1 Boring Old Man

Stephen Hadley is one of those people involved with Republican Administrations’ National Security teams since the Nixon days. He was with the Ford, Reagan, and Bush I Administrations. Notably, under Bush I, he was Assistant to Paul Wolfowitz in developing the 1992 Draft Defense Planning Guidance for then Secretary of Defense, Dick Cheney – the leaked plan that Bush I scrapped, but later was revived as the "Bush Doctrine" of preemptive war and evangelical democracy under Bush II. During the Clinton years, he had a variety of Washington jobs, including the National Institute for Public Policy (NIPP) that produced Rationale and Requirements for U.S. Nuclear Forces and Arms Control, a study that called for the development of mini tactical nuclear weapons to be used in conventional warfare. In other words, Stephen Hadley signed on in his twenties during the Nixon "Hawk" era, and never got off the bus.

In the George W. Bush 2000 Campaign, he was one of the Vulcans who advised Bush. Later, in the Administration, he was appointed Deputy National Security Adviser under Condaleeza Rice. He was in the thick of things in the campaign that led to the Iraq Invasion. Both he and Rice were members of the White House Iraq Group [Rove, Hughes, Matalin, Card, Wilkinson, Calio, Rice, Hadley, Libby, Gerson, the Rendon Group, and McClellan] who strategized the selling of the war. He was big on the story that Atta had met with Iraqis in Prague and wanted to use it publicly. And he was a strong proponent of the Niger Uranium story, trying to use it in speeches. In September 2002, he met with Nicola Pollari, the Italian Secret Service Chief who perpetrated the Niger Yellowcake and Aluminum Tube stories [knowing them both to be false]. Several days later, Hadley requested that they use the Niger story in one of the President’s speeches, but Tenet refused. Later, the Niger story appeared in President Bush’s State of the Union message as the famous "16 Words," but sourced to the British [who still said they believed it] presumably put there by Stephen Hadley. Powell removed from his U.N. speech [the one filled with other non-truths].

The March to War had begun, in spite of the U.N.’s Atomic Agency declaring the Niger story was a hoax. When Joseph Wilson published his NYT op-ed  on July 6th, 2003, the Administration went into high gear, and Stephen Hadley was at the center of the activity. As best I can tell, the organized plan was for Scooter Libby to leak the National Intelligence Estimate [which confirmed the prewar intelligence] and out Valerie Plame, Wilson’s wife as a C.I.A. Agent who had sent her husband on a boondoggle to Judith Miller of the NYT. But fate intervened. Richard Armitage spilled the beans to Robert Novak who got confirmation from Rove, and Rove extended the leak to Matthew Cooper[then immediately emailed Hadley]. Cooper got confirmation from Libby. Wilson’s article had come out as most of the White House principals were leaving on a trip to Africa, so there was a several day gap before they got down to business. On the 10th, Hadley met with Libby and Cheney, reporting that Valerie Plame had been declassified and that the N.I.E. was in the works. Rice had checked with the President for his nod. The next day, Rove reported to him on the Cooper call.

On the 14th, Novak’s article hit the Press, and the phones began ringing. On the 16th, columnist David Corn blew the thing wide open by suggesting that White House Officials and Robert Novak had outed a covert Secret Agent and had broken a law [enacted by Bush I]. In the immediate aftermath, the damage control efforts were palpable. George Tenet took responsibility for not "vetting" the State of the Union. Stephen Hadley made a series of mea culpa’s. He had added the "sixteen words" forgetting that Tenet had removed them previously, forgetting that the C.I.A. had sent two memos debunking the Niger story, failing to ever tell Rice of these memos. He felt shamed and offered to resign.

This story is not to be believed on any number of grounds. But suffice it to say that the best explanation is that they were in maximal damage control. The more likely truth is that in the campaign during the run-up to the war, Stephen Hadley and the Vice President’s Office were pushing all the shaky claims hard – the Aluminum tubes, the Atta meeting, the Niger Yellowcake story, and the Iraq/al Qaeda connection. When no WMD’s were found in Iraq and Wilson began to ask questions, they began a quick cover-up campaign. I now believe that Stephen Hadley was the center of that capaign – its coordinator. He had been one of the main forces in the intelligence cherry-picking, having met with provocateur Nicola Pollari. He had put Bush out on a limb with the sixteen words – and may have been the person who came up with attributing it to the British, since our C.I.A. wouldn’t validate the story. When Wilson began to make noises, Hadley dove into the riot control effort. I think that’s who Cheney referred to with "because of the incompetence of others." But then their riot control plan, outing Wilson’s wife, blew up in their faces. I don’t know if they didn’t know she was covert, or didn’t know that outing a covert agent was a felony, but whichever, David Corn threw them into desparation mode. Both Hadley and Tenet offered themselves up as culprits, but that didn’t work. Hadley offered to resign. No takers. And as Fitzgerald’s investigation proceeded, Hadley said that he thought he would be indicted. At the time, we all wondered what he thought he’d be indicted for. I would now say, for being at the center of the whole damn thing – the prewar campaign and the Plame/Wilson initiative.