<!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x3999711#3999844">www.democraticunderground...11#3999844</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--><br><br>flyarm (1000+ posts) Fri Jul-01-05 11:38 PM<br>Response to Reply #14 <br>40. i have this in my files from sept 28th 2003... <br> from my files no link that works from buzzflash..<br>mods i am printing what i have there is no longer a link!<br><br>Some Dare Call It Treason<br><br>A Story of Two Unidentified "Senior Administration" Officials Who Allegedly Betrayed the National Security of the United States: No Response from the White House, and No Coverage in the Mainstream Press.<br><br>A BUZZFLASH EDITORIAL<br><br>If David Corn, the Washington editor for The Nation is correct in his suspicions, two unidentified "senior administration officials" are guilty of betraying our national security. (see A White House Smear)<br><br>What is their crime against the people of the United States of America, if it is true? It would be an unforgivable treason: these two Bush administration officials allegedly revealed the identity of a CIA operative to conservative columnist Bob Novak, who printed her name in his syndicated newspaper column. (See The Mission to Niger)<br><br>The outing most likely rendered her future, present -- and much of her past work -- useless in helping to protect the people of this nation. What is the specialty of this alleged CIA operative? Tracking the trafficking of weapons of mass destruction.<br><br>This is a story that reveals an alleged act of cynical treason by at least two senior Bush administration officials. In a conversation that BuzzFlash had with Corn, a top-notch political journalist whose "Capital Games" column we link to frequently, Corn cautioned BuzzFlash that one can't ascertain if the CIA operative "outing" was approved by other administration officials, including Bush. On the other hand, Corn noted that the White House has not refuted the information in Novak's column. Furthermore, if the information is true -- and Novak told Corn that he stands by his sources -- the White House hasn't fired anyone or taken the first steps toward prosecuting the "senior administration officials" in question. If this is all some bizarre misunderstanding, then the White House should clear the allegations up right quick. But they haven't, according to Corn.<br><br>Yes, it is once again a probable Bush administration betrayal that is so horrifyingly ironic, hypocritical, cynical, and destructive that it is hard to comprehend. Two Bush administration officials allegedly render a CIA operative useless, whose specialty is providing valuable information on exactly the threat that the Bush administration continues to insist justified the invasion of Iraq: Weapons of Mass Destruction.<br><br>If Corn's analysis is true, which it appears to be, why did the two senior Bush administration officials betray the security of the nation and "burn" a CIA operative with expertise in WMD? For two reasons, apparently: revenge and intimidation. The revenge part is explained by the fact that the alleged CIA operative is the wife of Joseph Wilson, who was a former ambassador who revealed to the Washington Post that he had informed the CIA that the Niger uranium claims were probably fraudulent. The key point in his revelation was that he had revealed this long before the infamous State of the Union address that was riddled with lies and deceptions. The other reason that the Bush officials outed his wife (although Wilson would not acknowledge to Corn that his wife is a CIA operative, but would only speak in hypotheticals) was, he believes, to intimidate others, including CIA agents and intelligence officers, from coming forth with the truth.<br><br>If true, it's the latest, and most treasonous, mafia tactic that the Bush administration has been using to intimidate patriotic Americans: "Mess with us and we will have no compunction about betraying the national security. Our first priority is enforcement of loyalty to this administration and George W. Bush, not the nation. We will intimidate and punish anyone who is disloyal, whatever the costs to America's security. We will go as far as we need to go in achieving our objectives. If you think we won't do it because it will hurt national security, we will, if that's what it takes to protect Bush and carry out our objectives."<br><br>Yes, their message is that blunt. In an editorial we wrote about why the Bush Cartel was going to invade Iraq, we observed:<br><br><br><br><br>In the end the Bush Cartel is banking on making the kind of impression on the world that a thug makes with a baseball bat on a car. <br><br>It's all about image and firepower. It's how the playground bully establishes himself. Pick the weakest guy in the school -- the one nobody likes much anyway -- and beat the living daylights out of him. Keep all the kids nervous and on edge. Let them think that you are a little bit mad and might just beat up on them for the fun of it. Tell them that you will protect them from the gang that lives in the next neighborhood in return for their loyalty. Make an example of anyone who challenges your leadership by denouncing them and bloodying them up. Establish a system of stool pigeons. Rummage through lockers, at your will, for any signs of betrayal. Issue warnings from time-to-time about how you have information that the other gang has plans to rape your mothers and sisters, and lay waste to your homes -- and that is why you need to trust in the playground bully from your school, because he will protect your mothers and sisters from the gang that few have ever actually encountered.<br><br>(See Muscle Beach Party)<br><br><br><br>Outing a CIA operative who specializes in tracking the trafficking of WMDs, thus rendering her useless as a CIA operative is mindboggling unless you understand that the Bush Administration is run more like a mob outfit than an elected government loyal to the United States. After all, the true heroes -- of all people -- emerging from the Bush multiple-lie scandal are members of the intelligence community who value their professionalism and the integrity of their analysis. In essence, the Bush administration has made the CIA its enemy. According to a Guardian report , Bush or Cheney allowed Rumsfeld to put together an ad hoc "propaganda" intelligence unit (the Office of Special Plans) run out of his office for the purpose of giving skewed intelligence information that would justify a war with Iraq.Given the fact of an obsessive media focus on one 16-word lie in a sea of Bush administration lies, we asked Corn why he thought that the media wasn't picking up on his story at all? How could the print media, in particular, ignore a likely bombshell scandal about members of the Bush administration who destroyed the usefulness of a CIA intelligence officer specializing in the very issue that the administration claimed it went to war about? How could they pass over an alleged act of treason in the Bush administration that likely damaged our national security and hunt for WMDs, now and in the future?"I've been a journalist for 20 years in D.C., and I still can't predict what the media will pick up on," Corn told us. Still, the absence of mainstream media coverage about two Bush officials allegedly betraying our national security did leave Corn scratching his head a little. After all, he repeated, blowing her cover "undermined her past, present and future operations, which are all geared to protecting the citizens of the United States from Weapons of Mass Destruction."As for the perennial question of why the Democrats aren't demanding an investigation of the outing of the CIA operative by Bush administration officials, Corn told BuzzFlash, "I long ago stopped asking the question: 'Why didn't the Democrats do -- well, you can fill in the blank.'"BuzzFlash picked up the Chicago Sun-Times (a pro-Iraq war, pro-Bush Hollinger paper) on Sunday morning, July 20th, and its front page was almost entirely devoted to the sexual attack charges against Kobe Bryant, entitled "Kobe's Future In, On Court." The only other two items were: a large headline, "Catching Music Pirates: Is Your Kid Next?"; and a teaser headline for a story on the return of Scottie Pippen to the Chicago Bulls. That was it for the front page of the tabloid size newspaper.So let's get this straight: two senior Bush administration officials allegedly undermine our national security by publicly identifying a CIA intelligence officer whose specialty is WMD. In doing so, they betray our personal safety and they betray the CIA. The American media, with the exception of David Corn's column in "The Nation," however, believes that such a story doesn't have "news value." But full court press coverage, with multiple articles on Kobe Bryant's "little problem," is worthy of page one treatment.It's not only the two Bush administration officials who appear to have betrayed America by rendering a CIA operative useless; the media has enabled their alleged treason by not probing the "burning" of a CIA operative and exposing the truth -- one way or the other -- to the light of day. Yes, some dare call it treason, but you won't see it on the nightly news -- and that's a form of treason in and of itself. <br><br>flyarm (1000+ posts) Fri Jul-01-05 11:45 PM<br>Response to Reply #40 <br>45. from my files sept 29th 2003 <br> <!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A14399-2003Sep...">www.washingtonpost.com/ac...2003Sep...</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--> <br><br>snip:<br><br>washingtonpost.com <br>Media Review Conduct After Leak <br>CIA Inquiry Leads to Questions About What Should Be Published <br>By Howard Kurtz<br>Washington Post Staff Writer<br>Monday, September 29, 2003; Page A04 <br><br><br>When syndicated columnist Robert Novak reported on July 14 that "two senior administration officials" had told him that the wife of a prominent White House critic did undercover work for the CIA, it barely caused a ripple.<br><br>Former U.S. ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV talked about the leak in interviews and at the National Press Club soon after, telling Newsday the message was "that if you talk, we'll take your family and drag them through the mud." Nation writer David Corn called the leak a "thuggish act," and New York Times columnist Paul Krugman called it a "criminal act." After Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) called for an investigation, the New York Times, Washington Post and Buffalo News ran inside-the-paper stories.<br><br>But it was not until this weekend's reports that the CIA has asked the Justice Department to examine the matter that the story hit the front page of The Washington Post and the Sunday talk shows, sparking questions not just about White House motives but about media conduct.<br><br>Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Project for Excellence in Journalism, said Novak was in "dangerous territory. . . . Journalists should apply a civil disobedience test: Does the public good outweigh the wrong that you're doing? In a case where you are risking someone's life, potentially, or putting someone in danger, you have to decide what is the public good you are accomplishing. Because you have the freedom to publish doesn't mean it's necessarily the right thing to do."<br><br>Novak, a veteran conservative whose column appears in more than 300 papers, is well connected in the administration, although he opposed the war in Iraq. He declined yesterday to discuss the issue in detail, saying: "I made the judgment it was newsworthy. I think the story has to stand for itself. It's 100 percent accurate. I'm not going to get into why I wrote something."<br><br>Fred Hiatt, editorial page editor of The Washington Post, one of the papers that published the July 14 column, said that "in retrospect, I wish I had asked more questions. If I had, given that his column appears in a lot of places, I'm not sure I would have done anything differently. But I wish we had thought about it harder. Alarm bells didn't go off. . . . We have a policy of trying not to publish anything that would endanger anybody."<br><br><br>'The world is a dangerous place to live in, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.' Albert Einstein<br> <br> Alert Printer Friendly | Link | Reply | Top <br> flyarm (1000+ posts) Fri Jul-01-05 11:47 PM<br>Response to Reply #45 <br>47. The Deadly Serious Crime Of Naming CIA Operatives <br> sorry again article us too old for link to work..<br><br>here is john dean on the plame leak...from my files..<br><br><br>The Bush Administration Adopts a Worse-than-Nixonian Tactic:<br>The Deadly Serious Crime Of Naming CIA Operatives<br>By JOHN W. DEAN <br>---- <br>Friday, Aug. 15, 2003<br>On July 14, in his syndicated column, Chicago Sun-Times journalist Robert Novak reported that Valerie Plame Wilson - the wife of former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, and mother of three-year-old twins - was a covert CIA agent. (She had been known to her friends as an "energy analyst at a private firm.")<br>Why was Novak able to learn this highly secret information? It turns out that he didn't have to dig for it. Rather, he has said, the "two senior Administration officials" he had cited as sources sought him out, eager to let him know. And in journalism, that phrase is a term of art reserved for a vice president, cabinet officers, and top White House officials. <br>On July 17, Time magazine published the same story, attributing it to "government officials." And on July 22, Newsday's Washington Bureau confirmed "that Valerie Plame ... works at the agency on weapons of mass destruction issues in an undercover capacity." More specifically, according to a "senior intelligence official," Newsday reported, she worked in the "Directorate of Operations undercover officer."<br>In other words, Wilson is/was a spy involved in the clandestine collection of foreign intelligence, covert operations and espionage. She is/was part of a elite corps, the best and brightest, and among those willing to take great risk for their country. Now she has herself been placed at great - and needless - risk. <br>Why is the Administration so avidly leaking this information? The answer is clear. Former ambassador Wilson is famous, lately, for telling the truth about the Bush Administration's bogus claim that Niger uranium had gone to Saddam Hussein. And the Bush Administration is punishing Wilson by targeting his wife. It is also sending a message to others who might dare to defy it, and reveal the truth. <br>No doubt the CIA, and Mrs. Wilson, have many years, and much effort, invested in her career and skills. Her future, if not her safety, are now in jeopardy. <br>After reading Novak's column, The Nation's Washington Editor, David Corn, asked, "Did senior Bush officials blow the cover of a US intelligence officer working covertly in a field of vital importance to national security--and break the law--in order to strike at a Bush administration critic and intimidate others?" <br>The answer is plainly yes. Now the question is, will they get away with it?<br>Bits and pieces of information have emerged, but the story is far from complete. Nonetheless, what has surfaced is repulsive. If I thought I had seen dirty political tricks as nasty and vile as they could get at the Nixon White House, I was wrong. The American Prospect's observation that "we are very much into Nixon territory here" with this story is an understatement. <br>Indeed, this is arguably worse. Nixon never set up a hit on one of his enemies' wives.<br>Leaking the Name of a CIA Agent Is a Crime<br><br>On July 22, Ambassador Wilson appeared on the Today show. Katie Couric asked him about his wife: "How damaging would this be to your wife's work?" <br>Wilson - who, not surprisingly, has refused to confirm or deny that his wife was a CIA operative - answered Katie "hypothetically." He explained, "it would be damaging not just to her career, since she's been married to me, but since they mentioned her by her maiden name, to her entire career. So it would be her entire network that she may have established, any operations, any programs or projects she was working on. It's a--it's a breach of national security. My understanding is it may, in fact, be a violation of American law."<br>And, indeed, it is. <br>The Espionage Act of 1917 and the Intelligence Identities and Protection Act of 1982 may both apply. Given the scant facts, it is difficult to know which might be more applicable. But as Senator Schumer (D.NY) said, in calling for an FBI investigation, if the reported facts are true, there has been a crime. The only question is: Whodunit?<br>The Espionage Act of 1917 <br>The Reagan Administration effectively used the Espionage Act of 1917 to prosecute a leak - to the horror of the news media. It was a case that was instituted to make a point, and establish the law, and it did just that in spades.<br>In July 1984, Samuel Morrison - the grandson of the eminent naval historian with the same name - leaked three classified photos to Jane's Defense Weekly. The photos were of the Soviet Union's first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, which had been taken by a U.S. spy satellite. <br>Although the photos compromised no national security secrets, and were not given to enemy agents, the Reagan Administration prosecuted the leak. That raised the question: Must the leaker have an evil purpose to be prosecuted?<br>The Administration argued that the answer was no. As with Britain's Official Secrets Acts, the leak of classified material alone was enough to trigger imprisonment for up to ten years and fines. And the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit agreed. It held that the such a leak might be prompted by "the most laudable motives, or any motive at all," and it would still be a crime. As a result, Morrison went to jail. <br>The Espionage Act, though thrice amended since then, continues to criminalize leaks of classified information, regardless of the reason for the leak. Accordingly, the "two senior administration officials" who leaked the classified information of Mrs. Wilson's work at the CIA to Robert Novak (and, it seems, others) have committed a federal crime. <br>The Intelligence Identities and Protection Act <br>Another applicable criminal statute is the Intelligence Identities Act, enacted in 1982. The law has been employed in the past. For instance, a low-level CIA clerk was convicted for sharing the identify of CIA employees with her boyfriend, when she was stationed in Ghana. She pled guilty and received a two-year jail sentence. (Other have also been charged with violations, but have pleaded to unrelated counts of the indictment.) <br>The Act reaches outsiders who engage in "a pattern of activities" intended to reveal the identities of covert operatives (assuming such identities are not public information, which is virtually always the case). <br>But so far, there is no evidence that any journalist has engaged in such a pattern. Accepting Administration leaks - even repeatedly - should not count as a violation, for First Amendment reasons. <br>The Act primarily reaches insiders with classified intelligence, those privy to the identity of covert agents. It addresses two kinds of insiders. <br>First, there are those with direct access to the classified information about the "covert agents." who leak it. These insiders - including persons in the CIA - may serve up to ten years in jail for leaking this information. <br>Second, there are those who are authorized to have classified information and learn it, and then leak it. These insiders - including persons in, say, the White House or Defense Department - can be sentenced to up to five years in jail for such leaks.<br>The statute also has additional requirements before the leak of the identity of a "covert agent" is deemed criminal. But it appears they are all satisfied here.<br>First, the leak must be to a person "not authorized to receive classified information." Any journalist - including Novak and Time - plainly fits.<br>Second, the insider must know that the information being disclosed identifies a "covert agent." In this case, that's obvious, since Novak was told this fact. <br>Third, the insider must know that the U.S. government is "taking affirmative measures to conceal such covert agent's intelligence relationship to the United States." For persons with Top Secret security clearances, that's a no-brainer: They have been briefed, and have signed pledges of secrecy, and it is widely known by senior officials that the CIA goes to great effort to keep the names of its agents secret. <br>A final requirement relates to the "covert agent" herself. She must either be serving outside the United States, or have served outside the United States in the last five years. It seems very likely that Mrs. Wilson fulfills the latter condition - but the specific facts on this point have not yet been reported. <br>How the Law Protects Covert Agents' Identities<br>What is not in doubt, is that Mrs. Wilson's identity was classified, and no one in the government had the right to reveal it. <br>Virtually all the names of covert agents in the CIA are classified, and the CIA goes to some effort to keep them classified. They refuse all Freedom of Information Act requests, they refuse (and courts uphold) to provide such information in discovery connected to lawsuits. <br>Broadly speaking, covert agents (and their informants) fall under the State Secrets privilege. A federal statute requires that "the Director of Central Intelligence shall be responsible for protecting intelligence sources and methods from unauthorized disclosure." It is not, in other words, an option for the CIA to decide to reveal an agent's activities. <br>And of course, there's are many good reasons for this - relating not only to the agent, but also to national security. As CIA Director Turner explained in a lawsuit in 1982, shortly after the Intelligence Identities Act became law, "In the case of persons acting in the employ of CIA, once their identity is discerned further damage will likely result from the exposure of other intelligence collection efforts for which they were used." <br>The White House's Unusual Stonewalling About an Obvious Leak<br>In the past, Bush and Cheney have gone ballistic when national security information leaked. But this leak - though it came from "two senior administration officials" - has been different. And that, in itself, speaks volumes. <br>On July 22, White House press secretary Scott McClellan was asked about the Novak column. Offering only a murky, non-answer, he claimed that neither "this President or this White House operates" in such a fashion. He added, "there is absolutely no information that has come to my attention or that I have seen that suggests that there is any truth to that suggestion. And, certainly, no one in this White House would have given authority to take such a step." <br>So was McClellan saying that Novak was lying - and his sources were not, in fact, "two senior administration officials"? McClellan dodged, kept repeating his mantra, and refused to respond.<br>Later, McClellan was asked, "Would the President support an investigation into the blowing of the cover on an undercover CIA operative?" Again, he refused to acknowledge "that there might be some truth to the matter you're bringing up." When pressed further, he said he would have to look into "whether or not that characterization is accurate when you're talking about someone's cover."<br>McClellan's statement that he would have to look into the matter was disingenuous at best. This ten-day old column by Novak had not escaped the attention of the White House. Indeed, when the question was first raised, McClellan immediately responded, "Thank you for bringing that up."<br>As David Corn has pointed out, what McClellan did not say, is even more telling than what he said. He did not say he was trying to get to the bottom of the story and determine if it had any basis in fact. He did not say the president would not tolerate such activities, and was demanding to know what had happened. <br>Indeed, as Corn points out, McClellan's remarks "hardly covered a message from Bush to his underlings: don't you dare pull crap like this." Indeed, they could even be seen as sending a message that such crimes will be overlooked. <br>Frankly, I am astounded that the President of the United States - whose father was once Director of the CIA - did not see fit to have his Press Secretary address this story with hard facts. Nor has he apparently called for an investigation - or even given Ambassador and Mrs. Wilson a Secret Service detail, to let the world know they will be protected. <br>This is the most vicious leak I have seen in over 40 years of government-watching. Failure to act to address it will reek of a cover-up or, at minimum, approval of the leak's occurrence - and an invitation to similar revenge upon Administration critics. <br>Congressional Calls For Investigation Should Be Heeded<br>Senator Dick Durbin (D - IL) was the first to react. On July 22, he delivered a lengthy speech about how the Bush Administration was using friendly reporters to attack its enemies. He knew this well, because he was one of those being so attacked.<br>"Sadly, what we have here," Durbin told his colleagues, "is a continuing pattern by this White House. If any Member of this Senate - Democrat or Republican - takes to the floor, questions this White House policy, raises any questions about the gathering of intelligence information, or the use of it, be prepared for the worst. This White House is going to turn on you and attack you."<br>After Senator Durbin set forth the evidence that showed the charges of the White House against him were false, he turned to the attacks on Ambassador and Mrs. Wilson. He announced that he was asking the chairman and ranking member of the Senate Intelligence Committee to investigate this "extremely serious matter." <br>"In effort to seek political revenge against Ambassador Wilson," Durbin said, "they are now attacking him and his wife, and doing it in a fashion that is not only unacceptable, it may be criminal. And that, frankly, is as serious as it gets in this town."<br>The House Intelligence Committee is also going to investigate the Wilson leak. "What happened is very dangerous to a person who may be a CIA operative," Congressman Alcee Hastings (D - FL), a member of the Committee, said. And the committee's chairman, Porter Gross (R- FL), a former CIA agent himself, said an investigation "could be part of a wider" look that his committee is taking at WMD issues. <br>In a July 24 letter to FBI Director William Mueller, Senator Charles Schumer (D -NY) demanded a criminal investigation of the leak. Schumer's letter stated, "If the facts that have been reported publicly are true, it is clear that a crime was committed. The only questions remaining to be answered are who committed the crime and why?" <br>The FBI, too, has confirmed that they are undertaking an investigation. <br>But no one should hold their breath. So far, Congress has treated the Bush Administration with kid gloves. Absent an active investigation by a grand jury, under the direction of a U.S. Attorney or special prosecutor, an FBI investigation is not likely to accomplish anything. After all, the FBI does not have power to compel anyone to talk. And unless the President himself demands a full investigation, the Department of Justice is not going to do anything - unless the Congress uncovers information that embarrasses them into taking action.<br>While this case is a travesty, it won't be the first one that this administration has managed to get away with. Given the new the nadir of investigative journalism, this administration has been emboldened. And why not? Lately, the mainstream media has seemed more interested in stockholders than readers. If Congress won't meaningfully investigate these crimes - and, indeed, even if it will - it is the press's duty to do so. Let us hope it fulfills that duty. But I am not holding my breath about that, either. "<br><br><br>'The world is a dangerous place to live in, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.' Albert Einstein<br> <br> Alert Printer Friendly | Link | Reply | Top <br> flyarm (1000+ posts) Fri Jul-01-05 11:51 PM<br>Response to Reply #47 <br>49. Novak Leak Column Has Familiar Sound <br> again from my files, i kept alot of the articles about this leak!<br><br><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK START--><a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A53226-2003Oct...">www.washingtonpost.com/ac...2003Oct...</a><!--EZCODE AUTOLINK END--> <br><br>snip:<br><br>Novak Leak Column Has Familiar Sound <br><br>By Dana Milbank<br><br>Tuesday, October 7, 2003; Page A23 <br><br><br>Let's review: Syndicated columnist Robert D. Novak gets a leak of classified information from foreign-policy hardliners. The column he writes causes a huge embarrassment for the Republican White House and moderates throughout the administration. Capitol Hill erupts with protests about the leak.<br><br>Sound familiar? Actually, this occurred in December 1975. Novak, with his late partner Rowland Evans, got the classified leak -- that President Gerald R. Ford and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger were ready to make concessions to the Soviet Union to save the SALT II treaty. Donald H. Rumsfeld, then, as now, the secretary of defense, intervened to block Kissinger.<br><br>The main leak suspect: Richard Perle, then an influential aide to Sen. Henry "Scoop" Jackson (D-Wash.) and now a member of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board and a confidant of neoconservatives in the Bush administration. The account was described in a 1977 article in The Washington Post, noting Perle's "special access" to Evans and Novak.<br><br>Evans and Novak, the National Journal wrote in 1979, were among the three "chief recipients" of classified leaks from Perle. "Several sources in Congress and the executive branch who regard Perle as an opponent said that he and his allies make masterful use of the Evans and Novak column," The Post reported 26 years ago. "One congressional aide who tries to counter Perle's and Jackson's influence on arms issues said the Evans and Novak 'connection' helps Perle create a 'murky, threatening atmosphere' in his dealings with others."<br><br>There is no indication that Perle, though a prominent administration adviser, has any connection to the current leak, that of the identity of a CIA agent. In fact, he does not fit Novak's description of the recent leakers as "senior administration officials." Perle, through his assistant, said that he never spoke to Novak about the matter involving former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, and that he had been unaware of the identity of Wilson's wife, the exposed CIA agent.<br><br><br>'The world is a dangerous place to live in, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.' Albert Einstein<br> <br> Alert Printer Friendly | Link | Reply | Top <br> flyarm (1000+ posts) Fri Jul-01-05 11:57 PM<br>Response to Reply #49 <br>54. hmmm i had this article and now it says... <br> this article now says "sorry you are not allowed to access this area"<br><br>this article!!:<br><br>Who Leaked the CIA Agent's Identity? <br><br>another article that the link does not work but i am including all the important stuff..<br><br><br><br>snip: seattle weekly<br><br>October 8 - 14, 2003<br><br>Wilsongate<br><br>The ambassador minced no words in Shoreline in August.<br><br>by Rick Anderson IN AUGUST, former acting U.S. ambassador to Iraq Joseph Wilson sat beneath a sign at Shoreline Conference Center in suburban Seattle that has become both ironic and prescient. It asked: “U.S. Intelligence on Iraq: Is There a Need for an Investigation?” Three months later, there is one. It’s called Wilsongate, named for the ambassador—once a carpenter on the Olympic Peninsula who got his foreign-service start in Seattle—and it’s rattling the White House to its neoconservative black socks.<br><br>As Wilson said at the Shoreline forum, referring to Bush’s top political advisor: “At the end of the day, it’s of keen interest to me to see whether or not we can get Karl Rove frog-marched out of the White House in handcuffs. And trust me, when I use that name, I measure my words.” But while that remark has gotten a lot of media mileage as the scandal heated up, Wilson was even more candid that day about how he viewed the reasons behind the potentially lethal smear and Bush’s campaign to justify war on Iraq. “This issue,” he said, “had nothing to do with my wife. It had little to do with me. It had really everything to do with the president having spoken a lie to the American people and the world.<br><br>“The purpose of doing this, however, was not to shut me up, because I had already said my piece. The purpose was very, very clear—to intimidate others who might step forward at the request of a congressional committee …”<br><br>Asked last week during an appearance on C-SPAN if he felt the president lied to justify a war with Iraq, Wilson responded: “I would not accuse the president of the United States of lying.” Wilson couldn’t be reached to clear up the contradiction. The leak story, fanned by politics and the mainstream media, has grown large since the Aug. 15 Shoreline appearance, and Wilson, as both its centerpiece and an experienced diplomat, is now weighing his words carefully. But the visit to Shoreline, hosted by Democratic Rep. Jay Inslee to discuss the administration’s use of flawed intelligence on Iraq, offered a more candid setting for Wilson to express his views.<br><br>As he said on C-SPAN, “I was carried away in the exuberance of the moment” at Shoreline. Go to the videotape—it’s on Inslee’s Web site at
www.house.gov/inslee/meetings.htm —and you’ll see an exuberance that was roundly cheered by an overflow crowd of 1,100.<br><br>Asked by a Shoreline questioner to assess the effects of Wilsongate on the White House, Wilson outlined a sort of domino theory of Bush collapse. “My own sense is, once you have put a chink in the armor of the credibility of this administration, it is really only a matter of time before other chinks are put in it. But my Republican friends have told me on this—they have called me and said, in addition to offering me safe houses and flak jackets—they’ve said, ‘Thank you, you have given us the ammunition we need to begin to reign in this neoconservative juggernaut.’” <br><br>A Democratic friend told him, Wilson added, that he was “the baboon who threw the turd that hit the target and made it stick.”<br><br>The CIA and the Justice Department are both attempting to identify who in the administration told Republican-friendly columnist Robert Novak that Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame Wilson, was a CIA operative, possibly putting her life and those of her covert contacts at risk. Wilson and Democrats maintain the leak was in retaliation for Wilson’s televised comments and a column in The New York Times, challenging, if not disproving, Bush’s claim that Iraq had sought to obtain yellowcake uranium from Niger to develop weapons of mass destruction. The claim was one of the cornerstones Bush used in October 2002 to build justification for the invasion last March. Wilson said the intelligence was clearly manipulated.<br><br>“This was not fundamentally the problem of bad intelligence, this was fundamentally the problem of how policy makers used the intelligence or didn’t use the intelligence,” he said at Shoreline in August. “In my , it was very clear that the administration preferred to use as justification, for the weapons of mass destruction threat, a set of documents that were so obviously forged that an Italian tabloid more accustomed to publishing bare breasts than purloined documents would not publish them. And yet that information got into the most important speech this president will ever have to make to the American people, to the U.S. congress, and to the world. There’s no excuse for it.”<br><br>The Wilson saga might not bring the Bush presidency to its knees. But the early fallout has turned into a radioactive rain. Although divided over Bush’s culpability, Democrats and Republicans, along with cable’s screaming heads, seem to agree on the explosive implications of an administration official outing an apparently covert CIA operative (not to mention Novak’s bewildering complicity and his explanation that he didn’t know the meaning of “operative”). After all, it was Bush’s father who called author and ex-CIA agent Philip Agee, now exiled in Cuba, a traitor for revealing the names of CIA coverts in the 1970s. Joining the chorus last week was the father of slain CIA officer Johnny “Mike” Spann, the first American killed in Afghanistan. He urged the appointment of an independent counsel to investigate the leak that he, too, called treasonous. <br><br>Wilson’s role in the scandal is, as he suggested at Shoreline Conference Center, something he could hardly have imagined while working as a carpenter in Sequim, where he had moved from Santa Barbara, Calif., in the 1970s His family is originally from San Francisco. “It was a little wetter and colder here,” he said, smiling at his understatement, and he decided he wanted to do something more relevant. He asked for and got an audience with Brewster Denny, founder and first dean of the University of Washington’s Evans School of Public Affairs. From Denny, he sought advice about joining the government foreign service, in which he served 23 years under several presidents, including Bush senior. <br><br>Denny, who was also on the Shoreline panel along with former Navy Adm. Bill Center, told Wilson he’d have to dedicate himself to public service to succeed. But, “The only commitment to public service I had shown before that was collecting unemployment as a ski bum six months out of every year,” Wilson said. He wormed his way into the service anyway. Turning to Denny, he noted: “It’s really thanks to you that I’m here today, Dean Denny, I don’t know if that’s a commendation . . . .”<br><br><br>'The world is a dangerous place to live in, not because of the people who are evil, but because of the people who don’t do anything about it.' Albert Einstein<br> <br> Alert Printer Friendly | Link | Reply | Top <br> flyarm (1000+ posts) Sat Jul-02-05 12:02 AM<br>Response to Reply #54 <br>57. ok from my files answers if anyone knew valerie was a spy!! <br> <br><br>Here it is....<br>McClellan has had a tough time providing straight answers. At the October 1 press briefing, he was asked what Bush did after the leak first appeared. He replied by saying that "some news reports" have noted that Valerie Wilson's CIA connection "may have been well-known within the DC community." That hardly seems so. Her neighbors did not know, and Wilson maintains their close friends did not know. No reporter that I have talked to--and I've spoken to many covering this story--had heard that. <br>Her neighbors did not even know she was a spy.... So when they say her name was out there for anybody to pick up on, it was only out there as a regular name and face. "Secret Agent" had not been attached to it by anybody who knew her as Valerie Wilson..... Not until Novak linked the two. <br><br><br><br>again no link that works,..aorry i don't even know where this was published!!..but its important!<br><br><br><br>The Spin is Not Holding<br>10/04/2003 @ 11:09pm <br><br>E-mail this Post <br>&pidThe spin is not holding. Facing two controversies--the Wilson leak (click here if you have somehow managed to miss this story) and the still-MIA WMDs--the White House has been tossing out explanations and rhetoric that cannot withstand scrutiny. <br><br>Let's start with the Wilson leak. In the issue coming out October 6, Newsweek will be reporting that after Bob Novak published a July 14 column containing the leak attributed to "senior adminsitration officials" that identified former Ambassador Joseph Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, as an undercover CIA operative, White House officials were touting the Novak story, according to NBC News reporter Andrea Mitchell. Apparently, these officials were encouraging reporters to recycle or pursue the story about Wilson's wife. The newsmagazine also notes that, according to a source close to Wilson, shortly after the leak occurred Bush's senior aide Karl Rove told Hardball host Chris Matthews that Wilson's wife was "fair game." Matthews told Newsweek that he would not discuss off-the-record conversations. (He told me the same weeks ago when I made a similar inquiry about this chat with Rove) An anonymous source described as familiar with the exchange--presumably Rove or someone designated to speak for him--maintained that Rove had only said to Matthews it was reasonable to discuss whether Wilson's wife had been involved in his mission to Niger. (In February 2002, Wilson had been asked by the CIA to visit Niger to check out allegations Iraq had been shopping for uranium there; he did so and reported back that the charge was probably untrue. In July, he publicly challenged the White House's use of this claim and earned the administration's wrath.) <br><br>These disclosures do not reveal who were the original leakers. (The Justice Department, at the CIA's request, started out investigating the White House; it has widened its probe to include the State Department and the Defense Department.) But these new details are significant and undercut the White House line on the leak. At a White House press briefing, Scott McClellan, Bush's press secretary, repeatedly said that Bush and his White House took no action after the Novak column was published on July 14 because the leak was attributed only to anonymous sources. "Are we supposed to chase down every anonymous report in the newspaper?" McClellan remarked. <br><br>He was arguing that a serious leak attributed to anonymous sources was still not serious enough to cause the president to ask, what the hell happened? And he made it seem as if the White House just ignored the matter. Not so. Mitchell's remark and even the Rove-friendly account of the Rove-Matthews conversation are evidence the White House tried to further the Plame story--that is, to exploit the leak for political gain. Rather than respond by trying to determine the source of a leak that possibly violated federal law and perhaps undermined national security ( The Washington Post reported that the leak also blew the cover of a CIA front company, "potentially expanding the damage caused by the original disclosure"), White House officials sought to take advantage of it. Spin that, McClellan. <br><br>Newsweek is also disclosing that a National Security Council staffer previously worked with Valerie Wilson (nee Plame) and was aware of her position at the CIA because he or she had worked closely with Wilson's wife at the Agency's counterproliferation division. McClellan has indicated in his press briefings that the White House did not--and has not--acted to ascertain the source of the leak. But shouldn't Bush or chief of staff Andrew Card (if Card is not one of the leakers) have asked this person whether he or she mentioned Valerie Wilson's occupation to anyone in the White House? (I believe I know the name of this person but since he or she may be working under cover I am not at this point going to publish it.) <br><br>McClellan has had a tough time providing straight answers. At the October 1 press briefing, he was asked what Bush did after the leak first appeared. He replied by saying that "some news reports" have noted that Valerie Wilson's CIA connection "may have been well-known within the DC community." That hardly seems so. Her neighbors did not know, and Wilson maintains their close friends did not know. No reporter that I have talked to--and I've spoken to many covering this story--had heard that. <br><br>During that briefing, reporters wondered if Bush approved of the Republican campaign to depict Wilson as a partisan zealot lacking credibility. McClellan sidestepped: "The President is focused on getting to the bottom of this." The next day, he was once more asked whether it was appropriate for Republicans to be attacking Wilson. "I answered that question yesterday," he said. One problem: he hadn't. He also maintained that Bush "has been the one speaking out front on this." Not quite. For over two months, Bush had said nothing about the leak. And on this day, Bush met with reporters for African news organizations and joked about the anti-Wilson leak. When asked what he thought about the detention in Kenya of three journalists who had refused to reveal sources, he said, "I'm against leaks." This prompted laughter, and Bush went on: "I would suggest all governments get to the bottom of every leak of classified information." Addressing the reporter who had asked the question, Bush echoed the phrase that McClellan had frequently used in his press briefings and quipped, "By the way, if you know anything, Martin, would you please bring it forward and help solve the problem?" <br><br>Perhaps Bush needed a good chuckle after reading--or being briefed on--the testimony that chief weapons hunter David Kay was presenting that day to Congress. In an interim report, Kay had noted that his Iraq Survey Group had found evidence of "WMD-related program activities," but no stocks of unconventional weapons. Kay also had an interesting observation about the prewar intelligence on Iraq's WMDs: "Our understanding of the status of Iraq's WMD program was always bounded by large uncertainties and had to be heavily caveated." <br><br>Wait a minute. That was not what Bush and his compadres had said prior to the war. Flash back to Bush's get-out-of-town speech on March 17, two days before he launched the war. He maintained, "Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal" weapons of mass destruction. Yet Kay was saying there had been "large uncertainties" in the intelligence. How does that square with Bush's no-doubt claim? It doesn't. <br><br>Kay's testimony is more proof that Bush misrepresented the intelligence. Regular readers of this column will know that Kay's remark were preceded by similar statements from the House intelligence committee and former deputy CIA director, Richard Kerr, who has been reviewing the prewar intelligence. Both the committee (led by Representative Porter Goss, a Republican and former CIA officer) and Kerr have concluded the intelligence of Iraq's WMDs was based on circumstantial and inferential material and contained many uncertainties. <br><br>Prior to the invasion, administration officials consistently declared there was no question Iraq had these weapons. On December 5, 2002, for instance, Ari Fleischer, then the White House press secretary, said, "the president of the United States and the secretary of defense would not assert as plainly and bluntly as they have that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction if it was not true, and if they did not have a solid basis for saying it." But what had been that "solid_basis"? Intelligence "bounded by large uncertainties"? <br><br>Look at what Kay said about Iraq's nuclear weapons program: <br><br>"With regard to Iraq's nuclear program, the testimony we have obtained from Iraqi scientists and senior government officials should clear up any doubts about whether Saddam still wanted to obtain nuclear weapons. They have told that Saddam Husayn remained firmly committed to acquiring nuclear weapons. These officials assert that Saddam would have resumed nuclear weapons development at some future point…. <br><br>"Despite evidence of Saddam's continued ambition to acquire nuclear weapons, to date we have not uncovered evidence that Iraq undertook significant post-1998 steps to actually build nuclear weapons or produce fissile material…. <br><br>"Saddam, at least as judged by those scientists and other insiders who worked in his military-industrial programs, had not given up his aspirations and intentions to continue to acquire weapons of mass destruction." <br><br>Compare this assessment to what Bush and Dick Cheney had said before the war In his 2003 State of the Union speech, Bush declared that Hussein was a threat because he had "an advanced nuclear weapons development program" in the 1990s. (Bush had failed to mention that the International Atomic Energy Agency had reported in 1998 that it had demolished this "advanced" program.) And Cheney on March 16 said, "we believe has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons." His aides later said Cheney had meant to say "nuclear weapons programs." <br><br>But, according to Kay, the evidence so far collected indicates only that Hussein maintained a desire to acquire nuclear weapons and had not developed a program to satisfy that yearning. Kay later added that it would have taken Iraq five to seven years to reconstitute its nuclear weapons program. So what was the evidence for Bush's and Cheney's assertions that the program was already revved up? By the way, Kay says his team has found "no conclusive proof" Hussein tried to acquire uranium in Niger. In fact, he reported that one cooperating Iraqi scientist revealed to the ISG that another African nation had made an unsolicited offer to sell Iraq uranium but there is no indication Iraq accepted the offer. <br><br>Kay also reported, "Our efforts to collect and exploit intelligence on Iraq's chemical weapons program have thus far yielded little reliable information on post-1991 CW stocks and CW agent production, although we continue to receive and follow leads related to such stocks." But before the war, the Bush administration had said flat-out that Iraq possessed chemical weapons. Did it neglect to pass along to Kay the information upon which it based this claim? (Actually, the Defense Intelligence Agency in September 2002 concluded there was no "reliable information" on whether Iraq had produced or stockpiled chemical weapons, but that did not stop Bush and his aides from stating otherwise.) <br><br>How did Bush respond to Kay's interim findings? He proclaimed they proved that he had been correct all along. The "interim report," Bush remarked, "said that Iraq's weapons of mass destruction program spanned more than two decades. That's what said....He's saying Saddam Hussein was a threat, a serious danger." <br><br>Reality check: Bush had said that the main reason to go to war was because Hussein possessed "massive" stockpiles of unconventional weapons and at any moment could hand them off to al Qaeda (with whom Bush claimed Hussein was "dealing"--even though the evidence on that point was and continues to be, at best, sketchy). Now Bush is asserting that Hussein was a threat that could only be countered with invasion and occupations because he had weapons research programs that indeed violated United Nations resolutions but that had not produced any weapons. That's a much different argument. Bush, Cheney, McClellan, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powell and others continue to deny they overstated (or misrepresented) the case for war. But the evidence is incontrovertible, and it keeps on piling up. <br><br>So all they have is spin. Bush changes the terms. McClellan, Rumsfeld, Rice insist that before the war everybody knew that Iraq had WMDs. Everybody, that is, except the folks putting together the intelligence assessments chockfull of uncertainties. When it comes to the Wilson affair, the White House ducks and covers, claiming it had no reason to react to the original anonymous-source leak, even though its officials (at the least) considered the leak solid enough to talk up to other reporters. And instead of confronting the ugly (and perhaps criminal) implications of the leak, the White House's allies in Washington lash out at Wilson, in a vicious blame-the-victim offensive, while Mister Change-the-Tone has nothing to say publicly about this. What if Wilson is a Democratic partisan? That does not excuse what was done to his wife. <br><br>Leaking and lying--these are not actions easy to explain away. Drip, drip, drip--that's the sound often associated with Washington scandals. But now it may also be the sound of the truth catching up to the propagandists and perps of the Bush White House. <br><br> <br><br> <br> <p></p><i></i>
by seemslikeadream » Fri Jul 01, 2005 10:25 pm 