Asymmetrical Information

I had not read the act in question until reading this post, which prompted me to look into it further. Doing a quick review I fail to see the five year constraint, or any discussion of being undercover in a foreign country. Can you point me to this information?

Also, you seem to be unaware that much of the concern written into law isn't for the life of the covert agent but also for their contacts and former contacts (would would become threatened) and the chilling impact on future covert actions because of changing attitudes of agents and potential contacts. Really, no body thinks Plame is at risk now - but thats not the only reason the law was written, was it?

Well, but the contacts would be endangered by the mere fact that she's now the wife of a US ambassador, no? If you have contact with an ambassador's wife, you're assumed to be speaking to the US government.

According to the WSJ editorial, the act was written mostly to persecute Agee.

From a practical standpoint, if the New York Times knows that you're a secret agent, then your cover stinks. CIA seems to be loaded with incompetents, so perhaps this is to be expected.

Jane - are we talking about a land where we believe in the rule of law or not? I don't recall seeing an exception that said "if the agent is married to ..."

BTW - she kept her own name, its been reported, to keep some distance from her husband, at least making the connections harder.

Should I assume that since you didn't comment on finding the WSJ caveats to the law actually in the law, you now suspect (as do I) that they were either wrong or making them up?

The text of the Act is here. The crime is defined in section 421; the "last five years" requirement is included in the definition of "covert agent" at section 426(4)(A)(ii).

However, the knowledge element of the crime is satisfied if the perp knows "that the information disclosed [by the perp] so identifies [the] covert agent and that the United States is taking affirmative measures to conceal [the] covert agent's intelligence relationship to the United States." That is, you don't have to know whether the person is technically covered by the Act; you just have to know that the person's intelligence relationship to the U.S. is a secret and that you are disclosing that relationship.

If the person whom you "out" turns out not to be a "covert agent" within the meaning of the Act, lucky you: you are in the same position as a person busted for holding coke that turns out (to your surprise) to be just crushed baby laxative.

But if the person is technically covered, you're in trouble: you can't argue that you didn't actually know whether the definition was met, just like a guy holding coke can't argue that he hadn't personally performed a chemical test to verify that he was holding cocaine.

But whether or not you accept my parsing of the Act, I would refer you to Occam's Razor: if there is an obvious statutory bar to any prosecution in this case, would the CIA have referred the case for prosecution? Would Fitzgerald still be pursuing it? Answer: no.

Clearly, dumb mistakes are made everywhere from time to time, but it is pretty unlikely that a seasoned federal prosecutor would make this particular mistake. A prosecutor's first step is to see if he can allege each of the elements of a crime, an analytical exercise that involves listing the elements and listing what facts support each element of the crime. If some element of the crime is patently unprovable, the prosecutor will not go forward. The argument of the WSJ piece is tantamount to claiming that Fitzgerald forgot to do that. That's not impossible, but even without looking at the Act you should be skeptical.

Why do you think that the WSJ knows more about the Plame situation than the CIA that referred the case, the DoJ that decided to investigate and appoint a special prosecutor, and Fitzgerald who has been looking at this for months?

Thanks! Thats a more complete text on the act that what I g00gled. Still, its clear that "5 years" is one arm of the definition, not the only (or a required) one.

Why do you think that the WSJ knows more about the Plame situation than the CIA that referred the case, the DoJ that decided to investigate and appoint a special prosecutor, and Fitzgerald who has been looking at this for months?

The people at CIA hate the Bush administration, so they have an obvious motive for referring this case. DOJ pursues lots of stupid cases. I don't know much about Fitzgerald, but I would guess he's under tremendous pressure to show that he took every step possible to do a complete investigation.

The whole thing basically looks like a stupid waste of resources motivated by lefties at the New York Times. The fact that no case has been brought yet indicates that it's probably a loser, and that Fitzgerald is trying to worm his way out of a tight spot by jailing journalists. The first amendment has greater legal authority than some dog's breakfast of a bill barfed up in the 70's to stifle a rogue CIA agent.

shamus writes:

The first amendment has greater legal authority than some dog's breakfast of a bill barfed up in the 70's to stifle a rogue CIA agent.

So the First Amendment would protect, say, espionage?

alkalai, I lack your confidence that seasoned prosecutors do not harrass individuals when there is a statutory bar to prosecution. I think federal prosecutors abuse their power with some regularity. I have no idea whether that is the case here.

I don't find the "There must have been a crime or the CIA wouldn't have referred it to the Justice Department" line of reasoning all that persuasive. The CIA has an institutional interest in discouraging the outing of its agents, covert or not. Similarly, with a high level of interest in the press, the Justice Department had an interest in avoiding the appearance of a whitewash. Given these leanings, it would not surprise me to learn that the CIA referred to the Justice Department a case the CIA found questionable and that the Justice Department hired an independent prosecutor for purely political reasons -- meaning the case would have been dropped if based solely on its merits.

On the other hand, the government needs to prove that the leaker knew Plame was a covert agent and that the leaker knew the government was trying to maintain Plame's covert status. I find, based on what little we "know" from the press reports, it hard to believe the government will be able to meet this burden of proof. In most accounts, Plame's identity came to the White House's attention when the White House asked why the good ambassador was sent to Niger (instead of someone competent). In response to this question, the CIA told the White House that the ambassador was recommended for the job by his wife, who happened to be with the CIA. Unless this disclosure also contained the warning: "But don't mention Plame's name. She's a covert agent and we are trying to keep her identity secret." It's extremely unlikely that the person receiving the information from the CIA would have known Plame's covert status. Why? Because the identity of covert agents is one of those need-to-know datums that no one in the White House would have had a need to know. Disclosure of Plame's identity by the CIA was prima facie evidence that the Agency was NOT trying to keep her under cover.

That does not mean no crime was committed. I'm saying I won't be surprised to learn that nothing illegal was done while I would be surprised to learn a crime was committed.

http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/features/2004/0412.sullivan.html

A piece by Amy Sullivan explaining why Bob Novak wasn't subpoenaed like other journalists.

As for Plame's covert identity, I was under the impression that she and her husband avoided showing up to public functions together and made every effort to hide their marriage connection. Then again, maybe someone that has "really been following" the story might clear this up.

Jane,
Do you believe everything you read? Sure sounds like it.

so this is off topic, but i figured i'd give you guys the heads up. www.CorzineForGovernor.com is on sale on eBay. Jon Corzine is, of course, a popular US Senator from NJ who is running for governor in 2005. He should easily win. Some Democrat currently leads the bidding at $9.99. This is a little ridiculous, we can't let the Democrats grab this domain name for so little. It could be put to good use in Republican hands.

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=11153&item=5737482070&rd=1&ssPageName=WDVW

Before the "outing", Wilson's biography at the Middle East Institute, where he worked, mentioned Plame by name. Apparently (it's hard to tell now), anyone googling her name would have found it. They may have made some slight effort not to connect themselves, but not much of one.

Shamus,

In other words, you hdon't really know what's happening.

Why don't we let those that know something about this decide. Like the DoJ and Fitzgerald.

Maintaining Plame was 'covert' carries about
as much water as saying Barney Frank was 'outed'
yet. I call bullshit. It is manufactured and
desgned for nothing else but embarassment for
the Administration. Period.

'STONKERED?' Not very often I get exposed to
a new word. Would you be so kind as to ...
conjugate this one?

Hey, at least you didn't "officially pronounce it bogus" about 2 days in.

And the last word goes to GT on this one.

"stonkered"? First it's British spelling and now it's British slang. For the love of Pete, what's next?

You might avoid unecessary understanding if you clearly labled which part of your posts are throwaway lines. Us Dummycrats are a little slow on the uptake.

Responding to Will Allen and David Walser:

Patrick Fitzgerald was a Bush-appointed U.S. Attorney before he was appointed special prosecutor in the Plame case. It's true that federal prosecutors sometimes go off the reservation, but we should be skeptical of a claim that he of all people would vigorously prosecute a case against the Bush administration if there were an obvious legal bar to the case.

I agree with David Walser's point that it may be difficult for Fitzgerald to show that the person in the White House who outed Plame to Novak knew that Valerie Plame's intelligence relationship with the U.S. was secret. I'm not sure I agree with David's summary of press accounts -- frankly, I don't recall that there have been press reports explaining how Plame's name actually got to the White House, as opposed to media speculation as to what might have happened -- but the scenario David describes certainly seems like one possibility.

(Some people have pointed to Novak's use of the word "operative" in his column outing Plame as evidence that Novak's White House source knew Plame's status was secret. I agree that that's some evidence pointing that way, but it's not overwhelming; there are other reasonable explanations -- e.g., perhaps Novak was trying to heat up his prose a bit.)

As I said, Alkalai, I don't pretend to know the particulars of this case.I merely contested your contention that prosecutors are very unlikely to abuse their power, and fellow citizens. Unfortunately, I think it is done with some regularity, and has become more so as the Federal government's criminal code has become ever-larger.

Jane, you should know better than to believe anything you read in the editoral pages of the Wall Street Journal. (Remember Vince Foster?)

It's quite possible that whoever outed Plame managed to avoid violating the IIPC. But that's not the only statute in play. The Espionage Act is still good law, and the Espionage Act case is open and shut as soon as Fitzgerald squeezes the name out of one of the reporters.

Well, but the contacts would be endangered by the mere fact that she's now the wife of a US ambassador, no? If you have contact with an ambassador's wife, you're assumed to be speaking to the US government.

Wilson retired from the Foreign Service in 1998, the same year he and Valerie Plame married. Ambassador, like Senator and President, is the sort of honorific that you take around with you for the rest of your life.

A modicum of research would have disclosed this.

To address further the point addressed by Randy Paul, it should be noted having an intelligence relationship with the U.S. government for purposes of this Act is not the same as having a secret identity a la Clark Kent.

If someone discovered and announced that the Russian ambassador to the U.N. was feeding information to the CIA, it would not be a defense for that person to say that every one knows who the Russian ambassador to the U.N. is.

Likewise, the fact that Valerie Plame could readily be identified as an actual person who lives in the greater D.C. area, pays taxes, subscribes to magazines and drives a Volvo has nothing to do with whether she has an intelligence relationship with the U.S. government.

Maybe you think it's a good idea simply to lock up newspaper writers who are critical of the CIA. I'd prefer to see some sort of evidence that there was a crime committed before putting people in jail.

Fitzgerald spent months investigating, but has nothing to show for it. The real story here is one of corruption and incompetence at CIA.

Here's the thing that bothers me the most about l'affaire Plame: what did Valerie Plame do for the United States government? I suppose that's part of the secret and part of the reason that we're in this mess (we're not supposed to know at all).

Some seem to think she was an operations officer for the clandestine service of the CIA. (In other words, she ran informants, etc.) Some seem to think she was an analyst. I really can't find anywhere in the blogosphere where this is answered definitively; instead, I read about her being 'an agent', 'an operative' or at times 'a deep-cover CIA officer.'

What does this all mean?

This all begs the question of whether or not it is good public policy for a member of the administration to out a CIA agent, legal or not.

Does WSJ (or Jane Galt) believe that GWB should not have made it a top priority to ID the leaker? That GWB should not have fired the leaker?

At the end of the day, the failure of responsibility is more significant than whether the actions merit prosecution.

Klug, there's a good explainer column on Slate.com about the various kinds of cover that CIA officials can take.

Valerie Plame was a NOC (non official cover) operative in the clandestine service of the CIA. The CIA has admitted to the fact that she joined the clandestine service at 22. And I say was, because now that her cover has been blown, there is no cover that she can be afforded to continue her work as an operative.

OK, I'll write really slowly so that you can
understand this.

There are some bad people out there. We use our
covert CIA people to recruit people to tell us
what the bad guys are doing, or planning to do
(e.g. trying to buy or steal nuclear materials).

What happens when we reveal the name of a CIA
covert operative such as Valerie Plame ?
Well, the bad guys go back and look for all the
people she met with throughout her career.
Then they take those people into dark rooms and
give them the Gitmo treatment or worse, to find
out what they might have said to Plame.
And when they've found out all they can, then
... well, it probably isn't nice.

Now suppose you're associated with the bad guys,
and sometime in the next 20 years a CIA covert
operative makes contact with you and suggests
doing a little deal on the side. You're thinking
about it, and then you think, "Hmmm... those
Americans can't keep a secret to save their goddamn lives - I prefer to keep red-hot needles
well way from my fingernails, I think I'll stay
with the bad guys and even warn them about this".

Now think back. How did it come about that we
didn't know what was going on in Iraq ? Well,
turns out we didn't have "human assets" inside
Iraq. How come we didn't know what Al Qaeda was
planning before 9/11 ? Turns out we didn't have
any informers inside Al Qaeda. So our BIGGEST
F*CKING PROBLEM in the whole world is that we
don't have good enough human intelligence, and
you're saying it doesn't matter if we cripple
our ability to recruit informers ?

I realize you would like to believe that the
right-wingers are doing ok, but surely in this
case you can see we have an issue which directly
affects the future security of the USA and should
transcend partisanship ?

Furthermore, I'd like to note that someone in
the administration told Ahmed Chalabi that we'd
broken the Iranian diplomatic code, and he
passed this information on to Tehran. That also
directly injures US security; and it's very
possible that it was the same person or group
of people who outed Valerie Plame. So pursuing
the culprits and getting them out of the
administration and revoking their security
clearance should be a top priority.

Is that clear enough ?

Fitzgerald spent months investigating, but has nothing to show for it.

You have no idea what Fitzgerald has to show for it, and neither does anyone else. That's because Fitzgerald, unlike many other prosecutors, and unlike most of the Federal government, including the present White House, is zealous about preventing leaks.

Hey, Cownie: if that was directed at me for asking a simple question, I'll say a couple of things.

First, I got my answer from Trickster (thanks, Trickster!) Second, I don't like your tone. Third, I don't think you can call me a 'right-winger' for asking the question. It was a serious question, answered seriously by Trickster. Finally, you can go fuck yourself, 'cause your self-righteousness is getting onto my clothes. (Sorry, Jane.)

Klug: my comments were aimed at Jane's original
"I don't care much" post, which I find to be a
distressingly obtuse position, when it's very
probable that people have died because a) they
trusted the US government and b) we failed them.
It was accidental that it came soon after your
question.

To add a little more detail to Trickster's
answer, I have read rumors that Valerie Plame
was gathering information on WMD activities,
and perhaps that her cover as an energy analyst
allowed her to travel to parts of the ex-USSR,
e.g. Azerbaijan. So I speculate that she was
trying to keep track of nuclear materials in
the ex-USSR. But we'll never know the whole
truth of this (if the CIA does its job).

If it's self-righteous to point out that people
have probably died because of the Plame outing,
then I'm guilty as charged.

Now go wash your clothes if it still bothers you.

As Mark Kleiman notes - we would not be surprised that the WSJ oped pages excused this treason. But you? Even if it did not technically violate one specific statute, this partisan affair that hurt national security is beneath contempt. And the perp is not worthy of having trash your reputation the way you just did. Sigh!

When do you think the CIA will forward to the DOJ
a referral for the most recent IIA violation. That
done by Jason Vest, first in the Nation, then the
Boston Globe, of our most recent covert ops chief;
which seems more in keeping with the spirit of the
act. Phillip Agee was and is a trator, whose
publication was a KGB front, as Mitrokhin has pointed out. He fingered men like Richard
Welch, out of spite, he burned every agent and
case officer he could get his hands on;When will the media, notice, and not approve as in the case of Laura Rozen.

Although I could argue the merits of the hypothetical case against the Plame leakers endlessly,this WSJ piece is daft.

First, as Mark Kleiman notes, there are other laws against leaking classified information beyond Intelligence Identities Protection Act cited here.

Secondly, forget about Valerie Plame and think about Martha Stewart - an aggressive prosecutor might bust some people for obstruction of justice or perjury even if the underlying incident was not indictable.

The idea that Fitzgerald should close up shop before he has mustered all the available evidence and had a chat with any leakers he can identify seems absurd.

The debate over whether this action was technically
illegal or not misses the most important point:
almost certainly one or more people high up in
the administration got hold of the secret
information that Valerie Plame was in the CIA,
and they deliberately told it to journalists and
encouraged them to print it. Whether or not any
law was violated (and it's hard for me to believe
there isn't any law against this kind of secrecy
violation), you want to make damn sure that
people with that attitude don't continue to have
access to your top national security secrets.
So you should investigate and fire people soonest,
regardless of the legal niceties.

We didn't investigate quickly, and you know
what ? A few months later someone let the
Iranians (through Ahmed Chalabi) know that we'd
broken their diplomatic code.

On top of that, there is another investigation
going on into whether drafts of national security
papers were somehow obtained by officials in
AIPAC.

Put these all together, and it's hard to escape the conclusion that somebody (or several people)
in the neocon camp within the higher levels of
the national security team is giving away our
secrets to all kinds of people.

Now I have some sympathy for the position that
all these spies and intelligence agencies are
completely screwed up and none of the secrets
are worth a damn - and if that's your position,
go ahead and say so. But if so, let's save the
roughly $50B/year we spend on CIA/DIA/NSA and
put it into something useful. In the meantime,
if we're paying $50B/year to have secrets, let's
make damn sure that we keep them secret.

It's hard to see why foreign intelligence services would have years of contact information for someone they thought was an innocent businessperson. But in any event, it's problematic to argue the statute protects contacts, vice agents, since it specifically allows agents to "out" themselves:

It shall not be an offense under section 421 of this title for an individual to disclose information that solely identifies himself as a covert agent.

News reports suggest the White House most likely learned of Plame through a State Department's intelligence memo--transmitted to Air Force One during an Africa trip--cited here. If that memo was in fact the source, and is as described, the outing clearly does not fall under the IIPC statute, nor does it appear to run afoul of any of the others.

Finally, it's a bit rich to argue that Wilson's leaks to various writers about his trip (and eventually penning an editorial himself) is fine, but an explanation of why he was chosen (which despite his denials eventually proved to be correct) is a danger to national security. And if we're actually interested in keeping secrets, it'd be nice to know why we're sending ex-Ambassadors on CIA missions without even asking them to sign non-disclosure forms.

Wel, classified info is leaked from all sorts of sources. Here are one, two from last fall, both of which looked like pre-election hits on Team Bush, probably leaked by disgruntled Congressional Dems, or disgruntled CIA folks. Are these also terrible?

Secondly, although Ms. Plame had been covert at one time, she had moved to a liason function after her marriage to a modestly prominent Ambassador, the birth of her kids, and (most dramatically) her possible compromise by the Agee leaks.

As the Senate Intel report made clear, she actually introduced her husband at an inter-agency meeting attended by intel types from State and Defense. They would have met her as a non-covert analyst, and may well have described her that way in subsequent conversations.

Cecil: "hard to see why foreign intelligence
agencies would ... innocent businessperson"

For heaven's sake! Don't you remember how the
KGB operated ? In a totalitarian state, you
keep files on *everybody*. For sure you keep
copious files on every foreigner who ever
enters the country for any reason. Now I'll
admit that most states aren't as determined and
efficient as the USSR and East Germany were at
their peak; but the principle still holds.
And you *never* throw those files away
(remember the Stasi files after the DDR fell ?)

As for quoting particular paragraphs of
particular statutes, this means nothing. I'm
sure there a multitude of statutes which can
be applied to this kind of activity. An article
by John Dean on findlaw.com mentioned in
particular a very broad statute on "conspiracy
to defraud the federal government" which can
apply to any situation where two or more
employees of the federal government engage in
any kind of activity during working hours
which is not part of their job.

And yes, I would agree that if Wilson's "leaks"
constituted a violation of any law or
improperly revealed any classified information,
then he should be subject to investigation and
punishment. The fact that this has not happened,
when the administration is clearly angry at him,
seems to me like strong evidence that he has
stayed within the law. After all what did he
say ? He said he travelled to Niger, met with
people there, and that his conclusion was that
the uranium story was impossible. Was any of
that information classified ?

Tom: so maybe Plame was representing the CIA at
a briefing. But you don't get briefings from
the CIA without having a security clearance,
and I'm pretty sure that involves legally
binding promises that you won't reveal anything
about briefings - not the contents, but also
not who attended.

Remember in this same administration we have Dick
Cheney going to the Supreme Court to avoid
having to reveal who attended meetings with his
energy task force.

Anyway, it's hard to believe that we would had
the appointment of a special prosecutor and a
lengthy grand jury investigation if the
outing of Plame didn't meet the standards of a
crime - the remaining questions are who did it ?
and can we prove it beyond reasonable doubt ?

"For heaven's sake! Don't you remember how the KGB operated ? In a totalitarian state, you keep files on *everybody*."

I think you're underestimating the effort of keeping track of every possible human contact between every visitor, even if you managed to have the "A" team following each one, which is impractical. And again, if the agent is allowed to out him/her self, it's obviously not the aim of the statute.

"I'm sure there a multitude of statutes which can be applied to this kind of activity. "

Then perhaps you could find one. Here's a good place to start--note the criminal statutes relate to defense information, crypto, diplomatic codes, and the IIPC add-on. There is also a catch-all for violating the Classified Nondisclosure Agreement, but that's civil, not criminal. IMHO, if the IIPC doesn't apply, it's unlikely any of the others do, either. And a casual review of past special prosecutions suggests your confidence that it must "meet the standards of a crime" is misplaced.

Cecil: of course it's difficult to track *every*
contact with foreigners. Nevertheless, agencies
like the KGB and the Stasi would try *very hard*
to do that. And if they only achieved 80%
success rather than 100%, well hell, that probably
means that outing a NOC leads to torture and death
for 80% of our assets, not 100%. So what's your
point ?

"The debate over whether this action was technically
illegal or not misses the most important point:
almost certainly one or more people high up in
the administration got hold of the secret
information that Valerie Plame was in the CIA,
and they deliberately told it to journalists and
encouraged them to print it...." Richard Cownie

Richard, this certainly puts the worst face on things and does not at all comport with my recollection of what has been reported. Novak has said that the tenor of his conversation with the leakers was an explanation of how Amb. Wilson got sent on the mission, NOT an attempt to punish Wilson. Could Novak have been duped? Of course. Still, in sorting this out, it's important to remember that it was Wilson who attributed nefarious motives to the leak -- not Novak. It's also wise to remember that Novak called the CIA to confirm that Plame worked there. He says he was NOT asked to leave her name out of the story. If her covert status was such a big deal to the CIA, you'd think he'd have been asked not to print her name.

So what do we have? Super smart Bush operatives who can pressure Novak into printing Plame's name without Novak being aware of the pressure or incompetence at the CIA followed by an inadvertent leak by the White House? (Incompetence in that the Agency gave the White House Plame's name when it need not have done so. When asked why Wilson was was sent, the CIA, if it was trying to protect Plame's identity, it should have simply said Wilson was recommended by someone who knew him well.) I vote for incompetence.

David: Novak's word on this is not to be trusted.
If the leak was as innocent as you claim, why did
5 other journalists refuse to publish it ?

And who cares *why* Wilson was sent to Niger ?
He was well qualified to investigate; he reported
that the story couldn't be true; and nobody
disputes that his assessment was correct.
As soon as experts looked at the Niger uranium
document, they quickly established that it was
a crude forgery.

The story in this is that Bush/Cheney continued
to peddle the Niger uranium scare story in the
SOTU long after everyone at CIA and NSC knew it
was bogus. And that has been admitted.

Your explanation might make sense if the
administration had been trying to explain why
they'd given the mission to someone who'd come
back with the wrong answer. But that wasn't the
case - Wilson was right.

"that probably means that outing a NOC leads to torture and death for 80% of our assets, not 100%. So what's your point ?"

The point is that it's unlikely there's a treasure trove of 5-10 year-old contact information held in enemy intelligence files (with Plame's name on them) just waiting to be sifted. This is hardly Agee redux, and it's a lot more likely it led to the "torture and death" of nobody. And, yet again, that's not the purpose of the statute.

From the beginning, the talking point on this one has been: Wilson leaked, but outing Plame was a felony. As David points out above, it's looking a lot more like somebody at CIA (or State) inadvertently divulged the Plame connection to the White House without bothering to let them know it was classified. If so, and it was subsequently passed to Novak to explain why Wilson was chosen (as part of the larger story, as Novak claims), it's not a felony, nor even a crime. If that's what happened, it's hard to get too excited about it. And assertions at this point that it's not important whether a crime was committed are not very persuasive.

"The story in this is that Bush/Cheney continued to peddle the Niger uranium scare story in the SOTU long after everyone at CIA and NSC knew it was bogus."

Hardly. After an exhaustive investigation, the Butler commission reported:

"We conclude that, on the basis of the intelligence assessments at the time, covering both Niger and the Democratic Republic of Congo, the statements on Iraqi attempts to buy uranium from Africa in the Government’s dossier, and by the Prime Minister in the House of Commons, were well-founded."

The White House rowback essentially says it can't confirm the information and shouldn't have relied on British Intelligence for the SOTU. Pretending it was all bogus, or that Wilson provided conclusive evidence, is nonsense.

>The point is that it's unlikely there's a treasure
>trove of 5-10 year-old contact information held in
>enemy intelligence files (with Plame's name on
>them) just waiting to be sifted. This is hardly
>Agee redux, and it's a lot more likely it led to
>the "torture and death" of

If you have some basis for claiming this, tell us
what it is. I think you're just saying what
you *hope* is true. I base my judgement on what
I've read about the working of the KGB and Stasi,
and also on reports that current and former CIA
people were extremely pissed about this whole
affair. So I think you're wrong.

>And assertions at this point that it's not
>important whether a crime was committed are not
>very persuasive.

Plame was outed. A few months later someone told
Ahmed Chalabi that we'd broken the Iranian
diplomatic code. Surely *that* was a big deal ?
And it's possible it was the same people who
did both. Hence my earlier statement that it's
important to find who it is that has this
at best casual, at worst traitorous, attitude
to national security secrets, and revoke their
security clearance as soon as possible. That
is important whether or not any particular crime
has been committed.

>The White House rowback essentially says it can't
>confirm the information and shouldn't have relied
>on British Intelligence for the SOTU. Pretending
>it was all bogus, or that Wilson provided
>conclusive evidence, is nonsense.

The White House admitted it shouldn't have been
in the SOTU. The documents are crude forgeries.
Wilson said it couldn't be true. The British
say they have some other evidence, but they've
never said what it is. The Butler report is
frankly, a whitewash. I'm from the UK originally
so I know the way the system works there - the
PM chooses someone to investigate and write an
"independent" report, but by choosing the right
person the PM can always get the result he wants.
Eventually after too many of these scandals and
cover-ups, the public loses confidence, the PM's
party decides he's a liability, and he/she gets
forced to resign. Blair is halfway down that
road.

Even if it were true (which it isn't), yellowcake
gets you nowhere unless you're building reactors
and/or doing large-scale enrichment - either of
which is easily detectable by the unavoidable
release of radioactive isotopes. So to anyone
with technical expertise, the whole thing was
blatant scare-mongering.

Cecil: one more issue with your "innocent
mistake" theory.

At this point I assume that Fitzgerald has
gone through all the phone logs and knows
exactly who may have talked to Novak
(and the other journalists) at the relevant
times. And he will have interviewed all
those people and asked them what, if anything,
they know about the outing of Plame.
In particular we know that Bush, Rove, and
Libby have all been questioned.

So there are 3 possibilities:

a) The culprit confessed. In that case why is
the investigation going on ? And why would
journalists need to be imprisoned to get
further evidence ?

b) The culprit took the Fifth and refused to
answer any questions. This would imply
that the culprit himself believes that his
actions may have been criminal - contrary
to your theory that this was an innocent
mistake and no crime was committed.

c) The culprit lied, exposing himself to a
charge of obstruction of justice and
maybe even perjury. Once again not likely
unless the culprit believed himself to be
criminally liable.

So which do you think it is ? And how would
you square this with your claim that no crime
was committed ?

The facts are against you; the law is against
you; your best bet is to pound the table :-)

"If you have some basis for claiming this, tell us what it is."

Right after you provide a basis for "outing a NOC leads to torture and death for 80% of our assets." (Or even one torture-murder related to this case.) But in fact, my point was in response to billms's above claim that protecting contacts was a main goal of the statute--which is, IMO, faulty.

"Hence my earlier statement that it's important to find who it is that has this at best casual, at worst traitorous, attitude to national security secrets, and revoke their security clearance as soon as possible. That is important whether or not any particular crime has been committed."

And again, my response would be that the majority of CIA leaks have been coming from the left (resulting in the current spate of resignations). And that the subject kerfluffle started with Wilson's CIA mission, followed by multiple leaks to columnists, and then his column. Your outrage seems awfully selective.

"The documents are crude forgeries. Wilson said it couldn't be true. The British say they have some other evidence, but they've never said what it is. "

The documents weren't obtained until nearly a year after Wilson's trip. Conflating the two issues is faulty, and Wilson's statements linking them obvious fabrications. Wilson never went to the Congo. However, there's no argument about the Iraqi trade delegation meetings (which even one of Wilson's contacts believed an overture to obtain yellowcake). In fact, the CIA interpreted Wilson's report as corroboration, and British Intelligence stands by their report. Best quote:

One Foreign Office official said: "Niger has two main exports - uranium and chickens. The Iraqi delegation did not go to Niger for chickens."

"I assume that Fitzgerald has gone through all the phone logs and knows exactly who may have talked to Novak (and the other journalists) at the relevant times."

Since at least two of them are appealing their contempt citations for refusing to reveal their sources, I'd suggest that assumption is incorrect. And sorry, but the whole "there's still an investigation going on, so they must be guilty" argument is lame.

And since there appears to be only two participants left here, and neither of us likely to convince the other, I'm quits on it as well. Best wishes, last word is yours, cheers.

>Right after you provide a basis for "outing a NOC
>leads to torture and death for 80% of our assets."

I already said this was based on my reading about
operations of totalitarian secret-police agencies
such as KGB and Stasi. Obviously they do their
business in secret, so I wouldn't expect to be
able to provide details of particular deaths
caused by this case.

>And again, my response would be that the majority
>of CIA leaks have been coming from the left
>resulting in the current spate of resignations).
>And that the subject kerfluffle started with
>Wilson's CIA mission, followed by multiple leaks
>to columnists, and then his column. Your outrage
>seems awfully selective.

And I've already said that I don't see that
Wilson released any secret information, but if
he did, he should be prosecuted for it.

As for the recent resignations from the CIA,
I am not aware that those were in any way related
to the leaks. It seemed rather that those guys
(who had a very good reputation) couldn't stand
being bossed around by Porter Goss's staffers.

>Pretending there was nothing to the initial
>British information, or that Wilson debunked it,
>is nonsense.

It's possible that Iraq *tried* to get uranium
from Niger. Wilson's investigation demonstrated
that it's impossible they could have succeeded.
All the evidence that's been revealed lies on the
spectrum between extremely weak and totally bogus.

>Since at least two of them are appealing their
>contempt citations for refusing to reveal their
>sources, I'd suggest that assumption is
>incorrect.

Bull. Fitzgerald knows who in the WH rang which
journalists at what time. He doesn't know the
*content* of those conversations. The person on
the WH end is either taking the Fifth, or lying.
Which is why he *has* to ask the journalists, as
a last resort.

I'm spelling it out as simply as I can, but
clearly you're going to believe what you want to believe. By the way, Don Rumsfeld has some
great bridges in Baghdad he'd like to
sell at a good price, if you want to make a good
investment.

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