Robert Parry: New Clues in the Plame Mystery (Rove & Armitage Linked!)

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New Clues in the Plame Mystery

By Robert Parry
September 15, 2006
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2006/091506.html

A well-placed conservative source has added an important clue to the mystery of the Bush administration’s “outing” of CIA officer Valerie Plame after her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, became one of the first Establishment figures to accuse George W. Bush of having “twisted” intelligence to justify the Iraq War.

The source, who knows both White House political adviser Karl Rove and former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage, told me that the two men are much closer than many Washington insiders understand, that they developed a friendship and a working relationship when Bush was recruiting Colin Powell to be Secretary of State.

In those negotiations, Armitage stood in for Powell and Rove represented Bush – and after that, the two men provided a back channel for sensitive information to pass between the White House and the State Department, the source said.

The significance of this detail is that it undermines the current “conventional wisdom” among Washington pundits that Armitage acted alone – and innocently – in July 2003 when he disclosed Plame’s covert identity to right-wing columnist Robert Novak, who then got Rove to serve as a secondary source confirming the information from Armitage.
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This is one of the great investigative news sources. They’re short $15k of the $20 they need to make it through election 2006. If you can GIVE please:

http://www.consortiumnews.com/cont.html

[DURHAM D]

1. The media koolaid drinkers who keep portraying Armitage as

"not a partisan gunslinger" are full of shit. Armitage is the best of the best at dirty politics and a PNAC'er from the get go. Powell's relationship with Armitage is not as long as Armitage's relationship with the wing nuts of the party. Of course he was in with Rove and Cheney and they did the Plame thing together.

After the shit hit the fan it gave Rove an opportunity to diminish the role of Libby and Cheney with regard to Bush and advance himself and his loyalists. He just had to burn Libby. I always wondered, and now am certain, about the role of prosecutor Fitz. He became a tool of Rove and was essential in the plan to protect Bush by protecting Rove. The inside the WH plan (which needed help from Armitage because Powell would not have participated) was to diminish Cheney's sway with Bush. It worked - Condi was elevated, Karen Hughes still has a job, Rove was not indicted, Cheney has been sidelined, etc. etc. etc. and Libby was thrown under the bus as a result of this insider fight for power.

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4. Good analysis.

I thought that there was either a huge mistake in having Armitage take the fall or that it was part of some larger scheme. I'd hoped the former were true since Armitage would be a great witness. However, it seems more like the latter, which you outline so well. I wonder why we can't get this type of commentary and reporting in the corporate media. Oh, right, they all work for the same bias.

Excellent post.

[yellowcanine]

2. BBBBBBut that means NoFacts AGAIN had.......... NO FACTS!

Why am I not surprised?

[ktlyon]

3. I saw Armitage on TV early in this misadministration

I thought he was inarticulate and sounded like a bite of a thug.

[struggle4progress]

5. kick

:kick:

[slipslidingaway]

6. Kick.