20 years from today you'll read a book about the
Bush administration and the lead up to the war,
and it'll tell you something you should have already
known.
Like what?
Now we all know the story about Wilson, his
wife, Valerie Plame, and the bogus Nigerian
Uranium claim that he exposed. Right?
See, problem was, even though the administration
was cooking up "Intel" to justify the invasion of
Iraq, it is the CIA that does the intelligence briefs.
So the Pentagon & State Department could cook
up all the fake intel they wanted to, and the British
could share all the fake intel they had, but it isn't
any of them briefing the President and the congress
(not to mention ex Presidents, like Clinton). They
had to get the fake intel included in CIA briefings,
and the CIA kept insisting on reporting factual
information.
One example of this is the famous Plame case.
The Vice President's office told the CIA to
verify the Niger uranium claim. No, they did
not order the CIA to send Wilson, Plame or
anyone else. In fact, they never said how the
CIA should verify the information, they simply
told them to verify it. The CIA, all on its own,
made the determination that the only way to
verify it was to send a man to Niger and check
it out.
That was a problem.
If I said to you, oh, something like, "His signature
has been verified," what would that mean?
In English, here in the United States, it would
mean that the signature is genuine. I would be
telling you that it really is the person's signature,
that I "Verified it."
The CIA didn't verify the claim that Saddam
Hussein was trying to buy Nigerian uranium.
It verified that Iran had tried to buy a whole
bunch of it, sure, but it never verified that Iraq
had tried. Just the opposite. The CIA concluded
that the "Intel" was false.
That's why Plame was outed. That's why outing
her was so important to the administration. That's
why it was worth all the risks, the scandal. It
wasn't about Niger, or at least not just about
Niger. It was about the CIA rejecting false
information, refusing to misrepresent bogus
"Intel" collected by the administration as fact.
Plame was made an example of. Plame was
the proverbial head on a spike -- the warning
to all CIA analysts & operatives that they'd
better do what the administration tells them
to do (including "verifying" fake intel), or else.
No more of that silly, "Oh, we can't include it
in the congressional briefing. It's not true!."
For now on, the CIA isn't in the intelligence
business, it's a messenger service. Cheney
and Rumsfeld tells them what to say, they
say it, and everyone gets to keep their jobs
and not endanger their lives.
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