What was George Tenet's Role in the Plame/Franklin Cases?

[leveymg]

Tenet's role in the Plame case raises new questions about his resignation on May 3, 2004, the day before convicted spy Larry Franklin was arrested.

The New York Times identifies former CIA Director George Tenet as the original source of classified information about Agency analyst Valerie Plame that was unlawfully revealed by White House officials. If accurate, that report shows that Tenet got the ball rolling in what has become the most serious American political scandal since Watergate.http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/25/politics/25leak.html?ei=5094&en=56e9496be92c9d2a&hp=&ex=1130299200&adxnnl=1&partner=homepage&adxnnlx=1130213060-A/kNt/kytzje/nXtCzMBWg

Did the former CIA Director have a central role in the Plame case and related efforts by the Bush White House and the Pentagon to punish and discredit Agency WMD analysts who opposed the rationale being given for the invasion of Iraq? Or, was Tenet playing a delicate game of diplomacy between the two opposing sides, one in which he so compromised himself that he finally retired in disgust and frustration on May 3, 2004?

Was Tenet's resignation precipited by the Plamegate/Franklin scandals?

The answer may lie in the chain of events that have resulted to two grand juries, an ongoing trial, and the coming collapse of the Bush Administration. It is now clear that the Plame case overlaps with the Larry Franklin OSP-AIPAC prosecution, dubbed "Treasongate" in some quarters. Whether Tenet proves a villain, a victim, or just another incompetent bungler in this tale, needs to be examined in light of the events of both scandals.

George Tenet's management of the CIA obviously figures in both scandals, but the specifics of his personal role is thus far not well understood.

There is no question that George Tenet will always be associated with the major catastrophes and lies of the Bush Administration -- his "slam dunk" remark is damning -- along with the equally disasterous "intelligence failure" of 9/11.

According to the Times article, Vice President Cheney was the first White House official to learn about Plame. Tenet was the original source. On June 10, 2003, Cheney in turn passed this information on to his Chief of Staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, who revealed Plame's role to Judith Miller on June 23. Over the course of the following weeks, a cluster of officials in the White House communicated this information to a half dozen other reporters in what has become known as "Plamegate."

But, as has become clear in recent days, the Plame outing, as bad as it was, is only part of a much larger espionage case and conspiracy centered on the Office of the Vice President (OVP), the Pentagon Office of Special Plans (OSP), and the Embassy of Israel. Taken together, the Plame case and the Franklin case were both conspiracies involving fraudulent documents designed to push the United States into a disasterous invasion of Middle East countries.

One reason to believe that Tenet may have been implicated in the Larry Frankin case -- who is a common figure in both investigations --is that Tenet resigned May 3, 2004 - the day before the FBI arrested Larry Franklin at his house, which contained a hoarde of classified documents that Franklin had been passing to the Israeli intelligence officers and their sources within the American-Israel Political Action Committee (AIPAC).

Let's see where that date lies on the Plamegate/Treasongate timeline:

The indictment of Larry Franklin in the OSP-AIPAC spy case records that Israeli intelligence was providing data about alleged Iranian WMDs that ended up in Pentagon files. Like the Niger yellowcake forgeries, these Iran documents were funneled through the OSP to the White House. The indictment show that the same persons in the OSP utilized the same criminal methods -- espionage and fraud against the United States -- in a conspiracy to prompt an American military attack against Iran, just as they had manipulated the U.S. to invade Iraq.

***

April 13, 1999 - Steven Rosen, a staff analyst of the American-Israel Political Action Committee (AIPAC) and an associate begin passing classified documents obtained from US officials to Israeli intelligence officers in Washington.See, Franklin Indictment, p. 8, para. 1. http://news.findlaw.com/nytimes/docs/dod/usfrnklin80205 ...

September 9, 2002 Gen. Niccolo Pollari, chief of Italy's military intelligence service, known as SISMI, brought the Niger yellowcake story directly to the White House after his insistent overtures had been rejected by the Central Intelligence Agency in 2001 and 2002. Pollari meets with then–Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley. Their secret meeting came at a critical moment in the White House campaign to convince Congress and the American public that war in Iraq was necessary to prevent Saddam Hussein from developing nuclear weapons. http://www.prospect.org/weblog/archives/2005/10/index.html#008117

May 23, 2003 - After a number of preliminary meetings with AIPAC personnel at which classified materials are revealed, Lawrence Franklin, OSP Iran desk Officer, has an unauthorized meeting with Naor Gilon, political officer at the Israeli Embassy. They discuss the nuclear program of Iran. Franklin incorporates information and advise provided by Gilon into an Action Memo for his superiors at OSP. See, Ibid. pp. 23-24, para. 6.

June 3, 2003 - Franklin and Gilon meet at the Pentagon Officers Athletic Club and discuss an unidentified American woman (likely, Judith Miller) who is not a government official and her views on the nuclear program of a Middle East country. Id., p. 24, para. 7

June 10, 2003 - State Department produces the famous INR memo that tells about Wilson's trip and his wife's involvement.

June 12, 2003 - Cheney tells Libby about Wilson's wife's work with C.I.A. and her involvement with Wilson's trip.

June 12, 2003 - the day of the conversation between Mr. Cheney and Mr. Libby, the Washington Post published a front page story reporting that the C.I.A. had sent a retired American diplomat to the Niger in February 2002 to investigate claims that Iraq had been seeking to buy uranium there. The story did not name the diplomat, who turned out to be Mr. Wilson, but it reported that his mission had not corroborated a claim about Iraq's pursuit of nuclear material that the White House had subsequently used in Mr. Bush's 2003 State of the Union address.

June 19, 2003 - Karl Rove attends party to celebrate 40th anniversary of Robert Novak's newpaper column; later (before grand jury October 2005) Rove tells Fitzgerald that he first heard about Wilson's wife at a social event outside the White House; says that he heard she works at C.I.A from Libby around July 8.

June 23, 2003 - (first interview) Libby tells Judith Miller about Wilson's wife's work at C.I.A. and her involvement with Wilson's trip (first meeting).

July 6, 2003 - Joe Wilson op-ed piece in NY Times saying "no uranium"; challenging the premises of going to war.

July 8, 2003 - (second interview during breakfast) Libby tells Miller about Joe Wilson's wife, clarifies previous conversation; same day or possibly later Miller records name "Valerie Flame" in notebook.

July 8, 2003 - Rove talks with Matt Cooper about Wilson's wife and C.I.A. work

July ?, 2003 - Rove confirms information about Wilson's wife for article Novak is preparing.

July 11, 2003 - earliest date that Robert Novak's column was distributed to newspapers; first published on July 14 outing Valerie Plame as C.I.A. operative.

December 3, 2003. Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald appointed.

In late 2003 and into the Spring of 2004, the FBI and CIA gathered evidence confirming the line of authorship for the forged Niger Yellowcake documents. Those were traced from Cheney's office back to the Pentagon Office of Special Plans (OSP) which obtained them after Michael Ledeen, Harold Rhode and Larry Franklin met in Rome in December 2001 with Manoucher Ghorbanifar. Chalabi, along with Ledeen and his old CIA and Iran-Contra figure Dewey Claridge and another former CIA officer, Alan Wolf, are now accused of forging the documents.http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=7681

During this same period, the FBI continues to monitor the exchanges of classified information and documents concerning Iran and Iraq nuclear programs between Franklin and three intelligence officials assigned to the Isareli Embassy in Washington.

May 3, 2004. Citing family reasons, CIA Director George Tenet unexpectedly resigns.

May 4, 2004. Larry Franklin is arrested in the OSP-AIPAC spy case, but released as a cooperating witness.

May 20, 2004. Ahmed Chalabi is placed under CIA house arrest in Baghdad. The reason given at the time was that Chalabi was suspected him of corrupt trading in goods in Iraq and of passing information on to Iran.

June 8, 2004. Gilon receives classified information directly from Franklin. Id., p.25, para. 17.

August 27, 2004. Leslie Stahl of CBS News reveals the FBI investigation into the Franklin-AIPAC spy case. Shortly thereafter, Gilon departs the US and does not return. http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/08/27/eveningnews/m ...

November 9, 2004. Attorney General Ashcroft unexpectedly resigns.

***

Michael Ledeen, Harold Rhode and Dewey Clarridge remain at large. Ledeen has been implicated in the plot by former CIA counter-terrorism chief Vincent Cannistraro. www.alternet.org/waroniraq/21704/

[savemefromdumbya]

1. WMDs

Tenet knew about the the role of Plame and WMD smuggling investigations and told cheney - maybe - I'm only guessing

[peacetalksforall]

2. Excellent timeline - can this be expanded to include Wurmser - I think he

is important enough. ?

[peacetalksforall]

3. Is there a timeline of the Niger forgeries that we can place side by side

with this?

Please, DUers, this is part of 'where the action is' along with what Brewster-Jennings was doing and whether they knew what Cheney and PNAC and the other acronym-traitor organizations along with Rumsfeld and his DOD were involved in.

This is all an intricate weaving, but this is where it's at... it's not just a Plame outing incident. Her outing was the kick. Image an iceberg and what lies within the cold water - that's what we have to learn about in order to refute the right wing propaganda war machine against us and the world. What did Brewster-Jennings know?.

Always keep in mind that all the key players are from the Iran-Contra criminal act against the U.S.: the people of Central America, especially Nicaragua, including Panama, Iran and aided by Israel and now Iraq and soon to be Syria.

Have we had enough from them yet?

[seemslikeadream]

4. JANUARY 2001 BREAK-IN AT NIGER EMBASSY

http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=7256

JANUARY 2001 BREAK-IN AT NIGER EMBASSY

At night, between the first and second of the January 2001, a mysterious thief came to the embassy of Niger in Rome and into the residence of the counselor in charge. It turned out that some letterhead and seals (see photocopy) were missing. A second dossier on Niger-Iraq trade soon came into Martino’s hands, one that included references to uranium trafficking. Martino claims he got it from embassy personnel and that he thought it was authentic.

[seemslikeadream]

5. "Pollari went to the White House to offer its truth on the Iraq"

http://www.repubblica.it/2005/j/sezioni/esteri/iraq69/bodv/bodv.html

Please excuse the translation I had to use this, it can be used for the rest of the article
http://www.freetranslation.com/

"Pollari went to the White House to offer its truth on the Iraq" The dossier on the uranium from the Niger did
not involve the Ioc of CARLO BONINI and GIUSEPPE OF REMAINDER

ROME - For Nicolò Pollari, director of the Earthquakes, the rules of its occupation I am inequivoche. It says to Republic: "I Am the director of the intelligence and the mine alone institutional speaker, after the 11 September, was at Washington the director of the Ioc, George Tenet. How it is obvious, I speak only with him. ..". But it is actual truth that our barbefinte have working only with the Ioc? Or they supported also the clandestine efforts of the intelligence parallel created from Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz with the "group Iraq", the office for Special plans of the Pentagon, the office of the national security advisor, specific to find the useful tests for the "change of regime" to Baghdad?

It is a fact that, to the eve of the war in Iraq and with the supervision of the diplomatic advisor of Palace Chigi, Gianni Castellaneta (today ambassador in the Usa), the director of the Earthquakes organizes to Washington its diary with the staff of Condoleezza Rice, in those national years security advisor to the White House. Republic is in a position to document this double platform of the government and of the Italian intelligence. At least one of the meetings "very little institutional" of Pollari and, how they the secret agents say, it "accomplishment of a system" that holds together Government - Intelligence - Information.

Short recapitulation. The Earthquakes of Nicolò Pollari wants to credit the iraqui purchase of uranium crude to build a nuclear bomb. The diagram of the game is rather transparent. The cards "authentic" on an attempt to purchase in Niger (old "intelligence" Italian of the eighties) the door in gift the vicecapo of the Center Earthquakes of Rome (Antonio Nucera). They come bundled with other card built to the bell' and better with a theft simulated in the embassy of the Niger (if they extract of it card addressed and you stamp). The documents come shown from the men of Pollari to the agents of the station Ioc of Rome while a "mailman" of the Earthquakes, a such one of name Rocco Martino, delivers them to London to the MI6 of sir Richard Dearlove. It is the before instantaneous one. It returns useful to tell the second chapter of the Large organizing Deciet in Italy to build the necessity of a military intervention in Iraq. It already we saw. Greg Thielmann, former director of the front desk of intelligence of the Department of State, itself meeting place on the table the report "Italian" on the uranium. It does not remember the exact date.




"Pollari andò alla Casa Bianca
per offrire la sua verità sull'Iraq"
Il dossier sull'uranio dal Niger non coinvolgeva la Cia
di CARLO BONINI e GIUSEPPE D'AVANZO


ROMA - Per Nicolò Pollari, direttore del Sismi, le regole del suo mestiere sono inequivoche. Dice a Repubblica: "Sono il direttore dell'intelligence e il mio solo interlocutore istituzionale, dopo l'11 settembre, è stato a Washington il direttore della Cia, George Tenet. Come è ovvio, io parlo soltanto con lui...". Ma è proprio vero che le nostre barbefinte hanno lavorato soltanto con la Cia? Oppure hanno sostenuto anche gli sforzi clandestini dell'intelligence parallela creata da Dick Cheney e Paul Wolfowitz con il "gruppo Iraq", l'Office for Special plans del Pentagono, l'ufficio del consigliere per la Sicurezza nazionale, determinatissimi a trovare le prove utili per il "cambio di regime" a Bagdad?

È un fatto che, alla vigilia della guerra in Iraq e con la supervisione del consigliere diplomatico di Palazzo Chigi, Gianni Castellaneta (oggi ambasciatore negli Usa), il direttore del Sismi organizza a Washington la sua agenda con lo staff di Condoleezza Rice, in quegli anni consigliere per la Sicurezza nazionale alla Casa Bianca. Repubblica è in grado di documentare questo doppio binario del governo e dell'intelligence italiana. Almeno uno degli incontri "molto poco istituzionali" di Pollari e, come dicono gli agenti segreti, la "realizzazione di un sistema" che tiene insieme Governo - Intelligence - Informazione.

Breve riepilogo. Il Sismi di Nicolò Pollari vuole accreditare l'acquisto iracheno di uranio grezzo per fabbricare una bomba nucleare. Lo schema del gioco è alquanto trasparente. Le carte "autentiche" su un tentativo di acquisto in Niger (vecchia "intelligence" italiana degli anni Ottanta) le porta in dote il vicecapo del Centro Sismi di Roma (Antonio Nucera). Vengono affastellate con altra cartaccia costruita alla bell'e meglio con un furto simulato nell'ambasciata del Niger (se ne ricavano carta intestata e timbri). I documenti vengono mostrati dagli uomini di Pollari agli agenti della stazione Cia di Roma mentre un "postino" del Sismi, un tale di nome Rocco Martino, li consegna a Londra al MI6 di sir Richard Dearlove.

È la prima istantanea. Torna utile per raccontare il secondo capitolo del Grande Inganno organizzato in Italia per costruire la necessità di un intervento militare in Iraq. Lo abbiamo già visto. Greg Thielmann, ex direttore del bureau di intelligence del Dipartimento di Stato, si ritrova sul tavolo il report "italiano" sull'uranio. Non ricorda la data esatta.