OK- There was no agreement in the comments to the following statement:
No matter what, someone in the administration, inadvertantly or intentionally, compromised Plame’s position?
We are going to work this back until we all agree on something, and then sift forward step by step.
Can we all agree on this statement:
Valerie Plame worked for the CIA, was stationed in Washington at the time of her outing, and previously had been a covert agent.
If you agree with that statement, say “Yes” and nothing more. If you disagree, state “No” and why you disagree (with reputable links to back it up).
prob
Yes.
SoCalJustice
“was currently” … ? That’s a neat trick, even for the CIA.
Kidding.
Yes, I agree with the statement.
over it
Yes
Rick
Yes. Should add “some years” to “previously had been…” This towel-snapping site is some fun!
Cordially…
Demdude
Yes.
Tim F
Yep.
gratefulcub
yes
this is fun
Defense Guy
No, but only because I don’t know if she was ‘previously’ a covert agent. Previously to her outing or just at some point in the past?
Having said that I would like to say that printing the name of an intelligence agent in a national publication, when said agent is not part of the public face of the agency, is an act that should get your ass kicked.
prob
John, I would like to add an addendum to my above “Yes” answer: “Yes, except I’m not sure your statement works grammatically. I think “was currently stationed” is mixing past and present tense, so it’s a little confusing.”
Thanks…
nyrev
Yes
Defense Guy
This is where I get the ire for keeping us in the jury room. Sorry folks.
Tim F
I think the sentence should say, ‘…was stationed at the time of her outing…”
John Cole
Updated for the pedants.
:)
Vladi G
Yes
arkabee
yes
Trevor
Yes
SeesthroughIt
Yes
Mason
Very likely, yes.
Lamont
Does her working in the early 2000’s for a now-exposed CIA front company (Brewster-Jennings) not imply that her role was covert? Otherwise, why bother with the front company?
CaseyL
Yes.
BinkyBoy
Yes, you might be able to add “Weapons of Mass Destruction” in there as her area for the CIA to further narrow the scope.
Jim Rhoads (vnjagvet)
Yes.
Marcus Wellby
yes
Kimmitt
Yes.
Defense Guy
Here is why I am sticking to my stance until we learn more:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valerie_Plame
From the lengthy summary we get this:
From the Newseek article:
KC
Yes.
jmaier
Yes.
jmaier
Yes.
Harley
Yes
Mr Furious
Yup.
prob
Per “Defense Guy”:
Judging from the volume of information and opinion in that link I would have to say that you have employed a pretty select method of “cherry picking” here, sir.
JG
yes
ryu-oh
Yes
Defenseguy:
This has nothing to do with the question John Cole asked.
The question has nothing to do with Rove, or what status Rove thought she had, what his statments given to the press were, or the like.
Question is, can you agree to this statement?
Andrew J. Lazarus
Yes
Molly McRae
I don’t know what her status was but since the CIA requested the Justice Department investigation you would think they must have thought so.
Sojourner
I’m not sure about the “previously” part. It could be interpreted to mean that she had been at one time in her career but was not at the time of her outing.
neil
Defense Guy, if she wasn’t undercover then why did the CIA refer this case to Justice? Because of their seething hatred of Bush?
Mike
Darrell,
Why do you hate so much? Did Jesus teach you this? You seem to hate us so much that you can’t bring yourself to agree with us on John’s simple statements, which it appears the rest of us have agreed with and the facts DO support.
Mr Furious
Uh, yeah. not to venture off into Darrell-land, but every time somebody makes the case that the CIA instigated this and therefore it automatically has merit, it occurs to me that, yes, the CIA has no love lost for the
BushCheney White House, and would greatly enjoy a little payback.They have been the scapegoat for the whole intelligence failure (even though, it was a misuse-of-intelligence failure). In the run-up to the War, they were ignored, overruled, cherrypicked and bypassed to death.
It’s the fucking CIA, folks, not the Boy Scouts. There is no reason to believe they are pure and honest in their motives.
Mr Furious
That’s a “uh, yeah…” to Neil’s comment about the seething hatered of bush.
SamAm
Aye, and an agreement with Sojourner that her status at the time this happened isn’t settled. Was she still nominally in the employ of Brewster-Jennings? We know she was as late as her political donation to Al Gore.
ryu-oh
Actually, I’m curious how one gets from
to disagreeing with one of these statements:
Valerie Plame worked for the CIA
Valerie Plame was stationed in Washington at the time of her outing
Valerie Plame previously had been a covert agent.
Christie S.
yes
Anderson
Was Plame undercover?
Jim Allen
Yes
p.lukasiak
Yes.
(I suspect that JC is using this as a test to which of his readers have at least some connection to the reality-based community, and which are completely insane.)
Anderson
What I tried to say at the previous thread, but put much better by Mr. Furious.
That said, the fact that 3 judges on the D.C. court of appeals found this serious, strongly suggests that there’s a criminal case to be made. Sentelle and Henderson are solid conservatives (too much so IMHO).
Clever
Yes.
Ridge
No-
Plame listed her employer as Brewster-Jennings, not CIA, in tax returns, public political contirbution forms, in dealings with the community, and on travel documents to other nations where she met with people under her cover as a “consultant”. I’m sure her name and place of “employment” was also listed as such in public bios about Amb. Wilson.
Even if she was not on overseas assignment in July, 2003; her cover was still intact in places that mattered. When Rove told Cooper “Wilson’s wife was CIA” and Novak printed her name, all you would have to do would look up Wilson in a directory to get her name or look up Plame in any number of public data bases to get her listed employer.
Overseas, when they read that, they entered “Valerie Plame” in visa records, saw Brewster-Jennings as employer, looked up who she was seeing, and looked for anyone else who listed Brewster-Jennings as employer.
So not only Plame was blown, but any other covert operative working at Brewster-Jennings was blown and anyone they might have met. An entire operation geared towards protecting the US from WMDs was shot to hell to for transient poltical purposes.
In times of “War”, (as the White House likes to remind us), there is a name for that type of betrayal.
” The inadvertent disclosure of the name of a business affiliated with the CIA underscores the potential damage to the agency and its operatives caused by the leak of Plame’s identity. Intelligence officials have said that once Plame’s job as an undercover operative was revealed, other agency secrets could be unraveled and her sources might be compromised or endangered.
A former diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity said yesterday that every foreign intelligence service would run Plame’s name through its databases within hours of its publication to determine if she had visited their country and to reconstruct her activities.
“That’s why the agency is so sensitive about just publishing her name,” the former diplomat said. ”
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A40012-2003Oct3?language=printer
Ridge
Defense Guy
I can not be reliably expected to know why the CIA did what they did. In the interest of fairness and a strict interpretation of the question asked, I will change my answer to Yes.
Valerie Plame worked for the CIA —> Yes
was stationed in Washington at the time of her outing —> Yes (at least I think so)
and previously had been a covert agent —> Yes
You got your consensus John.
As for the cherry picking claim. I was attempting to show the intent, which is not part of the question, so it was more off topic than cherry picked. My apologies.
Defense Guy
OT but interesting:
from the wilkepedia article, refering to Wilson:
Interesting because while I hold a security clearance, that does not grant me the right to reveal classified information to others that do as well, unless permission is granted to do so. I suppose we can assume it was?
I also wonder if Wilson told his first wife, a French diplomat.
Rick
Darrell,
Why do you hate so much? Did Jesus teach you this? You seem to hate us so much that you can’t bring yourself to agree with us on John’s simple statements, which it appears the rest of us have agreed with and the facts DO support.
Mike,
An ironic application of the “are you still beating your wife” question there, since, unless John deleted a response, Darrell hasn’t weighed in here.
Suggests maybe it isn’t Darrell who has a case of the hates. Or who is “seeing things.” [Insert “off-meds” yawner here]
Cordially…
Darrell
Yes, the Brewster-Jennings front company name she gave has persuaded me to believe that she likely was at one time a a covert agent.. Not sure there is any way to get 100% firm establishment of that fact, but it does appear likely she was at some level undercover
Stormy70
Putting down cheese to say: yes, she must have been covert at one time, in the nineties. Or why would her husband put her maiden name out on his bio page last updated 1998? Any covert spy would have a fit about that, plus, did she bring her kids with her while spying, or does she let the nanny handle that chore?
Tim F
Ridge,
It sounds like your answer is ‘yes,’ at least insofar as JC’s question is concerned. An emphatic, authoritative yes at that.
Defense Guy
According to another agent, she was much better at keeping her identity a secret while on overseas assignment. That fact would indicate that she was at one time covert. If she was at the time of her outing, I have no way currently to know.
Source
Mike
Rick,
You are correct, my apologies to Darrell, who did not post here. My post was intended for Defenseguy, who has subsequently rethought and reposted and changed his response to yes.
BTW, this illustrates one of the biggest differences between liberals and the leadership of the republican party. You will never ever catch them admitting they were wrong and apologizing sincerely when that happens. If you see that, you will realize that they have forgotten their med’s (neocon koolaid). Please notice that I did not include all republicans, many of you are honest and honorable and would condemn their actions if you truly knew and understood what they are doing to this country. The main problem is that you do not know and most people are too lazy to find out. This includes most Democrats as well, since I am an independent.
ridge
Tim-
John’s orignial question was-
“Valerie Plame worked for the CIA, was stationed in Washington at the time of her outing, and previously had been a covert agent.”
“.. previously had been a covert agent.”
Nothing in the public record says she had broken cover and been acknowledged as a CIA employee (of which there are many public ones) before July, 2003 and the distribution of her name/real employer by the White House.
So she was not “previous” but a current covert agent before the White House outed her.
In that regard the answer must be no.
R
Darrell
Excellent link Defense guy. Really makes you wonder how incompetent the CIA is to do such an unbelievably pathetic job in making the Brewster Jennings company look legit. No filings from Brewster Jennings in any local or state records, no physical office, etc.. Something smells really fishy about this
Defense Guy
So this
Was meant for me eh? Not really sure there is an adequate response to that as you will be hard pressed to classify anything in my response as hate. Unless we are to so water down our definition of the term as to eliminate it
StupidityRules
Yes.
Rick
…this illustrates one of the biggest differences between liberals and the leadership of the republican party. You will never ever catch them admitting they were wrong and apologizing sincerely when that happens. If you see that, you will realize that they have forgotten their med’s (neocon koolaid). Please notice that I did not include all republicans, many of you are honest and honorable and would condemn their actions if you truly knew and understood what they are doing to this country.
Mike,
Please understand that I have a polar-opposite view. Either one of us is smug, or we both are.
Cordially…
Defense Guy
One of the funniest things about the current political situation is that while I have not changed my stance on American foreign policy one bit from when I was a Democrat, I now fit quite neatly into the neocon category. What a world.
Anderson
See what happens, people? Call Darrell names, no dice. Give him some evidence, it affects his opinion. Try it more often.
Moving on, Darrell says: Really makes you wonder how incompetent the CIA is to do such an unbelievably pathetic job in making the Brewster Jennings company look legit. No filings from Brewster Jennings in any local or state records, no physical office, etc.. Something smells really fishy about this.
CIA incompetence is not, of course, anything new. The latest example I saw was the Italian police apparently rounding up the ID’s of the CIA rendition operatives b/c they used their personal cell phones to make relevant calls.
Yes, one does wish that Brewster Jennings didn’t sound so much like a last-minute import/export company thought up by Art Vandelay.
Tim F
Ridge,
Thanks for clarifying your point. I believe that in 2002 she transitioned from NOC to State Department cover. Not sure how Brewster Jennings plays into that.
p.lukasiak
See what happens, people? Call Darrell names, no dice. Give him some evidence, it affects his opinion.
actually it doesn’t. Its not like Darrell hasn’t been exposed to tons of evidence on this and other subjects, yet still spews crap. Darrell changed his opinion because the other wingnuts were telling him that he was in la-la-land.
p.lukasiak
Thanks for clarifying your point. I believe that in 2002 she transitioned from NOC to State Department cover. Not sure how Brewster Jennings plays into that.
B-J would have been listed as a former employer if information about former employers would have been required for visa applications, etc.
this goes to the heart of the pointlessness of saying “everyone knew Plame was CIA”.
Valerie Plame “worked for a company called Brewster-Jennings” when she met Joe Wilson, and got married to him. Her Brewster-Jennings job required her to travel a great deal, and when she decided to have children, she sought other employment that would allow her to be at home on a daily basis. She wound up working for the CIA, but was given “State Department” cover because her husband was a diplomat. Maybe “everybody knew” that Plame was CIA, and maybe they didn’t. But there is no reason to think that “everybody knew” that Valerie Plame had spend years as an undercover operative for the CIA prior to meeting Joe Wilson, getting married to him, and having his children.
The question isn’t whether people knew that Plame worked for the CIA, the question is whether they knew she’d spent years as an NOC agent for the CIA.
Tim F
NOC agents gets some very particular training. If Rove ends up in chains it would be fitting if Plame gets a few hours to ‘interrogate’ the suspect.
Darrell
Thanks for your vote of confidence in my exposure to such vast sources of evidence, but as I confessed last night on another BJuice thread, I first heard about Plame making a campaign contribution giving the name Brewster Jennings. Previously, I had seen a National Review article out there which said Plame had listed the CIA, not Brewster-J on her Gore campaign contribution. The NR article appears to be incorrect
Look p.liksak, just because you’re a closed minded partisan hack, don’t assume everyone else is the same, ok?
prob
Defense Guy: Thank you for clarifying your position.
ridge
Tim-
There is a desperate attempt to minimize the seriousness of this issue and those who purposely damaged an intelligence asset/operation working on WMDs.
It doesn’t matter if Plame transferred to State in 2002 or not. Knowledgeable “consultants” might be expected to rotate through various think tanks, journals, private firms, and govt agencies as part of a cover. Or maybe she requested a Washington assignment once she got married. Even if she was in Washington since 2002, successful operations can last for years and lead to other initiatives.
So once the Plame=CIA connection was made public, then years of travel records, reports on conference receptions, sightings, etc… were accessed and re-evaluated. Anyone seen having lunch with Plame over the last 5-10 years is suspect. Anyone listed as working at the same place is suspect, anyone who shared a table at a conference with Plame or another B-J representative is suspect….who knows what was blown or what their information might have led to.
This is a big deal.
Now I have a bias about this Administration, but seen objectively, this is exactly the thing the various laws were enacted to prevent. That the area Plame and B-J was working on were WMDs make it doubly damaging.
Did Rove directly reveal this national security secret, conspire to do so, or was just part of a pattern of negligence and incompetence in handling classified material ? Fitzgerald is investigating and seems to be zealous in that effort. I hope he finds an answer soon and reinforces the seriousness necessary in handling information which could harm Americans.
R
Darrell
ridge, if Valerie Wilson/Plame was in such a delicate covert position, then explain why:
1. She would have permitted her husband to make such extreme high profile flamethrowing accusastions at the administration?..especially knowing she herself recommended her husband for the trip? many of Wilson’s accusations proven (by Senate intelligence committee findings) to be blatent lies. This is behavior entirely inconsistent with an agent who needs/wants to keep a low profile. Any plausible explanation for this?
and
2. why does it seem many in Washington media circles believe it was widely known that Plame was with the CIA?.. hardly consistent with a CIA agent who was active undercover or formerly covert.
you are so quick to jump on Rove, while ignoring these glaring inconsistencies
Ridge
Darrell-
(1)
Maybe Amb. Wilson didn’t tell her he was publishing the editorial.
Maybe *they* assumed a retired Ambassador could write an editorial and his carrer officer State Dept wife would not be punished.
Maybe they assumed that the political office of the White House would not have access to such highly sensitive information about CIA operatives.
Maybe they assumed if the political office in the White House did gain access to such sensitive information, their discretion and patriotism would not allow them to use it for poltical purposes.
Maybe they assumed that discretion and patriotism did not matter in the Bush White House but threats of Federal Court and prison might of kept them from disclosing such sensitive information.
Maybe none of this matters to Rove and crew and *THEY* assume W will pardon them just like Daddy did with the Iran-Contra crew, allowing some of the same faces to reappear in the current Admin. Considering what Rove and others must know about W and Cheney, that might be a reasonable assumption.
(2)
“2. why does it seem many in Washington media circles believe it was widely known that Plame was with the CIA?.”
The only place I have seen that is from GOP talking points. Did the people she worked with at State know that? Did her overseas friends know it? Did her college classmates? It certainly surprised her neighbors from news accounts. Why would you assume some low level Hill staffer knew it but not a neighbor who spoke to her daily?
Besides, the only people who count are those who she contacted concerning WMDs, did THEY and their govts know it? If not, then all the rest is chaff. Show me she was blown to her intellignece contacts and all of this becomes moot, until they we HAVE to act on the assumption her cover was intact.
R
DB
Yes
DB
Yes