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Harry Dope · Guest

The MSM Covers For Plame Once Again

The Plame affair gets even more hilarious. Now Fitzgerald released a
lengthy 30 page file purporting to prove that Plame was covert. Of course
27 of those pages are her testimony to the Waxman show trial. The other 3
are details from the CIA about her travel.

On 1 January 2002, Valerie Wilson was working for the Central Intelligence
Agency (CIA) as an operations officer in the Directorate of Operations (DO).
She was assigned to the Counterproliferation Division (CPD) at CIA
Headquarters, where she served as the Chief of a CPD component with
responsibility for weapons proliferation issues related to Iraq.

While assigned to CPD, Ms. Wilson engaged in Temporary Duty (TDY) travel
overseas on official business. She traveled at least seven times to more
than ten countries. When traveling overseas, Ms. Wilson always traveled
under a cover identity--sometimes in true name and sometimes in alias--but
always using cover--whether official or non-official cover (NOC)--with no
ostensible relationship to the CIA.

At the time of the initial unauthorized disclosure in the media of Ms.
Wilson's employment relationship with the CIA on 14 July 2003, Ms. Wilson
was a covert CIA employee for whom the CIA was taking affirmative measures
to conceal her intelligence relationship to the United States.
So basically what constitutes a "covert" agent within the CIA is that they
travel overseas sometimes using an alias, sometimes using their true name.

Wow.

Just wow.

I mean a foreign country would never keep tabs on the real names of agents
would they? But hey, she was "covert".

Either way you look at it she was not a covert agent covered by the
Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982, this is why ole Fitz' never
brought any charges against the leaker of her name (a leaker other then her
husband who tended to talk alot at cocktail parties).

UPDATE

Great comment at Patterico's Pontifications:
Here's the prosecutorial "rub" from my perspective: I don't think the CIA's
view of who it deems "covert" neatly translates into the definition of
"covert" under the statute at issue. While its in the CIA's interest to
define "covert" as broadly as possible, thereby giving maximum coverage to
its assets, the statute in question recognized tension between the rights of
the press and the needs of the intelligence community, and defines the term
"covert" in a very non-specific manner.

The "5 Year" provision is a clear example, as is the "affirmative steps"
provision.

(4) The term "covert agent" means-
(A) a present or retired officer or employee of an intelligence agency or
a present or retired member of the Armed Forces assigned to duty with an
intelligence agency-
(i) whose identity as such an officer, employee, or member is classified
information, and
(ii) who is serving outside the United States or has within the last five
years served outside the United States;

This language begs the question of what is to be the definition of
"served"?

What Fitzgerald suggests in his Exhibit is that her personnel file only
describes trips she took abroad on agency business during a 5 year period,
not a period of time in which she was "posted" abroad. This is likely a key
distinction. And, any trips she took using "official" cover - i.e., she
passed herself off as a government official, just not an intelligence agent
of the CIA - likely don't count under the statute.

I found this excerpt from a USA Today article from 2005:

"The column's date is important because the law against unmasking the
identities of U.S. spies says a "covert agent" must have been on an overseas
assignment "within the last five years." The assignment also must be
long-term, not a short trip or temporary post, two experts on the law say..
"Unless she was really stationed abroad sometime after their marriage," she
wasn't a covert agent protected by the law, says Bruce Sanford, an attorney
who helped write the 1982 act that protects covert agents' identities."

The second expert cited is Victoria Toensing. She obviously comes with an
agenda, but it can't be denied that she was at the table in 1982 when this
statute was drafted, and she was advocating on behalf of the CIA's position
when it was drafted as a senior Justice Department official. She too has
said that mere overseas travel in an undercover capacity is not enough to
trigger the protections of the statute.

The "affirmative measures" provision of Sec. 421 is not defined in the
statute, and this omission also presents some difficulties.

For example, is the taking of "affirmative measures" by the CIA negated by
actions of the CIA which at the same time work to defeat those affirmative
measures?

The CIA took affirmative measures in the sense that Plame had NOC cover
through a front energy company which the agency created and for whom Plame
ostensibly worked during her overseas postings in the 1990s.

But, when she returned to the United States in 1997, she didn't continue
to maintain the NOC cover by working at an office identified as the dummy
front company. Rather, she drove through the gates of Langley every day for
about 6 years on her way to a desk job at CIA HQ.

Does the fact that the CIA maintained her as "covert" on paper simply by
not revealing her previous work and continuing to keep handy her NOC cover
in case it might be of use (such as when need to for an occasional overseas
trip for a discreet purpose) also mean that she still falls under the
protections of the statute when anyone with a camera could stand on the road
leading to Langley and take her picture driving in and out of the CIA?

I think these were the difficulties Fitzgerald faced in trying to
determine whether he had a prosecutable case under the Intelligence
Identities Act, in addition to the question of intent that you mentioned.

I think this difficulty is revealed by how much he danced around that
question. He knew that the CIA wanted to assert that she was covert, but he
also knew that the CIA took actions inconsistent with that assertion.

The IIPA definition of covert is much much different then the CIA's
definition, and yes....that makes a difference.

UPDATE II

Classic quote from Ed Morrissey:

Plame drove into the office in Langley. She traveled abroad under her own
name. She helped arrange for her husband to do some fact-checking on a
sensitive intelligence matter. Her husband, former Ambassador Joe Wilson,
then came home and leaked his observations to two nationally-known
journalists, and then wrote his own op-ed in the New York Times under his
byline.

And her husband managed to list her in Who's Who, where any journalist
could look up the entry -- and where Robert Novak did just that.

If that's keeping an agent covert, it speaks volumes about the agency's
competence during the George Tenet years.

I think we know what the competence of the CIA was, and is. Just look at
the quality of people they churn out what with Plame, Larry Johnson and the
rest of the ViPer's.

--
"The transition from dictatorship to democracy will take time, but it is
worth every effort. Our coalition will stay until our work is done and then
we will leave and we will leave behind a free Iraq." President George Bush
2003

Amanda Williams · Guest

"Harry Dope" <TheWarIsLost@earthlink.net> allegedly said in
news:465dbf86$0$9891$4c368faf@roadrunner.com:

P.Henry · Guest

On Wed, 30 May 2007 14:16:37 -0400, Harry Dope wrote:

z · Guest

On May 30, 2:51 pm, "P.Henry" <P.Hen...@revolution.org> wrote:

Phlip · Guest

Server 13 · Guest

"Harry Dope" <TheWarIsLost@earthlink.net> wrote in message
news:465dbf86$0$9891$4c368faf@roadrunner.com...

John R Rybock · Guest

On May 30, 11:16 am, "Harry Dope" <TheWarIsL...@earthlink.net> wrote:

John R Rybock · Guest

On May 30, 11:16 am, "Harry Dope" <TheWarIsL...@earthlink.net> wrote:

Valarie Plame Perjurer an · Guest

"Amanda Williams" <pms@fu.com> wrote in message
news:Xns99409710C9ECDfubar@63.218.45.252...

Valarie Plame Perjurer an · Guest

Ex-CIA officer called on to explain varied accounts
Senator: Plame's versions add to 'misinformation'
By Richard Willing
USA TODAY

WASHINGTON - Former CIA officer Valerie Plame should explain "differences"
in her various accounts of how her husband was sent to the African nation of
Niger in 2002 to investigate reports Iraq was trying to buy uranium there,
the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee said.

Plame's differing versions have furthered "misinformation" about the origins
of the case that roiled Washington beginning in July 2003, said Sen. Kit
Bond, R-Mo. Plame gave those accounts to the CIA's inspector general, Senate
investigators and a House committee in March.

A February 2002 CIA memo released last week as part of a study of
pre-Iraq-war intelligence shows that Plame suggested her husband, former
State Department official Joseph Wilson, for the Niger trip, Bond said. That
"doesn't square" with Plame's March testimony in which she said an unnamed
CIA colleague raised her husband's name, Bond told USA TODAY.

Here are Plame's three versions of how Wilson was sent to Niger, according
to Bond:

..She told the CIA's inspector general in 2003 or 2004 that she had suggested
Wilson.

..Plame told Senate Intelligence Committee staffers in 2004 that she couldn't
remember whether she had suggested Wilson.

..She told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee in March that
an unidentified person in Vice President Cheney's office asked a CIA
colleague about the African uranium report in February 2002. A third
officer, overhearing Plame and the colleague discussing this, suggested,
"Well, why don't we send Joe?" Plame told the committee.

CIA officials have been unable to verify Plame's March version, Bond said.
Paul Gimigliano, a CIA spokesman, said the "public record on the matter is
extensive, and, at this point, I can't add anything to it."

Plame's identity as an undercover CIA operative was revealed after Wilson
accused the Bush administration of ignoring his Africa findings. The
disclosure of Plame's status led to a federal investigation that culminated
in former White House aide Lewis "Scooter" Libby's conviction on charges of
perjury and obstruction of justice.

Libby is scheduled to be sentenced next Tuesday. In court papers made public
last weekend, prosecutors recommended he be sentenced to 30 to 37 months in
prison.

A spokeswoman for Sen. Jay Rockefeller, chairman of the Senate Intelligence
Committee, said she's not sure whether Rockefeller would support having
committee investigators interview Plame. The priority for Rockefeller,
D-W.Va., is finishing the committee's investigation into Iraq war
intelligence, Wendy Morigi said.

Bond said he has written to the CIA for permission to re-interview Plame.

Plame has "always been very consistent that she is not the person
responsible for sending Joe Wilson" to Africa, said Melanie Sloan, Plame's
attorney.

Questioning Plame's truthfulness now, she said, is an attempt to draw
attention from the "real wrong here - a White House that outed a covert
operative and undermined national security."

Wilson, a former ambassador to Gabon, said later that he had found nothing
to support the report that Iraq was trying to buy uranium for a secret
nuclear program from Niger.

In July 2003, Wilson wrote a column in The New York Times accusing the Bush
administration of twisting prewar intelligence by including the erroneous
report in the president's State of the Union address the previous January -
two months before the war began.

Days later, Plame's CIA employment was revealed by syndicated columnist
Robert Novak. Plame and Wilson said the implication that she had used her
CIA status to arrange her husband's Niger trip was false. The disclosure,
they argued, was meant to discredit Wilson and his findings by suggesting
that the trip was merely a junket.

P.Henry · Guest

Harry Dope wrote:

Guest

On Wed, 30 May 2007 14:16:37 -0400, "Harry Dope"
<TheWarIsLost@earthlink.net> wrote:

Guest

On May 30, 3:29 pm, "Valarie Plame Perjurer and Not Covert Clinton
HAck" <Plame the Perjurer @ democrats.org> wrote:

Rich Travsky · Guest

Harry Dope wrote: