Sorry to say it, but we told you so

It was back in July when we last wrote about the so-called CIA-leak investigation by Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald.

Fitzgerald had been looking into whether national security laws were violated when someone leaked the name of CIA officer Valerie Plame to columnist Robert Novak, but the case had dragged on for two years at great expense and was turning into a political football.

We wrote then, in July, …its high time for … Fitzgerald to say precisely what crimes he suspects occurred, along with some explanation to justify his investigation. This fiasco could quickly deteriorate to a disgrace if it turns out that an expensive, two-year, high-profile probe is likely to produce nothing, or say, some meager perjury charge.

Well, three months later, the prosecutor stepped forward and outlined his case for … you guessed it … perjury.

The target turned out to be Lewis Scooter Libby, the vice presidents chief of staff, rather than Karl Rove as was originally suspected, but the fact of the matter remains it was a simple perjury case.

Libby was charged with one count of obstruction of justice, two counts of perjury and two counts of making false statements. He faces 30 years in prison and fines of $1.25 million all because his testimony about several meetings that took place several years before was inconsistent with either his own notes or the testimony of other participants.

Forget about the difficulty of testifying fully and accurately about phone calls or meetings that occurred hurriedly more than two years beforehand. Forget about everything you know from your own experience about the unlikelihood of two people remembering any conversation the same way. Forget about the lack of any explanation as to why Libby would have lied about something that was not a crime.

Just remember this:

Fitzgerald was unable to assemble any evidence that anyone violated any criminal statute regarding national security when Plames name was revealed to reporters looking into allegations made by her husband, former ambassador Joe Wilson.

The reason there was no evidence of a crime is simple. It is not illegal to just say that someone works at the CIA. Rather, it is a crime to reveal the name of a covert operative under certain specific conditions. The difference is enormous.

A covert agents life and the lives of her associates could easily be put in jeopardy if their relationship to the CIA were revealed. But there are numerous people who work for the CIA who do so publically and for good reason. This is not a police state, after all. There is no secret police force, and there is no special privilege incumbent upon people just because they work for a particular agency.

The special privilege of anonymity is granted under special circumstances because of national security and personal security. That privilege was not in place for Valerie Plame, who was not a spy, but rather had been working behind a desk at CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., for the past six years at the time her name was revealed.

Some Democrats have argued that it doesnt matter whether Plame was a spy or not. They say that the perjury case is significant in itself because it demonstrates some kind of cover-up in the Bush White House regarding the build-up to the Iraq war. This theory has, in particular, been promoted by Plames husband, Joe Wilson, who when you look at it closely turns out to be at the center of the controversy from beginning to end.

It was Wilson who was sent to Niger in February 2002 to investigate allegations that Saddam Hussein had been trying to purchase uranium from the African nation. It was Wilson who then wrote an ambiguous report that neither confirmed nor denied the allegations, and it was Wilson who complained loudly when the president said in his 2003 State of the Union address that Saddam was a nuclear threat because he had sought to acquire uranium. He accused the president of lying, even though British intelligence maintains to this day that their reports were accurate.

It was also Wilsons complaints which eventually focused attention on his wifes role in the CIA, and the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence confirmed that it was Plame who had suggested her husband for the trip to Niger in February 2002.

If so, then the complaints about her name coming out later are really ill-considered. If a public official in the United States takes a role in establishing a policy or setting into motion a public investigation, then she cannot hide under some cloak of secrecy later. The publics business is done in public, and as soon as Wilsons trip to Niger became a subject of public debate, then the public had a right to know the full facts.

Whether we have ever had, or ever will have, the full facts from Wilson is debatable. Sen. Pat Roberts, the chairman of the Senate Select Committee, had this to say about him and his account of his trip to Niger:

The former Ambassador, either by design or through ignorance, gave the American people and, for that matter, the world a version of events that was inaccurate, unsubstantiated and misleading.

It is odd, therefore, that Scooter Libby faces the prospect of 30 years in jail over true statements he made in private with reporters about Wilson, while Wilson enjoys one more round in the media spotlight even though the statements he has made in public and on behalf of the public have turned out to be half-truths and worse.

Something is wrong with this picture. If it is not a disgrace, it is a crying shame.