No More Doubt
From DailyKos: BarbinMD has Valerie Plame's opening statement for her testimony. The hearing itself answered some important questions:
Was Plame an undercover agent? Answer: yes.
Did Plame send her husband to Niger? Answer: no (she didn't have the authority, even if she wanted to).
Was there any collateral damage for outing her? Again, yes.
This hearing was so damaging, Republican Congressman Davis had nothing left but to ask Plame if she was a Democrat or Republican (she is a Democrat, but said of her husband: "He comes from a strong Republican family...but he's probably a Democrat now.") Another Republican, Rep. Westmoreland, quipped that Plame's gotten more attention than the baseball players during the steriod hearing.
Valerie Plame is the center to this storm. Unless Robert Novak or other ditractors can prove that she's lying (and the Libby verdict doesn't help them) the Bush Administration will be putting out alot of "want ads" over the next two years.
And not to mention how this and the Alberto Gonzales-firing attorneys issue seems to be a pattern of the White House getting rid of people who don't share or promote their political philosophy.
Was Plame an undercover agent? Answer: yes.
In the run-up to the war with Iraq, I worked in the Counter Proliferation Division of the CIA, still as a covert officer, whose affiliation with the CIA was classified. I raced to discover solid intelligence for senior policy makers on Iraq's presumed weapons of mass destruction programs. While I helped to manage and run secret worldwide operations against this WMD target from CIA headquarters in Washington, I also traveled to foreign countries on secret missions to find vital intelligence.
Did Plame send her husband to Niger? Answer: no (she didn't have the authority, even if she wanted to).
The CIA took great lengths to protect all of its employees, provided at significant taxpayer expense, painstakingly devised creative covers for its most sensitive staffers. The harm that is done when a CIA cover is blown is grave, but I can't provide details beyond that in this public hearing. But the concept is obvious. Not only have breaches of national security endangered CIA officers, it has jeopardized, even destroyed entire networks of foreign agents, who in turn risk their own lives and those of their families to provide the United States with needed intelligence. Lives are literally at stake. Every single one of my former CIA collegues, my fellow
covert officers, to analysts to technical operations officers, even the secretaries, understand the vulnerabilities of our officers and recognize that the travesty of what happened to me could happen to them.
Was there any collateral damage for outing her? Again, yes.
This hearing was so damaging, Republican Congressman Davis had nothing left but to ask Plame if she was a Democrat or Republican (she is a Democrat, but said of her husband: "He comes from a strong Republican family...but he's probably a Democrat now.") Another Republican, Rep. Westmoreland, quipped that Plame's gotten more attention than the baseball players during the steriod hearing.
Valerie Plame is the center to this storm. Unless Robert Novak or other ditractors can prove that she's lying (and the Libby verdict doesn't help them) the Bush Administration will be putting out alot of "want ads" over the next two years.
And not to mention how this and the Alberto Gonzales-firing attorneys issue seems to be a pattern of the White House getting rid of people who don't share or promote their political philosophy.
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