Who Told Dick Cheney?

[LiviaOlivia]

Who Told Dick Cheney?
By Larry Johnson
From: Politics
Oct 24, 2005 -- 10:33:43 PM EST

Thanks to the NY Times one more piece of the tangled web woven by White House operatives has unraveled and we now know that Vice President Cheney told Scooter Libby that Joe Wilson's wife worked at the CIA. It also seems pretty clear that the notes show that Libby lied to the Grand Jury when he claimed he learned the name from reporters. Libby faces big trouble. Although the NY Times story reports that Libby's notes indicate that George Tenet told Cheney about Plame, there are some intriguing unanswered questions. For starters it is highly unlikely that George Tenet showed up at the White House and just happened to know the name of Valerie Plame. Someone at the White House asked for it first. Tenet clearly came prepared to respond to a White House request. I'm sure the prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, knows who called CIA to ask the question.

I also doubt that Tenet used the name "Plame". Since Valerie married Joe Wilson she went by the name, Valerie Wilson. Someone introduced "Plame" into the equation. Who did the subsequent work up on Mrs. Wilson? Only Scooter? Unlikely. Look for other names to emerge in coming days that will reveal who helped work out the "background" info on Valerie Wilson.

What sweet irony! Dick Cheney had a hand in pushing the "nepotism" charge, you know, Joe Wilson only got the job because his wife hired him. Since Dick got his daughter a sweetheart deal at State Department he should not be out casting such stones or encouraging others to do so. See Dick. See Dick run. See Dick resign.

http://www.tpmcafe.com/story/2005/10/24/223343/27

[Carolab]

1. You mean it wasn't Tenet? I thought he was the scapegoat for everything.

Guess NOT!

[LiviaOlivia]

14. Are you

being ironic?

The NYT article states:

Mr. Libby's notes indicate that Mr. Cheney had gotten his information about Ms. Wilson from George J. Tenet, the director of central intelligence, in response to questions from the vice president about Mr. Wilson.

and

The former official said he strongly doubted that the White House learned about Ms. Wilson from Mr. Tenet.

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/24/politics/24cnd-leak.html?hp&ex=1130212800&en=db7d02c93e5913ef&ei=5094&partner=homepage


The point is how did Cheney know to ask Tenet? The NYT article didn't say that Tenet gave Cheney info on Plame just out of the blue and that is what Larry Johnson's post is asking.

[Carolab]

31. Responding (ironically, sarcastically) to this part of the OP:

"For starters it is highly unlikely that George Tenet showed up at the White House and just happened to know the name of Valerie Plame. Someone at the White House asked for it first. Tenet clearly came prepared to respond to a White House request. I'm sure the prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, knows who called CIA to ask the question."

[madinmaryland]

30. No. Clinton is the scapegoat.

Everything will come back to the Clenis, and will be his fault.

[savemefromdumbya]

2. Surely Mr Slam dunk would have known

I mean, wouldn't you think that if a conversation took place the staus of Plame would have been indicted?

[adarling]

3. they are saying tenet

on yahoo news it seems that he was the one who reported it...:(

[Catherine Vincent]

4. Bill Clinton?

[WhiteTara]

6. His penis!

[Nothing Without Hope]

9. The Clenis™ strikes yet again! n/t

[marbuc]

5. This thing reeks of John Bolton's slime

after all, his top aid used to work for the CIA.

[jefferson_dem]

7. Steve Clemons says that there may be a JOHN BOLTON connection.

SNIP

The question is how did Libby then churn up more info on Wilson without other parts of the "untrusted" bureaucracy spitting in his face or reporting his sins?

My hunch is that he went to trusted spear-carriers for Vice President Cheney -- the office and staff of Under Secretary of State John Bolton. Fred Fleitz, Bolton's chief of staff, maintained his CIA WINPAC portfolio and access as an active duty CIA staff member while he operated as Bolton's "acting" chief of staff. We know that Fleitz was a key part of the intelligence cherry-picking/stove-piping operation when it came to both the intel and policy response to various global WMD concerns -- in North Korea, Libya, Iran, and Iraq.

We also know that David Wurmser and John Hannah, who have both apparently cooperated after threats of legal action (i.e., time behind bars) with Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald worked both for John Bolton's operation and the Vice President's office.

I recently consulted with a number of senior State Department officials about the level of interaction between Vice President Cheney's office and John Bolton's office -- and was informed that there was "intense" exchange between them, constant. One said that "Bolton and his team were operatives of Vice President Cheney inside the State Department establishment -- there to subvert Armitage and Powell wherever they could, and if not subvert, then there to spy on the them and report back.

http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/001026.html

[PDittie]

20. Amazing. Thanks for linking this one. n/t

[marylanddem]

25. Doesn't it make you sick

to think of all these old shitheads getting together to hatch this evil scheme? Ugh.

[Nothing Without Hope]

8. My bet is BOLTON. His former chief aide had direct links into the CIA

and regularly fed Bolton "raw intel" to boost Bolton's goal of war with Iraq.

[MiniMe]

16. Remember the data on the 13 CIA agents that was brought up at...

his confirmation hearing? Of course the White House wouldn't release that information, thus the recess appointment.

[Nothing Without Hope]

17. So true. And when he visited Judy Miller in jail, he didn't HAVE to say

anything incriminating - his mere presence would remind her to keep her mouth shut or else.

I think Peace Patriot's speculation that Miller was Iraq specifically to report on the "discovery" of planted WMD's is quite possible and Bolton would be in on that too. David Kelly's last email was to Miller, apparently - who called the dogs on him?

In case you missed it, here's Peace Patriot's very interesting post:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=104x5049555

[Roxy66]

10. Very good article...a must read!!

[in_cog_ni_to]

11. My money's on Bolton. n/t

[Nothing Without Hope]

12. Sy Hersh on Bolton two years ago in his important "Stovepipe" article:

I’ll excerpt Hersh’s important 2003 “Stovepipe” article in the New Yorker which stirred up such a storm. I recommend the entire article. Bolton, of course, was one of the primary hawks driving the Iraq invasion. I believe he is one of the peopleat the center of all of this. I also believe that the Plame leak wasn't primarily about silencing or punishing Wilson, but about destroying the legitimate CIA WMD intelligence gathering by Plame and her cover company. We must not forget that she was not the only one burned - that entire program was shut down. That made it much easier for Bolton and the other neocons to stovepipe and publicize only cherry-picked, manipulated "information." Without "competition" from the REAL agents who were gathering information, the way was far more open to manufacturing only the "evidence" that supported the neocons' goals.

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?031027fa_fact

THE STOVEPIPE

How conflicts between the Bush Administration and the intelligence community marred the reporting on Iraq’s weapons.
by SEYMOUR M. HERSH
Issue of 2003-10-27
Posted 2003-10-20

(snip)

A few months after George Bush took office, Greg Thielmann, an expert on disarmament with the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research, or INR, was assigned to be the daily intelligence liaison to John Bolton, the Under-Secretary of State for Arms Control, who is a prominent conservative. Thielmann understood that his posting had been mandated by Secretary of State Colin Powell, who thought that every important State Department bureau should be assigned a daily intelligence officer. “Bolton was the guy with whom I had to do business,” Thielmann said. “We were going to provide him with all the information he was entitled to see. That’s what being a professional intelligence officer is all about.”

But, Thielmann told me, “Bolton seemed to be troubled because INR was not telling him what he wanted to hear.” Thielmann soon found himself shut out of Bolton’s early-morning staff meetings. “I was intercepted at the door of his office and told, ‘The Under-Secretary doesn’t need you to attend this meeting anymore.’” When Thielmann protested that he was there to provide intelligence input, the aide said, “The Under-Secretary wants to keep this in the family.”

Eventually, Thielmann said, Bolton demanded that he and his staff have direct electronic access to sensitive intelligence, such as foreign-agent reports and electronic intercepts. In previous Administrations, such data had been made available to under-secretaries only after it was analyzed, usually in the specially secured offices of INR. The whole point of the intelligence system in place, according to Thielmann, was “to prevent raw intelligence from getting to people who would be misled.” Bolton, however, wanted his aides to receive and assign intelligence analyses and assessments using the raw data. In essence, the under-secretary would be running his own intelligence operation, without any guidance or support. “He surrounded himself with a hand-chosen group of loyalists, and found a way to get C.I.A. information directly,” Thielmann said.

In a subsequent interview, Bolton acknowledged that he had changed the procedures for handling intelligence, in an effort to extend the scope of the classified materials available to his office. “I found that there was lots of stuff that I wasn’t getting and that the INR analysts weren’t including,” he told me. “I didn’t want it filtered. I wanted to see everything—to be fully informed. If that puts someone’s nose out of joint, sorry about that.” Bolton told me that he wanted to reach out to the intelligence community but that Thielmann had “invited himself” to his daily staff meetings. “This was my meeting with the four assistant secretaries who report to me, in preparation for the Secretary’s 8:30 a.m. staff meeting,” Bolton said. “This was within my family of bureaus. There was no place for INR or anyone else—the Human Resources Bureau or the Office of Foreign Buildings.”

(snip)

[PDittie]

21. Bolton's been fixing shit for BushCo

all over the country. He's more in love w/Dubya than Harriet Miers is.

Throw the sonuvabitch under the jail.

[bleever]

29. I don't want to be too greedy, but I sure hope Bolton is charged in

some connection with Traitorgate. God knows he played his part, with relish, bare knuckles, and an utter disdain for the legitimate government channels.


:hi: Hope. Another great post.

[Carolab]

13. Huffington Post had the stuff on Fleitz LAST month already

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0921-20.htm

Published on Wednesday, September 21, 2005 by the Huffington Post
Plamegate: The John Bolton Connection
by Arianna Huffington

**********

Here is just ONE tasty tidbit:

So could Ambassador Bolton actually be a target of Pat Fitzgerald's investigation? When considering this question, it's important to keep in mind that he's never been subpoenaed or questioned by the Plamegate grand jury -- and, as a lawyer who does work for the New York Times put it: "The target of a grand jury investigation would not ordinarily be subpoenaed to testify before the grand jury."

{snip}

So here is what we know: We know that Fleitz was the connection to the CIA, and that Bolton was close to Scooter Libby (and the rest of the neocons, of course) and Judy Miller (for whom he was an important source, although the last time she quoted him by name was in 1999 when he was at the American Enterprise Institute). And here is what we don't know: we don't know the pathway through which Plame's identity got into Novak's column. Did Miller learn about Plame from her old chum Bolton? Did she pass that info on to Libby? Or had Bolton already told Libby? And Rove? Or was it all just passed around and around in a cozy game of neocon phone tag? It makes one wonder more than ever before what Bolton and Miller talked about when he visited her in jail.

[geek tragedy]

15. The INR memo!!!!!

It was drafted on June 10--two days before Big Time and Libby had that meeting.

[Nothing Without Hope]

18. Kick- this is an important question. Let's hope we get the answer soon n/t

[Neil Lisst]

19. Powell told him on Air Force One ... showed him a report

Powell is believed to have testified he showed only two people the report while on Air Force One - Bush and Cheney.

Cheney told Scooter, who told Rove, and the two went to work doing what they do. They started calling journalists and getting their story out, all while thinking the journalist privilege would protect them. They believed that when they first testified, too, so they lied thinking they wouldn't get caught.

They did.

-----------
Plame Game, the spy who shagged me
http://www.webcomicsnation.com/neillisst/

[rateyes]

23. One big problem with that...

POTUS and VPOTUS do not travel together on the same plane. Cheney was not present, as far as I can recall, on that trip to Africa.

[Marie26]

24. Also, that memo named her as "Valerie Wilson"

And the name was leaked as "Valerie Plame," suggesting the leaker got the name from a different source.

[rateyes]

26. It doesn't mean, however, that Cheney didn't know...

the name "Plame," and that he didn't leak it....just that he didn't get it aboard AF1. Personally, I believe Cheney is up to his neck in this.

[Marie26]

27. Oh yeah, I agree

I agree that Cheney's responsible, & probably gave the order to his minions to talk to the press. But I'm curious about where he got the name from. The "legitimate" source, the State Dept. memo, doesn't appear to be the only place he got this info. I suspect he got this from "illegitimate" sources - the same illegitimate sources he used to build up fake intelligence for the Iraq War. Chalabi, Judith Miller, maybe even AIPAC? Who knows?

[cosmicdot]

32. AF1 has videoconferencing capability ...

just saying

not saying he was virtually there, but it's possible

Crawford ranch has VC, too.
“working vacation”

"Indeed, the Bush ranch is equipped with highly secure videoconferencing equipment and phones, and, according to White House officials, Bush has made use of them just about every day this month to talk to senior aides back in Washington and other administration officials scattered throughout the country."
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9148526/site/newsweek/

"...the ranch was wired for what Bush described in a 2003 tour of the ranch as "real time, secure videoconferencing" to be used for his briefings from the CIA and Dick Cheney."
http://www.tbrnews.org/Archives/a1877.htm

from an unrelatd WH briefing:

Here shortly some White House officials on board, including Joe Hagin, will be participating in a video conference call with federal and state officials from aboard Air Force One.

Q On the plane?

MR. McCLELLAN: Yes, from the plane. We have video conferencing capability on the plane.


http://www.whitehouse.gov/news/releases/2005/08/20050829-1.html


Bu$h is handed a map by Deputy Chief of Staff Joe Hagin, center, during a video teleconference with federal and state emergency management organizations on Hurricane Katrina from his Crawford, Texas ranch on Sunday August 28, 2005.

[Catrina]

28. Doesn't fit the timeline

The Cheney/Libby conversation was in June, AF1 went to Africa in July.

So the plot started way before the Novak outing or Joe Wilson's article.

That would have been after Kristoff's article not naming Joe Wilson, but reporting on a 'diplomat' who went to Africa and debunked the Niger Uraniium story.

I think Ari Fleischer may have reported to his bosses that he was being questioned by reporters about it, and that may have started the ball rolling.



There was another article also, showing that Condoleeza Rice knew about Plame in June. Libby and Judy Miller knew in June.

So, up to now, we thought that it was on AF1 that they all found out for the first time, when in fact it was not. Condi and Libby at least knew for a month, when Colin Powell brought the memo on board AF1, also Cheney we now know.

[DemReadingDU]

22. Recommended