Was Outing Plame More Than Mere Spitework?

[Oilwellian]

Edit: My apologies Mods..I thought I was posting this in GD. Shall I repost or can you move it?

Here's an interesting take from a Blog I sometimes read. I've been wondering if Plame was somehow a stumbling block for the Bush Crime Family's criminal enterprise. Hmmmmm.

Why was Valerie Plame's name leaked?

Everyone in the great leak guessing game has been attributing this to mere spitework, but I think there may be more to it. Assuming that the leak came from the VP's office, and that is a reasonable assumption, there was more than just an attempt to embarass an former Democratic State Department official who was no fan of Bush.

It's well known that the people around Rummy and Cheney were called Team B before they became PNAC. They had fought the CIA for years with their ridiculous assessments of Soviet strength. They assumed the Russians were much stronger and more devious than they had been in the past.

Which is how the whole Office of Special Plans fiasco took place at DOD. The Team B crew took their pet theories and set up shop, despite the objections of the service chiefs and the intelligence agencies.

The problem OSD had was it wasn't getting the data it wanted from CIA and the rest of the alphabet soup. It was getting the truth. At some point there had to be people who were a road block to their dreams of Saddam, nuclear warrior, being proved. There are only a few experts of WMD spread across Energy, DIA, NSA and the CIA. NSA kept their heads down, DIA got out of the way, but CIA stood there to be subject to Team B's abuse.

There are only a few people within the Agency who knew the subject well. My impression was that Plame, while officially an NOC, was well known to the SVR and FIS as the CIA WMD person who worked in the 'Stans. They passed this info on to their CIS client states as needed. So when the debates started about Al Qaeda getting weapons, Plame was the person who kept saying not only that it wasn't happening, but it wasn't likely to happen. Also, there was zero evidence from her sources Saddam could pass such weapons if he wanted to. She'd come back from a business trip, do a brief at Langley and say "it's not happening" Cheney's people sit in occasionally and like neither her tone nor conclusions. Despite the myth, there are plenty of NPR-listening liberals at CIA.

They press and press and her answers never change. It's not happening.

So they finally decide to ignore her, and go about with their lies. She writes a report calling them off-base and goes off to raise her twins. Months later, she's now riding a desk, and doing her job, and someone asks for someone to check this yellowcake thing. She says her husband used to cover the region for the NSC. They check on him, he's got sterling references from EUCOM and is seen as military-friendly. They send him to Niger, he concludes there's nothing to the story.

More months pass. Wilson comes out, saying that the uranium story was crap. The people in the VP's office then put two and two together. Not only is Wilson messing with them, but that bitch Plame is his wife. Let's get them both.

So I think it's not only to teach other people a lesson, but some payback for her honest conclusions.

http://stevegilliard.blogspot.com/

[La_Serpiente]

1. grrrrr

grrrr

[mhr]

2. I Used To Work In The Intelligence Community

and there is a ring of truth to this theory.

[Girlfriday]

3. That theory makes a whole lot more sense

I never did understand what outing Wilson's wife had to do with discrediting him, as some have posited.

[JHB]

22. I've never heard about it "discrediting" him,...

...just that it would be payback for crossing the Bushies (i.e., "either toe the line, or we'll make you and your whole family pay for it") and they arrogant bastards didn't think through the ramifications beyond it making her useless in her current position.

[BQueen]

4. Hmmm...good way to get rid of a thorn in your side....

and two thorns with one stone! What a coup!

Much easier than simply making her life hell til she quits or setting up crappy performance reviews to justify firing her. And no whistle-blower protections....

I dunno, the backfire potential is enormous -- but in my experience, Rethugs never think that far ahead. Have to cogitate on this one.


<MODS - I cut and pasted my reply from the other thread, so delete it if you like>

[catzies]

5. "NPR-listening liberals at CIA?"

God, I hope so. :)

[mhr]

7. You Might Be Surprised

Much of the intelligence community is composed of college educated folks that swing moderate to liberal.

My ex-wife worked at the CIA (analyst not agent) and she was a card carrying PETA member. True story!

[Dogmudgeon]

10. Let me vouch for that

Most of the translators I've known who have worked for the CIA (usually Russian translators, but also one Arabic translator) were out-and-out lefties. To be sure, one was a rightist, but he was a libertarian, and a cynical one at that.

There's just something about learning about another culture that does something to the old noggin. Tolerance? Understanding? But these days, many dare call it Treason.

--bkl

[DBoon]

11. CIA vs. FBI

I recall a book that contrasted the CIA culture with the FBI culture and explained why the two agencies did not work together well. Seems the CIA was a bunch of "chardonnay sipping academics in tweed jackets" which did not mesh well with the FBI "just regular cops" culture.

Does anyone know what the title of this book is? About 5 to 10 years ago?

[JHB]

24. Was that book WEDGE...?

The paerback edition came out last year.

Wedge: From Pearl Harbor to 9/11--How the Secret War between the FBI and CIA Has Endangered National Security
by Mark Riebling (Author)

Prophetic when first published, even more relevant now, Wedge is the classic, definitive story of the secret war America has waged against itself.

Based on scores of interviews with former spies and thousands of declassified documents, Wedge reveals and re-creates -- battle by battle, bungle by bungle -- the epic clash that has made America uniquely vulnerable to its enemies. For more than six decades, the opposed and overlapping missions of the FBI and CIA -- and the rival personalities of cops and spies -- have caused fistfights and turf tangles, breakdowns and cover-ups, public scandals and tragic deaths.

A grand panorama of dramatic episodes, peopled by picaresque secret agents from Ian Fleming to Oliver North, Wedge is both a journey and a warning. From Pearl Harbor, McCarthyism, and the plots to kill Castro through the JFK assassination, Watergate, and Iran Contra down to the Aldrich Ames affair, Robert Hanssen's treachery, and the hunt for Al Qaeda -- Wedge shows the price America has paid for its failure to resolve the conflict between law enforcement and intelligence.

Gripping and authoritative -- and updated with an important new epilogue, carrying the action through to September 11, 2001 -- Wedge is the only book about the schism that has informed nearly every major blunder in American espionage.

About the Author
Mark Riebling is editorial director at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research. He has written on national-security issues for The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and the National Review. He lives in New York City.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0743245997/qid=1064935219/sr=1-3/ref=sr_1_3/102-3673405-0598528?v=glance&s=books

[JHB]

23. Remember, the CIA has two sides...

Analysis and operations.

Operations are the guys who have been described as "frat boys with guns and no honor" and have done the assorted right-wing dirty deeds.

Analysis is thae side that usually takes the heat from the right wingers for not coming up with the "right" answers. I pretty much doubt you'll find any die-hard Trotsyites there, but the spectrum of views is wider than what one usually associated with the CIA.

[TahitiNut]

6. (Put On Your TinFoil Hat) Perhaps outing Plame also ...

... served to facilitate the elimination of some folks (contacts or field operatives) in Niger who might be able to provide more insight and background regarding the clumsily forged documents? Who might've benefitted from such forgeries? Why did the forger believe there was a 'market' for this particular kind of (dis)information? Stranger things have happened.

[Oilwellian]

8. Or maybe....

Plame was stepping on the toes of the profiteers who make WMD's. The possibilities are endless when you consider the Bush Crime Family's worldwide network of criminals and thugs.

[LittleApple81]

9. With this administration nothing can be put past them. n/t

[Unknown Known]

12. Intelligence community vs. OSP

And your analysis definitely has groove with this.

It is well documented how the neocons in OSP have been trying to squeeze out the CIA and letting them take the hit for all the mistakes.

Besides, let's face it, most muricans haven't even heard of the Office of Special Plans or know to what degree they have gotten us into this mess.

Listening to Wilson, he seems to be trying to point this out without actually being obvious.

[frank frankly]

13. excellent post!

sounds right to me!

[ConsAreLiars]

14. Thank you for this observation.

The fact that this "outing" of a CIA operative had the (intended) effect of hitting not only a whistleblower (Wilson) and others so inclined but also effectively incapacitated a CIA program that documents the cabal's WMD lies must have been way too tempting for the Straussians to resist.

The fact that the blowback was immediate must have been a big surprise. They probably expected to have time to distance themselves from the facts like they did with their own participation in and support for the crimes by Mr. Hussein which they now (after all those years) find so notable.

[cliss]

15. Ambassador Wilson himself said,

that the main purpose of the leak wasn't meant to cause damage to either him or his wife. According to Wilson, it was done to intimidate the rest of the intelligence community, 'that this could happen to them'. (Sorry, I don't have a quote - it's too late in the evening).

Although, I've read some pretty interesting and plausible explanations here. Who knows?

It DOES seem, however, that this couple has the mighty CIA on their side. George Tenet has apparently taken it upon himself to press for an investigation of this matter. I do recall a very faint smile on the corners of his lips when he left the questioning a few months ago, (when he 'fell on his sword'). Heh heh.

This could be a 'Clash of the Titans'.

[grasswire]

16. Let me tell you the freepers' latest theory

They are thinking that Valerie Plame is Britain's "other source" for the yellowcake claim. The one that nobody can reveal.

[Unknown Known]

17. One of the reporters called Wilson just after talking with Rove

this is DY-NO-MITE!!

Other reporters called him as well as a network producer on the same subject. From today's WP -

"My knowledge is based on a reporter who called me right after he had spoken to Rove and said that Rove had said my wife was fair game," Wilson said. He said that conversation occurred on July 21.

Wilson said a producer from another network told him about the same time, "The White House is saying things about you and your wife that are so off the wall that we won't use them." Wilson said the series of similar calls he received, which included four journalists from three networks, stopped on July 22, after he appeared on NBC's "Today" show and said the disclosure of his wife's maiden name could jeopardize the "entire network that she may have established."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A17129-2003Sep29.html

[Media_Lies_Daily]

18. But it now appears that the CIA was equal to the task of fighting back...

...and they are the very last group with whom I'd pick a fight. They have the means to completely defeat anyone that crosses their path, and the Bushies have gone much, much farther than that.

Additionally, the CIA has had about two months to pull in markers within Congress, the DOJ (to include the FBI), and the mainstream media. Think about THAT for a moment.

What's blowing my mind at the moment is that the mainstream media, owned by very large and very conservative corporations, is going to town on this story. That tells me that the major corporations are also turning against the Bushies. And the CIA actually works for the major business interests in this country.

Meanwhile, the military is also leaking information that hits the Bushies pretty hard.

[PurityOfEssence]

19. As Wilson says: this was a threat against others

He'd already screwed them, and there wasn't anything more he could do. Sure, there was some spite here to screw up her career, but the real message is loud and clear: we will destroy anyone else who crosses us; your families and careers will be ruined and we will go to any lengths.

Wilson repeatedly states this, and is either ignored or thought to be somehow "noble" or "magnanimous" by not focusing on his own loss. He's speaking the truth; her head's been hoisted up on Tower Bridge to remind everyone to shut up and toe the line.

This is just like the old tactic of hanging deserters and leaving them hanging on the line of march so the other soldiers would know the score. Pick your own metaphor--the more primitive the better--because this is the act of a wounded administration cracking down.

[ewagner]

20. Thanks for the great post

Excellent discussion and putting facts together in a sensible way.

edited because keyboard is stupid......

[Oilwellian]

21. Kick

For the morning crowd :kick:

[MrPrax]

25. Good take...

Here's a creepy thought...once her husband was identified as an 'enemy combatant', is it possible that she had to be gotten 'rid' of because of the obvious wealth of knowledge she had concerning BushCo. and their Projects...
Maybe worried about another The Conspirators type tell all coming out...
Maybe 'outing' was better than what happened to Kelly

[Brian Sweat]

26. I think that this is exactly what it is

and Joe Wilson knows it.

[NoKingGeorge]

27. Remove the eyes tracking WMD

IF I wanted to move huge quantities of WMD precursors to a sensitive area and I did not want it known I would have to remove either significant networks of monitoring people OR the hub of that network.
Where is Homeland Security now that there is a breach in our security wall?

[stickdog]

28. IMHO, Cheney got Libby to do his dirty work. (NT)