Posted on 10/21/2005 9:44:44 AM PDT by blogblogginaway
The media version of the CIA leak case is that the White House illegally revealed a CIA employee’s identity because her husband, Joseph Wilson, was an administration critic.
But former prosecutor Joseph E. diGenova says the real story is that the CIA “launched a covert operation” against the President when it sent Wilson on the mission to Africa to investigate the Iraq-uranium link. DiGenova, a former Independent Counsel who prosecuted several high-profile cases and has extensive experience on Capitol Hill, including as counsel to several Senate committees, is optimistic that Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald will figure it all out.
DiGenova tells this columnist, “It seems to me somewhat strange, in terms of CIA tradecraft, that if you were really attempting to protect the identity of a covert officer, why would you send her husband overseas on a mission, without a confidentiality agreement, and then allow him when he came back to the United States to write an op-ed piece in the New York Times about it.”
That mission, he explained, leads naturally to the questions: Who is this guy? And how did he get this assignment? “That’s not the way you protect the identity of a covert officer,” he said. “If it is, then [CIA director] Porter Goss is doing the right thing in cleaning house” at the agency.
If the CIA is the real villain in the case, then almost everything we have been told about the scandal by the media is wrong. What’s more, it means that the CIA, perhaps the most powerful intelligence agency in the U.S. Government, was deliberately trying to undermine the Bush Administration’s Iraq War policy. The liberals who are anxious for indictments of Bush Administration officials in this case should start paying attention to this aspect of the scandal. They may be opposed to the Iraq War, but since when is the CIA allowed to run covert operations against an elected president of the U.S.?
DiGenova first made his astounding comments about the Wilson affair being a covert operation against the President on the Imus in the Morning Show, carried nationally on radio and MSNBC-TV. I wondered whether these serious charges would be refuted or probed by the media. Imus, a shock jock who has spent several days grieving and joking about the death of his cat, didn’t grasp their significance. But the mainstream press didn’t seem interested, either.
DiGenova told me he believes there has been a “war between the White House and the CIA over intelligence” and that the agency, in the Wilson affair, “was using the sort of tactics it uses in covert actions overseas.” One has to consider the implications of this statement. It means that the CIA was using Wilson for the purpose of undermining the Bush Administration’s Iraq policy.
If this is the case, then one has to conclude that the CIA’s covert operation against the President was successful to a point. It generated an investigation of the White House after officials began trying to set the record straight to the press about the Wilson mission. At this point, it’s still not clear what if anything Fitzgerald has on these officials. If they’re indicted for making inconsistent statements about their discussions with one another or the press, that would seem to be a pathetically weak case. And it would not get to the heart of the issue—the CIA’s war against Bush.
One of those apparently threatened with indictment, as Times reporter Judith Miller’s account of her grand jury testimony revealed, is an agency critic named Lewis Libby, chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney. Miller said that Libby was frustrated and angry about “selective leaking” by the CIA and other agencies to “distance themselves from what he recalled as their unequivocal prewar intelligence assessments.” Miller said Libby believed the “selective leaks” from the CIA were an attempt to “shift blame to the White House” and were part of a “perverted war” over the war in Iraq.
Wilson was clearly part of that war. He came back from Niger in Africa and wrote the New York Times column insisting there was no Iraqi deal to purchase uranium for a nuclear weapons program. In fact, however, Wlson had misrepresented his own findings, and the Senate Intelligence Committee found there was additional evidence of Iraqi attempts to buy uranium.
DiGenova raises serious questions about the CIA role not only in the Wilson mission but in the referral to the Justice Department that culminated in the appointment of a special prosecutor. At this point in the media feeding frenzy over the story, the issue of how the investigation started has almost been completely lost. The answer is that it came from the CIA. Acting independently and with great secrecy, the CIA contacted the Justice Department with “concern” about articles in the press that included the “disclosure” of “the identity of an employee operating under cover.” The CIA informed the Justice Department that the disclosure was “a possible violation of criminal law.” This started the chain of events that is the subject of speculative news articles almost every day.
The CIA’s version of its contacts with the Justice Department was contained in a 4-paragraph letter to Rep. John Conyers, ranking Democratic Member of the House Judiciary Committee. Conyers and other liberal Democrats had been clamoring for the probe.
DiGenova doubts that the CIA had a case to begin with. He says he would like to see what sworn information was provided to the Justice Department about the status of Wilson’s CIA wife, Valerie Plame, and what “active measures” the CIA was taking to protect her identity. The implication is that her status was not classified or protected and that the agency simply used the stories about her identity to create the scandal that seems to occupy so much attention these days.
But if the purpose was not only to undermine the Iraq War policy but to stop the administration from reforming the agency, it hasn’t completely worked. Indeed, the Washington Post ran a long story by Dafna Linzer on October 19 about the “turmoil” in the agency as personnel either quit or are forced out by CIA Director Goss. Like so many stories about the CIA leak case, this story reflected the views of CIA bureaucrats who despise what Goss is doing and resist supervision or reform of their operations.
Members of the press do not want to be seen as too close to the Bush Administration, but acting as scribblers for the CIA bureaucracy, which failed America on 9/11, is perfectly acceptable.
DiGenova’s comments might be dismissed as just the view of an administration defender. But his comments reflect the facts about the case that emerged when the Senate Intelligence Committee conducted an independent investigation. Wilson, who became an adviser to the Kerry for President campaign, had claimed his CIA wife had no role in recommending him for the trip, but the committee determined that was not true. Why would Wilson misrepresent the truth about her if the purpose were not to conceal the curious nature of the CIA role and its hidden agenda in his controversial mission? And who in the CIA besides his wife was behind it?
In this regard, Miller’s account of her testimony to the grand jury disclosed that Fitzgerald had asked whether Libby had complained about nepotism behind the Wilson trip, a reference to the role played by Plame. This is the line of inquiry that could lead, if Fitzgerald pursues it, to unraveling the CIA “covert operation” behind the Wilson affair. There may be rogue elements at the agency who are conducting their own foreign policy, in contravention of the official foreign policy of the U.S. Government elected by the American people. Like it or not, Bush is the President and he is supposed to run the CIA, not the other way around.
Fitzgerald has the opportunity to break this case wide open. Or else he can take the politically correct approach, which is popular with the press, and go after administration officials.
One irony of the case is that Miller is under strong attack by the left as an administration lackey when she didn’t even write an article at the time noting Libby’s criticisms of the CIA and the Wilson trip. Did her “other sources,” perhaps in the CIA, persuade her to drop the story? We may never know because she claims that she got Fitzgerald to agree not to question her about them. But what she did eventually report, after spending 85 days in jail, amounts to an exoneration of the Bush Administration. Libby, Karl Rove and others obviously believed they could not take on the CIA directly but had to get their story out indirectly through the press. They got burned by Miller and other journalists.
Goss’s CIA house-cleaning, of course, has come too late to save the administration from being victimized in the Wilson/Plame affair. Some officials could get indicted because of faulty or inconsistent memories. It is also obvious that liberal journalists are so excited over possible indictments of Bush officials that they are willing to overlook the agency’s manipulation of public policy and the press. But if the CIA has been out-of-control, subverting the democratic process and undermining the president, the American people have a right to know. If Fitzgerald doesn’t blow the whistle on this, the Congress should hold public hearings and do so.
June 23, 2003
Washington Lied
An Interview with Ray McGovern
By MARC PRITZKE
Editors' Note: Former CIA official, Ray McGovern, has leveled serious accusations at the Bush administration in connection with the war in Iraq. McGovern served as a CIA analyst for almost 30 years. From 1981 to 1985 he conducted daily briefings for Ronald Reagan's vice president, George Bush, the father of the incumbent president. The following interview originally appeared in Die Tagesspiegel, one of Berlin's largest daily papers. Imagine this appearing in the Sunday edition of the New York Times.
snip
This current administration had decided by September 2002 to make war on Iraq--five months before Secretary of State Colin Powell's speech at the UN. What was missing was the intelligence basis to justify the decision for war.
But the intelligence is still not conclusive. And in the case of the uranium Iraq was said to be seeking, it was based on forged documents.
That didn't make any difference. In retrospect, the train of thought in the White House at the time is clear: How long can we keep the forged documents from the public? A few months? In that case we can use the documents to get Congress to endorse war with Iraq and then wage it and win it before anyone discovers that the "evidence" was bogus.
In addition, the administration has very artfully taken advantage of the trauma of September 11. So, for example, al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein were always mentioned in the same breath, without any proof of a connection between the two.
More here...
http://tinyurl.com/al5r2
"So, she wasn't under cover. What's all this crap about some Brewster Jennings place where Plame was supposed to work? More hogwash?"
Apparent CIA front didn't offer much cover
By Ross Kerber and Bryan Bender, Globe Staff and Globe Correspondent, 10/10/2003
At first glance, 101 Arch St. seems like the perfect setting for a spy story: an elegant office building downtown with an upscale restaurant, lots of foot traffic, and a subway entrance to stage a getaway.
snip
considering how little work seems to have gone in to establishing the company's presence in Boston, intelligence observers said. While the renovated building houses legal and investment firms, current and former building managers said they've never heard of Brewster Jennings. Nor did the firm file the state and local records expected of most businesses.
Both factors would have aroused the suspicions of anyone who tried to check up on Brewster Jennings, said David Armstrong, an Andover researcher for the Public Education Center, a liberal Washington think tank.
At the least, a dummy company ought to create the appearance of activity, with an office and a valid mailing address, he said. "A cover that falls apart on first inspection isn't very good. What you want is a cover that actually holds up . . . and this one certainly doesn't."
Some in the real estate industry believe something was amiss, if not illegal. "It's almost like out of a spy novel -- the tenant that wasn't there," said Griffin, who once oversaw management of the tower. "And they picked a nice address."
One-On-One Interview With Ray McGovern, Former CIA Senior Analyst, Who Warns U.S. Headed Down A Fascist Road And Highly Critical Of President Bush and Neo Con Explanations OF WMD, 9/11 And Manipulation of Intelligence Gathering
McGovern says back in the 'old days' he told it straight,' an integrity trait sorely lacking at the CIA under the dogmatic Bush administration.
2 Jul 2005
By Greg Szymanski
Ray McGovern’s Irish eyes were smiling the moment he joined the CIA as a young, principled and energetic analyst during the Kennedy administration.
http://tinyurl.com/8scxh
I agree with this CIA covert ops theory. It can be cast in the context of the President pressuring the CIA for changes after 9/11. If the CIA "coverted" our President, it was done by a Democrat 5th column inside of the CIA.This jives with the fact that the CIA sent someone from outside the agency for the purposes of plausible deniability, and no report was written by Wilson. Who paid for the trip? So many questions! Where did Wilson's wealth come from??
The Dems can't beat us at the ballot box, so they are using the courts and the CIA to fight the President? Is the present cultural war between Liberals and Conservatives going to be America's next civil war ? The Dems have upped the anti in this dynamic. The president needs to find a way to put them down....hard. Maybe Fitzgerald will help him by indicting Wilson for espionage! ( Go baby go!)
Fitzgerald might have a very interesting array of indictments that include those who "sent" Wilson to Niger to perform what resulted in an act of Espionage against the United States.
Bump
"I think those forged documents were connected to France somehow."
That's what I heard - that French Intelligence forged them because Chirac wanted to embarrass Bush and Blair. A set of forged documents would "poisin the well" and cast doubt on all the previous intelligence that had been gathered regarding Saddam Hussein's attempts to purchase yellowcake from Africa.
On the other hand, I heard this rumor from someone who has close contacts with the CIA - so take it for what it's worth.
Yeah .. I had found that, too, in the frantic hunting months back. Nice segue, huh? Heard if Fitzgerald questioned him?
I suspect a Bill Clinton conspiracy. I hope Fitzgerald is able to uncover the entire nest of critters under those rocks he turns over.
Here we are back to why the WH and Tenet abrubtly retracted the SOTU statement. And this is the same Foley that testified that Bolton wasn't fit for the UN post...and that is the same Bolton who allegedly visited Miller in jail.
This woman is convinced Miller met Plame during the material collection for the book (can't remember the name of the book: one word? a verb?)
If perchance this woman is a FReeper I'd certainly like her to re-tell her conclusion.
Wilson, in connection with Gore and his Sorros allies, used his wife, Valerie to utilize the resources of the CIA to destabilize the Bush Administration. Valerie must have had friends of Clinton and the left embedded in the CIA; willing to set the conspiracy in motion. Like Rush said, the left can't win elections anymore. What they do is criminalize the opposition using "the Martha Stewart syndrome: You get these guys so backwards and forwards without a lawyer in there to keep track of things for you, and to keep your head straight four hours each time you go in, and it's like Martha Stewart. Martha Stewart's big mistake was talking to these people without her lawyer present. She was not convicted of what she was originally suspected of doing. She was convicted of lying to the FBI"
I know that this was not the boss of that terrorist investigator woman that was sniped by Malvo & kiddo coming out of Home Depot with her husband in Virginia.
This'll take me forever to research.
Note to self: big book deal for Miller if this is the same guy. She's the Jayna Davis of Tenet's situation.
Judith Miller book "GERMS".
She (Judith Miller) and her boyfriend Steven Rattner, also a Times reporter, became close friends of Arthur Ochs Sulzberger Jr., the son of the then-publisher of the Times, whose first job at the Times, starting in 1978, was also as a reporter of the Washington bureau. For several summers, Miller and Rattner shared a weekend house on the Eastern Shore of Maryland with Sulzberger and his wife, Gail. (Sulzberger would become publisher of the Times in 1992 in his own right.)
Still, it's a good thing if we can validate Miller's meeting Plame at CIA while she was composing 'Germs'.
Fairfax County Police Chief Tom Manger said that the killing of Linda Franklin, 47, Monday night outside a Home Depot store in a busy shopping center 10 miles west of the nation's capital was the work of the serial sniper, who has been linked to at least 12 shootings.
FBI officials confirmed Tuesday that Franklin was an FBI employee, an analyst at the Washington headquarters.
Franklin, 47, was an intelligence operations specialist in the Cyber Division at FBI Headquarters and had worked for the bureau for three and a half years.
ARLINGTON, Va. — Linda Franklin had beaten breast cancer, raised two children and a niece practically by herself and was expecting her first grandchild in just a few months. She was looking forward to moving this week into a bigger home.
Linda Gail Franklin, a 47-year-old analyst at FBI headquarters in Washington, DC, shot dead in the parking lot of Seven Corners mall, in Arlington, Virginia, in front of a Home Depot store.
Franklin was a cancer survivor and was recovering from a double mastectomy.(1)
Franklin worked at the FBI as an intelligence operations specialist in the National Infrastructure Protection Center at bureau headquarters. She had only worked for the FBI for 3 1/12 years. Before that, she taught in Department of Defense schools in Japan and Belgium in the 1990s after earning a bachelor of arts degree from the University of Florida's College of Education when she was 31.
I think sshe said the name of the book was "GERMS."
Aug 9, 2004:
During the interview, Mr. Russert was asked limited questions by Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald about a telephone conversation initiated by Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Cheney's Chief of Staff, in early July of last year. Mr. Russert told the Special Prosecutor that, at the time of that conversation, he did not know Ms. Plame's name or that she was a CIA operative and that he did not provide that information to Mr. Libby. Mr. Russert said that he first learned Ms. Plame's name and her role at the CIA when he read a column written by Robert Novak later that month.
Prosecutors, however, have a different account from Russert. The network has said Russert told authorities he did not know about Wilson's wife's identity until it was published and therefore could not have told Libby about it.
Libby has reportedly told Fitzgerald that he first learned of Plame's identity from NBC Washington bureau chief Tim Russert.
Libby has testified that he learned about Plame from NBC correspondent Tim Russert, according to a source who spoke with The Washington Post some months ago.
Ms. Miller said this about Libby and Wilson's wife at the June 23 meeting:
Soon afterward Mr. Libby raised the subject of Mr. Wilson's wife for the first time. I wrote in my notes, inside parentheses, "Wife works in bureau?" I told Mr. Fitzgerald that I believed this was the first time I had been told that Mr. Wilson's wife might work for the C.I.A. The prosecutor asked me whether the word "bureau" might not mean the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Yes, I told him, normally. But Mr. Libby had been discussing the C.I.A., and therefore my impression was that he had been speaking about a particular bureau within the agency that dealt with the spread of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. As to the question mark, I said I wasn't sure what it meant. Maybe it meant I found the statement interesting. Maybe Mr. Libby was not certain whether Mr. Wilson's wife actually worked there.
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