Holy shit! White House commits felony to get back at Wilson!!

[ElementaryPenguin]

Looks like BushCo is busted again, commiting yet another crime, this one in a clearly vindictive act, in which they intentionally identified a covert agent of the U.S. Check it out!
:puke:

http://thenation.com/capitalgames/index.mhtml?bid=3&pid=823

[Octafish]

1. More Bush TREASON

So Smirk and Sneer are vindictive? Who knew?

FROM THE ARTICLE...

In a recent column on Nigergate, Novak examined the role of former Ambassador Joseph Wilson IV in the affair. Two weeks ago, Wilson went public, writing in The New York Times and telling The Washington Post about the trip he took to Niger in February 2002--at the request of the CIA--to check out allegations that Saddam Hussein had tried to purchase uranium for a nuclear weapons program from Niger. Wilson was a good pick for the job. He had been a State Department officer there in the mid-1970s. He was ambassador to Gabon in the early 1990s. And in 1997 and 1998, he was the senior director for Africa at the National Security Council and in that capacity spent a lot of time dealing with the Niger government. Wilson was also the last acting US ambassador in Iraq before the Gulf War, a military action he supported. In that post, he helped evacuate thousands of foreigners from Kuwait, worked to get over 120 American hostages out Iraq, and sheltered about 800 Americans in the embassy compound. At the time, Novak's then-partner, Rowland Evans, wrote that Wilson displayed "the stuff of heroism." And President George H. W. Bush commended Wilson: "Your courageous leadership during this period of great danger for American interests and American citizens has my admiration and respect. I salute, too, your skillful conduct of our tense dealings with the government of Iraq....The courage and tenacity you have exhibited throughout this ordeal prove that you are the right person for the job."

SNIP...

Soon after Wilson disclosed his trip in the media and made the White House look bad. the payback came. Novak's July 14, 2003, column presented the back-story on Wilson's mission and contained the following sentences: "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 Wilson's wife suggested sending him to Niger to investigate" the allegation.

Wilson caused problems for the White House, and his wife was outed as an undercover CIA officer. Wilson says, "I will not answer questions about my wife. This is about me and less so about my wife. It has always been about the facts underpinning the President's statement in the state of the union speech."

So he will neither confirm nor deny that his wife--who is the mother of three-year-old twins--works for the CIA. But let's assume she does. That would seem to mean that the Bush administration has screwed one of its own top-secret operatives in order to punish Wilson or to send a message to others who might challenge it.

CONTINUED...

[DODI]

2. The Nation

Great mag. Their editor ripped apart National Review guy on CNN this evening. They do a great job.

[Cooley Hurd]

3. Jesus! Their pettiness could cost a CIA agent her life!!!

<snip>
Wilson caused problems for the White House, and his wife was outed as an undercover CIA officer. Wilson says, "I will not answer questions about my wife. This is about me and less so about my wife. It has always been about the facts underpinning the President's statement in the state of the union speech."

So he will neither confirm nor deny that his wife--who is the mother of three-year-old twins--works for the CIA. But let's assume she does. That would seem to mean that the Bush administration has screwed one of its own top-secret operatives in order to punish Wilson or to send a message to others who might challenge it.

The sources for Novak's assertion about Wilson's wife appear to be "two senior administration officials." If so, a pair of top Bush officials told a reporter the name of a CIA operative who apparently has worked under what's known as "nonofficial cover" and who has had the dicey and difficult mission of tracking parties trying to buy or sell weapons of mass destruction or WMD material. If Wilson's wife is such a person--and the CIA is unlikely to have many employees like her--her career has been destroyed by the Bush administration. (Assuming she did not tell friends and family about her real job, these Bush officials have also damaged her personal life.) Without acknowledging whether she is a deep-cover CIA employee, Wilson says, "Naming her this way would have compromised every operation, every relationship, every network with which she had been associated in her entire career. This is the stuff of Kim Philby and Aldrich Ames." If she is not a CIA employee and Novak is reporting accurately, then the White House has wrongly branded a woman known to friends as an energy analyst for a private firm as a CIA officer. That would not likely do her much good.

This is not only a possible breach of national security; it is a potential violation of law. Under the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982, it is a crime for anyone who has access to classified information to disclose intentionally information identifying a covert agent. The punishment for such an offense is a fine of up to $50,000 and/or up to ten years in prison. Journalists are protected from prosecution, unless they engage in a "pattern of activities" to name agents in order to impair US intelligence activities. So Novak need not worry.

Wow!!! :wow:

[ElementaryPenguin]

4. Incredible, isn't? Of course, perhaps not by THEIR evil standards!

eom

[spanone]

12. No surprise there

I'm surprised they didn't kill Wilson before he spoke.

[tinnypriv]

5. That is unbelievable

Sick, sick f***s.

:grr:

[ShaneGR]

7. Crossfire Bob Novac?????

UHHHHH.... this is FUCKING HUGE.

[SayitAintSo]

6. That's Incredible ... Will it hit main stream news ?

I doubt it .... This is so unbelievable - they have no shame.

[Dudley_DUright]

8. Here is the Novak column

<snip>

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 his wife suggested sending Wilson to Niger to investigate the Italian report. The CIA says its counter-proliferation officials selected Wilson and asked his wife to contact him. ''I will not answer any question about my wife,'' Wilson told me.

<snip>:

http://www.suntimes.com/output/novak/cst-edt-novak14.html

[EOTE]

15. Contact the Suntimes!!!!

Let them know you are not happy with this petty and treasonous journalism. If Novak doesn't get the boot, maybe it will cause the media to take notice of this. This needs to be shouted from every rooftop until someone picks this up. This is not a good time to be a bush admin. official. Do not let them get away with this!

The only address I have is the one for submitting letters, if anyone else has a better address, please post it.

[e-mail]

[Cocoa]

9. more for the impeachment

and Novak shouldn't be let off the hook. Whether it's legal or not for him, there's no excuse for him to serve as the instrument of Cheney's revenge.

[gorgan]

10. Only one solution...

Special Investigator! Bring 'im on!

[DinahMoeHum]

11. Ahhh, another episode of As The Worm Turns. . .

Bwahahahahahaaaa!!!

Methinks the wheels are starting to fall off the "juggernaut"!!


:evilgrin:

[zbdent]

13. Surely this news cannot be anywhere near as bad as

pointing out that an intern had previous designs on married, powerful men before Clinton.

(and if you can't spot sarcasm like this, go ahead, complain.)

[MaryBear]

14. kick

:kick:

[The_Gopher]

16. if this doesn't get traction, nothing will.....oh, wait......

i forgot where i am.

but i have to agree that since the media are (largely) driven by ratings, and scandal is good for ratings, then this could get picked up. seems fairly simple enough. i mean, it's not sex, but it is a mother of twins being exposed for political gain. and that could definitely play well with the laci peterson/kidnapping obsessed crowd.

[RainDog]

17. Here's how Time is reporting this

"Some government officials, noting that Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, is a CIA official who monitors the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, intimate that she was involved in his being dispatched Niger to investigate reports that Saddam Hussein's government had sought to purchase large quantities of uranium ore, sometimes referred to as yellow cake, for the purposes of building nuclear devices."

(got this off a thread in LBN...I'm gonna cross post this one there as well.)

so...if the White House is trying to "blame" her, it's okay if they blow her cover?? bullshit.

[newyawker99]

19. dupe

Please continue the discussion here:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=104&topic_id=52554&mesg_id=52554


I am locking this one.


NYer99
DU Moderator

[wndycty]

18. What can we do about this?

We need to do something we just cannot let this story die!

[Terwilliger]

20. Holy Shit is right!!! BUSH KILLED BAXTER!

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2002/jan2002/enro-j28.shtml