Turning Up the Heat
Judith Miller's jailing and Matthew Cooper's testimony could solve the mystery of the Plame case—and embarrass the Bush administration
By Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball
Newsweek
Updated: 11:26 a.m. ET July 9, 2005
July 6 - While New York Times reporter Judith Miller went off to jail today, the decision by another journalist, Matthew Cooper, to testify before a federal grand jury could increase the pressure on the White House in the nearly two-year long furor over the leak of a covert CIA operative’s identity.
In a startling turn of events, Cooper initially said in court today he was fully prepared himself to go to jail as well. Then, right after he had hugged goodbye to his young son on his way to day camp, he got a last-minute “communication” from his source giving him his direct and “personal” assurance that he was relieving Cooper of his pledge of confidentiality on matters relating to a Time article that identified Valerie Plame as a CIA official. Plame is the wife of Joseph Wilson, a former diplomat who made news when he said that, contrary to President George W. Bush’s assertion, Iraq had not bought uranium from Niger as part of its nuclear program. Bush had said in his 2003 State of the Union address that Saddam Hussein had recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa--citing this one of his reasons for believing that the Iraqi dictator had weapons of mass destruction. [...] Read the rest on the MSNBC website: http://tinyurl.com/b8r7n
© Virginia Metze
By Michael Isikoff and Mark Hosenball
Newsweek
Updated: 11:26 a.m. ET July 9, 2005
July 6 - While New York Times reporter Judith Miller went off to jail today, the decision by another journalist, Matthew Cooper, to testify before a federal grand jury could increase the pressure on the White House in the nearly two-year long furor over the leak of a covert CIA operative’s identity.
In a startling turn of events, Cooper initially said in court today he was fully prepared himself to go to jail as well. Then, right after he had hugged goodbye to his young son on his way to day camp, he got a last-minute “communication” from his source giving him his direct and “personal” assurance that he was relieving Cooper of his pledge of confidentiality on matters relating to a Time article that identified Valerie Plame as a CIA official. Plame is the wife of Joseph Wilson, a former diplomat who made news when he said that, contrary to President George W. Bush’s assertion, Iraq had not bought uranium from Niger as part of its nuclear program. Bush had said in his 2003 State of the Union address that Saddam Hussein had recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa--citing this one of his reasons for believing that the Iraqi dictator had weapons of mass destruction. [...] Read the rest on the MSNBC website: http://tinyurl.com/b8r7n
© Virginia Metze
Starmail - 10. Jul, 09:05
