Joseph Wilson's wife outed as CIA agent
Louis Proyect
lnp3 at panix.com
Tue Jul 22 09:16:11 MDT 2003
(This has Watergate possibilities, in my opinion.)
NY Times Op-Ed, July 22, 2003
Who's Unpatriotic Now?
By PAUL KRUGMAN
And while we're on the subject of patriotism, let's talk about the
affair of Joseph Wilson's wife. Mr. Wilson is the former ambassador who
was sent to Niger by the C.I.A. to investigate reports of attempted
Iraqi uranium purchases and who recently went public with his findings.
Since then administration allies have sought to discredit him — it's
unpleasant stuff. But here's the kicker: both the columnist Robert Novak
and Time magazine say that administration officials told them that they
believed that Mr. Wilson had been chosen through the influence of his
wife, whom they identified as a C.I.A. operative.
Think about that: if their characterization of Mr. Wilson's wife is true
(he refuses to confirm or deny it), Bush administration officials have
exposed the identity of a covert operative. That happens to be a
criminal act; it's also definitely unpatriotic.
So why would they do such a thing? Partly, perhaps, to punish Mr.
Wilson, but also to send a message.
And that should alarm us. We've just seen how politicized, cooked
intelligence can damage our national interest. Yet the Wilson affair
suggests that the administration intends to continue pressuring analysts
to tell it what it wants to hear.
full: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/22/opinion/22KRUG.html
====
Columnist Names CIA Iraq Operative
By Timothy M. Phelps and Knut Royce
Washington Bureau
NY Newsday, July 21, 2003, 9:48 PM EDT
Washington -- The identity of an undercover CIA officer whose husband
started the Iraq uranium intelligence controversy has been publicly
revealed by a conservative Washington columnist citing "two senior
administration officials."
Intelligence officials confirmed to Newsday Monday that Valerie Plame,
wife of retired Ambassador Joseph Wilson, works at the agency on weapons
of mass destruction issues in an undercover capacity -- at least she was
undercover until last week when she was named by columnist Robert Novak.
Wilson, while refusing to confirm his wife's employment, said the
release to the press of her relationship to him and even her maiden name
was an attempt to intimidate others like him from talking about Bush
administration intelligence failures.
"It's a shot across the bow to these people, that if you talk we'll take
your family and drag them through the mud as well," he said in an interview.
It was Wilson who started the controversy that has engulfed the Bush
administration by writing in the New York Times two weeks ago that he
had traveled to Niger last year at the request of the CIA to investigate
reports that Iraq was trying to buy uranium there. Though he told the
CIA and the State Department there was no basis to the report, the
allegation was used anyway by President George W. Bush in his State of
the Union speech in January.
Wilson and a retired CIA official said Monday that the "senior
administration officials" who named Plame had, if their description of
her employment was accurate, violated the law and may have endangered
her career and possibly the lives of her contacts in foreign countries.
Plame could not be reached for comment.
full:
http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/iraq/ny-uscia0722,0,6160519.story?coll=ny-top-headlines
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