Sources Tell 'Time' Bush Officials Learned Plame CIA Link Early

[shraby]

--and Not from Media

NEW YORK Time magazine is reporting today on its Web site that according to its sources "some" White House officials may have learned that CIA officer Valerie Plame was married to former ambassador Joseph Wilson "weeks before his July 6, 2003, Op-Ed piece criticizing the Administration. That prospect increases the chances that White House official Karl Rove and others learned about Plame from within the Administration rather than from media contacts. Rove has told investigators he believes he learned of her directly or indirectly from reporters, according to his lawyer."

(more)
<http://www.editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1001000732>

[iconoclastic cat]

1. Ah, the leaks continue!

I love this slow-drip brew we've got happening here. I totally think this is either Powell or the ticked off people in the CIA.

[H2O Man]

2. I believe the article

makes mention of Dick Armitage .......

[seemslikeadream]

3. mmmmmmm

Not in the administration?

[H2O Man]

4. Funny

that his name begins to pop up, eh?

[shraby]

5. Wasn't Armitage the one who had the memo

sent to Powell on Air Force One? Seems that's what I remember.

[H2O Man]

6. Yes,

though not likely for the reasons that a senior White House official's lawyer wants people to think when he leaked that information.

[seemslikeadream]

8. and Kate O'Beirn

got the "leaked" talking point just in time for the morning news show this morning, someone not in the adminstration.

[shraby]

9. Also if I remember right, Armitage was on the board

of Titan before Bush was selected. I'm sure it was Titan, the mercenary company that's providing armed men for Iraq.

[hang a left]

10. IMO in reading the article it seems to exonerate both

Powell and Armitage as anywhere near the original leakers. Also I am not sure that the two memos are the same. I caught this just yesterday:

http://www.alternet.org/story/23790 /

snip>

""Almost all of the memo is devoted to describing why State Department intelligence experts did not believe claims that Saddam Hussein had in the recent past sought to purchase uranium from Niger. Only two sentences in the seven-sentence paragraph mention Wilson's wife."

snip>

I thought the memo was a "work-up" on Wilson. Very interesting indeed.

And the next paragraph:

"Why State Department intelligence experts did not believe the claims"? So on Air Force One that July 7 was clear and present evidence not just about Valerie Plame's identity, but that one set of government intelligence experts was ready and willing to debunk the President's sixteen-word claim of the previous January (and so implicitly undermine the administration's whole case for a Saddamist nuclear arsenal in the making).

snip>

So there were intel people that were gonna back up Wilson's Op-Ed. The sweet smell of mutiny.

And my absolute favorite sentence:

"Here are the 16 words that could someday (farfetched as it may seem now) bring down an administration: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

snip>

[hang a left]

7. I read this on another thread..

And I went and searched for the article by Pincus that it references.

CIA Did Not Share Doubt on Iraq Data; Bush Used Report Of Uranium Bid;
Walter Pincus. The Washington Post. Washington, D.C.: Jun 12, 2003. pg. A.01


Full Text (1337 words)
Copyright The Washington Post Company Jun 12, 2003
A key component of President Bush's claim in his State of the Union address last January that Iraq had an active nuclear weapons program -- its alleged attempt to buy uranium in Niger -- was disputed by a CIA-directed mission to the central African nation in early 2002, according to senior administration officials and a former government official. But the CIA did not pass on the detailed results of its investigation to the White House or other government agencies, the officials said.

The CIA's failure to share what it knew, which has not been disclosed previously, was one of a number of steps in the Bush administration that helped keep the uranium story alive until the eve of the war in Iraq, when the United Nations' chief nuclear inspector told the Security Council that the claim was based on fabricated evidence.

A senior intelligence official said the CIA's action was the result of "extremely sloppy" handling of a central piece of evidence in the administration's case against then-Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. But, the official added, "It is only one fact and not the reason we went to war. There was a lot more."

However, a senior CIA analyst said the case "is indicative of larger problems" involving the handling of intelligence about Iraq's alleged chemical, biological and nuclear weapons programs and its links to al Qaeda, which the administration cited as justification for war. "Information not consistent with the administration agenda was discarded and information that was was not seriously scrutinized," the analyst said.



snip>

http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/washingtonpost/346162471.html?MAC=e3cee4c008d5d6fbcc45197440c7e1bd&did=346162471&FMT=FT&FMTS=FT&date=Jun+12%2C+2003&author=Walter+Pincus&pub=The+Washington+Post&printformat=&desc=CIA+Did+Not+Share+Doubt+on+Iraq+Data%3B+Bush+Used+Report+Of+Uranium+Bid