In Full Bellow

Your comments provoke some thought.

As you pointed out, Wilson is a liar. He's also a diplomat. Why the heck was an ambassador sent on such an important investigation? An ambassadorial investigation into yellow-cake? Maybe a crack head would send an ambassador to investigate that. But someone in the CIA?

What crackerjack box did she get her decoder ring from? Did she give Wilson radiation training before sending him? Maybe a visit to an x-ray room or something? Or maybe a gold pen that writes really, really well? Did she give him a crash course in detective work? Did she even give him a mystery novel for practice?

I don't care if Rove spelled her name out over the phone. "V as in 'Viagra'. "A" as in albatross..." Wouldn't matter. As you pointed out, she's not an operative. In fact, she blew her own cover-- and that's if she even had a cover to blow, other than being a friend of the Clintons, as you pointed out. Not to mention, marrying a high profile diplomat wasn't the brightest career move for a member of the CIA, was it?

I guess it was love, which is fine, just not spy material, especially when she told Wilson she was a spy. Well, that's why not everyone's cut out for that kind of life. She certainly isn't.

One of my grandfathers, BTW, kept secrets to the day he died. The only clues he left were photos with some very interesting people in DC, and some of the things that slipped out when he was alive-- makes a person wonder. Was he an agent of some kind? I may never know. And your typical WWII vet kept secrets for decades, secrets of a very minor nature. Most of them would have been better field agents than she was, if she ever was.

My main concern is how many other blabber mouths work in the CIA? Scary thought. The female agents need their own, secret hair salon. Imagine what could be leaked, otherwise?

"Also .. it was common knowledge that Blair and Bill Clinton had a few sharp words at a cocktail party in London - in the run up to the Iraq war. Clinton told Blair that if he continued to support Bush, Blair was going to lose his election. Right after that the Niger affair blew up. I find that too coincidental not to be related."

Can't be emphasized enough. Good point. Also note that Dick Morris has been building up a new third party in England, that is anti-immigration. I like to think the best of Morris. But that makes me wonder. Is this new party going to ciphen the strong defense vote from Blair? I would imagine so.

"What if it was Hillary who plotted with Valerie to send Wilson on the trip to try to prove there was no yellow-cake - and thereby stop the war from happening ..??"

The root of that problem is, you can't prove something hidden isn't there. I challenge him to go to a single city block in any city throughout the world, and prove there isn't someone trying to buy yellow-cake there. Can't be done. Insanity. Not a single city block, let alone an entire country. Only a diplomat like him could have such delusions of grandeur.

"The other dust-up I remember was when Clinton made a trip somewhere and stopped off in London and had a "private" meeting with Blair; a meeting that was reported as "not very friendly"."

Blair used to be good friends with Clinton. But, like most FOBs, you can't be a schmuck forever, unless your name is Hillary.

The Wilson trip WAS A SCAM .. something Hillary is very good at. It was a trip to establish an anti-war stance - that there was no attempt by Iraq to purchase yellow-cake. There was no evidence that was true .. but since when has that stopped Hillary.

Proving that Iraq wasn't seeking yellowcake would be harder than ESP.

What's been interesting to me is that there is apparently a statement by Valerie to her husband that she is sending him specifically to scuttle the British story.

I was guessing .. and I had no idea I hit the nail on the head.

"...there is apparently a statement by Valerie to her husband that she is sending him specifically to scuttle the British story."

Really? If so, she has the stealthy subtlety of a New York cabbie, more of a disgrace to the CIA than I originally thought.

There is another possibility. It makes no sense to send a high-profile person like Wilson to ascertain the truth of whther or not Niger was selling uranium. Obviously, if the Niger government was involved in such deals they would not want it to be public knowledge and would deny it.

The normal procedure would be to send someone to Niger under cover, someone pretending to be a merchant or even better, someone pretending to be interested in buying uranium. One would get more realistic information that way.

However, if one had already determined that Niger was, indeed, selling urnaium, and one wanted to warn officials in that country that the jig was up, then sending a former ambassador, whom said officials knew, would make perfect sense.

I think Wilson was sent by Plame to warn the Niger officials. I think Niger DID sell the yellowcake. I think Wilson and Plame both were getting money from Iraq, and were busily involved in covering Saddam's tracks.

How's THAT for a tin foil theory? I demand Wilson be questioned about his associations in his consulting business, and that his bank account be scrutinized.

My theory also accounts for why Wilson didn't file a written report, by the way. And also why Tenet didn't know about the trip. It also accounts for the sudden resignation of Plame's boss, who has mysteriously disappeared from this story; I think he was eiither duped and incompetent, or in on the scam as well.

OMG - I don't think this is tinfoil at all .. I think you may have tapped into something.

I agree .. "if the Niger government was involved in such deals they would not want it to be public knowledge ...".

And I also agree it's possible that "... Wilson was sent by Plame to warn the Niger officials. I think Niger DID sell the yellowcake. I think Wilson and Plame both were getting money from Iraq, and were busily involved in covering Saddam's tracks." And .. I agree, in this situation, it would have been best to send a former Ambassador than an undercover person.

Wow! This Niger thing appears to be a hornet's nest. But .. isn't everything that Hillary touches ..??

And .. this info: "the sudden resignation of Plame's boss, who has mysteriously disappeared from this story; I think he was either duped and incompetent, or in on the scam as well.", is stunning info I did not know. I vote for the "in on the scam" - because it was well known that the Clinton leftovers were doing anything and everything to tar and feather the Bush admin - of course at the expense of America's security.

Well .. from the beginning I have suspected Hillary's involvement in this mess. Her long-time relationship with the Wilsons speaks volumes to me. I wouldn't trust the Wilsons for any reason.

I'll be surprised if Fitzgerald gets to the bottom of this - him being a democrat. I believe Hillary will apply pressure for him to cover up for any democrats involved. I could be wrong .. but Hillary's ability to control some democrats is well known.

Well .. Miss Marple .. I can see why you solved all those murder mysteries .. LOL!!

Why, thank you. I think I will post my theory on another thread which is getting more activity, and see what some other folks think. I'll give you a ping.

HAHA! I like your tagline!

Good day, CyberAnt. There is a superb piece of reportorial analysis linked here: http://.../1444263/posts?page=2. The two key paragraphs are:

Mr. Wilson's official role ended when he returned from Niger in March. The CIA didn't get the Italian forgeries until October. Mr. Wilson had no access to them. He either was making up what he told Mr. Kristof and Mr. Pincus, or he had received an unauthorized leak of classified information.
Mr. Novak (the journalist who outed Ms. Plame) hasn't revealed his sources. But a fawning profile of Mr. Wilson and Ms. Plame in Vanity Fair in January, 2004, offers a clue: "Wilson was caught off guard when around July 9 he received a phone call from Robert Novak who, according to Wilson, said he'd been told by a CIA source that Wilson's wife worked for the agency."

This is one of the most astute pieces of analysis that I've seen from a reporter to date, and it fills in a few more pieces of the puzzle. Who in the CIA was leaking classified info to Wilson? Could it have been Valerie? Maybe, although the wording of Novak's quote doesn't support that premise. Could it have been -- as other FReepers have suggested from the beginning -- that it was Valerie's former boss who quit the agency shortly after this story first broke? Hmmmm...all roads from every angle in this sure seem to lead back to the CIA.

Yes, I believe this is a Clinton leftovers in the CIA mess .. and I hope they get the total blame for it.

Thanks, I got the ping. I'm glad you did this because I think your theories have much merit.

Judith Miller - NY Times Interview

good one!!

Could minor Ambassador Joe Wilson himself have been the source in blowing his own Wife's cover?

It is distinctly possible, (though it may be unlikely that Joe Wilson himself directly was NY Times Judith Miller's source), since Joe Wilson himself evidently routinely bragged openly to strangers about her CIA employment, prior to such "cover" being "blown" in the press.

Here's an example of Joe's apparently routine and open bragging about Valerie being a "CIA agent," which became known directly to me over a year ago:

He certainly bragged about it per a famous and highly reliable source's (named below) account of his own face-to-face encounter with Amb. Joe Wilson prior to Valerie Plame's "outing" as a CIA agent/employee.

Based upon a personal conversation (we were in a small group eating; it was NOT an "off the record") I had with eminent historian Victor Davis Hanson (we were at a luncheon table together during a trip to Europe), it appeared entirely possible that Joe Wilson himself was the (or one source, if not the original one) possible source in revealing his own wife's status as a CIA agent or employee.

Victor Davis Hanson (Wilson presumably knew Victor Davis Hanson wrote regularly for NRO (National Review Online), had done OpEds for the Wall street Journal, and other publications, and had his own Website with a widespread following) said he (VDH) & Joe Wilson were both in the same "Green Room" before a televised debate-discussion on Iraq, etc. and Joe first warned the TV make-up person not to get powder on his $14,000 Rolex watch, then he bragged to Victor about several things (possessions and trips to Aspen, etc.), like his expensive car (I think it was a Mercedes), and then bragged about his beautiful wife who, Joe Wilson said (braggingly) was a CIA operative.

I asked Victor Davis Hanson Why he didn't write up this account.(?) He replied that Joe Wilson would probably simply deny it, since only he (VDH) & Joe Wilson were in the Green Room together before the broadcast.

However, it is now easy to surmise that Joe Wilson is a crass, materialistic, self-promoting, vain, egotistical, bragaddocio-opportunist, so this account is perfectly consistent with Valerie Plame's TWO photo shoots in Vanity Fair. (Or was it Vogue? No, probably too crass for Vogue, n'est pas?)