July 15, 2004: Novak: Intelligence Committee Democrats Vacillated on Report

Conservative columnist Robert Novak, who outed Valerie Plame Wilson’s covert CIA status in a column a year earlier (see July 14, 2003), regarding the recently released Senate Intelligence Committee report on the administration’s use of intelligence to justify the invasion of Iraq (see July 9, 2004), observes that its “most remarkable aspect… is what its Democratic members did not say.” Novak claims that committee Democrats do not dispute that Iraq tried to discuss purchasing yellowcake uranium from Niger. They did not agree to the report’s conclusion that Plame Wilson suggested her husband, Joseph Wilson, for a fact-finding mission to Niger, a conclusion that is false (see February 19, 2002, July 22, 2003, October 17, 2003, and Mid-July, 2004), but neither did they defend Wilson’s denials of his wife’s involvement. Novak writes: “According to committee sources, Roberts felt Wilson had been such a ‘cause celebre’ for Democrats that they could not face the facts about him.… Now, for Intelligence Committee Democrats, it is as though the Niger question and Joe Wilson have vanished from the earth.” [CNN, 7/15/2004]