More News — October 1-15, 2003

"Getting Personal: Ambassador Says White House Adviser Told Press His Wife Was 'Fair Game'" -- abcnews.com, 10/1/03:

The former ambassador who accused the White House of leaking the identity of his CIA officer wife to the press says Washington reporters told him that senior White House adviser Karl Rove said his wife was "fair game."

The ambassador, Joseph Wilson, said he plans to give the names of the reporters to the FBI, which is conducting a full-blown investigation of the possible leak.

"I will be revealing the names of everybody who called me and cited White House sources or cited people specifically," Wilson said in an interview with Nightline's Ted Koppel. . . .

On Aug. 21, at a public forum in Seattle, Wilson suggested that it was Rove, Bush's chief political strategist, who revealed his wife's identity. He later backtracked, saying he had no knowledge that it was Rove who personally leaked the information, but that he believed the White House adviser condoned the leak and did nothing to shut it down.

Wilson maintains that Washington reporters told him they spoke with Rove on the telephone after the Novak column came out.

"What I have confidence in -- based upon what respectable press people in this town have told me -- is that a week after the Novak article came out, Karl Rove was still calling around and talking to press people, saying Wilson's wife is fair game," Wilson said.

"The gist of the message, as it was reported back to me right after the phone call, was 'I just got off the phone with Karl Rove. He tells me your wife is fair game.' "

The White House has said it is "ridiculous" to suggest Rove played any role in disclosing the identity of Wilson's wife, and Bush on Tuesday said he welcomed the Justice Department investigation into the leak.

"Columnist Wasn't Pawn for Leak" -- Robert Novak in The Chicago Sun-Times, 10/1/03:

I had thought I never again would write about retired diplomat Joseph Wilson's CIA-employee wife, but feel constrained to do so now that repercussions of my July 14 column have reached the front pages of major newspapers and led off network news broadcasts. My role and the role of the Bush White House have been distorted and need explanation.

The leak now under Justice Department investigation is described by former Ambassador Joseph Wilson and critics of President Bush's Iraq policy as a reprehensible effort to silence them. To protect my own integrity and credibility, I would like to stress three points. First, I did not receive a planned leak. Second, the CIA never warned me that the disclosure of Wilson's wife working at the agency would endanger her or anybody else. Third, it was not much of a secret.

The current Justice investigation stems from a routine, mandated probe of all CIA leaks, but follows weeks of agitation. Wilson, after telling me in July that he would say nothing about his wife, has made investigation of the leak his life's work -- aided by the relentless Sen. Charles Schumer of New York. These efforts cannot be separated from the massive political assault on President Bush.

This story began July 6 when Wilson went public and identified himself as the retired diplomat who had reported negatively to the CIA in 2002 on alleged Iraq efforts to buy uranium yellowcake from Niger. I was curious why a high-ranking official in President Bill Clinton's National Security Council was given this assignment. Wilson had become a vocal opponent of President Bush's policies in Iraq after contributing to Al Gore in the last election cycle and John Kerry in this one.

During a long conversation with a senior administration official, I asked why Wilson was assigned the mission to Niger. He said Wilson had been sent by the CIA's counterproliferation section at the suggestion of one of its employees, his wife. It was an offhand revelation from this official, who is no partisan gunslinger. When I called another official for confirmation, he said: ''Oh, you know about it.'' The published report that somebody in the White House failed to plant this story with six reporters and finally found me as a willing pawn is simply untrue.

At the CIA, the official designated to talk to me denied that Wilson's wife had inspired his selection but said she was delegated to request his help. He asked me not to use her name, saying she probably never again will be given a foreign assignment but that exposure of her name might cause ''difficulties'' if she travels abroad. He never suggested to me that Wilson's wife or anybody else would be endangered. If he had, I would not have used her name. I used it in the sixth paragraph of my column because it looked like the missing explanation of an otherwise incredible choice by the CIA for its mission.

How big a secret was it? It was well-known around Washington that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA. Republican activist Clifford May wrote Monday, in National Review Online, that he had been told of her identity by a non-government source before my column appeared and that it was common knowledge. Her name, Valerie Plame, was no secret either, appearing in Wilson's Who's Who in America entry.

A big question is her duties at Langley. I regret that I referred to her in my column as an ''operative'' -- a word I have lavished on hack politicians for more than 40 years. While the CIA refuses to publicly define her status, the official contact says she is ''covered'' -- working under the guise of another agency. However, an unofficial source at the agency says she has been an analyst, not in covert operations.

The Justice Department investigation was not requested by CIA Director George Tenet. Any leak of classified information is routinely passed by the agency to Justice, averaging one a week. This investigative request was made in July shortly after the column was published. Reported only last weekend, the request ignited anti-Bush furor.

"Editorial: Scandal/Who Outed CIA Agent Plame?" -- Minneapolis Star-Tribune, 10/1/03:

This scandal should have unfolded in July, but the mainstream media weren't interested. The story was kept alive because of dogged work by a few online bloggers, most especially Josh Marshall of "TalkingPointsMemo" (you can find him in the blogs section of www.startribune.com/2cents ). The bloggers will never get the attention and the high praise they deserve for keeping attention focused on this. So let it be noted here at least.

It finally hit the mainstream last weekend, when NBC reported that CIA Director George Tenet had requested a Justice Department investigation of the case. . . .

The Justice Department has responded affirmatively to Tenet's request for an investigation. But get this: When Justice informed the White House of the investigation Monday evening, it said it would be all right if the staff was notified Tuesday morning to safeguard all material that related to the case. The staff had all night to get rid of anything incriminating.

That incredible tidbit supports calls by Democrats and a slew of others for Attorney General John Ashcroft to appoint a special counsel to investigate this case. They're right: Ashcroft has no credibility in this, and neither does the White House, given its habitual effort to spin information, mislead the American people and smear anyone who disagrees with it. This developing scandal ultimately goes to the even more serious question of administration manipulation of intelligence on Iraq, where American soldiers continue to die almost every day in a campaign that looks increasingly like a bad mistake.

"Outside Probe of Leaks Is Favored" -- Dana Milbank and Mike Allen in The Washington Post, 10/2/03:

Nearly seven in 10 Americans believe a special prosecutor should be named to investigate allegations that Bush administration officials illegally leaked the name of an undercover CIA agent, according to a Washington Post/ABC News poll released yesterday.

The poll, taken after the Justice Department announced that it had opened a criminal probe into the matter, pointed to several troubling signs for the White House as Bush aides decide how to contain the damage. The survey found that 81 percent of Americans considered the matter serious, while 72 percent thought it likely that someone in the White House leaked the agent's name.

Confronted with little public support for the White House view that the investigation should be handled by the Justice Department, Bush aides began yesterday to adjust their response to the expanding probe. They reined in earlier, broad portrayals of innocence in favor of more technical arguments that it is possible the disclosure was made without knowledge that a covert operative was being exposed and therefore might not have been a crime.

As the White House hunkered down, it got the first taste of criticism from within Bush's own party. Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) said that Bush "needs to get this behind him" by taking a more active role. "He has that main responsibility to see this through and see it through quickly, and that would include, if I was president, sitting down with my vice president and asking what he knows about it," the outspoken Hagel said last night on CNBC's "Capital Report."

"Attorney General Is Closely Linked to Inquiry Figures" -- Elisabeth Bumiller and Eric Lichtblau in The New York Times, 10/2/03:

WASHINGTON, Oct. 1 -- Deep political ties between top White House aides and Attorney General John Ashcroft have put him into a delicate position as the Justice Department begins a full investigation into whether administration officials illegally disclosed the name of an undercover C.I.A. officer.

Karl Rove, President Bush's top political adviser, whose possible role in the case has raised questions, was a paid consultant to three of Mr. Ashcroft's campaigns in Missouri, twice for governor and for United States senator, in the 1980's and 1990's, an associate of Mr. Rove said on Wednesday.

Jack Oliver, the deputy finance chairman of Mr. Bush's 2004 re-election campaign, was the director of Mr. Ashcroft's 1994 Senate campaign, and later worked as Mr. Ashcroft's deputy chief of staff.

Those connections led Democrats on Wednesday to assert that Mr. Rove's connections to Mr. Ashcroft amounted to a clear conflict of interest and undermined the integrity of the investigation. The disclosures have also emboldened Democrats who have called for the appointment of an outside counsel. . . .

[T]he relationships have given new grist to the Democrats. "This is not like, `Oh, yeah, they're both Republicans, they've been in the same room together,' " said Roy Temple, the former executive director of the Missouri Democratic Party and the former deputy chief of staff to Gov. Mel Carnahan of Missouri. "Karl Rove was once part of John Ashcroft's political strategic team. You have both the actual conflict, and the appearance of conflict. It doesn't matter what's in the deep, dark recesses of their hearts. It stinks."

Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the House Democratic leader, said she was particularly concerned about the past campaign work that Mr. Rove did for Mr. Ashcroft. "Given allegations about the involvement of senior White House officials and the past close association between the attorney general and those officials, the investigation should be headed by a person independent of the administration," Ms. Pelosi said.

On Wednesday, Justice Department officials would not rule out the possibility of Mr. Ashcroft's appointing a special counsel, or recusing himself from the inquiry.

"We're leaving all legal options open," said Mark Corallo, a department spokesman.

And the associate of Mr. Rove said of the attorney general, "He's going to have to recuse himself, don't you think?"

Mr. Bush himself salvaged Mr. Ashcroft's political career by selecting him as attorney general after Mr. Ashcroft lost his Senate race in 2000 to Mr. Carnahan, who was killed in a plane crash just before the election.

In 2001, Mr. Ashcroft recused himself from an investigation into accusations against Senator Robert G. Torricelli of New Jersey because Mr. Torricelli had campaigned against him in Missouri. Mr. Torricelli withdrew from his re-election race. . . .

Justice Department officials said that it was too early to say which administration officials would be subjects of their investigation, but they are likely to seek information from many senior advisers at the White House, including Mr. Rove.

An associate said Mr. Rove had been hired by Mr. Ashcroft in 1984, in Mr. Ashcroft's first successful race for governor of Missouri, to handle the campaign's mail solicitations for political contributions. The associate said Mr. Rove also handled Mr. Ashcroft's direct-mail solicitations for his 1988 re-election campaign and his 1994 Senate campaign, both of them successful.

By 1998, Mr. Rove had sold his direct-mail operation, Karl Rove and Company of Austin, Tex., at the request of Mr. Bush, who was considering a run for president and wanted his political aide unencumbered. In 2000, Mr. Rove worked for Mr. Bush and played no official role in Mr. Ashcroft's losing Senate race.

Nina Totenberg on NPR's "All Things Considered," 10/1/03 (as transcribed at

atrios.blogspot.com):

They may try and recover deleted email files for certain dates . . .

The White house asked for and got permission earlier this week to wait a day before issuing a directive to preserve all documents and logs which led one seasoned federal prosecutor to wonder why they wanted to wait a day, and who at the justice department told them they could do that, and why?

"White House Looks to Manage Fallout over C.I.A. Leak Inquiry" -- Richard W. Stevenson and Eric Lichtblau in The New York Times, 10/2/03:

WASHINGTON, Oct. 1 -- The Bush administration pursued a two-track political strategy on Wednesday to minimize the damage from the criminal investigation into the disclosure of a C.I.A. officer's identity.

The White House encouraged Republicans to portray the former diplomat at the center of the case, Joseph C. Wilson IV, as a partisan Democrat with an agenda and the Democratic Party as scandalmongering. At the same time, the administration and the Republican leadership on Capitol Hill worked to ensure that no Republicans in Congress break ranks and call for an independent inquiry outside the direct control of the Justice Department.

"It's slime and defend," said one Republican aide on Capitol Hill, describing the White House's effort to raise questions about Mr. Wilson's motivations and its simultaneous effort to shore up support in the Republican ranks.

"So far so good," the aide said. "There's nervousness on the part of the party leadership, but no defections in the sense of calling for an independent counsel." . . .

A senior House Republican aide said he thought that House Republicans had been unified by the Democratic response to the investigation.

"The overreaching by the Democrats on the special counsel and the personal attacks on the president have had a galvanizing effect, not a demoralizing effect," he said.

Still, one Republican with close ties to the administration said the White House was monitoring five Republicans in Congress, all of whom have an independent streak on foreign policy and intelligence matters: Senators John McCain of Arizona, Richard G. Lugar of Indiana, Chuck Hagel of Nebraska and John W. Warner of Virginia, and Representative Porter J. Goss of Florida.

"The Plame Game" -- Howard Fineman at msnbc.com, 10/2/03:

I'll stipulate that it is a felony to disclose the name of an undercover CIA operative who has been posted overseas in recent years. That's what the statute says. But the now infamous outing of Victoria Plame isn't primarily an issue of law. It's about a lot of other things, like: the ongoing war between the CIA and the vice president's office; the long, complex relationship between George Tenet and the Bush family; the tinge of arrogance among some (as yet unidentified) members of Bush's team; and, ominously for the president, a breakdown in discipline among his spin doctors, who, in the old days, always wrote the same prescription. . . .

[T]he yellowcake allegation got into the president's now infamous State of the Union address, attributed only to the Brits. When the speech came under fire for accuracy (or lack thereof), the CIA at first ducked. Then White House aides let it be known that the agency had "signed off" on the entire contents of the speech, after which the CIA came forward to say yes, after much discussion and emendation, that they'd approved it. Tenet took the heat. But it was clear that he had been forced to do so. . . .

It was a fascinating moment if you know the history. The way I hear the story, Bush Two, when he was elected, had his doubts about Tenet, but was told he was a "good guy" by the ultimate arbiter of "good guys" in the Bush Family, Bush One. Tenet had curried favor with the family years earlier when he was still an intelligence bureaucrat on the Hill, serving as chief of staff of the Senate Intelligence Committee. Though he was working in a Democrat-controlled environment, Tenet helped out -- or at least did not stand in the way -- when Bush One wanted to appoint his friend, Robert Gates, to head the CIA. Word was that Tenet was a "team player" -- a standup guy, not a relentless Democratic partisan by any means. An expert at the inside game from his years as a staffer on the Hill, Tenet knew how to fit into Bush Two's world. He did so with ease from the start.

Bush presumably trusted Tenet and the CIA to get the goods on Saddam and his WMD. Cheney's staff evidently did too. But why did Tenet send Wilson to Africa? Maybe he just thought he was sending the most qualified guy. But the neo-cons and their allies came to see it as a conspiracy to ignore the truth -- especially after Wilson, last July, went public with the essence of his findings, which was that the yellowcake rumors were false.

The moment that piece hit the op-ed page of the New York Times, it was all-out war between the pro- and anti-war factions, and between the CIA and its critics. I am told by what I regard as a very reliable source inside the White House that aides there did, in fact, try to peddle the identity of Joe Wilson's wife to several reporters. But the motive wasn't revenge or intimidation so much as a desire to explain why, in their view, Wilson wasn't a neutral investigator, but, a member of the CIA's leave-Saddam-in-place team.

And on Tenet's part, it was time for payback -- whatever his past relationship with the Bush's had been. First, he and his agency had been humiliated, caught by the White House trying to distance themselves from the president's speech. Then the CIA was forced to admit that it had signed off on the speech. Now one of its own investigations was coming under attack, as was one of its own undercover staffers.

Are we to believe that it was a routine matter for the CIA to forward to the Department of Justice a complaint about the leak of Victoria Plame's name and job? Are we to think that Tenet didn't know that the complaint was being forwarded? Or that Tenet couldn't have shortstopped it if he wanted to? . . .

Bush preaches humility, and believes it is a cardinal virtue. But some of the people around him honor it in the breach. If it can be proved that they did, in fact, leak Mrs. Wilson's name and job, they committed an act of arrogance -- and political stupidity. You'd think that the Bush White House would know an essential lesson of presidential survival in Washington: You don't pick a fight with the CIA. Nixon learned the consequences of doing so; Bush One, a former director of the CIA, could have explained it to his son.

"Putin Says U.S. Faces Big Risks in Effort in Iraq" -- Steven Lee Myers in The New York Times, 10/6/03:

MOSCOW, Monday, Oct. 6 -- President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia says the United States now faces in Iraq the possibility of a prolonged, violent and ultimately futile war like the one that mired the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.

In an expansive interview on Saturday evening, Mr. Putin warned that Iraq could "become a new center, a new magnet for all destructive elements." He added, without naming them, that "a great number of members of different terrorist organizations" have been drawn into the country since the fall of Saddam Hussein.

To respond to this emerging threat, he said, the Bush administration must move quickly to restore sovereignty to Iraqis and to secure a new United Nations resolution that would clearly define how long international forces remain there. . . .

Mr. Hussein's government had, with reason, been called "a criminal one," Mr. Putin said, but he disputed one of the core reasons given by President Bush for attacking Iraq in March: the assertion that it had ties to international Islamic militancy and terrorism. Rather, he suggested that the invasion of Iraq had created a terrorist haven where one did not previously exist.

"It struggled against the fundamentalists," he said of Mr. Hussein's government. "He either exterminated them physically or put them in jail or just sent them into exile."

Now, he added, with Mr. Hussein ousted, "The coalition forces received two enemies at once -- both the remains of the Saddam regime, who fight with them, and those who Saddam himself had fought in the past -- the fundamentalists."

Mr. Putin did not identify the militants entering Iraq, but he said they came "from all the Muslim world." Those militants, he suggested, may now find themselves at ease in Iraq, as they once were among the Afghans, and the "danger exists" of a decade-long struggle like the one fought by the Soviet Union in Afghanistan in the 1980's. Such fears, he added, "are not groundless." . . .

Although Russia seeks a rapid return of sovereignty to Iraq, it would accept a dominant role for the American military in providing security, he said, as well as a gradual rather than a rapid transfer of actual power to the Iraqi authorities. Given the money it has spent and is spending there, America has to play a leading role in Iraq, he suggested.

This position -- calling for a greater United Nations role in Iraq but apparently acknowledging American primacy -- puts Russia at odds with some countries, like France, that have been more critical of the United States. Mr. Putin described the Russian position as "very pragmatic and flexible."

"George W. Bush's Medieval Presidency" -- Neal Gabler in The Los Angeles Times, 10/5/03:

At least since the Progressive era, America has been an empire of empiricism, a nation not only of laws but of facts. As heirs of the Enlightenment, the Progressives had an abiding faith in the power of rationality and a belief in the science of governing. Elect officeholders of good intent, arm them with sufficient information and they could guide the government for the public weal. From this seed sprang hundreds of government agencies dedicated to churning out data: statistics on labor, health, education, economics, the environment, you name it. These were digested by bureaucrats and policymakers, then spun into laws and regulations. When the data changed, so presumably would policy. Government went where the facts led it.

Conservatives have often denounced statistics-addicted bureaucrats as social engineers, but they have been no less reliant on data than liberals, because they were no less convinced that government could be rationally conducted. They simply disagreed with liberals on where rationality would take us. President Reagan might dispute economic statistics, and he certainly reinterpreted them to demonstrate how his tax cuts would lead to growth and a balanced budget, as counterintuitive as that seemed. Still, he didn't dispense with facts. He marshaled them to his cause to illustrate that he saw reality more clearly than his antagonists.

The difference between the current administration and its conservative forebears is that facts don't seem to matter at all. They don't even matter enough to reinterpret. Bush doesn't read the papers or watch the news, and Condoleezza Rice, his national security advisor, reportedly didn't read the National Intelligence Estimate, which is apparently why she missed the remarks casting doubt on claims that Iraq was trying to acquire uranium from Africa. (She reportedly read the document later.) And although Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld hasn't disavowed reading or watching the news, he has publicly and proudly disavowed paying any attention to it. In this administration, everyone already knows the truth.

A more sinister aspect to this presidency's cavalier attitude toward facts is its effort to bend, twist and distort them when it apparently serves the administration's interests. Intelligence was exaggerated to justify the war in Iraq. Even if there were no evidence of weapons of mass destruction in Iraq or of ties between Saddam Hussein and Al Qaeda, the CIA was expected to substantiate the accusations. In a similar vein, the New Republic reported that Treasury Department economists had been demoted for providing objective analysis that would help define policy, as they had done in previous administrations. Now they provide fodder for policy already determined. Said one economist who had worked in the Clinton, Reagan and first Bush administrations, "They didn't worry about whether they agreed; we were encouraged to raise issues." Not anymore.

Even the scientific community has been waved off by the medievalists. A minority staff report issued last month by the House Government Reform Committee investigating scientific research found 21 areas in which the administration had "manipulated the scientific process and distorted or suppressed scientific findings," including the president's assurance that there were more than 60 lines for stem-cell research when there were actually only 11; it concluded that "these actions go far beyond the typical shifts in policy that occur with a change in the political party occupying the White House." When a draft report of the Environmental Protection Agency earlier this year included data on global warming, the White House ordered them expunged. Another EPA report, on air quality at ground zero in Manhattan, was altered to provide false reassurance that no danger existed, even though it did.

Every administration spins the facts to its advantage. As the old adage goes, "Figures don't lie but liars do figure." But the White House medievalists aren't just shading the facts. In actively denying or changing them, they are changing the basis on which government has traditionally been conducted: rationality. There is no respect for facts because there is no respect for empiricism. Instead, the Bush ideologues came to power smug in the security of their own worldview, part of which, frankly, seems to be the belief that it would be soft and unmanly to let facts alter their preconceptions. Like the church confronting Galileo, they aren't about to let reality destroy their cosmology, whether it is a bankrupt plan for pacifying an Iraq that was supposed to welcome us as liberators or a bankrupt fiscal plan that was supposed to jolt the economy to health.

"Why Bush Angers Liberals" -- Michael Kinsley in Time, October 13, 2003 (online at time.com, 10/6/03):

So why are liberals so angry? Here is a view from inside the beast: it's Bush as a person and his policies as well. To start, we do think he stole the election. Yes, yes, we're told to "get over it," and we've been pretty damned gracious. But we can't help it: this still rankles. What rankles especially is Bush's almost total lack of grace about the extraordinary way he took office. Theft aside, he indisputably got fewer votes than the other guy, our guy. We expected some soothing bipartisan balm. There was none, even after 9/11. (Would it have been that hard to appoint a Democrat as head of Homeland Security, in a "bring us together" spirit?)

We also thought that Bush's apparent affability, and his lack of knowledge or strong views or even great interest in policy issues, would make him temperate on the ideological thermometer. (Psst! We also thought, and still think, he's pretty dumb ? though you're not supposed to say it and we usually don't. And we thought that this too would make him easier to swallow.) It turns out, though, that Bush's, um, unreflectiveness shores up his ideological backbone. An adviser who persuades Bush to adopt Policy X does not have to be worried that our President will keep turning it over in his mind, monitoring its progress, reading and thinking about the complaints of its critics, perhaps even re-examining it on the basis of subsequent developments, and announce one day that he prefers Policy Y. This does not happen. He knows what he thinks, and he has to be told it only once.

This dynamic works on facts just as it does on policies, making Bush a remarkably successful liar. This too is unexpected. There seemed to be something guileless and nonneurotic about Bush when we first made his acquaintance. It was the flip side of his, um, dimness and seemed to promise frankness if nothing else. But guess what? Ignorance and lack of curiosity are terrific fortifications for dishonesty. Bill Clinton knew that he had had sex with that woman and had to work hard to convince himself that he hadn't. Bush neither knew nor cared whether Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction or close connections to al-Qaeda when he started to say so, and once he started, mere lack of evidence was not going to make him stop.

Just this week, responding to the brouhaha about the alleged White House outing of an undercover CIA agent, Bush declared that he takes leaks very seriously and deplores them. Liberals across America screamed into their TV sets, "But that leak was in the papers two months ago, and you did nothing about it until the fuss started last weekend!" If Bush could hear them, he might furrow his brow in puzzlement and say, "And your point is?" Steeped as liberals are in irony, it took us a while to learn what a powerful tool an irony-free mind can be.

"White House to Overhaul Iraq and Afghan Missions" -- David E. Sanger in The New York Times, 10/6/03:

WASHINGTON, Oct. 5 -- The White House has ordered a major reorganization of American efforts to quell violence in Iraq and Afghanistan and to speed the reconstruction of both countries, according to senior administration officials.

The new effort includes the creation of an "Iraq Stabilization Group," which will be run by the national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice. The decision to create the new group, five months after Mr. Bush declared the end of active combat in Iraq, appears part of an effort to assert more direct White House control over how Washington coordinates its efforts to fight terrorism, develop political structures and encourage economic development in the two countries. . . .

The reorganization was described in a confidential memorandum that Ms. Rice sent Thursday to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell, Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld, and the director of central intelligence, George J. Tenet.

Asked about the memorandum on Sunday, Ms. Rice called it "a recognition by everyone that we are in a different phase now" that Congress is considering Mr. Bush's request for $20 billion for reconstruction and $67 billion for military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. She said it was devised by herself, Vice President Dick Cheney, Mr. Powell and Mr. Rumsfeld in response to discussions she held with Mr. Bush at his ranch in late August.

The creation of the group, according to several administration officials, grew out of Mr. Bush's frustration at the setbacks in Iraq and the absence of more visible progress in Afghanistan, at a moment when remnants of the Taliban appear to be newly active. It is the closest the White House has come to an admission that its plans for reconstruction in those countries have proved insufficient, and that it was unprepared for the guerrilla-style attacks that have become more frequent in Iraq. There have been more American deaths in Iraq since the end of active combat than during the six weeks it took to take control of the country. . . .

In the interview, Ms. Rice described the new organization as one intended to support the Pentagon, not supplant it.

"The N.S.C. staff is first and foremost the president's staff," she said, "but it is of course the staff to the National Security Council." That group will in effect be taking more direct responsibility.

The council is made up of top advisers to the president who meet three times a week in the Situation Room. They have often seemed unable to coordinate efforts on the main issues relating to the occupation of Iraq. "The Pentagon remains the lead agency, and the structure has been set up explicitly to provide assistance to the Defense Department and coalition provisional authority," Ms. Rice said.

Other officials said the effect of Ms. Rice's memorandum would be to move day-to-day issues of administering Iraq to the White House.

The counterterrorism group, for example, will be run by Frances F. Townsend, Ms. Rice's deputy for that field. Economic issues -- from oil to electricity to the distribution of a new currency -- will be coordinated by Gary Edson. He has been the liaison between the National Security Council and the National Economic Council.

Robert D. Blackwill, a former ambassador to India, will run the group overseeing the creation of political institutions in Iraq, as well as directing stabilization for Afghanistan.

Anna Perez, Ms. Rice's communications director, will focus on a coordinated media message -- a response to concerns about the daily reports of attacks on American troops and lawlessness in the streets.

"Iraq Shake-Up Skipped Rumsfeld" -- Mike Allen in The Washington Post, 10/8/03:

Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld said yesterday that he was not told in advance about a reorganization of the Iraq reconstruction, which he heads. He said he still does not know the reason for the shake-up.

Rumsfeld said in an interview with the Financial Times and three European news organizations that he did not learn of the new Iraq Stabilization Group until he received a classified memo about it from national security adviser Condoleezza Rice on Thursday.

Rumsfeld was asked several times why the changes were necessary. "I think you have to ask Condi that question," he said, according to a transcript posted on the Web site of the Financial Times.

Pressed, he said: "I said I don't know. Isn't that clear? You don't understand English? I was not there for the backgrounding."

Rumsfeld's tart remarks offer a window on the tensions among members of President Bush's war cabinet, which are vividly described by administration officials but are rarely visible to outsiders. Rumsfeld's bluntness has occasionally rankled allies and caused headaches for the White House, but Bush is said to remain supportive. . . .

Rumsfeld said Rice's new system looks like a restatement of "the job of the National Security Council, to coordinate among different departments and agencies."

"Unfortunately, it's a classified memo. It shouldn't be. There's nothing in it that's classified," he said. "I kind of wish they'd just release the memorandum."

One source said the perception among some in the administration was that the Pentagon had been "neutered" by the changes, inasmuch as the White House now will be involved in budget and other decisions that had been the sole province of L. Paul Bremer, the civilian administrator in Iraq, who reports to Rumsfeld.

"The White House: Barely Managing" -- Daniel W. Drezner in The New Republic, reproduced at cbsnews.com, 10/7/03:

A detached management style combined with smart and aggressive subordinates can produce two structural flaws in the policy process. The first is that if major foreign policy players disagree, the potential for unending bureaucratic conflict is high. Even when the president clearly articulates the desired ends for policy, furious battles will erupt over the means to achieve those ends. In a cabinet filled with accommodating or like-minded individuals, such disputes can be settled quickly. In a cabinet with the likes of Powell and Rumsfeld -- confident men with genuine differences of opinion over the best way to advance the national interest -- the battles never cease. The current scuffles between State and Defense in the Bush administration are eerily reminiscent of the legendary set-tos between George Shultz and Caspar Weinberger under Reagan.

The costs of such disputes can be significant. The more resources and energy that policy principals devote to bureaucratic infighting, the less they have available for focusing on effective policy implementation. This was certainly the case with Iraq. The different components of the executive branch were embroiled in disputes on multiple fronts over postwar management, ranging from the role of Ahmed Chalabi to the role of the United Nations. In all of those disputes, the recondite issue of Iraq's deteriorating electricity grid apparently never came up. The result was that Donald Rumsfeld's Defense Department ended up administering postwar Iraq but being surprised by the electricity problem, while Colin Powell's State Department was marginalized but fully aware of it.

The other structural flaw is both more rare and more frightening. When different parts of the executive branch are locked in constant conflict, the result is a permissive environment. Officials become used to the notion that they will have to act as aggressively as possible to win an argument. Lines of communication between different parts of the executive branch become frayed or severed. Add weak oversight to the mix, and you have a situation in which bureaucratic entrepreneurs will be tempted to push their agendas to the point where ethical rules are violated -- or laws are broken.

In the Reagan administration, this management style contributed to the Iran-Contra fiasco.

In the Bush administration, the battles over Iraq's WMD program have led to open hostility between the Defense Department and the CIA. The leaks and counter-leaks over Nigerian yellowcake have escalated to the point where the Justice Department is investigating whether anyone in the White House violated federal law and jeopardized national security by outing the identity of an undercover CIA operative. What's amazing about this episode is that, if true, a felony was committed over what was truly a minor dispute. Which leads to a troubling question -- if an administration official was willing to commit an overtly illegal act in dealing with such a piddling matter, what lines have been or will be crossed on not-so-piddling matters?

Harpers Weekly Review, 10/7/03

"U.S. May Drop Quest for U.N. Vote on Iraq" -- Steven R. Weisman and Felicity Barringer in The New York Times, 10/8/03:

ASHINGTON, Oct. 7 -- The Bush administration has run into such stiff opposition at the United Nations Security Council to its plan for the future government of Iraq that it has pulled back from seeking a quick vote endorsing the proposal and may shelve it altogether, administration officials said Tuesday.

Two weeks after President Bush appealed at the United Nations for help in securing and reconstructing Iraq, administration officials said, his top aides will decide soon whether it is worth the effort to get a United Nations endorsement. . . .

The new pessimism about winning United Nations support results from the cool reception accorded to the administration's most recent draft on Iraqi self-government, which was supposedly redrawn to take into account suggestions of Security Council members.

What little momentum there was behind the American proposal was deflated after the United Nations secretary general, Kofi Annan, disclosed his own reservations last week, much to the surprise of administration officials.

Mr. Annan, according to diplomats who have talked to him, essentially takes the view of the French that the violent attacks on Americans in Iraq would subside once an interim Iraqi government was established, perhaps in a matter of months. . . .

As things stood on Tuesday, officials said, the administration faced two unpalatable options. One was that it would not win the votes to pass a resolution to its liking; the other was that its victory margin would be so thin that approval would send a signal of a divided Security Council rather than one that wanted to help.

The principal point of contention between the United States and Britain, on the one hand, and Mr. Annan, France and other Council members on the other, is the American intention to retain full control over Iraq during what could be a long period of writing a constitution, holding elections and restoring sovereignty.

Mr. Annan's comments were especially compelling to Council members because he warned that in light of the bombing of the United Nations headquarters in Baghdad in the summer, he could not in good conscience send his personnel into a dangerous environment to play a role subordinate to the American occupation.

California recall exit poll data, washingtonpost.com, accessed 10/10/03:

Twenty-seven percent of voters approved of Davis's performance as governor. Ten percent of them voted "Yes" on the recall.

Forty-five percent of voters had an unfavorable opinion of Schwarzenegger. Nineteen percent of them voted "Yes" on the recall.

Thirty-two percent of voters belonged to a union household. Forty-nine percent of them voted "Yes" on the recall.

"Russia to Price Oil in Euros in Snub to US" -- Ambrose Evans-Pritchard in The London Telegraph, 10/10/03:

Russia is to start pricing its huge oil and gas exports in euros instead of dollars as part of a stragetic shift to forge closer ties with the European Union.

The Russian central bank has been amassing euros since early 2002, increasing the euro share of its $65 billion (?40 billion) foreign reserves from 10pc to more than 25pc, according to the finance ministry.

The move has set off a chain reaction in the private sector, leading to a fourfold increase in euro deposits in Russian banks this year and sending Russian citizens scrambling to change their stashes of greenbacks into euro notes.

German officials said Chancellor Gerhard Schroder secured agreement for the change-over on oil pricing from Vladimir Putin, the prime minister, while on a trip to Russia this week. . . .

A switch to euro invoicing would not affect the long-term price of oil but it could encourage Middle Eastern exporters to follow suit and have a powerful effect on market psychology at a time when the dollar is already under intense pressure. Russia boasts the world's biggest natural gas reserves and is the number two oil exporter after Saudi Arabia. . . .

Oil is seen as so central to the global power structure that the choice of currency used for pricing has acquired almost totemic significance. The switch from pounds to dollars after the Second World War has come to symbolise sterling's demise as a world reserve currency.

If the dollar were ever displaced by the euro, it would lose the enormous freedom it now enjoys in running macro-economic policy. Washington would also forfeit the privilege of exchanging dollar notes for imports, worth an estimated 0.5pc of GDP.

Maxim Shein, from BrokerKreditService in Moscow, said the switch to euros makes sense for Russia since it supplies half of Europe's energy needs. But the move is also part of a global realignment stemming from the Iraq war, which threw Russia, Germany and France together into a new Triple Entente.

"Abandoning the dollar is tantamount to a curtsey to the EU," he said. For now, IMF figures show the dollar remains king, accounting for 68pc of foreign reserves worldwide compared with 13pc for the euro.

"Iraq: More Spin, Bureaucracy" -- editorial, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, 10/11/03:

When the White House announced it was reorganizing its approach to reconstructing Iraq, the obvious conclusion was that President Bush now understands things aren't going well there. At every opportunity, he says they are, but they're not. On one hand, it's encouraging that he finally seems to grasp that. On the other, his prescribed solution is a monumental disappointment.

The reorganization plan calls for National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice to chair an Iraq Stabilization Group, which the White House described as a coordinator "of interagency efforts, as well as providing a support group" to the Pentagon and its chief U.S. administrator in Iraq, Paul Bremer. "Stabilization" is an interesting word for the White House to use; it implies that the situation now is unstable.

What went unsaid, but has been abundantly clear this week, is that Rice's appointment was an attempt to end the fighting between the Pentagon and the State Department over Iraq policy. As one Washington insider said, it's like when two kids are fighting over a toy and a parent comes into the room. The toy gets taken away, and things settle down.

Also clear is that this was a stinging defeat for Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld. Rice referred to prior conversations about the reorganization with Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell and CIA Director George Tenet. But Rumsfeld angrily denied having such conversations or being involved in planning the new structure. His pique is an indication of just how much he's on the outs with the White House, the State Department, and even his neocon friends, over his approach to rebuilding Iraq.

So you have a mess in Washington and in Iraq. The answer surely isn't to add another level of bureaucracy in Washington. What's needed are wiser heads, and a lot of them, from a lot of countries, on the ground in Baghdad.

That's what the Bush administration appeared to seek a week ago when it offered a new draft resolution it hoped to get endorsed by the U.N. Security Council, which would lead the way to truly internationalizing the rebuilding effort in Iraq. The new draft gave little ground on U.S. control in Iraq, however, and brought scathing responses from U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan, France, Germany and Russia. Soft-spoken, usually circumspect Annan flat out said he would not risk the lives of more personnel for the marginal U.N. role outlined in the draft resolution.

With creation of the Iraq Stabilization Group just a couple of days later, the White House was thumbing its nose at the Security Council and signaling that it has given up on getting U.N. support in Iraq. The effort won't be internationalized; it will be bureaucratized.

"Tax Revenue at 44-Year Low in Proportion to U.S. Economy" -- Jonathan Weisman in The Washington Post, 10/11/03:

Federal tax receipts relative to the overall economy have reached their lowest level since Dwight D. Eisenhower was president, while government spending has climbed to the highest point since Bill Clinton declared the era of big government over, according to new figures released by the Congressional Budget Office.

The CBO closed its books on the fiscal year that ended Sept. 30 with a report that presents a mixed picture of the federal government's financial position. Although it documented a large fiscal imbalance that's expected to grow, the report from Congress' nonpartisan budget scorekeeper also showed how the economy's building strength helped reduce the near-term growth rate of the federal budget deficit. . . .

As a snapshot of the government's fiscal health, 2003 invited historic comparisons. The $374 billion deficit surpassed the previous record of $290 billion set in 1992, although it was shy of the 1992 level after adjustment for inflation.

A sluggish economy and three successive tax cuts pushed 2003 tax receipts to $1.78 trillion, $70 billion less than in the previous year. Expressed as percentage of the economy, the federal tax take fell to 16.6 percent, the lowest level since 1959.

Tax revenue has now fallen for three successive years, which hasn't happened since the Great Depression. Since receipts peaked in 2000, they have fallen by $242 billion, or 12 percent.

Last year, corporate tax receipts fell by 11.1 percent, just 1.2 percent of the nation's gross domestic product. That is the lowest since 1983, and the second lowest since 1936. Since they peaked in 2000, corporate tax payments have plunged nearly 29 percent.

Individual income taxes fell by 7.5 percent last year and are off 21 percent from their 2000 peak. Only Medicare and Social Security taxes have continued to climb since the boom years of the 1990s, and that money -- which politicians pledged to save -- is financing other parts of the government.

"It is revenue collection which dropped off a cliff," [White House Budget Director Joshua B.] Bolten said.

Federal spending -- driven by war and rising health care costs -- has been on the opposite trajectory. Spending rose $146 billion, or 7.3 percent, from 2002, to $2.16 trillion. In 2003, spending equaled 20.3 percent of the economy, the highest level since 1996, when Clinton hailed the end of big government in his State of the Union address.

Those numbers may understate the surge in spending since historically low interest rates have cut the cost of interest payments on the $3.9 trillion federal debt held by the public, the CBO said. Excluding the fall in interest payments, federal spending rose 8.9 percent last year.

The two big federal health insurance programs, Medicare and Medicaid, grew by 8.4 percent in 2003, a cause for concern, Bolten conceded.

But the real driver on the spending side was the military, which consumed $389 billion in 2003, a 17.2 percent increase in a single year. That was the fastest growth rate in 20 years, the CBO said, and more than double the average 7 percent growth in non-defense programs.

Since Bush took office, military spending has increased 34 percent, and is up 50 percent since 1999, when military spending totaled $261 billion.

"Myths of the 2002 Election" -- Ruy Teixeira at tompaine.com, 10/9/2003:

[T]he Voter News Service (VNS) exit poll (now defunct) went into a massive meltdown during the election day of 2002 and the results of the exit poll were not used at the time in any election projections, or released in any other way. However, that meltdown was not because the data collected were faulty, but rather because the computer system designed to process the data and make the appropriate projections crashed and burned.

So -- finally -- it has been possible for a file of the original national (though not state) data to be released by the VNS consortium for public use. Public Opinion Watch has secured a copy of these data and has been conducting analyses to clarify some of the outstanding issues of the 2002 election.

One such issue is the extent (or lack thereof) of minority support for Republicans in the 2002 election. Republicans have typically claimed that Republicans did well with minority voters in '02, especially Hispanics, and that that was one of the secrets to their success in that election, while others, like Public Opinion Watch have said this is, to put it politely, complete baloney. What do the VNS data tell us about this controversy?

Well, if we were to believe Republican pollster David Winston's article in Roll Call, the VNS data show that it is a myth that "Republicans can't attract minority voters in significant numbers". Public Opinion Watch begs to differ. The VNS 2002 data are actually completely consistent with that so-called myth. Republicans are still having huge difficulties attracting minority voters and the 2002 election was not an exception. Where the GOP did do exceptionally well was among white voters, where they received 60 percent of the white vote. That's up from 57 percent in 1998, the last off-year election and the best point of comparison, and also from 2000, where they received 56 percent of the white vote.

Winton claims, however, that the GOP had a breakthrough year among Hispanics. He cites as evidence a drop in Hispanic support for Congressional Democrats and rise in support for Republicans between 2000 and 2002. While Winston's data for '02 are wrong and exaggerate this change, it is true that the Hispanic two party House vote was 65 percent Democratic/35 percent Republican in '00 and did fall modestly to 62 percent/38 percent in '02. However, Hispanic support for House Democrats traditionally falls at least several points from a Presidential to an off-year election, so this says little about a real trend toward the Republicans. The more pertinent comparison is to 1998, the last off- year election, where Hispanics supported Democrats by 63 percent to 37 percent. So, basically, we have a shift in off-year Democratic support from 63/37 to 62/38. If that's a trend, Public Opinion Watch will eat his calculator.

Well, what about the Senate races? These were the most significant races of '02 and perhaps a pro-GOP surge can be detected here. Nope, the Senate two party vote among Hispanics was 67 percent Democratic/33 percent Republican. Governors, then? Not here, either -- Democratic support among Hispanics was a healthy 65 percent to 35 percent.

What about other minorities? Not much luck here either for the GOP. In fact, blacks and Asians both appear to have increased their support for the Democrats. The two party black vote for the House went from 89 percent Democrat/11 percent Republican in both 1998 and 2000 to a 91 percent/9 percent split in 2002. And Asians increased their support dramatically for House Democrats going from 56 percent Democratic/44 percent Republican in 1998 to 60 percent/40 percent in 2000 to 66 percent/34 percent in 2002!

Much more "progress" like this among minority voters and the GOP -- aka "the white people's party" -- will have a very limited future indeed.

"Probe Focuses on Month before Leak to Reporters" -- Walter Pincus and Mike Allen in The Washington Post, 10/12/03:

FBI agents investigating the disclosure of a CIA officer's identity have begun by examining events in the month before the leak, when the CIA, the White House and Vice President Cheney's office first were asked about former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV's CIA-sponsored trip to Niger, according to sources familiar with the probe.

The name of Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, a clandestine case officer, was revealed in a July 14 column by Robert D. Novak that quoted two unidentified senior administration officials.

In their interviews, FBI agents are asking questions about events going back to at least early June, the sources said. That indicates investigators are examining not just who passed the information to Novak and other reporters but also how Plame's name may have first become linked with Wilson and his mission, who did it and how the information made its way around the government.

Administration sources said they believe that the officials who discussed Plame were not trying to expose her, but were using the information as a tool to try to persuade reporters to ignore Wilson. The officials wanted to convince the reporters that he had benefited from nepotism in being chosen for the mission.

What started as political gossip and damage control has become a major criminal investigation that has already harmed the administration and could be a problem for President Bush for months to come.

One reason investigators are looking back is that even before Novak's column appeared, government officials had been trying for more than a month to convince journalists that Wilson's mission was not as important as it was being portrayed. Wilson concluded during the 2002 mission that there was no solid evidence for the administration's assertion that Iraq was trying to acquire uranium in Niger to develop nuclear weapons, and he angered the White House when he became an outspoken critic of the war.

The FBI is trying to determine when White House officials and members of the vice president's staff first focused on Wilson and learned about his wife's employment at the agency. One group that may have known of the connection before that time is the handful of CIA officers detailed to the White House, where they work primarily on the National Security Council staff. A former NSC staff member said one or more of those officers may have been aware of the Plame-Wilson relationship. . . .

The first public mention of Wilson's mission to Niger, albeit without identifying him by name, was in the New York Times on May 6, in a column by Nicholas D. Kristof. Kristof had been on a panel with Wilson four days earlier, when the former ambassador said State Department officials should know better than to say the United States had been duped by forged documents that allegedly had proved a deal for the uranium had been in the works between Iraq and Niger.

Wilson said he told Kristof about his trip to Niger on the condition that Kristof must keep his name out of the column. When the column appeared, it created little public stir, though it set a number of reporters on the trail of the anonymous former ambassador. Kristof confirmed that account.

The column mentioned the alleged role of the vice president's office for the first time. That was when Cheney aides became aware of Wilson's mission and they began asking questions about him within the government, according to an administration official.

In the meantime, Wilson was pressing his case. He briefed two congressional committees conducting inquiries into why the president had mentioned the uranium allegation in his Jan. 28 State of the Union address. He also began making frequent television appearances.

In early June, Wilson told his story to The Washington Post on the condition that his name be withheld. On June 12, The Post published a more complete account than Kristof's of Wilson's trip. Wilson has now given permission to The Post to identify him as one source for that article.

By that time, officials in the White House, Cheney's office, the CIA and the State Department were familiar with Wilson and his mission to Niger.

Starting that week, the officials repeatedly played down the importance of Wilson's trip and its findings, saying it had been authorized within the CIA's nonproliferation section at a low level without requiring the approval of senior agency officials. No one brought up Wilson's wife, and her employment at the agency was not known at the time the article was published. . . .

On July 6, Wilson went public. In an interview published in The Post, Wilson accused the administration of "misrepresenting the facts on an issue that was a fundamental justification for going to war." In an opinion article the same day in the New York Times, he wrote that "some of the intelligence related to Iraq's nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat." . . .

That same week, two top White House officials disclosed Plame's identity to least six Washington journalists, an administration official told The Post for an article published Sept. 28. The source elaborated on the conversations last week, saying that officials brought up Plame as part of their broader case against Wilson.

"It was unsolicited," the source said. "They were pushing back. They used everything they had."

Novak has said he began interviewing Bush officials about Wilson shortly after July 6, asking why such an outspoken Bush policy critic was picked for the Niger mission. Novak reported that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA on weapons of mass destruction and that she was the person who suggested Wilson for the job.

Officials have said Wilson, a former ambassador to Gabon and National Security Council senior director for African affairs, was not chosen because of his wife.

On July 12, two days before Novak's column, a Post reporter was told by an administration official that the White House had not paid attention to the former ambassador's CIA-sponsored trip to Niger because it was set up as a boondoggle by his wife, an analyst with the agency working on weapons of mass destruction. Plame's name was never mentioned and the purpose of the disclosure did not appear to be to generate an article, but rather to undermine Wilson's report.

After Novak's column appeared, several high-profile reporters told Wilson that they had received calls from White House officials drawing attention to his wife's role. Andrea Mitchell of NBC News said she received one of those calls.

Wilson said another reporter called him on July 21 and said he had just hung up with Bush's senior adviser, Karl Rove. The reporter quoted Rove as describing Wilson's wife as "fair game," Wilson said. Newsweek has identified that reporter as MSNBC television host Chris Matthews. Spokespeople said Matthews was unavailable for comment.

McClellan, the White House spokesman, has denied that Rove was involved in leaking classified material but has refused to discuss the possibility of a campaign to call attention to the revelations in Novak's column.

"America Returns to UN for Support over Iraq as EU Rebuffs Cash Pleas" -- Stephen Castle and Andrew Buncombe in The Independent, 10/14/03:

In an effort to secure financial and military support for its occupation of Iraq, the United States has proposed a deadline of mid December for the country's Governing Council to draw up a timetable for elections and a new constitution.

A new draft resolution circulated by the US to members of the United Nations Security Council also contains language that emphasises the importance of Iraqi representatives on the Council in helping the transition. But the concessions stop short of guaranteeing a central role for the UN in the future of the country.

The new resolution, on which the US could seek a vote as early as today, is the latest effort by Washington to secure international support ? money and troops ? for the ongoing occupation and reconstruction. Earlier drafts were criticised by many European countries that want the UN to have a more central role and a timetable outlining a prompt handover of power to Iraqis.

America's difficulty in obtain-ing this support was underlined yesterday in Luxembourg, where Britain was alone in pledging an additional ?375m (?264m). With time running out before a donor conference on Iraqi reconstruction next week, the US ? and its co-sponsors, the UK and Spain ? hope the resolution will persuade more countries to contribute. But in the absence of an agreement, EU countries rebuffed British requests to put cash on the table at a foreign ministers' meeting yesterday. Several countries that are certain to provide cash, such as Italy and Spain, declined to show their hand.

"Put the Patriot Act to Good Use -- on the White House Leak" -- Dante Chinni in The Christian Science Monitor, 10/14/03:

WASHINGTON ? Pity President Bush. He may be the most powerful man on earth, running the most disciplined White House in recent memory, but when it comes to finding the source of the leak that has this town buzzing, he's as helpless as the rest of us, he says.

All he knows, he says, is what we know. Sometime in July two "senior administration officials" called a half-dozen journalists and leaked to them the identity of an undercover CIA officer. One, columnist Robert Novak, ran with the story and made that identity known to the public at large. For a public official to leak this information, it turns out, is a violation of federal law, and now the CIA is angry and the Justice Department is investigating.

The president is reportedly furious over the news. He hates leaks and wants to find out the source, he says, but his hands are tied. Without the reporters revealing who their source was, he's not sure the leaker will ever be found. "This is a large administration," he told reporters last week with a chuckle. . . .

How to find such a person? It turns out, the administration may have an ally in its hunt. The Patriot Act, the anti terrorism law this administration has fought for and defended, could be used. Viet Dinh, a former assistant attorney general and one of the act's architects, says, "The normal investigative tools contained in Title II of the act may well apply to a leak investigation, such as the voice mail subpoena authority or perhaps the electronic trap and trace authority." The question, he says, is whether the facts of the case will prompt its use.

Of course, the law has already been used in several cases that have nothing to do with terrorism - from white-collar crime to blackmail. All of which suggests that even if you don't like the Patriot Act (and many on the right and the left don't) it's hard to argue against its being used here.

This is a test for the Justice Department and this administration as a whole. Over the past decade, as the Clinton scandals swirled in this town, there has been one consistent theme: Denials aren't enough. Accusations demand investigation. If that was true in the case of an Arkansas landdeal gone bad, it is doubly true here, where the stakes are higher - the CIA officer is home, but the network of contacts she established is potentially compromised.

The president has run a tight ship for three years. His staff has been loyal and on message. If leaks really aren't to be tolerated, he has to do more than throw his hands in the air and say, "The press won't tell me." He needs to push the investigation further - no matter where it leads.

"Studies: 383,000 Missing Votes in Recall, Most in Punch Cards" -- AP story in USA Today, 10/10/03:

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) -- More than 380,000 ballots cast in the recall election did not have a valid vote on whether to recall Gov. Gray Davis, and most of them were made on punch card systems, according to two independent studies.

Even if the 4.6% of Californians whose ballots did not answer the recall question had voted against it, Davis would have lost. The recall passed by a margin of 10.8%, and Republican actor Arnold Schwarzenegger enjoyed a comfortable victory.

But California's anomalies could resonate nationwide, as counties scramble to modernize election equipment to qualify for federal funding in the 2002 Help America Vote Act.

In Los Angeles County, nearly 9% of people who cast ballots on punch card voting machines -- more than 175,000 ballots -- did not register a vote on whether to recall Davis, researchers said.

Voters either abstained from the recall question or disqualified their selection by voting both "yes" and "no."

"It's inconceivable that one in 11 people in Los Angeles went to the polls and did not cast a vote on the recall," said Henry E. Brady, professor of political science and public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, who conducted one study.

By contrast, almost every response to the recall counted in Alameda County, which uses an electronic touch-screen system. The 0.7% of countywide responses without an answer to the recall question were likely cast by absentee ballot using the optical scan method, said Alameda County assistant registrar Elaine Ginnold.

Harvard University research fellow Dr. Rebecca Mercuri, who conducted the other study, concluded that many of the 383,000 ballots that didn't answer the recall question had their selections erased by malfunctioning machines.

Alfie Charles, vice president of business development at Oakland-based Sequoia Voting Systems, which prints the punch cards for Votomatic machines, said the suggestion the machines were broken was "so far off base it has no credibility whatsoever."

"Some people clearly want to abstain to express their opinion," Charles said. "It's dangerous territory to analyze those numbers." . . .

The number of residual votes on punch card machines totaled 297,775, or 6.3% of the votes; the total on optical scan machines was 72,190, or 2.7%; and the total for touch screen machines was 13,181, or 1.5%. . . .

"They were playing with fire in this election, and it's a good thing the margins weren't close," said Mark Rosenbaum, legal director of the ACLU of Southern California. "I hope this puts to rest claims that these (punch card) machines have any place in a democracy."

"All the President's Votes?" -- Andrew Gumbel in The Independent, 10/13/03 (reproduced at commondreams.org):

Last November . . . [Georgia] became the first in the country to conduct an election entirely with touchscreen voting machines, after lavishing $54m (?33m) on a new system that promised to deliver the securest, most up-to-date, most voter-friendly election in the history of the republic. The machines, however, turned out to be anything but reliable. With academic studies showing the Georgia touchscreens to be poorly programmed, full of security holes and prone to tampering, and with thousands of similar machines from different companies being introduced at high speed across the country, computer voting may, in fact, be US democracy's own 21st-century nightmare.