WASHINGTON, Sept. 7, 2006
Armitage On CIA Leak: 'I Screwed Up'
CBS Exclusive: Interview With Man Who 'Outed' CIA Agent Valerie Plame
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Play CBS Video Video Plame Leaker Breaks Silence Richard Armitage was the diplomat who leaked undercover CIA agent Valerie Plame's identity to columnist Robert Novak. He speaks to David Martin for the first time about the subsequent firestorm.
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Video Eye To Eye: Armitage Opens Up Only On The Web: Former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage tells CBS News' David Martin why he didn't come forward after leaking the identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame.
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Video Plame Sues Over CIA Leak CBS News RAW: Valerie Plame and her husband Joe Wilson discuss a civil suit they filed against Vice President Dick Cheney, Scooter Libby and Karl Rove.
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Former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage (GETTY)
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Interactive The Leak People and events surrounding the leak of a CIA officer's name.
"Oh I feel terrible. Every day, I think I let down the president. I let down the Secretary of State. I let down my department, my family and I also let down Mr. and Mrs. Wilson," he says.
When asked if he feels he owes the Wilsons an apology, he says, "I think I've just done it."
In July 2003, Armitage told columnist Robert Novak that Ambassador Wilson's wife worked for the CIA, and Novak mentioned it in a column. It's a crime to knowingly reveal the identity of an undercover CIA officer. But Armitage didn't yet realize what he had done.
So, what exactly did he tell Novak?
"At the end of a wide-ranging interview he asked me, 'Why did the CIA send Ambassador (Wilson) to Africa?' I said I didn't know, but that she worked out at the agency," Armitage says.
Armitage says he told Novak because it was "just an offhand question." "I didn't put any big import on it and I just answered and it was the last question we had," he says.
Armitage adds that while the document was classified, "it doesn't mean that every sentence in the document is classified.
"I had never seen a covered agent's name in any memo in, I think, 28 years of government," he says.
He adds that he thinks he referred to Wilson's wife as such, or possibly as "Mrs. Wilson." He never referred to her as Valerie Plame, he adds.
"I didn't know the woman's name was Plame. I didn't know she was an operative," he says.
He says he was reading Novak's newspaper column again, on Oct. 1, 2003, and "he said he was told by a non-partisan gun slinger."
"I almost immediately called Secretary Powell and said, 'I'm sure that was me,'" Armitage says.
Armitage immediately met with FBI agents investigating the leak.
"I told them that I was the inadvertent leak," Armitage says. He didn't get a lawyer, however.
"First of all, I felt so terrible about what I'd done that I felt I deserved whatever was coming to me. And secondarily, I didn't need an attorney to tell me to tell the truth. I as already doing that," Armitage explains. "I was not intentionally outing anybody. As I say, I have tremendous respect for Ambassador. Wilson's African credentials. I didn't know anything about his wife and made an offhand comment. I didn't try to out anybody."
That was nearly three years ago, but the political firestorm over who leaked Valerie Plame's identity continued to burn as Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald began hauling White House officials and journalists before a grand jury.
Armitage says he didn't come forward because "the special counsel, once he was appointed, asked me not to discuss this and I honored his request."
"I thought every day about how I'd screwed up," he adds.
Armitage never did tell the president, but he's talking now because Fitzgerald told him he could.
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See all 66 CommentsIf it is true that Alberto Gonzales, Patrick Fitzgerald, Colin Powell or even Bush himself, then they need to be held accountable for what they knew.
Of course, there is more to this then has been revealed and those involved will no doubt get away it.
Because that is the Republican way.
"I am sick and tired of the maintream media trying to discredit the Bush administration."
Exactly. After all, he's doing a good enough job on his own.
To soon we get old,
To late we get smart.
Uncle Sam!
Keep them fed and entertained,
and you Uncle Sam can do whatever you wish.
This is why more planes will fall. Our generation is a joke and are a bunch of mindless drones who think themselves educated because they read the New york times, watch guys like Dan Rather or Lou Dobbs, or believe that Fahrenheit 911 was a documentary. They say Iraq is a failure well it must be a failure, they say that Bush is stupid, well he must be stupid, they say Bush is a diabolical evil genius, we he must be that too, I have an ingrown toenail that is Bush's fault and global warming that is absolutely real beceause Al gore's movie said so and it is Bush's fault....
Our generation is unfortunately mostly a bunch of cowards who beleive the world problems should be solved in 30 minutes like a citcom. We do not have the stomach for war even when we lose 3000 people attacked on our shores....These guys are winning the war because they are using the liberal bush hating media to win our hearts and minds. *** near every islamic fascist over there hates us and they themselves are weapons of mass destruction...let them take a plane, a bus, a train, a bridge a tunnel...We could retreat from every place in the world and hide in our houses and they would follow us!
Why do I even talk, maybe a couple people will wake up, maybe some will even be mad enough to do research past the all knowing Google or Michael Moore, or Al Franken, or the NY Times ,ABC<NBC<CBS<CNN.
Probably not.
Have a great day
Jim
Fitzgerald shoud be fired, if not prosecuted himself for wasting lives and our tax dollars.
When are we all going to standup and refuse to except this kind of behavior from our government officials.
Valerie Wilson was a career undercover officer who was Chief of operations of the CIA's Joint Task Force on Iraq--part of the Counterproliferation Division of the agency's clandestine Directorate of Operations--who were mounting espionage operations to gather information on the WMD programs Iraq might have. The JTFI was trying to find evidence that would back up the White House's assertion that Iraq was a WMD danger.
So you see Cheney wanted us to find any rational possible to goto war with Iraq. When Wilson refuted Cheneys yellow cake lies he started smearing the Wilsons along with the rest of the GOP.
Since the get go, this whole story has been a ploy by Bob Novak to buffer his own ego, and secondarily to force more people to read his column; he knew from the beginning that the equally guilty demofrauds had nothing on him, but let the story work itself into an empty media frenzy. In a time when there are so many more important issues to cover, this is a sin in itself.
Everyone in the media should be ashamed for pushing this nothing of a story so hard on us.
Ooh, who leaked the name of Valerie Plame.. ask yourself: do you actually care? Why?
I'm never reading another Bob Novak column again.
Good Luck in November. With no ideas and no direction to a better future for America, the democratic party rips bush and offers no vision of where they would take us. They just tell us with perfect 20/20 hindsight what has failed without even having the ability to offer a better solution.
Perfect!!
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