War, CIA discussed today on campus

Former ambassador says Iraq in "dire straights," faces civil war

By Katrina Garcia

& Kirstie Hettinga
The Collegian

In an exclusive interview with The Collegian editorial staff, former ambassador Joseph Wilson spoke about the current situation in Iraq, the revealing of his wife’s CIA identity and the decline of investigative journalism.

“I think the country of Iraq is in really dire straits right now,” Wilson said. “I think if I had to offer an objective view, gazing into my crystal ball, without any other sort of action being taken to prevent it, Iraq within the next half a dozen years will be in a multi-faceted civil war.”

Wilson said Iraq will be descending into warlord-ism, and “the various factions will be supported morally, politically and materially by neighbors in the region. And they will find they are being used as pawns in much bigger games being played for control of Iraq.”

Wilson said there needs to be some distinct changes in the American approach to Iraq, especially when debated in Washington.

“I think that the debate we had in the Senate and the House, which was a debate of slogans — whose slogan is better, ‘stay the course’ or ‘cut and run’ — was not only unproductive, I think it did a great disservice to the soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines who are out there dying in the name of our country every day. The idea of politicizing something that is an American activity and trying to make it fodder for partisan campaigns I think is beneath us.”

Wilson said what is needed now in Iraq is an exercise of troop-to-task ratio. He said he would look at tasks that keep soldiers largely out of harm’s way and would no longer have Americans in situations where they are unnecessarily killing Arabs.

Wilson also spoke about the role of the president and the secretary of state and how they should visit the country not only to exercise their power but gain support.

“To the best of my knowledge the president has not in any way exercised that leadership and the secretary of state stays about as far away from the region as she can,” Wilson said.

While Wilson is the former ambassador to Iraq, he has most recently been in the media due to his wife’s (former CIA agent Valerie Plame) outing as a CIA operative. Plame was identified as an agent in a 2003 syndicated column. Wilson and Plame said the leaking of Plame’s name was in response to Wilson’s criticism of the war in Iraq. The couple has since filed civil suit against Vice President Dick Cheney, Karl Rove and Cheney aide Lewis “Scooter” Libby.

“We believe Mr. Rove and Mr. Libby acted at the behest of the vice president of the United States,” Wilson said. “They’re the ones who leaked my wife’s name.”

Wilson said he believed his credibility would be attacked because of his article against the war, but he didn’t think it would go as far as it did.

“Neither Valerie nor I ever contemplated that this administration would actually compromise its own national security in a political vendetta against a citizen who was exercising his first amendment responsibility to petition his government for a redress of a grievance,” Wilson said.

Due to Plame’s success as an agent, Wilson said he didn’t think she or his family were at risk. Wilson said, “she was very good at what she did,” so he said he saw no reason “that they would drag family members into the public square. I never dragged Scooter Libby’s wife into a public square.”

As the media have played a dramatic role in Wilson’s personal life, he said he has seen changes in the industry as a whole.

“There is much more tendency of trying to be fair and balanced and so you get all sides of the story even if one side is nothing but hot air,” Wilson said. He added that there has been a “real assault” on investigative journalism.

“Ideology has crept into the way people do journalism,” he said.

New York Times journalist Judith Miller was held in contempt of court in July 2005 and jailed for failing to name a source she said had revealed Plame’s CIA status. Libby was later identified as Miller’s source.

Wilson said, “the idea that a senior U.S. government official would allow an American journalist to wallow in jail for 85 days rather than step forward and accept responsibilities for his action was cowardly in the extreme.”

Wilson also encouraged young people who are interested in pursing a career in foreign affairs to do so despite the current international political climate.

“Public service is a noble calling,” Wilson said. “I think that the next generation of diplomats and military officers will find the world a more dangerous place. But I have been in mostly dangerous places in my lifetime and I’ve survived to tell the tale and most of them will survive to tell the tale. It is clear to me that the next generation of military officers and diplomats, we need the very best we can muster, because it’s going to be very complicated, so I would encourage anybody to take the foreign service exam.”

Wilson will speak at today’s symposium, “War, Politics and the CIA.” The event begins at 9 a.m. with a discussion by Warren Strobel and Jonathan Landay, who were among the first journalists to raise skepticism of U.S. presence in Iraq. Wilson is expected to speak at 10:30 a.m.

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