I don't get it - What Was the Point of the Plame Outing?

[liberalpragmatist]

I just don't understand it. It just seems so absurd? So Joe Wilson was criticizing the administration and said they were lying about the Niger yellow cake thing. How does outing his wife as a CIA agent do anything to change that story? How does outing his wife supposedly discredit Wilson?

Was it just to seek revenge? Seriously, I've never understood this - or at least I don't think I do. Maybe you guys could help me out. What did they honestly think they'd get out of it?

[funflower]

1. I'm with you. The only thing I can think of is that they did it to show

him that they can.

[DIKB]

2. Revenge pure and simple.

Novak stated that he only got assigned to it b/c his wife was a CIA agent. This didn't discredit his findings in any way. The reason you don't understand is b/c you don't understand how a child throwing a temper tantrum thinks. Kind of like how a child yelling "well you're ugly" has no real bearing on any fight that child has, it doesn't matter, they are out to hurt, that is all. It's an immature thug mentality.

[JohnnyRingo]

8. Yep...This is commonly refered to as "political payback"

And effectively ended two careers.

More if you consider all the foriegn associates of Plame, but thats just collateral

[davepc]

3. It was meant to shut up dissenters INSIDE the government

"Speak out against us, and we'll ruin your family"

Plames career as a CIA agent was destroyed.

Its a mob tactic. If we cant get to you, we'll go after your family. Nothing is scared for us to use against you. We'll find something, and we'll *use it*.

[seriousstan]

4. Have you never had an argument with someone and the come back

with some left-field reply? You know...."You are so ignorant of world event.......Oh yea? Well your feet stink.....so there.

That kind of intelligent, mature response.

[Old and In the Way]

5. Well, I sorta asked the same question

here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=132x1914983

My thinking is, maybe it was always about getting Valeries off her assignment. At first I thought it was something on Cheney/Bush from the past....but then I started thinking....whoa, here's their plan coming down for the Iraqi war and they've got a ton of money and RDX to lose....maybe it was a pre-emptive strike on Ms. Plame?

Sure it's more kooky conspiracy theorism...but, if you knew the Niger Yellowcake story was a fabrication from the getgo (because you made it up)...why would you risk an honest guy with stand-up integrity like Wilson uncovering the forgery? Why not send a Bolton to corroborate the lie? Unless you wanted to use a cover of political revenge to mask the outing from the real agenda. Just outside the box thinking here....YMMV

[Mythsaje]

11. This isn't crazy...

it may not have been about Wilson at all...it might have been about Plame all along-considering that they were trying to "prove" that Iraq had WMDs and the CIA, especially her command, which had been assigned to track WMDs, wasn't going along with it.

That would've made Wilson fairly incidental in the whole thing.

[orleans]

6. check this out

http://www.mikehersh.com/All_Roads_Lead_To_Cheney.shtml

"The yellowcake story was Cheney's baby.

Joseph Wilson killed Dick Cheney's baby.

Remember: In his July 6 New York Times article, "What I Didn't Find In Africa," Joe Wilson indicated that,

"In February 2002, I was informed by officials at the Central Intelligence Agency that Vice President Dick Cheney's office had questions about a particular intelligence report." . . . "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." "

revenge!

[Writer]

7. Rove is a child.

It was simply a kick to Wilson's groin for "daring" to speak out about the Yellow Cake issue. That's all. Childish revenge. Pure and simple.

[WatchWhatISay]

9. Besides revenge

they are also sending a message to anyone else who was thinking of truthtelling.

[evlbstrd]

10. Plame's assignment was WMDs.

She knew what the truth was. Not just in Iraq, but she had connections with operatives around the world. Revealing her identity was revenge against Wilson and shut down her operation. Less real intelligence made it easier for * to make false claims, and then blame the CIA for "bad intelligence." Then, they gutted the CIA and moved intelligence to Defense, i.e., Rumsfeld.

[bobbieinok]

12. in the threads-long discussion (last year??) some suggested/implied

that the fact Plame was an agent investigating WMD proliferation is the key to the outing..........that she and her group had the potential of actually finding and tracing the sources/suppliers of the WMDs......the implication if not the direct claim seemed to me to be that groups in or close to the adm would be 'outed' and lose mucho money if she and her group were to continue

this seemed to me to explain the whole thing.....b/c it really seems overkill for revenge or warning to other dissenters from the approved bushco line

[Disturbed]

13. Is it only a coincidence that V. Plame's boss quit..

the CIA shortly after Tenet resigned? Nothing to do with the V. Plame outing and the busting up of her covert operation?

[KeepItReal]

14. Vengeful dumbasses didn't realize Plame was part of a bigger operation

In blowing her cover, they exposed her CIA front company and anyone associated with it.

I think *that* is where the real crime is. One agent alone should have been enough, but these fools burned a whole operation to hell just to get back at Joe Wilson.

Novak and his source should be the ones in prison, IMHO.

[leftofthedial]

15. a sniper's bullet

in the struggle between the fed-up contingent within the CIA and the maladministration of the bushturdgang, the bushturds let the CIA know that nothing and no one is sacred

[bklyncowgirl]

16. They did it to discredit Wilson AND to send a message to CIA.

Wilson's article hurt them. He had to be discredited. There were also people in CIA who knew the truth and had to be scared into silence. This gave them an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone.

The issue then became, at least for the right wing noise machine, "Did Wilson's CIA wife use her influence to get him the job to investigate the yellowcake affair?"

This muddies up the water enough so that the rest of the media becomes skeptical of Wilson.

This is what they always do and they do it because it's a tactic that works.

This had the added advantage of throwing a scare into CIA operatives who might consider going public. What could be more frightening to a spy than having your cover blown AND the possibility of exposing your sources in places like North Korea or Iran.

Anyone wanna place a bet on what would happen to anyone in North Korea who was known to be cozy with an outed CIA agent?