CIA disclosure is dangerous (Cancer in the Bush Administration)

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/opinion/134261_ambassed.html

There's a cancer somewhere in the Bush administration. Two officials revealed national security information to embarrass or scare critics of the administration's mishandling of Iraqi intelligence.

Columnist Robert Novak wrote recently that the wife of former Ambassador Joseph Wilson -- the man who blew the whistle on the Niger uranium fraud -- is a Central Intelligence Agency operative, specializing in weapons of mass destruction. Novak attributed his information to two senior administration officials. Time magazine has said officials provided similar information.

It's illegal for government officials to reveal the identities of CIA operatives who have worked overseas within the preceding five years.

In carefully discussing what he called the hypothetical possibility his wife is a CIA employee, Wilson noted that the use of her maiden name would compromise work done before their marriage five years ago.

Properly, Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., has asked the FBI to look into the disclosures.

It is a very serious breach.

you beat me to it.

snip

Search the New York Times website for any occurrence of the words "Valerie Plame" during the last week ...and you'll find nada, zilch, zip. The so-called "paper of record" has remained totally mum on what may be one of the biggest scandals of the Bush administration yet. You can read about it at Newsday, CBS, Time, and The Nation, and it's been mentioned on NBC... but not a word from the New York Times (save for a reference to it last week by syndicated columnist Paul Krugman, and a wire service story today; neither of those pieces mentions Plame by name). The Times' news and editorial divisions are asleep at the switch on this story. Maybe the Jayson Blair scandal was a distraction from the deeper problem: a paper that is so concerned with being balanced and respectable, it refuses to cover any politically controversial stories. You can e-mail letters@nytimes.com to ask why the Valerie Plame news blackout. Or just click this link a few dozen times to send 'em a message.

CIA Back-stabbing
This is appalling. It appears the administration outed Ambassador Joseph Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, an undercover CIA agent who works as an operative in—get this—the agency's Weapons of Mass Destruction program. They've apparently ruined her career and potentially compromised national security simply to lash out at Wilson.

If you think this story is bogus because it appears in The Nation, go read it in Time.) Not only is this astonishingly stupid, it's also against the law. Whoever blew her cover could face up to ten years in prison and a $50,000 fine.

This case apparently involves deciding that your own petulant score with Wilson is more important than a vital CIA program to root out Weapons of Mass Destruction across the globe. This one disclosure could've done more damage to national security than other mistake by this administration in the last several months, including the ill-advised (and now quagmire-ish) invasion of Iraq, which has also apparently made us less safe rather than more.

Whoever blew Plame’s cover should resign immediately and face prosecution for doing so.

If W knew about this and approved of it, it would provide significant and damning evidence that the man doesn't have the judgment to be the president of the United States.

scroll down to above story:
http://www.nypress.com/static/billboard.cfm?now=7/18/03

other links

http://www.thenation.com/capitalgames/index.mhtml?bid=3&pid=823
http://www.motherjones.com/news/dailymojo/2003/30/we_487_04.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn?pagename=article&node=&contentId=A33396-2003Jul23¬Found=true
http://www.nationalreview.com/nrof_luskin/truthsquad.asp

:kick:

"There's a cancer somewhere in the Bush administration."

The Seattle P-I is a big regional paper and gets read by a lot of people.

Add to the sound bites:

Cancer

Bush Lies

Greed

Corruption

Stupidity

etc.

and nothing will come of this. After all they have killed thousands of people in Iraq under completely false pretenses so they could seize oil.

they lose power and go on trial for their crimes.

Once a criminal dictator hits the skids, the slide to infamy and prison or worse can be terrifyingly sudden. The most that can be said is that Bu$h* won't end up hanging by his heels in front of a gas station like Mussolini.

I'd GUESS that Bu$h* has a 1-in-3 chance of going to prison or worse, a 1-in-3 chance of retiring in disgrace with his ill-gotten gains, and a 1-in-3 chance of founding a permanent Rethugnican dictatorship.

It's up to us to do everything we can to prevent option 3, and -- if possible -- have him put on trial to deter future Rethug dictator wannabes.

Vitruvius

I think the writer is drawing a very interesting parallel. Thanks for posting this article for us East Coasters!