Posted on 10/05/2003 4:32:15 AM PDT by billorites
IF AMBASSADOR Joe Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame, was indeed a covert agent for the CIA (and not just an analyst), and if a Bush administration official did expose her, a 1982 federal law may have been broken and someone should pay. But considering the many ironies of this story, Wilson’s allegation that Bush’s administration “outted” his wife to punish him (by risking her death, implicitly) just doesn’t figure.
Wilson wrote a New York Times op-ed faulting the White House for suspecting that Iraq tried to buy uranium from Niger. (An ambassador in both the George H.W. Bush and Clinton administrations and a long-time friend of and former aide to Al Gore, Wilson admits he became anti-George W. Bush after the 2000 South Carolina primary. He is now a big supporter of John Kerry’s Presidential campaign.)
Irony No. 1: The Bush administration allegedly released the name of a CIA officer as political payback against the officer’s husband. Doesn’t the Bush administration need the help and high morale of the CIA right now to help prosecute the War on Terror? What would it have to gain by putting a CIA operative’s life in danger? One must assume the leaker knew he wasn’t endangering Valerie Plame’s life.
Irony No. 2: Columnist Bob Novak was the journalist who printed Plame’s name. Novak opposed the war against Saddam Hussein because he, like Wilson, did not believe Saddam had weapons of mass destruction that were a threat to the United States. Was Novak used by the administration? Was he callous about Plame’s safety?
Having worked for Novak for five years, I know him to be an exceptionally savvy journalist who doesn’t allow himself to be used as a pawn of any administration. He is a patriot who cares deeply about the safety of men and women defending our country, and he is a recent convert to Catholicism who takes ethics and human life seriously.
Novak explained in his Oct. 1 column how Plame’s name ended up in his July 14 column. After Wilson’s predictably anti-Bush New York Times piece appeared, Novak probed into the matter of why the CIA would want a Kerry supporter to go to Niger to investigate possible “yellowcake” uranium sales in the first place. Administration officials said the reason Wilson was sent was because his wife, a CIA officer, pushed for him to go.
Here’s where a law may have been broken by administration officials, but here is where it also is necessary to digest a few facts.
The fact that Wilson’s wife was a CIA officer is newsworthy, because it tells Americans that even after the massive intelligence failure of September 11, the CIA may be making decisions based on politics and personal ties instead of what’s best for the country.
Was former ambassador Joe Wilson the best person to send to Niger to search for uranium dealers? Maybe not, given his strong anti-Bush bias and the implausibility of thugs from Niger revealing anything noteworthy to an official ambassador who grandstands in the New York Times about his CIA connection. Why did the CIA not send a qualified investigator in Wilson’s place?
Secondly, it is important to realize this: Lots of people in Washington work at the CIA, and most of them are not glamorous secret agents whose lives would be endangered if their identities were revealed. In fact, columnist Maureen Dowd has revealed that Plame blabbed to Wilson about her CIA work around the time of their first kiss. She was apparently as casual as the administration about her “cover.”
In the 10 years I spent in Washington, I met three people who rather off-handedly told me they had done work for “Langley,” the Virginia neighborhood where the CIA is openly situated. When Novak called the CIA to confirm his sources’ allegation, he wrote, the CIA confirmed it but asked him not to print Plame’s name. The CIA did not say that printing Plame’s name would endanger her. Instead the official said it could make traveling overseas more difficult for her, Novak reported.
Here’s where a journalist makes a decision about motives: Is it likely that the CIA asked that Plame’s name not be printed because her life or health would be jeopardized as an analyst? Or is it more likely that the CIA is embarrassed that someone found out the politics and personalities behind its post September 11 decision making?
Irony No. 3: Who are the fiercest defenders of CIA operatives and fiercest critics of “freedom of the press” now? U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., Harvard officials, and the editorial pages of the liberal Washington Post and New York Times.
If a law was broken, whoever broke it should pay the price. But let’s not be naive and accept Joe Wilson’s tripe about the White House wanting to endanger his wife as payback for his criticisms. The more likely motivation is administration concern that even after the CIA fell down on the job before 9/11, it continues to take short-cuts in the War on Terror.
Bernadette Malone is the former editorial page director.
I've highlighted the interesting portions for you.
--That wasn't news to me. I had been told that — but not by anyone working in the White House. Rather, I learned it from someone who formerly worked in the government and he mentioned it in an offhand manner, leading me to infer it was something that insiders were well aware of.--
In otherwords, May didn't identify this person as a Democrat, as you stated.
You really aren't the sharpest knife in the drawer, are you?
Perhaps not, but at least I passed Reading Comphrension 101. I'm not sure that we could say the same thing about you.
Continuing on with Mr May's other comments...
--I chose not to include it (I wrote a second NRO piece on this issue on July 18) because it didn't seem particularly relevant to the question of whether or not Mr. Wilson should be regarded as a disinterested professional who had done a thorough investigation into Saddam's alleged attempts to purchase uranium in Africa. --
So, even Cliff May knew it was completely irrelevant to the article at hand that Valerie Plame's name and job status be mentioned.
Doesn't mean a crime was committed, still, though. There are several criteria that must be met, but if someone committed a crime, arrest them.
That still doesn't answer my question: if this guy is a Democrat (and you'd claimed he was), why is May protecting this guy? Why not name him, if 'everybody' knew that Plame was CIA?
I hope even you can see that it was Joe Wilson, and Joe Wilson alone, who revealed that.
No, what Wilson did was reveal to the world that he had been sent to Africa to investigate a possible uranium deal between Iraq and Niger. In his article, HE SOMEHOW FAILED TO MENTION THAT HIS WIFE WAS A CIA OPERATIVE.
To claim, or even hint, that he is somehow responsible for outing his wife is beyond the pale. As even Cliff May is willing to admit, Wilson's wife's CIA status had absolutely nothing to do with whether or not he might have had ulterior motives for criticising Bush.
As to charges the Wilsons may or may not face, I have confidence that if enough evidence is gathered to prosecute and convict it will be done.
You're still thinking of this in terms of politics. And as far as I'm concerned, that's irrelevant.
The only thing that matter here is that through either carelessness or malice, or a combination of both, a CIA operative's cover has been blown by a political official.
The CIA is simply not going to let this one lie. It CAN'T, because if it did, it'd be tantamount to admitting to its own agents that their covers can be blown at any time on the whim of some political hack. No one in their right mind would want to risk their lives under those circumstances.
Rove was apparently fired by Rob Mosbacher for planting a negative story about him with Novak back in 1992. Novak denied that it had been Rove who'd leaked the story, but the fact remains that Rove was indeed dropped from the Victory 92 campaign.
And as for Novak working with Robert Hanssen, well, all I can say is that I'm surprised that you hadn't heard about it if you'd worked for him before.
==============================================
Robert Novak, July 12th, 2001.
"Three and half-years ago, I reported that a veteran FBI agent resigned and retired after refusing a demand by Attorney General Janet Reno to give the Justice Department the names of top secret sources in China. My primary source was FBI agent Robert Hanssen."
==============================================
So, if you don't mind my asking, which newspaper or political organisation do you work for? :)
I'd hope you'd feel the same way.
If by RINO you mean a conservative that actually believes in both fiscal responsibility and accountability, then I'm guilty as charged.
Being a Republican means a hell of a lot more than just blindly accepting whatever our President tells us. Hell, this country was founded on the idea that we shouldn't take everything our leaders tell us for granted.
I'd have to refer you to an unsourced report on another thread (if I could find it).
I accepted it as likely, because of the Wilsons' highly politicized pattern -- even before the leaks -- and the sums they donated to the Gore campaign.
I was doing some searching down memory lane and after reading this thread thought it might be interesting to refresh your memory. Interesting where things appear to stand on this day.
Words like the "CIA" not taking this lying down does give one a pause for thought.
Thanks for the walk down memory lane. It appears that over two years ago some of us nailed this.
Your comments below, sum this mess up quiet well:
BAD NIGHT FOR THE GOP: LEWIS LIBBY COMES TO MARC RICH'S DEFENSE (after Clinton's pardon)
Posted by Just mythoughts to Liz
On News/Activism 10/29/2005 7:45:14 AM PDT · 63 of 83
Personally, I believe the President and the VP had every right and responsibility to know everything there was to know about Wilson, and by extension his woman. What appears to have happen is those selected to serve them did not know how to gather this intel themselves. Now I would like to know why NOT.
This idea that playing media games would garner intel just does not fly, and seems to me a one on one to the CIA head could have answered any and all of those questions.
Also seems that if in fact Val gal was the one who conjured up the recommendation to send her hubby to gather intel there should be some accounting for her in making that recommendation.
I have NO issue with the protection of these that serve US if in fact that is what they are doing, but this smells to high heaven of a covert plan to protect old Saddam, as well as elect a lying corrupt liberal to the presidency.
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