CIA Agent sues Government for making him support WMD lies

From Last Weeks New York Times:

WASHINGTON, July 31 - The Central Intelligence Agency was told by an informant in the spring of 2001 that Iraq had abandoned a major element of its nuclear weapons program, but the agency did not share the information with other agencies or with senior policy makers, a former C.I.A. officer has charged.

How do you "fix the facts around the policy" to invade Iraq at all costs? You ignore credible evidence by experienced persons which indicates that there is no good reason to consider Iraq an imminent threat - that's how. More from the Times Article:

In a lawsuit filed in federal court here in December, the former C.I.A. officer, whose name remains secret, said that the informant told him that Iraq's uranium enrichment program had ended years earlier and that centrifuge components from the scuttled program were available for examination and even purchase.

The officer, an employee at the agency for more than 20 years, including several years in a clandestine unit assigned to gather intelligence related to illicit weapons, was fired in 2004.

In his lawsuit, he says his dismissal was punishment for his reports questioning the agency's assumptions on a series of weapons-related matters. Among other things, he charged that he had been the target of retaliation for his refusal to go along with the agency's intelligence conclusions.

Michelle Neff, a C.I.A. spokeswoman, said the agency would not comment on the lawsuit.

It was not possible to verify independently the former officer's allegations concerning his reporting on illicit weapons.

His information on the Iraqi nuclear program, described as coming from a significant source, would have arrived at a time when the C.I.A. was starting to reconsider whether Iraq had revived its efforts to develop nuclear weapons. The agency's conclusion that this was happening, eventually made public by the Bush administration in 2002 as part of its rationale for war, has since been found to be incorrect.

Now on the one hand this could simply be the act of disgruntled ex-employee -- and then again it might not. We have to remember that when the new CIA Director Porter Goss was installed in 2004, there was a massive exodus and firings among top CIA officials, particularly for partisan reasons. Those who were "disloyal" to the President's agenda (ie. those who told the truth) were removed, so it really shouldn't be that surprising that at least one of these people has filed suit and is making the claims that the NYT reports.

Exactly how much of his case can be proven without violating National Security remains the biggest obsticle to determining if this person is just an annoying gadfly, or a truly courageous patriot as the vein of Lt. Col Karen Kwaitkowski and former CIA Bin Laden Desk Chief Michael Sheurer.

Vyan

Bolton's Next Target : Iran

Less than a day after the recess appointment of John Bolton as Ambassador to the UN -- I find myself far less than surprised by the sudden release of a new national intelligence estimate that claims that Iran may be only 3 years from having their own Nuclear Weapon. Reported of course by Fox News:

Iran may be much closer to producing nuclear weapons than the National Intelligence Estimate indicates. Sources with knowledge of Iran's nuclear program say that Iran continues to pursue a military track for their nuclear energy, and their patterns of acquisition and research and development suggest Tehran's movement toward the buildup of a nuclear arsenal.

On the surface there may seem no obvious connection, and that the sudden drum-beat of increased danger from Iran may be of little consequence -- but we've all heard this song before, played expertly by Judith Miller as conducted by Ahmed Chalabi and Curveball.

Also I have to credit former UN Weapons inspector Scott Ritter with this particular insight:

Bush may say that he has no plans on attacking Iran, but after June 2005, he's made damn sure the Pentagon is prepared if he gives the order. Late last year, in the aftermath of the 2004 Presidential election, I was contacted by someone close to the Bush administration about the situation in Iraq. There was a growing concern inside the Bush administration, this source said, about the direction the occupation was going. The Bush administration was keen on achieving some semblance of stability in Iraq before June 2005, I was told. When I asked why that date, the source dropped the bombshell: because that was when the Pentagon was told to be prepared to launch a massive aerial attack against Iran, Iraq’s neighbour to the east, in order to destroy the Iranian nuclear programme.


The American media today is sleepwalking towards an American war with Iran Economic sanctions and military attacks are not one and the same. Unless, of course, the architect of America’s Iran policy never intends to give sanctions a chance.

nter John Bolton, who, as the former US undersecretary of state for arms control and international security for the Bush administration, is responsible for drafting the current US policy towards Iran.

In February 2004, Bolton threw down the gauntlet by stating that Iran had a “secret nuclear weapons programme” that was unknown to the IAEA. “There is no doubt that Iran has a secret nuclear weapons production programme,” Bolton said, without providing any source to back up his assertions.

This is the same John Bolton who had in the past accused Cuba of having an offensive biological weapons programme, a claim even Bush administration hardliners had to distance themselves from.

John Bolton is the Bush official who declared the European Union’s engagement with Iran “doomed to fail”. He is the Bush administration official who led the charge to remove al-Baradai from the IAEA.

And he is the one who, in drafting the US strategy to get the UN Security Council to impose economic sanctions against Iran, asked the Pentagon to be prepared to launch “robust” military attacks against Iran should the UN fail to agree on sanctions.

Bolton understands better than most the slim chances any US-brokered sanctions regime against Iran has in getting through the Security Council. The main obstacle is Russia, a permanent member of the Security Council who not only possesses a veto, but also is Iran’s main supporter (and supplier) when it comes to its nuclear power programme. Bolton has made a career out of alienating the Russians. He was one of the key figures who helped negotiate a May 2002 arms reduction treaty signed by Presidents George Bush and Vladimir Putin in Moscow. This treaty was designed to reduce the nuclear arsenals of both America and Russia by two-thirds over a 10 year period. But that treaty – to Russia’s immense displeasure – now appears to have been made mute thanks to a Bolton-inspired legal loophole that the Bush administration had built into the treaty language. Bolton knows Russia will not go along with UN sanctions against Iran, which makes the military planning being conducted by the Pentagon all the more relevant. Bolton’s nomination as the next US Ambassador to the United Nations is as curious as it is worrying.

Yes, it is worrying - but it is right according to plan, even if it is running a few months late. Bolton is at the UN to keep the international community in check -- not to reform the organization. Remember, the primary argument for reform happens to be the problems discovered during the Oil For Food Scandal. Each and every member of the UN Security council's "661 Committee" had the ability to veto all sales of Iraqi oil -- including the U.S. -- but failed to do so, and this is somehow the UN's fault? Also how badly does the U.S. itself need reform after it managed to "misplace" nearly 8.8 Billion in Iraq since the "End of Major Combat Operations"?

Reforming the UN is clearly a smoke-screen. The real goal is international espionage, keeping an eye on both our enemies and our friends -- and forcing them, using questionable and bogus intelligence -- to get being a major offensive against Iran in the next year.

Bolton's temporary appointment as UN Ambassador is only scheduled to last until the end of this Congressional session -- but that just might be long enough to get the job done.

Time will tell.

Vyan

Frists amazing break with the Radical Right on Stem Cells

Cross posted on Dailykos:

Yesterday on C-Span, Senator/Doctor Bill Frist announced his position on funding of Stem Cell Research, making a strong break with the Bush Administration and the GOP majority.

He supports it.

Click to view statements from C-Span.org.

Senator Frist's comments on the Senate Floor:

"Since 2001. when Stem Cell reseach first captured our nation's attention, I've said that many times - the issue should be and will be reviewed on an ongoing basis. Not just because the science holds tremendous promise, but because it's developing with breath-taking speed. Indeed, stem cell research present that first major moral and ethical challenge to bio-medical research in the 21st Century."

"Everyday we unlock more of the mysteries of life, and more ways to enhance our health. This compels profound questions."

"How we answer these questions today, impacts not only current research by future research as well."

"So when I as a heart transplant surgeon, remove that human heart from someone who is brain-dead and I place it in the chest of someone who'se heart has failed them - in order to give them new life - I do so within an ethical construct that honors dignity and respect of a donor and a recipient. Like transplantation, if we can answer the moral and ethical questions about stem cell research I believe we will have the oppurtunity to save many lives and make countless other's lives more fulfilling. That's why we must get our stem cell policy right. Scientifically and ethically."

"As we know, Adult stem cell research is not controversial on ethical grounds, although embryonic stem cell research is. Right now, to derive these stem cells and embryo, or a blastocyst, which man including myself consider nascient human life, must be destroyed. But I also strongly believe as do countless other scientist and clinicians and doctors, that embryonic stem cells uniquely hold specific promise for some therapies and cure that adult stem cells can not provide.

Let me just say that I believe today, as I stated four years ago in 2001 prior the current policy was established, that the federal government should fund embryonic stem cell research. As I stated in 2001, we should fund research only on embryonic stems cells derived from blastocyst which are left over after fertility therapy. Which will not otherwise be implanted or adopted, but instead are destined with 100% certainty by the parents to be discarded and destroyed."

Although it may be difficult to take Dr.-I-can-diagnose-a-blind-near-brain-dead-woman-via-videotape Frist completely seriously. The fact that the GOP's own Senate Majority leader has taken such a position in direct opposition to that of the President -- breaking dramatically from the lock-step mode that Republican's have been held hostage to by the Christian Right for the past 5 years - should prove quite interesting as they are forced to temper their "Democrats support Death" arguments of the past several months.

But Frist is far from the only prominent Republican to take such a position - former UN Ambassador John C. Danforth has made similar claims.

BY a series of recent initiatives, Republicans have transformed our party into the political arm of conservative Christians. The elements of this transformation have included advocacy of a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, opposition to stem cell research involving both frozen embryos and human cells in petri dishes, and the extraordinary effort to keep Terri Schiavo hooked up to a feeding tube.

In my state, Missouri, Republicans in the General Assembly have advanced legislation to criminalize even stem cell research in which the cells are artificially produced in petri dishes and will never be transplanted into the human uterus. They argue that such cells are human life that must be protected, by threat of criminal prosecution, from promising research on diseases like Alzheimer's, Parkinson's and juvenile diabetes.

It is not evident to many of us that cells in a petri dish are equivalent to identifiable people suffering from terrible diseases. I am and have always been pro-life. But the only explanation for legislators comparing cells in a petri dish to babies in the womb is the extension of religious doctrine into statutory law.

Vyan

Over There: Finally the Truth about Iraq?

Stephen Bochco's new series Over There, a gritty hyper-realistic series about American Soldiers in Iraq, premiered this week on the FX Network.

Premering with an episode that was full of both sex and violence, Over There attempts to bring the same realism to soldiers under fire that Bochco's previous hit shows Hill Street Blues, LA Law and NYPD Blue brought to Police and Attorneys.

Introducing a somewhat cliched squad of characters featuring the loudmouth Sargent "Scream", clueless Lieutenant "Mad Cow", two different "angry black men" - one mad at the world and full of excuses "Smoke", and another an elightened would-be gospel singer only angry at himself "Angel", as well as Bo - an upbeat go-getter with a partial football scholarship just needing some additional support from the GI Bill to attend Texas A&M who get hit with a roadside bomb and loses part of his leg, and "Dim" - a Cornell dropout with major marriage troubles.

<> Bochco has already stated that doesn't intend for the show to slant any particular way politically and that appears evident from the first episode - only in the sense that both rah-rah gingoism as well as self-doubt and anti-american sentiment will be portrayed without either being shown as more "correct" than the other. The soldiers themselves gripe, but they don't neccesarily look at the issues in a context much larger than surviving the next day, or the next few hours. On the other hand one captured insurgent leader yells as he's being hauled away "Are you taking me to Abu Ghraib? Should I take my clothes off now?" Despite Bochco's denials Politics may indeed become a center-peice of the show starting next week as a the injured Bo is replaced in the unit by an Arab-American soldier.

The show has great promise and potential. For one thing, it's the first program - News, Reality or Fiction - to actually attempt to accurately portray what has been going on during the two years of war we've had with Afghanistan and Iraq. The visuals are quite graphic as the upper body of one insurgent is shown literally expoding into peices while his legs continue to walk forward. Later, when the battle is over the brand new fresh-off-the-plane recruits look glumly over their own handiwork -- displaying a mixture of remorse, resolve and in one case a bloody-minded sports score mentallity. " Yeah, I capped this one right here...and that one too"

Even more interesting than the show itself, will be the reaction of the right-wing. With Rick Santorum on a book tour talking about how the society has grown more coarsened, and the potential for the censorship which has already gripped broadcast TV as well as radio threatening to including cable and satellite as well (putting the breaks on shows such as The Sopranos, Sex in the City, Deadwood, FX's The Shield and Rescure Me)-- this just might be both our first and last chance to see exactly what our sons and daughters are going through - over there.

Vyan

Torture: not just for Breakfast anymore

From Reuters: President Bush attempts to block legislation to establish minimum standards on the treatment of Terrorism Suspects:

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House on Thursday threatened to veto a massive Senate bill for $442 billion in next year's defense programs if it moves to regulate the Pentagon's treatment of detainees or sets up a commission to investigate operations at Guantanamo Bay prison and elsewhere.

The Bush administration, under fire for the indefinite detention of enemy combatants at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba and questions over whether its policies led to horrendous abuses at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq, put lawmakers on notice it did not want them legislating on the matter. [...]

"If legislation is presented that would restrict the president's authority to protect Americans effectively from terrorist attack and bring terrorists to justice," the bill could be vetoed, the statement said.

Arizona Republican Sen. John McCain, who endured torture as a prisoner of war in Vietnam, said after meeting at the Capitol with Vice President Dick Cheney that he still intended to offer amendments next week "on the standard of treatment of prisoners."

South Carolina Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, who was working on legislation defining the legal status of enemy combatants being held in Guantanamo, also said he would offer an amendment.

Now couple that revelation with the information which continues to leak about the additional Abu Ghraib photos and video which the President also refuses to release - as reported on Dailykos:

On July 22, the Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) denounced the latest efforts of the Bush Administration to block the release of the Darby photos and videos depicting torture at Iraq's Abu Ghraib prison facility. On June 2, 2004, CCR, along with the ACLU, Physicians for Human Rights, Veterans for Common Sense, and Veterans for Peace filed papers with the U.S. District Court, charging the Department of Defense and other government agencies with illegally withholding records concerning the abuse of detainees in American military custody. Since then, the organizations have been repeatedly rebuffed in their efforts to investigate what happened at the prison..

Some of the reports that have come from lawmakers who have seen these photos and video indicate that they have witnessed rape, the sodomy of children and even murders of captives in Iraq.

I have to say I'm in agreement with Dailykos poster Hunter who states:

I think it's time to invent some new swearing, because there isn't anything currently in the language that fully encompasses the White House's unapologetic attempts to ensure the Bush administration's own crafted and approved "interrogation" policies be allowed to continue unhindered. Yes, according to the Bush administration, any attempts by Republican senators to legislate against, say, the sodomizing of detained children are unduly infringing on the president's fight against terrorists.

Truly, there is no sunken depth to which this White House does not feel comfortable indulging itself in.

Vyan

It's not the leak, it's the Collateral Damage

Crossposted on Dailykos:

Yesterday's Los Angeles Times featured an article on possible Obsruction of Justice and Witness Tampering Charges against Karl Rove.

WASHINGTON -- The special prosecutor in the CIA leak investigation has shifted his focus from determining whether White House officials violated a law against exposing undercover agents to determining whether evidence exists to bring perjury or obstruction of justice charges, according to people briefed in recent days on the inquiry's status.

Differences have arisen in witnesses' statements to federal agents and a grand jury about how the name of Valerie Plame, a CIA agent, was leaked to the press two years ago.

In the end it may not be whether or not Valeria Plame was technically an active undercover operative within the last five years or not, and it may not be not even matter whether or not the information being released about her had originated from a classified State Dept Document. What may ultimately take down Rove and CO, is the Collateral Damage from their own actions.

This thought originally occured to me after both Bill Bennett and Michael Isikoff appeared on Hannity and Colmes last week.

It was Isikoff who pointed out that often investigations of this type won't hit the original target, but will ultimately have a major impact via "Collateral Damage". However, it it was Bennett who unwittingly made it clear what that damage would be.

Bennet has been a respected politician for some time, and I was somewhat disheartened by his performance on Hannity as he continued to generate excuse after excuse for Rove's behavior in revealing Plame's identify to Matt Cooper -- but he went further and ranted about how "President Clinton had commited dozens of crimes before the [Ken Starr] Grand Jury" - which is patently, not true. Rove is looking quite seriously at a criminal indictment, while Clinton was not charged with any crimes by a court of law.

Let's just take a little stroll through down Grand Jury Memory Lane:

Ken Starr's investigation exonerated the Clinton's of any crimnal involvement with Whitewater, they were exonerated in involvement with the suicide of Vincent Foster, and also exonerated in the File-Gate allegations (which claimed that they had illegally attempted to obtain FBI Background files in order to attack their political opponents with personal and secret information).

Even if you look closely at Clinton's infamous "Is is" statment - it becomes clear that he was admitting that his attorney might have been stating something falsely depending on weather "IS" was in the present tense, or the past tense when he said "There IS no relationship between Monica Lewinsky and the President".

Leaving all that aside, there were articles of Impeachment drawn up as a result of Starr's investigation - but the most damaging portion of those articles wasn't about what hair-splitting neo-truths that Clinton said during either the Paula Jones deposition or to the Grand Jury.

It's was about the things he said to his own aides Sydney Blumenthal and others that were flat-out lies. Such as "There was no sex of any kind" and "I heard that Monica was a stalker".

Starr Allegation #9

The President improperly tampered with a potential witness by attempting to corruptly influence the testimony of his personal secretary, Betty Currie, in the days after his civil deposition.

Starr Allegation #10

President Clinton endeavored to obstruct justice during the grand jury investigation by refusing to testify for seven months and lying to senior White House aides with knowledge that they would relay the President's false statements to the grand jury -- and did thereby deceive, obstruct, and impede the grand jury.

Clinton's Attorney's pointed out in rebuttal that at that particular point in time, none of the people Clinton made these statements too were included on a grand jury witness list, and hence - weren't "Witnesses" in the literal sense.

But the U.S. Codes for Witness Tampering doesn't make such a distinction:

A prosecution under this section or section 1503 may be brought in the district in which the official proceeding (whether or not pending or about to be instituted) was intended to be affected or in the district in which the conduct constituting the alleged offense occurred.

Moving back to the present, it seems to me that all Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald has to do is look at the statements made months ago by Scott McClellan that "I talked personally to Karl Rove, and Mr. Libby, and they assured me they are not involved [in the leaking of Valeria Plame's identify]" and point out that this deliberate spreading of a LIE through proxy agents such as McClennal is in fact Witness Tampering and Obstruction of Justice, even though McClellan himself had not yet appeared on any witness list at that time.

If so, that's Game, Set and Match folks -- and just may indicate the real reason that McClellan suddenly refused to provide any further information on his previous answers all last week. If he'd continued to try and answer the questions, he could have put ROve, Libby and himself in even greater legal jeopardy.

Vyan

How Rove-Gate proves the DSM

During the last week or so there has been an enormous amount of outcry and activity revolving around the issue of the outing of CIA Agent Valeria Plame-Wilson by Conservative Columnist Robert Novak and whether or not White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove was one of his sources.

But I have to point out that this isn't the core issue that should be at stake. Several weeks ago the Times of London revealed the "Downing Street Minutes", a 2002 document of an internal conversation by high-ranking British Officials stating their concern after communicating with their American counterparts (including CIA director George Tenet and then NSA Director Condoleeza Rice) that U.S. was determined to go to war with Iraq, and that the "[wmd intelligence] facts were being fixed around [that] policy".

How do you "Fix Facts"? Well, simply put you create false facts - lies - then you engage in an operation of suppressing the truth in order to bolster those lies, and that is exactly what Rove-gate actually is - the coverup of lies which were fabricated to "fix the facts".

Lies of this type are essentially part of a chain, each new lie is an attempt to disguise a previous lie - and the beginning of this particular chain-of-lies starts with the forged Niger/Yellow-cake documents

What we need to do is follow the chain by establishing the timeline of events.

According to at least one CIA counter-terrorism chief, the first link in that chain, the original Niger documents, may been forged inside the US by expatriate Iraqi's such as Ahmed Chalabi and his supporters in the Iraqi National Congress (INC), where it was then funnelled through Italy to give it apparent legitimacy (like a money launderer attempt to "clean his cash") and feed back to U.S. intelligence. I can hear those right-wingers now "See Saddam tried to buy Uranium, therefore we have to take him out." Essentially this is where the famed "16 words" (The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa) began to find their way ultimately into the President's 2003 State of the Union address.

Former Ambassador Joseph Wilson

Enter former Ambassador Joe Wilson, who was then dispatched in February of 2002 (ten months before the SOTU) by the CIA Operations Directorate to "check out the Niger story" in response to questions on the issue eminating from the Vice Presidents Office. Wilson spends eight days in Niger, and discovers that there is no viable way for that nation to divert it's Uranium ore to an alternation country such as Iraq, returns and writes a report back to the CIA to that effect.

This is where the cover-up begins, for in order for the President's scare tactic of "Saddam almost has the bomb" to function - we can't have anyone with any significant standing saying "No, he doesn't". And if we do - that person and their credibility has to be destroyed. Weaknesses have to be exploited. And weakness number one? Apparently Wilson's trip while requested by the CIA, was not requested specifically by George Tenet or the Vice President and subsequently neither of them (allegedly) paid any attention to his findings.

In the Financial Times it was claimed that Wilson's report never reached key White House Eyes:

"Bush aides 'never aware' CIA envoy found Niger reports untrue"
Financial Times

The top people at the National Security Council were also said by a White House official to be ignorant of Mr Wilson's findings. Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser, Stephen Hadley, her deputy, and Bob Joseph, the director for counter-proliferation, did not see Mr Wilson's findings, the official said.

Democratic Senator John Rockefeller of Virginia, vice-chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said yesterday that Mr Tenet and the CIA "have been made to take the fall to shield the President and his advisers". The very public role of Ms Rice in putting the blame on Mr Tenet was "dishonourable", he said in the Los Angeles Times, adding that he guessed she "had a lot more to do with this mistake than Tenet did".

On the other hand, the BBC reported that Wilson report was sent up the chain of command and indeed, to the White House itself just a month after his return in March of 2002.

But the CIA official has said that a former US diplomat had already established the claim was false in March 2002 - and that the information had been passed on to government departments, including the White House, well before Mr Bush mentioned it in the speech. But a former US diplomat, Ambassador Joseph Wilson, went on the record at the weekend to say that he had travelled to Africa to investigate the uranium claims and found no evidence to support them. Now the CIA official has told the BBC that Mr Wilson's findings had been passed onto the White House as early as March 2002.

So did Tenet really do nothing?

Four months later in July of 2002, the Downing Street Meeting takes place after Tenet and Rice had talked to Sir Richard Dearlove (then head of Mi-6) and Jack Straw (British Foreign Secretary). At this point in time, Dearlove makes it clear that the Bush Administration is planning to go to war with Iraq no matter what (perhaps this claim is made - obstensibly by Tenet - because he is aware of Wilson's findings in Niger and also aware that the White House is deliberately ignoring that information) which Dearlove dutifully reports to Tony Blair - while at the same time President Bush is claiming to the American people that he will only attack Iraq as the "last possible resort". Dearlove isn't clear about whether or not George Tenet is neccesarily happy with the President's strategy, but by looking at Tenet's subsequent actions - it appears he is not.

Former CIA Director George Tenet

According to the timeline being built by MarkC at Dailykos, three months later in October of 2002 DCI Tenet argued personally with NSC deputy Steven Hadley against the inclusion of the 16 words as they only eminated from a single source (the forged Niger documents) and succeeded in having them taken out.

"President Defends Allegation On Iraq; Bush Says CIA's Doubts Followed Jan. 28 Address"
The Washington Post

Rice was asked a month ago about Bush's State of the Union uranium claim on ABC's "This Week" and replied: "The intelligence community did not know at the time or at levels that got to us that there was serious questions about this report." But senior administration officials acknowledged over the weekend that Tenet argued personally to White House officials, including deputy national security adviser Stephen Hadley, that the allegation should not be used in the October speech, four months before the State of the Union address.

Yet on January 20, 2003 the fateful 16 words - lies - were uttered by the President as he addressed the nation during the last few months before the declaration of war.

How?

Apparently it's all Stephen Hadley's fault, at least that's the "spin" on it

"National Security Aide Says He's to Blame for Speech Error"
The New York Times

The deputy adviser, Stephen J. Hadley, a critical behind-the-scenes player in the Bush White House, told reporters that while he received the memorandums before the president gave a speech about Iraq in October, he had no memory of the warning three months later when the issue came up again in the State of the Union address. He said the two memorandums had been discovered in the last 72 hours.

Looking shaken, he said, "I should have asked that the 16 words be taken out" of the State of the Union address, and added, "I failed in that responsibility."

NSC Deputy Stephen Hadley

So Hadley falls on the sword, claiming that the inclusion of the words was simply an oversight, a mistake that should have been caught. Yes, blatant incompetence has always been a great excuse for a National Security disaster. Yet this "oversight" had already been caught by Tenet in October. Clearly, the re-insertion of the Iraq Uranium claim is in itself - proof of the Downing Street Allegation, the Bush Administration was determined to use unsubstantianted, even refuted, rumors of Iraqi WMD's in order to invade and remove Saddam Hussein from power.

And at this point in time, it's already too late - the State of the Union has already occured as has the fateful Congressional passage of HJ 141 authorizing the President to use "all neccesary means" to bring Saddam into compliance with all relevent UN Security Council Resolutions.

But Joe Wilson just won't go away.

The Iraq War Official begins in March of 2003, and all the while Wilson is working behind the scenes trying to get traction on the fact that the findings of his Niger trip remain in direct contradiction of the President's claims in the State of the Union. Not being a partisan, and having been a former member of President G.H.W. Bush's diplomatic team, Wilson doesn't immediately blow the whistle. Instead he tries to work through his contacts within the government and eventually he draws enough attention that someone in the State department decides he needs to be taken care of.

On June 10th 2002, a classified document is drafted by the State Department concerning the investigation of Niger-Uranium which in an offhand remark that indicates that Joseph Wilson's trip to Niger had been instigated by his wife Valerie Plame, who also worked at the CIA.

Meanwhile Wilson is still keeping busy and starting to make noises with the press. Two days after the State Department report fingering his wife as the reason for his trip is written, Walter Pincus at the Washington Post first publically reveals Wilson's trip

"CIA Did Not Share Doubt on Iraq Data; Bush Used Report Of Uranium Bid"

"...the CIA in early February 2002 dispatched a retired U.S. ambassador to the country to investigate the claims, according to the senior U.S. officials and the former government official, who is familiar with the event. The sources spoke on condition of anonymity and on condition that the name of the former ambassador not be disclosed."

Still not satisfied by the Administration response, Wilson finally goes completely public on July 6, 2003 and pens his editorial "What I Didn't Find in Africa" in The New York Times

At this point the counter-attack, using the groundwork which had been establish in the INR memo, begins in earnest as documented by PollyUSA at Dailykos, key elements of that still classified document begin to find their way into the press, apparently by way at least partially via Karl Rove -- including the fact that Valeria Plame is a CIA employee, but perhaps unwittingly also revealing her indentify as an undercover operative.

Wall Street Journal.

An internal government memo addresses some of the mysteries at the center of the White House leak investigation and could help investigators in the search for who disclosed the identity of a Central Intelligence Agency operative, according to two people familiar with the memo. The memo, prepared by U.S. intelligence personnel, details a meeting in early 2002 where CIA officer Valerie Plame and other intelligence officials gathered to brainstorm about how to verify reports that Iraq had sought uranium yellowcake from Niger

The main problem with this State department document, and the counterspin strategy it champions, is the fact that Plame's involvement in the decision to send Wilson to Niger has been repeated refuted by the CIA, and further - the CIA has claimed that the apparent author of the document was not even in attendance of the meeting in question between the CIA and Wilson at Langley.

Washing Post December 2003
CIA officials have challenged the accuracy of the INR document, the official said, because the agency officer identified as talking about Plame's alleged role in arranging Wilson's trip could not have attended the meeting.

Valerie Plame with Husband Joseph

Why does Plame even come into this issue? Because again, by discrediting the reason and justification for Wilson's trip (the DCI didn't send him/the Veep didn't send him) his findings - which contradict the lie of the forged Niger documents - can be justifyably ignored. The facts have already been fixed - you see? So we have a new lie (Plame sent Wilson to Niger), which is merely designed to cover up an older lie (Saddam nearly has the Bomb).

Much of the discussion on this issue currently revolves around who knew what when, did Rove know that Plame was undercover or not? Did he tell Novak or did Novak tell him? I think most of that is actually irrellevant and simply a matter of spin. hether any of the persons discussing Plame/Wilson and the CIA were aware of Plame's undercover status, it seems that all of them were almost word-for-word echoing the statements from the State Department INR document - which I must say again - was classified at the time. Any recitation of, or confirmation of the contents of such a document is a crime.

TITLE 18 > PART I > CHAPTER 37 > § 793

(d) Whoever, lawfully having possession of, access to, control over, or being entrusted with any document, writing, code book, signal book, sketch, photograph, photographic negative, blueprint, plan, map, model, instrument, appliance, or note relating to the national defense, or information relating to the national defense which information the possessor has reason to believe could be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of any foreign nation, willfully communicates, delivers, transmits or causes to be communicated, delivered, or transmitted or attempts to communicate, deliver, transmit or cause to be communicated, delivered or transmitted the same to any person not entitled to receive it, or willfully retains the same and fails to deliver it on demand to the officer or employee of the United States entitled to receive it;

Shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.

The irony here is that the INR document, particular the portions which inaccurately claim that Valerie Plame was the reason Joseph Wilson went to Niger, was clearly only written in order to give cover to the President's use of the 16 words -- yet since the document itself was classified (which gave the claim immediate, albiet false, credibility) the information included couldn't be used to discredit and debunk Wilson unless someone violated the law in order to do so.

But debunk him they had to do - and that is indeed what they tried to do, while essentially hoisting the Administration upon it's own pitard. Trapped in it's own web of lies.

While we continue to search for the source of the Plame leak, let's remember to also search for the source of the Plame LIE (which could be for all we currently know that ole' backstabber and hyper partisan John Bolton) , not to mention the Niger Yellow-Cake lie -- and all the efforts by various Administration officials to maintain, excuse and obfuscate the fact that the United States entered a War under false pretenses.

All of which, as I said at the outset, clearly proves the Downing Street Minutes are in fact, true.

God Save America.

Vyan

Wilson counters RNC Talking Points and Smears on CNN

From Democratic Underground:

The RNC has released talking points designed to take the media focus off of a White House breech of National Security.

In an interview with Soledad O'Brien, Joe Wilson exposes the false RNC claims by citing official sources.

Proof that Joe Wilson did not lie are readily available from news and government reports. Yet, corporate media continues to use RNC talking points at face value without any independent attempts to verify the facts.

The president said that he would fire anyone involved in leaking CIA information. Joe Wilson feels that the president should keep his word and fire Rove now.



Video in Windows Media format (7 minutes)

Transcript of Interview:

S. O'BRIEN: Now back to our big story out of Washington D.C. this morning. The outing of Valerie Plame as a CIA operative. Well, Plame's husband, former Ambassador Joe Wilson, now blasting White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove for the leak. I got a chance to sit down and talk with Wilson about it on Thursday. And he began by saying he believes the information Rove leaked was classified.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

JOSEPH WILSON, FMR. U.S. AMBASSADOR: This has never been about Joe Wilson or even about Valerie Wilson. It has been about -- and it's never really been partisan. It has always been about whether or not somebody close to the president of the United States leaked classified information that compromised the identity of a covert officer of the CIA. And clearly, in the e-mail that Mr. Cooper, the "Time" reporter, sent to his boss, several days before the Novak article appeared, Mr. Rove had given him the name of my wife.

S. O'BRIEN: Republicans would say, those who are leading the charge against you certainly, would say he wasn't outing your wife. He was trying to correct -- and the word they would pick, I believe -- is a lie that you had in the op-ed piece that you wrote in the New York times where you, they would say, said that the vice president of the United States essentially sent you on this mission to Africa.

WILSON: Of course, I did not say that. And if you go back and you show the op-ed, what I say is that the office of the vice president had expressed an interest in this report, and that interest had generated my trip.

S. O'BRIEN: Here's a small chunk of it. In February, 2002, you write, "I was informed by officials at the Central Intelligence Agency that Vice President Dick Cheney's office had questions about a particular intelligence report. While I never saw the report, I was told that it referred to a memorandum of agreement that documented the sale of uranium yellowcake, a form of lightly processed ore, by Niger to Iraq in the late 1990s. The agency officials asked if I would travel to Niger to check out the story so they could provide a response to the vice president's office."

Couldn't a reading of that be, hey, you're insinuating that you're going on this trip at the behest of the vice president?

WILSON: Read it again. I think you'll see there's no insinuation in there at all. There's no saying the vice president sent me. It says the office of the vice president -- the office, not even the vice president. It was the vice president who later admitted that, yes, indeed he had expressed an interest in this matter. So it was the office of the vice president that expressed the interest and was trying to be responsive to a legitimate question affecting American national security. The CIA operations directorate asked me to go out and answer some of the questions that they still had about the allegation.

S. O'BRIEN: Explain how the trip to Niger came about. Who actually asked you to go?

WILSON: Well, it was CIA operations officers, the operations directorate. It came about after I attended a meeting at Langley.

S. O'BRIEN: Did it, in part, come about because your wife said, hey, you know, Joe, my husband, could go. He should do this.

WILSON: Let me just answer that by pointing out the CIA answered that question in July of 2003, shortly after the -- shortly after my wife's name had been compromised. On July 22nd, "Newsday" wrote that they had called the CIA, and the cia said that no, Wilson's wife was not involved in sending him to Niger. The CIA has said that repeatedly whenever asked since, including last year to David Ensor of this network.

S. O'BRIEN: Did you see Peter King? He was on TV.

WILSON: No, I did not.

S. O'BRIEN: Let me read you a chunk of what he had to say. He said, "Once she" -- that's your wife, Valerie -- "allowed him to go ahead and say that, write his op-ed piece in "The New York Times," to have Tim Russert give him a full hour on "Meet the Press," saying that he was sent there as a representative of the vice president, when she knew, she knew herself that she was the one that recommended him for it. She allowed that lie to go forward involving the vice president of the United States, the president of the United States, then to me she should be the last one in the world who has any right to complain." Which I guess is, to me at least, sounds like a long way of saying, she deserves what she got.

I believe Congressman King is ill informed. And I would go back to what I said earlier, and that is that the CIA believed that a possible crime had been committed, and as a consequence, referred it to the Justice Department.

S. O'BRIEN: You know -- or maybe you don't, but my guess is you do know -- that the bar in these sorts of things, legally speaking, is quite high. The letter of the law, in order to be illegal, the disclosure must reveal the identity of a covert agent, must be intentional, must be made with someone with authorized access to classified information. They must be aware that the information disclosed will reveal the identity of the covert agent. They must know that the United States government was taking active steps to protect the identity of a covert agent. It's a pretty high bar. Do you believe that Karl Rove has done anything to the letter of the law illegal?

S. O'BRIEN: Well, I'm not a lawyer. And I believe that the last word on this will be Pat Fitzgerald, the special counsel. And -- but I'll go back to what I said earlier, and that is that the CIA certainly believed that a possible crime had been committed.

S. O'BRIEN: Was your wife at the time that she was outed a covert agent for the CIA?

WILSON: I'm not prepared to discuss that. What I'm prepared to tell you is that the CIA believed that she was a covert employee for the purposes of asking the Justice Department to investigate.

S. O'BRIEN: But isn't that kind of the critical $64,000 question? I mean, if she's not a covert agent, isn't the whole thing a wash anyway? Because revealing the identity of someone who's not covert...

WILSON: Well, that's an interesting question. You probably ought to better ask that to Pat Fitzgerald, the special counsel who's been investigating this for almost two years now.

S. O'BRIEN: All right. I'll take that as a no comment on that one.

If Karl Rove, in fact, is found to not have committed a crime by the letter of the law, do you expect at all that President Bush would fire him?

WILSON: I have no idea. My own belief, which I've articulated frequently, is that the president has said that he would fire -- and his White House spokesman has said that he would fire anybody who was involved in the leak. It's now clear that Mr. Rove had given Matt Cooper my wife's name four days before the Novak article appeared. In other words, before her identity was publicly compromised. I find what he did then and afterwards to be an outrageous abuse of power, and I don't believe that the president should keep him in the White House. I think he should fire him.

(END VIDEOTAPE)