| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-Misc |
| User: |
"Captain Compassion" |
| Date: |
17 Apr 2006 12:02:26 PM |
| Object: |
No Hint Seen in Memo that Plame's Role Was Secret |
No Hint Seen in Memo that Plame's Role Was Secret
By JOSH GERSTEIN - Staff Reporter of the Sun
April 17, 2006
http://www.nysun.com/article/31062
Contrary to published reports, a State Department memorandum at the
center of the investigation into the leak of the name of a CIA
operative, Valerie Plame, appears to offer no particular indication
that Ms. Plame's role at the agency was classified or covert.
The memo, drafted by the then head of the State Department's Bureau of
Intelligence and Research and addressed to the then secretary of
state, Colin Powell, was carried aboard Air Force One as President
Bush departed for Africa in July 2003. A declassified version of the
document was obtained by The New York Sun on Saturday.
A special prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, is investigating whether
White House officials illegally leaked Ms. Plame's CIA connection as
part of a campaign to rebut or retaliate against her husband, Joseph
Wilson IV, a former ambassador who traveled to Niger in 2002 at the
CIA's request to look into reports that Iraq was seeking to buy
uranium there. He later became an open critic of the administration.
Mr. Fitzgerald's investigators have attempted to establish a precise
chain of custody for the document because it is one way some White
House officials might have learned that Mr. Wilson's wife was a CIA
employee, working in the agency's weapons of mass destruction
division.
"In a February 19, 2002, meeting convened by Valerie Wilson, a CIA WMD
manager, and the wife of Joe Wilson, he previewed his plans and
rationale for going to Niger," the memo from the State Department
intelligence chief, Carl Ford Jr., said. Mr. Ford also drafted an
earlier version of the memo, addressed to an undersecretary of state,
Marc Grossman. Mr. Grossman apparently sought the information about
Mr. Wilson's trip after receiving inquiries from the then chief of
staff to Vice President Cheney, I. Lewis Libby.
Mr. Libby was indicted last year on charges he perjured himself and
obstructed justice during the investigation. He has pleaded not
guilty. While the indictment alleges that he discussed Ms. Plame with
reporters, neither Mr. Libby nor any other person has been charged
with illegally disclosing the CIA employee's identity.
The gist of Mr. Ford's memo has been previously reported in news
accounts, but it has not been quoted from directly. In addition, the
early leaks about the memo were selective, perhaps deliberately so.
A Wall Street Journal article on July 19, 2005, citing an unnamed
person familiar with the memo, reported that the memo "made clear that
information identifying an agent and her role in her husband's
intelligence gathering mission was sensitive and shouldn't be shared."
The Journal account said the paragraph discussing Ms. Plame's role in
her husband's trip was marked in a way to indicate it shouldn't be
disclosed.
A story the following day in the Washington Post, "Plame's Identity
Marked as Secret," said correctly that the paragraph carried the mark
"S," signifying the middle level of three major tiers of
classification.
Not noted in the previous press reports was the fact that six of the
seven paragraphs in the memo are marked "secret," while only one
appears to mention Ms. Plame. In addition, virtually every paragraph
in the attached supporting documents from the State Department about
alleged Iraqi uranium procurement in Niger carries the "secret"
designation.
With most, if not all, of the Niger-related documents marked "secret"
in a host of places, there is no particular reason a reader would
think the classification was derived from Ms. Plame's status or
involvement.
An attorney representing a White House official under scrutiny in the
investigation said yesterday that the broader context of the document
undercuts the idea of a deliberate campaign to expose Ms. Plame
"It's something that people got very excited about," the lawyer,
Robert Luskin, said about the earlier reports on the memo. "The fact
that the whole memo was marked this way further substantiates that
nobody involved in discussions of her or her role in sending Mr.
Wilson had the slightest inkling she was in classified status."
Leaking any information from a classified document is a security
violation and sometimes a crime, but deliberately disclosing the
identity of a covert operative is a far more grave offense, according
to intelligence and legal experts.
Mr. Luskin, who represents President Bush's top political aide, Karl
Rove, said Mr. Rove did not see the memo at the time it was issued.
One attachment to the memo consists of typewritten notes a State
Department representative took at a February 19, 2002, meeting where
sending Mr. Wilson to Niger was discussed. "Meeting apparently
convened by Valerie Wilson, a CIA WMD managerial type and the wife of
Amb. Joe Wilson, with the idea that the agency and the larger USG
could dispatch Joe to Niger to use his contacts there to sort out the
Niger/Iraq uranium sale question," an American diplomat serving as the
west and southern Africa division chief in the State Department's
intelligence and research bureau, Douglas Rohn, wrote.
Mr. Wilson told the Sun yesterday that the State Department's account
of how his trip was arranged was "absolutely inaccurate."
"The meeting was not convened by my wife," the former ambassador said.
"She had, as it now turns out, the misfortune of having escorted me
into the building. ... She left before the meeting started." He also
said that the subject of his going to Niger did not arise until
halfway through the session.
Mr. Wilson acknowledged that his wife drafted a memo describing his
previous involvement with Niger, but he said she did so at the request
of her supervisor. A Senate Intelligence Committee report issued in
July 2004 said Ms. Plame "suggested his name for the trip."
The memoranda also make clear that the State Department was eager to
distance itself from Mr. Wilson after he wrote a New York Times op-ed
piece attacking Mr. Bush's statement in the 2003 State of the Union
address that British intelligence believed that Iraq was seeking a
large quantity of uranium in Africa.
The intelligence bureau at Foggy Bottom "was not Ambassador Wilson's
point of contact in either the department or the intelligence
community," the memo addressed to Mr. Powell reads. It notes that Mr.
Wilson's report was "disseminated throughout the intelligence and
policy communities by CIA."
Mr. Rohn's notes also suggest that State Department officials opposed
sending Mr. Wilson because they thought reporting from the embassy in
Niamey was adequate.
A cable attached to the key memoranda indicates that on September 10,
2001, one day before the terrorist attacks on America, Prime Minister
Amadou of Niger told embassy officials "that there were buyers like
Iraq who would pay more for Niger's uranium than France." The cable
also said American officials received "frequent leadpipe guarantees by
the French ambassador here that no uranium diversion to rogue states
is possible." A Senate report discussed the alleged comment from Mr.
Amadou, but did not give the exact date.
The State Department documents were released to the Sun in response to
a Freedom of Information Act request filed in July 2005. A spokeswoman
for the department said no one was available to discuss the matter
yesterday
--
"There are no absolute certainties in this universe. A man must try to
whip order into a yelping pack of probabilities, and uniform success is
impossible." -- Jack Vance
"Civilizaton is the interval between Ice Ages." -- Will Durant.
"War is God's way of teaching Americans geography" -- Ambrose Bierce
"Long term commitment in relationships is only necessary because it takes
so damn long to raise children. Marriage may well be some kind of trick
to keep the males around beyond sexual satiation." -- Captain Compassion
"Progress is the increasing control of the environment by life.
--Will Durant
Joseph R. Darancette
daranc@NOSPAMverizon.net
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| User: "George Leroy Tyrebiter, Jr." |
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| Title: Re: No Hint Seen in Memo that Plame's Role Was Secret |
18 Apr 2006 12:03:21 AM |
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On Mon, 17 Apr 2006 10:02:26 -0700, Captain Compassion
<daranc@NOSPAMverizon.net> wrote:
Mr. Wilson acknowledged that his wife drafted a memo describing his
previous involvement with Niger, but he said she did so at the request
of her supervisor. A Senate Intelligence Committee report issued in
July 2004 said Ms. Plame "suggested his name for the trip."
The bipartison committee did not conclude she suggested his name. It
merely pointed out that some thought she did.
It seemed logical to them, but they did not know it for a fact.
From the outside, it would "appear" she suggested Wilson based on a
memo she wrote saying he would be good for the task, but she says she
was asked her opinion by those who made the decision, and that she had
not originated the idea, and there is no actual direct evidence that
she did recommend him for the job. And indeed those with actual
knowledge who have chosen to speak on the matter deny she was the one
who originated the idea of sending Wilson.
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