Another CIA Dirty Trick?

The New York Post's Deborah Orin is convinced that the CIA leak case is just another covert action by the agency against the White House, intended to divert attention from the fact that its "slam dunk" WMD intelligence that prompted Bush to invade Iraq was nothing of the sort.

[Joe] Wilson didn't make any claim to have debunked the belief in Iraq weapons for over a year after his February 2002 trip. But in May 2003, he joined Democrat John Kerry's campaign — and instantly began blasting Bush, first through anonymous leaks, then in a New York Times op-ed and on any TV station that would have him, even posing with his wife for Vanity Fair in his jaguar.

So why did the CIA let him do it? It sent Wilson on a sensitive mission — but didn't require him to sign the usual confidentiality agreement. Even though his wife was a CIA staffer, it let him go loudly public — violating the most basic precautions, if she truly wanted to protect her identify.

The agency didn't assert a right to vet the New York Times op-ed he wrote about his trip — even though such review is standard, and even though his Times account sharply conflicted with what he'd told the CIA. It was if the agency flashed him a giant green light to blast Bush.

Indeed, the indictment that could send ex-White House aide Scooter Libby to jail for 30 years also holds clear evidence that the CIA should have stopped Wilson from going public.

The indictment notes that on June 9, 2003, Libby got CIA documents about Wilson's trip to Niger that were marked "classified" — even though "they did not mention Wilson by name" and Libby didn't yet know about the role of Wilson's wife. That indicates that the trip itself was classified — so CIA should have ordered Wilson to stop blabbing.

But then, all this came at a time when the CIA division where Wilson's wife worked had an intense need to cover its rear: Remember — they were the ones who (along with every other intel agency in the world) had insisted that Saddam had WMDs — but no WMDs were being found.

Having Wilson go public was very useful to the CIA, especially the division where his wife worked — because it served to shift blame for failed "slam dunk" intelligence claims away from the agency. To say that Bush "twisted" intelligence was to presume — falsely — that the CIA had gotten it right.

Orin makes a compelling case, and even if this isn't an intentional plot by the CIA, Democrats and other opponents still continue to exploit this intelligence failure by insisting that Bush knew there were no WMD to be found but took us into Iraq anyhow. Whatever the case, such political manipulation is undesirable in times of peace, but it's absolutely abhorrent when our boys continue to be picked off almost daily by roadside bombs and RPG attacks.

We've been in Iraq over two and a half years, and heretofore we've really failed to engage in the right debate over the war. If our only choice is between those who childishly insist our president "lied us into war" or a president who mysteriously fails to provide regular progress reports (not to mention defend himself and his troops against such infantile slanders), then perhaps the time has come to start getting our guys out of there.