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Plame: “I was covert”

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Valerie Plame Wilson, the outed CIA officer, is testifying on Capitol Hill right now.  It’s on C-Span, if you’re interested.  You can watch her opening statement here.  Here’s part of what she said:

I’ve served the United States loyally and to the best of my ability as a covert operations officer for the Central Intelligence Agency. I worked on behalf of the national security of our country, on behalf of the people of the United States, until my name and true affiliation were exposed in the national media on July 14th, 2003, after a leak by an administration official.

Today I can tell this committee even more.

In the run-up to the war with Iraq, I worked in the Counterproliferation Division of the CIA, still as a covert officer whose affiliation with the CIA was classified. I raced to discover solid intelligence for senior policymakers on Iraq’s presumed weapons of mass destruction program.

While I helped to manage and run secret worldwide operations against this WMD target from CIA headquarters in Washington, I also traveled to foreign countries on secret missions to find vital intelligence…. It was not common knowledge on the Georgetown cocktail circuit that everyone knew where I worked.

TP has a great rundown of the valiant efforts by the VRWC, sadly aided and abetted by more respectable MSM outlets, to undermine the nature of Plame’s work for the CIA.  Well, she wasn’t just a desk jockey.  She was, in fact, covert, or at least it so appears as of now.  Maybe those who hate Plame and her husband Joseph Wilson for embarrassing the Bush administration could at least stop spreading what appear to be actual falsehoods.  But don’t hold your breath.

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  2. not for the purpose of discrediting her husband Joe Wilson for his NYTimes OpEd piece, but for a reason implied here..  The idea that publishing the fact that Wilson’s wife was a CIA agent would discredit Wilson or his OpEd piece never made any sense to me.  But from the cited link, it’s clear that Plame was head of operations for the CIA’s Joint Task Force on Iraq, and that they refused to sign off on the idea that Iraq had WMDs.  I would infer from that, that that is the reason for the outing–to get back at her for her refusal–and that they used the occasion of Wilson’s OpEd piece to induce Robert NoFacts to do that.  That’s the only thing that makes sense.

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    That the outing shows that the Bush malAdministration is not really interested in national security is another issue for another time.

    • very unsavory about all aprticipants in this matter.
      I’m very uncomfortable with Russert’s testimony and Novak is a senile fool. Odd that Armitage et al sat on this for so long when HE in fact is the bad guy. Libby was either confused or he’s a dope or both. I’m still confused as to precisely what illegal act Libby was guilty of as was the jury.

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      There isn’t one person involved in this matter, including the prosecutor,  that if I had to be in the same room with them for five minutes I would find the nearest hot shower and stand in it for an hour to get the dirt off.

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      They’re all self serving parasites, the lot of them

      • …and has been since his days as being teamed with Roland Evans of Evans & NoFacts long ago.  He’s nothing more useful than spouting the Republican party line.  There is utility in knowing what the Republican party line is–just as there is utility in knowing what the Democratic party line is**, but it should be recognized that, whatever he writes, is the Republican party line.

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        Russert is an employee of the US General Electic Company (NBC is a subsidiary of GE), which, as we all know, is a US government contractor.  His head will spin around depending on who’s in power at the millisecond.  There was a saying in the former East Germany after the Mauerfall–the fall of the Berlin Wall–that the teachers were “Wendehals.”  That means that their necks would turn depending on the way the wind blew.  Like a weathervane.

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        *I got the Robert NoFacts formulation off a conservative message board.  From a conservative Jewish poster.  Apparently NoFacts is of Arab descent, and is not entirely beholden to Israel.  Hence the denigration.  I though the formulation funny, and so I continue to use it.

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        **Just what is the Democratic party line?  On anything?  I have never been able to figure out which oracle to go to.

        • I’d be interested to know whether that’s really true.  The standard story is that Novak was raised Jewish in Illinois, but converted relatively recently (1998) to Catholicism.  That does not, of course, rule out his being of Arab descent, but a few quick Googles haven’t turned anything up along those lines.

      • I’m still confused as to precisely what illegal act Libby was guilty of

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        Let me help you there. Lying under oath to a grand jury about anything at all is perjury. Obstructing an investigation is also a crime.

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        Patrick Fitzgerald is a GOP appointed prosecutor who did what he was asked to do, tasked by the acting GOP AG. Believe it or not, federal attorneys are not all supposed to do the bidding of the Bush/Cheney junta.

          • close to the vest, he acted professionally and got a conviction against a well financed WH insider. He was under tremendous pressure, most of which may never be revealed. But having Rove testify 5 times, and change his story at the 11th hour to cover his ass, is pretty interesting IMHO.
            BTW, Fitzgerald has successfully prosecuted drug traffickers, mob figures, and Al Qaeda members, yet now that he’s taken down Dick Cheney’s right hand man, he’s the object of scorn & smears from all the wannabee tough guy GOP law and order types. Please.

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            If anyone deserves a Medal of Freedom it’s Fitzgerald, but somehow I expect Scooter would get one first. Up is down in BushWorld.

            • …but, as far as I’m concerned, in regards Plamegate and its national security implications, it isn’t particularly important.

    • However, you have to watch her testimony for what she said to make sense.  She was referring fairly obviously to now-famous comments by the National Review’s Jonah Goldberg:

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      Jonah Goldberg of National Review claimed, “Wilson’s wife is a desk jockey and much of the Washington cocktail circuit knew that already.”

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      According to Plame’s testimony today, Goldberg was makin’ shit up.  Again.

      • If you have issue with what Jonah claimed then you should take it up with Cliff May who was the first at NR to be surprised that anyone else was suprised that Plame worked at the CIA.

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        It’s the top story in the Washington Post this morning as well as in many other media outlets. Who leaked the fact that the wife of Joseph C. Wilson IV worked for the CIA?

        What also might be worth asking: “Who didn’t know?”

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        “On July 14, Robert Novak wrote a column in the Post and other newspapers naming Mr. Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame, as a CIA operative.

        That wasn’t news to me. I had been told that – but not by anyone working in the White House. Rather, I learned it from someone who formerly worked in the government and he mentioned it in an offhand manner, leading me to infer it was something that insiders were well aware of.”

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        Also according to Cliff May, David Corn of The Nation was the first to raise the suggestion that Plame was a secret agent:
        http://www.nationalr…

      • …is because he is the vile spawn of Lucianne Goldberg of Linda Tripp fame.

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        The man is an idiot studying to become a moron.

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