Valerie Plame May Have Been Deepr Involved In Our Defense

Outed CIA Officer Was Working On Iran, Intelligence Sources Say
Filed by Larisa Alexandrovna

"The unmasking of covert CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson by White House officials in 2003 caused significant damage to U.S. national security and its ability to counter nuclear proliferation abroad, RAW STORY has learned."

Yes, it has... and that story has gone essentially dark. The special prosecutor has not done anything further in the public eye. Scooter Libby is the guy that has falen on his sword to cover for Karl Rove and Dick Cheney. I can't speak for certainty because the facts are constantly being hidden, obfuscated or spun, but it seems that this administration is hiding a lot and attempts to cover up a lot, including the following:

1. Bush denies connections with lobbyist Jack Abramoff, but there are pictures showing a friendly association.
2. Bush denies the closeness of the relationship with Abramoff but initially refuses to release the pictures.
3. Bush authorizes domestic surveillance (and it is domestic because it involves US citizens and their calls) without warrants, but refuses to comply with FISA and the War Powers Act by not fully and adequately informing congress.
4. Bush has a "secret" plan, in cooperation with Israel, to crush the Hamas-run Palestinian government.
5. Scooter Libby, Karl Rove and Dick Cheney are linked to leaking the identity of CIA operative, Valerie Plame
6. VP Cheney is involved in a shooting incident and the details are not released until almost 28 hours later (and none of the explanations sound plausible).
7. An UAE corporation acquires a UK company and gains control over 6 major US ports and wins Bush administration approval... but the story remains in the "dark" until the last minute.
8. The Bush administration lied and misled us, the congress and the world into believing Iraq had WMD.
9. Reliable intelligence was ignored so that faulty and incompetent intelligence could be used to force us into invading Iraq.

The reality of this administration is that everything is done in a way that seeks to HIDE everything from public view until it is no longer convenient to do so. Just after the events of 9-11, VP Dick Cheney talked about making arrangements for a "shadow government" in case a terrorist attack were to kill several major government officials. But the Bush administration is a shadow government that operates to its own liking when most of its activities are done in as much secrecy as possible and the public is kept in the dark. We could call the Bush administration the "Dark Government".

"According to current and former intelligence officials, Plame Wilson, who worked on the clandestine side of the CIA in the Directorate of Operations as a non-official cover (NOC) officer, was part of an operation tracking distribution and acquisition of weapons of mass destruction technology to and from Iran. Speaking under strict confidentiality, intelligence officials revealed heretofore unreported elements of Plame's work. Their accounts suggest that Plame's outing was more serious than has previously been reported and carries grave implications for U.S. national security and its ability to monitor Iran's burgeoning nuclear program."

Plame's husband, a former ambassador and a democrat, must have really ticked off the leaders of the Dark Government to have them attack Plame and undermine the CIA operations assigned to Plame. How many lives were endangered in the process? We will never really know, but even one risked life (such as Plame's) is too much risk merely to obtain the political advantage. All of those responsible for the release of Plame's identity and activities should be jailed for violation of at least 4 major laws I can recall.

Leaking Plame's identity is not like the leak on the "secret" surveillance program. The secret surveillance--done without warrants, due process and judicial oversight--was a violation of law, the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. Leaking that information is called whistleblowing and the people that did that are patriots with a sense of what is right and wrong. The Plame case is not anything more than politics of the worst kind.

The Raw Story article goes into some detail as to what short- and long-term damages resulted from this leak. But it is clear that the leak was a typical Bush administration tactic in response to an opposing view of matters being expressed by someone with actual knowledge of governmental affairs. If an opposing view is offered, the person offering the view is labelled an enemy of the administration and is discredited in any manner possible. It would seem that former FEMA director suffered some of this treatment, even though he was the loyal soldier and took it on the chin for the entire Katrina fiasco. It isn't that Brown doesn't deserve some hits for his own performance and inadequacies, it's that his hands were tied by a pre-determined view of the issues and he could not break through the dysfunctional command structure and management offered by the Bush team.

Fundamentally, the Bush administration is so inept at keeping the lid on things because none of the HIIC (Head Idiots In Charge) realize a rule of life most of us learned as children: If all you do is lie, the lies will catch up with you sooner or later. The Bush administration is operating on SO MANY LIES that too many of them are coming back to bite them on the posterior. The Bush administration is at the root of a trust problem: the social contract between "we the people" and those in the government is at risk. The conressional leadership and ethics scandals, as well as the stacked deck on the federal benches, is leading us to a genuine catastrophic crisis. What will happen if the faith and trust we have had for our government falters to the point where people begin to think about the principles in the Declaration of Independence? Remember:

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.... But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security"

There are lessons for Mr. Bush, his administration and the scandal-ridden members of congress in these words.