver an oficial invitation for a visit to Iraq, planned for 20 to 30 April 1999. (N.B. Mr. Bare passed away on 9 April 1999.) According to the Iraqi information, no such presidential visit from Niger to Iraq took place before 2003.

The Iraqi authorities provided the IAEA with excerpts from Mr. Al Zahawie’s travel report to Niger. These excerpts support the above explanation by the Ambassador regarding the purpose of his visit to Niger and do not contain any references to discussions about uranium supply from Niger. In order to further clarify the matter,the IAEA interviewed Mr. Al Zahawie on 12 February 2003. The information provided by the Ambassador about details about his 1999 trip to Africa also supported the information obtained previously by the
Agency on this visit. The demeanour of the Ambassador and the general tone of the interview did not suggest that he was under particular pressure to hide or fabricate information. Notwithstanding the information summarized above, and in view of the fact that the
IAEA so far has not obtained any other related information than the forged documents, the IAEA is not in the position to demonstrate that Iraq never sought to import uranium in the past. This is the reason why the IAEA only concluded that it had ”no indication that Iraq attempted to import uranium since 1990” but it would ”follow up any additional evidence,if it emerges, relevant to efforts by Iraq to illicitly import nuclear materials”. So far no such additional information has been obtained by the Agency.

503. From our examination of the intelligence and other material on Iraqi attempts to buy uranium from Africa, we have concluded that:

a. It is accepted by all parties that Iraqi officials visited Niger in
1999.

b. The British Government had intelligence from several different sources indicating that this visit was for the purpose of acquiring uranium. Since uranium constitutes almost three-quarters of Niger’s exports, the intelligence was credible.

c. The evidence was not conclusive that Iraq actually purchased, as
opposed to having sought, uranium and the British Government
did not claim this [ed. note: Neither did Bush in the SOTU, by the way].

d. The forged documents were not available to the British
Government at the time its assessment was made, and so the fact
of the forgery does not undermine it.


So when Weisman writes, in a non-opinion hard news story in the leading paper in the land, that "the finding that Iraq had tried to buy raw uranium from Niger for a nuclear arms program...turned out to be based on forged documents"--he's being, shall we say, a bit economical with the truth. The finding was based on something more than just forgeries, it would seem, at least if you believe the report of a leading independent U.K. jurist. Of course, the NYT has been quite sloppy about this story for at least over a year now (click thru for how Weisman's piece is poorly worded indeed even if you are just dealing with the SSCI report and the U.S. intelligence side of the fence).

I know I beat on this story a bit like a dead horse. I do so largely because the sixteen words of the SOTU have been used by many as partisan talking point to scream 'Bush lied'! But if you dig into the weeds of the investigations that have taken place--one must judiciously conclude that he didn't. This is not to say that intelligence was not analyzed aggressively or that there were not people at the CIA or State who were more dubious than others in the intelligence community about the Niger/uranium information available. Look, would it have been better if Bush had said in the SOTU: "The British Government suspects (rather than "has learned") that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa"? Yeah. But the statement wasn't some horrific Big Lie, even if the formulation wasn't ideal. And it's not as if, but for the Niger/uranium claim, Bush's case for war would have crumbled. Read the '03 SOTU...there was a long list of Iraq related grievances indeed...

A final point. You'll hear a lot from the predictable quarters that the Iraq Survey Group turned up no uranium. That's true, of course. But this doesn't have a bearing on whether Bush lied. Intelligence is a murky realm, and definitive judgments are hard to come by. One must weigh evidence and make reasoned analyses. The British did so, and are on the record stating that there were non-forgery related sources that Iraq was seeking uranium in the late 90s from Niger and perhaps the Congo too. Similarly, the SSCI references some DIA intel unrelated to the forgeries that, while no slam dunk, at least left open the possibility Iraq was seeking uranium in Africa. The fact that no uranium turned up after the invasion certainly means our intelligence gathering needs to be improved, and that we must continue to strenuously keep vigil that intelligence is not crudely politicized to fit pre-determined agendas. But nothing about the Iraq Survey Group's post-war uranium findings (or lack thereof) points to an administration that was knowingly, intentionally, purposefully lying on the issue in the advent to war."

[lord of the mark]

Mickey Kaus:

Arianna and Karl, Together Again! Arianna Huffington continues to push the theory that jailed New York Times reporter Judy Miller may have been one of the people who told Bush aides about Valerie Plame's CIA connection, rather than the other way around. This, of course, also happens to be a major potential defense of Bush aides Karl Rove and Lewis "Scooter" Libby from the charge that they illegally leaked secret information "outing" Plame. Indeed, through their lawyers or other anonymous spinners, they already seem to have adopted a we-were-only-passing-on-what-journalists-told-us defense. Do the Rove-bashers who populate the Huffingsphere know that their leader is objectively aiding Rove by popularizing the leading theory that exculpates him? ... Hollywood libs always worried she'd go back to the other side! ... P.S.: The real explanation, I suspect, is that Huffington's staying near Sag Harbor and the Judy-as-source theory--even though it seems less simple and straightforward than the competing 'Libby-leaked' scenario--is in fact what vacationing media types are buzzing about, as Huffington herself reports. She gets points for being guided by what solid schmoozalism and old-fashioned sandal leather tells her the story is as opposed to what Democratic frog-marching fantasies (or bloggish deskwork) says the story should be. ... P.P.S.: She also buries a big potential lede--

But what worries my Times sources the most is that it smells like the straw that could break the Gray Lady's back. A lot hinges on how much of what Judy knows Bill Keller and Arthur Sulzberger also know.

I'm not convinced of the Judy Theory myself, which means I think Keller's in less trouble and Rove's in more trouble than Arianna does. But I'm not in Sag Harbor! ... 2:15 A.M. link

[Drake Tungsten]

BD

Kaus

[chequita guevara]

Even if Miller told Libby and Rove, if they then told someone else, they still broke the law.

[Imran Siddiqui]

and BTW, Huffington is as much of jerk on the left as she was on the right.

Indeed, but it wasn't any surprise. She did a total Ted Striker like turn (though for her it may have been more "look at me"), but that doesn't make her less of a jerk no matter what side of the aisle she turns up in.

[Ogie Oglethorpe]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui

and BTW, Huffington is as much of jerk on the left as she was on the right.

Indeed, but it wasn't any surprise. She did a total Ted Striker like turn (though for her it may have been more "look at me"), but that doesn't make her less of a jerk no matter what side of the aisle she turns up in.

Who says that the "look at me" factor wasn't the case for Ted Striker as well?

[Winston]

That's what I always thought. Haven't seen evidence to the contrary.

[GePap]

Originally posted by lord of the mark
No, its about Niger. In this country we dont send people to jail for supporting a war some dont like, anymore than we send people to jail for opposing a war some like. Huffington used to be the kind of person who wanted to throw lefties in jail for opposing the right - now she wants to throw people in jail for not taking a left line. Through it all, Huffington remains the same.

no, it is ALL about Iraq- about the events leading up to it. The Niger story is meaningless without Iraq.

Wilson was attacked because he was undermining the credibility of the admin. and its rush to war in Iraq at an early moment, just when the utter inability to find any of the alledged WMD's was starting to be felt.

What Huffington is suggesting is that Miller, who exagerated intelliegence like she was in the Bush admin. had the same motives as them to undermine Wilson.