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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Times, reporter in disagreement

Compiled from wire reports The Spokesman-Review

Washington In the latest fallout from the CIA leak investigation, reporter Judith Miller and the New York Times are engaging in a very public fight about her seeming lack of candor in the case.

In a memo to the staff, Executive Editor Bill Keller says Miller “seems to have misled” the newspaper’s Washington bureau chief, Phil Taubman, who said Miller told him in the fall of 2003 that she was not one of the recipients of a leak about the identity of covert CIA officer Valerie Plame.

Miller says Keller’s criticism is “seriously inaccurate.”

“I certainly never meant to mislead Phil, nor did I mislead him,” Miller was quoted as saying in a Times story Saturday.

According to a Times story on Oct. 16, Miller told Taubman two years ago that the subject of Bush administration critic Joseph Wilson and Wilson’s wife, Plame, had come up in casual conversation with government officials, but that Miller said “she had not been at the receiving end of a concerted effort, a deliberate organized effort to put out information.”

In recent weeks, Miller testified to the grand jury in the leak probe that she had discussed Wilson and his wife in three conversations with Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby in June and July of 2003.

Keller wrote that if he had known of Miller’s “entanglement” with Libby, he might have been more willing to explore compromises with the prosecutor who was trying to get her testimony for the criminal investigation into the leak of Plame’s identity.

Miller spent 85 days in jail for refusing to cooperate with Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald. She was freed on Sept. 29 when she finally agreed to testify.

Responding to Keller’s criticism, Miller told the newspaper, “I was unaware that there was a deliberate, concerted disinformation campaign to discredit Wilson and that if there had been, I did not think I was a target of it.”

“As for your reference to my ‘entanglement’ with Mr. Libby, I had no personal, social or other relationship with him except as a source,” Miller said.

Shelter conditions bring arrest of owners

Gamaliel, Ark. Two owners of an animal rescue operation were arrested after hundreds of dogs, some rescued from Hurricane Katrina, were found on the couple’s property groveling for food among urine and feces, authorities said Saturday.

Among the stench, sheriff’s deputies found one dead dog, another with a broken leg, and many with sores, Baxter County Sheriff John Montgomery said.

Between 400 and 500 dogs were on the two-acre lot, including 50 pit bulls rescued from Louisiana after the hurricane, Montgomery said. About 75 dogs were running loose, he said.

Some of the dogs appeared to be aggressive; others sat nervously in small metal cages.

“It’s very sad that people depend on this shelter to take care of their animals and you get here and see that the conditions are just unbelievable,” Montgomery said.

William Hanson, 41, and his wife Tammy Hanson, 38, were charged Friday with animal cruelty and released on $1,000 bond each. Messages left with the couple Saturday seeking comment were not immediately returned.

Massachusetts dam finished in a hurry

Taunton, Mass. Working in the rain Saturday, crews finished building a new rock dam and tore down the 173-year-old wooden one that had buckled after a week of heavy downpours and forced the evacuation of more than 2,000 residents.

The construction started Friday and was done Saturday evening.

“We prefer not to work this fast,” said Michael Nisslin, deputy chief engineer with the state Department of Conservation and Recreation.

But with more rain in the forecast, officials worried the Mill River could rise again to a dangerous level, Nisslin said.

The new dam spans 100 feet across the Mill River and is 25 feet thick. It connects to the concrete base of the old wooden structure, and is designed to slow the flow of water down the river.