Posted on 07/21/2005 6:20:00 PM PDT by beyond the sea
(CBS) There were new developments Thursday in the federal investigation of who leaked the identify of a CIA operative and blew her cover.
As CBS News Correspondent Gloria Borger reports, it turns out a key portion of a two-year-old State Department memo that is now at the center of the controversy was classified — and that could mean leaking it was a crime.
At the time the State Department wrote its memo, the administration's key rationale for war in Iraq was crumbling. No weapons of mass destruction had been found and some key intelligence used to make the administration's case had proven false. An internal war raged inside the administration over who was to blame.
The state department's 2003 memo was written to make one thing clear: don't blame us. But what now interests a federal grand jury is a single paragraph in that memo identifying "Valerie Wilson" as a CIA employee — and the wife of former ambassador Joe Wilson, who had gone to Africa to investigate Iraq's nuclear capability.
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...
Hold on, I'm going to finish the lousy book before I say any more.... I just picked it up again after my previous post and on the very next page Wilson says Novack backed off the CIA claim after Novack's article was published and told Wilson he 'misspoke'.... not that I would trust Wilson on Novack's supposed backtracking, but the article did refer to "two senior administration sources" re: Valerie Plame so there's more to this....
Furthermore, just because some bureaucrat labeled the paragraph secret does not actually mean that the information is secret. He may just be being careful and overclassified the paragraph. It isn't the marking that determines the classification, but the content - as astounding as that may seem.
LOL! Not anymore, especially on that pathetic network!
Dang---there has been a Senate Intelligence Committee investigation and they said in their conclusion that Wilson was a liar, about a lot of things....I just didn't know what.]
I do remember when this first came out, Novak was still on CNN's Crossfire....the day after it came out, he mentioned that it WASN'T a bigwig in the Bush Administration, and he also said that before he wrote the article, he called the CIA, to double-check to see if she was undercover, before he would use her name...so obviously they said she wasn't, or he wouldn't have used her name!!
"That "(S)" next to the restricted access paragraph doesn't necessarily mean that Plame's name was the restricted access item. The rules are that if anything in the paragraph is restricted access then the paragraph (or page) gets marked. That means someone else or something else that WAS secret could have been mentioned. As least as best as I understand."
You are absolutely correct about paragraph classification. I worked with classified stuff for 30+ years and that's the way it's done. Besides, who hasn't seen some classified FOIA document released but with the really classified parts of the various paragraphs redacted.
The twit Borger probably got her info from the same CIA sources that provided the story to the Washington Compost. The leakers are just more of the usual disgruntled anti-administration jerks in the CIA.
It seems the CIA and the State Department is chock a block with anti-administration, anti-American bozos. It's no wonder they missed the collapse of the Soviet Union and 9/11.
Plame was no undercover agent in the context of the federal law, nor are there other circumstances to make the release of her name--if that happened--any kind of crime. Even the lame stream media says as much in their amicus curiae brief to the SCOTUS. But in the same breath, they keep claiming a crime was committed in the release.
I guess they don't know that those who get their info from sources like Free Republic know the MSM has no clothes.
Judy Woodruff's husband. What a band of strangers.
Now it turns out that the law prohibiting identification of covert agents doesn't even apply to Mrs. Plame; her important tasks at the CIA, though not yet disclosed, may involve nothing more deadly than scissors and a paste pot. She isn't Mata Hari or Antonia Ford at all, but may be merely the pastemaster general.
It's a good column, titled "The Summer Squall is Hard Upon Us." I didn't see it posted here but may well have missed it. Good read, I think he hits the nail on the head.
Swiss cheese..... lotsa holes here.
Anything else????? Sorry for the ignorance. What is Raw Story? Website?
CBS is not credible. They tried to keep a straight face as they pretended the forged anti-Bush document in Rather-Gate was real for at least a week after everyone else know and was reporting the it was forged.
And then they refused to admit it was a forgery which they had presented as genuine, but instead claimed they could not verify the authenticity of the document!
Perhaps if we ignore incompetent and dishonest news organizations such as CBS and the Los Angeles Times, they will go away.
Any word if Rehnquist is retiring?
I've got an idea! 
Uh oh!
I'll go undercover and replace Gloria B. Then I'll get the dirt on SeeBS and out them all!
Bender, this is not one of your better ideas... But you... do seem somewhat... strangely fetching...
Quick, someone slap me... Hard!!!!
If you have the stomach to watch that news, you will see that they do it all the time.
I remember when reporters were asked to hold back on the adjectives as much as possible just to avoid personal opinion in a news report.
Colin Powell is the leaker.
bttt
it turns out a key portion of a two-year-old State Department memo that is now at the center of the controversy was classified — and that could mean leaking it was a crime.
Gloria Borger, July 21 2006:
According to a high level source, speaking on the condition of confidentiality, the State Department memo, though it was not classified afterall, was leaked by Karl Rove to Bob Novak as they were jay-walking on Pennsylvania Avenue. Therefore, it appears that this was a crime.
I wish all voters got their news here!
It's BS!
A single "key portion" isn't classified, the entire document would be classified.
How'd you get the document pray tell?
(Oh, to hear Colin Powell's name...)
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