Plame testimony tidbit: Did Cheney Pressure Valerie Personally?

[yodermon]

hmmmm. From Valerie Wilson's Testimony;

MS. PLAME WILSON: When you look at -- and I will speak only to the realm of intelligence and you have the politicizing of that. Certainly Vice President Cheney's unprecedented number of visits to CIA headquarters in the run up to the war might be one example.

REP. KUCINICH: That's exactly the point. What happens when someone's working at the agency level that people are working at when the vice president visits? The vice president of the United States comes over and starts looking over their shoulder. Is that intimidating?

MS. PLAME WILSON: Yes, it is.

http://rawstory.com/news/2007/Plame_hearing_transcript_0316.html


Well. If Cheney went over to the CIA to harass the people on the Joint Task Force on Iraq (JTFI), of which Valerie was a member (if not the Leader), mightn't Big Dick have come in contact with her personally? Might the Vice President have had first hand knowledge of Ms. Wilson's employment, mission, and status, never mind her big-shot, mint-tea-drinking diplomat husband? Might not the Vice President be the most insidious of traitors?

Might be.

[babylonsister]

1. Proof positive that Cheney is a bald-faced liar, but we know that. nt

[katty]

2. Yeah, No s*** it's intimidating!! Darth-heavy breath is coming by!

[CrazyOrangeCat]

3. kick

[ms liberty]

4. K&R - this is a question I've been wondering about for some time, myself...n/t

[POAS]

5. Probably looking over her shoulder and

down her blouse!

[barbtries]

6. is her testimony

available to watch online in full? thanks

[EFerrari]

7. Nice catch. K&R

[Blackhatjack]

8. Cheney and Bolton had the same approach to dealing with the CIA...

... they were insistent on seeing raw data, and kept coming back until they got what they wanted.

I have no doubt that Cheney discovered Plame's identity before she was outed by WH officials.

To me the key question that needs to be addressed: Was Plame outed because of her job and her investigation of WMD in Iraq, rather than because her hubby wrote an op-ed piece in the Times?

Working in the nuclear non-proliferation division, she and/or her team would have been getting close to finding out whether there were WMDs in Iraq, and where they might have been coming from if there were any. If she discovered that the WMD were not present in Iraq, that would have undercut the Bush argument for the invasion of Iraq.

I think the WH hated Joe Wilson. However, I think they feared Valerie Plame and her group more.

[Old and In the Way]

12. It was probably a twofer....

but, I agree, the real threat may well have been Ms. Plame. Cheney sure left a smoking gun trail that pointed to political revenge (ie notes on the Wilson NYT OP/ED article that clearly shows him starting the "get Joe" meme)....but that could just as likely have been planned. Why would Scooter save this evidence? For such a secretive bunch, I find such an obvious piece of evidence to be suspect.

[Frustratedlady]

9. If Plame was tracking WMDs, wouldn't she be in the way of...

their plans to invade Iraq? Cheney may have been watching her activities, when he learned her husband was being sent to Niger?

[understandinglife]

10. I posted the following on DU on 3 November 2005:

Envision the headline -- Iraq WMD Lie: Cheney & Plame Clashed at CIA HQ

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=5260617

I'm still waiting for someone to ask her the direct question - "Ms Plame Wilson, did VP Cheney ever interact, in any way, with you while you were working for the CIA?"


Peace.

[yodermon]

11. now THAT's a question.

I bet it was on the tip of Kucinich's tongue before his time expired. (well I can wish)

[leveymg]

13. I'd say, that may be a nice feather in your cap.

Of course, Cheney was Scooter's original source for knowledge about Valerie. Maybe, when Scooter called Richard Grenier out of his meeting on June 11 to talk on the phone about Valerie, he was doing follow-up in the planning to out her, not because there was any real interest in Ambassador Wilson or why he had been sent to Niger. After all, Joe had gone there in 1999 on the same mission for CIA. There was no question about why Joe was sent by the CIA, and no real issue about whether Iraq had tried to buy Niger yellowcake.

Recall, also that Grenier said that there was virtually no discussion of Niger yellowcake within the Task Force. The subject of the aluminum tubes was the center of intense debate. Guess who had been sent to Morocco to investigate the aluminum tubes issue? Valerie.

The more pieces come to light, the more obvious that the Niger Yellowcake issue is a diversion to pull the public's attention away from the real source of the conflict and motive for outing Mrs. Wilson -- the White House tried to destroy the CIA Counter-Proliferation Division, and Valerie Plame, in particular. They did that because the CIA wasn't caving in to pressures to falsify intelligence to justify a planned attack against all three "Axis of Evil" countries.

Yes, Valerie may well be acquainted with the smell of Dick Cheney's breath. But, it's not a question anyone would ask.

[Jack Rabbit]

14. I don't know whether Cheney intimidated her or not

She probably knows people who felt intimidated.

She isn't the first person to point this out.

[bleever]

15. Flip the question: what are the odds Cheney DIDN'T have contact with her?

Nice catch re: the testimony, yodermon.