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(Fitzgerald verified that) and there was some credible report that she was working on Iran WMDs--Iran, not Iraq. That she headed the entire covert WMD team for IRAQ--the country that the Bush Junta was, in particular, lying about, and invading, and killing tens of thousands of innocent people in--is new information and puts the story of her outing in a different light. For one thing, it lends credence to the theory that she was the main target of the Bush Junta, and her husband was a secondary target. This also changes the nature of the crime that was committed in outing her (and in outing her company Brewster-Jennings--an act that already pointed to a different motive than political revenge). On the one hand you have a tale of Rovian political revenge gone wild, in which the players were unclear on her status and viewed her merely as "Wilson's wife" (in Bush Junta politics, "fair game"), with a general motive of silencing critics, in which a federal statute (against outing agents) was inadvertently broken; on the other hand--what appears to be the case now, with this new revelation that she HEADED the IRAQ team--you have a case of pre-meditated treason. Evidence already pointed this way. Her specific job--Iraq--adds more evidence to this latter hypothesis.
It also lends more credence to the David Kelly theory of Plamegate--a theory that has held up well as new facts have emerged, and is now looking really good as a working hypothesis for the whole affair.
David Kelly is the British WMD expert who was found dead, under highly suspicious circumstances, on July 18, 2003, four days after Plame was outed (on July 14). His office and computers were searched, THEN Brewster-Jennings (the entire WMD counter-proliferation network that Plame headed) was ADDITIONALLY outed, in a SECOND column, also by Novak (on July 22). This second outing--of Brewster-Jennings--often goes unnoted in discussions of the Plame story, but it may be the most important event as to unraveling this story. If the Bush Junta's motive was mere political revenge against Wilson, why did they go out of their way to put nails in the coffins of all of our covert WMD counter-proliferation agents and contacts around the world and disable all counter-proliferation projects, by ADDITIONALLY naming her front company in the newspaper? (If those who would kill our covert counter-proliferation agents had not "connected the dots" to Plame, they would surely be able to now, given the name of her company.) Rove would never have taken on the CIA in this way, on his own initiative--he is too much of a coward, for one thing. This had to come from Bush, Cheney or Rumsfeld, or all three. Suspicion of the Rovian revenge story, the second outing (of B-J), and also the startling coincidence of dates of the Plame/B-J outings and Kelly's time-line and death, initially prompted the theory that the two events are connected. The curious connective tissue of Judith Miller to both stories also reinforces this theory. And the MOTIVE posited by the Kelly theory--that the Bushites/Blairites were trying to PLANT nukes in Iraq (not just alleging that they were there, with the Niger forgeries, but actually trying to covertly move such weapons into place, to be "found" by the US troops who were "hunting" for them), and were FOILED by someone or someones in the west's counter-proliferation community--is very much reinforced by knowing what Plame's actual job was--to PREVENT proliferation in IRAQ.
The time-line goes like this:
Late May 2003-July 7 (post-invasion): Kelly (who had supported the invasion--he wanted Saddam gone) does a turnabout on the war, and begins whistleblowing, anonymously, to the BBC, about the "sexed up" pre-war intel; he is mysteriously outed to his bosses in late June, and interrogated at a "safe house" and threatened with the Official Secrets Act, in the first week of July.
July 6, 2003: Wilson publishes his article.
July 7, 2003: Tony Blair is informed that Kelly "could say some uncomfortable things." COULD say, not HAD said. (Hutton Report.)
July 14, 2003: Plame outed (by Novak)
July 18, 2003: Kelly found dead (near his home, one slit wrist, minor artery--top scientist bled to death all night out in the rain; paramedics found almost no blood, their testimony ignored, etc. etc.); his office and computers are searched after his death.
July 22, 2003; The entire counter-proliferation network, Brewster-Jennings, outed (also by Novak).
Was Kelly part of the B-J network? What did he know that could have gotten him killed?
The theory is that he had stumbled upon--or was part of--the foiling of a Bush/Blair scheme to PLANT nukes in Iraq. The nukes were to be "found" by the US troops who were "hunting" for them, notably accompanied by Judith Miller (NYT war propagandist, who had promoted all the phony evidence on Iraq WMDs on the front page of the NYT for months before the invasion.) Miller knew Kelly. She had used him as a major quoted source in her book "Germs." And it was to Judith Miller that David Kelly wrote one of his last emails, on the day he died, in which he expressed concern about the "many dark actors playing games." Kelly was a tough guy WMD weapons inspector with experience in Iraq, and a highly reputed scientist. He initially supported the war, but did a dramatic turnabout in May after the invasion, and began to alert the public to the phony case that had been made for war. Why? He had been part of it--he had worked internally to make the intel docs more truthful, but he had signed off on it all. This theory gives him a motive for his turnaround on the war (his whistleblowing against the government's case)--that the foul play of PLANTING weapons in Iraq appalled him. (He may have also seen the carnage--tens of thousands of innocents killed; the looting; the torture and all the rest, and just became disgusted--or this, in combination with a discovery of foul play and deceit re planting weapons there.) (Kelly had also recently converted to the Baha'i faith, mentored by a woman who was an intelligence agent for the USAF. This points to a crisis of conscience, and points yet more to connection to the US covert community.)
This theory has a Part 1--which goes back to the Rome meeting in 2001 where the Niger forgeries were likely cooked up. In attendance were rabid NeoCon Michael Ladeen (on the Pentagon payroll), the fascist head of Italian intelligence, and Manucher Ghorbanifar, the notorious Iran/Contra arms dealer. What was Ghorbanifar doing at that meeting? The speculation is that they weren't just arranging for forged documents on Niger nukes, but were also arranging the movement of covert nukes INTO Iraq. The plan (overall plan--which smells of Rumsfeld most of all): a) float the easily detectable Niger forgeries (often referred to as "crude" forgeries)--get them into a Bush speech (the Niger allegation was put back into Bush's SOU speech, even after the forgeries were exposed); b) thus, bait the "white hat" CIA into a public or well-known position of no-nukes-in-Iraq; c) covertly move nukes into Iraq and have them "discovered" in a big splashy "scoop" in the NYT; d) kill two birds with one stone--discredit the hated CIA truth-tellers and make them more purge-able, and cement Bush/Blair's political power with "proof" that the war was "justified."
Things were going according to plan until sometime in spring 2003, when one of the covert arms movement efforts went awry (reports in Islamic papers of a "friendly fire" incident in Iraq involving covert arms movement; and a strange report in a Congressman's book about a Ghorbanifar effort to convince in the CIA that Iraq nukes went to Iran). Kelly (who had friends in Iraq) may have found out at this point. He began whistleblowing in late May. And the Libby-Miller meetings in June might well have been about Kelly as much as about Plame (especially since Miller knew Kelly quite well). The Brits were hunting for the BBC whistleblower within the government (June). They somehow found out it was Kelly (how is still a mystery), which was the starting point of the events that led swiftly to his death. It may be the plotters were still trying to get nukes planted in Iraq (early July), and were now doubly panicked that the scheme wasn't going to work, and that, furthermore, insiders were getting on to it (one effort foiled--ripples in Iraq and in the covert network--Kelly found out). Wilson's article (July 6), standing alone--without nukes then "discovered" in Iraq (to give him the lie)--had the opposite impact than the one that was desired. He was telling the truth. There were no nukes in Iraq. And--this theory goes--it was in this context that Plame was outed (July 14), Kelly was assassinated (July 18), and the entire counter-proliferation network was outed (July 22), putting all of its agents/contacts at risk of getting killed, and stopping all of its projects. It wasn't so much to punish Wilson as to STOP this NETWORK from finding out more, to punish its agents/contacts with death or fear of death--and to disable it (for future purposes, i.e, Iran), and to prevent FURTHER whistleblowing (re this and/or other nefarious Bushite projects).
There are many evidences of panic within the Bush Junta, in the early weeks of July --including the involvement of many top Bushites in getting Plame outed quickly (calls to at least six reporters), and unnecessary risks taken to do that; this ADDITIONAL outing, of the B-J network (unnecessary to punish or silence Wilson, and highly risky--yet more treasonous); possibly an effort by Libby to finger Rove (with the phony cover story that it was Rovian political revenge)(--which may explain why Fitzgerald has not indicted Rove, but is using him to nab others); the Plame memo circulating on AF-1 (which conceivably indicts the entire top rung of the regime), and all the rest. And the trigger for this panic (looking at the time-line) may not have been the Wilson article published July 6 (which was expected), but rather what Kelly knew, disclosed to Blair the next day, on July 7 (which was UNexpected)--and the two things have become conveniently conflated (lending credence to the Rovian revenge cover story).
The news that Plame was specifically working on the PREVENTION of Iraq WMDs most certainly reinforces many aspects of this theory. Plame's B-J network was in a unique position to NOTICE and to stop illicit arms movements into Iraq. It was the JOB of this network to STOP covert arms shipments. Further, it had been Kelly's job--as a UN weapons inspector in Iraq--to defeat any efforts by Iraq to create, procure or hide WMDs--and it was his job as one of the Brits' top WMD experts to KNOW what was going on there. So, he, too, was in a good position at least to HEAR ABOUT a foiled attempted to plant the weapons, if not to stop it. (Perhaps he alerted someone in the B-J network, or was himself a US covert contact.) The point is that it was not primarily Wilson, and maybe not even Plame herself, that was the target of the outings--it was THAT COUNTER-PROLIFERATION NETWORK and all of its agents and contacts--a network that had been twenty years in the making and that had, so far, prevented ANY grave incident of nuke, biological or chemical terrorism or warfare (or accident).
The Plame/Kelly theory (and please remember, this is still just a theory--however good it may sound, and however well it holds up, as new facts come out) may also be just the tip of the iceberg, as to Bush Junta plotting and evil doing, including war profiteering. There is spec also that Plame/B-J was interfering with Cheney illicit arms dealing, and that Plame/B-J was onto the 9/11 money trail. All that could also be true. The Plame/Kelly connection, however, has particular resonance--and a set of facts--that make it quite compelling as an explanation for the events of July 2003, when the world (or at least the war profiteering corporate news monopolies) was waiting with baited breath for the justification for Bush/Blair's invasion of Iraq: a find of WMDs.
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