Could this be how Cheney learned about Plame?

[boston bean]

Cannonfire speculates:

According to a number of reports, Valerie Wilson/Plame's CIA status was among the treasure trove of goodies that spy Aldritch Ames handed over to the Russians. The Russians had no motive to expose her; she never spied on them. I propose that a document deriving from the Ames revelation made its way into neocon circles -- probably by way of Mossad, which penetrated the Russian apparat long ago. Any such documentation, being roughly a decade old, would have used the name "Plame."


http://www.cannonfire.blogspot.com/

I am sure there are others here who are more skilled and versed in this than me. Could this possibly be true? Does it make sense?

[mandomom]

1. No and no.

[boston bean]

3. Can you elaborate why you have this opinion? nt

[TheGunslinger]

31. Agreed. Pretty far-fetched. Heck, she was working on the WMD group

I'm sure Cheney with his many CIA contacts and arm-twisting and Poppy's CIA contacts no doubt verified she was CIA.

[JDPriestly]

2. Nonsense.

If that were the source, Libby would have said that long ago. That is sheer imagination. No doubt a forged document will soon be discovered in the files in the basement of the Italian foreign ministry. Wishful thinking, guys! Wishful thinking!

[boston bean]

6. I agree that it is speculation, but I don't agree that it would

have gotten libby out of the crosshairs if he used it as an excuse. Her cover was classified, Patrick Fitzgerald reinforced that.

The question is how did Cheney learn the identity.

[DistressedAmerican]

4. He Got The Info From George Tenent. I Assume In Exchange For His Medal!

[boston bean]

5. That is what I assumed, but Tenet says no, right? nt

[emulatorloo]

8. isn't Cheney, as the VP, allowed to know such info?

It isn't a problem if Cheney knew it. It isnt a problem if he told Scooter either, cuz Scooter has the security clearance to know it as well.

Only problem is if Cheney told Scooter to leak it.

[boston bean]

10. It's not good enough to just know that he had the authority

to know.

I believe we are saying the same thing. Why did he want to know and for what reason are the questions.

Knowing how he got the information helps reveal the motivations, etc.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

25. Oh, brother. What is it with some of you people?....

...Do you really hate the CIA that much?

Think about this for a second...who asked the DoJ to start a criminal investigation into the Plame leak?

Who ordered an investigation by the CIA BEFORE he asked the DoJ to conduct their investigation?

Who knows where all of the bodies are buried, and who did the burying?

If you think Tenet would have traded anything for a piece of crap medal from Herr Busch, then you are sadly mistaken.

[sandnsea]

7. Cheney was Secy of Defense

I think people sometimes forget how far back these guys' connections go. Just like they're claims about Wilson are ludicrous because Wilson was IN Iraq when these guys were launching a war against Iraq. It's ridiculous they claiim they don't know who he was. Of course they knew.

[boston bean]

9. I agree, this isn't just some thin facade. This is deep.

There are no easy answers as to how and why.

[chelsea0011]

12. Exactly...These guys have their cronies all through the system

It would be so easy for someone like Cheney to get that name. Someone at the CIA probably called him.

[MADem]

24. And Valerie Plame was a college kid--she is only 42 now!

The argument does not hold up -- see post 18. Ames gave the names to the Russkies in 85, and he was caught out in 94, when CLINTON was president and Bill Cohen was SECDEF.

Cheney was SECDEF for just the Bush 41 term--he took the job in March 89, and we know what happened to Poppy when he ran for reelection. He was a congressman at the time, and the GOP whip.

[sandnsea]

30. 20 years ago

She was 22 years old. I don't know what you're talking about. Here's Johnson's testimony about him and Val P in 1985. Cheney and Rumsfeld go back to Nixon, Cheney was Ford's Chief of Staff. There doesn't need to be any clandestine spy stuff for these guys to get the info on Wilson.

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2005/072205E.shtml

[MADem]

32. She was an INTERN, a trainee, NOT AN OPERATIVE

Ames would not have given up her name to the russkies, she was not yet in the system. Ames gave up the names of every US agent he knew to his contact in MARCH 85--BEFORE she entered the program in SEP.

My issue is that there is no way Aldrich Ames was shopping her name around. He gave up that info before she got in the program, as a TRAINEE. And according to all I have read, he only did ONE data dump of Americans, in March 85, and ever after devoted himself to double agents like these guys: http://www.videofact.com/english/agents_sold%20_by_ames.html

Basically, all that testimony says is that she was in the program. There would be no reason for her to come to anyone's attention back then--she did not even KNOW Wilson, and would not have come in contact with Ames--she was just a low level apprentice at the time. An INTERN, in essence.

[sandnsea]

33. I think we agree

I don't think Ames had anything to do with it either. Not because of her age, but because Cheney didn't need that kind of source in the first place. And, he most certainly knew who Wilson was, so learning a bit more about his wife wouldn't have been terribly difficult. Probably knew what Brewster Jennings was too, without anybody even having to tell him. Just knew because people like Cheney are supposed to know stuff like that. The real question is whether they conspired to destroy her and Wilson and who else was involved. The rest of it isn't all that relevant because it isn't a crime for them to know.

[zbird]

11. Don't forget that Daddy Bush is/was CIA...

and the aspens are all connected by the roots.

[Marr]

13. I think it's more likely that Cheney just requested all info on Wilson,

which happened to include the fact that his wife worked for the CIA.

[boston bean]

14. And that she suggested her husband would be a good person to go?

I don't buy it.

I think I may have begun to become quite a conspiracy theorist.

I don't believe one word that comes out of those lying sack of shit mouths.

[Orangepeel]

17. you don't have to buy that part.

There's no reason that Cheney and company couldn't have made that part up out of whole cloth.

They were looking for ways to get back at/discredit Wilson. They find out everything they can about him, which includes the fact that his wife works for the CIA. "Ah hah!" thinks Cheney/Libby/Rove. "We'll leak that he's not credible because he's a girlie man who needs his wife to get him a job. Plus, that will teach him to cross us!"

It doesn't need to be any more complicated than that.

[boston bean]

20. You may very well be right. But something tells me this is much

larger than that.

And I don't really know what it is. That is why I make that post.

I have read so much about CIA and DIA and NEO CON.

It is so intertwined that it just doesn't make sense that it could be that simple.

[Marr]

22. Exactly. They just look at the facts and then make up something

to smear.

[Orangepeel]

15. You are most certainly right. Of course Joe Wilson has a CIA file

Cheney probably just asked for the file and read it.

[readmylips]

16. Why would cheney request V Wilson's CIA information?

There are over 100 thousand CIA agents. Why single out Valerie Wilson? Was he singling her out for a promotion? For a special assignment? (Which it's none of his business). What was the big reason why cheney, at such a spicific time, requested information on Mrs. Wilson?

To out a CIA agent for political reasons is treason.

[Orangepeel]

21. Personally, I don't think he requested Mrs. Wilson's CIA info.

I think he requested Joe Wilson's CIA info because he was on a fishing expedition for ways to discredit him.

Of course Wilson had his own file (which probably happened to include the fact that he was married to an agent). He was an Ambassador and a government official who had been picked by the CIA to conduct a fact finding trip (I believe at the request of Cheney's office, just like Wilson says).

[onenote]

23. because wilson was criticizing Cheney

Its really not that complex -- in fact its spelled out pretty clearly in the indictment. State of the Union claims that Iraq is pursuing nuke material. News stories come out, with Wilson as unnamed source, stating that WH (specifically Cheney) knew that the CIA had reached a contrary conclusion. Cheney and co. start asking about who at or with the CIA would be pushing that story. Word comes back that Wilson was sent and his wife works at the agency.

Up to that point, its hard to see anything illegal...just business as usual given the complete entanglement of politics and policy. However, taking that information and leaking it to the press -- that's where issues of legality come into play. For the moment, Fitz hasn't tried to go after the leak itself, given the difficulty presented by the statute. But he still might.

And if you are suggesting that the crime of treason was committed by outing Plame, I have to respectfully disagree. just as I don't think it would've been treason for someone to out the undercover agents that were trying to assassinate Castro and various other figures or who were aiding democratically elected governments that a particular US administration didn't like.

onenote

[MADem]

18. I think Cheney had them fax the info over from CIA to the Exec Ofc bldg

It could be more convoluted, but I just think he demanded the info and got it. Who knows what name Valerie used at her job? Plame or Wilson, or maybe both?

Also, the timeline doesn't work, unless Valerie was a Nancy Drew spy in college--she was 22 when Ames ratted out his fellow spies.

NYT says Dick and Scooter spent a lot of time over at Langley, and getting briefs and faxes. http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/30/politics/30indict.html

That Mr. Cheney and his office sparred with the C.I.A. before the invasion of Iraq has never been a secret. Mr. Cheney and Mr. Libby made repeated trips to C.I.A. headquarters in Langley, Va., in the months before the American invasion in March 2003, and Mr. Libby was often on the phone with senior C.I.A. officials to challenge the agency's intelligence reports on Iraq. A principal focus, former intelligence officials say, was the question of whether Al Qaeda had had a close, collaborative relationship with Saddam Hussein's Iraqi government, an argument advanced publicly by Mr. Cheney but rejected by the C.I.A. intelligence analysts.

...By any measure, the indictment suggests that Mr. Libby and others went to unusual lengths to gather information about Mr. Wilson and his trip. An initial request on May 29, 2003, from Mr. Libby to Marc Grossman, the undersecretary of state for political affairs, led Mr. Grossman to request a classified memo from Carl Ford, the director of the State Department's intelligence bureau, and later for Mr. Grossman to orally brief Mr. Libby on its contents.

Later requests appear to have prompted C.I.A. officials to fax classified information to Mr. Cheney's office about Mr. Wilson's trip, on June 9. Mr. Cheney himself is alleged to have shared details about the nature of Ms. Wilson's job with Mr. Libby, on June 12. The indictment says that Mr. Libby first shared information about Mr. Wilson's trip with a reporter, Judith Miller of The New York Times, on June 23; but it also describes discussions involving Mr. Libby, Mr. Addington, Mr. Hannah, Ms. Martin and White House officials, about whether the information could be shared with reporters.

As for Ames, he got caught in 94, when Cheney was making millions at Halliburton: http://www.crimelibrary.com/terrorists_spies/spies/ames/1.html

Also, he gave up the NAMES back in 85, when Valerie Wilson (she is 42 now) would have been in her EARLY TWENTIES, and likely not doing the work she was doing when she was outed:

Ames moved quickly to protect himself. On June 13, 1985, Ames met with Chuvakhin for lunch again and although the KGB had not asked him for any additional information, Ames decided on his own to give them the name of every CIA “human asset” that he knew, with the exception of his pal from New York City, Sergey Fedorenko....

And they have him under lock and key, so they know who he gave up and who he didn't. Why leave a youthful Valerie off the list? Does not make sense.

[Gabi Hayes]

19. didn't read any of this, but I came across a CNN interview between

Wolf and Larry Johnson, during which he asked him specifically about this

he claimed not to know, but said it was possible

this was during a stretch of the interview in which Wolf was trying to establish that Plame could have been outed by myriad different sources, including the CIA itself!

[MADem]

26. So are you saying Plame was a student spy?

She was a KID when Ames gave up those names to the Russkies--back in 1985.

She likely had not even finished college yet!

[boston bean]

27. I don't think that is what the poster is saying

She may be saying that Cheney had access to the documents and that plame may have been named. the poster doesn't imply that the documents you are referring to are what he/she is talking about.

edit to add

[MADem]

28. My point is that Ames outed those people when Plame was a kid

I am referring to the original assertion.

See my post, above. Valerie was 22 at most, maybe 21, when Ames gave up all of those CIA assets and blew the USSR spies' covers as well.

The timeline just DOES NOT WORK. The theory does not stand up to even cursory scrutiny.

[boston bean]

29. right, i just edited my post, but I don't think he/she was referring to

your timeline and information.

edit to add: never mind, i'm to damn confused!

You are probably right, but she might have been a spy then, but in most likely hood not.