Adie @ 93

I think this picture that our Pat_AlexVA took says it all.

What do you see in this picture?

omg! Too much. aaand just what were the tears signifying earlier? ohdear ohdear…

I am going to be putting together a post for my Canadian readers on this issue over the next few days, and I hope you do not mind if I choose to use this comment of yours as an element in it. The arguments you put forward here are exceptionally strong and well thought out regarding her covert status and why it is so hard to get confirmation even to this day on it.

sonate @ 67

“I’m particularly sick and tired of hearing the nonsense that Valerie Plame Wilson was not covert.”

Me too. However it has never been officially disclosed whether she WAS covert. Twice (in the indictment/presser and post conviction presser) Fitz has said that Plame’s status was “classified” which is not necessarily covert. Now why in hell can’t Fitz (or somebody in CIA) end conjecture once and for all by simply telling us that either she was covert (which I believe) or that, although her job was classified, she was not covert. That could end the wingnut spin (on this issue at least) forever.

Could I get some help here from one of you legal eagles?

I just don’t understand why the CIA would ask for an investigation in the first place if she was not a NOC.
So in my mind, the fact that the CIA did ask for this investigation proves that she was.
IANAL, so am I being simplistic here?

Is there some other reason for an investigation if she wasn’t a NOC?

If she wasn’t a NOC, but Libby thought she was a NOC and talked about her to reporters, he couldn’t be in any jeopardy for thinking he was committing a crime, could he?

I mean if I think I’m running a red light, I can’t be arrested for it if the light really isn’t red.

I will offer two possibilities.

1) Plame was still in covert status, and undertook missions abroad even after she returned to Washington D.C. The Intelligence Agents Identity Protection Act would cover her position in that case. The law does not mandate that the agent or officer be stationed or have resided overseas. It merely says that the agent, officer or source travel abroad in SERVICE to the agency. That could even be a one day trip to debrief a source.

In this scenario, Fitz could not prosecute under the IAIPA because a) revealing that Plame was covert would risk exposing current intelligence sources and ongoing operations.

This would clearly signal a problem with the law. In addition, the law itself appears (though this is debatable) that the individual who exposed the agent KNOW that the person was COVERT, and had the intent of exposing COVERT OPERATIONS. Thus, mere craven “pay back” for political purposes wouldn’t qualify…even though it might result in scores of agents dead or exposed. If this is the way the law was written, it is not worth the paper it was drafted upon…and protects no one. It needs revision by Congress.

2) The other possibility is Plame was not currently “covert”, and had not travelled abroad within the last five yeras. HOWEVER, her status was such that the CIA still required her activities to be classified because it would still expose covert sources and operations abroad to expiosure if the fact that she were a CIA officer was revealed. She may have be the nominal head of a “Cover Firm” which received information from sources or agents. Or many of her sources from before fiove years may have still been active and her contact with them could still be traced by unfriendly rogue nations or terrorists. Thus the CIA may have determined that five years of “home service” was insufficient to protect Plame’s contacts and staff. Thus they needed to keep her status CLASSIFIED even though she, hersel;f, was “unlikely to travel abroad”.

But I would point out that Plame’s neighbors, after being intrviewed by the Wash Po and Salon clearly stated that they were aware of her travelling abroad “on business” often and recently. Since Wilson and Plame only moved into their residence in that Washington D.C. neighborhood within the five year window that would protect covert agents it seems to me clear that Plame went abroad on CIA business, at least for short periods.

This fits well with the fact that she had a “cover” (Brewster Jennings & Associates) that no mere analyst or officer of the agency would have need of unless they were “running” a covert operation abroad.

The fact that her specific status STILL remains CLASSIFIED to this date indicates that her position was HIGHLY CLANDESTINE wityh high impact on National Security sources if exposed. It means that many of her agents, sources and operations still are at risk if the CIA details them. Otherwise Toensing, Novakula, or even the Libby lawyers ciould have simply gone to the CIA Public Information Office and received the information about her oposition. The fact is none of them CAN.

Even the WH knew that they couldn’t overtly reveal Plame’s employment to the public by merely having the CIA piont out that she was a CIA employee. Recall that Novak TRIED to get a lear statement from the CIA and all he was told was not to reveal the information…that it could pose a risk to her. Then Novak went and hunted down her “COVER” firm by looking at her FEC campaign records. That should have told him that he was revealing covert operations…but the idiot acted with craven disregard to National Security needs.

UNCLASSIFIED CIA officers and employees can easily cite their employmernt at the agency. The CIA does NOT create cover organizations or histories for them.

Just type in “CIA” or “Central Intelligence Agency” into the EMPLOYER section on the following site and you’ll find scores of CIA analysts and officers that are Unclassified employees that make political contributions to all nature of politicians and parties.

http://www.tray.com/cgi-win/indexhtml.exe?MBF=EMP

Plame is not listed as “CIA”…without having that information “leaked” to Novak she would have appeared as an “Energy Analyst” to Brewster & Jennings…and Novak would have had no idea that she was involved with covert operations.

Biodun @ 96

What! Bush isn’t reading Anatomy of Deceit?

I don’t think “Anatomy of Deceit” has many pictures!

Dear Senator Whitehouse, First of all congratulations – I stood at 1 mile corner with a sign bearing your name on election day.

The verdict in the Scooter Libby trial only drives home the point that this administration needs to be impeached immediately. Patrick Fitzgerald talks about the cloud hanging over Mr. Cheney and the entire administration. To save our beloved Constitution and the morale of the American people, not to mention the loss of any more lives in this murderous and otherwise devastating war, impeachment is not an option, it is our moral and constitutional duty. There is nothing is to be gained , and so much to lose, by playing this scenario out for another 2 years. I believe that you understand this. You are in a position to help make the entire Senate understand this.

Sincerely,

Tom Perrotti, retired educator and musician.

http://turcopolier.typepad.com/the_athenaeum/

” “WPost’s Editorial Fantasyland”

By Robert Parry
March 8, 2007
“Fred Hiatt’s Washington Post editorial page and George W. Bush’s presidency have a lot in common – most notably an arrogance of power so extreme that they believe their very words can alter reality.
With Bush, that record has been well established, from asserting that Saddam Hussein never let the U.N. inspectors in to hyping progress in the Iraq War. But editorial page editor Hiatt – in league with Post publisher Donald Graham – is not far behind.
After the conviction of former White House aide I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby for lying about and covering up the Bush administration’s outing of covert CIA officer Valerie Plame, the Post’s lead editorial continues to manufacture a false history of the case, again slamming Plame’s husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson…

[Mod Note; Excerpt shortened by mod. For the sake of the servers and to avoid any copyright issues, please keep excerpt length to a minimum. Thank you for the excellent link.]

By the way, it’s interesting Mrs. Libby uses the name Harriet Grant when Hillary Rodham was pilloried for the same thing.

Wow. Call it 200,000–not to disparage the problems and suffering of 5,000 soldiers, but round numbers, especially big ones, can be more effective.

I guess I shouldn’t be surprised, but it’s a shocking total. And I’m definitely NOT surprised that no one seems to be running the numbers as part of the story, but even with all of my cynicism I don’t really understand how it’s possible. When you’re writing or doing a story on Walter Reed and injured soldiers, how do you not mention that 200,000 soldiers are working their way through the system.

In fact, the number seems too high, if only because we have 125,000 troops in Iraq, even including the escalation, so we probably need some confirmation on it. It’s a good place to start, however, and whatever the number turns out to be, it’s going to be surprisingly high.

One reason that I heard recently, in the midst of all of this, is because the triage is so much better than it was in previous conflicts (Vietnam, WW2), the death count, as high as it is, is dramatically lower than it would have been. So the 3000 number could be 10,000 or more except that soldiers are now surviving horrible injuries that would have certainly killed them in the past. When you start that calculation, and factor in the number of Iraqi dead (600k , and that’s dead, not wounded) then 200,000 becomes more plausible.