What Valerie Plame Really Did at the CIA [Corn]

THE NATION ^ | 9-05-2006 | By David Corn

[johnny7]

In the spring of 2002 Dick Cheney made one of his periodic trips to CIA headquarters. Officers and analysts were summoned to brief him on Iraq. Paramilitary specialists updated the Vice President on an extensive covert action program in motion that was designed to pave the way to a US invasion. Cheney questioned analysts about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. How could they be used against US troops? Which Iraqi units had chemical and biological weapons? He was not seeking information on whether Saddam posed a threat because he possessed such weapons. His queries, according to a CIA officer at the briefing, were pegged to the assumptions that Iraq had these weapons and would be invaded--as if a decision had been made.

Though Cheney was already looking toward war, the officers of the agency's Joint Task Force on Iraq--part of the Counterproliferation Division of the agency's clandestine Directorate of Operations--were frantically toiling away in the basement, mounting espionage operations to gather information on the WMD programs Iraq might have. The JTFI was trying to find evidence that would back up the White House's assertion that Iraq was a WMD danger. Its chief of operations was a career undercover officer named Valerie Wilson.

[RexBeach]

Ah, yes, the continuing saga of the non-story.

[oceanview]

they can't let it go.

[dirtboy]

Its chief of operations was a career undercover officer named Valerie Wilson.

I guess they figure they can keep trying to sell this lie to the American public - that she was undercover.

[Darkwolf377]

Sorry, David--you're just creamed Corn now. ;)

[MAD-AS-HELL]

I wonder if Cornholio put in his book that her husband listed his NOC of a wife as HIS WIFE in the Who Blows, I mean Who's Who book in DC (or whatever they call the book he listed her in).

[martin_fierro]

[OldFriend]

She was under cover all right. Under the covers with Wilson on their first date.

[ASA Vet]

MI Ping

If the VP wanted an intel briefing he should have gotten it from a real intelligence agency, not one who only claims they are.

[Williams]

Well IF she played an important role in this, no wonder it was screwed up. No one could hold a candle to Valerie when it came to having an agenda.

[HardStarboard]

This guy is still buying the Wilson/Plame fabrications - lock stock and barrel. A last gasp attempt to retain some credibility for v]Valerie, Joe and their Democrat enalblers.

[johnny7]

I heard it was in his car...

[My2Cents]

His queries, according to a CIA officer at the briefing, were pegged to the assumptions that Iraq had these weapons

He did. Some weapons he destroyed, some of the chemicals he dumped in the Euphrates, some he sent to Syria, and some he probably hid.

[Suzy Quzy]

I'd rather know what george TENET REALLY did at the CIA!!! And Mary O. McCarthy...what did SHE really do at the CIA....I could go on and on.

[Mo1]

Check this out

[LIConFem]

I hear she worked at the commissary, screaming, "Do you want fries with that?!?!?" in perpetuity.

[massgopguy]

George Tenet was in charge of "Slam Dunks".

[Pan_Yans Wife]

Hubris contains new information undermining the charge that she arranged this trip. In an interview with the authors, Douglas Rohn, a State Department officer who wrote a crucial memo related to the trip, acknowledges he may have inadvertently created a misimpression that her involvement was more significant than it had been.

Ha! Who has time to add up all of the misimpressions surrounding this woman who lurks in the shadows?

[Williams]

The article says Cheney went there specifically to be briefed on a covert program that was designed to pave the way for any invasion. Then Corn says Cheney's questions were geared toward there being an invasion - well duh, that was the topic.

[crazyhorse691]

career undercover officer

---

If you say it 3 times while clicking the heels of your ruby slippers it will become true.

[Quilla]

Some weapons he destroyed, some of the chemicals he dumped in the Euphrates, some he sent to Syria, and some he probably hid.

Oh please, how could Saddam hide something in that itty bitty desert?

[Suzy Quzy]

Yeah.....he WAS a slam dunk....he was always Bush's WEAKEST LINK next to POWELL.

[OldFriend]

eeeeewwwwwwwwww what a pig

Wasn't he married at the time?

[Bahbah]

Though Cheney was already looking toward war....

And I, David Corn, know this because, well, I can just read minds, and besides, it must be true because Cheney is evil, so there. Gosh, what a juvenile little creep this guy is.

[Mr. Lucky]

The author claims Ms. Plame was working in the basement of the CIA. Isn't working at the CIA kind of a dumb "cover" for a CIA undercover operative?

[taxesareforever]

David Corn trying to cover his butt.

[gridlock]

If this is all the Donks have go, they got nuthin...

[NonValueAdded]

Do I understand that article to say that after 9-11 the CIA started looking into Saddam's WMD programs? Weren't we conducting inspections for the 9 years prior to that? What the hell were they doing for all that time? Did the Clinton administration stop the CIA from doing its job all those years? Boo hoo hoo "I searched for two year and came up empty." Perhaps her best was not good enough. And saying she couldn't prove Saddam had WMD is NOT the same as saying he did not have them. Remember GWB's speech ... we cannot afford to take the risk that he has them.

As to the complaint that she was bound by secrecy and could not defend herself ... isn't it ironic that her husband relied upon the secrecy oaths of others, contradicting in public what he told the Senate in private. I'd still like to know what he said. I see no reason for it to remain classified now.

[Liberty Valance]

[Mr. Jeeves]

I guess they figure they can keep trying to sell this lie to the American public - that she was undercover.

History belongs to the best salesmen. Democrats have to keep busy rewriting it - they can't afford in the future to have anybody new to the story learn what they actually did.

[johnny7]

Valerie Plame's job... was to get her husband sent to Niger:

American Diplomat Returns From Baghdad Disappointed
January 14, 1991 (AP)

The diplomat who has been the top American representative in Baghdad since Iraq invaded Kuwait returned to the United States today vowing to continue to work to peace. "I must admit the failure of the Geneva talks was a real personal disappointment to me," Joseph C. Wilson 4th, charge d'affaires at the United States Embassy in the Iraqi capital, told reporters at Dulles International Airport near Washington. "As a diplomat, I believe that there could be a peaceful solution," Mr. Wilson said. His reference to the Geneva talks was to the meeting on Wednesday between Secretary of State James A. Baker 3d and Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz of Iraq.

[Richard Axtell]

Sorry Corn, you cannot lie your way out of a lie. There is too many factual reasons why Plame was not covered by the anti-disclosure law, and besides, it was an administration critic, NOT a Bush insider that "non-leaked" her non-covert name and blew her non-existant cover. Corn is trying to erase himself, like some sort of surreal cartoon character. Sorry David, you cannot repeal the past that glaringly illuminates you as a partisan hack and fraud. Good day.

[centurion316]

Let's see if I've got this straight: I'm an up and coming covert agent working for the CIA. I marry a minor celebrity from the State Department, and then allow him to publish my name as a part of his entry in Who's Who in America - never fearing that anyone with ever use that to blow my cover. Yeah, that's the ticket.

[johnny7]

Corn's teeth are kind'a... 'rat-like'.

[river rat]

David Corn is hysterical...

He has been permanently cast in the role of DNC flunky who'll believe ANYTHING.....

With this Plame/Wilson bullshit scam - aimed at bringing down an Administration and impacting our War against Islamists -- he shot his wad, jumped the shark, bought the farm..... Whatever term you like for - killed his credibility..

Corn has shit into his own Easter-basket, and attempting to convince us it's chocolate..

Let him eat it...

Semper Fi

[camas]

shacking up, at one time, could/would get you fired

[massgopguy]

George Tenet was in charge of "Slam Dunks".

[hgro]

Corny, corny,cornnnnnnn. Get a life Mr. David Corn.

[norton]

"When the Novak column ran, Valerie Wilson was in the process of changing her clandestine status from NOC to official cover, as she prepared for a new job in personnel management. Her aim, she told colleagues, was to put in time as an administrator--to rise up a notch or two--and then return to secret operations. But with her cover blown, she could never be undercover again."

Right, undercover personnel management agent....isn't that where you go if they already have a laundry officer?
But, she was 'planning to rise a notch or two and then return to secret operations in a year or two' (at a pay grade they'd never put in the field, after everyone had forgotten the entry in Who's Who, and after hubby had got his office next to President Gore).

[Tallguy]

What Corn chooses to ignore is that many briefings begin with a set of assumptions, ie. assume that the US is going to invade Iraq. Now tell me about the Iraqi capabilities, etc.

There may well have been other briefings in which the underlying assumption was that the US would not invade. But of course Mr. Corn won't mention those since there very existance would tend to undermine his storyline.

[Song of the South]

I heard it was in his car...

He must have really WOWED her with his "$14,000.00 wristwatch" ...   L O L !

 

SoS

[Bahbah]

Corn is no better than Jason Leopold. He just makes things up.

[Song of the South]

I marry a minor celebrity from the State Department, and then allow him to publish my name as a part of his entry in Who's Who in America -

Don't forget the appearance in the convertible in Vanity Fair. Oh, that's right ... she was "undercover" of a headscarf and sunglasses ...

What transparent creeps these two POSes are.

 

SoS

[tobyhill]

What was so secret about the CIA trying to find out about Iraq's WMDs?

[Chi-townChief]

Hmmm ... I thought Valerie was a table dancer for top secret CIA parties.

[johnny7]

Looks a little like an uglier...

[KenmcG414]

The special prosecutor has a lot of explaining to do. Going into the investigation he knew full well that Armitage was the source. He continued on, with a political bent to try to ensnare members of the admininistration, with the "what did you know and when did you know it".

[Wuli]

I am not trying to boost Valerie Plame or her political agenda in any way.

But, just reading the bare facts of what Corn describes about her work, from 1997 in particular when she joins the counter terrorism division to just after 9/11, when she is put on the Joint Task Force On Iraq,

apparently the CIA had not, until then (2001) conducted any sustained and focused effort to verify the public claims that the CIA had been giving to two administrations about Saddams WMD programs, for almost a decade.

Unless, that is, that the work of Valeris Plame's group is not the whole story.

[johnny7]

Good on'a 'laptop'.

[Bahbah]

Corn is trying to erase himself, like some sort of surreal cartoon character.

That is wonderful imagery and very descriptive.