Is the Fitzgerald Inquiry headed towards investigating a defrauding of the government by Wilson and Plame?
The washington post published a great recap o fthe Plame event. here are some highlights:
Fact:
"Wilson maintains that his wife was asked that day by one of her bosses to write a memo about his credentials for the mission--after they had selected him. That memo apparently was included in a cable to officials in Africa seeking concurrence with the choice of Wilson, the Senate report said."
Fact:
"The full Senate committee report says that CPD officials "could not recall how the office decided to contact" Wilson but that "interviews and documents indicate his wife suggested his name for the trip." The three Republican senators wrote that they were more certain: "The plan to send the former ambassador to Niger was suggested by the former ambassador's wife, a CIA employee.""
"Two other sources appear to support the view that Wilson's wife suggested her husband's trip. One is a June 2003 memo by the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR). The other, which depends in good part on the INR document, is a statement of the views of Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and two other Republican members. That statement was attached to the full committee report on its 2004 inquiry into the intelligence on weapons of mass destruction in Iraq."
Implication: Wilson lied when he said that his wife did not suggest his trip. His wife indeed DID suggest his trip, which turns out was a misuse of government property.
Fact:
"Wilson, who on Sunday, July 6, 2003, said on NBC's "Meet the Press" and in The Washington Post and the New York Times that he had checked out the allegation in Niger and found it to be wrong. He criticized President Bush for misrepresenting the facts in his January 2003 State of the Union address when he said Iraq had attempted to purchase uranium from Africa."
Fact:
The INR document's reference to the Wilson trip is contained in two sentences in a three-page memo on why the State Department disagreed with the idea that Iraq was seeking uranium from Africa -- a view that would ultimately be endorsed after the Iraq invasion by the U.S. weapons hunter David Kay
Implication:
Wilson lied that Iraq did not seek uranium from Africa, when in fact, Iraq DID seek uranium from Africa, and more specifically, Niger.
I'm not quite sure what the legal ramifacations of this are, but it is clear that the charge that Bush mislead, or lied about uranium and Iraq is demonstrably false. Perhaps the President has kept quiet about this recently as yet another trap for the Democrats. We shall see.
posted by jp at 8/10/2005 11:34:00 PM
5 Comments:
You are so dumb. Is fitzgerald's inquiry investigating graft and nepotism? No.
Is it investigating WHO LEAKED CLASSIFIED INFORMATION about one of the WMD experts at the CIA? Yes.
Once again, Wilson is not, repeat not, a target or subject of this investigation.
You are literally bending over backward on this story to excuse criminal behavior that endangered national security.
A respectable man, George Bush Sr. said in 1999 that he has "nothing but contempt and anger" for leakers who blow CIA cover. "They are, in [his] view, the most insidious of traitors.”
You would qualify the President with 'unless the leaker is a Republican. Then it's okay.'
These investigations always seem to get unexpected legs.
Wilson has never been exonerated publicly. It is entirely possible that it is HE who leaked the fact that his wife worked at CIA in
order to bolster his own position.
I agree with you and GWB in principle, but in this case, no national security was ever endangered. Plame was onshore for more than the statutory limit, she drove everyday to CIA HQ, and was not undercover. get a grip, and wait for the indictments or closure of the investigation.
Why can't you stop making shit up when it comes to the unconscionable outing of undercover CIA agent Valerie Plame:
Lie:
And I must say from a common sense standpoint, driving back and forth to work to the CIA headquarters, I don't know if that really qualifies as being, you know, covert.
- Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS), on CNN Late Edition, 7/24/05
Truth:
There are thousands of undercover CIA employees who drive through the three gates at CIA Headquarters in McLean, Virginia everyday.
- Former CIA intelligence official Larry Johnson, 10/01/03
Pat Roberts is Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, so he certainly can't claim justifiable ignorance. All the dissembling and spin in the world can't derail Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation, and yet these inveterate liars and the parrots and ciphers like you just still can't help yourselves.
I've wasted too many hours of my life taking part in shoutfests with insane conservatives who pooh-pooh the Plame/CIA leak matter (now known as the Rove scandal), who claim there was little damage done, who say that Valerie Wilson was only a desk jockey and dismiss her undercover status as "light" or "flimsy," who argue that no crime was broken and no wrongdoing occurred, and who are lightning quick to depict the controversy as nothing but a game of politics. These folks are spinning to save Rove and to protect the White House, and they distort, disinform, and dissemble for the team.
In July, the Senate Democratic Policy Council and the Democratic side of the House Government Reform Committee held an unofficial hearing in the Senate Dirksen Office Building, in which former intelligence professionals discussed the Plame/CIA leak, especially its impact on the intelligence community, current officers, and Valerie Wilson. (The Democrats had no choice but to hold such a session because the Republicans in the House and Senate refuse to examine or investigate the leak.) The testimony was not expected to contain many surprises. And the media presence at the hearing was not heavy. But as I watched the proceedings on C-SPAN 3 and saw James Marcinkowski, a former CIA case office and a former prosecutor, testify, I realized his statement was perhaps the most powerful rebuttal of and rebuke to the psychotic rightwingers like JP who have been pushing disinformation about the Valerie Wilson case. I wish you had been tied to a chair and forced to listen to him. (JP, Ken Mehlman, Tucker Eskew, Clifford May, William Safire, David Brooks, Novak, O'Reilly, Hannity, Limbaugh--this means you.)
Referring to those who have derided Valerie Wilson and belittled the seriousness of this leak, an angry Marcinkowski said;
"Before you shine up your American flag lapel pin and affix your patriotism to your sleeve, think about what the impact your actions will have on the security of the American people....Those who take pride in their political ability to divert the issue from the fundamental truth ought to be prepared to take their share of the responsibility for the continuing damage done to our national security."
For the spinners engaged in "partisan obfuscation," he has this message: "a true patriot would shut up." As a public service, I am posting below the bulk of his testimony.
So, F, shut up. Some nasty Republican is going to go to jail. If a Democrat President's advisor had done it - shut up. A nasty Democrat would have gone to jail too. It's not partisan. It's American. This should be seen as an American issue. Yes, it's particularly shameful that not many Republicans think so... that they're scared of being labeled RINOs underlines the unity of the GOP but also the inevitablity of widespread corruption and hubris. The same thing that took the Democrats out of power with Newt's anti-corruption crusade.
So shut up and read what this guy, who knows a lot more about the CIA than anyone mentioned in this post, had to say. Shut up and reflect on the words of the honorable George H.W. Bush. Read:
Testimony of James Marcinkowski (CIA) July 22, 2005:
What is important now is not who wins or loses the political battle or who may or may not be indicted; rather, it is a question of how we will go about protecting the citizens of this country in a very dangerous world. The undisputed fact is that we have irreparably damaged our capability to collect human intelligence and thereby significantly diminished our capability to protect the American people.
Understandable to all Americans is a simple, incontrovertible, but damning truth: the United States government exposed the identity of a clandestine officer working for the CIA. This is not just another partisan "dust-up" between political parties. This unprecedented act will have far-reaching consequences for covert operations around the world. Equally disastrous is that from the time of that first damning act, we have continued on a course of self-inflicted wounds by government officials who have refused to take any responsibility, have played hide-and-seek with the truth and engaged in semantic parlor games for more than two years, all at the expense of the safety of the American people. No government official has that right.
For an understanding of what is at stake it is important to understand some fundamental principles. No country or hostile group, from al Qaeda to any drug rings operating in our cities, likes to be infiltrated or spied upon. The CIA, much like any police department in any city, has undercover officers--spies, that use "cover."
To operate under "cover" means you use some ruse to cloak both your identity and your intentions. The degree of cover needed to carry out any operation varies depending on the target of the investigation. A police officer performing "street buys" uses a "light" cover, meaning he or she could pose as something as simple as a drug user, operate only at night and during the day and, believe it or not, have a desk job in the police station. On the other hand, if an attempt were made to infiltrate a crime syndicate, visiting the local police station or drinking with fellow FBI agents after work may be out of the question. In any scenario, your cover, no matter what the degree, provides personal protection and safety. But it does not end there. Cover is also used to protect collection methodology as well as any innocent persons a CIA officer may have regular contact with, such as overseas acquaintances, friends, and even other U.S. government officials.
While cover provides a degree of safety for the case officer, it also provides security for that officer's informants or agents. In most human intelligence operations, the confidentiality of the cover used by a CIA officer and the personal security of the agent or asset is mutually dependent. A case officer cannot be identified as working for the CIA, just as the informant/agent cannot be identified as working for the CIA through the case officer. If an informant or agent is exposed as working for the CIA, there is a good chance that the CIA officer has been identified as well. Similarly, if the CIA officer is exposed, his or her agents or informants are exposed. In all cases, the cover of a case officer ensures not only his or her own personal safety but that of the agents or assets as well.
The exposure of Valerie Plame's cover by the White House is the same as the local chief of police announcing to the media the identity of its undercover drug officers. In both cases, the ability of the officer to operate is destroyed, but there is also an added dimension. An informant in a major sophisticated crime network, or a CIA asset working in a foreign government, if exposed, has a rather good chance of losing more than just their ability to operate.
Any undercover officer, whether in the police department or the CIA, will tell you that the major concern of their informant or agent is their personal safety and that of their family. Cover is safety. If you cannot guarantee that safety in some form or other, the person will not work for you and the source of important information will be lost.
So how is the Valerie Plame incident perceived by any current or potential agent of the CIA? I will guarantee you that if the local police chief identified the names of the department's undercover officers, any half-way sophisticated undercover operation would come to a halt and if he survived that accidental discharge of a weapon in police headquarters, would be asked to retire.
And so the real issues before this Congress and this country today is not partisan politics, not even the loss of secrets. The secrets of Valerie Plame's cover are long gone. What has suffered perhaps irreversible damage is the credibility of our case officers when they try to convince our overseas contact that their safety is of primary importance to us. How are our case officers supposed to build and maintain that confidence when their own government cannot even guarantee the personal protection of the home team? While the loss of secrets in the world of espionage may be damaging, the stealing of the credibility of our CIA officers is unforgivable....
And so we are left with only one fundamental truth, the U.S. government exposed the identity of a covert operative. I am not convinced that the toothpaste can be put back into the tube. Great damage has been done and that damage has been increasing every single day for more than two years. The problem of the refusal to accept responsibility by senior government officials is ongoing and causing greater damage to our national security and our ability to collect human intelligence. But the problem lies not only with government officials but also with the media, commentators and other apologists who have no clue as to the workings of the intelligence community. Think about what we are doing from the perspective of our overseas human intelligence assets or potential assets.
I believe Bob Novak when he credited senior administration officials for the initial leak, or the simple, but not insignificant confirmation of that secret information, as I believe a CIA officer in some far away country will lose an opportunity to recruit an asset that may be of invaluable service to our covert war on terror because "promises of protection" will no longer carry the level of trust they once had.
Each time the leader of a political party opens his mouth in public to deflect responsibility, the word overseas is loud and clear--politics in this country does in fact trump national security.
Each time a distinguished ambassador is ruthlessly attacked for the information he provided, a foreign asset will contemplate why he should risk his life when his information will not be taken seriously.
Each time there is a perceived political "success" in deflecting responsibility by debating or re-debating some minutia, such actions are equally effective in undermining the ability of this country to protect itself against its enemies, because the two are indeed related. Each time the political machine made up of prime-time patriots and partisan ninnies display their ignorance by deriding Valerie Plame as a mere "paper-pusher," or belittling the varying degrees of cover used to protect our officers, or continuing to play partisan politics with our national security, it is a disservice to this country. By ridiculing, for example, the "degree" of cover or the use of post office boxes, you lessen the level of confidence that foreign nationals place in our covert capabilities.
Those who would advocate the "I'm ok, you're ok" politics of non-responsibility, should probably think about the impact of those actions on our foreign agents. Non-responsibility means we don't care. Not caring means a loss of security. A loss of security means a loss of an agent. The loss of an agent means the loss of information. The loss of information means an increase in the risk to the people of the United States.
There is a very serious message here. Before you shine up your American flag lapel pin and affix your patriotism to your sleeve, think about what the impact your actions will have on the security of the American people. Think about whether your partisan obfuscation is creating confidence in the United States in general and the CIA in particular. If not, a true patriot would shut up.
Those who take pride in their political ability to divert the issue from the fundamental truth ought to be prepared to take their share of the responsibility for the continuing damage done to our national security.
When this unprecedented act first occurred, the president could have immediately demanded the resignation of all persons even tangentially involved. Or, at a minimum, he could have suspended the security clearances of these persons and placed them on administrative leave. Such methods are routine with police forces throughout the country. That would have at least sent the right message around the globe, that we take the security of those risking their lives on behalf of the United States seriously. Instead, we have flooded the foreign airwaves with two years of inaction, political rhetoric, ignorance, and partisan bickering. That's the wrong message. In doing so we have not lessened, but increased the threat to the security and safety of the people of the United States.
Hey Samantha... take a pill won't you and lie down...
"You are literally bending over backward on this story to excuse criminal behavior that endangered national security."
Look in the mirror sweetie pie!
Wilson is a fraud and your unhappy defense of this left wing hack and his "Politics of Truth" is a fools errand.
Did you ever bother to read the act that Rove was supposed to have violated or didn't they post that on the Michael Moore web site you do such a fine job of cutting and pasting from?
I realize you folks think fiction is fact if it serves your cause. But you all make me laugh when you claim to have this newfound respect for the CIA and undercover agents...
Your efforts are so transparently political, it's sad you're probably the only one who doesn't know it.
There are REAL life and death issues out here cookie and you clowns with your leftwing flea circus do NOTHING to contribute positively to the mature, intellectually honest debate needed in this country.
All I can say is thank GOD we have the better part of FOUR MORE YEARS with President Bush in charge and not some socialist ostrich in denial about the threats we face.
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