The morning news stories are still hammering the White House leak story. The storyline is that some high level Bush official disclosed the name of a secret CIA spy. The trouble is, the only people saying that Valerie Plame was an undercover CIA operative are Bush critics. The CIA certainly hasn't said that Plame was a spy ... that she was working undercover, and now that cover has been blown. Consider, please, that the CIA actually confirmed Plame's employment to columnist Robert Novak. Has it occurred to you that the CIA doesn't routinely confirm the employment status of undercover agents or spies? Valerie Plame was worked at a desk in Virginia researching and analyzing documents. It wouldn't affect her job one bit if her picture and name was posted on billboards around the world. She could still sit at that desk and pour over the same documents with the same degree of expertise, or lack thereof, as the case may be.
Still The Hot Topic
- Thread starter Turfgrass
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I think everyone should read Novaks column this morning where he clearly points out a number of things that have been blown WAY out of proportion on this thing. Including the fact that the "source" called 6 people before him, appears to be completely made up. Also he says a person working there confirmed it, not like Novak called the CIA Hotline and they admitted it, someone that worked there did so anonymously.
Personally, I dont think we should take lightly the fact that an undercover source was revealed. This is still a very serious case so your assertation that she could go on doing her job pushing papers is silly, Federal laws have been violated here.
Bottom line is I dont think the whole story is known yet so its too early to jump to conclusions one way or the other. The only person who can probably answer what her duties were at the CIA is her.
Novak Article
Quotes from article:
"To protect my own integrity and credibility, I would like to stress three points. First, I did not receive a planned leak. Second, the CIA never warned me that the disclosure of Wilson's wife working at the agency would endanger her or anybody else. Third, it was not much of a secret."
"During a long conversation with a senior administration official, I asked why Wilson was assigned the mission to Niger. He said Wilson had been sent by the CIA's counterproliferation section at the suggestion of one of its employees, his wife. It was an offhand revelation from this official, who is no partisan gunslinger. When I called another official for confirmation, he said: "Oh, you know about it." The published report that somebody in the White House failed to plant this story with six reporters and finally found me as a willing pawn is simply untrue."
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(just found this on Drudge)
FORMER CIA OFFICIAL TELLS PBS: OUTED OFFICER 'HAS BEEN UNDER COVER FOR THREE DECADES'
A former counter-terrorism official at the CIA and the State Department claimed Tuesday night that outed CIA agent "Valerie Plame" was under cover for three decades and was not a "CIA analyst" as columnist Bob Novak has suggested.
Larry Johnson made the charge on PBS's NEWSHOUR.
"I worked with this woman. She started training with me. She has been under cover for three decades." Johnson continues: She is not as Bob Novak suggested a "CIA analyst." Given that, i was a CIA analyst for 4 years. I was under cover. I could not divulge to my family outside of my wife that I worked for the CIA unti I left the Intelligence Agency on Sept. 30, 1989. At that point I could admit it. The fact that she was under cover for three decades and that has been divulged is outrageous. She was put undercover for certain reasons. One, she works in an area where people she works with overseas could be compromised...
"For these journalists to argue that this is no big deal... and if I hear another Republican operative suggesting that, well, this was just an analyst. Fine. Let them go undercover. Let's put them go overseas. Let's out them and see how they like it...
"I say this as a registered Republican. I am on record giving contributions to the George Bush campaign. This is not about partisan politics. This is about a betrayal, a political smear, of an individual who had no relevance to the story. Publishing her name in that story added nothing to it because the entire intent was, correctly as Amb. Wilson noted, to intimidate, to suggest taht there was some impropriety that somehow his wife was in a decision-making position to influence his ability to go over and savage a stupid policy, an erroneous policy, and frankly what was a false policy of suggesting that there was nuclear material in Iraq that required this war. This was about a political attack. To pretend it was something else, to get into this parsing of words.
"I tell you, it sickens me to be a Republican to see this."
Personally, I dont think we should take lightly the fact that an undercover source was revealed. This is still a very serious case so your assertation that she could go on doing her job pushing papers is silly, Federal laws have been violated here.
Bottom line is I dont think the whole story is known yet so its too early to jump to conclusions one way or the other. The only person who can probably answer what her duties were at the CIA is her.
Novak Article
Quotes from article:
"To protect my own integrity and credibility, I would like to stress three points. First, I did not receive a planned leak. Second, the CIA never warned me that the disclosure of Wilson's wife working at the agency would endanger her or anybody else. Third, it was not much of a secret."
"During a long conversation with a senior administration official, I asked why Wilson was assigned the mission to Niger. He said Wilson had been sent by the CIA's counterproliferation section at the suggestion of one of its employees, his wife. It was an offhand revelation from this official, who is no partisan gunslinger. When I called another official for confirmation, he said: "Oh, you know about it." The published report that somebody in the White House failed to plant this story with six reporters and finally found me as a willing pawn is simply untrue."
----------------------
(just found this on Drudge)
FORMER CIA OFFICIAL TELLS PBS: OUTED OFFICER 'HAS BEEN UNDER COVER FOR THREE DECADES'
A former counter-terrorism official at the CIA and the State Department claimed Tuesday night that outed CIA agent "Valerie Plame" was under cover for three decades and was not a "CIA analyst" as columnist Bob Novak has suggested.
Larry Johnson made the charge on PBS's NEWSHOUR.
"I worked with this woman. She started training with me. She has been under cover for three decades." Johnson continues: She is not as Bob Novak suggested a "CIA analyst." Given that, i was a CIA analyst for 4 years. I was under cover. I could not divulge to my family outside of my wife that I worked for the CIA unti I left the Intelligence Agency on Sept. 30, 1989. At that point I could admit it. The fact that she was under cover for three decades and that has been divulged is outrageous. She was put undercover for certain reasons. One, she works in an area where people she works with overseas could be compromised...
"For these journalists to argue that this is no big deal... and if I hear another Republican operative suggesting that, well, this was just an analyst. Fine. Let them go undercover. Let's put them go overseas. Let's out them and see how they like it...
"I say this as a registered Republican. I am on record giving contributions to the George Bush campaign. This is not about partisan politics. This is about a betrayal, a political smear, of an individual who had no relevance to the story. Publishing her name in that story added nothing to it because the entire intent was, correctly as Amb. Wilson noted, to intimidate, to suggest taht there was some impropriety that somehow his wife was in a decision-making position to influence his ability to go over and savage a stupid policy, an erroneous policy, and frankly what was a false policy of suggesting that there was nuclear material in Iraq that required this war. This was about a political attack. To pretend it was something else, to get into this parsing of words.
"I tell you, it sickens me to be a Republican to see this."
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This is a $5 rocking chair story. Let me explain:
About 15 years ago a man was arrested and charged with burglary. He had been breaking into homes and stealing items, including furniture. He was caught stealing a rocking chair and several other items from a house. The owner of the rocking chair claimed that it was an antique worth several hundred dollars. That was enough to make the burglary a felony. The accused felon protested his felony arrest for, as he put it, stealing a five-dollar rocking chair. From that day on the media completely ignored the owner's claim that the rocking chair was a valuable antique, and made continuous references to this poor, poor man being so harshly prosecuted for stealing "a five-dollar rocking chair."
We have the same thing going on here. There is absolutely no evidence that Valerie Plame was an undercover agent for the CIA. The only person who is making that claim is her husband, Joseph Wilson, a Clintonista alumnus harshly critical of Bush. But watching CNN this morning every time the story ran Wilson's wife was identified as "an undercover CIA agent." Valerie Plame, our newest $5 rocking chair.
The Democrats are making a big deal over the fact that the Justice Department is investigating the leak. This is nothing unusual. The CIA is obsessive about privacy, and every time the CIA feels that information about one of their operations or employees has been improperly leaked they ask for an investigation, and that request is almost always granted. There are about 50 such investigations a year. The fact that there's an investigation, then, is no huge news.
Hitlary's dog-washer, Junior New York Senator Chuckie Schumer was seen yesterday pounding the "crime" drum. Schumer is taking great joy in proclaiming that someone in the Bush administration has committed a crime. But is that so?
The law in question is the Intelligence Identities Protection Act. The law imposes a 10-year, $50,000 fine for those who transgress. Here are the three elements that must be satisfied for a crime to have taken place:
The accused party must have made an intentional disclosure of the identity of the agent.
They must know that the person they identified was actually an undercover agent
The government (the CIA) must be taking measures to conceal this agent's relationship to the United States.
Sorry ... no crime. How can you say that the CIA was making an effort to conceal this agent's relationship to the U.S. when they verified here employment to a reporter? Now ... if she actually had been an undercover agent, that relationship would never have been disclosed.
It is really going to be interesting to see how long the media is going to play footsie with the Democrats in pushing this nothing story.
About 15 years ago a man was arrested and charged with burglary. He had been breaking into homes and stealing items, including furniture. He was caught stealing a rocking chair and several other items from a house. The owner of the rocking chair claimed that it was an antique worth several hundred dollars. That was enough to make the burglary a felony. The accused felon protested his felony arrest for, as he put it, stealing a five-dollar rocking chair. From that day on the media completely ignored the owner's claim that the rocking chair was a valuable antique, and made continuous references to this poor, poor man being so harshly prosecuted for stealing "a five-dollar rocking chair."
We have the same thing going on here. There is absolutely no evidence that Valerie Plame was an undercover agent for the CIA. The only person who is making that claim is her husband, Joseph Wilson, a Clintonista alumnus harshly critical of Bush. But watching CNN this morning every time the story ran Wilson's wife was identified as "an undercover CIA agent." Valerie Plame, our newest $5 rocking chair.
The Democrats are making a big deal over the fact that the Justice Department is investigating the leak. This is nothing unusual. The CIA is obsessive about privacy, and every time the CIA feels that information about one of their operations or employees has been improperly leaked they ask for an investigation, and that request is almost always granted. There are about 50 such investigations a year. The fact that there's an investigation, then, is no huge news.
Hitlary's dog-washer, Junior New York Senator Chuckie Schumer was seen yesterday pounding the "crime" drum. Schumer is taking great joy in proclaiming that someone in the Bush administration has committed a crime. But is that so?
The law in question is the Intelligence Identities Protection Act. The law imposes a 10-year, $50,000 fine for those who transgress. Here are the three elements that must be satisfied for a crime to have taken place:
The accused party must have made an intentional disclosure of the identity of the agent.
They must know that the person they identified was actually an undercover agent
The government (the CIA) must be taking measures to conceal this agent's relationship to the United States.
Sorry ... no crime. How can you say that the CIA was making an effort to conceal this agent's relationship to the U.S. when they verified here employment to a reporter? Now ... if she actually had been an undercover agent, that relationship would never have been disclosed.
It is really going to be interesting to see how long the media is going to play footsie with the Democrats in pushing this nothing story.
I guess I was wrong when I said it was too early to jump to conclusions on either side of this story - I take that back, you know all the facts, so I guess I dont need to waste my time following this story any further. Thanks.
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