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Did the NIE that Bush "declassified" contain Plame's name?

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leveymg Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Apr-08-06 10:16 AM
Original message
Did the NIE that Bush "declassified" contain Plame's name?
Edited on Sat Apr-08-06 10:18 AM by leveymg
According to a February 11, 2006 post at Firedoglake cited by Stop The Bleeding, Plame's name was in the CIA national Intelligence Estimate (NIE) that Scooter shared with Judy Miller ten days before it was declassified by the Agency. http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=364x871455

This is the classified document that Libby testified Cheney and Bush authorized him to release. Now it comes together!!!!

By "declassifying" the NIE that Scooter shared with Judy Miller, Bush outed Plame. If this report is accurate, this is IT! Smoking gun, caught in the act, in flagrant delecti, etc.

CAN ANYONE CONFIRM OR SHED ANY LIGHT ON THIS?:

"The NIE - this is a document that traditionally takes up to 3 months to prepare and is always customary before our Country does big events like a war per say. Now according to Firedoglake, the WH wasn't even gonna have an NIE until Dick Durbin asked for one and the WH reluctantly complied and did it in 20 days or so vs the usual 3 months. - SEE FIREDOFLAKE link for better details

Now here is the fun part, the INR memo that has Plame's status all throughout it, was included as a footnote in the NIE but not in the White Paper of the NIE that went to Congress as requested. In addition to the INR footnote it completely contradicted what portions of the NIE was saying about yellow cake - important omission IMO.


more on the INR and NIE here at
http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:_mjOsVbkl6AJ:firedoglake.blogspot.com/2006_02_05_firedoglake_archive.html+Could+Cheney+Declassify+the+NIE+plame+inr+firedoglake&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1



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savemefromdumbya Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Apr-08-06 10:22 AM
Response to Original message
1. Fitzgerald should know?
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OnyxCollie Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Apr-08-06 11:12 AM
Response to Original message
2. I had been thinking about this as well.
I thought when Scooter said he got info leaked to him by Bush (through Cheney), it was in regards to Valerie Plame's name. But it seems the info is the NIE that Scooter leaked to Judy Miller regarding Iraq's capabilities, not necessarily Plame. Did I miss something, or are they both connected? Would this fall into the reasoning by the WH that the leak was okay because it was just declassified Iraq intelligence, and not the outing of a covert agent and the exposing of Brewster, Jennings & Associates? Either way, pretty hard to see how it's in the "public's interest" to reveal this.
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leveymg Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Apr-08-06 11:25 AM
Response to Reply #2
4. If true, Fitz has the evidence that Bush outed Plame.
He's had the NIE for months. He would have received it from CIA the day after he first learned from Judy Miller last October that she met with Scooter for breakfast on July 8, 2003 and had a peek at the NIE, ten days before the Agency declassified that document. Fitz would likely have known this since Judy finally broke down and testified after 85 days in Alexandria jail.

I think it's safe to say now, we're about to see some new indictments.
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leveymg Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Apr-08-06 11:12 AM
Response to Original message
3. WaPo report describes the INR memo
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/20/AR2005072002517.html
Plame's Identity Marked As Secret
Memo Central to Probe Of Leak Was Written By State Dept. Analyst

By Walter Pincus and Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, July 21, 2005; Page A01

A classified State Department memorandum central to a federal leak investigation contained information about CIA officer Valerie Plame in a paragraph marked "(S)" for secret, a clear indication that any Bush administration official who read it should have been aware the information was classified, according to current and former government officials. Plame -- who is referred to by her married name, Valerie Wilson, in the memo -- is mentioned in the second paragraph of the three-page document, which was written on June 10, 2003, by an analyst in the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), according to a source who described the memo to The Washington Post.

The paragraph identifying her as the wife of former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV was clearly marked to show that it contained classified material at the "secret" level, two sources said. The CIA classifies as "secret" the names of officers whose identities are covert, according to former senior agency officials. Anyone reading that paragraph should have been aware that it contained secret information, though that designation was not specifically attached to Plame's name and did not describe her status as covert, the sources said. It is a federal crime, punishable by up to 10 years in prison, for a federal official to knowingly disclose the identity of a covert CIA official if the person knows the government is trying to keep it secret.

Prosecutors attempting to determine whether senior government officials knowingly leaked Plame's identity as a covert CIA operative to the media are investigating whether White House officials gained access to information about her from the memo, according to two sources familiar with the investigation.

SNIP

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leveymg Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Apr-08-06 11:47 AM
Response to Original message
5. Another source for INR Memo contained in the NIE

The following is a response to DaxMan's Blog at TMP Cafe on July 20, 2005. See,
http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/7/20/16340/8649

On July 20, 2005 - 6:16pm Dan Wingfoot said:

The press gaggle on July 11 has an interesting exchange about the reason that the 16-word uranium reference was used in the Bush SOTU, and then not used by Powell when he testified before the UN seven days later.

Rice explains that the SOTU remarks were based on the National Intelligence Estimate from DCI, which she maintains supported the idea that Iraq had tried to buy yellowcake from Africa, whereas the Powell terstimony relied on the INR information from State, which we now know includes the June 10 memo that explains Wilson's trip. When questioned whether the NIE/CIA and INR/State intelligence is contradictory, Rice says that it is not, explaining that the INR information was contained in a footnote placed in the NIE to elaborate what INR knew.

Rice, soon after this exchange, introduces, out of the blue it seems, the information about Wilson's trip, which leads me to believe she had seen the INR memo about Wilson's trip that Powell was seen holding in hand as he walked around Air Force One, and her interjection does lend weight to the idea of a conspiracy to smear Wilson having already been hatched. A reporter asks if the INR footnote could be declassified, and Rice answered, "You know, we don't want to try to get into kind of selective declassification , but we're looking at what can be made available."

This might explain Karl Rove's statement to Matt Cooper on that same day, July 11th, that information about Valerie Plame working for CIA and having a part in sending Joe Wilson to Niger would probably be "declassified soon". That almost certainly indicates that Rove had seen the INR memo, or at least been told about it and that, as Rice indicated, it might be decalssified.

It does look like a conspiracy was underway that involves Rove, Ari Fleischer, Rice, Powell, and possibly others.



That comment by Wingfoot was in response to Daxman's report that Condi and Ari had been pushing the Wilson story to reporters on board AF1 on July:

DID CONDI PUSH THE "WILSON'S WIFE SENT HIM STORY"?
By daxman | bio

As it has been discussed, Fitzgerald’s office is keenly interested in the State Department memo, distributed in the days leading up to the Novak article, disclosing that Wilson’s wife had something to do with sending Wilson to Niger. The LA Times July 18, 2005 story discusses how there is interest in whether Ari Fleischer was pushing the story to reporters before the Novak article appeared. The LA Times July 18, 2005 articles ends with:

“And Fleischer also seemed attuned to a strategy of discrediting Wilson. Two days before Novak revealed Plame's identity, Fleischer questioned the former envoy's findings in remarks to reporters during a trip with Bush in Africa.The transcript of that press gaggle (the term for an informal question-and- answer between reporters and the White House spokesman), which took place in the National Hospital in Abuja, Nigeria, has been requested by the prosecutors.”The transcript of the July 12, 2003 press gaggle reveals no reference to the Wilson matter. Fleischer may have been pushing the story in his July 7, 2003 gaggle. (See text of his Wilson reference in the July 7, 2003 gaggle below). But a key exchange on the Wilson trip did occur in the July 11, 2003 press gaggle aboard Air Force One with both Ari Fleischer and Condoleezza Rice and it wasn’t Ari pushing the Wilson story.The transcript of the July 11, 2003 press gaggle has this interesting exchange:Q Dr. Rice, when did you all find out that the documents were forged?
DR. RICE: Sometime in March, I believe. Is that right?
MR. FLEISCHER: The IAEA reported it.
DR. RICE: The IAEA reported it I believe in March. But I will tell you that, for instance, on Ambassador Wilson's going out to Niger, I learned of that when I was sitting on whatever TV show it was, because that mission was not known to anybody in the White House. And you should ask the Agency at what level it was known in the Agency.
Q When was that TV show, when you learned about it?
DR. RICE: A month ago, about a month ago.
Q Can I ask you about something else?
DR. RICE: Yes. Are you sure you're through with this? In reading the whole transcript you’ll find that no reference to Wilson had been made before Condi brings it up.So Condi uses a barely-related question to bring up the issue about why Wilson was sent to Niger. She offers the news that he was not sent by the White House and then literally prods the reports to go ask the CIA why he was sent. Then, when a reporter tries to change the subject she prods the reporters to ask more with: “Are you sure you're through with this?”Did Condi see the memo and join (maybe even start) the effort to “out Wilson” on why he got the job? If Fitzgerald is looking into conspiracy issues, even Condi may be in trouble.Do we know whether Condi has given testimony? I have heard nothing about it.Also, the following is the text of Fleischer’s reference to the reasons for Wilson’s trip at the July 7, 2003 gaggle:Q Can you give us the White House account of Ambassador Wilson's account of what happened when he went
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leveymg Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Apr-08-06 12:15 PM
Response to Reply #5
6. Yet another reference to the INR footnote in the NIE
Edited on Sat Apr-08-06 12:16 PM by leveymg
Looks like Condi gave it up about the footnote. This is from a response to Emptywheel's Blog at Next Hurrah, October 30, 2005: http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com/the_next_hurrah/2005/10/the_conspiracy_.html

Posted by: Swopa | October 31, 2005 at 10:32

At this point, I have two questions:

SNIP

Then there is the declassification wish. "A secret report will be declassified" is definitely part of Narrative 1. We know Rove used it to Cooper on 7/11 when he said “material was going to be declassified in the coming days that would cast doubt on Wilson’s mission and his findings”, and Novak mentions it in his column on 7/14.

There is another mention of declassification. The only record I can find of declassifying actually happening is the NIE on 7/18, although some of the NIE had been included in a letter to Bob Graham earlier. Rice had said that: "The only thing that was there in the NIE was a kind of a standard INR footnote, which is kind of 59 pages away from the bulk of the NIE" in the July 11 gaggle. She also said: "You know, we don't want to try to get into kind of selective declassification, but we're looking at what can be made available." Of course, the Boston Globe reported on the 19th, after the NIE was released: "Previously, the White House has said there was a 'footnote' reflecting concerns raised by the State Department. The document includes a sentence in the first paragraph of the Iraq section highlighting the State Department's alternate view, or dissent, in what was called an 'annex' to the report."

But the point is that the earliest mention of declassification I can find, on the same day that Rove mentions it to Cooper (and perhaps the same day Official A mentions it to Novak) is Condi in the gaggle.


NOW, WHEN WE GOOGLE "NEI was a kind of a standard INR footnote, which is kind of 59 pages way from the bulk of the NEI", WE GET THIS FAMOUS JULY 12, 2003 WASHINGTON POST ARTICLE, THE ONE REPORTING TENET "FALLING ON HIS SWORD" FOR BUSH OVER THE NIGER YELLOWCAKE "MISTAKE". THIS ARTICLE ALSO QUOTES CONDI RICE TAKING ABOUT THE INR FOOTNOTE IN THE NEI:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A45901-2003Jul11?language=printer

Bush, Rice Blame CIA for Iraq Error
Tenet Accepts Responsibility for Clearing Statement on Nuclear Aims in Jan. Speech

By Walter Pincus and Dana Milbank
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, July 12, 2003; Page A01

President Bush and his national security adviser yesterday placed full responsibility on the Central Intelligence Agency for the inclusion in this year's State of the Union address of questionable allegations that Iraq's Saddam Hussein was trying to buy nuclear materials in Africa.

The president defended use of the allegation by saying the Jan. 28 speech "was cleared by the intelligence services."

Within hours of Bush's comments, CIA Director George J. Tenet accepted blame for allowing the allegations into the Jan. 28 address, saying the information "did not rise to the level of certainty which should be required for presidential speeches and the CIA should have ensured that it was removed."

The extraordinary statements yesterday were part of a coordinated Bush administration effort to end a controversy over whether the president and his top officials have misled the public and Congress in their prewar assertions about Hussein's attempts to rebuild his nuclear weapons program. They also amounted to a rare public rebuke from the president for a senior adviser.

SNIP

Rice discussed the issue for nearly an hour on Air Force One. Asked about the CIA efforts to discourage the British from making the claim, Rice said: "If there were doubts about the underlying intelligence in the NIE" -- the National Intelligence Estimate that mentioned "yellow cake," a term for uranium ore -- "those doubts were not communicated to the president." She said the only mention of doubts was in a "standard INR footnote, which is kind of 59 pages away from the bulk of the NIE." INR is the State Department's intelligence arm, the Bureau of Intelligence and Research. "If there was a concern about the underlying intelligence there, the president was unaware of that concern, as was I," Rice said. She said Secretary of State Colin L. Powell did not include the uranium allegation in the speech he gave to the United Nations on Feb. 5, eight days after the president spoke. She said that was because INR had questioned the matter. Neither Powell nor other State Department officials questioned its inclusion.


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Garbo 2004 Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Apr-08-06 02:24 PM
Response to Original message
7. Declassified "Key Judgments" of NIE available, released 7/18/03
.pdf format direct link: http://www.ceip.org/files/projects/npp/pdf/Iraq/declassifiedintellreport.pdf

via Center for American Progress site, under section "OCTOBER 2002 — STATE DEPT. WARNS WHITE HOUSE ON NUKE CHARGES" http://www.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=24889

Page 23 of Fitz's 39 page April 5 filing states that Libby testified he was specifically authorized to release to Miller information from the Key Judgments portion of the NIE. (The Key Judgments were later publicly declassified and released on July 18.) Libby testified that he took to the July 8 Miller meeting a brief abstract of the Key Judgments to discuss with Miller.

But as Pg 23-24 of the filing states, at the July 8 meeting Libby also discussed with Miller the contents of a then classified CIA report which Libby characterized to Miller as having been authored by Wilson.

And on July 8 Libby again mentioned to Miller that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA, this time saying she was as an analyst at WINPAC. (Except of course Libby at the time knew, because Cheney had told him in early June, that Plame-Wilson worked in the Directorate of Operations, counterproliferation division where the operatives were.)

Miller's version of the July 8 Libby meeting and discussion of NIE info from her NYT article:

"An unclassified version of that estimate had been made public before my interviews with Mr. Libby. I told Mr. Fitzgerald that I had pressed Mr. Libby to discuss additional information that was in the more detailed, classified version of the estimate. I said I had told Mr. Libby that if The Times was going to do an article, the newspaper needed more than a recap of the administration's weapons arguments. According to my interview notes, though, it appears that Mr. Libby said little more than that the assessments of the classified estimate were even stronger than those in the unclassified version.

Although I was interested primarily in my area of expertise - chemical and biological weapons - my notes show that Mr. Libby consistently steered our conversation back to the administration's nuclear claims. His main theme echoed that of other senior officials: that contrary to Mr. Wilson's criticism, the administration had had ample reason to be concerned about Iraq's nuclear capabilities based on the regime's history of weapons development, its use of unconventional weapons and fresh intelligence reports." http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/16/national/16miller.html?pagewanted=3&ei=5070&en=8b5d65316dd57414&ex=1144641600

Further along in Miller's first person saga:

"Mr. Fitzgerald asked me to examine a series of documents. Though I could not identify them with certainty, I said that some seemed familiar, and that they might be excerpts from the National Intelligence Estimate of Iraq's weapons. Mr. Fitzgerald asked whether Mr. Libby had shown any of the documents to me. I said no, I didn't think so. I thought I remembered him at one point reading from a piece of paper he pulled from his pocket."

Now, no doubt Miller spun and weaseled in her NYT article and may also have weaseled in her grand jury testimony. But Fitz had her by the shorties and wanted certain pieces of the puzzle from her to add to his larger mosaic of information. Presumably he got the info he wanted from her and so far, this version of Judy's testimony and the court docs are what we have on the matter.

Clearly, Libby's discussions with Miller went beyond what he told the grand jury he was "authorized" to reveal to her. I've previously suggested that the NIE info was Libby's cover story for meeting with Miller on July 8. The point of the Libby-Miller's discussions was to discredit Wilson (and somewhat ironically those awful "selective leakers" at the CIA who were providing info contrary to the Administration's Iraq WMD assertions).

Focusing on the NIE on July 8, while interesting, is also a bit of distraction IMO in terms of Libby's dealings with Miller and the leaking of Plame's CIA employment. The NIE story "explained" why he met with Miller after Wilson's July 6 Op Ed. Libby also insisted he had not disclosed Plame's identity to Miller. He first said that on July 8 he couldn't have told Miller Wilson's wife worked at the CIA because he didn't yet know that, Russert hadn't yet told him. But Russert spilled and refuted Libby's version of their conversation. Furthermore, Fitz had documented that Libby was told of Plame's CIA employment in June, if not earlier. So Libby's memory refreshed and he said when he spoke to Judy he'd "forgotten" he knew Plame worked at the CIA so he still couldn't have told Miller. Heh.

In fact of course, Libby and others had been working to discredit Wilson well before he went public with his Op Ed. And Libby had told Miller that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA both during and prior to the July 8 meeting. They'd met on June 23 and Libby mentioned Wilson's wife to Judy. Note that neither Libby or Miller initially disclosed to Fitz/Grand Jury the fact that they had met on June 23. At that meeting, according to Judy, Libby bitched about the CIA and told her that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA.

Perhaps since the focus of the investigation seemed to be on what happened after Wilson's July 6 Op Ed, it seemed safe to Libby not to mention the June meeting. Plus he likely figured that his bud Judy, Queen of the First Amendment, wouldn't talk to Fitz. But, as with Russert, he was wrong about Judy. Judy cracked and testified about the July 8 meeting. Bad enough, but it appeared she still was trying not to fully rat out Libby since she didn't mention their June meeting. But Fitz had an ace up his sleeve: he knew they had met on June 23. So after Judy's initial grand jury testimony, which didn't mention the June 23 discussion with Libby, Fitz encouraged her to go back and "refresh" her memory. And she just by coincidence happened to discover her notes on the June 23 meeting. (Whooo, these poor folks all need a memory course, don't they?)

Libby's camp is likely happy about the dust storm over the NIE and the July 8 meeting. Among other reasons, it confuses matters, directs attention away from Libby himself and keeps the Libby/Miller June 23 meeting under the public radar. In short, Libby didn't need no stinkin' NIE or super secret "declassification" of the NIE to blab about Plame. IMO, the NIE is a smokescreen when we look at how and when Libby leaked Plame's CIA employment to Miller.
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countryjake Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sat Apr-08-06 03:33 PM
Response to Original message
8. I just did a find on all those documents & couldn't find her name...
anywhere. Could somebody direct me to which "footnote" they are referring to.

Here are all the documents:

CIA Whites Out Controversial Estimate on Iraq Weapons;
Main Subject of Today's Senate Intelligence Report Remains Largely Secret; Agency Censors Document Despite Public CIA Speeches, Testimony, Statements July 9, 2004
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB129/index.htm



The Documents Behind the Bush Administration's Intelligence Disclosure on Iraq's Weapons of Mass Destruction April 7, 2006
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/news/20060407/index.htm
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stop the bleeding Donating Member (1000+ posts) Send PM | Profile | Ignore Sun Apr-09-06 02:05 PM
Response to Original message
9. Ok this is what I am guessing at
According to Roger Morris's Counterpunch article "The Source Beyond Rove"

We know that that INR evovled out of the Feb 2002 meetings at the CIA when they were trying to follow up on Cheney's request(s).




February 2002: Vice President Cheney hears "about the possibility of Iraq trying to acquire uranium from Niger," according to what his chief of staff Libby later tells Time. In his daily intelligence briefing by the CIA, as Libby relates, Cheney asks about "the implication of the report." CIA briefing officers tell Cheney and Libby of the documents passed on months before by the Italians, including the State and Energy Department judgment that the papers are probable forgeries.

A few days later, with the routine concurrence of Rice and her staff, Cheney through Libby asks the CIA to look into the matter further. The Agency has no ready experts in Niger suitable to assign the Vice President's requested inquiry. After routinely canvassing the relevant offices and relatively brief discussion, they seize on the suggestion of one of their operatives working on nuclear proliferation issues, a mid-level CIA veteran named Valerie Plame who has worked abroad and in Washington under "NOC" ­non-official cover in private business in contact with several foreign sources. Her pertinent if personal recommendation for the assignment is her husband, then-fifty-three year-old Joseph Wilson IV, a retired Foreign Service Officer who has served briefly as Charge d'Affairs in Baghdad in 1990 and then from 1992-1993 as US Ambassador to Gabon, a seasoned diplomat with experience in both Iraq and West Africa, and even some specialization in African strategic minerals.

February 19, 2002: A meeting at the CIA discusses sending Wilson to Niger. Attending is an analyst from the State Department Bureau of Intelligence and Research who says the trip is unnecessary, since the US embassy in Niger and European intelligence agencies have already disproved the story of an Iraqi purchase-and whose notes of the meeting, including the facts of Valerie Plame's CIA identity as an NOC operative on WMD and her role in recommending her husband, will be the basis for later crucial memos in the scandal.

Despite State Department objection, the CIA decides to go ahead with the Wilson mission to satisfy the Vice President's request, and the former ambassador is "invited out to meet with a group of people at the CIA who were interested in this subject," as he will remember it. Wilson is introduced to the gathering by his wife, who then leaves the room.

In late February, with the concurrence of CIA Director George Tenet as well as Rice and Powell, Wilson flies to Niger.

~snip~

June 10, 2003: Undersecretary of State Marc Grossman asks the Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR) for a briefing on the Niger uranium issue, and specifically the State Department's opposition to the continuing White House view that Iraq had tried to buy yellow cake. The resulting memo is dated the same day, and drawn from notes on the February 19 meeting at the CIA on the Wilson mission and other sources. Befitting the sensitivity of the information, the memo is classified "Top Secret," and contains in one paragraph, separately marked '(S/NF)" for "Secret/No dissemination to foreign governments or intelligence agencies, " two sentences describing in passing Valerie "Wilson's" identity as a CIA operative and her role in the inception of the Wilson trip to Niger. This June 10 memo reportedly does not use her maiden name Plame.

June 12, 2003: The Washington Post reports that an unnamed "former US ambassador" was sent to Niger to look into the uranium issue and found no evidence of any Iraqi purchase.

At the State Department, Deputy Secretary Richard Armitage asks INR to prepare a memorandum on the background of what the Post is reporting, and INR sends to Armitage that same day a copy of the June 10 memo to Grossman. The memo is also sent to Undersecretary for Arms Control and International Security (and future UN Ambassador-designate) John Bolton.

~snip~

Later in the day,(07/06/2003) Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage calls INR Assistant Secretary Carl W. Ford at home, and asks him to send a briefing memo to Powell about the Niger uranium issue. Ford simply pulls out the previous June 10 memo with its reference to Wilson's wife (her name now corrected from Wilson to Plame), addresses it to Powell, and forwards the memo to Rice to be passed on to Powell, who is due to leave the next day with the Presidential party on a trip to Africa.


http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:RajaUXFaeDcJ:www.counterpunch.org/morris07272005.html+counterpunch+rice+INR+NIE+plame&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1



So we know by now, if one keeps reading the Morris article that this "Recopied Memo" is a basis for what becomes the INR memo, the same memo that Ari, Powell, Rice and others were seen passing around on the Plane on the trip to Africa. Now we also know based on Firedoglake and your posts above that this INR memo was based on the Feb 2002 meetings about Plame, the same INR memo that was marked "S" for Secret that had Plame's identity in it ended up becoming a "footnote in the NIE"

http://72.14.203.104/search?q=cache:_mjOsVbkl6AJ:firedoglake.blogspot.com/2006_02_05_firedoglake_archive.html+Could+Cheney+Declassify+the+NIE+plame+inr+firedoglake&hl=en&gl=us&ct=clnk&cd=1


Look at this next link and you tell me if Scooter was discussing the NIE with Snooty Miller at their infamous July breakfast. After reading this link here, you will see why would they need to discuss something that they already discussed, shit they had it down pat from Sept 2002. The only thing that they discussed was Plame.

http://www.boomantribune.com/story/2006/4/6/182522/5719 - this to me is dagger in the heart of Judy/Fibby's beakfast story.


Now I have been killing myself to find anything more concrete than what you and the other DU'ers have already found on the INR vs the NIE. But a reasonable person could infer after reading the posts/articles at counterpunch and firedoglake that Plame's identity could have very well ended up in the "UNCLASSIFIED" versions of the NIE tucked away in that INR footnote. One could also infer based on Fibby's obsession with Wilson at the same time that Fibby needed to talk to Miller again on data that they were already were familiar with because they concocted it is pure BS. Fibby was there to leak Plame's name. Other than the information that we have, I think we will have to wait for Fitz to show us some more of his cards so that we can see what is in those memos, but if I was in Vegas I would have to place some bets on the INR. I think that these memos/reports/footnotes are OUR Hloy Grail so to speak, but I have my doubts on us being able to find something more concrete, but here's to that awesome DU detective work.:toast:
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