CIA man Larry Johnson responds to NoFacts Novak...

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Mon Aug-01-05 04:16 PM
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CIA man Larry Johnson responds to NoFacts Novak...

http://noquarter.typepad.com/my_weblog/2005/08/lame_bob_novak.html

LAME BOB NOVAK
by

Larry C. Johnson

After reading Robert Novak's latest column today, the biggest revelation is that Novak still thinks he has "integrity" and is a legitimate journalist. Talk about delusional.

Back in July 2003 Novak wrote:
"Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an agency operative on weapons of mass destruction. Two senior administration officials told me that Wilson's wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate the Italian report. The CIA says its counter-proliferation officials selected Wilson and asked his wife to contact him."

I believe Novak reported accurately that "two senior Administration officials" said that Valerie Plame "suggested the mission". But those sources were spreading deliberate disinformation. A real journalist would have asked some hard questions, things apparently beyond Novak's ability in his dotage. In stark contrast to what the two "senior" Admistration officials told him, CIA officials, both former and current, are on record saying that Novak is wrong and that Plame neither suggested nor authorized the mission. So what does Bob "the responsbile journalist" Novak do? He insists that the info about Plame is right even though officials in her chain of command say the opposite. Who are you going to believe?

Novak also attempts to take refuge in the so-called "bipartisan" Senate Intelligence Committee report on the matter, which makes note of a memo sent by Valerie Plame outlining her husband's bona fides to her boss in the Counter Proliferation Division (CPD). What the Senate Republicans conveniently left out of the report is the simple fact that Val's boss had first asked her to write the memo. Senior managers in CPD suggested the mission and authorized it. Plame's only role was to respond to a supervisor's request for information. Valerie Plame was not a decision maker or manager at the CIA. The SSCI can confirm that very easily. She had no authority to make a decision to send her husband anywhere on offiicial business.

But, we now are reminded what a complete, disgusting douchebag (to quote Jon Stewart) Robert Novak really is. He admits that he was told that revealing Plame's identity would cause "difficulties". He describes her in his original article as an "operative". Note, not "analyst" but "operative". Bob Novak has been in town long enough to know the difference. An operative is someone who carries out operations. An analyst is someone who sits at a desk and tries to make sense out of information that operators collect. Bill Harlow says he asked Novak not to use her name and Novak confirms this. CIA spokesmen were in the position of having to protect a sensitive, covert asset and this joke of a journalist did not appreciate that creating difficulties for an intelligence agency in a time of war is a bad thing?

After talking with several friends still inside the operations community, there is a widely held sentiment, "Too bad Novak is not sharing a cell with Judith Miller".