Rove's Email to Cooper & New WH Talking Points >

[Stephanie]

Q: Did Plame send Wilson? I thought that was disproved.

Q: Didn't Cheney's office request that the CIA to look into the Niger issue?

Q: Rove's implication that there was other evidence that Niger was involved with Iraq is a flat out lie, right?

Q: The WH spin, discouraging Newsweek from printing things that are false - they are sacrificing Rove for Cheney here, aren't they?

Q: What is double super secret background? Does the reporter have to keep his fingers crossed? Is there a special decoder ring?


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Cooper began. "Spoke to Rove on double super secret background for about two mins before he went on vacation..." Cooper proceeded to spell out some guidance on a story that was beginning to roil Washington. He finished, "please don't source this to rove or even WH " and suggested another reporter check with the CIA.

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Cooper wrote that Rove offered him a "big warning" not to "get too far out on Wilson." Rove told Cooper that Wilson's trip had not been authorized by "DCIA"—CIA Director George Tenet—or Vice President Dick Cheney. Rather, "it was, KR said, wilson's wife, who apparently works at the agency on wmd issues who authorized the trip." Wilson's wife is Plame, then an undercover agent working as an analyst in the CIA's Directorate of Operations counterproliferation division. (Cooper later included the essence of what Rove told him in an online story.) The e-mail characterizing the conversation continues: "not only the genesis of the trip is flawed an suspect but so is the report. he implied strongly there's still plenty to implicate iraqi interest in acquiring uranium fro Niger... "

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A source close to Rove, who declined to be identified because he did not wish to run afoul of the prosecutor or government investigators, added that there was "absolutely no inconsistency" between Cooper's e-mail and what Rove has testified to during his three grand-jury appearances in the case. "A fair reading of the e-mail makes clear that the information conveyed was not part of an organized effort to disclose Plame's identity, but was an effort to discourage Time from publishing things that turned out to be false," the source said, referring to claims in circulation at the time that Cheney and high-level CIA officials arranged for Wilson's trip to Africa.

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/8525978/site/newsweek

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[Rex_Goodheart]

1. Plame could not have authorized any trip

It was not Plame's decision that Wilson be sent to Niger. The most she could have done was recommend.

[DoYouEverWonder]

2. So what if she did?

It wasn't like he wasn't qualified for the job. Unlike that fellow who headed the FCC, what was his name? Powell, something like that?

[joemurphy]

3. Plame's Role in Wilson's Trip

She probably recommended him, but it was OKed by CIA higher-ups.

Tenet said as much.

<http://www.globalsecurity.org/intell/library/news/2003/intell-030711-cia01.htm>