Posted on 09/02/2006 9:46:54 PM PDT by STARWISE
On July 14, 2003, a Robert Novak column in The Washington Post outed the CIA-agent wife of vociferous Bush administration critic, Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson. Thus was born the "Plame Affair" which quickly became a morality tale of how an out of control Bush Administration would do anything to justify its war in Iraq.
A mere three days later, journalist David Corn, summarized the allegations that would color reporting on the Iraq War for the next three years and eventually lead to the indictment of a top aide to the vice president for lying to a grand jury:
((((THE OLD DAVID CORN:)))"Now there is evidence the Bushies used classified information and put the nation's counterproliferation efforts at risk merely to settle a score. It is a sign that with the [Bush] gang, politics trumps national security."
Now we know the story is much more complicated.
In a book to be released next week, the same David Corn, of The Nation magazine and Michael Isikoff of Newsweek, reveal that the original leaker to Novak was actually a Bush administration insider who was opposed to the war in Iraq, but also suffered an irrepressible urge to gossip, then-Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage.
The reporting duo also reveal that when Armitage realized that he was the source of the leak, he came clean to Secretary of State Colin Powell.
Powell however, revealed the minimum amount of information possible to those outside the department. The State Department told the FBI of Armitage's role and informed the White House that they had given information to the FBI about the scandal, but nothing more.
The public learned nothing.
And as the investigation dragged on through 2004 and 2005, the Gallup Poll showed that a majority of Americans formed the opinion that Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, was deliberately outed by the Bush administration as an effort to silence him and discredit his claim that intelligence was twisted to justify the war.
Reflecting that view, Wilson wrote, "The conspiracy to destroy us was most likely conceived - and carried out - within the office of the vice president."
All along, Secretary of State Colin Powell knew that the facts were more complicated, yet he said nothing. And he had rather unflattering reasons for silence.
At the time, the relatively dovish State Department and CIA were struggling with the office of the vice president and the secretary of Defense for the primary role in shaping Iraq and Middle East policy.
Every day that the vice president was smeared with the Plame allegations strengthened Powell's hand in the Bush administration's internal struggle.
None of this changes the fact that the public presentation of intelligence was shaped to fit the decision to invade Iraq.
Nor does it preclude the possibility that Bush administration officials went too far in trying to punish Wilson. However, the previously hidden role of Armitage does reveal that, in Washington, easy morality tales - where the good guys and bad guys come prepackaged and clearly labeled - are often myths.
That sentence is very vague, of course. This set up seems so obvious I can't help think it must be anything but and that the fish haven't even started to fry. Unless you're dead on about Powell, that is. Maybe part of why I'm hanging back is because I can't hardly believe he'd be that stupid unless he was supposed to look that way for reasons we don't yet know.
They meant to say "askew," I believe.
It says that Powell gave the info to the White House, which was the honorable thing to do.
You are right, it doesn't say specifically what information was given to the White House, or what the White House would have been able to infer from it.
I generally consider Powell to be an honorable man, so will give him the benefit of the doubt until I hear further.
the infowarrior
"Liberal bent"?? How about "scumbag liberal Democrat mouthpiece"?
A hearty Amen to that.
A hearty Amen to that.
And Fitzgerald’s pal at the FBI is Comey, who has much the same characteristics.
None other than his very close friend, James Comey, who is now at the center of the case of trying to carry out a coup against Donald Trump.
Comey had been U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York before becoming Deputy A.G. In December 2003, he appointed his close friend and former colleague, U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald, to be the Special Counsel leading the investigation into the Valerie Plame leak ---- http://illinoispaytoplay.com/2012/11/24/patrick-fitzgerald-and-the-kabuki-dance-of-the-valerie-plame-thing/
Also a smoozy little report on the two characters: https://www.law.com/americanlawyer/almID/1202426694957/
Imagine that.
Nice find.
...And just as in this Plame case, Isikoff and Corn were the go-to reporters for FBI hit team.
bump
Everything old is new again.
Comey and Fitgerald also worked together in a trial involving the Gambino family...
and there were allegations of jury tampering there... the trial ended in a mistrial. Aw, shucks. How did that happen...
Weren’t the Clintons involved with the Gambinos? Oh, yeah, Tony Gambino was a friend of Roger Clinton.
Reports: Roger Clinton Took Gambino Money - ABC News
abcnews.go.com/Politics/story?id=121532&page=1
Fitzgerald went on to handle the Benevolence Intl [BIF] case... a muslim charity associatd with the Balkans that was the beneficiary donations from Micrsoft and its employees, and from other liberal companies....
BIF was also linked to HSBC, as is Comey.
Fitz takes the case to Chicago, to where BIF had moved its HQ, and makes a very easy deal with Enaam Arnaout, a BIF official, where he plead guilty to a non-terrorism charge. No doubt this relieved the many people associated with him who would not fare well were the terrorism charges followed through.
It amazed me for years how big terror charities cases like BIF ended up in Fitz’s venue while at the same time the Democrats were furiously defending the same bad actors ...
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