Posted on 07/13/2005 3:28:51 PM PDT by Jean S
Please allow me to share with you some of the things I don’t know.
I don’t know what Valerie Plame’s status with the CIA was in July 2003 when Robert Novak wrote his column mentioning that she was an “agency operative” and had recommended her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, for a fact-finding trip to Niger. Was Plame a covert agent then? If not, how recently had she been a covert agent?
I don’t know.
I also don’t know what’s going on with The New York Times’ Judith Miller.
Since top presidential adviser Karl Rove and top vice-presidential adviser Lewis Libby signed strongly worded waivers releasing all reporters from any pledges of confidentiality, why hasn’t Miller testified? Does that mean her source was someone else who has not signed a confidentiality waiver?
I don’t know.
I also don’t know why Miller is involved in all this at all, since she never wrote a story about it. Was she some sort of “carrier,” as is now being theorized, and actually helped spread word of Plame’s identity?
I don’t know.
For that matter, I don’t know what Time magazine’s Matthew Cooper was doing either. Rove’s lawyer says Rove signed the waiver about a year and a half ago and has never changed it. Why was that waiver not acceptable to Cooper for 18 months and then, on the brink of going to jail, Cooper agreed to testify?
I don’t know.
I don’t know anything about the role the other journalists caught up in the case — Tim Russert, Walter Pincus and Glenn Kessler — played. Apparently on the basis of waivers signed by sources, they all gave information to special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald. What did they say?
I don’t know.
And of course I also don’t know what is happening with Novak. Given Fitzgerald’s aggressiveness in dealing with all figures in this case, Novak must have made some sort of accommodation. Did he testify? Refuse to testify?
I don’t know.
I also don’t know why many in the press, most notably The New York Times, were once so enthusiastic about the Fitzgerald investigation. On Dec. 30, 2003, the Times published an editorial headlined “The Right Thing, At Last,” which said, “After an egregiously long delay, Attorney General John Ashcroft finally did the right thing yesterday when he recused himself from the investigation into who gave the name of a CIA operative to columnist Robert Novak.” Why did the Times do that?
I don’t know.
And then, why did the Times change its position and condemn Fitzgerald who, the paper said, “can’t even say whether a crime has been committed.” Why would the Times say that, when it had once been so sure that a crime had been committed?
I don’t know.
I also don’t know about the actions of Joseph Wilson. For example, in his book, The Politics of Truth, he wrote, “The assertion that Valerie had played any substantive role in the decision to ask me to go to Niger was false on the face of it. ...Valerie could not — and would not if she could — have had anything to do with the CIA decision to ask me to travel to [Niger].” But later, the Senate Intelligence Committee, in its bipartisan report, said that “interviews and documents provided to the committee indicate that [Wilson’s] wife, a CPD employee [a reference to the CIA’s Counterproliferation Division], suggested his name for the trip. The CPD reports officer told committee staff that the former ambassador’s wife ‘offered up his name’ and a memorandum to the deputy chief of the CPD on February 12, 2002, from [Wilson’s] wife says, ‘my husband has good relations with both [Niger’s prime minister] and the former Minister of Mines (not to mention lots of French contacts), both of whom could possibly shed light on this sort of activity.’” So why did Wilson say his wife played no “substantive role” in it?
I don’t know.
I also don’t know why Wilson’s defenders accuse the White House of “smearing” him. What was the smear? Was it a smear to say that Wilson got the Niger assignment, at least in part, because his wife recommended him? If so, then the Senate committee “smeared” him, too. If not, what is the smear?
I don’t know.
And finally, I don’t know about Karl Rove’s public statements on the case. Last year on CNN, he said of Plame, “I didn’t know her name and didn’t leak her name.” Even if he hadn’t passed on Plame’s name — just mentioned her as Wilson’s wife — why not just say nothing, especially since the whole thing is under criminal investigation?
I don’t know.
The bottom line is, some of the most critical facts in the whole Wilson/Plame/CIA matter are just not known, at least not known by anyone outside of the Fitzgerald investigation.
But don’t worry. At least we can be sure that we will someday know them, right?
I don’t know.
York is a White House correspondent for National Review. His column appears in The Hill each week.
E-mail: byork@thehill.com
"I went to bed ready to accept the sanctions" for not testifying, Cooper said. But he told the judge that not long before his early afternoon appearance, he had received "in somewhat dramatic fashion" a direct personal communication from his source freeing him from his commitment to keep the source's identity secret.
He lied directly to the judge. I remembered the first reports were from reporters who had been in the courtroom and they breathlessly stated what he had told the judge.
Then out he came repeating it all at that bank of microphones, biting his lip and practically wiping a tear from his eye.
I will probably miss that Senate hearing next week. For once I'm glad. I don't think I could take it.
I have Pete Earley's "Confessions of a spy: The Real Story of Aldrich Ames" which I read when it came out, 1997, in front of me. There is no "references" by keyword section. But yeah.. Plame *might* have been on that list Ames gave to the Russians (their various "arsenal" programs).
Heck, I always wanted to know who MOTORBOAT was.
Notes to self: Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi, Statement on the Intelligence Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1997, May 22, 1996
That's not HER Who's who entry- that's Mr. Joe Wilson's.
You're wrong, of course.
The Wilsons were up to something with this Niger trip and if the sixteen words (which the British still stand by) had not been in the speech they would have found another hook to hang their hat on.
BTW, Wilson was in the media in the months following the SOTU speech and said not one word about any concerns he later claimed to have about the uranium aspect. The fact is, he lied about the context and scope of his trip completely. The President and his aides did not.
That's HIS Who's Who; and where do you see it says SHE was in Europe?
What Senate hearing?
Your link, the Kristof article, says Ames outed her before his arrest in '94. Then says she was compromised and brought home. But doesn't say when. At all. Presumably, just sometime after Ames was caught and the extent of his treason became known.
Ya got anything saying she was recalled in '94?
bump
Whoops - sorry about that - let me find my way back to the source. She worked for Joulware when Wilson was there. That's how they met.
All that I know is that I know nothing??????
I don't know
I do know.
It's the same issue as the hanging chads, how do they get Bush.
It's really that simple, it doesn't need to be written about and/or puffed up.
They can't win an election here without stealing it, they try to encourage the terrorists in Iraq to hold on and keep killing our soldiers; all the Rats want is to get back in power.
They are beneath contempt.
Lets think about this aspect for a minute....a couple of things come to mind. Who put the words in the speech? I don't recall all the reporting on this, but there was some contention about who did or did not approve those words. Also, there is the issue of the forgeries, that Wilson said he saw....long before they were in the hands of the CIA; then he said he "misspoke" about those. Top all that off with the Rockerfeller memo.....remember that one? The game plan to use intelligence information to undermine the president. When was the Rocky memo revealed? Who put those 16 words in the SOTU? Was this all a set up by a rogue group sponsored by/working for the DNC? I sure hope the results of this criminal investigation cover all these things. (And yes, I have my tin foil hat on) :-)
Cooper Details Rove Conversations About Plame
excerpt:
Cooper also said he would be testifying next week before a Senate committee on a federal shield law for reporters, a measure he supports. Although 49 states plus the District of Columbia have some form of protection for journalists' sources on the books, no federal law governs reporters' privilege.
"I also don’t know why Miller is involved in all this at all"
I would speculate that Miller and Cooper are Novak’s sources, and
Miller is protecting someone very important. Probably… <>
| "Miller recorded WHAT!..." |
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All good points, in particular Wilson using the forgeries deceitfully.
Even if Plame was in Europe when you suggest (and I don't see any proof to substantiate your contention) so what? That wouldn't in and of itself prove she was under cover. I lived in the DC area for years and knew many CIA and NSA employees, many of whom were abroad in various assignments, but they worked as bureaucratic stiffs, not undercover. Although I suspect Plame's main attraction to the CIA was "under the cover" if you get my drift.
It was 11:07 on a Friday morning, July 11, 2003, and Time magazine correspondent Matt Cooper was tapping out an e-mail to his bureau chief, Michael Duffy. "Subject: Rove/P&C," (for personal and confidential), Cooper began. "Spoke to Rove on double super secret background for about two mins before he went on vacation ..." Cooper proceeded to spell out some guidance on a story that was beginning to roil Washington. He finished, "please don't source this to rove or even WH [White House]" and suggested another reporter check with the CIA.
In 1997, Plame moved back to the Washington area, partly because (as was recently reported in The New York Times) the C.I.A. suspected that her name may have been on a list given to the Russians by the double agent Aldrich Ames in 1994.
If she wasn't a covert agent, then why was the White House initially outraged at the incident? Also, why has the investigation dragged on for TWO YEARS? You'd think that would be the first think the prosecuter checks out. If she wasn't a covert agent, the investigation would have ended quickly.
I gave you a link that said they brought her home in 1994.
Now where is YOUR proof that she was still in Brussels UNDERCOVER in 1997?
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