Reply #141: DU's William Pitt

[Me.]

Promises to Keep
By William Rivers Pitt
t r u t h o u t | Perspective

<<<snip>>>

"In January of 2003, during the same State of the Union speech in which he spoke of that "day of horror" and described Iraq's weapons by the numbers, Bush used the debunked Niger uranium claim as further evidence that the invasion of Iraq was an absolute imperative. Wilson, in July of 2003, exploded the administration's Niger-uranium claim in a detailed editorial in the New York Times. Days later, his wife Valerie Plame was exposed to several reporters as a deep-cover agent by operatives for the White House. Plame's operations against those who would give weapons of mass destruction to terrorists were wrecked. Her intelligence network was destroyed. The front company she worked out of, Brewster Jennings & Associates, was likewise exposed, a fact that had the corollary effect of ruining the operations and networks of any other agents working under the cover of that office.
The White House agents who blew Plame's cover did so for one reason, and one reason alone: To intimidate and silence any government analysts or whistleblowers who might go to the press and contradict the Bush administration's carefully crafted story line about the threat posed by Iraq. A number of people had come forward before Wilson wrote his article, but few came after Plame was attacked. It is one thing to put yourself at risk by taking on the Bush administration, but it is another thing entirely to be shown that the decision to do so puts your family in the line of fire.
Beyond the fact that our capacity to track and interdict the transfer of weapons of mass destruction to terrorists was damaged by the outing of Valerie Plame - and isn't that the reason we went to war in Iraq in the first place? - there is the damage done to our overall capacity to watch a world filled with threats. The Bush administration ignored the data and warnings coming from the American intelligence community before the war, because that data did not fit the decision for war which had already been made, and then scapegoated the intelligence community after their story line did not match reality. The attack upon Valerie Plame is but one example of the administration's dangerous misuse and abuse of our intelligence services. Today, the CIA is at war with the White House because of this. In no way does this deplorable situation heighten our security here at home." cont...
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/102704A.shtml