Newsweek has added one more nail in the coffin for the talking point that argues that valerie plame was not a covert agent:
Newly released court papers could put holes in the defense of Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis (Scooter) Libby, in the Valerie Plame leak case. Lawyers for Libby, and White House allies, have repeatedly questioned whether Plame, the wife of White House critic Joe Wilson, really had covert status when she was outed to the media in July 2003. But special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald found that Plame had indeed done "covert work overseas" on counterproliferation matters in the past five years, and the CIA "was making specific efforts to conceal" her identity, according to newly released portions of a judge's opinion.
but don't expect this article to kill the meme. the meme is not the real problem. the real problem is the hosts the meme inhabits. as noted on blogs like firedoglake, eschaton and mia culpa, the most interesting question remaining seems to be: when will the apologists admit they've been wrong?
more in extended ...
the reemergence of this question brought back to mind an amusing exchange i had back in november with a clinton-hating friend of mine. i decided to reproduce that exchange to illustrate what goes for thinking by those denying plame's covert status.
my friend of course doesn't speak for all those who champion his viewpoint. but we've all tried arguing with thinkers of this type at one time or another, especially when discussing politics or religion. i will admit that his one saving grace is his ability not to take himself too seriously. i suspect he says many of the things he does for their shock value.
ME:
In other news: so what do you think of those indictments? (You know which indictments.) Smells like christmas to me (or rather "fitzmas", as people have been calling it).
HIM:
I confess to not caring much about the indictments. While it is illegal and wrong to "out" CIA agents, I simply have trouble believing that a blond white American chick could ever have had any viable "cover" in the world of arms dealers and nasty Arab governments seeking to obtain WMD. I mean, we're talking a completely male-dominated world of guys smoking big fat cigars and shagging prostitutes at strip clubs and shooting people and dumping their bodies in ditches. The only viable cover in that world would be AS a prostitute. And what's a CIA agent doing sending her husband anywhere? Of all the people in the State Dept.? Talk about blowing your cover. But now that her cover is blown, I guess she won't be able to unobtrusively meander down the streets of Baghdad or Damascus, casually chatting it up with Sunni insurgents. Of course, Plame/Wilson were right about there being no WMD, but the proper channel for that opinion is internal, or resigning in protest, not an Op-Ed in the newspaper. Soldiers are not supposed to make policy. In any event, I have given up on this administration anyway ... and I'm a REPUBLICAN. These guys are just total incompetents who spend money like Democrats. Perfect example of power corrupting. How about you? I remember you were a big Cheney fan.
[SIDENOTE: the last comment is intended to be sarcastic.]
ME:
Well I presume plame wasn't trying to pass herself off as a native ...
In any case that's all irrelevant, since the only person whose opinion matters is her employer's -- the cia -- and if they say she's covert, she's covert. End of discussion. They were the ones who gave the case to the justice dept. more importantly, if you caught or read any part of fitz's statement you'll notice he never said whether plame was covert. What he said was that her status was classified; meaning that covert or not, her employment with the cia in and of itself is classified and not for public dissemination. So the covert/overt question is also irrelevant. The whole issue is off limits.
Actually I was happy that bush got reelected. I knew that if kerry won, he's be the one getting all the blame for all the things that have predictably fallen apart thanks to bush and his cronies. I just like seeing credit where credit's due.
HIM:
That's like Clinton declaring his penis a matter of national security ... I ain't buyin' it. There was a great piece on Plame and the CIA in today's Wall St. Journal Op-Ed, text of which follows this.
THE PLAME KERFUFFLE
I Spy With My Little Eye . . .
. . . something beginning with the letter S. (Answer: Sloppy spooks.)
BY REUEL MARC GERECHT
Wednesday, November 9, 2005 12:01 a.m. EST
"And they [CIA employees] have to expect that when they do their jobs, that information about whether or not they are affiliated with the CIA will be protected. . . . And they run a risk when they work for the CIA that something bad could happen to them, but they have to make sure that they don't run the risk that something bad is going to happen to them from something done by their own fellow government employees."
So spoke Patrick Fitzgerald, special prosecutor in the Valerie Plame investigation, about the need to preserve the cover of CIA case officers. His sincere concern for the woman's lost camouflage can also be heard among commentators on both left and right, even among those who recognize that Ms. Plame's publicity-loving husband, Joseph "Yellowcake" Wilson, often doesn't have a firm grip on the truth. In particular, left-leaning liberals, not well known for their defense of the CIA, have charged forward to equate the maintenance of cover for Langley's operatives (who are, let us be frank, probably overwhelmingly antiwar and anti-Bush) with the country's national security. In their eyes, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, former chief of staff for the vice president, is thus guilty, at a minimum, of a politically motivated disregard for a clandestine public servant on the front lines of freedom.
Needless to say, Langley, which started this whole affair with its referral of Ms. Plame's "outing" to the Justice Department, couldn't agree more about the critical role of its secret operatives in the nation's defense. (If it weren't for the CIA's use of rendition and secret prison facilities, a return of 1950s-era liberal love for the clandestine service might be in the works.)
Truth be told, however, the agency doesn't care much at all about cover. Inside the CIA, serious case officers have often looked with horror and mirth upon the pathetic operational camouflage that is usually given to both "inside" officers (operatives who carry official, usually diplomatic, cover) and nonofficial-cover officers (the "NOC" cadre), who most often masquerade as businessmen. Yet Langley tenaciously guards the cover myth--that camouflage for case officers is of paramount importance to its operations and the health of its operatives.
Know the truth about cover--that it is the Achilles' heel of the clandestine service--and you will begin to appreciate how deeply dysfunctional the operations directorate has been for years. Only a profoundly unserious Counter-Proliferation Division would have sent Mr. Wilson on an eight-day walkabout in Niger to uncover the truth about uranium sales to Saddam Hussein and then allowed him to give an oral report.
* Fact: The vast majority of CIA officers overseas operate with little to no cover and have done so since the foundation of the post-World War II clandestine service in 1947. Most case officers posted abroad carry official cover, which usually means they serve as fake diplomats. The use of official cover allowed the agency to grow rapidly in the 1940s, when panic about Soviet expansionism was real and America's experience with espionage and global secret services was small. Developing an agency weighted in favor of nonofficial-cover officers would have been vastly more difficult, time-consuming, and not necessarily useful for a CIA aimed overwhelmingly at massive covert-action programs that did not require officers to be particularly stealthy in their daily routines.
Today, operational camouflage is usually shredded within weeks of a case officer's arrival at his station, since the manner, method and paperwork of operatives is just too different from real foreign-service officers. (Even if the CIA really wanted to fix this inadequate verisimilitude--and it does not--it probably couldn't reconcile the differing demands and bureaucracies of the two institutions.) Minimally competent foreign security services know a great deal of what occurs inside U.S. embassies and consulates since these institutions are completely dependent upon local employees--the State Department calls them "foreign-service nationals"--who, through patriotism or coercion, often report on the activities of their employers.
The situation is better with nonofficial-cover officers who live overseas, most often in rather civilized places where hunting for American NOCs hasn't been a major pursuit of the local security services and where the "outing" of an NOC wouldn't likely lead to the officer's physical harm or long-term imprisonment. As a general rule, the more dangerous the country, the less likely that NOCs, who don't benefit from diplomatic immunity, will be stationed or visit there. (Imagining CIA nonofficial operatives penetrating Islamic radical groups even after 9/11 isn't possible.) And the agency often gives nonofficial case officers atrociously bad cover that makes no sense, especially given today's targeting priorities. A temporary "NOC of convenience," which is what Ms. Plame might have at times been while serving at headquarters in the Counter-Proliferation Division, is a much less secure cover, workable on very short-term assignments overseas, but paper-thin when confronted by knowledgeable folks in the cover profession. Given the low standards the agency often uses with its HQ-based nonofficial cover, Ms. Plame probably could still, if she dyed and shortened her hair, fly overseas and do whatever she might have been doing before she recommended her husband for his Africa sojourn.
- Fact: The CIA knows that most of its officers overseas are "blown" to the local security and intelligence services, and not infrequently to the more astute members of the native press in countries where a real press exists, and to knowledgeable members of the foreign diplomatic community who have firsthand contact with the country's foreign and defense ministries (where real diplomats always spend more quality time and have greater access than do spooks). But our clandestine service chooses not to dwell on the obvious. Compromised officers continue to run agents, and to try to develop foreigners for recruitments, knowing full well that the host security services know who they are. Now, this may not be an enormous counterintelligence problem if case officers are working "compatible" targets, that is, working on foreigners whom the host country's security and intelligence services don't really care about (for example, the French internal security service probably would not express its displeasure at regular meetings of a Nigerian official with a known CIA officer in the cafés of Paris). However, it is more of an issue when the local security and intelligence service might object, and since the end of the Cold War, foreign security and intelligence services have become noticeably less generous in viewing CIA activity on their soil as being harmless or complementary to their own actions.
- Fact: Probably the vast majority of all sensitive assets--foreign agents whom the agency considers highly valuable and who might be in some trouble if exposed--have been handled by compromised officers. The agency attempts to compensate for the blown state of its officers by having case officers use "surveillance detection runs" (SDRs). In the Soviet Union, where the agency and the State Department actually tried hard to hide CIA identities, but where CIA officers inevitably became known, American operatives deployed long and challenging SDRs. In most other countries, where the internal security has been less daunting, case officers have often been much more lax in scrupulously designing runs, sometimes with very adverse consequences. "Inside" officers--those who serve inside official U.S. facilities--have too often damned their agents to jail or death because they did not, or could not, insulate themselves sufficiently from the prying eyes of a hostile service. But the CIA quite happily has lived with this state of affairs since any attempt to get serious about cover would destroy the clandestine service as we have known it for 58 years.
If we were to use the standards suggested by Mr. Fitzgerald--"It's a lot more serious than baseball. . . . The damage wasn't to one person. It wasn't just Valerie Wilson. It was done to all of us"--we would fire the operations management, which in practice has become a barely clandestine version of the State Department. The revealing of Valerie Plame's true employer has in all probability hurt no one overseas. You can rest assured that if her (most recent) outing had actually hurt an agent from her past, we would've heard about it through a CIA leak.
Langley's systemic sloppiness--the flimsiness of cover is but the tip of the iceberg of incompetence--has repeatedly destroyed agent networks and provoked "flaps" with some of our closest allies. A serious CIA would never have allowed Mr. Wilson to go on such an odd, short "fact finding" mission. It never would have allowed Ms. Plame potentially to expose herself by recommending such an overt mission for her mate, not known for his subtlety and discretion. With a CIA where cover really mattered, Mr. Libby would not now be indicted. But that's not what we have in the real world. We have an American left that hates George W. Bush and his vice president so much that they have become willing dupes in a surreal operational stage-play. You have to give credit to Langley: Overseas it may be incompetent; but in Washington, it can still con many into giving it the respect and consideration it doesn't deserve.
Mr. Gerecht, a former CIA case officer, is a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. He is a contributor to "The Future of American Intelligence," edited by Peter Berkowitz and just out from Hoover Institution Press.
ME:
After the last 5 years you don't really expect me to take seriously anything these whig/pnac/aei/osp neoclowns have to say, do you? They're very fond of spinning anything and everything into support for their agenda (or at least keep themselves out of jail), like how a burgeoning iran-controlled islamo-theocracy is actually a big win for democracy in the middle east and makes operation iraqi freedom worth all the blood & treasure.
Here's what gerecht had to say on meet the press (aug 21) about women's rights: U.S. democracy in 1900 didn't let women vote. If Iraqi democracy resembled that, we'd all be thrilled. I mean, women's social rights are not critical to the evolution of democracy.
talk about lowering the bar ...
And believe it or not there are other ex-cia officers who would beg to differ on gerecht's take on the plame affair:
18 July 2005
AN OPEN STATEMENT TO THE LEADERS OF THE UNITED STATES HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES AND THE SENATE.
The Honorable Dennis Hastert, Speaker, U.S. House of Representatives
The Honorable Nancy Pelosi, Minority Leader, U.S. House of Representatives
The Honorable Dr. William Frist, Majority Leader of the Senate
The Honorable Harry Reid, Minority Leader of the Senate
We, the undersigned former U.S. intelligence officers are concerned with the tone and substance of the public debate over the ongoing Department of Justice investigation into who leaked the name of Valerie Plame, wife of former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson IV, to syndicated columnist Robert Novak and other members of the media, which exposed her status as an undercover CIA officer. The disclosure of Ms. Plame's name was a shameful event in American history and, in our professional judgment, may have damaged U.S. national security and poses a threat to the ability of U.S. intelligence gathering using human sources. Any breach of the code of confidentiality and cover weakens the overall fabric of intelligence, and, directly or indirectly, jeopardizes the work and safety of intelligence workers and their sources.
The Republican National Committee has circulated talking points to supporters to use as part of a coordinated strategy to discredit Ambassador Joseph Wilson and his wife. As part of this campaign a common theme is the idea that Ambassador Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame was not undercover and deserved no protection. The following are four recent examples of this "talking point":
Michael Medved stated on Larry King Live on July 12, 2005, "And let's be honest about this. Mrs. Plame, Mrs. Wilson, had a desk job at Langley. She went back and forth every single day."
Victoria Toensing stated on a Fox News program with John Gibson on July 12, 2005 that, "Well, they weren't taking affirmative measures to protect that identity. They gave her a desk job in Langley. You don't really have somebody deep undercover going back and forth to Langley, where people can see them."
Ed Rodgers, Washington Lobbyist and former Republican official, said on July 13, 2005 on the Newshour with Jim Lehrer, "And also I think it is now a matter of established fact that Mrs. Plame was not a protected covert agent, and I don't think there's any meaningful investigation about that."
House majority whip Roy Blunt (R, Mo), on Face the Nation, July 17, 2005, "It certainly wouldn't be the first time that the CIA might have been overzealous in sort of maintaining the kind of top-secret definition on things longer than they needed to. You know, this was a job that the ambassador's wife had that she went to every day. It was a desk job. I think many people in Washington understood that her employment was at the CIA, and she went to that office every day."
These comments reveal an astonishing ignorance of the intelligence community and the role of cover. The fact is that there are thousands of U.S. intelligence officers who "work at a desk" in the Washington, D.C. area every day who are undercover. Some have official cover, and some have non-official cover. Both classes of cover must and should be protected.
While we are pleased that the U.S. Department of Justice is conducting an investigation and that the U.S. Attorney General has recused himself, we believe that the partisan attacks against Valerie Plame are sending a deeply discouraging message to the men and women who have agreed to work undercover for their nation's security.
We are not lawyers and are not qualified to determine whether the leakers technically violated the 1982 Intelligence Identities Protection Act. However, we are confident that Valerie Plame was working in a cover status and that our nation's leaders, regardless of political party, have a duty to protect all intelligence officers. We believe it is appropriate for the President to move proactively to dismiss from office or administratively punish any official who participated in any way in revealing Valerie Plame's status. Such an act by the President would send an unambiguous message that leaks of this nature will not be tolerated and would be consistent with his duties as the Commander-in-Chief.
We also believe it is important that Congress speak with one non-partisan voice on this issue. Intelligence officers should not be used as political footballs. In the case of Valerie Plame, she still works for the CIA and is not in a position to publicly defend her reputation and honor. We stand in her stead and ask that Republicans and Democrats honor her service to her country and stop the campaign of disparagement and innuendo aimed at discrediting Mrs. Wilson and her husband.
Our friends and colleagues have difficult jobs gathering the intelligence, which helps, for example, to prevent terrorist attacks against Americans at home and abroad. They sometimes face great personal risk and must spend long hours away from family and friends. They serve because they love this country and are committed to protecting it from threats from abroad and to defending the principles of liberty and freedom. They do not expect public acknowledgement for their work, but they do expect and deserve their government's protection of their covert status.
For the good of our country, we ask you to please stand up for every man and woman who works for the U.S. intelligence community and help protect their ability to live their cover.
Sincerely yours,
_____________
Larry C. Johnson, former Analyst, CIA
JOINED BY:
Mr. Brent Cavan, former Analyst, CIA
Mr. Vince Cannistraro, former Case Officer, CIA
Mr. Michael Grimaldi, former Analyst, CIA
Mr. Mel Goodman, former senior Analyst, CIA
Col. W. Patrick Lang (US Army retired), former Director, Defense Humint Services, DIA
Mr. David MacMichael, former senior estimates officer, National Intelligence Council, CIA
Mr. James Marcinkowski, former Case Officer, CIA
Mr. Ray McGovern, former senior Analyst and PDB Briefer, CIA
Mr. Jim Smith, former Case Officer, CIA
Mr. William C. Wagner, former Case Officer, CIA
HIM:
If I do something unethical, my company is no longer expected to protect me or to pay the legal costs of defending me. The bond has been broken. "Cover" has been broken. I am persona non grata. That is essentially what occurred when Plame/Wilson undertook what appear to be political activities aimed at discrediting their boss, the President of the United States. Plame didn't send a politically neutral WMD expert to snoop around Niger, she sent her HUSBAND, who as a Clinton-appointed ambassador, was clearly partisan. Ambassadorial postings are 99% political. The best Foreign Service Officers working their entire lives in the State Department, fluent in 20 languages, brilliant diplomatic skills, etc., NEVER receive Ambassadorial postings, unless they go political. Even then, it is hard, because Ambassadorial postings almost always go to the wealthiest contributors. Wilson is a rare breed who made it to Ambassador from within the State Dept., which meant that Clinton would only have appointed him if he was a real shit - excuse my french - willing to do anything for his boss. Ambassadors nominally report to the Sec. State, but really report to the President. They are the President's personal representative. Not to be cynical, but Bill Clinton was all politics (brilliant at it, I might add). So, yes, I would tend to view the sending of a Clinton mole to Niger as unethical, if not illegal. But it has worked out brilliantly for Clinton and the Democrats. Finally, the one thing I don't understand is, why wasn't Cheney smart enough to "order" the Army to find WMD in Iraq. "General, the President and I know there are WMD in Iraq. We have provided you with truckloads of generic nerve-gas cannisters and uranium fuel rods marked "Iraqi Army" so that you will know what to look for [wink, wink]. Do we understand one another?"
ME:
Fudging the meaning of "cover" ain't gonna resuscitate that dead horse you're flogging. plame's employer has not accused her or her husband of any wrongdoing. Fitz hasn't even hinted at any possible wrongdoing on their part.
But I guess the white house agrees with you, since cheney, libby, rove, rice et al took that very legitimate accusation straight to the public with appearances on meet the press and 60 minutes, instead of doing something a more ethically-challenged administration might have done, like sneaking around and dropping hints about classified info to a select group of media hacks and then denying any involvement whatsoever.
Interesting comment about wmd -- I guess planting wmd in iraq is something even this administration can't do, cause I'm sure they would have tried it if they could.
[SIDENOTE: more on attempts to plant wmd.]
HIM:
I say this without holding a partisan angle, since I don't give a damn, but perhaps Plame and Wilson should be charged with something. They are why, at most companies, husbands and wives are not allowed to work together.
ME:
You're a stubborn fellow -- what would you possibly charge them with?
HIM:
I believe it is unethical if not illegal for one spouse to cause the employment of the other spouse, especially if the spouse (Ambassador Wilson), is unqualified for the mission. I smell a rat, and many Americans do, too. Whether or not there were actually WMD is irrelevant to the ethical violations of the Plame/Wilson situation. Now, undoubtedly, some shyster lawyer would argue vehemently that this was not a violation of the law. However, to quote the motto of the U. of P. : "Leges sine moribus vanae" (Laws without morals are in vain).
ME:
so you're not only stubborn, you're self-contradictory -- you can't cite any laws they've broken or even call their behavior illegal, but you're calling anyone who doesn't think laws were in fact broken a shyster ...
HIM:
Don't bother me with facts. You sound like my wife, who says of me: "Frequently wrong; never in doubt." I keep telling her that the mark of a successful executive is the ability to make snap decisions with incomplete facts, like Capt. Kirk. If I was in charge, Plame and Wilson would already be swinging from a rope(s), and Scooter Libby would be at the Russian front. Do you suppose that the great Stalin got bogged down in rules of evidence and "guilt or innocence" at Bukharin's and Zinoviev's trials in the 1930's? Please!.