A new account of the CIA leak scandal rocking the White House suggests top US presidential aides were seriously concerned about a dissident faction inside the US spy agency that appeared to work even behind the back of the CIA director to debunk the notion Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.
The first-hand account, delivered yesterday by Judith Miller, a New York Times reporter at the center of the leak story, cast a new light on the byzantine world of Washington politics rife with political intrigue, backstabbing and career-ruining retribution for expressing an opposing view.
Miller spent 58 days in jail earlier this year for refusing to talk to a special prosecutor about her three 2003 interviews with Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney, whose name is often mentioned in connection with the illegal leaking to the media of the name of CIA operative Valerie Plame.
Her name was first disclosed in July 2003 by conservative columnist Robert Novak following her husband Joseph Wilson's mission to Niger the previous year, during which the former US ambassador to that African nation tried to verify reports that Iraq was secretly trying to purchase uranium ore there.
After failing to find any evidence of that, Wilson wrote a newspaper article, in which he accused the Bush administration of "exaggerating the Iraqi threat" in order to justify the war.
Miller said the article "appeared to have agitated Mr. Libby," who referred to Wilson as a "clandestine guy."
He added that the CIA "took it upon itself to try and figure out more" about the uranium allegations without informing either the White House or its own director, the journalist recalled.
All in all, Libby was concerned the CIA was engaged in a "perverted war" over the war in Iraq and resorted to "selective leaking" of information to drive its point home, according to the report.
He believed the CIA was "backpedaling on the intelligence leading to war," Miller said.
An Emirates flight from Dubai arrived at Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport yesterday afternoon, the first service of the airline since the US and Israel launched strikes against Iran on Saturday. Flight EK366 took off from the United Arab Emirates (UAE) at 3:51am yesterday and landed at 4:02pm before taxiing to the airport’s D6 gate at Terminal 2 at 4:08pm, data from the airport and FlightAware, a global flight tracking site, showed. Of the 501 passengers on the flight, 275 were Taiwanese, including 96 group tour travelers, the data showed. Tourism Administration Deputy Director-General Huang He-ting (黃荷婷) greeted Taiwanese passengers at the airport and
POSSIBILITIES EMERGE: With Taiwan’s victory and Japan’s narrow win over Australia, Taiwan now have a chance to advance if South Korea also beat the Aussies Taiwan has high hopes that the national baseball team would advance to the World Baseball Classic (WBC) quarter-finals after clinching a crucial 5-4 victory over South Korea in a nail-biting extra-inning game at the Tokyo Dome yesterday. Boosted by three home runs — two solo shots by Yu Chang (張育成) and Cheng Tsung-che (鄭宗哲) and a two-run homer by Stuart Fairchild — the triumph gave Taiwan a much-needed second victory in the five-team Pool C, where only the top two finishers would advance to the knockout stage in Miami, Florida. Entering extra innings with the game tied at four apiece, Taiwan scored
MISSION OF PEACE: The foreign minister urged Beijing to respect Taiwan’s existence as an independent nation, and work together to ensure peace and stability in the region Minister of Foreign Affairs Lin Chia-lung (林佳龍) yesterday rejected Chinese Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Yi’s (王毅) comments about Taiwan, criticizing China as a “troublemaker” in the international community and a disruptor of cross-strait peace. Speaking at a news conference on the sidelines of the Chinese National People’s Congress, Wang said that Taiwan has always been a territory of China and that it would be impossible for it to become its own country. The “return” of Taiwan to China was the natural outcome of the Chinese people’s resistance against Japan in World War II, and that any pursuit of independence was “doomed
One person was killed and another seven injured today when a tourist shuttle bus plunged 30m to 40m down a ravine in Nantou County, the Tourism Administration said. The bus is suspected to have suddenly accelerated out of control near the flower center of the Sun-Link-Sea Forest Recreation Area, a popular attraction during cherry blossom season. Of the eight onboard, a 66-year-old man was killed, four were seriously injured and three sustained minor injuries, including the driver. The Nantou County Police Department said it received a report of the incident at 12:15pm and dispatched seven teams to assist. All surviving passengers have been transferred
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