BBC NEWS | Programmes | Newsnight | Miller 'sorry' for WMD inaccuracies
Judith Miller, the US journalist at the heart of the CIA leak probe, has apologised to her readers because her stories about WMD and Iraq turned out to be wrong.
The US journalist, who spent 85 days in prison over the summer before agreeing to give evidence to a grand jury investigating the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame, made the apology during an exclusive interview for BBC Newsnight.
She said: "I am obviously deeply chagrined that I ever write anything that turns out to be incorrect. I'm deeply sorry that the stories were wrong."
Ms Miller also confirmed that former senior White House aide Lewis "Scooter" Libby was one of her sources who revealed that Ms Plame was employed by the CIA.
It's a deeply troubling failure, because if we didn't know about Iraq, what do we really know about Iran, North Korea or Syria?
Judith Miller
She claims Mr Libby did not out Ms Plame as a covert agent, but as someone who worked for the CIA. Ms Miller said she assumed that Ms Plame was an analyst, not an operative.
Mr Libby denies any wrongdoing.
Sources
When pressed to confirm or deny that President George W Bush's senior adviser Karl Rove was another source, she declined to do so, saying: "I can't talk about the specifics of this case as I might be a witness in a criminal trial."
Although Ms Miller apologised for the intelligence being incorrect she defended her journalism saying she was right to publish and had done everything she could to verify the facts. She said: "I'm deeply sorry our intelligence community got it wrong.
"I am deeply sorry that the President was given a national intelligence estimate which concluded that Saddam Hussein had biological and chemical weapons and a active weapons programme."
Wider implications
She defended printing the stories, claiming she had checked claims about Iraq and WMD with independent experts and had included caveats within her stories about the sources for her information.
The journalist also voiced concerns about the implications of the failure of intelligence for the wider, so-called "War on Terror".
"I think it's a terrible failure, it's a shocking failure, it's a deeply troubling failure, because if we didn't know about Iraq, what do we really know about the programmes of Iran or North Korea or Syria or what al-Qaeda is up to?"
The full interview with Judith Miller will be broadcast by Newsnight on BBC Two at 2230 GMT on Wednesday, 30 November, 2005.
You can also watch the programme via Newsnight's website.
The US journalist, who spent 85 days in prison over the summer before agreeing to give evidence to a grand jury investigating the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame, made the apology during an exclusive interview for BBC Newsnight.
She said: "I am obviously deeply chagrined that I ever write anything that turns out to be incorrect. I'm deeply sorry that the stories were wrong."
Ms Miller also confirmed that former senior White House aide Lewis "Scooter" Libby was one of her sources who revealed that Ms Plame was employed by the CIA.
It's a deeply troubling failure, because if we didn't know about Iraq, what do we really know about Iran, North Korea or Syria?
Judith Miller
She claims Mr Libby did not out Ms Plame as a covert agent, but as someone who worked for the CIA. Ms Miller said she assumed that Ms Plame was an analyst, not an operative.
Mr Libby denies any wrongdoing.
Sources
When pressed to confirm or deny that President George W Bush's senior adviser Karl Rove was another source, she declined to do so, saying: "I can't talk about the specifics of this case as I might be a witness in a criminal trial."
Although Ms Miller apologised for the intelligence being incorrect she defended her journalism saying she was right to publish and had done everything she could to verify the facts. She said: "I'm deeply sorry our intelligence community got it wrong.
"I am deeply sorry that the President was given a national intelligence estimate which concluded that Saddam Hussein had biological and chemical weapons and a active weapons programme."
Wider implications
She defended printing the stories, claiming she had checked claims about Iraq and WMD with independent experts and had included caveats within her stories about the sources for her information.
The journalist also voiced concerns about the implications of the failure of intelligence for the wider, so-called "War on Terror".
"I think it's a terrible failure, it's a shocking failure, it's a deeply troubling failure, because if we didn't know about Iraq, what do we really know about the programmes of Iran or North Korea or Syria or what al-Qaeda is up to?"
The full interview with Judith Miller will be broadcast by Newsnight on BBC Two at 2230 GMT on Wednesday, 30 November, 2005.
You can also watch the programme via Newsnight's website.
posted by Jamie @ 5:28 PM
1 Comments:
At 8:45 AM,
Anonymous said…
From other blogs on stalling and Congress: France an Italy are already paying like Spain and whats going on in Germany now?
The stall may have alot to do with Congress ordering DOJ and Pentagon to report to CIA globally, including domestically(CIA always has a domestic mandate), as a result of Plame's possible indictment by DOJ. The problem is that it is a conflict of interest to investigate the CIA, which they are both required to report to domestically.
Plame's objective was to use the Niger trip and Wilson to blow covert WMD policy, Bush/Rice and her WMD degree, and CIA covert WMD schooling; which became mandatory for all CIA operations officers. She also sent alot of memos before the Uranium operation was used by her(it was a foreign intelligence penetration operation aimed at Bush and Rice). She was attempting to get others involved in what was, in fact a rogue operation. There were alot of memo leaks after she got peeved.
In addition to using a foreign intelligence operation aimed at US government leaders to get rid of WMD, she used her and Wilson'sconnections in Iraq to commit acts that called for an organized crime DOJ prosecuter like Fitzgerald to investigate after her 'Vanity Fair' article and admission to being a CIA operations officer. DOJ oraganized crime department handles bad CIA agents like Aimes, Howard, etc. Fitz passed and went after his true passions, politicians. He failed at his job and DOJ and Pentagon now report globally, incuding domestically, to CIA. This was done by Congress because Fitz failed at his job and to protect Plame from indictment. The answer afer Plame was protected was to leak the CIA prison story and ask DOJ to investigate. Its a conflict of interest
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