For me, there were two important and revealing parts to Valerie Plame Wilson’s testimony today. The first occurred at the one hour and seven minute mark of the hearing. I have transcribed it myself. She explains how it came about that Joe Wilson was selected to go on the trip to Niger.
Valerie Plame: In February 2002, a young junior officer that worked for me, came to me very concerned, very upset. She had just received a telephone call on her desk from someone, I don’t know who, in the office of the Vice-President asking about this alleged sale of yellowcake uranium from Niger to Iraq. As she was telling me this, another officer came by and hearing this, he knew that Joe had already had already gone on other CIA missions relating to nuclear matters, and he suggested ‘why we don’t send Joe?’…
I have to admit that I was not over..overjoyed with this idea. We had two-year old twins at home and all I could envision was putting them to bed alone. Nevertheless, we went to my branch supervisor, my colleague mentioned this idea. And my supervisor said to me ‘would you, when you go home tonight, ask your husband to come in next week and discuss the options?’ I said ‘of course’. And then he asked me to draft a quick email to the chief of our counterproliferation division letting him know that this might happen. And it was that email that was taken out of context and a portion of which appeared in the Senate Select Intelligence committee report in 2004.
She expanded on this answer at the one hour twenty-seven minute mark, in an exchange with Georgian Republican, Rep. Lynn Westmoreland. Westmoreland wanted to know why the Counterproliferation Division had difficulty remembering who was responsible for sending her husband to Niger.
Valerie Plame: Congressman I believe one of the one of the pieces of evidence that emerged from the Libby trial was an INR memo of that meeting, where it states in fact that…uh…my husband was not particularly looking forward to…didn’t think it was necessary. There had been, I believe, as least two other reports…one by a three-star general and one by the ambassador on the ground that said there really wasn’t much to this allegation. And the INR folks that attended the meeting also said, ‘Well…we’re not really sure this is necessary.” But, it was ultimately decided that he would go and use his contacts, which were extensive in the government, to see if there was anything more to this. It was a serious question, asked by the Vice-President, and it deserved a serious answer.
There is one more piece of this, and I am just going to pull it from David Corn rather than find and transcribe it. I’ll put a big chunk in here for contextual purposes and then bold the part that isn’t contained above.
For years, White House allies have tried to dismiss the importance of Wilson’s trip by suggesting he was not qualified for the mission and had been sent (perhaps on a nepotistic junket) by his wife. They have pointed to a Senate intelligence committee report that suggested Valerie Wilson was instrumental in sending him. Before the House committee, she testified that she did not have the authority to dispatch her husband on such a trip, that a coworker had the idea to send Joe Wilson (who years earlier had taken on a similar assignment for the Counterproliferation Division), and that she had merely been asked to write a note confirming her husband’s credentials. She also said that a colleague was misquoted within the Senate intelligence committee report (saying she had proposed her husband for the trip) and that this colleague subsequently was prevented by a superior from sending the committee a memo correcting the record. In other words, her husband’s detractors have overplayed this angle. (By he way, much of this story was reported in Hubris.) Democrats on the committee said they would ask the CIA for a copy of the smothered memo.
Let’s, first of all, compare this testimony with the allegations of Fred Hiatt:
In conversations with journalists or in a July 6, 2003, op-ed, he claimed to have debunked evidence that Iraq was seeking uranium from Niger; suggested that he had been dispatched by Mr. Cheney to look into the matter; and alleged that his report had circulated at the highest levels of the administration.
A bipartisan investigation by the Senate intelligence committee subsequently established that all of these claims were false — and that Mr. Wilson was recommended for the Niger trip by Ms. Plame, his wife. When this fact, along with Ms. Plame’s name, was disclosed in a column by Robert D. Novak, Mr. Wilson advanced yet another sensational charge: that his wife was a covert CIA operative and that senior White House officials had orchestrated the leak of her name to destroy her career and thus punish Mr. Wilson.
After today’s hearing, there isn’t much left of Hiatt’s talking points. A phone call from the office of the Vice-President was the impetus for choosing Mr. Wilson for the trip. Waxman will get Ms. Wilson’s co-worker’s email which will show that the CIA withheld evidence from Congress that would have corrected the record about whether Ms. Wilson has any role in sending her husband to Niger. The DCI confirmed that she was a covert officer. And we already know that Mr. Wilson, a three-star general, and our ambassador had all debunked the uranium deal.
But there is something else that is important. When the OVP called the CP Division about Niger, it was upsetting to the officer that received the message. Ms. Wilson, Mr. Wilson, and the people from INR all thought the issue was settled and there was little point in pursuing the matter. How should we interpret this?
It seems pretty clear that the intelligence professionals thought the OVP’s inquiry amounted to harassment. They felt compelled to follow up because ‘it was a serious question, asked by the Vice-President, and it deserved a serious answer.’ But, it appears, they didn’t think it was a serious question that needed to be answered three separate times.
Now…
In all the trips that Cheney and Libby made to CIA headquarters, do you think they might have gotten the impression that some of the people at the Counterproliferation Division were a little less than enthusiastic about providing the intelligence they wanted? Perhaps Cheney and Libby came to see the CP Division as somewhat adversarial? Maybe they were a little adversarial?
When Dick Cheney discovered that they had sent the husband of one of the CP officers to answer his question, do you think he might have seen it as a way of blowing him off? And, if you think about it, wasn’t sending a guy that didn’t even see the point of going kind of a way of going through the motions rather than really committing to providing the Vice-President with the casus belli he so craved?
Cheney and Libby must have thought the CP Division wasn’t taking them seriously. And when the guy is out there talking shit about the administration, saying that they made up the African uranium claims? Wasn’t this just Mr. Wilson covering the CP Division’s ass at the behest of his wife? Wasn’t this just about blaming the OVP for the lack of WMD in Iraq so the CIA wouldn’t get blamed?
That’s how they saw it. And that is why they outed her. That is why they saw her role as so important and thought it would help to undermine Mr. Wilson’s credibility. It wasn’t that she sent him on a junket. It was the fact that she was using him to cover her department’s ass. And she gave money to Al Gore for chrissakes. The bitch.
That’s what happened. Bet on it.
