Posted on 07/18/2005 5:56:59 PM PDT by ConservativeMajority
Much of the discussion this week about the latest disclosures in the alleged outing of a covert CIA agent will focus on an internal memo that detailed how former Ambassador Joe Wilson was chosen for a mission to Niger. The document indicated that Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame, “offered up his name” for the assignment to investigate claims that Saddam Hussein tried to acquire uranium from the African nation.
Wilson denied that Plame pushed him for the job and said that Vice President Dick Cheney asked him to go. An official who works for the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research authored a memo that contradicts both of those assertions.
The former ambassador accused the White House of exposing his wife’s identity to columnist Robert Novak in order punish him by destroying her career. Wilson had written an op-ed for the New York Times that criticized the Bush administration for continuing to suggest that Iraq had attempted to acquire the nuclear material when his investigation had uncovered no evidence to support it.
It appears that White House officials, who discussed Plame in the context of explaining how an outspoken opponent of the administration’s policy on Iraq was chosen, may have been unaware of her status with the agency. Time magazine reporter Matthew Cooper revealed that he brought up the CIA analyst to Karl Rove, which refutes Wilson’s charge of a “smear campaign” against his wife by Bush’s chief political advisor. Cooper confirmed that Rover never mentioned Plame’s name and tried to steer him away from putting too much faith in Wilson’s account.
Officials at the CIA tried to discredit the “smoking gun” memo and the news service that confronted Wilson about it in October 2003 in order to keep the White House on the defensive. They relied on a sympathetic recipient of previous leaks that cast the administration in a negative light for the disinformation effort. In December 2003, the Washington Post quoted an agency source as “challenging the accuracy” of the document, claiming that the meeting described could not have taken place.
Wilson too, continued his self-righteous charade of being a patriot instead of a partisan until July 2004 when the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence authenticated the memo and chastised him for his dishonesty. He was quickly dropped as a senior foreign policy advisor to John Kerry’s presidential campaign and disappeared from public view until last Thursday when Senate Democrats tried to strip Rove of his security clearance.
While Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald continues to sift through the testimony provided by administration officials and reporters, the role of the CIA officials in the Plame affair is the subject of an internal investigation. Some of those involved in the operation to undermine the administration have already been reassigned or forced to resign. When Porter Goss was named DCIA last year, sources friendly to the Washington Post complained that the new regime was running roughshod over the agency’s senior staff. Stephen Hayes wrote in the Weekly Standard in November 2004 of Goss’ efforts to stop leaks from the agency and the pushback he encountered from the entrenched bureaucrats he was charged to manage.
Clearly, Plame was part of the element within the CIA that actively worked against the Bush administration. The available evidence shows that it is likely she suggested her husband for the mission so that the agency would be assured of the anti-Bush results. The INR memo is the only evidence of the plot and the renewed focus on the document may bring this into public view. Additionally, the agency is in the untenable position of having to stand by its contention that Plame still had covert status, despite significant evidence to the contrary. Without that, any case involving violation of the 1982 statute protecting secret agents would collapse and confirm the political operation.
With the assistance of a sympathetic media and opportunistic Democrats, the CIA has portrayed a third-rate analyst as a James Bond in high heels and her husband as the definitive authority on transfers of uranium to terrorist regimes after an eight-day junket to Africa. Plame’s specialty was weapons of mass destruction proliferation, yet little of the information the agency possessed turned out to be accurate in terms of Iraq.
Responsibility for the intelligence failures that culminated in the terror attacks of September 11, 2001 lies squarely on the shoulders of the CIA. It had become dysfunctional and highly politicized by the end of the 1990s as the result of budget cuts and neglect. The extent to which it was a rogue agency is demonstrated by its attempt to influence the outcome of last year’s presidential election.
Officials in the administration should be applauded for blowing the whistle on the CIA’s political activism and taking steps to refocus its attention on the urgent need for reliable intelligence in a post-9/11 world.
what did Plame and Wilson know, and when did they know it.
Jeff Gannon, huh?
This is kinda scary, since I heard last week on everybody's favorite lib station, AirAmerica, that Rove got the information in "pillow talk" with Jeff Gannon....
NOW, out comes Gannon with this article....ewwwwwwwww!The libs are gonna love this!
the plame game continues
What are you doing listening to Air America and why do you help spread their smears?
I hope there is no picture rule for Gannon articles
Bingo.
This what is being investigated, you watch. Wilson and Plame are in deep shit.
I didn't see it, but I read that at the White House press briefing today, Helen Thomas said to another reporter something like "what? are you the new Jeff Gannon". The reporter must have asked a non-Rove question to McClellan. Then she asked McClellan something like "This case has been going on for two years and Bush hasn't asked Rove - What the hell is going on?"
I can accept that I may never learn the "person or group's names"; but some serious repercussions upon those persons should be fully enacted.
It sounds like that has already happened or continues to happen.
And if he had, that sleazy troll would be screaming about it not being proper to do. (Apologies to trolls, of cpourse.)
It appears that is not the case. As Rush observed, it's not 1972 and the liberals don't have a monopoly on the media. It looks like Porter Goss is kicking butt over at Langley.
Who is Judith Miller protecting?
Let me be the first to say; drip, drip, drip.......
Let me be the first to say; drip, drip, drip.......
I zip by that station during commercials of Rush, Hannity, Tony Snow, Laura Ingraham, that's what I am doing listening to that station...
AND, I find out what idiotic claims the libs are gonna come up with next...isn't it best to know what the other side is thinking?
As far as spreading it, I just thought it was ironic that I would hear that, and see this article by Gannon.
I am of the opinion that the freepers know me well enough, and are sophisticated enough to know that I was just passing on a funny irony.
Here is the exchange between Helen Thomas and Scott McClellan today:
Go ahead.
Q What is his problem? Two years, and he can't call Rove in and find out what the hell is going on? I mean, why is it so difficult to find out the facts? It costs thousands, millions of dollars, two years, it tied up how many lawyers? All he's got to do is call him in.
MR. McCLELLAN: You just heard from the President. He said he doesn't know all the facts. I don't know all the facts.
Q Why?
MR. McCLELLAN: We want to know what the facts are. Because --
Q Why doesn't he ask him?
MR. McCLELLAN: I'll tell you why, because there's an investigation that is continuing at this point, and the appropriate people to handle these issues are the ones who are overseeing that investigation. There is a special prosecutor that has been appointed. And it's important that we let all the facts come out. And then at that point, we'll be glad to talk about it, but we shouldn't be getting into --
Q You talked about it to reporters.
MR. McCLELLAN: We shouldn't be getting into prejudging the outcome.
Go ahead.
http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/07/20050718-2.html
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