What if the real crime was the revealing of Brewster Jennings?

[dansolo]

Everybody has been assuming that the revealing of Valerie Plame's identity was the reason that the CIA referred the case to the Justice Department. One of the talking points that gets repeated is that Valerie Wilson had not been "covert" for over five years, and therefore the law didn't apply. I wonder if that Valerie Plame is really a red herring, in terms of the prosecution, and the real crime that the CIA wanted investigated was the outing of Brewster Jennings as a CIA front company. Obviously they were still effectively covert within the past five years. By mentioning Brewster Jennings, any other covert operatives that were working there will also have had their covers blown, in addition to effectively shutting down whatever it is that they were doing. My guess is that the 8 redacted pages had to do more with Brewster Jennings and the effect that the outing had on it.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

1. I think outing Plame was a real crime too, but what if Brewster-Jennings

was the primary target? I keep thinking about that too.

[AuntiBush]

15. Same Here. It Screams Out At You When You Think About It.

And you don't have to think hard, either. What was Brewster-Jennings "on to" over there...

Kicked!

[Booster]

2. I'm positive their real goal was to out Brewster-Jennings because

BJ was on the trail of the 8 or 9 billion that was "misplaced". Gee, do you think Halliburton had anything to do with that? Cheney had to stop them somehow and he did a fine job of stopping them, maybe even getting some of our agents killed - oh, well, just collateral damage, huh, Cheney?

[KharmaTrain]

3. He Had To Know About That Cover

I suspected the outing of Brewster & Jennings was more collateral damage, but your post make me think different.

While I knew the conflict between interests of B&J and Haliburton, the missing billions didn't strike me...and blowing its cover at that time was the perfect smoke screen...something Crashcart would pull rather than the ham-handed partisan crap Rove was doing.

I'm firmly of the belief this entire fiasco sits right in Crashcart's lap...from the planning to the current stonewalling and smear campaigns. No one has profited so greatly, no one has so much to lose. Movtive & Opportunity????

[Booster]

9. Just something in my gut tells me Fitzpatrick is on to this and

that's why his list of people to question included everyone who was on that airplace to Africa.

[FreedomAngel82]

5. Very well could possibly be

I never thought about that. I think you might be onto something. And also with this company Rhandi told how in 2003 they were close to getting BinLaden and then her name was outed and the information was void and useless. And yes I think Cheney wanted to out them to stop following him because of the whole dealing with Iran ordeal in a time of war. So because this company was outed many people in the Bush group could be gone and this show will get even better.

[blm]

6. Anyone think the BFEE woke up one morning long ago and decided to STOP

dealing arms and aiding the proliferation of WMDs all over the world?

Check into BCCI and tell me what the chances are that they stopped. Even Bush pal Carlos Menem (Aregentine prez) was convicted in recent years of arms dealing illegally to Iran.

[AuntiBush]

16. Sure. What's American's Mid-East Intelligence & Tons of Iraqi Children's

lives, our troops and all our allies lives as much as our country's dismantling worth when Cheney and * * CO.'s profits are on the line.

I mean, hey...

[peacetalksforall]

4. It is not the entity of Brewster Jenning that was exposed, it was the

MISSION of the Brewster-Jennings set-up.

They were investigatning wmd and nuclear trafficking. That means stockpiling, mining, manufacturing, supplies, buying, selling, laundering. One of their key projects was following/trying to pin down the dealings of Dr. Khan of Pakistan and it involved Cheney, supposedly.

So, yes, the leak exposed if all. They closed it down. She was only operating under the cover of that company. There was more loss than just her career and family.

[MrSlayer]

7. It is probably the larger of the two crimes.

13 years of infiltration and intelligence down the drain. And these guys were the ones following the money trail of terrorism and nuclear proliferation. I think it was a two fold hit, first to attempt to hurt Wilson and second to get the dogs off of their own trail. These are bad, bad people with no morals who would not hesitate to slander or even murder multiple people to get their way. And they always seem to weasel out of whatever situation they get themselves into. I'm just sick of all this, sick to the core.

[Ysolde]

8. That's an angle that I hadn't even heard of.

And I thought I was pretty well informed. Sounds like you probably nailed it, though. It really fits all the pieces together. Thanks. I nominated it so that others could see it (just in case there are others out there who missed this connection, too).

[Disturbed]

10. Brewster-Jennings set-up

Many here on DU were saying that last year. I believe that it was the prime target. Mrs. Wilson second. Mr. Wilson third. A tripple destruct!

It would not have been mentioned if it was not the prime target. It was subtle and effective.

Cheney was behind this, no doubt in my mind.

[dmr]

19. Right

and there was also a discussion about the possibility they were planting WMDs in Iraq to CYA.

I think there are many cover-ups within this cover-up.

[tanyev]

26. A trifecta!

Dubya loves those trifectas.

[Literate Tar Heel]

11. I've thought this for a while

say what you want about the jackasses in charge, but it seems a little unlikely that they would have taken the risk of outing Plame solely to discredit Wilson, when really her role in the situation doesn't have anything at all to do with whether or not Wilson was telling the truth about the Niger documents (regardless of what spin they try to put on it) ... that's a great deal of risk (possible treason) for a very iffy reward at best with admittedly a little revenge tacked on

now if the Brewster Jennings operation was starting to get a little too close to some truly damaging and spectacular information regarding Cheney and/or others' involvement in the trafficking of WMD's or even conventional weapons in the region, then outing the entire operation would have been seen as a drastic, but probably necessary risk to keep the fire from getting too hot ... a lot easier to explain away a mention of an agent to a reporter than to explain away Cheney and his Halliburton buddies siphoning billions from the US and/or Iraqi treasuries

[Tigress DEM]

12. Well, effed up retalitory behavior is effed up retalitory behavior.

Whether they were screwing Plame only or Plame and Brewster or only Brester and not Plame.... they still were in the total wrong.

Fact is: no matter how you look at it, it was an act of treason against America. PERIOD.

[Peace Patriot]

13. See my post (#18) at

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x4188354

And consider these dates:

July 14, 2003: Plame outed.
July 18, 2003: Brit chief WMD expert, Dr. David Kelly, found dead, under extremely suspicious circumstances; office searched, computers confiscated.
July 22, 2003: Plame/CIA entire front company outed, all WMD projects disabled, and agents/contacts put at risk.

My guess: Kelly was onto a plot to PLANT WMDs (probably nukes) in Iraq. That's the reason for the second, wider outing (at greater risk of treason charges). They killed Kelly, because he found out about it, or foiled it. They found something in his computers maybe about Brewster-Jennings contacts being onto it, and outed them all.

July 7, 2003: Brit intel had discovered who the BBC whistleblower was--their chief WMD expert, Kelly; had interrogated him, and informed Blair that he "could say some uncomfortable things"--"COULD say," not HAD said.

I think that's what it is. They were going to plant the weapons--at enormous political benefit to Bush/Blair.

[Literate Tar Heel]

14. very likely possibility

I always wondered how they never managed to "find" any WMD's there

[sunnystarr]

20. I have my tin foil hat on ... what if

Kelly knew Valerie Plame and was familiar with the company since he was in the same field. We know he knew Judith Miller and communicated with her. So what if he shared some of what he knew with Miller and Plame and she informed her WH connections. A simple phone call could have pulled the plug on Kelly and the original plan to discredit Wilson was expanded to out Valerie and Brewster-Jennings.

I just feel in my gut that they're all connected.

[dalaigh lllama]

24. Yes, but...

If they destroyed opposition to a plot to plant WMDs in Iraq, then why didn't they plant them? Was the death of Kelly retaliatory or preventive?
Sometimes I feel like I'm trapped in a Ludlum novel...

[Peace Patriot]

27. My candidate for who foiled the plot to plant WMDs in Iraq is Kelly

himself. It suits his character. I think that kind of nasty cheating would have really pissed him off. (He was a real smart guy, and a tough guy, who had faced down Saddam Hussein and the Russians on WMD issues.) But who knows? There were so many things happening at that time--UN weapons inspectors leaving, US/UK inspectors arriving, chaos in Iraq (massive death; massive looting), and SO MANY countries and their foreign nationals who would have loved to rat out the US/UK--and so many possibilities internally as well--that you'd have to do an elaborate investigation to even start guessing who else might have known, or was in a position to stop it. (And think of all of Plame's covert contacts--many of whom are probably dead now.)

I think this is a good working hypothesis that may help other investigators, but there is absolutely no concrete evidence for my scenario (that I know of). I'm just speculating. All we know right now is that Kelly is probably dead because of something he "could say" (not HAD said), and that it occurred near simultaneously with the two Plame outings, thus disabling WMD experts and monitors in both the US and UK, at a time when WMDs were a sizzling hot issue.

I vaguely remember reading something--some kind of rumor, which I connect in my mind to other foreign troops in Iraq (Poles maybe?)--about somebody noticing something, an odd shipment, in Iraq's port? Maybe it was an Al-Jazeera report. I'll try a search at their site. But if my guess is right, the shipment never made it to Iraq.

I'm wondering right now, too, about Naeem Kahn--another spy that the Bushites outed (more recently). Seems like that's all the Bushites do is wreck investigations that might keep us all safe.

[flyarm]

28. there was a whistle blower who said the attempted

to plant wmd before war started but it was foiled..let me look for the article ..i have it in one of my files!!

[flyarm]

31. whistlerblower june 20 2003 about planting wmd in iraq!

old article link may not work..mods..i will post in entuirety because the link does not work most of time!!

please check out the date on this!!!!!!!!!!!!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
June 20, 2003



A DOD whistleblower reportedly details an attempt by a covert U.S. team to plant weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. The team was said to have been later killed by friendly fire due to CIA incompetence.

Pentagon Whistleblower Reveals CIA/ DoD Fiascos

IN a world exclusive, Al Martin Raw.com has published a news story about a Department of Defense whistleblower who has revealed that a US covert operations team had planted "Weapons of Mass Destruction" (WMDs) in Iraq -- then "lost" them when the team was killed by so-called "friendly fire."

The Pentagon whistleblower, Nelda Rogers, is a 28-year veteran debriefer for the Defense Department. She has become so concerned for her safety that she decided to tell the story about this latest CIA-military fiasco in Iraq.

According to Al Martin Raw.com, "Ms.Rogers is number two in the chain of command within this DoD special intelligence office. This is a ten-person debriefing unit within the central debriefing office for the Department of Defense.

The information that is being leaked out is information "obtained while she was in Germany heading up the debriefing of returning service personnel, involved in intelligence work in Iraq for the Department of Defense and/or the Central Intelligence Agency.

"According to Ms. Rogers, there was a covert military operation that took place both preceding and during the hostilities in Iraq," reports Al Martin Raw.com, an online subscriber-based news/analysis service which provides "Political, Economic and Financial Intelligence."

Al Martin is a retired Lt. Commander (US Navy), the author of a memoir called The Conspirators: Secrets of an Iran Contra Insider, and he is considered one of America's foremost experts on corporate and government fraud.

Ms. Rogers reports that this particular covert operation team was manned by ex-military personnel and that "the unit was paid through the Department of Agriculture in order to hide it, which is also very commonplace."
According to Al Martin Raw.com, "the Ag Department has often been used as a paymaster on behalf of the CIA, DIA, and NSA and others."

According to the Al Martin Raw.com story, another aspect of Ms. Rogers' report concerns a covert operation which was to locate the assets of Saddam Hussein and his family, including cash, gold bullion, jewelry and assorted valuable antiquities.

The problem became evident when "the operation in Iraq involved 100 people, all of whom apparently are now dead, having succumbed to so-called 'friendly fire.' The scope of this operation included the penetration of the Central Bank of Iraq, other large commercial banks in Baghdad, the Iraqi National Museum and certain presidential palaces where monies and bullion were secreted."

"They identified about $2 billion of cash in US dollars, another $150 million in Euros, in physical banknotes, and about another $100 million in sundry foreign currencies ranging from Yen to British Pounds," reports Al Martin.

"These people died, mostly in the same place in Baghdad, supposedly from a stray cruise missile or a combination of missiles and bombs that went astray," Martin continues. "There were supposedly 76 who died there and the other 24 died through a variety of 'friendly fire,' 'mistaken identity,' and some of them -- their whereabouts are simply unknown."

Ms. Rogers' story sound like an updated 21st Century version of Treasure Island meets Ali Baba and the Bush Cabal Thieves, writes Martin.
"This was a contingent of CIA/ DoD operatives, but it was really the CIA that bungled it, Ms. Rogers said. They were relying on the CIA's ability to organize an effort to seize these assets and to be able to extract these assets because the CIA claimed it had resources on the ground within the Iraqi army and the Iraqi government who had been paid. That turned out to be completely bogus. As usual."

"CIA people were supposed to be handling it," Martin continues. "They had a special 'black (unmarked) aircraft to fly it out. But none of that happened because the regular US Army showed up, stumbled onto it and everyone involved had to scramble.

These new Iraqi "Asset Seizures" go directly to the New US Ruling Junta. The US Viceroy in Iraq Paul Bremer is reportedly drinking Saddam Hussein's $2,000 a bottle Napoleon era brandy, smoking his expensive Davidoff cigars and he has even furnished his Baghdad office with Saddam's Napoleon era antique furniture

The Iraq Debacle du Jour has evidently been extensively documented by the DIA debriefing teams with "extensive tape recordings of interviews with the Iraqi returnees, the covert operatives (as well as their affidavits)."

Al Martin Raw.com has dubbed this "Operation Skim Iraq."



http://www.fpp.co.uk/online/03/06/Whistleblower.html





additonal articles on this whistleblower!

http://www.motherjones.com/news/dailymojo/2003/08/we_53...
http://www.americanpolitics.com/20040420Baker.html
http://www.fpp.co.uk/online/03/06/Whistleblower.html

Check this out too

http://www.americanfreepress.net/Bank_Heist.html

http://www.iwtnews.com /

[flyarm]

32. how can we get this whistleblower info to fitzgerald??

what i posted above?? he needs to get this person in under oath!!

[dalaigh lllama]

33. I am alternating between reading these posts

and reading "Chain of Command" by Hersh.

Every time I think I just cannot be shocked anymore by what these CRIMINALS are doing to our country and to the world, I find out I'm wrong. I've got that gasping-and-shaking-head-in-dismay syndrome...

[lfairban]

34. I remember that story

http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2003/06/266752.shtml

"The Pentagon whistleblower, Nelda Rogers, is a 28-year veteran debriefer for the Defense Department."

From my Iraq links:
http://home.columbus.rr.com/lfairban/Pages/Iraq.html

Also see this related article I just found:
http://www.trianglefreepress.org/sept03/

" “We believe it is in a secret CIA fund which will be used to mount further special services operations, such as tracking down Saddam Hussein,” said the Review’s publisher, Christopher Story.

Story is a former financial advisor to Lady Thatcher when she was Britain’s prime minister."

<snip>

" The Review states in its 25-page report that it had questioned a key member of the operation. She is identified as Nelda Rogers, a debriefing officer with the Defense Intelligence Agency."

[bunny planet]

17. especially since Novak wrote a second shorter piece in October 2003

making sure to name Plame's company, Brewster Jennings which he hadn't done in the first one.

[sunnystarr]

18. I think he first outed the company on July 22 (nt)

[bunny planet]

22. do you have a link?

[sunnystarr]

30. Actually I read it like 3 times yesterday ...

since I went to so many sites I don't remember where I was. Looking today, I found this at the end of a dkos post:

So the unknown agent in between was killed sometime between Feb. 5 and October 25, 2003, while the Plame Leak was July 14 and Novak's Brewster Jennings Leak was July 22.
http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2005/7/20/04918/1941

But searching Novak's aritcles on http://www.townhall.com/columnists/robertnovak/archive.shtml I found he didn't print anything on the 22nd in '03. However, the many places this has been printed may be referring to him on TV where he appears on a regular basis.

I was surprised because I thought it wasn't until Oct '03 but then again that's where he put it in print.

[goforit]

21. We shall see.

[leftofthedial]

23. it almost undoubtedly was

[Walt Starr]

25. That's the espionage and treason bit

and that's what'll bring down the administration.

[Jara sang]

29. A front company is usually just that.

It is a place a operative can put on their resume to say "I work here" Sometimes they don't conduct any real business at all. There was always "Air America Airlines" who provided transport to and from Central and So. America.

[hang a left]

35. Yeppers.

That is it. That is it. I recently read a couple of articles on DU that discussed that Plame had already been outed twice. Once in 1994 and then again in 1998(?). That is probably why she was working in Langley and had not been abroad in 5 years. That is why she was "fair game".