Enough. To have ever mentioned "Valerie Plame" and "CIA" in ...

[understandinglife]

.... ANY WAY, in ANY WAY, automatically exposed her to every foreign intelligence service. AUTOMATICALLY.

Only a tiny number of high officials, such as the president, the secretaries of state and defense, and a few high White House officials even have access to the names of the CIA’s NOC “non-official cover” officers. These are seemingly private individuals who are actually key CIA personnel, whose clandestine activities are run via carefully designed covers, companies that are legitimate from top to bottom and are not in any way thought to be CIA-associated, and have survived years of scrutiny from foreign intelligence operations, and are believed by even the best of them to be entirely non-CIA connected.

From A National Catastrophe by Whitley Strieber on June 24, 2004

Link:
http://www.unknowncountry.com/journal/?id=162

I read Mr Strieber's article last summer. His summary of those within the CIA of "NOC" status summarizes the framework that I used for a thread I posted earlier this morning.

But, as the day passes and I witness more and more total bullshit from the White House and all their co-conspirators about the issue, I decided to post this comment as a separate thread.

For Mr Rove to have ever known anything about Ms Plame being a CIA employee AUTOMATICALLY TELLS YOU how severe the National Security breach is.

The very nature of a NOC is that only the President, and a few other senior executives of the administration have access to such knowledge; they are the ONLY individuals, other than fellow NOCs and their control person(s) at the CIA, who know they are CIA!!

I've watched this amazingly destructive lie of the Bu$h administration since the day Novak barfed on our National Security. And knew, the moment I read it, that either Bu$h, Cheney, Powell, Rice, Rumsfeld, Tenet, i.e., only the most senior members of our government, had to have been the source of identifying Ambassador Wilson's wife, (aka Ms Plame) as a CIA employee to Rove.

No matter how they try to spin it, it took a nanosecond or less for every person in the realm of our own and foreign intelligence services to know what it meant.

By simply mentioning Ms Plame/Ms Wilson as "CIA" blew her cover and the cover of every person associated with her whether Novak or anyone else used the term 'covert' or not.

The White House is full of TRAITORS, at a time when we are at WAR.

Related thread:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=4079272&mesg_id=4079272



Peace.

www.missionnotaccomplished.us

[TahitiNut]

1. Yep. Republicans Are Soft On Treason. (For a Reason?)

Rinse. Repeat. :evilgrin:

[RDANGELO]

2. So have I got this right?

Whoever outed Plame didn't just out a person, they outed a whole front company.

[jsamuel]

3. domino's

anti-terrorist WMD CIA network, POOF

[TahitiNut]

4. Ubetcha ... and the whole south Asia region it covered.

The first thing any opposing agency does is review all the contacts Plame and co-workers had and everything they might have discovered ... and then they "fix" that. That includes terminations and restructuring of operations ... doing everything they can to make any intelligence gathered by Plame and colleagues useless.

[Lars39]

5. Yes.

Her operation kept track of the terrorists and the people that would give the terrorists weapons of mass destruction.

[understandinglife]

7. Correct.

And, the front company was called Brewster-Jennings & Associates and if you want a nice summary of how destructive that is:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/7/3/16838/88864

By placing the term "CIA" in any form of relationship to Ms Valerie Plame or Ambassador Wilson's wife or Ms Joseph Wilson or Ms Vaerie Wilson .... destroyed a significant piece of our National Security infrastructure and who knows how many lives.



Peace.

www.missionnotaccomplished.us

[understandinglife]

9. Pertinent time-line and numerous links to primary articles:

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/2/5/212837/3714

And, let us all remember the words Novak used on July 14, 2003:

<clip>

Reluctance at the White House to admit a mistake has led Democrats ever closer to saying the president lied the country into war. Even after a belated admission of error last Monday, finger-pointing between Bush administration agencies continued. Messages between Washington and the presidential entourage traveling in Africa hashed over the mission to Niger.

<clip>

This misinformation, peddled by Italian journalists, spread through the U.S. government. The White House, State Department and Pentagon, and not just Vice President Dick Cheney, asked the CIA to look into it.

<clip>

Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife, Valerie Plame, is an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction.

<clip>

From Mission to Niger by Robert Novak

Link:
http://www.townhall.com/columnists/robertnovak/rn20030714.shtml

Peace.

www.missionnotaccomplished.us

[understandinglife]

32. "Leak of Agent's Name Causes Exposure of CIA Front Firm"

Leak of Agent's Name Causes Exposure of CIA Front Firm

By Walter Pincus and Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writers
Saturday, October 4, 2003; Page A03


The leak of a CIA operative's name has also exposed the identity of a CIA front company, potentially expanding the damage caused by the original disclosure, Bush administration officials said yesterday.

<clip>

After the name of the company was broadcast yesterday, administration officials confirmed that it was a CIA front.

<clip>

The inadvertent disclosure of the name of a business affiliated with the CIA underscores the potential damage to the agency and its operatives caused by the leak of Plame's identity. Intelligence officials have said that once Plame's job as an undercover operative was revealed, other agency secrets could be unraveled and her sources might be compromised or endangered.

<clip>

More at the link:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&contentId=A40012-2003Oct3¬Found=true

This article has always seemed so naive to me.


Peace.

www.missionnotaccmplished.us

[understandinglife]

36. Important that you read Larry Johnson's article at TPM:

http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/7/13/04720/9340

I sent him a link to this thread and thanked him for his excellent essay.

And, here is a link to a DU thread that discusses the article:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=103x139106


Peace.

www.missionnotaccomplished.us

[understandinglife]

39. READ WHAT Ambassador Wilson has to say - Raw Story, July 14, 2005

The other thing you can assume that even if 150 people read the Novak article when it appeared, 148 of them would have been the heads of intelligence sections at embassies here in Washington and by noon that day they would have faxing her name or telexing her name back to their home offices and running checks on her: whether she had ever been in the country, who she may have been in contact with, etc.

Raw Story: Then Novak runs a second article outing the front company that your wife was using, falsely connecting it to a campaign donation.

Wilson: Right, he runs a second article exposing her front company.

Raw Story: Just in case the first article did not take, one can assume.

Wilson: Actually, that indicates a pattern of disclosure there.

http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Interview_Ambassador_Wilson_husband_of_outed_CIA_agent_sees_larger_Administration_ro_0713.html


That's settled.


Peace.

www.missionnotaccomplished.us

[understandinglife]

12. To keep it simple for those who may need an explanation ...

.... you can just compare the simple link of "Plame and CIA" to cracking a secret code. As soon as intelligence experts, world-wide, saw "Plame" and "CIA" in that one sentence written by Novak, they broke the code of "Brewster, Jennings" and everything ever associated with it.

It did not matter if "Plame" was still "CIA"; had stopped being "CIA" the week before, the year before, five years before. Not one bit of difference. The "code was broken," the compromise effected. And any operation, any affiliation "Plame" ever had became instantly suspect, and to the considerable danger to anyone ever associated with her, as well as to a brave American "NOC" - Ms Plame, herself.

No matter how they spin it; it was a traitorous act, damaging to our National Security and directly relevant to the war our Armed Forces were engaged at the time of compromise of "Plame."


Peace.

www.missionnotaccomplished.us

[ms liberty]

23. I'd take that one step further...

"...any affiliation "Plame" ever had became instantly suspect, and to the considerable danger to anyone ever associated with her..."

I would just add:

And anyone who ever associated with anyone who had ever associated with her.

I'd classify it as possibly the most costly intelligence disaster in American history.

[understandinglife]

25. It may very well be. It will take years to know. But, I think that one ...

... of the reasons Mr Fitzgerald has had the cooperation of the courts is that those judges have seen plenty of evidence of how serious the damage to our National Security the link of Plame-to-CIA was.

For certain, had a 'spy' discerned and compromised the identity of a NOC to another government, and then been detected or/and apprehended, especially if that 'spy' were a US citizen, it would have been immediately and rightly proclaimed as an intelligence disaster, and we would have witnessed a far different response from the Bush regime and their corporate media lackeys.


Peace.

www.missionnotaccomplished.us

[peacetalksforall]

6. All this went on at a time when the entire team of war preparers

were riding high with successes as the people who could save us from other suicide bombers. The war hadn't started, there were no casualties yet, no thunderous bombing, no unarmoured Humvees, no Abu Graib's and the fewer people had analyzed the 9-11 'conincidences'.

AT THE SAME TIME...CHENEY had a NEED to cover his actions in Iraq and Pakistan and the trail of trade in the region. A Pentagon analyst 'left' his job because of a 'cover-up?' by Cheney. Cheney needed to stop CIA investigations into nuclear and wmd trafficking according to stories that are out there. Plame and the team she was with were investigating nuclear and wmd trafficking. Key people being investigated were the same people Cheney was familiar with.

Cheney appears to have been motivated to interrupt investigations.

It's worth our time to read up. Because, Rove did not decide to expose Plame on his own.

Ah arrogance!

[CantGetFooledAgain]

10. Cheney?? Say what now?

"Cheney needed to stop CIA investigations into nuclear and wmd trafficking according to stories that are out there. Plame and the team she was with were investigating nuclear and wmd trafficking. Key people being investigated were the same people Cheney was familiar with.

Cheney appears to have been motivated to interrupt investigations."

What is your source on this? If true, it is beyond explosive. And it casts the whole situation in a new light.

[peacetalksforall]

11. Combine Cheney Khan Pakistan Pentagon Barlow nuclear

Or start with this one:

http://news.neilrogers.com/news/articles/2004031015.html

[understandinglife]

13. Other links you may find useful:

This one:
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/060804_coup_detat.html
Reference in this dKos link:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/7/3/16838/88864 (and comments in this thread)

And:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=4070938&mesg_id=4070938
for a bit more historical perspective


Peace

www.missionnotaccomplished.us

[CantGetFooledAgain]

30. Fascinating stuff. Scary, too.

If true, it explains a lot of the "back story" behind what we see going on right now.

[savannahana]

8. thank you for this (as always) UL

nominated

:hi:

[BamaBecky]

14. Agreed UL.....and here's hoping something serious is done about it!..n/t

[understandinglife]

15. "Rove's dodging in this matter, in fact, has been so transparent as ...

.... to undermine his credibility.

<clip>

In the face of this week's revelations, it is unfathomable that the White House, having repeatedly proclaimed its intent on getting to the truth of the matter, should now refuse to help the American people understand why a New York Times reporter should sit in jail for not giving up her sources but why Rove should keep his job. If, as it now appears, Rove did leak the information, Bush should do what he said he was going to do: fire him, if Rove doesn't resign first.

From Editorial: Should this leak sink Rove?

From the Journal Sentinel on July 12, 2005

Link:
http://www.jsonline.com/news/editorials/jul05/340537.asp

It should indeed be unfathonable why our government has failed to explain the reality of consequences to our National Security, the linking of "Plame" with "CIA" has caused, in addition to the obvious damage it has done to Ms Plame, personally.

And, it is almost touching to read an earnest editorial from the heartland, yearning for an American administration to behave in a responsible and honorable manner.

But, gravely, it is both fathonable and heartbreaking to realize that the current executive branch is so mired in lies and crimes against humanity and against our fragile planet as to expect nothing from them but the denials and further deception we've all witnessed since Lawrence O'Donnell spoke of Rove and Plame on July 1, 2005.


Peace.

www.missionnotaccomplished.us

[txindy]

16. I suspect Fitzgerald is on to this angle

I don't know for certain, of course, but there is something far more than a mere leak to members of the press being investigated when said investigation goes on for two years - and by a republican prosecutor. There is a lot more coming that we have yet to learn about.

[GreenPartyVoter]

35. I hope so. And I hope he doesn't get fired.

[osaMABUSh]

17. The sense is that Cheney told Rove about Plame

God, this is great. Am I dreaming or what? After five years of this nightmare presidency and scandals that never made the light of day, Rove AND Cheney could go down!

[Ugnmoose]

18. The judges knew this full well

which is why this was deemed of such importance that they agreed to force Cooper and Miller to testify.

[understandinglife]

22. I agree with you. One of the most important observations made by O'Donnell

.... is precisely the fact that "all the judges who have seen the prosecutor’s secret evidence firmly believe he is pursuing a very serious crime, and they have done everything they can to help him get an indictment."

Specifically, O'Donnell notes:

"In February, Circuit Judge David Tatel joined his colleagues’ order to Cooper and Miller despite his own, very lonely finding that indeed there is a federal privilege for reporters that can shield them from being compelled to testify to grand juries and give up sources. He based his finding on Rule 501 of the Federal Rules of Evidence, which authorizes federal courts to develop new privileges “in the light of reason and experience.” Tatel actually found that reason and experience “support recognition of a privilege for reporters’ confidential sources.” But Tatel still ordered Cooper and Miller to testify because he found that the privilege had to give way to “the gravity of the suspected crime.”

Judge Tatel’s opinion has eight blank pages in the middle of it where he discusses the secret information the prosecutor has supplied only to the judges to convince them that the testimony he is demanding is worth sending reporters to jail to get. The gravity of the suspected crime is presumably very well developed in those redacted pages. Later, Tatel refers to “aving carefully scrutinized voluminous classified filings.”

Some of us have theorized that the prosecutor may have given up the leak case in favor of a perjury case, but Tatel still refers to it simply as a case “which involves the alleged exposure of a covert agent.” Tatel wrote a 41-page opinion in which he seemed eager to make new law -- a federal reporters’ shield law -- but in the end, he couldn’t bring himself to do it in this particular case. In his final paragraph, he says he “might have” let Cooper and Miller off the hook “were the leak at issue in this case less harmful to national security.”

From The One Very Good Reason Karl Rove Might Be Indicted

by Lawrence O'Donnell

July 7, 2005:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/theblog/archive/lawrence-odonnell/the-one-very-good-reason-_3769.html

See also:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=4041542

Peace.

www.missionnotaccomplished.us

[Eloriel]

19. Good for you -- superb post

and some excellent info in the thread.

:kick:

[snot]

20. Nominated, kicked, and . . .

I can't resist adding (though none of you need it) that (as I understand) Rove planted this leak with SIX different reporters--this was no unintentional slip of the tongue; it was a campaign.

[Swede]

21. I wonder if Plame has a list of contacts that have been murdered,

or imprisoned or disappeared because of this?

[understandinglife]

24. A. Huffington: "The Turd Blossom Express has reached the end of the line."

<clip>

By linking the potential political fallout to the legal issue at hand, the White House can then hem, haw, and stall -- claiming that we need to let the legal system run its course -- and then hope that if special prosecutor Fitzgerald can't clear the high legal bar and indict Rove, it'll be able to claim that he's somehow been exonerated for his political sins as well.

Which, of course, is utter nonsense. Because while the legal jury may be out, the political jury is definitely in. Whether someone in a position of power and authority has acted inappropriately is not a matter of narrow legal definitions and fine semantic distinctions. Given what we already know about Rove's conversations, we can, right now, without even a single new revelation, and without reservation, say this: he is guilty of behavior that dishonored the White House and that placed the dirty politics of vindictive retribution over national security.

Ethics isn't just about what is legal or illegal. It's about what is right and what is wrong. And what Rove did was wrong -- and no amount of legalistic hair-splitting will change that.

<clip>

Here's the bottom line: let’s imagine for a moment that Fitzgerald does not indict Rove. Does this in any way mitigate, excuse, or erase what Rove did? Does it take the onus off President Bush's promise to fire the White House leaker? Of course not. Rove leaked - and he should be fired. The Turd Blossom Express has reached the end of the line.

From Has the Turd Blossom Express Reached the End of the Line? Arianna Huffington

July 12, 2005

More at the link:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/theblog/archive/arianna-huffington/has-the-turd-blossom-expr_4061.html

Ms Huffington is on target regarding ethics.

She is also on target regarding the damage that Rove has done to the White House and National Security.

However, what remains the central, critical issue in the exceptional damage done to our National Security is the identity of the individual or individuals who violated one of the most classified and sensitive secrets of our Republic, and revealed to Rove that Ms Plame was CIA.

That person or persons are the one's who must be prosecuted as traitors to America at a time when our brave citizens in the Armed Forces were already ordered by Mr Bush to wage an illegal war of aggression on Iraq.

It is my fervent hope that Mr Fitzgerald and the judges whom he has stood before are honorable, patriotic servants of the Constitution and the law.

At this point, I see every reason to believe they are.


Peace.

www.missionnotaccomplished.us

[oasis]

26. "Placed dirty politics and vindictive retribution over national security".

Arianna sums it up nicely.

[fooj]

27. This administration is morally and ethically bankrupt.

These rat bastards play for keeps. At all costs. They don't have a patriotic bone in their bodies...

Rove (IMO, he had no business in Our House to begin with) exposed a CIA operative. The "code was broken" along with our intelligence capabilities. This is TREASON. Karl Rove is a traitor to his country. Period. I, too, believe that Fitzgerald and the judges smell the arrogant stench. Shrub and his henchmen are backed into a corner and IMO, this is when they are most dangerous. I'm just waiting on Miller's source. IMO- it's not Rove. Why keep quiet...he's in up to his eyeballs! I think that it is a BIG player. Very Big!


The White House is full of TRAITORS, at a time when we are at WAR.

Peace.

[flyarm]

28. this administration has done

everything in their power to cut the legs out from under our cia agents..and destroy our real national security..this breach is no less dangerous or less treasonous than spys hansen and john walker..and should be treated with the same seriousness and more so while this nation has our troops in a war and harms way!

this security breach is even more dangerous that the spys who committed treason as it came from someone or ones in the white house for revenge..nothing could be more treasonable!

[Im with Rosey]

29. Prison Time for rove

I am not content with rove being fired. This should also include the responsibility he shoulders for the deaths that may have resulted from his ugly act of vengence. I sincerely hope that Mr. Fitzgerald will thoroughly investigate all the ramifications of what rove has done. We should not stop at rove being fired or being allowed to resign, we should not stop until the scum is behind bars.
Scum rises to the top, this also goes all the way to the top.

[understandinglife]

31. Senator Frank Lautenberg Accuses Karl Rove of Treason

Frank Lautenberg Accuses Karl Rove of Treason

July 12, 2005

On Air America's Morning Sedition, Mark Maron and Mark Riley were interviewing NJ Senator Frank Lautenberg regarding his call for Karl Rove to lose his security clearance as a result of the Plame leak.
Maron said, "Karl Rove is guilty of treason, isn't he?"

Lautenberg responded, "Yes, I think so."

When Senators are accusing White House Deputy Chiefs of Staff of treason, things have reached a new level.

More at the link:

http://www.patridiots.com/001731.html

And, from deep in the oil refinery core of Texas:

If words have a meaning, Rove will soon be a goner

By CRAGG HINES

Houston Chronicle July 12, 2005

President Bush can fire Karl Rove now, or, in observing procedural niceties he sometimes finds bothersome, wait for the investigation to play out.

If Bush does neither and keeps Rove by his side as deputy chief of staff at the White House, the president is not a man of his word. He also will not be his father's son in terms of shielding intelligence agents from malevolent exposure. If Bush attempts to temporize or to protect Rove by parsing legalisms, he will be no better than Bill Clinton dancing around what "is" means.

Rove may not literally have named Valerie Plame Wilson, an act that could have had him on his way to Leavenworth, but in guiding a reporter to her and to her work at the Central Intelligence Agency, Rove violated the spirit that supposedly governs the current administration.

<clip>

More at the link:

http://www.chron.com/cs/CDA/ssistory.mpl/editorial/outlook/3263734

Folk are dancing close to the fire of truth and are definitely feeling the heat.

But, they will consider the current temperature, balmy, when they finally have the courage to grab hold of the fact that those who connected "Plame" with "CIA" are in_deed traitors.



Peace.

www.missionnotaccomplished.us

[understandinglife]

33. H Dean: "You don't have to be a former intelligence official to understand

... the implications of this crime.

<clip>

Will George W. Bush keep his word and demand that everyone in his administration uphold the trust of their office? This is his chance to rise above politics and do the right thing for our security and for our country.

Our party will rise above politics by asking all Americans, regardless of party, to publicly ask the administration to come clean about this serious situation:

http://www.democrats.org/comeclean

Please get this message out to as many people as possible. Americans of all political persuasions should agree that we need to get the truth -- and take responsibility for publicly demanding it.

Thank you.

Governor Howard Dean, M.D.
Chairman, Democratic National Committee

BRAVO GOV DEAN!!! Now, This Is LEADERSHIP.


Peace.

www.missionnotaccomplished.us

[understandinglife]

34. Kuttner: "Blowing her cover harmed her career and put her at risk."

<clip>

The White House spinners also contend that Plame was not really a clandestine and protected CIA agent because she worked at CIA headquarters. This is also nonsense. Plame, a specialist on weapons of mass destruction, was under cover when she undertook sensitive missions. She was not identified as CIA. Blowing her cover harmed her career and put her at risk.

This all recalls two other famous cases where an administration fell afoul of a special prosecutor. Bill Clinton tried to persuade a grand jury and public opinion that oral sex wasn't sex. He nearly lost the presidency, not for his dumb affair with an intern but for lying. Richard Nixon was disgraced, not for the original Watergate break-in but for the coverup. George Bush, who doesn't know much about history, should take notice.

After a week's reporting and reflection, I also suggest a different view of press privilege and the public interest. In the Alice in Wonderland world of the Plame-Rove story, Judith Miller, who worked hand in glove with the Bush administration to publish bogus stories about Saddam Hussein's alleged nuclear program, is a hero -- for going to jail to protect, once again, her friends in the administration. And Time-Warner, which turned over Matt Cooper's notes (for the wrong reasons -- Time-Warner's corporate interests -- but that's another story) is the villain. Yet it may be Cooper's testimony that finally sinks Rove. So who's the hero and what's the public interest?

As Michael Kinsley has observed, not all leaks are created morally equal. It's one thing for reporters to protect a brave whistle-blower who has taken personal risks to serve the public interest. It is another thing for reporters to collude with the powerful to punish the whistle-blower, in this case Joseph Wilson, and his wife, an innocent bystander.

<clip>

From Second thoughts on leak case

by Robert Kuttner

July 13, 2005

Link:
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2005/07/13/second_thoughts_on_leak_case/

Truly one of the finest, bravest pieces of journalism I have ever read.


Peace.

www.missionnotaccomplished.us

[Time for change]

37. If this doesn't bring Bu$h down

What will?

Thank you for making this so explicit.

[Independent_Liberal]

38. Kick!