Many of the arms shipped all over the world get there via Africa and Costa Rica, Panama, and a few other places.
The wars on the Ivory Coast would NOT even be able to occur were it NOT for the small arms trade. These are the real means of funding both terrorists and covert operations and there is BIG BIG money both for American mfrs and Russians looking to offset theri economic woes.
I felt from the get go that not only was this to chill and silence agents from coming forward, it was likewise designed to SPOIL whatever intelligence HONEST CIA agents involved in counter-terrorism might discover or be able to reveal.
Information on the small arms trade in these nations can be found here:
http://www.publicintegrity.org/dtaweb/ICIJ_BOW.ASP?L1=10&L2=65&L3=0&L4=0&L5=0&State=and here:
http://www.cdi.org/program/index.cfm?programid=23Keep in mind, this is simply a theory and suspicion on my part but with the addition of Rand Beers onto John Kerry's staff I DO think this discussion is relevent.
on edit: The connect is that given that one has to assume MS Plame's contacts were in the region where her husband was sent (i.e. Niger...probably he was familiar with that area and served there so THEY could be together during his or her tenure) it is possible that she too had some DAMNING discoveries on WHO terrorizes and HOW and WHERE their funds are sourced.