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involvement in stopping honest professionals from truthfully reporting WMD evidence? Who was in the best position to do so? Who was running his own intelligence shop to circumvent the honest professionals at the CIA and the State Dept.? Whose payroll were Michael Ladeen and other rabid Neocon dirty operatives on? (--the ones who organized the Rome meeting in 2001, where many suspect the Niger forgeries were concocted, and where notorious Iran/Contra arms dealer Manucher Ghorbanifar was present)? Who was paying millions to evidence cooker Chalabi? Who signed Judith Miller's "embed" contract, which placed her with the US troops hunting for the WMDs in Iraq that everybody knew weren't there?
And who was recently ousted, under cover of the elections, giving the appearance but not the reality of a change of policy in Iraq?
Donald Rumsfeld.
More questions: What else was Rumsfeld's intelligence shop up to? What accounts for the evident panic among top Bushites in the weeks of July 6-22--so many involved, so many risks taken, at least six reporters contacted in an effort to out Plame? What was the rush? (They'd known about Wilson's dissent for six months--he'd already gone public with it.) Why did they out Plame on 7/14/03 and then, a week later, on 7/22, ADDITIONALLY out the entire Brewster-Jennings WMD counter-proliferation network, putting all of its covert agents at risk of getting killed, and disabling all projects? How did THAT punish Wilson? Why take that extra risk of felony and treason charges? Did something happen between 7/14 and 7/22 that prompted the additional outing?
One thing that happened in the middle of that week was the highly suspicious death of the Brits WMD expert, David Kelly, on 7/17, three days after Plame was outed, and the subsequent search of his office and computers. THEN B-J was outed (on 7/22). One theory is that he had stumbled upon--or helped to foil--a Bushite plot to PLANT nukes in Iraq, to be "found" by the US troops, as part 2 of the Niger/Iraq nuke forgeries plot. He had a USAF intel watcher--a woman and supposed friend--when he was in the US, who also visited him in England. Another "friend" of his was Judith Miller, to whom he wrote one of this last emails, on the day he died, expressing concern about the "many dark actors playing games." Miller--the NYT war propagandist who was meeting clandestinely with Libby about national security secrets--was also the one embedded with the US troops looking for the phantom WMDs. If a plot to plant WMDs in Iraq was discovered/foiled by Plame, by her counter-proliferation network, and/or by David Kelly, that sure would explain a lot of things.
Cheney. Was he an errand boy for Rumsfeld, as I suspect that Rove was? The Rovian revenge story--that Plame was outed to punish Wilson (for his op-ed in the NYT on 7/6/03)--is already wearing thin. Would Rove risk his ass by outing a covert CIA agent AND an entire CIA network, on his own--say, without some sort of written authorization or at least assurances? Not bloody likely. I think this is why he hasn't been indicted. He was an errand boy. (And there is a story in Wilson's book about a dustup between Rove and Libby, re Rove being left holding the bag.) And frankly I'm suspicious of the current Cheney story, that Cheney was so-o-o-o concerned about the war profiteering corporate news monopoly newsstream--that the Bushites had complete control of in 2003--that an op-ed by a dissenting ex-diplomat would prompt him to commit treason, leaving a mile wide trail. (One of the pieces of evidence in the Libby trial is a news clipping of Wilson's op-ed, supposedly marked up by Cheney back in July 2003, showing his "concern" about the article.) Cheney is likely to testify that Libby was so busy in 2003 that he couldn't remember conversations with reporters about outing a CIA agent and her entire network. But I don't know how he's going to testify that he was both "concerned" about Wilson's article (a cover story, in my opinion), and...didn't notice, didn't care, and, like Libby, was "too busy," to really focus on the outing of government agents. Their shtick was that it was a minor concern, a detail (part of the original plan to blame it on Rove).
My suspicion: That Cheney is covering for Rumsfeld, and for the larger plot to, in fact, destroy the CIA--purge it, convert it to a private oil corporation spying and vendetta organization--to get the CIA on record as saying no-nukes-in-Iraq (with the "crude"--easily detectable--Niger forgeries, and other ploys), then to discredit them and to cement Bush's (and Blair's) political position by the "find" of the planted nukes in Iraq.
IF this is what is going on, Plame (and Wilson) may not be free to say so. The plot--in this larger aspect--still destroyed Plame's career, and put her life and her family in danger, and ONE of the Bushites' motives was certainly to squash dissent (both inside and outside of the government). But I think there is far more here than Plame is able to disclose. As a covert agent, she is pledged to secrecy forevermore. This is probably preserving her life (--and is the thing that got David Kelly into deep trouble, that he was NOT pledged to secrecy, the way a CIA agent is, and was already whisteblowing to the BBC about the "sexed up" pre-war WMD intel.) The tricky part for Plame--and also a measure of her courage--is fighting these bastards on their turf while gagged by her oath of secrecy.
People (rightwingers) have questioned why Fitzgerald is going after Libby on lying and obstruction, and no one has yet been indicted on the main crime--the outings of Plame and the B-J network. The obvious reason is that--as Fitzgerald said in his one and only press conference on the Libby indictment--Libby has "thrown dust in the umpire's eyes," so that Fitzgerald cannot finish the investigation, and nail the perps. It is also a prosecutorial tactic (and typical of Fitzgerald) to pressure and/or indict the lower rungs of responsibility, to get at the upper rungs, the real decision-makers. He obviously has Cheney in his sights, but could possibly be deferring to Congress on that one. (Interestingly, it was an Illinois state legislator, Karen Yarlborough, who recently discovered the section of Jefferson's Rulers that permits a state legislature to submit Articles of Impeachment to the US House--a privileged resolution that must be considered. Efforts are underway in about five states--the most recent, NM--to get such a resolution passed in state legislatures and submitted to the US House. Illinois was the first. BUT NOTE: The Jefferson's Rules provision ALSO says that a grand jury can do so!) (Additional note: Fitzgerald is a Chicago prosecutor.)
The other reason why Fitzgerald may not be able to get at the real perps--beyond the errand boys--is CIA secrecy (Plame's obligation to secrecy), so that he can't discover the yet more serious reasons that she and her entire network were outed. But I think that Rumsfeld's abrupt exit (with no change of policy in Iraq) points to those more serious reasons. It is a felony--and it is treason--to out ANY CIA agent for political reasons. That is a grave matter, surely. (And just look at one result--rogue elements in Russia spreading Polonium-210 all over Europe, in assassination schemes. THAT was Plame's JOB--to stop that sort of thing from happening!) But the deeper aspect of this affair--the motives for wanting to disable our entire network of protection against illicit movement and use of dangerous materials and weapons--remains obscure. It CANNOT have been a minor matter--a political toss-off in the heat of battle. Even traitorous criminal Bushites must have known what they were doing. And Rumsfeld is the one who likely knew the MOST about its potential impacts--both as to aiding their lies and deceit, and as to stripping us, and the entire world, of protection against WMD proliferation. Cheney should also have known this, and is no less culpable for being an operative in the plot, but perhaps not the ultimate mastermind. I simply don't believe that it was a political battle against dissent that went out of control.
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