Valerie Wilson was no analyst or paper-pusher, her work was top priorty

[dajoki]

The Nation
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20060918/corn

article | posted September 5, 2006 (web only)
What Valerie Plame Really Did at the CIA
David Corn

<<snip>>

Though Cheney was already looking toward war, the officers of the agency's Joint Task Force on Iraq--part of the Counterproliferation Division of the agency's clandestine Directorate of Operations--were frantically toiling away in the basement, mounting espionage operations to gather information on the WMD programs Iraq might have. The JTFI was trying to find evidence that would back up the White House's assertion that Iraq was a WMD danger. Its chief of operations was a career undercover officer named Valerie Wilson.

Her specific position at the CIA is revealed for the first time in a new book, Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War, by the author of this article and Newsweek's Michael Isikoff. The book chronicles the inside battles within the CIA, the White House, the State Department and Congress during the run-up to the war. Its account of Wilson's CIA career is mainly based on interviews with confidential CIA sources.

In July 2003--four months after the invasion of Iraq--Wilson would be outed as a CIA "operative on weapons of mass destruction" in a column by conservative journalist Robert Novak, who would cite two "senior administration officials" as his sources. (As Hubris discloses, one was Richard Armitage, the number-two at the State Department; Karl Rove, Bush's chief strategist, was the other. I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Cheney's chief of staff, also talked to two reporters about her.) Novak revealed her CIA identity--using her maiden name, Valerie Plame--in the midst of the controversy ignited by former ambassador Joseph Wilson, her husband, who had written a New York Times op-ed accusing the Bush Administration of having "twisted" intelligence "to exaggerate the Iraqi threat."

The Novak column triggered a scandal and a criminal investigation. At issue was whether Novak's sources had violated a little-known law that makes it a federal crime for a government official to disclose identifying information about a covert US officer (if that official knew the officer was undercover). A key question was, what did Valerie Wilson do at the CIA? Was she truly undercover? In a subsequent column, Novak reported that she was "an analyst, not in covert operations." White House press secretary Scott McClellan suggested that her employment at the CIA was no secret. Jonah Goldberg of National Review claimed, "Wilson's wife is a desk jockey and much of the Washington cocktail circuit knew that already."

Valerie Wilson was no analyst or paper-pusher. She was an operations officer working on a top priority of the Bush Administration. Armitage, Rove and Libby had revealed information about a CIA officer who had searched for proof of the President's case. In doing so, they harmed her career and put at risk operations she had worked on and foreign agents and sources she had handled.

[Fridays Child]

1. K&R for truth.

[texpatriot2004]

3. I think you forgot to "R" because I am the 1st to recommend. nt

[Fridays Child]

10. Silly me. Fixed now.

Thanks! :)

[Penndems]

2. Outstanding article - thank you for posting this

Kicked for Ambassador and Mrs. Wilson! :)

[dajoki]

4. Maybe the truth will start to get out n/t

[Auntie Bush]

5. Kicked and rec.

[peacetalksforall]

6. I am sure this is true reporting. If not, I would expect either of the

Wilsons to speak out. But, I don't trust Isikoff in any shape or form. And my distrust of Corn is growing. Co-authoring a book with a person I consider an enemy of this country? I'm left complexed. I'll just wait for now. Any theories?

[dajoki]

8. Yes, Corn has me puzzled n/t

[dajoki]

9. Delete -- Double post n/t

[lala_rawraw]

11. this mostly accurate... there is some confusion

regarding timing, but from what i have heard today, this is okay in terms of general info:

-yes she was covert
-yes she was working on WMD in Middle East (Iraq/Iran specifically)
-yes her outing caused damage
-yes, her outing hampered our ability to collect intel/humint on the ground

those are the key points and those are dead on... there is some presentation issues of how the article was put together, but we have to wait for the book to get a better sense of the issues in the article. but yes, in short, it is good.

[Supersedeas]

14. I have the same reservations about both.

[janx]

15. $$$

Another political book.

Yet from Conason's point of view, the mention of Armitage in this book doesn't necessarily mean that Armitage was the original source of the leak (anyone who has studied basic logic can tell you that), and I'm not sure that the authors of the book actually claimed he was.

It's the game of telephone among the mass media, along with political talking points that seem to do battle every day among them.

The media are broken. There's a lack of logic and critical thought in the media--they know it and don't care, because the bottom line is all that matters to them. Ratings are all that matter.

[janx]

16. This might interest you--

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x2061374

[Name removed]

7. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[dajoki]

12. Why? Good question n/t

[janx]

13. The investigation's not over yet.

Why would the investigation take place if she as just a "desk jockey," as the right wing media have asserted?

Her position was classified. Somebody declassified it. And it wasn't Armitage.

Edit to add: It's not Corn's job to know if anyone broke the law in mentioning her name. The investigation will determine that; so far, Fitzgerald has said that her position was classified and that someone blew her cover. He could not ascertain who it was, because Libby gave conflicting testimony, "throwing sand in the umpire's eyes" was the way he put it, I believe.

[Igel]

17. The investigation's not over, but

it's possible the law wasn't broken.

If you don't know a person's covert, if you don't know that steps are being taken to maintain his/her cover, and if you don't have a security clearance that authorizes you to get access to that information, then you're simply not covered by the law.

If the prosecutor can't show that you knew the person was covert and can't show that you knew that steps were being taken to maintain the agent's covert status, then the jury can't convict.

[dajoki]

18. I guess anything's possible n/t