Did the Bush Folks Out a CIA Agent?

[JPhillips]

This from a Monday column by Robert Novak on Ambassador Wilson:

Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction. Two senior administration officials told me Wilson's wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate the Italian report. The CIA says its counter-proliferation officials selected Wilson and asked his wife to contact him. "I will not answer any question about my wife," Wilson told me.


Now I don't tend to agree with much of what Novak has to say, but the guy is a good reporter who has great sources.

Now if the admin has outed a CIA agent as a way to punish Ambassador Wilson, this is outrageous and criminal. Wilson's wife can certainly no longer be of any use to the CIA now, and she and her overseas sources are now at risk. All of this to punish someone who spoke out.

I really hope someone takes the time to get to the bottom of this. Perhaps Novak didn't get the story right or the "senior admin officials" are just freelancing, but if this was a planned attack on Wilson and his wife, someone needs to go to jail. This is the most petty and vile counterattack that I have seen.

btw- for those wondering why Wilson's wife won't say anything, my understanding is that she could be prosecuted for revealing she is an agent.

[Fritz]

I hear there are aliens being hidden from us in Roswell New Mexico.

[JPhillips]

What the hell does that mean Fritz? This isn't a crackpot conspiracy theory. This is a report by a well respected conservative journalist suggesting that senior Bush oficials outed a CIA agent.

Normally I give your cracks great leeway, but you have really been cranky the last couple of weeks.

[CamEdwards]

Not a big deal.

She's not an operative. She's (according to Time) an official who moniters the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

By the way, "The Nation" is now referring to this as "Nigergate". Gimme a break.

Now, why aren't the media reporting that Wilson had a bone to pick with Dubya's administration from the beginning .

In fact, considering that Wilson never wrote a report about his trip to Africa... are we sure that he really went there? Sorry to break out the tin foil hat, but as partisan as this thing has become, it honestly wouldn't surprise me too much if Wilson never even paid a visit to Niger.

[Ryan S]

Without following (or even giving a shit about) this news story, it seems obvious to me that one thing is not clear.

We have no idea if the Ambassadors wife is working undercover, or if she is sitting in an office in Washington. I believe this, much like every other top news story, is just more political sniping bullshit.

Right now, I don't think anyone has done anything wrong.

[JPhillips]

Cam: I thought both the CIA and the admin admit that Wilson was sent on this mission. I know the OVP says that they never got the info from Wilson, but I have never heard the allegation that Wilson never even went. Even if he didn't, Ari admitted that the info was innacurate. Only after that revelation did the admin change the story to "technically accurate". Of course you could go with Blair's reasoning yesterday, that it is not beyond the realm of possibility that Saddam could have tried to get uranium from Niger. Of course its also not beyond the realm of possibility that Saddam has a secret ninja army led by Bruce Lee, who never died of course.

I know the media is fixated on the uranium stuff, but there really is a long line of questionable claims re Iraq.(Before you flame me, remember that I was actually in favor of dealing with Saddam, but was appalled at the methods of this administration.) There was the aluminum tubes claim. The unmanned aerial vehicles. The 45 minute attack frame. The connections to Al-Queda. And on and on.

It comes down to a policy that was planned shortly after 9/11 that needed intelligence to back that pre-planned policy. There is no doubt the intelligence was overstated to make the threat more imminent. For whatever reason the admin wanted a war in Iraq in the spring and was going to do whatever it took to get the American people to support that.

btw- I'd be interested in hearing how you defend Bush's latest claim that Saddam refused to let the inspectors in.

[Fritz]

Originally posted by JPhillips
you have really been cranky the last couple of weeks.

I think the same can be said for you.

Perhaps it has something to do with living on begal bites. Are you doing the same?

[cuervo72]

Originally posted by Fritz
I think the same can be said for you.

Perhaps it has something to do with living on begal bites. Are you doing the same?

Or maybe he's been repeatedly bitten by a beagle.

[JPhillips]

No to the begal bites.(are those processed begal meat?) I have just returned from my beach vacation back to working with high school kids.

[Fritz]

Originally posted by JPhillips
No to the begal bites.(are those processed begal meat?)

Exactly! I am a vegitarian with a weakness for morsels of prepackaged dog. This causes me great angst.

[JPhillips]

When my wife and I lost our jobs we decided that if we ever went a week without food it would be okay to kill and eat our cat!

[Fritz]

murderer

[JPhillips]

Well we haven't done it.

Yet.

[Critch]

Cats are cute and a friend for life. I suggest you and the cat kill and eat your wife if things get desperate.

[Fritz]

Originally posted by Critch
Cats are cute and a friend for life. I suggest you and the cat kill and eat your wife if things get desperate.

great plan! If you get caught, just cut a deal and testify against the cat. Getting life aint so bad when you are only going to live to 16.

[CamEdwards]

It's much for fun to debate the merits of cat as food than to rehash the same old political arguments, isn't it?

[JPhillips]

More on this from Newsday. It seems like Palme really was an undercover operative.

Washington - The identity of an undercover CIA officer whose husband started the Iraq uranium intelligence controversy has been publicly revealed by a conservative Washington columnist citing "two senior administration officials."

Intelligence officials confirmed to Newsday yesterday that Valerie Plame, wife of retired Ambassador Joseph Wilson, works at the agency on weapons of mass destruction issues in an undercover capacity - at least she was undercover until last week when she was named by columnist Robert Novak.

Wilson, while refusing to confirm his wife's employment, said the release to the press of her relationship to him and even her maiden name was an attempt to intimidate others like him from talking about Bush administration intelligence failures.

"It's a shot across the bow to these people, that if you talk we'll take your family and drag them through the mud as well," he said in an interview.

It was Wilson who started the controversy that has engulfed the Bush administration by writing in the New York Times two weeks ago that he had traveled to Niger last year at the request of the CIA to investigate reports that Iraq was trying to buy uranium there. Though he told the CIA and the State Department there was no basis to the report, the allegation was used anyway by President George W. Bush in his State of the Union speech in January.

Wilson and a retired CIA official said yesterday that the "senior administration officials" who named Plame had, if their description of her employment was accurate, violated the law and may have endangered her career and possibly the lives of her contacts in foreign countries. Plame could not be reached for comment.

"When it gets to the point of an administration official acting to do career damage, and possibly actually endanger someone, that's mean, that's petty, it's irresponsible, and it ought to be sanctioned," said Frank Anderson, former CIA Near East Division chief.

A current intelligence official said that blowing the cover of an undercover officer could affect the officer's future assignments and put them and everyone they dealt with overseas in the past at risk.

"If what the two senior administration officials said is true," Wilson said, "they will have compromised an entire career of networks, relationships and operations." What's more, it would mean that "this White House has taken an asset out of the" weapons of mass destruction fight, "not to mention putting at risk any contacts she might have had where the services are hostile."

Deputy White House Press Secretary Claire Buchan referred questions to a National Security Council spokesman who did not return phone calls last night.

"This might be seen as a smear on me and my reputation," Wilson said, "but what it really is is an attempt to keep anybody else from coming forward" to reveal similar intelligence lapses.

Novak, in an interview, said his sources had come to him with the information. "I didn't dig it out, it was given to me," he said. "They thought it was significant, they gave me the name and I used it."

Wilson and others said such a disclosure would be a violation of the law by the officials, not the columnist.

Novak reported that his "two senior administration officials" told him that it was Plame who suggested sending her husband, Wilson, to Niger.

A senior intelligence official confirmed that Plame was a Directorate of Operations undercover officer who worked "alongside" the operations officers who asked her husband to travel to Niger.

But he said she did not recommend her husband to undertake the Niger assignment. "They [the officers who did ask Wilson to check the uranium story] were aware of who she was married to, which is not surprising," he said. "There are people elsewhere in government who are trying to make her look like she was the one who was cooking this up, for some reason," he said. "I can't figure out what it could be."

"We paid his [Wilson's] air fare. But to go to Niger is not exactly a benefit. Most people you'd have to pay big bucks to go there," the senior intelligence official said. Wilson said he was reimbursed only for expenses.