Was the Joe Wilson Valerie Plame Affair a CIA Plot?

The National Ledger ^ | oct. 21, 2005 | Cliff Kincaid

[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.

[demkicker]

Its rather odd that Cannistraro, who in public conferences tried to convince the Americans of the dangers of the Iraqi nuclear threat, is now placing the blame for the false documents on the Italians.

As sure as the sun will come up tomorrow, Cannistraro has a big fat off shore account as payoff for his lies. If only it could be located....

[ravingnutter]

Sorry about that...I must have picked that up from the snippet of Fedora's thread that I linked. I've got so much info running through my head right now that I can't even think straight, LOL! It was the Niger Embassy in Rome.

[MizSterious]

They haven't "refused" to look at it from this angle. They're working with these people and are doing their best to cover up this angle.

[advance_copy]

It is kind of odd that (if you remember) the first strike against Iraq was a missile strike based on covert information where Saddam and his henchmen were. It came out that the missile strike "just missed him" and he escaped without harm.

I also remember how that miscalculated strike, recommended to the President by George Tenet, let the air out of "shock and awe". It also gave Hussein an opportunity to demand global attention in a taped address where he denounced the U.S.



Tenet addressing Cheney in the Oval Office just prior to the strike

Note how Tenet is the only one in the Oval Office not wearing his coat. Like Ronald Reagan, George Bush and Vice President Cheney honor the Oval Office and do not remove their coat while working there. Tenet's posture toward the Vice President does not look very respectful to me.

[Sacajaweau]

Time to look into nice Mr. Wilson's private business in Africa AND Swiss bank accounts.

I can't understand for the life of me why Wilson would say "the dates are wrong" on the forgeries. So, he must know the right dates on the real documents.

[demkicker]

Thanks for your interesting post. Do we dare hope that Fitzgerald unravels this conspiracy and blatant attempt to falsley blame the Bush administration? I'm praying he will exonerate those being framed by traitors in the CIA and that their identies will be disclosed.

I know its unlikely, but I can hope can't I?

[Sacajaweau]

Many Thanks!!

[ravingnutter]

There were three wives, his college
sweetheart, Susan Otchis, then Jacqueline (no one knows her last name) and then Valerie.

[blogblogginaway]

It should also be noted that when Valerie Plame offered up her husband to make the trip she said "THERE'S THIS CRAZY REPORT" about a purported deal for Niger to sell uranium to Iraq. It should also be noted the Senate Intelligence Committee found Wilson had made an earlier trip to Niger in 1999 for the CIA, also at his wife's suggestion.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A39834-2004Jul9.html

[marron]

Okay, these documents were forgeries. But they had to be based on "something" real or they wouldn't be useful. So were they MADE INTO forgeries????...just like Rathergate??

See post #63.

French Intel was investigating reports of uranium smuggling in Niger, and obtained documents that indicated it was happening. They asked their agent to obtain more documents, which he did with the aid of the Niger embassy. The new documents, though, were obvious forgeries, using signatures of people no longer in office. Obviously, the embassy officials would know who was and wasn't in office in Niger, as would French Intel for that matter.

The fake documents were passed to CIA. When, later, Bush mentioned uranium smuggling, the French and Wilson both announced that his comment was based on forged documents, forged documents that we know were commissioned and passed to us by the French and by Niger embassy people.

How would Wilson know about the fake documents, which were in CIA control?

This should smell to anyone like a setup.

Of course, there is more, in the fact that Iraq really had made overtures to the Niger government concerning uranium, and furthermore, this was no secret at all. Wilson knew it, but left it out of his public statements.

So the French (and perhaps CIA itself) used fake documents to discredit a story that was, after all, true. Iraq really had tried to obtain uranium from Niger. And, furthermore, when Libya "surrendered" after the Iraq war, and gave up its nuclear program, we found that its uranium had come, under the table, from Niger. Meaning that Niger and France were indeed involved in illicit uranium smuggling.

Which means the original French investigation of the affair was not for the purpose of uncovering it, but for the purpose of uncovering leaks and stopping them. Wilson's trip to Niger was part of this operation.

[syriacus]

A CIA Plot -- along with....

Only this time the CIA is on the record as getting this scandal rolling, by sending Wilson to Africa.

[STARWISE]

What is THAT supposed to mean? Goss is an experienced and credible official, with an impeccable reputation. There's never been a hint of impropriety connected to him, of which I'm aware.

He is a fine American patriot, and we're lucky that he's over at the CIA .. I just hope he's got a mega rotor rooter to flush out all the self-serving, unpatriotic dirty bureaucrats who've become ensconced in some of the sewers there over the decades. God bless him!

========================================

Porter J. Goss became Director of the Central Intelligence Agency on 21 April 2005. He served as the 19th Director of Central Intelligence from 24 September 2004 until 21 April 2005. Previously, Mr. Goss represented the 14th Congressional District of Florida for almost 16 years. He was chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence from 1997 until his nomination as DCI in August 2004. He served for almost a decade as a member of the committee, which oversees the intelligence community and authorizes its annual budget.

During the 107th Congress, Mr. Goss co-chaired the joint congressional inquiry into the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. He was the second Director of Central Intelligence to have served in Congress.

Mr. Goss was a U.S. Army Intelligence officer from 1960 to 1962. He served as a clandestine service officer with the Central Intelligence Agency from 1962 until 1972, when an illness contracted on duty forced him to retire. While in the CIA's Directorate of Operations, he completed assignments in Latin America, the Caribbean, and Europe.

After leaving the CIA, Mr. Goss and his family settled in Sanibel, Florida, where he was a small business owner and founded a newspaper. He was elected to the Sanibel City Council in 1974 and served there until 1983, including three years as mayor. From 1983 until 1988, Mr. Goss was a member of the Lee County (Florida) Commission, where he served as its chairman from 1985 to 1986.

Mr. Goss holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in classics and Greek from Yale University. He was born in Waterbury, Connecticut, on 26 November 1938. He and his wife, Mariel, have four children and 11 grandchildren.

=========================================

Want a job??

[syriacus]

How did Miller even know enough to inquire about Joe? He hadn't dropped his column yet?

Very good question.

[Enchante]

"then Jacqueline (no one knows her last name)"

Yes, I find it VERY suggestive that not a hint seems to have emerged of the full name of Jacqueline XXXXX, Joe Wilson's 2nd wife. I tried all kinds of web searches awhile back trying to find anything on her and couldn't. It may well be that she is a TRUE undercover agent (for French intel), unlike the faux agent named Valerie Plame. I still think there is the strongest prospect that if all were known to us it would turn out that this whole affair was a disinformation campaign of French intel to smear the Bush administration and discredit our Iraq policy. Everyone should remember that if the 'RAts here and abroad win this struggle the policies that are left vindicated (according to the MSM) are precisely the policies of EU socialist weenies like Chirac and Schroeder (yes, I know that Chirac is not an official socialist in EU terms, but in AMERICAN terms he is a socialist weenie). Joe Wilson is serving their interests, whether or not he is consciously working on behalf of French intel. The only question is whether he is a traitor or a dupe (of course, dupes can be traitors, too, but I mean that he may or may not have known that people feeding him certain info such as about the forged "Niger uranium" documents were working for French intel).......

[Marine_Uncle]

"I know that's not surprising given their biases, but it's still worrying that Goss and the WH so far have been totally unable to educate the media and the public about the real problems"

Problem is as you well understand Goss and the WH cannot make statements to the detriment of the CIA.
What we can hope for is Goss will continue to clean shop. We cannot expect the L/MSM to provide balance reporting. They are not in business to provide such a service. It's one thing to cover a story about catching a CIA double agent mole for instance and another to cover a corrupt CIA.

So I for one do not expect much truth to surface via. the L/MSM.

[maryz]

It would be very interesting to know just who in the CIA contacted the Justice Department with this!

[syriacus]

Joe Wilson's Perfidy


Joe wrote an op-ed and lied
Didn't care if Americans died
He sat on his tush
As he undermined Bush
And pretended wife Val was "inside."

Joe took the Islamicists' side,
When he said that the President lied.
Since the Times spread Joe's tale,
Please put them in jail
And, certainly, Joe should be **fried**.

[Ben Hecks]

The quote you use at #10 gets to the heart of the matter. This is the first time I have seen anyone confirm that Wison was not required to sign a confidentiality agreement prior to his trip to Niger (I would guess that this formality would include a security briefing before the mission and a debriefing after). This is, at best, sloppy administrative procedure and probably represents a violation of regulations.

[blogblogginaway]

Wilson has an apparent interest in gold mines. BTW - did you know uranium can be extracted from gold mines?

After only one year on the job Wilson decided to retire and go into the private sector because "we wanted to have kids, and felt that it had become very difficult ot live off two government salaries." He set up a consultancy, J. C. Wilson headquarters of the Rock Creek Corporation AN INVESTMENT FIRM OF WHICH LITTLE IS KNOWN. Wilson'g right-wing critics have been quick to dondemn the affiliation as "musk," though Wilson does not work for Rock Creek and merely rents space and facilities there. 'I HAVE A NUMBER OF CLIENTS, AND BASICALLY WE HELP THEM WITH THEIR SORT OF INVESTMENTS IN COUNTRIES LIKE NIGER," explains Wilson. "Niger was of some interest because it has some gold deposits coming onstream. WE HAD SOME CLIENTS WHO WERE INTERESTED IN GOLD.... We were looking to set up a gold-mine company out of London."

http://www.jimgilliam.com/2004/01/vanity_fairs_profile_on_joseph_wilson_and_vale rie_plame.php

[STARWISE]

WOW! What an extensive resource .. and what a lot of work. thank you, Fedora.