Scooter's Field Trip (Huffington)

[Starfury]

Interesting theory on how Libby found out about Plame.

Lots of chatter about a classified State Department memo that was distributed and read aboard Air Force One the day after Joseph Wilson's New York Times Op-ed outed the White House and its bogus Niger claim. The memo, dated June 10, 2003, included the name of Wilson's wife Valerie Plame, noting she worked for the CIA and that that information should not be shared. The memo stands as a possible source for White House officials such as Karl Rove and Scooter Libby, both of whom were dishing to Time magazine's Matt Cooper about Wilson and Plame during the summer of 2003.

(...)

But there may be an easier explanation for how Libby, chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, found out Plame worked at the CIA—he simply visited her workplace.

(...)

But that's how Libby could have first become aware of Plame. Because according to an Oct. 1, 2003 USA Today article, "Plame was assigned to the CIA's Non-Proliferation Center, an organization of analysts, technical experts and former field operatives who work on detecting and, if possible, preventing foreign proliferation of weapons of mass destruction."

The article continued: "Vice President Cheney and his chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, met with officials at the Non-Proliferation Center before the invasion of Iraq to discuss reports that Iraq was seeking to buy uranium in Africa. A U.S. official with knowledge of those meetings said Plame did not attend. But the former U.S. intelligence official said she was involved in preparing materials for those meetings."

(...)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/theblog/archive/eric-boehlert/scooters-field-trip_4403.html

[shraby]

1. What a nugget of information!! n/t

[Jack Rabbit]

2. Very important

During the run-up to the war, Cheney's office served as sort of a clearing house for phony Iraq intel, with the VP pressuring the CIA to come up with better, stronger, more compelling intelligence to 'prove' Saddam Hussein' posed an imminent threat. One way Cheney made his feelings known was through a series of unprecedented trips to Langley, VA., where he met with CIA analysts. Cheney's office said the visits were routine. Inside the Agency, where everyone understood that if Cheney really wanted to look over CIA intel reports all he had to do was ask and they'd be delivered to his desk within hours, the heavy-handed sit-downs were seen as obvious attempts to intimidate the work being done.

That is exactly why Cheney and Libby should both be charged as war criminals. They knew very well that the case for war was thin and that facts and intelligence needed to be fixed around the policy. However, by pressuring analysts to say these things, rather than just asserting them, they set the intelligence community up to be the fall guy if things didn't work out after the invasion, as they did not.

[imenja]

3. but this wouldn't prove he knew the info was classified

the memo does

[Donailin]

4. Where's this info coming from? Who are the investigative reporters

and do they have sources adverse to the lying administration??

Sounds like it!!!

[Starfury]

5. Link to original 2003 USA Today story

War critic at center of CIA flap always vague on wife's job

By Bill Nichols and John Diamond, USA TODAY

WASHINGTON — On the guest list of the 1999 state dinner hosted by President Clinton for President Jerry Rawlings of Ghana, no occupation was listed for Valerie Wilson, the wife of Joseph C. Wilson IV, Clinton's top White House Africa analyst from 1997 to 1998.

Clinton administration colleagues of Joe Wilson say they always wondered what Valerie Wilson did. One former State Department official, who requested anonymity, says Wilson said his wife was an energy analyst. "But it was always very vague," the former official says.

The reason for Joe Wilson's evasiveness about his wife's career has become clear in the past three days. The Justice Department is investigating whether someone in the White House identified Valerie Wilson — known professionally by her maiden name, Valerie Plame — to the news media as a CIA operative.

(...)

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2003-09-30-couple_x.htm

[WhiteTara]

6. I knew Cheney wasn't at Langley for social

visits. Of course this came from him. Go Arianna.