Captain's Quarters -

Now, can we please get an answer to the following question;

"Why did the CIA agree to send an untrained desk monkey to Niger on this important mission, rather than a highly skilled and well trained operative?"

I just want to watch as the CIA tries to explain this away...

Good for this Judge; didn't waste a bunch of time and money on this non case...

Watch now as the Democrats throw Plame and Wilson under the bus, just as they have done with Cindy... Mission accomplished; done with you...

"Watch now as the Democrats throw Plame and Wilson under the bus, just as they have done with Cindy... Mission accomplished; done with you..."

But, but, but, ... we're famous, and pretty, and everybody loves us!!! See, we're in pictures...
(Joe & Val)

How far past 15 min did they go?

J

How is this worthless dingbat and her drunk of a husband going to stay in the public spotlight now?

American Idol? World Series of Poker? CBS Evening News Co[Anchors? Magic Bullet infomercial hucksters? Spongebob Squarepants appearance?

How about a sit-com? Up in Plames, where Valerie Plame sends her husband off (at taxpayer expense), to third world destinations, where he can drink exotic liquors and have wacky adventures.

Then come back, write dumb op-eds for local fish wraps and then bring frivolous lawsuits.

Now official scrutiny should be turned to Plame, Wilson, and the CIA. There appears to be a culture of petty corruption within the agency that led to this mess in the first place.

chsw

Free Frank Warner says Judge outs Valerie Plame as publicity whore.

At last!!! Thank you Judge.

"In other words, Joe Wilson should have minded his wife's status from the beginning."

Amen. That's been my problem with this fiasco right from the original Novak column.

After blasting away with fakery like Wilson and his wife did... their complaining that someone might have shot back at them (figuratively speaking) is, or at least ought to be, laughable.

And it's something that the President's people should've been saying on camera, in front of reporters... as soon as Plame's name came out.

KEEMO the answer to your question is that Joe Wilson was the ambassador to Niger. and had the needed contacts. Of course you would have known that if you could READ!!!
this was an traderist act against the USA and you are supporting it like a FOOL stop Drinking the KOOL-AID!!!!

I don't know if the plot was launched from within CIA or if the idea belonged to the Wilsons, and I don't know if the idea to make a political football out of the situation came before or after Joe Wilson returned from Nigeria, but at some point Joe and Valerie conspired to misrepresent what Joe found during his trip in an editorial, and at some point CIA became a willing participant by not having Wilson sign a NDA.

If Valerie's status was in fact classified as Fitzgerald claimed it was, then Valerie and Joe are both guilty of exposing her. Any covert agent who permits her spouse to publish information that serves to involve her in a public political dispute has failed to jealously guard her status and has failed to exercise proper discretion as a covert agent.

My opinion, based on my own experiences, is that Valerie and Joe correctly predicted that, if Joe pupblished the op-ed based on demonstrably false information, that the administration would be unable to resist a response that would include discrediting Joe by pointing out the narcissistic manner in which he became involved in the first place. Was Joe Wilson's marriage with Valerie Plame, and Valerie's employment by the CIA relevant to the issue in dispute? Clearly it was. Joe and Valerie were counting on that being so obvious that the administration wouldn't be able to help themselves.

Although I really wanted to see the Plame/Wilsons on the witness stand and read their answers to the interrogatories prior to the trial, it is refreshing to see some sanity injected into this situation.

Now I want to see the CIA and the Plame/Wilsons scrutinized for illegal activity.

In light of its disgraceful ineptitude and possibly treasonous activity, there's no way we can or should trust our national security to the CIA; to do so is suicidal:
http://www.examiner.com/a-830170%7EExclusive_Book_Excerpt___Sabotage__Part_1____The_CIA_goes_to_war_with_the_Pentagon.html

First, illegal acts are neglegence per se, so if it was illegal to release Plame's identity it shouldn't matter that it was done in the course of official duty. Niether the President nor the VP is above the law.

Second, the CIA sent Wilson because he had been ambasador to the country, not just a "desk jockey." He knew high ranking officials in the country and he knew culture and customs. Makes a lot of sense to me.

Throwing around cute terms like "desk jockey" does not make a logical argument.

Didn't the new head of the CIA state that Val Plame was covert ? And the Intelligence Committee report states that when Plame attended meetings at the time of Wilson's trip, a "c" was not entered by her name as an attendee. According to the Committee Report this should have been done if she was "covert."
One keeps running across hints of CIA obstruction of Administration policy moves and Hayden's statement smacks of a continuation of that kind of activity. Strikes me that it's one hell of a way to run a country at war,

Didn't the new head of the CIA state that Val Plame was covert ? And the Intelligence Committee report states that when Plame attended meetings at the time of Wilson's trip, a "c" was not entered by her name as an attendee. According to the Committee Report this would have been done if she was "covert."
One keeps running across hints of CIA obstruction of Administration policy moves and Hayden's statement smacks of a continuation of that kind of activity. Strikes me that it's one hell of a way to run a country at war,

Didn't the new head of the CIA state that Val Plame was covert ? And the Intelligence Committee report states that when Plame attended meetings at the time of Wilson's trip, a "c" was not entered by her name as an attendee. According to the Committee Report this would have been done if she was "covert."
One keeps running across hints of CIA obstruction of Administration policy moves and Hayden's statement smacks of a continuation of that kind of activity. Strikes me that it's one hell of a way to run a country at war,

KEEMO the answer to your question is that Joe Wilson was the ambassador to Niger.

Posted by: Johnnyp at July 20, 2007 10:54 AM

Second, the CIA sent Wilson because he had been ambasador to the country, not just a "desk jockey."

Posted by: Elton Carey at July 20, 2007 12:02 PM

Not true. Wilson was never ambasador to Niger.

Remember, just because you know how to read, reading liberal blogs is not really a reliable sourse.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_C._Wilson#Diplomatic_career

johnnyp wrote:
KEEMO the answer to your question is that Joe Wilson was the ambassador to Niger. and had the needed contacts. Of course you would have known that if you could READ!!!
this was an traderist act against the USA and you are supporting it like a FOOL stop Drinking the KOOL-AID!!!!
Even if he were the liasion to Niger did he have the intel that the brits based their assessment on (and didn't in fact the contacts he spoke with suggest that they assumed Iraq was in fact there to procure uranium but that nothign came of it?)? Was talking to a few contacts enough to prove or disprove the question with any degree of accuracy. he miay have contacts, but how much do they know?
More importantly, was he also the ambassador to both the Congo and Sudan? Didnt' the Butler report also mention those two countries as places that Iraq tried to procure uranium from? Are those places in Africa? So if the president suggests that Iraq sought uranium from Africa, where is the falsehood and how did Wilson debunk it, considering he didn't even investigate 2/3rd of the claims?

Echo. Echo. Echo. To nearly paraphrase a title by the tawdry author Jacqueline Susann.... Once IS enough.

It certainly won't surprise if DNC shill Timmy Russert has his DC socialite friends Val and Joe on Meet da Press this Sunday so he can pimp their grief and victimization fictions. Probably to be followed by more of the same with George Stuffinenvelopes, Bob Schieffer. Wolfie Blitzer etc.

Note to Timmy: be sure not to have Joe and Val directly follow your other buddy Joe Biden. Sequential dog / clown acts are bad vaudeville form.

I, too would have loved to see Joey and Val lie on the witness stand. Actually they would probably both just plead the 5th or say "I don't recall".

As I recall, their original legal team bailed on them-why was that? They ended up with cheaper lawyers who apparently didn't do their homework and chose the wrong jurisdiction to work in, which is why Judge Bates ruled the way he did (he didn't toss it on the merits of the case).

In any event, what I find most hilarious about this Plame-out Flame-out is that her defenders are the same leftists who have been trashing the CIA for decades.

"Joe Wilson was the ambassador to Niger. and had the needed contacts."

Joe Wilson served in the U.S. Foreign Service from January 1976 through 1998. That service included his post in Niger and other African nations from 1976 to 1988, followed his post as Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad from 1988 to 1991. It is obvious that any contacts he may have made in Niger were ten years out of date before he was assigned by the CIA to investigate the allegations that Saddam was attempting to purchase yellowcake in Niger.

That ten year period between serving in Niger and the subsequent investigation, combined with Mr. Wilson's lack of ANY training or experience in investigative procedures, would make it rather difficult to Mr. Wilson reliably ascertain whether the allegations where true or false.

Mr. Wilson was a extremely poor choice as an investigator and this causes one to wonder just how he received his assignment in the first place. This assignment suggests a high degree of croneyism due to the fact that it was his wife who suggested him for this even tho he had no practical training or experience in investigative procedures.

As additional clarification, and upon further research on my part, I feel it should be pointed out that Mr. Wilson served as a General Services Officer in Niamey, Niger from 1976 to 1978 and was not, as some have suggested, the Ambassador. That makes his Niger contacts over 20 year old and not 10 as I stated previously.

If Joe Wilson valued his Niger contacts so much, why does he so seldom mention Ibrahim Mayaki, the former Nigerien prime minister who told Wilson in 2002 that he thought Saddam's 1999 trade delegation was shopping for uranium?

Saddam bought uranium from Niger in 1981, according to the Duelfer report. Shouldn't Mayaki's comment have alarmed Wilson? For all the money we paid for that trip, shouldn't Wilson at least have immediately written up what he found so the CIA (and the rest of us) wouldn't have to hear him reinterpret his findings every six months? Wilson filed no written report in 2002.

Before March 2003, Wilson opposed the liberation of Iraq, not because he believed Saddam had no WMDs, but because he believed Saddam had WMDs and would use them. This was a man -- Wilson -- who was living with someone in the CIA -- Plame -- who was supposed to know about WMDs.

In the end, Plame and her CIA office made sure the United States was 99 percent wrong on Saddam's WMDs. Then Plame and Wilson made sure the U.S. retracted the statement that "Saddam sought uranium." That was the 1 percent we had right.

this is not over yet. they are appealing--the case that is!

First the judge stated the legal obligation of the court with regards to the assertion made by Wilson and Plame.

1The circumstances giving rise to this action have been recounted extensively in the media,
including in press coverage of the criminal trial against defendant I. Lewis Libby, Jr. that took
place earlier this year. See United States v. Libby, No. 05-cr-394 (D.D.C.). It is therefore worth
reiterating that the facts as recounted in this opinion are drawn from the amended complaint,
which is presumed true and is liberally construed for purposes of a motion to dismiss. See, e.g.,
Leatherman v. Tarrant County Narcotics & Coordination Unit, 507 U.S. 163, 164 (1993).

Here you can see that the judge states that legally the court is required to assume that statements made by the Plaintiffs are truthful and factually accurate. However clearly based on evidence presented by the defendants he comes to a different conclusion regarding the veracity of those statements as you can see in the following statement.

The resolution of these claims therefore might
require an exploration into Mrs. Wilson’s specific duties as a covert operative. Her class-of-one
equal protection claim would necessitate an even broader investigation into CIA practices.

In other words the judge is stating unequivalently that the Plaintiffs failed to provide incontrovertible evidence that Plame was in fact a covert agent. Furthermore the judge also indicates that the Plaintiffs also failed to provide incontrovertible evidence that Plame did not send Wilson to Niger.

The judge goes on to state that a in depth investigation would be required to determine if these assertion were true, translated out of legal speak into ordinary English the judge is saying he doesn’t believe their statements. This suggests that the defendants provided sufficient documentation to cast the Plaintiffs assertions into legal doubt. Furthermore he goes even farther with this theme in the next paragraph.

Plaintiffs argue that the United States could invoke the state secrets privilege or utilize other
established methods for the protection of sensitive information. But, in this and in future cases,
“[s]uch procedures, whatever they might be, still entail considerable risk” of revealing sensitive
information.

In this paragraph the Plaintiffs assert that their alleged statements of fact cannot be investigated because of issues of national security, the judge repudiates that assertion stating not only could they but that doing so would set a undesirable precedent.

This casts the judges dismissal on jurisdictional grounds into an entirely different light. Basically what the judge is saying is, that Wilson and Plame lied to the court, but that the action of proving it would set a dangerous legal precedent which he was unwilling to allow.

doriangrey wrote:

"In this paragraph the Plaintiffs assert that their alleged statements of fact cannot be investigated because of issues of national security,"

First, thanks for the brilliant scholarly legal analysis.

I singled out this particular line, because I think if the trial had been allowed to proceed, this issue would be brought up almost immediately.

WTF are these people thinking? They're suing people in court, and then say that as part of their lawsuit their allegations cannot be investigated by either the Court or whatever Jury? That sounds like a legal idea from the Law School of Moe Howard University.

As I said earlier, Val and Joe's original lawyers bailed on this case early on. I wonder why?

Calling Doctor Daniels, calling Doctor Jack Daniels...

This is going on my must read list.

"Sabotage: America's Enemies Within the CIA" by Rowan Scarborough

From the book jacket:

From the Inside Flap
How Bush-hating CIA Bureaucrats Are Sabotaging the War on Terror
Since the attacks on September 11, 2001, intelligence collection has become the number-one weapon in the effort to defeat al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden. A plot penetrated is an attack stopped. And to the outside observer, the CIA has performed well as a key partner in the Bush administration's War on Terror. But as Rowan Scarborough reveals in this groundbreaking new book, significant elements within the CIA are undermining both the president and national security through leaks, false allegations, and outright sabotage.

Using his first-rate sources in all levels of national security--from field officers to high-ranking analysts to former intelligence heads--Scarborough paints a disturbing picture of partisan politics endangering the success of our campaigns abroad and the very lives of our soldiers and agents.

In Sabotage, you'll learn:

* How CIA analysts repeatedly leak details about classified intelligence programs with the dual intent of ending them and damaging the president
* How, on at least eight occasions, intelligence officials have made serious allegations of wrongdoing against the president's men--which turned out to be false
* Why, contrary to popular belief, the CIA has become predominantly liberal
* How a CIA turf battle prevented special operators from pursuing and capturing a notorious Taliban leader
* How current and former CIA officers fueled conspiracy theories that President Bush orchestrated the 9/11 attacks on America
* How a CIA leak to the New York Times deprived the U.S. of critical information in the War on Terror
* How press leaks by the CIA have damaged relations with our foreign allies in the War on Terror
* How a CIA analyst worked with Democrats to sabotage the nomination of John Bolton to the UN
* How Clinton's downsizing of the CIA led to the closing of stations in scores of jihadist breeding grounds--including Hamburg, Germany, where the 9/11 plot was hatched

The CIA's job is to collect facts and let the White House, the Pentagon, and the State Department make national security policy. But, as Scarborough conclusively demonstrates, an agency that is supposed to be scrupulously nonpartisan has become increasingly political--during a time of war--against America's elected commander in chief.

http://www.amazon.com/Sabotage-Americas-Enemies-Within-CIA/dp/1596985100/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1/105-5709506-0954045?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1184983397&sr=1-1

1) Soldiers's Mom --- Take a deep breath, exhale, and now go back and re-read that book. Look at all the allegations made, and then try to see if you can verify them with more than the one or two people that he quotes.
You can't.
Now tell me how that's any different than what he is supposedly debunking.

You got had lady... sorry... The problem is, though, your willingness to accept anything that puts liberals down. It slants your viewpoint and allows for you to get had. Better take another look.

Now for Capt. Ed:
Every other time a case goes a different way from how you imagine it should, you seem to attack the judge. This time the judge presiding has a pretty big background of giving the Bush administration what they want. The judge has been overruled before, yet you don't say anything about this judge.

All I'm asking for is equality in looking at the issues. I know you and most people who read here are conservatives, but that shouldn't stop you from looking for what right and true. You blind yourself out of convenience and it's hurting everyone who buys into the BS.