Wednesday, July 30, 2003
Bush administration intentionally reveals undercover CIA operative
JULY 30, 2003
JOSH MARSHALL
Investigation? No, Bush should pick up the phone
Enough already. Enough excuse-making.
We know that two senior members of the Bush administration intentionally blew the cover of an undercover CIA officer whose job is combating weapons of mass destruction (WMD) proliferation. And their motivation was pure politics.
The president should find out who they are, reprimand them or, preferably, fire them. But instead of being outraged, he doesn’t even seem to care.
In case you’re not familiar with what I’m talking about, let me explain.
You know about Joe Wilson, the retired diplomat who traveled to Niger at the request of the CIA last year to get to the bottom of those claims about uranium sales to Iraq. Wilson says the White House disregarded or ignored his report debunking the allegations because it weakened their case that Saddam was rapidly rebuilding his nuclear weapons program.
After he went public with his charges in a New York Times op-ed article, the White House did all it could discredit Wilson’s mission by portraying him as a small-time operator whose investigation amounted to little. That’s no surprise, I guess. We’re all adults in this town. And if Wilson was going to hold the White House to account in public, he had to expect he’d get hit back.
But they didn’t stop there. To get back at Wilson, they blew the cover of his wife, Valerie Plame, a covert CIA operative specializing in tracking other countries’ efforts to acquire WMD.
How do we know this? Because two weeks ago syndicated columnist Robert Novak fingered Wilson’s wife as an “Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction” on the say-so of “two senior administration officials.” They told him Plame had suggested Wilson for the job.
Now, as it happens, it’s not even clear that this charge — that Wilson’s wife got him the gig in Niger — is true. The more relevant point, however, is that two senior administration officials publicized her identity which they almost certainly knew only because of their access to government secrets.
Consider what that means.
CIA agents work under different sorts of “cover.” There’s “official cover” — like when an agent is assigned to a U.S. embassy under the guise that he or she is a foreign service officer. Then there’s “nonofficial” cover — like when your business cards say you’re a manager at Acme Overseas Energy Corporation, but you really work for the CIA.
Plame is in that latter category.
By telling the world who she really works for, those senior administration officials not only jeopardized her career, they also compromised whatever operations she may have worked on, whatever networks she may have developed or relationships she may have cultivated. According to one highly-respected retired CIA officer who I spoke to Monday, revealing the identity of a “NOC” like Plame could literally put the lives of those who cooperated with her at risk. To reveal her identity, he told me, was “grossly irresponsible.”
Some of the White House’s spinners have been putting out the word that Plame may not that been that covert an agent after all. So maybe broadcasting her identity wasn’t such a big deal. This isn’t that easy an argument to refute since, precisely because Plame is a covert agent, it’s difficult to find out just what she does or precisely what her status is.
My sources tell me that Plame formerly worked abroad under nonofficial cover and has more recently worked stateside. Her position today may be less sensitive than it was when she worked abroad. But she still works on WMD proliferation issues. And, at a minimum, any operation that she may once have been involved in is probably now fatally compromised, any company which provided her cover is now exposed.
However that may be, though, just how deep undercover does a CIA operative have to be before blowing her cover becomes a problem?
So far, the White House’s reaction has been awfully weaselly. When pressed, Scott McClellan told reporters: “I’m saying no one was certainly given any authority to do anything of that nature, and I’ve seen no evidence to suggest there’s any truth to it.”
Frankly, I think Novak’s column gives us plenty of evidence. But who cares whether Andy Card signed off on it or not. It never should have happened at all — not least of which because it probably violated federal law. No one at the White House should think it’s okay to use the privileged information vouchsafed to them for national security reasons to settle political scores. And, after all, I thought WMD proliferation was something were concerned about.
To date, Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) have called for investigations and any number of other senators have told reporters that some sort of inquiry is probably in order. But let’s be honest. We don’t really need any investigations, with all their depositions and fancy lawyers and public grandstanding. If the president wanted to, he could wrap this up with a few quick phone calls. So why doesn’t he?
A few years back, this town sped into paroxysms over claims that the Clinton White House had used FBI files to smear its critics. Even according to Ken Starr, those charges turned out to be baseless. This outrage, on the other hand, actually happened. And, when you think about it, that sort of makes it worse.
JOSH MARSHALL
Investigation? No, Bush should pick up the phone
Enough already. Enough excuse-making.
We know that two senior members of the Bush administration intentionally blew the cover of an undercover CIA officer whose job is combating weapons of mass destruction (WMD) proliferation. And their motivation was pure politics.
The president should find out who they are, reprimand them or, preferably, fire them. But instead of being outraged, he doesn’t even seem to care.
In case you’re not familiar with what I’m talking about, let me explain.
You know about Joe Wilson, the retired diplomat who traveled to Niger at the request of the CIA last year to get to the bottom of those claims about uranium sales to Iraq. Wilson says the White House disregarded or ignored his report debunking the allegations because it weakened their case that Saddam was rapidly rebuilding his nuclear weapons program.
After he went public with his charges in a New York Times op-ed article, the White House did all it could discredit Wilson’s mission by portraying him as a small-time operator whose investigation amounted to little. That’s no surprise, I guess. We’re all adults in this town. And if Wilson was going to hold the White House to account in public, he had to expect he’d get hit back.
But they didn’t stop there. To get back at Wilson, they blew the cover of his wife, Valerie Plame, a covert CIA operative specializing in tracking other countries’ efforts to acquire WMD.
How do we know this? Because two weeks ago syndicated columnist Robert Novak fingered Wilson’s wife as an “Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction” on the say-so of “two senior administration officials.” They told him Plame had suggested Wilson for the job.
Now, as it happens, it’s not even clear that this charge — that Wilson’s wife got him the gig in Niger — is true. The more relevant point, however, is that two senior administration officials publicized her identity which they almost certainly knew only because of their access to government secrets.
Consider what that means.
CIA agents work under different sorts of “cover.” There’s “official cover” — like when an agent is assigned to a U.S. embassy under the guise that he or she is a foreign service officer. Then there’s “nonofficial” cover — like when your business cards say you’re a manager at Acme Overseas Energy Corporation, but you really work for the CIA.
Plame is in that latter category.
By telling the world who she really works for, those senior administration officials not only jeopardized her career, they also compromised whatever operations she may have worked on, whatever networks she may have developed or relationships she may have cultivated. According to one highly-respected retired CIA officer who I spoke to Monday, revealing the identity of a “NOC” like Plame could literally put the lives of those who cooperated with her at risk. To reveal her identity, he told me, was “grossly irresponsible.”
Some of the White House’s spinners have been putting out the word that Plame may not that been that covert an agent after all. So maybe broadcasting her identity wasn’t such a big deal. This isn’t that easy an argument to refute since, precisely because Plame is a covert agent, it’s difficult to find out just what she does or precisely what her status is.
My sources tell me that Plame formerly worked abroad under nonofficial cover and has more recently worked stateside. Her position today may be less sensitive than it was when she worked abroad. But she still works on WMD proliferation issues. And, at a minimum, any operation that she may once have been involved in is probably now fatally compromised, any company which provided her cover is now exposed.
However that may be, though, just how deep undercover does a CIA operative have to be before blowing her cover becomes a problem?
So far, the White House’s reaction has been awfully weaselly. When pressed, Scott McClellan told reporters: “I’m saying no one was certainly given any authority to do anything of that nature, and I’ve seen no evidence to suggest there’s any truth to it.”
Frankly, I think Novak’s column gives us plenty of evidence. But who cares whether Andy Card signed off on it or not. It never should have happened at all — not least of which because it probably violated federal law. No one at the White House should think it’s okay to use the privileged information vouchsafed to them for national security reasons to settle political scores. And, after all, I thought WMD proliferation was something were concerned about.
To date, Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) have called for investigations and any number of other senators have told reporters that some sort of inquiry is probably in order. But let’s be honest. We don’t really need any investigations, with all their depositions and fancy lawyers and public grandstanding. If the president wanted to, he could wrap this up with a few quick phone calls. So why doesn’t he?
A few years back, this town sped into paroxysms over claims that the Clinton White House had used FBI files to smear its critics. Even according to Ken Starr, those charges turned out to be baseless. This outrage, on the other hand, actually happened. And, when you think about it, that sort of makes it worse.
All articles in this archive are used under "fair use" as they are important to the national discussion of whether or not the people of this country are being deceived by their government. These articles are used as evidence in that discussion.
