Novak Leak Outs Cia Front Company Cia

Novak Leak Outs CIA Front Company

The CIA uses fictional or semi-real companies as fronts sometimes, and Ambassador Joe Wilson’s wife used one as a cover. Columnist Robert Novak’s irresponsible outing of her as a CIA operative has now led to her company also being outed. Since other agents have presumably used that company as a cover, as well, a great many field officers and operations may have been endangered by Novak’s irresponsible and vindictive actions. Even worse are the White House officials who leaked the information to Novak in the first place.

Many observers are saying that Bush should just ask whoever did the leaking to step forward and resign. The president is clearly disinclined to do this. It seems to me that if the individuals responsible were low-level White House staffers, they would be viewed as expendable. The only reason the president would essentially protect them by not asking them to step forward is that they are themselves actually high officials, or that they can implicate high officials. Bush needs Karl Rove to get reelected, and may not want to lose him. But of course, the question cannot be avoided of whether George W. Bush himself ordered Mrs. Wilson outed, in order to blunt the impact of Joe Wilson’s revelations that the story of Iraqi uranium purchases from Niger was bunkum. The longer the president declines to act, the more such doubts will fester.