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Tuesday, July 19, 2005

Classified State Dept. Memo: "Hey, moron! Keep this secret, OK?"
Posted by Jill | 4:45 PM

The Wall Street Journal, a paper no one could accuse of being liberal, is reporting that the infamous State Department memo that was passed around Air Force One in the aftermath of Joseph Wilson's equally infamous column debunking the yellowcake/Iraq connection, indicated clearly that its contents were not to be shared:

A classified State Department memo that may be pivotal to the CIA leak case made clear that information identifying an agent and her role in her husband's intelligence-gathering mission was sensitive and shouldn't be shared, according to a person familiar with the document.

[snip]

News that the memo was marked for its sensitivity emerged as President Bush yesterday appeared to backtrack from his 2004 pledge to fire any member of his staff involved in the leaking of the CIA agent's name.

[snip]

The memo's details are significant because they will make it harder for officials who saw the document to claim that they didn't realize the identity of the CIA officer was a sensitive matter. Patrick Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor, may also be looking at whether other crimes -- such as perjury, obstruction of justice or leaking classified information -- were committed.

[snip]

The paragraph in the memo discussing Ms. Wilson's involvement in her husband's trip is marked at the beginning with a letter designation in brackets to indicate the information shouldn't be shared, according to the person familiar with the memo. Such a designation would indicate to a reader that the information was sensitive. The memo, though, doesn't specifically describe Ms. Wilson as an undercover agent, the person familiar with the memo said.

Generally, the federal government has three levels of classified information -- top secret, secret and confidential -- all indicating various levels of "damage" to national security if disclosed. There also is an unclassified designation -- indicating information that wouldn't harm national security if shared with the public -- but that wasn't the case for the material on the Wilsons prepared by the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research. It isn't known what level of classification was assigned to the information in the memo.


It looks like Fitzgerald is amassing evidence that's going to debunk the "playing dumb" tactic that the Administration has decided is its best bet. Isn't it interesting that the only way out for this bunch seems to be to look like blithering incompetents?
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