The Source Beyond Rove: Condoleeza Rice at the Center of the Plame Scandal

[NVMojo]

July 27, 2005

We don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud." It was September 2002, and then-National Security Advisor, now-Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice was fastening on CNN perhaps the most memorable and frightening single link in the Bush regime’s chain of lies propagandizing the war on Iraq. Behind her carefully planted one-liner with its grim imagery was the whole larger hoax about Saddam Hussein possessing or about to acquire weapons of mass destruction, a deception as blatant and inflammatory as claims of the Iraqi dictator’s ties to Al Qaeda.

Rice’s demagogic scare tactic was also very much part of the tangled history of alleged Iraqi purchases of uranium from Niger, the fabrication leading to ex-Ambassador Joseph Wilson’s now famous exposé of the fraud, the administration’s immediate retaliatory “outing” of Wilson’s wife Valerie Plame as a CIA operative, and now the revelation that the President’s supreme political strategist Karl Rove and Vice President Dick Cheney’s Chief of Staff Lewis Libby were involved in that potentially criminal leak—altogether the most serious political crisis Bush has faced. In fact, though her pivotal role has been missed entirely—or deliberately ignored—in both the media feeding frenzy and the rising political clamor, now-Secretary of State Rice was also deeply embroiled in the Niger uranium-Plame scandal, arguably as much as or more so than either Rove or Libby.

For those who know the invariably central role of the NSC Advisor in sensitive political subjects in foreign policy and in White House leaks to the media as well as tending of policy, especially in George W. Bush’s rigidly disciplined, relentlessly political regime, Rice by both commission and omission was integral in perpetrating the original fraud of Niger, and then inevitably in the vengeful betrayal of Plame’s identity. None of that spilling of secrets for crass political retribution could have gone on without her knowledge and approval, and thus complicity. Little of it could have happened without her participation, if not as a leaker herself, at least with her direction and with her scripting.

more...

http://www.egp360.net/midnightride/morris_2005_07_24.shtml

[Carolab]

1. Holy cow.

"The President himself might have read the memo and called the two aides. But given Bush’s style and grasp, that, too, is implausible, though he may well have been informed of the calls and given his approval. The only official on board Air Force One with the knowledge and authority—motive, means and opportunity—to instruct Rove and Libby in their leaks and so betray Plame was Condoleezza Rice."

***********

So Bush as well as the entire WHIG probably knew. Rice did almost all of the dirty work. And Judith is protecting Bolton?

*********

How can I nominate this?

[glitch]

12. Bush is a vindictive little pissant - this fubar is exactly his style.

They can toss up minions until the cows come home - the buck stops with baby bush.

[longship]

2. Big package, almost all wrapped up in a pretty bow.

All it needs now is several reams of paper for the indictments.

Recommended and kicked.

:kick:

[Elidor]

3. Wow. What an article. This lays it all out clearly

Must Read!

[WhiteTara]

4. Thanks! that was an incredible read

Should be on the top of everyone's reading list.

I especially like this part here
"Rice is the next skein to be pulled.

Her manifest failures in the fateful months before 9/11 in meeting the principal responsibilities of the National Security Advisor—the sheer incompetence and shallowness that left so much intelligence uncoordinated, so much neglected or misunderstood—should have been enough to have run her from public office long ago, of course, were it not for her hold on this tragically flawed president, and her deplorable immunity amid the chronic political cowardice of both the Democrats and the media.

Now, however, her role in the Plame scandal cannot be ignored or excused. She alone among senior officials was knowing and complicitous at every successive stage of the great half-baked yellow cake fraud. She alone was the White House peer—and in national security matters the superior—to Rove and Libby, who never could have acted without her collusion in peddling Plame’s identity. She as much as anyone had a stake in smearing Wilson by any and all means at hand. If Rove and Libby are to be held criminally or at least politically accountable for a breach of national security, our “mushroom cloud” secretary of state should certainly be in the dock with them."

[burrowowl]

5. KICK!

[Hissyspit]

6. Aw, they were ALL in on it.

The proof of it is the problem. But it's dribbling out little by little.

[bleever]

7. Sounds like Condi:

July 20, 2003: “Senior White House sources” call NBC reporter Andrea Mitchell to say, “the real story here is not the 16 words … but Wilson and his wife.”

Just as, before the 9/11 commission, she kept deflecting questions by saying, "The real question here isn't X, but Y."

[Jackpine Radical]

9. Great observation.

Unless maybe that construction is part of the WH "dialect." Remember when all the Nixon people used to go around saying "at that point in time?" They ALL did it & it used to make me crazy.

[Peace Patriot]

8. This is a tremendously informative article, but there is a big hole in its

time-line--perhaps the key to the whole business. It is this:

July 14, 3003: Plame outed (by Novak).
July 18, 2003: Brit chief weapons expert David Kelly found dead under extremely suspicious circumstances; his office and computers searched.
July 22, 2003: Plame's entire CIA WMD front company and network outed, all projects and agents put at risk.

Why the second outing--if the purpose was to "punish" Wilson? (--creating much greater risk of treason charges...)

The US/UK war coalition didn't lose just one WMD expert, during the "hunt" for WMDs in Iraq over the long hot summer of 2003, they lost TWO--Plame and Kelly, and also all of Plame's contacts. Virtually at the same moment.

Kelly started whistleblowing a month before Wilson (May 22, 2003--to the BBC). And here's another date missing from Morris's timeline--or, rather, an event on the same day that other things were happening among the Bushites:

July 7, 2003: Tony Blair informed (after Kelly was interrogated that day) that Kelly "could say some uncomfortable things"--"COULD say," not HAD said.

I think the missing element here is a plot to plant WMDs in Iraq, in summer '03, and to reap the enormous political benefit from a "find" of such weapons. That's why Kelly was killed. (--he knew about, or had foiled the plot.) That's why the SECOND Plame outing--of her whole WMD monitoring network--was done (probably something they found in Kelly's computers--something that linked whatever it was that Kelly knew to Brewster-Jennings, or to its contact network). And that's why Judith Miller had a very special "embed" contract, signed by Donald Rumsfeld, that permitted her to go running around in Iraq with US troops "hunting" for the weapons they all knew weren't there, but which they were about to plant there. Her reward for all she'd done for them was to get the "scoop" on the "find" of WMDs in Iraq.

She had cultivated David Kelly as a WMD expert; used him as a major source for her book "Germs"; and was the recipient of one of his last emails, in which he was concerned about the "many dark actors playing games." (--which she fails to disclose in the news article she wrote about his death, July 21, 2003, NYT).

He was otherwise upbeat, looking forward to his daughter's wedding and returning to Iraq, and thought the whole controversy surrounding him (huge in Britain) would blow over in a week. Had he told his bosses that he wouldn't disclose their worst secret? (--the "uncomfortable things" that Blair was told he "could say"?).

He was found outdoors near his home, along the route of his normal walk, under a tree, having supposedly slit one wrist (tough guy; top scientist) and bled to death all night, out in the rain and the cold.

After outing his name to the press, and interrogating him, Brit intel had let him go home apparently without surveillance or protection.

One other item missing from Morris' article: I recently read an interview of Wilson (Raw Story maybe? ) in which Wilson says that he called Condi Rice, to get the regime to disavow the Iraq-Niger nuke claim, and she told him (through intermediaries ) that she was not interested in his information, but, if he was so concerned about the matter, why didn't he publish it?

Sounds like she was baiting him--that they WANTED him to publish--perhaps to invent the Rove political revenge story as cover for outing Plame, who must have long been a target (can't have honest WMD intel), but who became extremely dangerous to them when David Kelly started whistleblowing (May 22), when they found out who it was who was whistleblowing to the BBC--the Brit chief WMD expert (around June 30)--and when they found out what all he knew (July 7).

Something turned David Kelly around about the war AFTER the invasion--something having to do with the cooked intel, to which he had been privy. And this is what I think it was: planting nukes in Iraq for political benefit. That's what got him whistleblowing. And that's what got him killed.

Just a guess. But it's sure an interesting working hypothesis.

[Peace Patriot]

10. Morris says, "There may well be a ticking time-bomb in the Grand Jury

investigation of the Plame leak that goes beyond anything we now envision."

I think this could be it--movement of nukes to Iraq for the purpose of a false "discovery" of them (by Judith Miller?). And David Kelly's murder.

It's almost a bit too neat--and should be suspected, as a theory, because of the neatness. The war, and guilt for it, and all the lies about it, is a far messier business than one possible dirty, rotten nuke shipment, and one insider's death. Still, I think it's worth pursuing. Those dates are just too coincidental: 7/14 Plame outing. 7/18 Kelly found dead. 7/22 Bigger Plame/CIA outing.

Also, if this theory is true, then we have David Kelly to thank for Bush and Blair being denied any triumphal "justification" for the slaughter in Iraq.

[bleever]

17. Wow. Fabulous insight and analysis. Thanks for these two posts.

Really: nice work.

:thumbsup:

[loudsue]

11. Wow! What a thread!

:loveya: This is why I love DU...


:kick::kick::kick:

[otohara]

13. Failures, Sheer Incompetence & Shallowness

Whoa....awesome article & details.

Her manifest failures in the fateful months before 9/11 in meeting the principal responsibilities of the National Security Advisor—the sheer incompetence and shallowness that left so much intelligence uncoordinated, so much neglected or misunderstood—should have been enough to have run her from public office long ago, of course, were it not for her hold on this tragically flawed president, and her deplorable immunity amid the chronic political cowardice of both the Democrats and the media.

[peacetalksforall]

14. I remember reading something on some site about

employees of a corporation sitting around Kuwait waiting to plant the pseudo wmds.

I also remember reading about soldiers who became very ill after moving something from one site to another within Iraq.

Who sleeps best in this country = us or them?

As each day goes by my fear for the Wilsons mounts.

[lfairban]

15. Was this it?

CIA and DOD Attempted To Plant WMD In Iraq

http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2003/06/266752.shtml

From my Iraq links:

http://home.columbus.rr.com/lfairban/Pages/Iraq.html

I also found this:

Iraqi weapons of mass destruction: is the US now shipping them in?

http://www.agitprop.org.au/nowar/20040324_guard_shipping_them_in.php

[Peace Patriot]

16. Thank you, higher class and Ifairban!

I remembered reading SOMETHING long ago about covert US movement of cargo, suspected WMDs, but I couldn't remember details, and don't have the link. I thought it was something connected to other foreign troops in Iraq (Polish troops?, maybe), and thought I might have read it on Al Jazeera, but a search there produced nothing.

I think this must be it (below). This is the most credible of the linked reports. The original web site is that of the Communist Party of Australia. I'm posting it here in whole, for possible clues to the Bushite WMD plot.

----------

http://www.agitprop.org.au/nowar/20040324_guard_shipping_them_in.php

"Author: The Guardian

"Publisher/Date: No. 1176, March 24, 2004

"Title: Iraqi weapons of mass destruction: is the US now shipping them in?

"Original location: http://www.cpa.org.au/garchve04/g1176.html

"A year ago the US, Britain and Australia invaded Iraq. The pretext for the illegal invasion was their insistence that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and was ready to use them against the West.

"Despite numerous and thorough weapons inspections both before and after the war, nothing has been found.

"Hans Blix, former chief UN weapons inspector has emphasised that the US and British intelligence agencies issued false reports on Iraq leading to the attack.

"The Bush administration continues to defend its decision to go to war against Iraq despite the demand from David Kay, the man who led the CIA’s effort to find WMD, that the Bush administration should 'come clean with the American people' and admit that it was wrong about the existence of the WMD in Iraq

"Now come reports that the US has shipped in weapons of mass destruction, no doubt ready to be 'found' by 'inspectors'.

"The Tehran Times reported on March 13 that US forces had unloaded a large cargo of parts for construction of long-range missiles and weapons of mass destruction in the southern ports of Iraq.

"The information is said to come from a “reliable source” in the Iraqi Governing Council who was speaking on condition of anonymity. He said that US forces, with the help of British forces stationed in southern Iraq, had made extensive efforts to conceal their actions.

"Unloaded at night

"Cargo was unloaded during the night while the attention of the media was concentrated on the signing of the Iraqi Provisional Constitution.

"The source said that in order to avoid suspicion, ordinary cargo ships were used to transport the cargo which consisted of weapons produced in the 1980s and 1990s.

"He pointed out that the US facilitated Iraq’s WMD program during the 1980-1988 Iran-Iraq conflict.

"The source claimed that the weapons were “probably” transferred to locations somewhere in the vicinity of Basra.

"The Tehran Times reports the source as saying: 'Most of these weapons are reportedly of Eastern European origin and some parts are from the former Soviet Union and the Eastern bloc. The US obtained them through confiscations during sales of banned arms over the past two decades'.

"An official of the US forces in Iraq said he had not received any information about the unloading of weapons of mass destruction in southern Iraqi ports.

"Another article in the Daily Times Monitor published in Pakistan reports retired US Navy Lt Commander Nelda Rogers, who is a veteran of the Defence Department, as saying that the CIA planned to 'plant' WMDs inside Iraq but that the plan was blown.

"CIA bungle

"Ms Rogers revealed that there was a covert military operation that took place both preceding and during hostilities in Iraq. She said that 'it was really the CIA that bungled it'.

"What are the chances of these weapons being “found” just before the US elections?

---

Original location: http://www.cpa.org.au/garchve04/g1176.html
CPA = Communist Party of Australia
----

This Tehran Times link is dead...

http://www.tehrantimes.com/Description.asp?Da=3/13/2004&Cat=4&Num=011

--------------------------

So, could it be that this CIA op to "plant" WMDs (revealed by Nelda Rogers) was deliberately "bungled" by elements in the CIA out of patriotic motives, and motives of truthfulness--to not allow Bush/Blair their triumphal speech on the WMD "find" in Iraq, based on deception? (Could this be why the Bushites hate the CIA so much?)

Or perhaps it was Cheney/Rumsfeld's "Office of Special Plans" who tried to "plant" the weapons evidence, and the CIA foiled it? Is this what David Kelly knew, why he was killed and why the Bushites did the SECOND Plame outing--that of the CIA's whole WMD network (the front company)?

The Nelda Rogers story comes from Al Martin--who is not a reliable source. And I don't know that the Tehran Times is either, but the TT story seems to have more credible details, specific to a possible "plant." The Nelda Rogers story (at the Portland Indymedia web site) is mostly about stealing cash and Saddam's assets. (--not to say that isn't true; I'm just a little more wary of the source; also, to just use a blanket phrase, "CIA," doesn't indicate much understanding of the subtleties of this situation, in which the White House is at war with the US intelligence community).

Note: Rogers says it was ex-military personnel paid through the US Dept. of Agriculture--but I hardly think that payment for such a sensitive mission ("planting" WMDs in Iraq) would be run thru any US agency or be traceable. (Who knows, though? We're talking about people--Cheney, Rumsfeld et al--whose chief characteristics are arrogance and hubris).