Larry C. Johnson (in the strib): A secret known, a cover blown

[question everything]

startribune.com

A secret known, a cover blown
Larry C. Johnson
Published July 17, 2005

(snip)

Plame was a classmate of mine from the day she started with the CIA. I entered on duty at the CIA in September 1985. All of my classmates were undercover -- in other words, we told our family and friends that we were working for other overt U.S. government agencies. We had official cover. That means we had a black passport -- i.e., a diplomatic passport. If we were caught overseas engaged in espionage the black passport was a get-out-of-jail-free card.

A few of my classmates, and Plame was one of these, became a non-official cover (NOC) officer. That meant she agreed to operate overseas without the protection of a diplomatic passport. If caught in that status she would have been executed. The lies by people like Victoria Toensing, Rep. Peter King and P.J. O'Rourke insist that Plame was nothing, just a desk jockey. Yet, until Novak betrayed her, she was still undercover and the company that was her front was still a secret to the world. When Novak outed her he also compromised her company and every individual overseas who had been in contact with that company and with her.

The Republicans... try to hide behind the specious claim that Joe Wilson "lied." Although Wilson did not lie, let's follow that reasoning to the logical conclusion. Let's use the same standard for the Bush administration. Here are the facts. Bush's lies have resulted in the deaths of almost 1,800 American soldiers and the mutilation of 12,000. Wilson has not killed anyone. He tried to prevent the needless death of Americans and the loss of American prestige in the world.

But don't take my word for it; read the biased Senate Intelligence Committee report. Even though it was slanted to try to portray Wilson in the worst possible light, this fact emerges on page 52 of the report: According to the U.S. ambassador to Niger (who was commenting on Wilson's visit in February 2002), "Ambassador Wilson reached the same conclusion that the Embassy has reached that it was highly unlikely that anything between Iraq and Niger was going on."

(snip)

http://www.startribune.com/stories/1519/5509192.html

[biscotti]

1. Larry Johnson

has a blog you might want to check out. Today's entry "Mr. Bush Have You No Shame"
http://noquarter.typepad.com/my_weblog/2005/07/mr_bush_have_yo.html

[question everything]

2. Thank you. Interesting. n/t

[KC21304]

3. Thanks. Go Larry !

And thanks question everything for OP.