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Aide testifies Cheney helped effort to discredit Wilson
By Richard B. Schmitt, Times Staff Writer
5:27 PM PST, January 25, 2007
WASHINGTON -- Vice President Dick Cheney and his former chief of staff,
I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, were personally and actively involved in an
effort to spin news coverage and discredit a critic of the Iraq war
even before the fact that his wife was a CIA operative became public, a
senior White House official testified Thursday.
In the first insider account of how top officials reacted when
questions began to be raised about the intelligence used to justify the
war, Catherine J. Martin said that at one point Cheney dictated a
detailed list of talking points to be used by Libby and others in
making calls to reporters. Martin was Cheney's top media aide at the
time and is now deputy White House director of communications for
policy and planning.
Martin testified as a prosecution witness at Libby's trial on charges
of obstructing an investigation into how the name of a CIA operative
became public. The operative, Valerie Plame, is the wife of former U.S.
envoy Joseph C. Wilson IV. Wilson, who had written a government report
questioning White House claims that Iraq had sought nuclear weapons
material from the government of Niger -- a report that the White House
sought to discredit.
At the time Libby was questioned by federal agents, a grand jury was
investigating how Plame's identity was leaked to reporters.
Martin said she learned that Plame worked for the CIA after Libby
directed her to call the agency to get more information about a
fact-finding trip Wilson had taken to Niger in February 2002. Martin
said she quickly reported the information about Plame to Libby and
Cheney.
Martin's statements buttressed the testimony of two former government
officials who said earlier this week that they received urgent calls
from Libby in June 2003 asking about Wilson and the trip. Martin was
the third prosecution witness to tell the jury that she had told Libby
that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA before it was publicly revealed in
a syndicated column by Robert Novak on July 14, 2003.
Libby had told federal agents that he had first learned from
journalists that Plame was a CIA agent.
On the third day of the Libby trial, Martin offered a rare glimpse
behind the secrecy that has surrounded senior officials of the Bush
administration involved in making and managing Iraq war policy. She
described details of a White House media strategy, hatched at the
highest levels, which sought to rebut charges that Bush had misled the
public in his 2003 State of the Union.
In making the case for war, the president had asserted that Saddam
Hussein was seeking nuclear material in Africa. Wilson had found the
claim baseless and had asserted that Cheney had apparently authorized
his fact-finding mission.
Martin said Cheney personally dictated talking points to be used in
answering news media questions about Wilson's allegation that he had
authorized a trip to Niger. The talking points included information
from a secret National Intelligence Estimate.
The vice president ordered media aides to start tracking news coverage
closely, while Libby was directed to contact reporters.
At one point, Cheney gave a note card to Libby with information to give
to a Time magazine reporter covering the case, while Cheney and Libby
were traveling on Air Force Two on the way back from the christening of
an air craft carrier for Ronald Reagan in Virginia.
Martin also described how she discussed with Libby media "options" to
rebut Wilson that included a strategic "leak" to a handful of
reporters.
But Martin said that neither Cheney nor Libby had suggested that the
identity of Plame be divulged as part of the game plan. She said that
she had no knowledge of either actually doing so.
"I recall the vice president telling me to keep track of this story,
and keep track of the commentators who were continuing to write on this
story and talk about us," Martin testified. "We were paying attention
to 'Hardball' with Chris Matthews because he had been talking about it
a lot."
She described the reaction inside the administration as questions began
to be raised, starting in May 2003. At that time, The New York Times
described the Wilson trip to Niger but did not name him. The article
said the administration had engaged in a "campaign of wholesale deceit"
and suggested that Cheney was directly involved.
Martin said that Libby asked her to call the then-chief public affairs
officer at the CIA, William Harlow, to find out about the trip by the
then-mysterious former envoy.
"So I was saying, 'Who sent him? Who is this guy?' " Martin testified.
"I remember Bill Harlow saying his name was Joe Wilson, he was a charge
in Baghdad, and his wife works over here." Martin said she promptly
went to see Cheney and Libby with the news.
Wilson published an op-ed in The New York Times on July 6, 2003. The
same day he aired his concerns on the NBC program "Meet the Press."
Almost immediately, Martin said she was huddling again with Cheney
about how to respond to a surge in media inquiries.
"He dictated to me what he wanted to say," Martin said. The detailed
response covered eight separate points including a reference to a
sensitive intelligence community assessment. Martin testified that she
was "not sure if I could use that point" because she believed at the
time that the report was classified.
Later, she said she discussed with Cheney and Libby how she had learned
from Harlow that two network reporters were writing stories about the
case, and how Cheney ordered up Libby to call them personally,
including one that he made from his private ante room outside of
Cheney's office.
"I was aggravated that Scooter was calling the reporters, and that I
wasn't," Martin said.
The trial is expected to resume Monday with testimony from former White
House press secretary Ari Fleischer.
