Gene, George Tenet is the Director of the CIA. He works for the CIA. As far as I know, he is not an undercover agent.

Have I violated his undercover agent status by reporting this information to you?

In the same manner, Rove didn't out Plame unless he knew she was a secret agent, and then identified her as a secret agent to somebody else.

Since we know he didn't tell anybody that she was a secret agent, and since it looks like he didn't know she was a secret agent, I'm having trouble figuring out how he managed to reveal that she was a secret agent.

---

But okay, let's say you're right: by identifying Valerie Plame as a CIA employee, Rove threatened national security and "outed" her as a secret agent.

So where's your outrage for Joe Wilson, who was the first and most prominent person to say, in public, explicitly, that his wife wasn't just an emloyee, but a secret agent?

Not only does Wilson seem to have a better idea of his wife's actual role in the CIA than Rove did (as you say, Rove had no need to know she was a secret agent--which would explain why he never actually gave out that she was a secret agent), but he also revealed more than Rove did.

After all, it wasn't Rove on the cover of Vanity Fair, saying "yes, Valerie Plame is a secret agent"--it was Joe Wilson and Valerie Plame.

Please help me understand why what Rove did is worse than what Plame herself did.

You can not turn this arround. Rove and Libby did not act properly and may have not told the truth when they testified before th GJ. For example, Rove failed to tell the GJ of his conversation witrh Cooper when first questioned. It was not until a subsequent testimony before the GJ that he reveiled his conversation with Cooper. Now there is evidence that Rove aslo talked with Novak at the time he was writing his article that named Mrs Plame. What did Rove and Lobby tell Novak? Again, what the hell is the President's political advisor talking to the press about our CIA Agents? Rove was the person who identified Plame as a CIA Agent. That was classified and Rove having a clearence broke the security law by giving classified information when the person has a secutity clearence.

Rove was the person who identified Plame as a CIA Agent.

Identified to whom? And do NOT say Cooper as that has already been proven to be false!

That was classified and Rove having a clearence broke the security law by giving classified information when the person has a secutity clearence.

This I believe to also be false. If it was true in "any" sense Rove would most assuredly be the target of the special prosecutor's investigation! Which has proven that he is not.

Gene, you still haven't got to the part where "known CIA employee" = "undercover CIA agent".

Wake me up when you get to "yeah, I heard she works for the CIA" is worse than "my wife is an undercover CIA agent".

Wasn't Wilson claiming that Bush's SOU statement that British intelligence had information suggesting Iraq had sought nuclear materials from Niger was a lie and that his report proved it?

you said wilson blatantly misrepresented his original report. if you're referring to his new york times article entitled "what i didn't find in africa", wilson's summary of what he reported is in complete agreement with the reports generated by the agencies which debriefed him as reported by the senate committee's report.

what he said about the 'state of the union' speech is this:

Then, in January, President Bush, citing the British dossier, repeated the charges about Iraqi efforts to buy uranium from Africa.

The next day, I reminded a friend at the State Department of my trip and suggested that if the president had been referring to Niger, then his conclusion was not borne out by the facts as I understood them. He replied that perhaps the president was speaking about one of the other three African countries that produce uranium: Gabon, South Africa or Namibia. At the time, I accepted the explanation. I didn't know that in December, a month before the president's address, the State Department had published a fact sheet that mentioned the Niger case.

Those are the facts surrounding my efforts. The vice president's office asked a serious question. I was asked to help formulate the answer. I did so, and I have every confidence that the answer I provided was circulated to the appropriate officials within our government.

The question now is how that answer was or was not used by our political leadership. If my information was deemed inaccurate, I understand (though I would be very interested to know why). If, however, the information was ignored because it did not fit certain preconceptions about Iraq, then a legitimate argument can be made that we went to war under false pretenses

The Senate committee concluded that his report actually buttressed the suspicion that Iraq had sought to obtain such materials from Niger

there's no question iraq sent a trade delegation to niger in 1999. former niger prime minister mayaki said, according to wilson, he was contacted by someone who told mayaki the iraqis wanted to meet with him to discuss 'expanding commercial relations.' mayaki told wilson he interpreted that phrase to mean they wanted to buy uranium. that interpretation was never tested because, mayaki told wilson, nobody discussed uranium sales during the meeting.

how anyone--other than a psychic detective--could conclude anything on the basis of that anecdote is beyond me. before arriving at that conclusion, however, the committee notes: "because cia and dia analysts did not believe (wilson's) report added any new information to clarify the issue, they did not use the report to produce any further analytical products or highlight the report for policymakers."

it's gotta be one or the other right?

First, the President's reference was to the British report which was about Niger. The bottom line is there was NO NUCLEAR PROGRAM IN IEAQ!

Cooper did testify that Rove was the FIRST person to identify Plame as a CIA Agent. That was in the Time Article and he said so on NATIONAL TV! drmiler you are DEAD WRONG!!!!! Read the TIME article!!!!!

The CIA has said the outing of Plame was serious not only because of the sensetive issues Plame handled but because of all the contacts that she had during the time she was operating as a covert agent!

This issue of the Iraq war was set up from day one-- BEFORE 9/11 when it was a topic at the FIRST Bush Cabinet Meeting. Why would Bush have been talking about removing Saddam and the War on Terrorism before 9/11?

NO ONE HAS ANSWERED WHY ROVE WAS TALKING TO THE PRESS ABOUT OUR CIA AGENTS!!!!!!!!!! He was the Political Advisor!

The law that says that if a person with a security clearence ( which Rove and Libby had) provide classified information they violate the law. This is not the same law that protects CIA Agents. The facts about Rove's conversation with Cooper clearly show he did just that. If we knew what he said to Novak, we would most likely find the same thing! If I had done what Rove did when I was responsible for classified information, I would have lost my clearence and most likely been in a military court! Rove and Libby need to have the security clearences revoked and sent packing given what we know so far. If the also violated the letter of the law, they should go to jail!

Jeez Miler, do you have to always result to petty name calling when you're out of ammo?

I've been saying this over and over. If a rightie like drmiler resorts to name calling, he's patted on the back. A lefty like dabe gets booted off the forums. A freakin' disgusting double standard here at ju.

Back to the issue at hand, I do think that Rove and Libby will eventually be indicted. As much as dubya is trying to backtrack and flip flop on his rationale for keeping those two dogs, he'll evenutally have to back off. When they do get indicted, I wonder what the righties here will think. Oh, I know........ an indictment is not tantamount to a conviction. Uh oh, here's that double standard thing again. Clinton was indicted for lying to Congress about getting a blow job from his pet intern. But, he wasn't convicted. Hey, does that stop anyone from thinking he's guilty of errrr............ high crimes and misdeameaners? Nah, cuz lying about a blow job is NOT committing high crimes. Divulging a CIA operative's identity to the press is definitely a traitorous act. Double freaking standards.

I love Gene - he answers questions with questions & gets all huffy when his are ignored.

Cheers,
Daiwa

Cooper did testify that Rove was the FIRST person to identify Plame as a CIA Agent. That was in the Time Article and he said so on NATIONAL TV! drmiler you are DEAD WRONG!!!!! Read the TIME article!!!!!

I DID! you ignorant jerk! What the hell do you think I quoted to you? You know something...you're just not worth it! Your incipient arrogance is only matched by your over-bearing ignorance. And quite frankly you bore me to tears with it.

Jeez Miler, do you have to always result to petty name calling when you're out of ammo? I've been saying this over and over. If a rightie like drmiler resorts to name calling, he's patted on the back. A lefty like dabe gets booted off the forums. A freakin' disgusting double standard here at ju.

You know something.....if you're going to talk trash at least get it right! Dabe was booted for her foul mouth. I'm glad to see you cleaned it up dabe.

kingbee -

"Conclusion 13. The report on the former ambassador's trip to Niger, disseminated in
March 2002, did not change any analysts' assessments of the Iraq-Niger uranium deal. For
most analysts, the information in the report lent more credibility to the original Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA) reports on the uranium deal, but State Department Bureau of
Intelligence and Research (INR) analysts believed that the report supported their
assessment that Niger was unlikely to be willing or able to sell uranium to Iraq."

That's hardly what Wilson has been publicly braying ever since. He also claimed in his book that his wife had "nothing to do" with his getting the Niger job. Using the logic the left is applying to Rove, that's a hanging offense, since we now know she did have "something" to do with it. As Podesta claims about Rove, Wilson's credibility should be considered in tatters. Rove had no more role in "outting" Wilson's wife than Plame had in getting Wilson the job by that standard, so they should be leaving Rove as alone as they are leaving Wilson & his wife.

Cheers,
Daiwa

I'm sure all of you have seen it, but Gene has been hedging & laying the ground work in a number of recent replies for the possibility that Rove is legally in the clear here. You notice how he's been talking about how "complex" the law on outting is? His way of making sure Rove's guilt can be maintained and shouted from the mountaintops no matter what - if he's not charged, it'll be on purely technical grounds only and they'll still want his scalp.

Cheers,
Daiwa

That's hardly what Wilson has been publicly braying ever since

just so we're both on the same page, to which statement or statements are you referring?

as to the senate committee's conclusion that wilson's report lent additional credibility to the original reports, one has to wonder what the hell they were thinking...and why, if they were correct, the person or persons who found the original reports more credible after reading the wilson debriefing reports is/are still collecting a government paycheck.

the most important fact that can be ascertained by the committee's report about niger is the inr was right. not only was it right in this case...it has a much better record than the cia or any other intelligence agency overall.

what the committee report doesn't state outright--although it is readily apparent even on the first read--is there were people in the cia who were determined to make facts fit their opinions. how else to explain the persistence with which credibilty kept being reinvested in a document that is indisputably a very sloppy hoax?

if anything they provide the best argument i've seen to date for employing only women as analysts in the intelligence community because no woman i know woulda had even the slightest problem getting this one right.

let's look at the situation:

a. niger is the 2nd poorest country in the world. b. niger's major export is uranium. c. niger knew the us has plenty of money to buy uranium. d. niger also knew the us does not want its uranium getting into the hands of its enemies.

considering all of the above, if you were an official in the government of niger, what would you say in hopes of getting the us to commit to buying all of it's uranium?

'hey the iraqis might wanna buy some uranium from us. better you should buy it to keep it off the market.'

which is pretty much what wilson reported he was told according to the senate committee report.

It will be most interesting to see how the many policy issues that face us will play out in the comming years. The CIA outing, The trade deficit with CAFTA ( Has almost doubled inder the Bush), the Federal Deficit ( we had a balanced annual budget in 2000 and the national debt was $5.7 Trillion. In 2005, we have an annual budget deficit of between $500-600 Billion and the National debt is $8 Trillion), Social Security, Medicare, Medicade, Border Security ( 3 million came across our borders illegally last year), The Iraq war, the War on Terrorism, Globel Warmig, US Political discontent, Our relations with other nations, Better education (and just testing to see where we are is not BETTER education), Rebuilding our infrastructure, Living Wage Jobs ( we have 5 million more workers since 2000 that jobs that have been created), Access to Health Ins. ( 45 Million have NO coverage which is an increase of over 1 million since Jan 2001) . Every one of these issues faced Bush and so far, each issue has either gotten more serious or developed as a result of his policies ( Federal deficit and the Iraq War). There is NOT ONE of these issues that his policies have made better for the VAST MAJORITY of Americns! If you look at the Bush resume prior to becomming President you would see the VERY SAME PATTERN. The ONLY thing Bush was good at was Politics ( Gov. of Texas). He was not a good military or business person. He had NO Foreign policy experience. He was not a good student (according to his grades and my personal conversation with his Economics Professor at Harvard). He had problems with Drugs and Booze. If you had a resume of George W. Bush from his High School days up to being elected Governor of Texas, with the name " John Smith", he would not be considered for ANY position of any worth. Without his father's name and friends, GWB would be a Non-Person among the 300 million Americans!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! America would be FAR better off if he were an unknown. The mess he will leave behind will be a REAL PROBLEM for the next President and ALL Americans! Keep this list of issues ALL you Bush Supporters and see what will unfold in the years to come. Do not bother telling me I am wrong-- JUST WAIT AND SEE!!!

Jesus - we're back to the "not a good student" rant? Leave history to time and the historians, Gene, and get a grip.

Cheers,
Daiwa