Reply #17: Yes, I can.

[H2O Man]

We know that Valerie Plame was involved in a sting operation involving the components for WMDs. This is verfied in J. Klein's article in Time, 7-5-04. Remember also that when Novak called CI for confirmation of Plame's status -- and Robert NoFacts had told a total stranger on a public street on the day afterWilson's NYT op-ed article that she was a WMD specialist -- the CIA requested that he not only should NOT mention Wilson's wife was an operative with the Agency, but that her name should not ever be printed.

One of the things to keep in mind is that by revealing Plame's identity, it insured that at very least, a half-dozen operatives (American and other-wise) were exposed to the last people on earth that they should have been exposed to. Let's just say, for example, that there was a person who was working in the Pakistan area ... and he had worked in deep cover for over a decade, and was very, very close to accessing information on the sale of not only technology, but also components, that went to Iran .... and he had a known link to Plame .... then he would be dead 24 hours after Novak's article was printed. Further, no one in the USA would be at liberty to discuss the fact that he existed.

You will recall that I've referred to this as high stakes chess. A board game where the removal of one player compromises the safety and value of several others.

Listen: if they wanted to call Wilson's conclusions into question, they could create confusion with a series of bullshit documents from England, etc. They could have said that his was one of three US reports, and that there were the British papers that were still open to question, considering that Wilson had not viewed them. They could have even said, yes, we tend to agree with Wilson.

But they didn't. They had been waiting to reveal information on Plame for some time. The fact that Iran is sharing he focus in the recent days, along with Wilson, is a clue .... a big clue.