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by Larry C. Johnson

The smears keep on coming. The airwaves have been filled with folks like like Joe DiGenova, his wacky wife, Victoria Toensing, and Andrea Mitchell insisting that, “Joe Wilson lied” about who sent him to Niger and what he discovered. Well, let’s play he said, she said and pinpoint the real liar.

Andrea Mitchell, a woman genuinely confused by facts, said the following on Tuesday’s edition of Hardball:

Gee Andrea, don’t you know how to read? Here is what Joe Wilson wrote on July 6, 2003:

Got it! He did not write that Cheney sent him. Joe Wilson isn’t lying, Andrea Mitchell is. Moreover, when Wilson appeared on Meet the Press on July 6, 2003 with Andrea, he did not say what she claims he did. … Continued BELOW:

by Larry C. Johnson

Despite claims to the contrary, the Identity Protection Act spells trouble for White House officials. Republican talking points have achieved some success in muddying the waters by insisting that Robert Novak’s outing of CIA clandestine officer, Valerie Plame, was not a violation of the law. The typical presentation of this red herring was bandied about most recently in an October 10, 2005 article by Washington Times reporter, Joseph Curl.

Curl wrote:

Ms. Toensing is wrong. Let us pray that Ms. Toensing is not practicing law these days because, if her comments in this article reflect her abilities as an attorney, clients could be in serious trouble. Valerie Plame was a “covert agent” as defined by the law. In her cover position as a consultant to Brewster-Jennings, Ms. Plame served overseas on clandestine missions. Just because she did not live overseas full time does not mean she did not work overseas using her status as a non-official cover officer.

Unfortunately, the organized plot by White House officials to expose Valerie Plame also permanently ended her ability to ever serve overseas in an official cover position. At a minimum, U.S. tax payers invested at least $250,000 (that is in 1985 dollars) in training Valerie as a case officer. Karl Rove, Lewis “Scooter” Libby, and others not yet revealed destroyed by their reckless acts her career, a CIA front company, and a network of intelligence assets.

The law to “protect the identities of undercover officers, agents, and sources” is only one possible source of jeopardy for the White House gang. … Continued BELOW:

by Larry Johnson

The Richard Cohen piece in today’s Washington Post was outrageous. Here are the facts. – LJ

Federal prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald understands very well that something beyond a crime was committed when Karl Rove, Scooter Libby, and other White House operatives spread the name of undercover CIA officer, Valerie Plame, around Washington as part of a coordinated effort to discredit her husband, Ambassador Joe Wilson.

Someone needs to alert Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen that he is a nitwit and moron for trying to advance White House supplied talking points that no real crime occurred.

Here are some of the facts that will come out when Fitzgerald ends his investigation:

1. Valerie Plame was still a non-official cover officer in July 2003 when her identity was revealed by colostomy bag Bob Novak.
   

   
   

2. Valerie Plame had traveled overseas on secret missions using that cover as required under the statute in question.
   

   
   

3. Valerie Plame’s exposure also almost compromised the identity of other non-official cover officers.
   

   
   

4. Valerie Plame did not have the authority to send her husband on the Niger mission and in fact did not make the decision.

Other mental midgets like Cohen, such as Victoria Toensing, continue to insist that no crime could have been committed because Valerie Plame, “worked at a desk job”. Newsflash for these so-called Washington insiders who have proven they know nothing about the intelligence community–at least 40% of the people working at CIA Headquarters are working undercover. Just because they may physically go to the CIA building in McLean, Virginia everyday does not mean that their relationship with the CIA is acknowledged.

During my four years of sitting at a desk at CIA I was undercover. My position with the CIA was not even known by my own parents. Only my wife was privy to that secret. Many of the undercover folks still working at CIA are at headquarters on a temporary basis. Some travel overseas on temporary assignments that last less than a month. Others await a semi-permanent posting for a two or three year stint overseas.

The point that Cohen and the other White House hacks have missed is that protecting the identities of intelligence officers, whether they are working under official or non-official cover, is part of national defense. To compromise these identities is to commit an act of treason.

Patrick Fitzgerald understands that he must prosecute within the confines of the law. However, he also understands that what was done to the wife of Ambassador Joe Wilson was more than a rough game of inside the beltway hardball. Karl Rove told Chris Matthews that “Wilson’s wife is fair game”. Not only was she an unfair target, but in going after her the White House political crew unwittingly exposed several intelligence assets and caused the loss of intelligence assets overseas.

Richard Cohen is dead wrong to argue that the best thing Patrick Fitzgerald can do is leave town. To the contrary, the best thing Patrick Fitzgerald can do is a send a clear message to politicians in both parties that when it comes to political hardball intelligence assets must be kept out of the game. At the end of the day our nation’s security is no game, it is a matter of life and death.

by
Larry C Johnson

With friends like the Italians who needs enemies? If Karl Rove and Scooter Libby are indicted they can shift some of the blame to the Italians. If it were not for Italy, Joe Wilson probably never would have been sent to Africa to investigate the claim that Iraq was trying to buy uranium from Niger and the ensuing chain of events to smear Wilson would not have happened.

A careful review of the Senate Intelligence Committee’s Report on the Intelligence Community’s Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq (July 2004) shows very clearly that there was only one source claiming that Iraq was buying the uranium. Shades of Curveball! Except in this case the source was not an Iraqi linked to Ahmed Chalabi, but a foreign liaison service. Knowledgeable friends say it was the Italian Intelligence Service (SISME).

SISME provided the CIA with three separate intelligence reports that Iraq had reached an agreement with Niger to buy 500 tons of yellowcake uranium (October 15, 2001; February 5, 2002; and March 25, 2002). (See Expanded PlameGate Timeline below). The second report from February was the subsequent basis for a DIA analysis, which led Vice President Cheney to ask CIA for more information on the matter. That request led to the CIA asking Ambassador Joe Wilson to go check out the story in Niger.

Even in the much maligned October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate, the entire intelligence community remained split on the reliability of the Iraq/Niger claim. During briefings subsequent to the publication of the NIE, senior CIA officials repeatedly debunked the claim that Iraq was trying to buy uranium. They also dismissed as unreliable reports from Great Britain, which also were derived from the faulty Italian intelligence reports.

Italy’s SISME also reportedly had a hand in producing the forged documents delivered to the U.S. Embassy in Rome in early October 2003 that purported to show a deal with Iraq to buy uranium. Many in the intelligence community are convinced that a prominent neo-con with longstanding ties to SISME played a role in the forgery. The truth of that proposition remains to be proven. This much is certain, either SISME or someone with ties to SISME, helped forge and circulate those documents which some tried to use to bolster the case to go to war with Iraq.

Although some in the intelligence community, specifically analysts at the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) and the Department of Energy (DOE), believed the report, the intelligence community as a whole did not put much stock in the reports and forged documents, and repeatedly told policy makers that these reports were not reliable. Despite being rebuffed repeatedly by the intelligence community on these questions, policymakers persisted in trying to make the fraudulent case.

Two weeks before President Bush spoke the infamous 16 words in the January 2003 State of the Union speech, the Department of Defense was fanning the flames about Iraq’s alleged Nigerien uranium shopping trip. Starting in late 2001, senior Department of Defense officials, including Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, and Doug Feith, provided favored military talking heads with talking points and briefings to reinforce messages the Administration wanted the public to remember. One of those who frequently attended these affairs, Robert Maginnis, published an op-ed on January 15, 2003 subsequent to one of the briefings. In writing about the case for attacking Iraq, Maginnis affirmed that Saddam, “failed to explain why Iraq manufactures fuels suited only for a class of missile that it does not admit to having and why it sought to procure uranium from the African nation of Niger.”

Notwithstanding repeated efforts by intelligence analysts to downplay these intelligence reports as unreliable, DOD officials fanned the flames. This, my friends, is one example of “cooking intelligence.”

These facts further expose as farce the Bush Administration’s effort to blame the CIA for the misadventure in Iraq. We did not go to war in Iraq primarily because of bad intelligence and bad analysis by the Central Intelligence Agency, the Bush Administration started a war of choice.

BELOW, more analysis, and an extended timeline of the case:

by Larry C. Johnson (bio at conclusion) An article in the New Hampshire Union Leader by Kurt S....