Why this matters:

Pushing a war, punishing dissent

Seattle Times Editorial

President Bush's chief political adviser, Karl Rove, was part of the conversations that outed a covert CIA official in news accounts. After vigorously denying that was the case, the truth is known.

Special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, a U.S. attorney in Chicago, will determine if Rove broke any laws. Somebody else ought to be assessing Rove's capacity to handle classified information. He appears way too glib with secrets, but his comments had a purpose. Before this scandal is casually dismissed as the same old political mudslinging, remember the context of Rove's disclosure.

The White House was livid that former ambassador Joseph Wilson had the temerity to challenge the president's effort to promote the invasion of Iraq. Vice President Dick Cheney had requested the CIA to review reports Saddam Hussein was looking for materials in Africa to build nuclear weapons. In February 2002, the CIA asked Wilson to go to Niger.

In his January 2003 State of the Union address, President Bush claimed, "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

Six months later, Wilson wrote an op-ed article that said that wasn't so. He'd been there, and he discussed what he had not found. He went on to say other intelligence was being twisted.

This was all coming at a time when Saddam's supposed stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons were turning up missing and we learned his nuclear program effectively did not exist. Key points for selling the war were being laid bare, and Wilson represented an insider who knew the administration knew parts of the story were not so.

If the White House could not refute the facts of Wilson's charges, they could extract a personal and political toll. Wilson's article ran July 6, 2003, and Rove was on the phone chatting away days later.

Did he break the letter of the law? We'll learn soon enough. Did he use his position to confirm and spread information to smear and punish a dissenter? There appears to be no doubt.

Rove's continued employment at the White House is a matter for the president to decide. Bush's storied stock in loyalty may further insulate Rove from any accountability for his abuse of his security clearance.

As the political smoke roils thicker and higher, one cannot lose sight of the context for this episode. The administration had a war to sell, and it would not be deterred by the facts, dissenters or protecting the identity of a CIA operative.