CIA Asks for Criminal Probe of White House Treason

[Chris Alger]

I guess they thought the having Tenet fall on his sword about the Niger thing was a freebie. Apparently not.

Of course not really "treason," the only federal crime defined by the Constitution. I mean "treason" the way the war traitors tend to use it, a synonym variously for sedition, dissent, espionage, national betrayal, subversion of the official line, etc. In this case, it means violating the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982 by making public the identify of an undercover CIA operative for pure political spite. She is the wife of for diplomat Joseph C. Wilson, who embarrassed the White House by revealing the Niger uranium hoax. Wilson is retired, so certain administration officials allegedly decided to wreck his wife's career and upset her personal life by outing her to the press.

Her ongoing assignment? Posing as an energy analyst in order to track down WMD proliferators. So the White House allegedly wrecked her attempts to truly prevent what the White House implausibly claims was its goal by prosecuting Bush's "brain fart" (Gen. Anthony Zinni) of a war against Iraq. The White House denies the story, which means that it is calling one of its most prominent press supporters a liar.

My introduction to the story came with David Corn's editorial, A White House Smear, in The Nation.

Here's an excerpt:

"Soon after Wilson disclosed his trip in the media and made the White House look bad. the payback came. [Conservative jounalist Robt.] Novak's July 14, 2003, column presented the back-story on Wilson's mission and contained the following sentences: 'Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction. Two senior administration officials told me Wilson's wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate' the allegation. ...

That would seem to mean that the Bush administration has screwed one of its own top-secret operatives in order to punish Wilson or to send a message to others who might challenge it.

The sources for Novak's assertion about Wilson's wife appear to be 'two senior administration officials.' If so, a pair of top Bush officials told a reporter the name of a CIA operative who apparently has worked under what's known as 'nonofficial cover' and who has had the dicey and difficult mission of tracking parties trying to buy or sell weapons of mass destruction or WMD material. If Wilson's wife is such a person--and the CIA is unlikely to have many employees like her--her career has been destroyed by the Bush administration. (Assuming she did not tell friends and family about her real job, these Bush officials have also damaged her personal life.) Without acknowledging whether she is a deep-cover CIA employee, Wilson says, 'Naming her this way would have compromised every operation, every relationship, every network with which she had been associated in her entire career. This is the stuff of Kim Philby and Aldrich Ames.' If she is not a CIA employee and Novak is reporting accurately, then the White House has wrongly branded a woman known to friends as an energy analyst for a private firm as a CIA officer. That would not likely do her much good.

This is not only a possible breach of national security; it is a potential violation of law. Under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982, it is a crime for anyone who has access to classified information to disclose intentionally information identifying a covert agent. The punishment for such an offense is a fine of up to $50,000 and/or up to ten years in prison."

According to MSNBC today, "The CIA has asked the Justice Department to investigate allegations that the White House broke federal laws by revealing the identity of one of its undercover employees in retaliation against the woman’s husband, a former ambassador who publicly criticized President Bush’s since-discredited claim that Iraq had sought weapons-grade uranium from Africa, NBC News has learned." Full story here.

Imagine how the right would react if Ted Kennedy had done it.

OTOH, war between these guys usually means blocking an appointment or a recommendation letter for someone's kid. It might be that the CIA is just going through the motions of enforcing a law it has to enforce, that the Justice Dept. will conduct a meek inquiry, and the matter will drop. After all, the CIA did have the decency to slip it in on Friday, making it old news by the time most people tune in. One can't expect much from Ashcroft's Justice Dept., to say nothing of the usual gang of reactionary fellow travelers.

[brad]

i also read that the disclosure lead to deaths of operatives in the field.

also read that karl rove was behind the 'outing', and rove has dual citizenship (germany).

http://groups.google.com/groups?q=ka...edu&rnum=1

[Chris Alger]

I'm very skeptical about the claims that operatives were killed and I don't think Rove's German background is relevant to anything.

The other stuff is very interesting. Wilson has apparently been telling his story to anyone willing to hear it and the essential facts aren't disputed (the White House version meaning that Novak is out to get Bush). Yet none of the major media have wanted to touch it until now. If the leaker had been some liberal, every right-wing talk show host would have gone apoplectic over traitorous support for terrorism, but since its the Bush White House, they're not interested. Again illustrating how much the right truly cares about defending the country from terror and WMD proliferation.

[Wake up CALL]

[ QUOTE ]
i also read that the disclosure lead to deaths of operatives in the field.

also read that karl rove was behind the 'outing', and rove has dual citizenship (germany).

http://groups.google.com/groups?q=ka...edu&rnum=1


[/ QUOTE ]

Not all that important but Karl Rove was born in Colorado on 12/25/50 and his father was a local geologist. Just how did he become a German citizen?

[brad]

i just always think its interesting when people with dual citizenship (like arnold) are in high public office (ok behind the scenes but u know). would have left it at that except i figured people would mistakenly assume he had US and israeli citizenship (like a lot of other top US administration figures (pearle, feith, etc.) ) so i put german in quotes.

[Cyrus]

Ron Paul is an M.D. and a Republican Member of Congress from Texas. Ron Paul read the following to the House of Representatives, September 10, 2002 :

Soon we hope to have hearings on the pending war with Iraq. Here are some questions I would like answered by those who are urging us to start this war:

1. Is it not true that the reason we did not bomb the Soviet Union at the height of the Cold War was because we knew they could retaliate?

2. Is it not also true that we are willing to bomb Iraq now because we know it cannot retaliate -- which just confirms that there is no real threat?

3. Is it not true that there are those who argue that even with inspections we cannot be sure that Hussein might be hiding weapons, and at the same time imply that we can be more sure that weapons exist in the absence of inspections?

4. Is it not true that the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency was able to complete its yearly verification mission to Iraq just this year with Iraqi cooperation?

5. Is it not true that the intelligence community has been unable to develop a case tying Iraq to global terrorism at all, much less the attacks on the United States last year? Does anyone remember that 15 of the 19 hijackers came from Saudi Arabia and that none came from Iraq?

6. Was former CIA counter-terrorism chief Vincent Cannistraro wrong when he recently said there is no confirmed evidence of Iraq's links to terrorism?

7. Is it not true that the CIA has concluded there is no evidence that a Prague meeting between 9/11 hijacker Atta and Iraqi intelligence took place?

8. Is it not true that northern Iraq, where the administration claimed Al Qaeda were hiding out, is in the control of our "allies," the Kurds?

9. Is it not true that the vast majority of Al Qaeda leaders who escaped appear to have safely made their way to Pakistan, another of our so-called allies?

10. Has anyone noticed that Afghanistan is rapidly sinking into total chaos, with bombings and assassinations becoming daily occurrences; and that according to a recent U.N. report the Al Qaeda "is, by all accounts, alive and well and poised to strike again, how, when, and where it chooses?"

11. Why are we taking precious military and intelligence resources away from tracking down those who did attack the United States -- and who may again attack the United States -- and using them to invade countries that have not attacked the United States?

12. Would an attack on Iraq not just confirm the Arab world's worst suspicions about the United States? And isn't this what bin Laden wanted?

13. How can Hussein be compared to Hitler when he has no navy or air force, and now has an army one-fifth the size of 12 years ago, which even then proved totally inept at defending the country?

14. Is it not true that the constitutional power to declare war is exclusively that of the Congress? Should presidents, contrary to the Constitution, allow Congress to concur only when pressured by public opinion? Are presidents permitted to rely on the United Nations for permission to go to war?

15. Are you aware of a Pentagon report studying charges that thousands of Kurds in one village were gassed by the Iraqis, which found no conclusive evidence that Iraq was responsible, that Iran occupied the very city involved, and that evidence indicated the type of gas used was more likely controlled by Iran not Iraq?

16. Is it not true that anywhere between 100,000 and 300,000 U.S. soldiers have suffered from Persian Gulf War syndrome from the first Gulf War, and that thousands may have died?

17. Are we prepared for possibly thousands of American casualties in a war against a country that does not have the capacity to attack the United States?

18. Are we willing to bear the economic burden of a 100 billion dollar war against Iraq, with oil prices expected to skyrocket and further rattle an already shaky American economy? How about an estimated 30 years occupation of Iraq that some have deemed necessary to "build democracy" there?

19. Iraq's alleged violations of U.N. resolutions are given as reason to initiate an attack, yet is it not true that hundreds of U.N. resolutions have been ignored by various countries without penalty?

20. Did former President Bush not cite the U.N. resolution of 1990 as the reason he could not march into Baghdad, while supporters of a new attack assert that it is the very reason we can march into Baghdad?

21. Is it not true that, contrary to current claims, the no-fly zones were set up by Britain and the United States without specific approval from the United Nations?

22. If we claim membership in the international community and conform to its rules only when it pleases us, does this not serve to undermine our position, directing animosity toward us by both friend and foe?

23. How can our declared goal of bringing democracy to Iraq be believable when we prop up dictators throughout the Middle East and support military tyrants like Musharaf in Pakistan, who overthrew a democratically elected president?

24. Are you familiar with the 1994 Senate Hearings that revealed the United States. knowingly supplied chemical and biological materials to Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war and as late as 1992 -- including after the alleged Iraqi gas attack on a Kurdish village?

25. Did we not assist Saddam Hussein's rise to power by supporting and encouraging his invasion of Iran? Is it honest to criticize Saddam now for his invasion of Iran, which at the time we actively supported?

26. Is it not true that preventive war is synonymous with an act of aggression, and has never been considered a moral or legitimate U.S. policy?

27. Why do the oil company executives strongly support this war if oil is not the real reason we plan to take over Iraq?

28. Why is it that those who never wore a uniform and are confident that they won't have to personally fight this war are more anxious for this war than our generals?

29. What is the moral argument for attacking a nation that has not initiated aggression against us, and could not if it wanted?

30. Where does the Constitution grant us permission to wage war for any reason other than self-defense?

31. Is it not true that a war against Iraq rejects the sentiments of the time-honored Treaty of Westphalia, nearly 400 years ago, that countries should never go into another for the purpose of regime change?

32. Is it not true that the more civilized a society is, the less likely disagreements will be settled by war?

33. Is it not true that since World War II, Congress has not declared war and -- not coincidentally -- we have not since then had a clear-cut victory?

34. Is it not true that Pakistan, especially through its intelligence srvices, was an active supporter and key organizer of the Taliban?

35. Why don't those who want war bring a formal declaration of war resolution to the floor of Congress?

The Congressman did not receive any anwser to the above questions, at the time, or now, after the war in Iraq.

[Wake up CALL]

"The Congressman did not receive any anwser to the above questions, at the time, or now, after the war in Iraq. "

A rhetorical question or for that mater 35 rhetorical questions do not require an answer. In fact an answer is not even expected nor usually wanted. However I will answer ont of them for you Cyrus if it will make you sleep better at night.



President Does Not Need Congress to Wage War

[Wake up CALL]

Novak denies the information came from the Whitehouse. Now what Chris? Disappointed?

[Boris]

[ QUOTE ]
Novak said on CNN that his report was based on conversations with two senior administration officials while he was looking into Wilson's trip to Africa to investigate the uranium story. The officials told Novak that Wilson's wife had suggested the mission for her husband, the columnist said.


He said the CIA confirmed her role and "asked me not to use her name, but never indicated it would endanger her or anybody else."



[/ QUOTE ]

web page

[Chris Alger]

I'm sure he's under incredible pressure from his fellow right wing goons. But an outright denial, which he hasn't yet made, wouldn't be credible.

First, since the fact that she was an operative has been confirmed, do you suppose that Novak just guessed right? Or maybe the CIA blew the cover of one of their own to frame Rove or Bush, knowing that Novak could spill the beans any time?

Second, note that his "denial," instead of being categorical, is open to interpretation.

Novak: "Nobody in the Bush administration called me to leak this. There is no great crime here."

Notice how that phrase "nobody called me" is technically consistent with the account provided by CNN: "Novak said Monday that he was working on the column when a senior administration official told him the CIA asked Wilson to go to Niger in early 2002 at the suggestion of his wife, whom the source described as 'a CIA employee working on weapons of mass destruction.' Another senior administration official gave him the same information, Novak said, and the CIA confirmed her involvement in her husband's mission."

The possibility that the White House leaked that Wilson's wife was a covert operative without disclosing her name and the notion that Novak had called the White House instead of the other way around are both consistent with Novak's "denial".

But of course it wasn't just Novak: "The Washington Post quoted a 'senior administration official' in a story Sunday as saying that two top White House officials disclosed the identity of Wilson's wife in calls to at least six Washington journalists." CNN

Brokaw also claimed that the White House had called NBC with the leak.