July 13, 2005
Why Plame is Important
The big scandal in the news today is, of course, the burning of Valerie Plame. This is a complicated one, and the Fitzgerald investigations concern some pretty specific legal questions. Did Karl Rove (and Scooter Libby, and whoever else was involved) know that Plame was undercover? Was she actually undercover enough?
What really matters here, though, is this. Officials at the highest level of government either carelessly or maliciously burned not only a CIA operative but the front company she worked for (Brewster Jennings & Associates). You better believe that every foreign national that had any dealings with her, that company, or anyone associated with it was thoroughly investigated by their governments after this. Not only does this breed massive distrust of higher-ups in the ranks of covert operatives, it means that potential foreign agents are that much less willing to work with us as well. Why risk your life for the U.S. in Baluchistan when your operation might be sold out for a political pissing match in Washington the next day?
Training agents such as Plame, 40, costs millions of dollars and requires the time-consuming establishment of elaborate fictions, called “legends,” including in this case the creation of a CIA front company that helped lend plausibility to her trips overseas.Compounding the damage, the front company, Brewster-Jennings & Associates, whose name has been reported previously, apparently also was used by other CIA officers whose work now could be at risk, according to Vince Cannistraro, formerly the agency’s chief of counterterrorism operations and analysis.
Now, Plame’s career as a covert operations officer in the CIA’s Directorate of Operations is over. Those she dealt with – whether on business or not – may be in danger. The DO is conducting an extensive damage assessment.
And let's be clear. This wasn't done solely to attack Joe Wilson, but to try and discredit what he was saying. This is July 11th, 2003, and the government has largely given up on the Niger claims. (see this timeline of the Niger documents) From the Matt Cooper email on his phone call with Rove, July 11th 2003:
not only the genesis of the trip is flawed an[d] suspect but so is the report. he [Rove] implied strongly there's still plenty to implicate iraqi interest in acquiring uranium fro[m] Niger ...
Even then, they were trying to lie out of the corner of their mouths to the public about the evidence.
But in the end the big point is that yet again we have this administration caught in overlapping Reagan's Binds. Either Karl Rove (and others) maliciously and knowingly burned a covert CIA operative, and should go to jail for it, or they ran to the press with the information without bothering to check whether what they were doing might be burning a CIA operative, in which case they should be stripped of their security clearances if not their jobs. Bush, Cheney, and anyone else sitting above Rove and Libby (and others) on the totem pole either knew the truth of all this and covered it up, and are therefore guilty of obstruction of justice and/or conspiracy to commit, or were willfully negligent in discovering the truth and fixing the problem and are unfit to manage their own staff, let alone matters of national security.
Posted by ben at July 13, 2005 07:45 AM