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| 5/26 |
| 2007/3/17-20 [Politics/Domestic/Crime, Politics/Domestic/President/Bush] UID:46004 Activity:moderate |
3/16 So who do you believe, Plame and the CIA or Novak and Cheney?
Let's put to rest the canard that Plame was not undercover when
Novak published her identity:
http://www.csua.org/u/i9g
\_ I automatically begin to ignore any admin official who points out
'plame was in the society papers' and 'everyone knew what she
looks like'. The point of Plame's 'cover' was that she out
and about and managing business entities in other countries
that needed a figurehead for a CIA front business. The CIA
spends years building up this business to provide cover for
their other activities. If you blow away the cover of the
people running it, all of that years of effort is down the
drain, and any foreign nationals involved with it are probably
on a hit list somewhere now. Thanks Cheney. If he had
just calmed down and realized no one analyzes NYTimes editorials
as much as he does, none of this would have happened.
\_ Trust No One. -fmulder
\_ Of course, this link only shows that she claims she was covert.
\- can you imagine if the dems had outed her and started claiming
"she wasnt really covert". you all know the repply would be
"oh the treasonous dems now are supposed to decide who is
covert and who isnt? see we told you they were soft on defense
and wont support out intelligence profressionals dedicating
their lives for the country. the democrats are going to get
your children killed in this age of brown terror."
\_ http://tinyurl.com/369ert (crooksandliars.com)
Clear logic on why she was covert
\_ Of course that clear logic points right back to her own
statements.
\_ And the CIA's statements. Whose job it is to know this
stuff. |
| 5/26 |
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| www.csua.org/u/i9g -> www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2007/03/17/MNG35ON1471.DTL Valerie Wilson accuses the Bush administration of "reckle... For nearly four years, Wilson had been a silent figure at the center of one of Washington's most consuming scandals. Her unmasking as a CIA officer became a case study of the brutal politics of the Iraq war and launched a criminal probe that led to the conviction of a top White House official. On Friday, Wilson finally offered her inside account, testifying before a congressional committee that she felt like she had been "hit in the gut" when her once-secret identity appeared in the media, and accusing the Bush administration of "recklessly" blowing her cover. She answered lingering questions about her husband's role in investigating one of the Bush administration's most alarming pre-war claims about Iraq and provided new details on the maneuvering between the White House and the CIA in the run-up to the war. When Wilson emerged from a doorway at the corner of the committee chambers, dozens of camera lenses swung in unison to catch her entrance. "I've never questioned a spy before," Westmoreland said. "I've never testified under oath before," Wilson shot back. In her opening statement, Wilson made clear she has been waiting for a chance to confront critics. At one point, she said her identity was not "common knowledge on the Georgetown cocktail circuit," as some have whispered in Washington in an attempt to discount the damage of the disclosure of her identity. She said she has been on secret foreign missions within the past five years and was undercover when her name appeared in a newspaper column in 2003. Wilson also came prepared to settle scores with the Bush administration, which carried out a campaign to discredit her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, after he surfaced as a potent critic of the case for war in Iraq. "We in the CIA always know we might be exposed by foreign enemies," she said. "It was a terrible irony that administration officials were the ones who destroyed my cover." Friday's hearing, held by the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, was ostensibly designed to assist lawmakers in drafting improved procedures for safeguarding classified information. But the unacknowledged purpose was to give a platform to someone who had been a mystery figure in a scandal bearing her name. Henry Waxman, D-Los Angeles, chairman of the committee, said the panel had negotiated ground rules for the hearing with the CIA to prevent the disclosure of classified information, including details of Valerie Wilson's background. As a result, Wilson, 43, offered only a general outline of her 20-year career at the agency, saying she was working in the counterproliferation division of the agency -- a branch devoted to tracking the global spread of illicit weapons -- when her identity was exposed. But for the first time, she offered her version of the chronology leading up to that breach. In early 2002, Wilson said, she was approached by "a young junior officer" who was "very upset" after getting a phone call from the office of Vice President Dick Cheney asking about a report that Iraq had sought to purchase uranium from Niger. Wilson characterized the call as part of a broader campaign by Cheney to pressure the CIA, a charge that Cheney, as well as senior CIA officials who were present at the agency at the time, have denied. Bush administration officials later alleged that Wilson had proposed sending her husband to Niger to investigate, casting the trip as a boondoggle. But Wilson, who is also known by her maiden name, Plame, insisted that was not the case. Wilson said the idea was proposed by another officer in her division. "We had 2-year-old twins at home, and all I could envision was me by myself at bedtime with a couple of 2-year-olds. Joseph Wilson traveled to Niger and returned to file a report with the CIA saying he had found no evidence backing up the uranium claim. Nevertheless, the allegation was included in President Bush's 2003 State of the Union address. After the US invasion, when it became evident that Iraq had no banned weapons, Joseph Wilson came forward publicly to accuse the White House of twisting the pre-war intelligence, prompting a White House campaign to discredit him. Valerie Wilson said she was at home when she learned her name had been published in a column by Robert Novak. She said her husband threw a copy of the newspaper on the bed and said, "He did it," meaning Novak had printed her name. Wilson also said she immediately recognized -- and was subsequently informed by a superior at the agency -- that her clandestine career was over. Wilson was able to testify in part because the criminal investigation of the leak ended earlier this month, when Lewis "Scooter" Libby, formerly Cheney's chief of staff, was convicted on four felony counts of lying to investigators. Neither Libby nor any other government official has been charged with leaking Wilson's identity. Even so, Waxman said CIA Director Michael Hayden had informed the committee that at the time Wilson's identity was exposed, she was an undercover officer, and any disclosure of her employment status with the agency was prohibited by executive order. |
| tinyurl.com/369ert -> www.crooksandliars.com/2007/03/17/open-letter-to-victoria-toensing/ statutory definition of "covert" as defined in the 1982 Intelligence Indentities Protection Act; an act that you helped negotiate the terms of as Chief Counsel to the Senate Intelligence Committee. opening statement yesterday, Ms Plame testified under oath that in addition to working in Washington, she "also traveled to foreign countries on secret missions to find vital intelligence." It seems your argument is predicated on this crucial distinction; that in order to fall under the statutory definition of "covert," one would have to have been stationed abroad within five years of the date of disclosure. FindLaw: The term "covert agent" means - a present or retired officer or employee of an intelligence agency or a present or retired member of the Armed Forces assigned to duty with an intelligence agency - whose identity as such an officer, employee, or member is classified information, and (ii) who is serving outside the United States or has within the last five years served outside the United States; confirmed during yesterday's hearing), and she had indeed served overseas within the past five years. By the very definition of the law you helped craft, it would appear that she meets every qualification of a "covert" agent. |
| crooksandliars.com Video-QT I applaud our fearless leader and his attempt to clamp down on the treaso nous and very dangerous Quakers. I was almost sucked into their evil cul t and heinous plot to demonstrate against this war that was cooked up in Lake Worth when I visited my father last year in West Palm Beach. You c an't tell a book by it's cover and these elderly, harmless looking bingo players are much more dangerous than they appear. Vi deo-QT (hat tip David for headline and video) Condi's stop was not in a classified venue so that they couldn't ask ques tions that called for classified answers. Jay Rosen's exce llent piece the day before about the complaints logged against Dan Froom kin's on-line column for the Washington Post. "I cannot comment," was a common response that Harris fell back on to mos t of DeLong's questions. Brad's conclusion was: "My belief--but since he won't answer the questions, I do not know--is that John Harris knew full well that Patrick Ruffini was a onetime Repub lican operative when he characterized him as a "conservative weblogger" to Jay Rosen, but was trying to pull a fast one... read on" Harris sounded like he was on a Law & Order episode and was told to keep his mouth shut by his attorney. How can he not be able to answer a rather simple question- whether he knew Patrick Ruf fini had been a Republican campaign operative in 2004? But what really separates Fox from the competition is its unab ashed use of religion as a divisive weapon. Common sense -- and common c ourtesy -- have long dictated that personal religious beliefs be kept ou t of news reporting unless the story at hand involves religion. But on F ox, it's not uncommon for an anchor to raise the issue of a guest's reli gion, or lack thereof, a propos of nothing... USATODAY story that says: "A $300 million P entagon psychological warfare operation includes plans for placing pro-A merican messages in foreign media outlets without disclosing the US go vernment as the source." Is it acceptable behaviour that the US pays jou rnalists to plant stories in the foreign media? There is a lot of misinformation, there's a lot of rumors, a lot of out right lies out there. We still co nfront myths about September 11th, that crop up all over the world... All the myths seem to be spread around by the administration. link "The fact is, all the intelligence sources and elected officials in both parties did believe there was WMD in Iraq . It seems hard to imagine tha t the press could easily counter that." Link "I'm confident the president knows who the source is," N ovak told a luncheon audience at the John Locke Foundation in Raleigh on Tuesday. Bug the president as to whether he should reveal who the source is." Frist was on with Harry Smith from the CBS Early Show, and got a spanking over Iraq. Instead of answering his question, Frist pulls out some " Mehlman," talking points. Vid eo-WMP QT coming Smith: Mr Frist, Mr Frist, there were no terrorists in Iraq to begin wit h It is now a haven for terrorists. Frist: You-you can look to the past and the democrats want to go back and try and live through the past and say what if-and the intelligence wasn 't accurate-and let's cut and run... Fineman whacks Woodward Fineman whacks Woodward "Howard Fineman, Newsweek's chief political correspondent, said Monda y night in the first program of a Drew University lecture series, that W ashington Post journalist Bob Woodward had become a "court stenographer" for the Bush administration... FiredogLake: "This flap is brought to you courtesy of the Republica n Party, who will not stand to see itself criticized by a major media ou tlet without seeking to take down the one who is doing so. Harris's past as one of the people who hijacked the natio n and started speaking in tongues over rumors of penis-shaped ornaments on the Clinton Christmas tree, this is hardly surprising.... I got to the point today when my NY "street talk" almost got the best o f me and made it's way onto C&L, after I found out about this one. I sho uld re-phrase my headline and say that they have already bought a number of these supposedly neutral reporters and Corporations to do their dirt y work already. Texas prosecutor has issued subpoenas for bank records and other inf ormation of a defense contractor involved in the bribery case of a Calif ornia congressman as part of the investigation of former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. District Attorney Ronnie Earle issued subpoenas late Monday afternoon for California businessmen Brent Wilkes and Max Gelwix, records of Perfect Wave Technologies LLC, Wilkes Corp. in connection with a c ontribution to a fundraising committee at the center of the investigatio n that led to DeLay's indictment on money laundering charges... Imus yesterday, really took a shot at his industry: (loose transcript) Imus: "The Woodward thing has kinda disappeared-isn't it?" Tom: "Now we have the reporter from TIME magazine-(Vi veca) who has gone on leave- Imus: "Oh,, tell me about this." every other week it seems there's another reporter who on the one hand is playing insider footsie with participants in this scandal and then not telling either the reade rs, the customers, or the editors about what you've done and it just mys tifies me. Umm-except for the observation that some in, in my business r eally do seem to relish this role or this fictitious role of insider-ahh h-and, and in the process we forget what we're supposed to do-write what people say in our notebook-and type it up and give it to the boss." Video-QT Tom gets it and is very frustrated at how members of the press have been so deeply involved in the Valerie Plame case. For anyone to still defend Viveca Novak over leaking information to her friend-Rove's attorney-is ludicrous. Digby have to say: " Although Corn expends a great deal of energy lighting up the straw m an, I haven't seen anyone accusing her of being a right wing operative. "Pushing back" shouldn't include exposing her colleague Matt Cooper's source to a thir d party-- Lawrence O'Donnell knew and kept it secret for months because he didn't want to be subpoenaed and God knows how many other people knew it and passed it on to other privileged insiders or kept it to themselv es for selfish reasons. Can't reporters like Corn understand why we poor hapless rubes out here in the hinterlands (not to mention the Justice d epartment) find their shrieking for the last year and half about the san ctity of the confidential source just a little bit self-serving? agree: "Generally, "straight reporters" should not appear in the same discussi ons with the ideological pundits. I have no idea why producers and edito rs let them do so... WNEW-TV5: "Syndicated controversial talk show host Bill O'Reilly said on his radio show: "In Saginaw , Michigan , the township opposes red and green clothi ngon Anyone, In Saginaw Township they basically said anybody, we don't w ant you wearing red or green. I would dress up from head to toe in red t o green if I were in Saginaw Michigan "-Bill O'Reilly. WNEM TV-5 Talked to Saginaw Township supervisor Tim Braun who says O'Reilly's comments ar e flat out not true. Braun goes on to say the township hall has red and green Christmas lights adorning the building at night. On December 12th the Fox News Channel which broadcasts O'Reilly's Cable T V show-The O'Reilly Factor told TV5 it was a radio issue and had nothin g to do with the Fox News Channel. TV5 is contacting O'Reilly's radio pr oducers for their side of the story. democrats continues: "What neither party has done-until now-is inject the idea that the other party is undermining our troops overseas. The RNC is pimping a mute and unnamed soldier not just to defend the Iraq war but to imply that Democ rats are white-handkerchief-waving cowards who want the United States to lose.... On the video itself: "It goes almost without saying that some of the quotes from Democrats are taken out of c ontext in a way that completely distorts their meanings." More was revealed on Hardball today than any of us would have thought pos sible about Vivac, Luskin, Hadley and Rove if true. Special guest stars Jim VandeHei and Nora... |