By Dave Eberhart, NewsMax
Monday, Oct. 31, 2005

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While Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald found no evidence that a federal law meant to protect covert operatives was ever broken by Scooter Libby or other administration officials, some would have you believe otherwise.

Take, for example, historian Michael Beschloss who appeared on Sunday's "Meet the Press."

Beschloss complained that Bush has yet to apologize for his subordinates actions and that this matter is "a really serious thing."

Beschloss continued: "The act that was to protect the identities of secret agents actually was lobbied for by his father, after the death of a CIA agent whose identity was revealed. This is an administration, especially at a time of the war on terrorism, that would take very seriously a breach like that of national security. So until he gives us some idea of what he thinks about the offense, whether it's now or at the end of the investigation or trial, this is going to be a cloud that sort of lingers."

But the fact is no one has ever been charged with breaching national security, as Beschloss claims.

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William Safire of the New York Times, appeared later on "Meet the Press" with Tim Russert and hammered home the point: "[T]he most important single fact that emerged from the indictment [of Scooter Libby, the Vice-President's chief of staff – now resigned] is what was not in it.

"This whole thing started as an investigation of the violation of a law," Safire emphasized. "And the law that was violated was you must not deliberately out an agent who is undercover. And what the special counsel found is that law was not broken."

Indeed, at his October 28, 2005 press conference unveiling the five-count indictment against Libby, special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald took special pains to note, "We have not made any allegation that Mr. Libby knowingly, intentionally, outed a covert agent."

Furthermore, there was no allegation of any conspiracy to violate the federal law to knowingly divulge the identity of anyone working undercover for the Central Intelligence Agency – the law that was at the heart of the more than two-year inquiry that began not long after July 14, 2003, when Bob Novak wrote a syndicated column saying that former ambassador Joe Wilson was married to Valerie Plame, who was a CIA official.

Wilson famously went to Niger, apparently without White House portfolio, to sound out if Iraq's Saddam Hussein was in the uranium importing business, then went public in a NY Times op-ed defaming the intelligence that led the U.S. to war in Iraq.

Administration officials apparently sought to explain or discredit Wilson's finding by pointing out that his wife Valerie was a CIA official. The CIA bureaucracy was well known to have opposed President Bush's decision to hold Iraq accountable for failing to disclose its WMD program to UN officials.

At the time, Plame was outed by "leaks" from administration sources, Wilson claimed that Bush administration officials had violated a federal statute making it a criminal to out an agent.

Apparently, Fitzegerald found that claim to be nonsense. This law had its genesis in fire when a former CIA employee named Philip Agee wrote a tell-all book revealing the identities of several CIA employees, including agency station chiefs in foreign capitals.

It was the mid-70s when radicals around the globe were champing at the bit to dramatically show their opposition to America's Vietnam War.

On Dec. 23, 1975, Richard Welch, one of those identified by Agee and who had been working in Greece as CIA station chief, was murdered by a radical Greek terrorist organization called the 17th of November.

Largely as a result of Welch's death, the Intelligence Identities Protection Act (IIPA) of 1982 was enacted, making it a felony to knowingly divulge the identity of a covert CIA operative. It carries penalties of 10 years in prison and a $50,000 fine for each offense.

Serious business with serious potential consequences for sure, noted Safire, who added the caveat:

"But the most important thing is the whole basis of the political charge that came out of the CIA, which was desperate to try to cover up its own mistakes and its own huge failure in this case, this was an attempt by the CIA to get a Justice Department investigation of a law that had not been prosecuted in -- once, perhaps in 25 years.

"And everybody is walking around thinking, ‘Well, you see? There was a conspiracy to undermine or uncover an agent.' Well, there wasn't. It was not. And he [Fitzgerald] said it very clearly. And so I think we ought to keep that in mind. This was a cover-up of a non-crime."

Non-crime or no, Fitzgerald signaled at his press conference that he blamed Libby for stymieing the search for the truth by the grand jury:

"There are at least seven discussions involving government officials prior to the day when Mr. Libby claims he learned this information as if it were new for Mr. Russert and, in fact, when he spoke to Mr. Russert, they never discussed it."

Indeed, the indictment is all about Libby's recollections, listing the various conversations that had with government officials and other journalists before the conversations with journalists Matt Cooper and Tim Russert.

From the indictment:

"At the time of this [July 10, 2003] conversation [with Tim Russert], Libby was well aware that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA; in fact, Libby had participated in multiple prior conversations concerning this topic, including on the following occasions:"