After the White House complained about a “subheadline” in today’s New York Times — which read “White House Role Was Wider Than It Said” — Dana Perino announced that the paper would “retract that headline, and they are going to run a correction tomorrow.”

At today’s press briefing, the White House press corps bombarded Perino with at least 20 questions on the issue of whether the White House had previously acknowledged the involvement of other staffers in the destruction of the CIA tapes. Perino argued the Times story was “saying that I had misled the American public on this. And I have not. There is nothing I have said that has been contradictory.” Watch it:

Perino may not have been contradictory, but she has been evasive, repeatedly refusing to address the White House’s role. For example, when asked on Dec. 7 whether there was “any White House involvement in approving or commenting upon” the tapes destruction, Perino responded that she “couldn’t answer”:

Q: Was there any White House involvement in approving or commenting upon their destruction?

MS. PERINO: As I said, the President has no recollection knowing about the tapes or about their destruction, and so I can’t answer the follow-up.

In today’s briefing, CNN’s Ed Henry pointed out that the White House has privately been telling reporters that it was urging the CIA not to destroy the tapes:

In fact, right after the story first broke, people within the administration did say privately that, in fact, Harriet Miers had told the CIA not to destroy the tapes, and that that suggested that the White House, in fact, was saying, Don’t destroy. Now, this New York Times story is saying four people in the president’s or vice president’s inner circle actually talked to the CIA about it. So that does suggest a wider role.

Perino countered that she is “not accountable for all the anonymous sources that you turn up.” And yet, the media pursues anonymous sources because Perino continues to be evasive about the role of White House staffers in the destruction of the tapes.

UPDATE: Steve Benen writes that the White House response is missing the big picture: “After we learned about the torture tapes, the official White House line was that Bush’s lawyers urged the CIA not to destroy the videos. … And now the NYT has spoken to some officials who insist Bush’s lawyers actually did the opposite.”

UPDATE II: Dan Froomkin suggests, “The best indicator of how seriously this White House is involved in a political scandal may be how emphatically it refuses to comment.”

Last weekend, the Boston Globe’s Charlie Savage reported that the Bush administration was “pushing to take control of the promotions of military lawyers.” The plan, which was being driven by Pentagon counsel William Haynes, would have allowed “politically appointed lawyers in the Pentagon” to veto the appointment or promotion of any member of the Judge Advocate General’s Corps. Today, Savage reports that the Bush administration has dropped the plan after “retired JAGs loudly objected to the proposal.”

Last week, Rep. Ted Poe (R-TX) said on CNN that he did not believe that the gang rape in Iraq of former Halliburton/KBR employee Jamie Leigh Jones was “an isolated case of assault.” Poe then encouraged “other victims” to contact his office.

In his prepared testimony for the House Judiciary Committee today, Poe said that his office had been contacted by three women other than Ms. Jones about sexual assaults they sustained while working for KBR in Iraq:

Since Jamie has gone public with her experience, my office has heard from 3 other women. Of course, my office will furnish the names of these women to the Judiciary Committee if needed.

Poe named one of the women, Tracy Barker, “who says that she was sexually assaulted in Iraq by a State Department employee who still works at the State Department today.” ABC News identified the State Department employee as Ali Mokhtare, whom the Justice Department “declined to prosecute,” despite “a recommendation from the State Department that he be charged.

Regarding the other two women, Poe said that “they both report sexual assaults and sexual harrassment by their coworkers.” He also said that one of the women asserted that KBR not only protected an accused rapist, but also punished her for contacting Army MPs about the situation:

The 2 other women are also former KBR employees. They both report sexual assaults and sexual harassment by their coworkers in Iraq and neither woman has seen any federal law enforcement action. One of the women informed my office that she was molested several times and raped once by her KBR coworkers. When she reported the crime to her immediate supervisor, she was told that they would take care of it. She returned to work two days later and found her rapist working alongside of her. She panicked and called Army MPs, who escorted the rapist off of the base. However, she was subsequently fired. It seems that, unfortunately, Jamie’s case is not unique.

In her testimony today, Jones said that her job had also been threatened. KBR supervisors told her there was “no guarantee of a job,” either in Iraq or back in Houston, if she didn’t “stay and get over it.”

The Gavel has some video clips from the hearing here.

UPDATE: The Justice Department “refused to send a representative to answer questions” today, which Judiciary Chairman John Conyers (D-MI) called “an absolute disgrace.”

UPDATE II: Jamie Leigh Jones says she has been contacted by 11 other women who have also been assaulted by contractors in Iraq.

In early 2006, the U.S. strategy in Iraq began to shift from hunting bombs to hunting bombmakers. The focus on breaking up bombmaking networks, accompanied with “a broader counterinsurgency strategy this year,” has brought “casualties from the bombs” to “their lowest point since 2003, the first year of the war.” According to USA Today, the strategy “was ignored or rejected for years by key decision-makers,” like Vice President Dick Cheney, who “insisted the insurgency was dying”:

That plan and others mirroring the counterinsurgency blueprint that the Pentagon now hails as a success were pitched repeatedly in memos and presentations during the following two years, at meetings that included then-Defense secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Vice President Cheney’s chief of staff, Lewis “Scooter” Libby. [...]

Bush administration officials, however, remained wedded to the idea that training the Iraqi army and leaving the country would suffice. Officials, including Cheney, insisted the insurgency was dying. Those pronouncements delayed the Pentagon from embracing new plans to stop IEDs and investing in better armored vehicles that allow troops to patrol more freely, documents and interviews show.

In May 2005, Cheney declared to CNN that the insurgency in Iraq was in its “last throes.”

Digg It!

Ron Brownstein opens his latest column with what is, I think, a pretty powerful anecdote:

While the small crowd milled and munched, Suzanne Zilber, a local psychologist, spoke with passion about the prospect of electing the first woman president. She recalled that her daughter Charlotte, now 12, had been confused and disappointed when she saw only men as she looked through a sticker book about U.S. presidents a few years ago.

I think most people think it would be too crass to simply put “Hillary Clinton has ovaries” out there as a good reason to vote for her, but it’s hard to look at the gender gap in the primaries and not conclude that this consideration is, in practice, driving a lot of votes. What’s more, contemplating this anecdote I’d be hard-pressed to deny that it actually sounds like a reasonable good reason. I think the alternative choices are probably better, but this is a reminder that Clinton presidency, too, would be a unique and exciting opportunity in many ways.