[Mb-civic] CIA Article Sidebar: A Story of Deja Vu - Howard Kurtz - Washington Post Op-Ed

[William Swiggard]

CIA Article Sidebar: A Story of Deja Vu
Some Critics See a Plame Parallel

By Howard Kurtz
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 14, 2005; Page C01

Dana Priest, and her newspaper, are being hit from both sides.

Some conservatives are furious over her Washington Post story this month 
disclosing that the CIA has been hiding and interrogating terror 
suspects at secret prisons in Eastern Europe. And some liberals are 
angry that The Post agreed to a request by senior U.S. officials not to 
name the countries involved.

"We are being accused of being in the pocket of the administration," 
Priest says. "One student called me up from a Virginia university to 
tell me they were burning the paper at a protest, because we're 
complicit in torture."

With the House intelligence committee launching an investigation into 
the leak of classified information and the CIA referring the matter to 
the Justice Department, the controversy could mushroom into another 
Valerie Plame fracas. If prosecutors get involved, Priest could face the 
same dilemma that confronted Time's Matt Cooper and former New York 
Times reporter Judith Miller: whether to reveal confidential sources 
under threat of imprisonment.

"Judy Miller went to jail," said author and radio host Bill Bennett, a 
fierce critic of the Post story. "This woman might have to go to jail 
too. . . . The hypocrisy here is for the media establishment to say some 
great wrong was done to Valerie Plame, but where is the outrage about 
Dana Priest?"

Says Priest: "My overall goal is to describe how the government is 
fighting the war on terror, and that gets you right to the CIA. This is 
a tactic. People can read it and decide whether that's good or bad."

Leonard Downie, the Post's executive editor, says: "There was a lot of 
debate about every aspect of the story to make sure we were balancing 
legitimate national security concerns with informing our readers about 
important things that were being done in their name by the government. 
There were a number of discussions with senior U.S. officials, and we 
had a number of discussions in the office over several days with Dana 
and her editors."

Both the Nov. 2 prison story and the 2003 outing of Plame as a CIA 
operative relied on unnamed sources giving reporters secret information. 
In the Plame case, however, senior officials were trying to discredit 
White House critic Joe Wilson by focusing on the role of his wife in his 
inquiry into whether Iraq was trying to acquire nuclear material. Many 
on the left have cheered the resulting perjury and 
obstruction-of-justice charges against former vice-presidential aide I. 
Lewis "Scooter" Libby, and Democrats want a stepped-up congressional 
probe of the administration's prewar intelligence.

On the prison story, the unnamed officials -- U.S. and foreign -- were 
exposing an interrogation program that raises civil liberties concerns 
on the left. Many on the right are denouncing what they see as the 
damage to national security, and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist 
(R-Tenn.) -- who joined House Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) in 
demanding an investigation -- says he is more concerned about the leak 
than the secret prisons. Downie and Priest declined to comment on any 
leak investigation.

But others have plenty to say. John Hinderaker, an attorney and blogger, 
says on the Web site Power Line: "It would be a great thing if the 
steady stream of illegal anti-administration leaks out of the CIA and 
the State Department could be shut down, and some of the Democrat 
leakers imprisoned. It's time to put the Plame farce to a good use."

Bennett condemned the Post article on National Review Online as 
"irresponsibility at its highest," saying it would endanger Americans 
and their allies in the middle of a war. "It's the old question," 
Bennett says in an interview. "Whose side are you on?"

Peter Kornbluh, senior analyst at the nonprofit National Security 
Archive, calls Priest a "brilliant reporter" and says she and The Post 
deserve credit for "groundbreaking work," and "her sources deserve 
credit for being courageous, too." But he sharply criticizes the paper's 
decision not to name the Eastern European countries, two of which were 
later identified by the Financial Times and other news outlets, citing 
information from the group Human Rights Watch.

(continued)...
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/11/13/AR2005111301297.html?nav=hcmodule
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