Number One.. Valerie Plame did not have the authority to "send"

[SoCalDem]

her husband to Africa on an "official" visit.

When someone decided to send someone over to Niger to check things out, they naturally would start looking into people who had BEEN to Africa....someone probably said "Valerie used to live there..her husband was ambassador ot Niger"...

Someone then probably pulled her file THEN and THERE, and then asked her to "have her husband call them".. The people in charge at the CIA are men..MACHO men (most likely).. They would have been the LAST to "have her arrange it"....

She probably went home that night and said, "hey Joe, call "somebody" tomorrow about a fact finding mission to Africa.."

He would NOT have suspected anything extraordinary..he HAD been the ambassador to the very country in question..he knew people there and would not arouse suspiscion...

the NORMAL thing to do after a trip like that would be to write a report just laying out the facts..which he DID.. Whether anyone read it or explored his conclusions is up for grabs..

Wilson probably never expected the government to falsify information, so it's not unusual for him to be shocked when they totally ignored his report.. If no one told him otherwise, he could assume that they did read his report, and CHOSE to ignore it.. At THAT point, Joe Wilson had an OBLIGATION to get the record set straight..

NUMBER TWO...

Cheney and Scooter practically LIVED at the CIA during the lead-up to the war.. I remember testimony from CIA people saying they had NEVER seen ANY vice-president hanging around the CIA so much as Cheney (and his little Scooter)...

Cheney (and others) KNEW about Valerie Plame and her duties BEFORE Wilson went to Africa.. They never expected Joe to "cross" them, and being the vindictive creeps they are, they went ballistic and outed his wife as a signal to other CIA people who might step forward..

During this time period LOTS of career CIA/FBI people quit in frustration, and the admin knew it.. If Wilson was not slapped down and slapped down HARD, who knows what tales the others might have told??


The right wingers would have us believe that Valerie called a travel agency and billed Joe's trip on a CIA credit card, all on her own..

Didn't happen..never would happen..

[bbinacan]

1. Outstanding point. n/t

[Rose Siding]

2. Wilson's letter to the Senate Cmte rebutting their report explains, too

Dear Senator Roberts and Senator Rockefeller,

I read with great surprise and consternation the Niger portion of Senators Roberts, Bond and Hatch "additional comments to the Senate Select Intelligence Committee's Report on the U.S. Intelligence Community's Prewar Assessment on Iraq. I am taking this opportunity to clarify some of the issues raised in these comments.

First conclusion: "The plan to send the former ambassador to Niger was suggested by the former ambassador's wife, a CIA employee."

That is not true. The conclusion is apparently based on one anodyne quote from a memo Valerie Plame, my wife sent to her superiors that says "my husband has good relations with the PM (prime minister) and the former Minister of Mines, (not to mention lots of French contacts) both of whom could possibly shed light on this sort of activity." There is no suggestion or recommendation in that statement that I be sent on the trip. Indeed it is little more than a recitation of my contacts and bona fides. The conclusion is reinforced by comments in the body of the report that a CPD reports officer stated the "the former ambassador's wife `offered up his name'" (page 39) and a State Department Intelligence and Research officer that the "meeting was `apparently convened by wife who had the idea to dispatch him to use his contacts to sort out the Iraq-Niger uranium issue."

In fact, Valerie was not in the meeting at which the subject of my trip was raised. Neither was the CPD Reports officer. After having escorted me into the room, she departed the meeting to avoid even the appearance of conflict of interest. It was at that meeting where the question of my traveling to Niger was broached with me for the first time and came only after a thorough discussion of what the participants did and did not know about the subject. My bona fides justifying the invitation to the meeting were the trip I had previously taken to Niger to look at other uranium related questions as well as 20 years living and working in Africa, and personal contacts throughout the Niger government. Neither the CPD reports officer nor the State analyst were in the chain of command to know who, or how, the decision was made. The interpretations attributed to them are not the full story. In fact, it is my understanding that the Reports Officer has a different conclusion about Valerie's role than the one offered in the "additional comments". I urge the committee to reinterview the officer and publicly publish his statement.

More on this and other errors in the rpt........

http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/10/30/18754/437

[Bouncy Ball]

3. ...

"The right wingers would have us believe that Valerie called a travel agency and billed Joe's trip on a CIA credit card, all on her own..

Didn't happen..never would happen.."

It's preposterous that anyone would even BELIEVE it would happen that way. What exactly is WRONG with reich wingers? Are they operating on three brain cells that are all fighting with each other?

[mtowngman]

4. some snotty little creep

was just on hardball saying Joe Wilson stated this fight, like we're talking about schoolyard nanny nanny boo boo, don't these people get that this isn't about Cheyney and the cia pissing on each other?

[SoCalDem]

7. Somehow, I think Wilson will get his message across

Why "they" don't get it?? They have tunnelvision and see only *² at the end of the tunnel:(

[Gman]

5. Stop! Wilson is IRRELEVANT!

And for that matter, what Plame did or didn't do doesn't matter either.

The issue is that the crime of outing a CIA agent and the completely irresponsible crime of destroying a CIA front company has been committed. What Wilson or Plame may or may not have done, or even lied or not lied about absolutely doesn't matter!

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=104&topic_id=5225040&mesg_id=5225040

[SoCalDem]

6. Wilson, Joe is irrelevant, but Wilson, Valerie (aka Plume) IS relevant

Like Scooter said, the "roots are all connected"...Without Joe's trip, Valerie would have never been outed..and no one would know one bit about any of them...