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 Wilsons 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 Departments Bureau of Intelligence and Research authored a memo that contradicts both of those assertions.
The former ambassador accused the White House of exposing his wifes 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 administrations 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 Wilsons charge of a smear campaign against his wife by Bushs chief political advisor. Cooper confirmed that Rover never mentioned Plames name and tried to steer him away from putting too much faith in Wilsons 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 Kerrys 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 agencys 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. Plames 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 years presidential election.
Officials in the administration should be applauded for blowing the whistle on the CIAs political activism and taking steps to refocus its attention on the urgent need for reliable intelligence in a post-9/11 world.
Here's another conspiracy theory:
Could it have been, that Plame, working within the CIA during the lead-up to the war in Iraq, was part of a conspiracy in the CIA to supply erroneous information on WMD, knowing full well, that not finding the WMD's once we were in Iraq, would greatly discredit the President? It now seems quite plausible.
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.
WOW!!!
This further explains why Miller refuses to testify that Plame was her "source".
Then how do we explain the statements of Clinton, Kerry, Daschle, etc. who all said that Saddam Hussein had WMDs in the last 1990s?
Jeff Gannon is an incredibly lucid and interesting writer. It is no wonder the dying socialist "mainstream" press went after him the way they did.
I know a lot of us were worried about CIA leaks leading up to and since the War in Iraq started....but I certainly didn't expect it to go this far...
What does Porter Goss do? Everyone is asking Bush if he will keep Rove even if there were no laws broken, if he "just lied"?
Maybe the media should be asking Goss what he will do about Plame-Wilson, even if SHE didn't break the law, can he trust her to continue in Bush's term....after all Joe Wilson is out talking not just about this supposed "outing",
but he is slamming Bush about going into Iraq at all. Therfore, we know he is still crying about the political aspect of going to war---and his wife is of like mind.
Maybe the Bush people need to turn the mics around and ask the CIA if they think it would be better to put Plame on "leave" until this is over, considering what we already know about her husband's lies.
So sorry for no specifics. You really have to watch what questions you ask in there. It is very easy to get the ear. Meaning, they will take your press pass from you if you push on certain issues. Timing is everything and this was not the proper time to bring up the question of "who".
So many possibilities, twist and turns. Just caught a Minute or two of Isakoff on H&C though I was busy putting my baby girl to bed. I thought I heard him say the prosecutor said this was about a criminal retaliation on a whistle blower. Did anyone else catch it? Are reporter allowed in the Grand Jury?
First: They all pretty much recanted that position during the 2004 Election.
Second: As I said, it is plausible and just a theory.
She was on leave for a year and only recently returned to Langley.
She'd be out just by answering questions before a grand jury that is bound to secrecy.
In the alternative, I can live with jailing the other reporters so she has company <g>
Bingo! I think your theory has merit and would make total sense.
If anyone was reading a newspaper during 2003-2004, it was a fact that liberals in the intelligence community were trying to damage the President, his foreign policy AND his re-election.
No wonder Porter Goss did a house cleaning when he got in there last September. Don't ya'll remember the whining from the press about it. Yea, their leakers got the ax.
I think the Whistleblower Protection Act would be as difficult to prosecute as the 1982 statute for exposing a covert agent. It is supposed to protect those who are go public with evidence of criminal activity. Wilson doesn't even come close with his flawed report. The SIC discredited him and his report.
Rush nailed it today. He said the MSM sees this story as one where they think they can earn-back their credibility.
It is also payback for the Time/Koran story where the press thinks the Administration snookered them.
This thing gets weirder on a daily basis.
The liberal left must be hiding something big!
Responsibility for the intelligence failures that culminated in the terror attacks of September 11, 2001 lies squarely on the shoulders of the CIA.
if your going to listen to air america...you should wear condoms in your ears like I do
Also known as the "CIA Insurgency".
Plame declines to answer any questions about her work at the CIA. She also says she won't talk about the scandal that has periodically gripped Washington since her cover as an employee in the Directorate of Operations at the Agency was blown two years ago. What she will say about her life is that things have been busyI have five-year-old twins. She just returned to work at the CIA last month, her husband says, after an eight-month unpaid leave taken at her own request. She goes out to Langley five days a week, he says, but only part-time.
Is that about the same time Porter Goss took over?
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