Feline Warrior

How it came to this
July 31, 2005 ROVE

How it came to this: A timeline

February-March 2002: In response to concerns raised by Vice President Dick Cheney’s office, the CIA sends former diplomat Joseph Wilson to Niger to investigate reports that Iraq tried to buy uranium from Africa. Wilson reports to the CIA that he believes the allegations are “bogus.”

Jan. 28, 2003: President Bush’s State of the Union address includes this 16-word sentence: “The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa.”

July 6, 2003: New York Times op-ed piece by Wilson is published, beginning: “Did the Bush administration manipulate intelligence about Saddam Hussein’s weapons programs to justify an invasion of Iraq? Based on my experience with the administration in the months leading up to the war, I have little choice but to conclude that some of the intelligence related to Iraq’s nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat.”

July 8, 2003: Karl Rove discusses Valerie Plame’s CIA connection with columnist Robert Novak.

July 11, 2003: Rove discusses the same topic with Matt Cooper of Time.

July 14, 2003: In his syndicated column, much of which is complimentary to Wilson, Novak writes: “Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction. Two senior administration officials told me Wilson’s wife suggested sending him to Niger.”

July 17, 2003: Cooper writes in Time about Plame’s CIA connection. Neither Novak nor Cooper describes her as an undercover agent.

September 2003: At the request of the CIA, the Justice Department opens an investigation into unauthorized disclosure of the identity of an undercover CIA employee.

December 2003: U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald of Illinois is appointed special prosecutor.

July 2005: New York Times reporter Judith Miller goes to jail for refusing to testify before the grand jury. Cooper receives a waiver from Rove releasing him from his promise to maintain Rove’s anonymity as one of the sources with whom he discussed Plame’s CIA role.

From The Star Tribune, MN