The Discerning Texan
All that is necessary for evil to triumph, is for good men to do nothing.
-- Edmund Burke
-- Edmund Burke
Sunday, October 30, 2005
It is clear: Valerie Plame was NOT "Covert"
Tom McGuire of Just One Minute has done a sensational job of pulling together lots of links and soureces that clearly answer the question most relevant to Joseph Wilson/Valerie Plame case: Ms. Plame was NOT a covert agent; therefore revealing her identity to the press does NOT violate the standards of the federal statute protecting covert agents. While Mr. Fitzgerald seems to be fixated on getting someone for their "fuzzy" recollections of the exact chain of events, the problems Scooter Libby faces has much more to do with his own recollections vs. those of reporters, and relatively nothing to do with the fact that Ms. Plame's identity was revealed:
Joe Wilson, aka "Mr. Incredible" will be whining appearing on 60 Minutes about threats to his wife. Uh huh. Maybe, since Joe admitted to doing consulting work for the CIA in his NY Times op-ed (and the Senate revealed that he undertook a 1999 CIA mission), it is he that is imperiled. Or maybe the baddies are excited about the prospect of a twofer.
Closer to reality is Joseph DiGenova, a Washington lawyer and former US attorney who spoke to the Christian Science Monitor:
DiGenova adds that if the trial judge allows the references to classified information to remain in the indictment, defense lawyers will probably attack the CIA itself for failing to take the necessary measures to protect its own agent.
It was the CIA that enlisted the agent's husband, Joseph Wilson, for the sensitive mission in Africa, and it was the CIA that permitted Mr. Wilson to publicly disclose his role and publicly criticize the White House in an op-ed piece in The New York Times, diGenova says. In effect, the CIA set the stage through sloppy tradecraft for the disclosure of one of its agents.
Indeed - as the Boston Globe noted, her Brewster-Jennings cover was not designed to withstand any scrutiny at all.
The Washington Post surveys the damage done by the Plame leak, and delivers this reassurance:
There is no indication, according to current and former intelligence officials, that the most dire of consequences -- the risk of anyone's life -- resulted from her outing.
Bob Woodward's leaked version was even more reassuring:
WOODWARD: ... They did a damage assessment within the CIA, looking at what this did that Joe Wilson's wife was outed. And turned out it was quite minimal damage. They did not have to pull anyone out undercover abroad. They didn't have to resettle anyone. There was no physical danger to anyone and there was just some embarrassment.
The WaPo also presents a garbled paragraph that is more compelling in the re-edited version picked up by Newsday:
The CIA will not conduct a formal damage assessment until legal proceedings are complete.
Is that how it works when our national security is threatened and lives are on the line - the CIA waits a few years until the trials are over, then assesses the damage?
Come on, we see through this - if the CIA prepared a formal report, it would be subpoenaed as evidence, and the jury would laugh out loud at the "no damage" assessment. So the CIA filed a criminal referral in 2003, got the White House tied up in a two year investigation, and now they are laughing out loud. Well played, especially if you like a spy service that shrugs off executive oversight by inventing crimes and playing dirty tricks.
That said, Fitzgerald saw through their outing ploy, else, where are the indictments for the leaks to Novak and Pincus? However, Fitzgerald did not see through their mysterious "Forgettery Mind Ray" that was trained on Lewis Libby. Where is the justice?
Joe Wilson, aka "Mr. Incredible" will be whining appearing on 60 Minutes about threats to his wife. Uh huh. Maybe, since Joe admitted to doing consulting work for the CIA in his NY Times op-ed (and the Senate revealed that he undertook a 1999 CIA mission), it is he that is imperiled. Or maybe the baddies are excited about the prospect of a twofer.
Closer to reality is Joseph DiGenova, a Washington lawyer and former US attorney who spoke to the Christian Science Monitor:
DiGenova adds that if the trial judge allows the references to classified information to remain in the indictment, defense lawyers will probably attack the CIA itself for failing to take the necessary measures to protect its own agent.
It was the CIA that enlisted the agent's husband, Joseph Wilson, for the sensitive mission in Africa, and it was the CIA that permitted Mr. Wilson to publicly disclose his role and publicly criticize the White House in an op-ed piece in The New York Times, diGenova says. In effect, the CIA set the stage through sloppy tradecraft for the disclosure of one of its agents.
Indeed - as the Boston Globe noted, her Brewster-Jennings cover was not designed to withstand any scrutiny at all.
The Washington Post surveys the damage done by the Plame leak, and delivers this reassurance:
There is no indication, according to current and former intelligence officials, that the most dire of consequences -- the risk of anyone's life -- resulted from her outing.
Bob Woodward's leaked version was even more reassuring:
WOODWARD: ... They did a damage assessment within the CIA, looking at what this did that Joe Wilson's wife was outed. And turned out it was quite minimal damage. They did not have to pull anyone out undercover abroad. They didn't have to resettle anyone. There was no physical danger to anyone and there was just some embarrassment.
The WaPo also presents a garbled paragraph that is more compelling in the re-edited version picked up by Newsday:
The CIA will not conduct a formal damage assessment until legal proceedings are complete.
Is that how it works when our national security is threatened and lives are on the line - the CIA waits a few years until the trials are over, then assesses the damage?
Come on, we see through this - if the CIA prepared a formal report, it would be subpoenaed as evidence, and the jury would laugh out loud at the "no damage" assessment. So the CIA filed a criminal referral in 2003, got the White House tied up in a two year investigation, and now they are laughing out loud. Well played, especially if you like a spy service that shrugs off executive oversight by inventing crimes and playing dirty tricks.
That said, Fitzgerald saw through their outing ploy, else, where are the indictments for the leaks to Novak and Pincus? However, Fitzgerald did not see through their mysterious "Forgettery Mind Ray" that was trained on Lewis Libby. Where is the justice?
