CIA Leak Severely Hurt U.S. Intelligence

[Bronco Bob]

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Valerie Plame told Congress Friday the leak of her identity as a CIA covert operative "has jeopardized and even destroyed entire networks of foreign agents."

For the first time since the 2003 leak, the central figure of the resulting scandal revealed her side of events that led to the conviction this month of a former vice presidential aide.

She told a House committee that Bush administration officials had "carelessly and recklessly" released her status as a CIA employee, which was first reported by columnist Robert Novak.

"I felt like I had been hit in the gut," Plame told the panel.

Novak's column destroyed her position and classified status, she told the committee.

The disclosure also damaged U.S. intelligence efforts, she said. "If our government cannot even protect my identity, future foreign agents who might consider working with the Central Intelligence Agency in providing needed intelligence would think twice."

Plame testified her work involved gathering intelligence on weapons of mass destruction.


'A CIA problem'

The ranking Republican on the committee, Rep. Tom Davis of Virginia, suggested that it wasn't clear that Plame's role was classified at the time.

"No process can be adopted to protect classified information that no one knows is classified, just as no one can be prosecuted for unauthorized disclosure of information that no one ever said was protected," Davis said. "So this looks to me more like a CIA problem than a White House problem."

Plame rejected claims that her role at the CIA not covert when her identity was leaked.

She said she had conducted secret overseas missions within the past five years, and that much information about her career remains classified. (Read how Plame said she worked on secret missions during her time as an operative)

Although she was working at CIA headquarters in the United States at the time of the leak, Plame said, "a general is a general whether he is in the field in Iraq or Afghanistan; when he comes back to the Pentagon, he's still a general. In the same way, covert operations officers who are serving in the field, when they rotate back for temporary assignment in Washington, they too are still covert."

She added that her husband -- former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson -- protected her status "diligently."

Vanity Fair magazine published a photograph of the couple -- in which she was wearing dark sunglasses and a scarf -- in late 2003, after the disclosure of Plame's identity. "At the time that picture came out, my covert status was long gone," she testified.

"Having lived most of my life under the radar, my learning curve was steep," she added, saying the photo caused more trouble than it was worth.

Wilson accused the White House of intentionally leaking his wife's covert role as retribution for an opinion piece he wrote for The New York Times that contested a justification given by the Bush administration to invade Iraq. (Key players)

The leak sparked an investigation by a special prosecutor, which led to this month's conviction of Vice President Dick Cheney's former top aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby on perjury and obstruction of justice charges.

During her appearance Friday, Plame said, "testimony in the criminal trial of Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff, who has now been convicted of serious crimes, indicates that my exposure arose from purely political motives."

She said of President Bush's political aide, "Karl Rove clearly was involved in leaking my name, and he still carries a security clearance to this day, despite the president's words ... that he would immediately dismiss anyone who had anything to do with this."
'There was no nepotism involved'

Plame also said Friday that it was not her idea for her husband to travel to Niger to investigate an allegation that Iraq had sought yellowcake uranium. That allegation was used to help justify the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq.

"I did not suggest him. I did not recommend him. There was no nepotism involved," she said, adding, "I did not have the authority."

It was the suggestion of another CIA officer who knew that Joe Wilson had previously gone on other CIA missions "to deal with some other nuclear matters," she said.

She said she had later been asked to write an e-mail summarizing the discussion that included the possibility of her husband making the journey. A portion of that e-mail was later taken out of context to make it seem that she had suggested her husband for the assignment, she said.

[Bronco Bob]

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Valerie Plame Wilson was called to testify Friday before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform about her work at the CIA before her covert identity was revealed. Here is a transcript of her opening statement.

Good morning, Mr. Chairman and members of the committee. My name is Valerie Plame Wilson and I am honored to have been invited to testify under oath before the committee on oversight and government reform on the critical issue of safeguarding classified information.

I'm grateful for this opportunity to set the record straight. I served the United States loyally and to the best of my ability as a covert operations officer for the Central Intelligence Agency.

I worked on behalf of the national security of our country, on behalf of the people of the United States until my name and true affiliation were exposed in the national media on July 14, 2003, after a leak by administration officials.

Today, I can tell this committee even more. 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 policymakers 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.

I loved my career because I love my country. I was proud of the serious responsibilities entrusted to me as a CIA covert operations officer and I was dedicated to this work.

It was not common knowledge on the Georgetown cocktail circuit that everyone knew where I worked.

But all of my efforts on behalf of the national security of the United States -- all of my training, all of the value of my years of service -- were abruptly ended when my name and identity were exposed irresponsibly.

In the course of the trial of Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff, "Scooter" Libby, I was shocked by the evidence that emerged.

My name and identity were carelessly and recklessly abused by senior government officials in both the White House and the State Department.

All of them understood that I worked for the CIA and, having signed oaths to protect national security secrets, they should have been diligent in protecting me and every CIA officer.

The CIA goes to great lengths to protect all of its employees, providing at significant taxpayers' expense, painstakingly devised and creative covers for its most sensitive staffers.
'Lives are at stake'

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 and 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 colleagues, from my fellow covert officers to analysts to technical operations officers to even the secretaries, understand the vulnerabilities of our officers and recognize that the travesty of what happened to me could happen to them.

We in the CIA always know that we might be exposed and threatened by foreign enemies.

It was a terrible irony that administration officials were the ones who destroyed my cover.

Furthermore, testimony in the criminal trial of Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff, who has now been convicted of serious crimes, indicates that my exposure arose from purely political motives.

Within the CIA it is essential that all intelligence be evaluated on the basis of its merits and actual credibility. National security depends upon it.

The tradecraft of intelligence is not a product of speculation.

I feel passionately as an intelligence professional about the creeping, insidious politicizing of our intelligence process.

All intelligence professionals are dedicated to the ideal that they would rather be fired on the spot than distort the facts to fit a political view -- any political view or any ideology.
'Strip out politics from intelligence'

As our intelligence agencies go through reorganizations and experience the painful aspects of change and our country faces profound challenges, injecting partisanship or ideology into the equation makes effective and accurate intelligence that much more difficult to develop.

Politics and ideology must be stripped completely from our intelligence services or the consequences will be even more severe than they have been and our country placed in even greater danger.

It is imperative for any president to be able to make decisions based on intelligence that is unbiased.

The Libby trial and the events leading to the Iraq war highlight the urgent need to restore the highest professional standards of intelligence collection and analysis and the protection of our officers and operations.

The Congress has a constitutional duty to defend our national security and that includes safeguarding our intelligence. That is why I am grateful for this opportunity to appear before this committee today and to assist in its important work. Thank you and I welcome any questions.

[TheDave]

Is it just me or is this getting real close to treason?

[Spider]

yep treason , the right has tried to spin this , but the truth is coming out ....... Clinton never did this

[TailgateNut]

Time for the "spin doctors" to find the next scapegoat.

[Dudeskey]

I like how she discredited the entire right wing echo chamber on this issue within the first 5 minutes of her testimony

[Bronco_Beerslug]

Originally Posted by Bronco Bob

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Valerie Plame told Congress Friday the leak of her identity as a CIA covert operative "has jeopardized and even destroyed entire networks of foreign agents."
.

You need to provide links to the story.

[Rohirrim]

Originally Posted by TheDave

Is it just me or is this getting real close to treason?

Of course it's treason, but when the Right wing is doing it, it's called patriotism. With the Right, it's always party before country.

[TheDave]

So let me get this straight...

We were preparing for a war with Iraq.

The reason for this war was in part due to the possibility of WMD's

Valarie Plame was a Covert CIA agent working on WMD's

For some reason the white House chose to "out" this agent to the press.

Turns out there were no WMD's

Iraq has currently cost us 3,000+ lives and Hundreds of Billions of Dollars.

The Iraq war could of been prevented had we attained better intelligence regarding WMD's.

The outing of Plame has in part cost us 1,000's of lives and hundreds of billions...

Did i miss anything?

[Dudeskey]

No, Dave... thats about the whole thing in a nutshell.

I have to wonder if outing the whole operation was part of the strategy, since Plame's team likely would have debunked whatever intel Bu$hCO came up with to start the war.

[Bronco Bob]

Originally Posted by TheDave

So let me get this straight...

We were preparing for a war with Iraq.

The reason for this war was in part due to the possibility of WMD's

Valarie Plame was a Covert CIA agent working on WMD's

For some reason the white House chose to "out" this agent to the press.

Turns out there were no WMD's

Iraq has currently cost us 3,000+ lives and Hundreds of Billions of Dollars.

The Iraq war could of been prevented had we attained better intelligence regarding WMD's.

The outing of Plame has in part cost us 1,000's of lives and hundreds of billions...

Did i miss anything?

Only that by outing Plame it damaged, perhaps severely, the CIA network that investigates WMDs, making us less safe from WMDs.
Who knows what the CIA was looking into in Iran and North Korea and how it hurt that?

[Spider]

treasonous bastards ........Slime bag ássholes probably move to Dubia with Haliburton ......... meanwhile we are stuck here with the silly bastards that voted for Bush ........new bumper sticker , **** America vote Bush Cheney

[W*GS]

Originally Posted by Rohirrim

With the Right, it's always party before country.

I dunno 'bout that... The Democrats make sure that the teacher's unions, their paymasters, never have to worry about the public schools being fixed, the flaws of which are largely of their own (intentional) creation.

In the long run, it's the broken school system that will hurt us most, and the Democrats are at the forefront of assuring that schools stay broken. There's one hell of an instance of party before country...

[Spider]

Originally Posted by W*GS

I dunno 'bout that... .

now there is a shocker not much you do know about except dodging and not answering tough questions

[spdirty]

Not meaning to get off the subject here, but I wonder how much it hurt US intelligence when Sandy Burger stuffed documents down his pants.

[Bronco Bob]

Originally Posted by spdirty

Not meaning to get off the subject here, but I wonder how much it hurt US intelligence when Sandy Burger stuffed documents down his pants.

Not much, if any at all. They were just paper copies, and he destroyed the copies afterwards.
And all the original information is still on the computer hard drives stored at the National Archives.
So it's not like the original data was lost, or any enemy agents got ahold of them, or anyone else
saw them that shouldn't have.

Certainly not on the order of exposing a covert CIA operative and severely damaging a CIA operation searching for WMDs.

[N.O.Bronco]

Originally Posted by W*GS

I dunno 'bout that... The Democrats make sure that the teacher's unions, their paymasters, never have to worry about the public schools being fixed, the flaws of which are largely of their own (intentional) creation.

In the long run, it's the broken school system that will hurt us most, and the Democrats are at the forefront of assuring that schools stay broken. There's one hell of an instance of party before country...

What the HELL kinda deflection tactic is this?

If you wanted to make a thread discussing the problems of the public school system, START A THREAD. See that button at the top of every section "New thread" press it.

I would love to hear in that other thread the flimsy set of "what ifs" that you would have to rely on to make that theory you so badly want to get out to us work though.

However in this thread we are talking about the CIAs weakened abillity to gather intelligence. Because a bunch of political bafoons wanted to go on a crusade in Iraq and cost us some of our intelligence gathering processes in lou of that crusade.

[W*GS]

I was merely responding to Ro's offhand (and oft-heard) comment that the Right puts party before country, and offered an example of the Democrats doing it too.

I suspect the outing of Plame did less damage to the CIA than the current inside-the-Beltway orgy-fest is claiming, certainly less than the double agents and other treasonous scumbags have done over the years. Given that the CIA is hardly a shining example of a studious, accurate, and timely intelligence agency anyway (where were they when the USSR fell? when India and Pakistan set off nukes?), the CIA has much bigger problems than the outing of Plame.

She is hit-able, though.

[Rohirrim]

Originally Posted by N.O.Bronco

What the HELL kinda deflection tactic is this?

If you wanted to make a thread discussing the problems of the public school system, START A THREAD. See that button at the top of every section "New thread" press it.

I would love to hear in that other thread the flimsy set of "what ifs" that you would have to rely on to make that theory you so badly want to get out to us work though.

However in this thread we are talking about the CIAs weakened abillity to gather intelligence. Because a bunch of political bafoons wanted to go on a crusade in Iraq and cost us some of our intelligence gathering processes in lou of that crusade.

Wags is the master of deflection. I agree. That's about the weakest one I've heard yet, but hey, it's the only schtick he's got. As far as the effect the Plame outing had on national security, we may never know. It's not like CIA agents are going to come forward and start discussing it. I read one Seymour Hersh article that stated that the agents he is in contact with are furious with the Bush administration and that seems to be the general response within the agency, but they can't say anything. When they outed Plame, they also outed the corporate front she worked behind that was used to provide cover to covert operatives who were tracking WMD. Who knows what that did? All I know is that it is treason, a violation of federal law, and a felony. The Bush cabal (Rove, Cheney, etc.) believe that they are above the law. So far, they're right.

[Spider]

Originally Posted by spdirty

Not meaning to get off the subject here, but I wonder how much it hurt US intelligence when Sandy Burger stuffed documents down his pants.

this came from left field .......... tell me what does stealing copy of high security papers have to do with outing a CIA agent ?
only connection I see is they are both crimes ...........Now if Burger sold the copies , then you would be on to something ............

[W*GS]

Apparently, Ro missed

http://www.orangemane.com/BB/showpos...1&postcount=18

[Spider]

Originally Posted by W*GS

Apparently, Ro missed

http://www.orangemane.com/BB/showpos...1&postcount=18

and only you would compare the teachers union to outing a CIA agent ........

[Barry Ramey]

It's fact that Berger took not only originals, but it's very likely documents that the 9/11 Commission never saw. You know darn well that Berger didn't come up with this idea himself, nor would he bother risking his career for just copies of unimporant documents. He was trying to hide and protect somebody and not hard to guess who.

It's very interesting how Armitage's name never came up at the hearings since he is the first one to offer the name to Novak. Oh, because he's no friend of the Bushes, so he must have just made an "honest mistake" but the others purposely were going after Wilson and his wife. Nice mind reading going on here with this case.

It is so sad that Plame's life has been so ruined. Meanwhile she's appearing on TV shows, book deals, maybe a movie deal, posing on magazine covers, and getting public attention that she ever has gotten before. One can see how her life is ruined. Oh, has it been mentioned she gave the Gore campaign money back in 1999 when running for President? Nah, I'm sure her and her hubby were Republican Bush backers, just as lefty blogs try to convince others they were.

What's also interesting is seeing liberals worrying about the safety of a CIA member. The same CIA, before this case, they have clammered to be disbanded for years or at least severely underfunded and little power to do much. Plus ok with the NY Times reporting what things the CIA was doing to track terrorists and that's not treason to them, but are in hysterics over this Plame BS and believe this is treason though. Interesting stuff. Their hypocrisy continues.

[Spider]

Originally Posted by Barry Ramey

It's fact that Berger took not only originals, but it's very likely documents that the 9/11 Commission never saw. You know darn well that Berger didn't come up with this idea himself, nor would he bother risking his career for just copies of unimporant documents. He was trying to hide and protect somebody and not hard to guess who.

It's very interesting how Armitage's name never came up at the hearings since he is the first one to offer the name to Novak. Oh, because he's no friend of the Bushes, so he must have just made an "honest mistake" but the others purposely were going after Wilson and his wife. Nice mind reading going on here with this case.

It is so sad that Plame's life has been so ruined. Meanwhile she's appearing on TV shows, book deals, maybe a movie deal, posing on magazine covers, and getting public attention that she ever has gotten before. One can see how her life is ruined. Oh, has it been mentioned she gave the Gore campaign money back in 1999 when running for President? Nah, I'm sure her and her hubby were Republican Bush backers, just as lefty blogs try to convince others they were.

What's also interesting is seeing liberals worrying about the safety of a CIA member. The same CIA, before this case, they have clammered to be disbanded for years or at least severely underfunded and little power to do much. Plus ok with the NY Times reporting what things the CIA was doing to track terrorists and that's not treason to them, but are in hysterics over this Plame BS and believe this is treason though. Interesting stuff. Their hypocrisy continues.

and now a word from the bullshítter .............
BarrY = Conspiracy theorist Bwaaaaaaaaaa

[W*GS]

Poor Spider. He gets lost in a debate so easily. Too bad there isn't a receiver that uses something like GPS so he can keep track of where the argument is...