Rove's Leak Points to Bush Conspiracy

[dooner]

By Robert Parry
Consortium News
July 11, 2005

A key national security principle for dealing with top-secret information, such as the identity of undercover CIA officers, is strict compartmentalization, often called “the need to know” – which raises the question why George W. Bush’s chief political adviser Karl Rove would know anything about the identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame.
<snip>


The key incriminating fact in this mystery is that Rove had no reason to know who Plame was, except as part of a public relations attack against her husband. It was a classic case of dirtying up – or punishing – the messenger for delivering unwanted news.

It also fits with the long-running neoconservative strategy of using “perception management” techniques to “controversialize” critics and keep the American people in a constant state of confusion.
<snip>

The answer to that mystery – why was Rove involved – may be more crucial to unraveling who was behind the illegal leaking of Plame’s name and the subsequent cover-up than even the identity of which Bush officials passed the information to right-wing pundit Robert Novak for his infamous column on July 14, 2003.
<snip>

(Also, some fresh questions the media SHOULD be asking...)
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2005/071105.html

Robert Parry broke many of the Iran-Contra stories in the 1980s for the Associated Press and Newsweek. His new book, Secrecy & Privilege: Rise of the Bush Dynasty from Watergate to Iraq, can be ordered at secrecyandprivilege.com. It's also available at Amazon.com, as is his 1999 book, Lost History: Contras, Cocaine, the Press & 'Project Truth.'

[LiberalFighter]

1. Could gw*dipshit had leaked the name to Rove?

[TrogL]

4. Same issue

Why would gw*dipshit need to know that level of detail.

[Ian David]

12. Maybe Bush leaked it in pillow-talk with Gannon....

On edit: since this is in the LBN forum, I've decided to "tone it down" a little.

So, anyway, maybe Bush leaked it to Gannon and then maybe Gannon leaked it to Novak and Miller during a kinky threesome.

There, that's a little more tasteful, I think.

[CantGetFooledAgain]

14. LOL!

Thanks for the laugh!

[Fridays Child]

2. Parry has been a lone voice in the wilderness for a long time.

I wish his work would be picked up by the corporate media but I get the impression that he's been considered radioactive since Iran-Contra.

[Racenut20]

3. The problem we have is....

How to take a situation like the above, which appears to me as both thorough and intelligent, and break it down to some sort of sound bite that the "great unwashed" can understand and relate to.

I sit in the morning coffee shop and can tell you almost 100%, they do not understand any wrongdoing, and their mouth is full of koolaide.

[dooner]

6. I know what you mean

I have a hard time keeping up myself, and find few people except
those here who can make the slightest sense of it all.

[VaYallaDawg]

17. Hopefully somebody will be able to

break it down into sentences of no more than six one-syllable words.

[SlavesandBulldozers]

13. i say these people are inherently followers anyway

when the tide inevitably turns they'll go with it. they're stupid like that, hence the kool-aid.

[BOSSHOG]

5. "NEED TO KNOW" an important component of a

Security Clearance. You may have the clearance to see such information, but do you have the need to know such information. Rove's official capacity in 2003 was political advisor to bush. Why would a political advisor have a need to know about a CIA operative's identity or business? I know we are talking about the most evil and corrupt administration in the history of the country but its a baseline question which should be pursued by Mr Fitzgerald with vigor. Thankyou Mr Parry!

[notadmblnd]

7. w.. wouldn't know

but cheney would.

[wallwriter]

9. Yeah, because he had Bolton snooping around for this stuff.

This is what Bolton was requesting that they don't want to tell the Senate about...

[leQ]

15. i was wondering if anybody else felt as i did, now i know. (eom

[jaysunb]

16. You're soooo right !

n/t

[Burried News]

23. Cheney was snooping around some too. I wonder if he ever met

Valerie Plame when he was trying to pressure the CIA?

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0605-01.htm
"Vice President Cheney and his most senior aide made multiple trips to the CIA over the past year to question analysts studying Iraq's weapons programs and alleged links to al Qaeda, creating an environment in which some analysts felt they were being pressured to make their assessments fit with the Bush administration's policy objectives, according to senior intelligence officials.

With Cheney taking the lead in the administration last August in advocating military action against Iraq by claiming it had weapons of mass destruction, the visits by the vice president and his chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, "sent signals, intended or otherwise, that a certain output was desired from here," one senior agency official said yesterday.

Other agency officials said they were not influenced by the visits from the vice president's office, and some said they welcomed them. But the disclosure of Cheney's unusual hands-on role comes on the heels of mounting concern from intelligence officials and members of Congress that the administration may have exaggerated intelligence it received about Iraq to build a case for war.

While visits to CIA headquarters by a vice president are not unprecedented, they are unusual, according to intelligence officials. The exact number of trips by Cheney to the CIA could not be learned, but one agency official described them as "multiple." They were taken in addition to Cheney's regular attendance at President Bush's morning intelligence briefings and the special briefings the vice president receives when he is at an undisclosed location for security reasons."

[HootieMcBoob]

21. Exactly

I think it's either Cheney, someone in Cheney's office, or Bolton who leaked it to Rove who subsequently shopped it to the journalists. I just have a feeling that, though Bush should know, he doesn't care or isn't interested enough to know who is working for him in the CIA. He may have known about the plan to out Plame and been involved in the cover-up but I don't think he's the one who initiated it.

Then again we've misunderestimated him many times before.

[jbnow]

26. Yes, cheney

It bothers me not to hear his name because I'm sure it starts with him.

[skip fox]

8. Rove headed criminal conspiracy to release Plame's identity.

In order to make sure the story leaked properly, discrediting Wilson's yellow-cake findings (concerning Iraq's supposed activity to acquire materials for nuclear bombs) by implying he and his wife, Valerie Plame, had an agenda against the current administration since before the Iraq War, a single person talented in this realm would be very likely have to coordinate the calling. (Of course he could have made calls as well.) He would insure, for instance, that neither of the 2 or more primary sources should call the other's initial contact(s) (that would seem too eager, perhaps a dirty trick). In addition, 4-5 others would have to know the story was true in order to confirm it, and they had to be encouraged to do so.

Who better to coordinate and a historic master of the odious activity of defaming an opponent, Karl Rove? Perhaps Cheney (who would have felt responsibility in such a matter since it was the behest of his office that the CIA sent Wilson to Niger) used his clearance to discover this information and brought it to Rove at a meeting of the White House Iraq Group (see snippy's beautiful post in DU, link at bottom of this post). Then Rove would go into high gear, doing what he does best (worst). He coordinated the callings, made sure there were the requisite secondary sources ready and willing to confirm (perhaps each having different details or a different slant to make it sound realistic and not a set-up).

Therefore, Rove may well be both a conspirator (a little RICO, anybody?), and the leaker of illegal information, AND we may have at least one other indictment handed down. Think of the possibilities! Rice, Cheney, Libby, Hughes (why the hell did she retire before?), Matalin, etc. Maybe even W. (But the more I think about it, I wonder how many real reporters wouldn't be suspicious of a call from Rove? He might be the primary source for the likes of Novak, but few others.)

How's that for "knowingly"??? He will have no way to plead innocent to having "knowlingly" revealed the name of a CIA undercover agent since he coordinated several in that very activity (i.e., it wasn't a slip of the tongue or inadvertant blunder).

But think about the above and then read snippy's lovely item backed up by a Washington Post article:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=142863&mesg_id=142952

[quisp]

10. consortiumnews.com is one of the best sites on the innanet n/t

[StrafingMoose]

11. Porter Goss, before or after the leak?

Can't seem to remember. But I heard Bush likes Goss alot more...

[u2spirit]

18. If the administration goes down because of this

which isn't likely, it will be one of the funniest, most ironic things ever. With all the possibilities of MIHOP or LIHOP, the Iraq lies, etcetera, for them to go down due to an incident of simply trying to spite Joe Wilson is ironic. It is the equivalent of a man being arrested and jailed for having an ounce of pot, while at the same time having 6 teenage girls chained up in his basement.

[WinkyDink]

19. Sound bites

Short and sa-weet:
"Traitor Rove."
"Rove Reveals Covert Op."
"Rove Stops WMD Hunt."
"U.S. Loses CIA Agent to Bush Subordinate's Vendetta." (Okay, not so short.)
"Plame. Valerie Plame. Pass it on."

[BrightKnight]

22. Rove is a snake

and he must not be permitted to slither out of this.
----------------

Welcome to DU Sound bites :bounce:

[notadmblnd]

20. interesting film regarding cheney

from the CBC program The 5th Estate. about 1/3 of the way down. Look for cheney the unauthorized biography.

http://www.cbc.ca/fifth/video.html

[Burried News]

24. "Cheney privately briefed GOP senators

on the weapons intelligence Tuesday."

From article by Walter Pincus linked above.

If you were Cheney wouldn't you want to know as much about the CIA sources as possible? Has Cheney ever met Valerie Plame?

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0605-01.htm

Sounds like Cheney was the administration's point man to me. They were going to "fix the intelligence" says the Downing Street Minutes. This article implies Cheney took charge of the effort personally.

Do you buck the VP and pay no consequences?

In chess you trade the lesser pieces to protect the queen- Rove (or his lawyer) called Cooper and released him from confidentiality - had he not would Cheney's name be even more prominent? Rove called ... They are getting desparate. I wonder how many seats on the Supreme Court they are willing to trade?

[Jack Rabbit]

25. I've been saying this for a week and a half

Please click here. Apparently, I expressed the idea even earlier than July 2.

Rove is, and has always been, Mr. Bush's closest political adviser. In association with Bush, that's a glorified term for a hatchet man.

I expressed the thought on another thread earlier that it would surprise me that a person in such a position as Rove would normally concern himself with who's who in Langley or which diplomat is going on a special assignment to Niger.

Consequently, I agree that someone probably told Rove that Wilson's wife was an undercover agent at the CIA and asked him to use his press contacts do the dirty work.

It should be noted in that context that Mr. Wilson was sent to Niger at the request of Mr. Cheney's office, so any suspicion in such a theory falls on Scooter Libby or Cheney himself, although I won't pretend that I know everything and it could have been somebody at a lower level. Nevertheless, Cheney and Libby were the ones paying unusually frequent visits to CIA headquarters during the run up to the war and had easy access to Rove.

I had a fact wrong in that post: Rove was appointed deputy chief of staff in January of this year; prior to that, he was a senior White House adviser.

Also, in revising the theory -- and as Mr. Parry points out in this piece -- it isn't necessary that Rove knew that Ms. Plame was undercover any more than it is necessary that he knew her exact name; I believe he knew both, but it would be difficult to prove as long as he didn't tell any reporters that. Because of Rove's position at the White House, he has some plausible deniability about knowing too much about Ms. Plame. All Rove had to do was provide a few good reporters with a little information and let them dig it up and run with the story.

Nevertheless, the core of the theory stands: somebody told Rove about Wilson's wife and urged him to use his press contacts to spread stories aimed at discrediting Wilson.

[dooner]

27. he probably didn't need much "urging"! n/t

[Puzzler]

28. Or maybe...

... nobody had to leak anything to Rove, because Rove already had access to this and many other CIA secrets.

-P