REAL NEWS AND POLITICS!!!

In February 2002, I was informed by officials at the Central Intelligence Agency that Vice President Dick Cheney's office had questions about a particular intelligence report. While I never saw the report, I was told that it referred to a memorandum of agreement that documented the sale of uranium yellowcake -- a form of lightly processed ore -- by Niger in the late 1990's. The agency officials asked if I would travel to Niger to check out the story so they could provide a response to the vice president's office.

After reading the report, the Vice President asked his morning briefer for the CIA 's analysis of the issue. In response, the Director of Central Intelligence's (DCI) Center for Weapons Intelligence, Nonproliferation, and Arms Control (WINPAC) published a Senior Publish When Ready (SPWR021402-OS),an intelligence assessment with limited distribution, which said, "information on the alleged uranium contract between Iraq and Niger comes exclusively from a foreign government service report that lacks crucial details, and we are working to clarify the information and to determine whether it can be corroborated.

The piece discussed the details of the DO intelligence report and indicated that "some of the information in the report contradicts reporting from the U.S. Embassy in Niamey. US diplomats say the French Government-led consortium that operates Niger 's two uranium mines maintains complete control over uranium mining and yellowcake production." The CIA sent a separate version of the assessment to the Vice President which differed only in that it named the foreign government service-.

Officials from the CIA 's DO Counter Proliferation Division (CPD) told Committee staff that in response to questions from the Vice President's Office and the Departments of State and Defense on the alleged Iraq-Niger uranium deal, CPD officials discussed ways to obtain additional information. Who could make immediate inquiries into the reporting, CPD decided to contact a former ambassador to Gabon who had a posting early in his career in Niger.

Some CPD officials could not recall how the office decided to contact the former Ambassador, however, interviews and documents provided to the Committee indicate that his wife, a CPD employee, suggested his name for the trip. The CPD reports officer told Committee staff that the former ambassador's wife "offered up his name" and a memorandum to the Deputy Chief of the CPD on February 12, 2002 , from the former ambassador's wife says, "my husband has good relations with both the PM [prime minister] and the former Minister of Mines (not to mention lots of French contacts), both of whom could possibly shed light on this sort of activity.

I say disingenuous for the following reasons. First, the normal procedure when a PDB briefer comes back to headquarters with a request for additional information from the President or Vice President is to inform the Office Chief who in turn informs the Division Chief who then informs the Branch Chief.

The Office Chief, the Division Chief, and the Branch Chief are the only decision makers at the CIA outside of the DCI himself who can make a decision to send someone on a trip overseas.

Valerie Plame was a member of a branch in the Counter Proliferation Division. She was not and is not the Branch Chief nor the Division Chief nor the Office Chief. She simply was an undercover operative in an operations job that required her to travel under non-official cover overseas.

The memo referenced dishonestly in the Senate Intelligence Committee report neglects to mention that it was written in response to a request from one of Valerie's managers (i.e., the Division Chief or Branch Chief). But the most important aspect of this is that Valerie had no authority to make the decision to send her husband, Joe Wilson, to Niger.

What is really laughable and sad about the White House smear of Valerie Plame is that it is insinuating that the bad news Joe Wilson brought back regarding the absence of any evidence that Iraq was trying to buy yellow cake uranium from Niger was part of a devious plot hatched by Ms.Plame a full year before President Bush made the mistaken speech claiming that such evidence did exist.

Val was a great case officer but not even she could pull off such a sly plan. Moreover, even if she had the authority to send her husband Joe to, she could not guarantee he would return with confirmation that such a plot existed.

I point the reader to one final piece of evidence in the Senate's own flawed report. The U.S. Ambassador to Niger at the time and the Deputy CINC of the European Command (General Fulford) both reached the same conclusion that Joe Wilson did--THERE WAS NO SUBSTANCE TO THE CLAIM THAT IRAQ WAS TRYING TO BUY YELLOW CAKE FROM NIGER.

Every American who cares about our national security and the health of our intelligence services should be outraged over the current campaign being directed by the Republican National Committee to continue to smear the reputation and motives of Valerie Plame, an active employee of the, who is not permitted to answer her critics and must sit quietly by while a group of bullies and cowards like Congressman Peter King, RNC Chairman Mehlman, Cliff May, and Victoria Toensing, among others, spread falsehoods about her status and actions. This is wrong and should not stand.
 
(ed. note: Larry Johnson is a former CIA officer and counter-terrorism expert.)


 WAKE UP AMERICA!!!

WE ARE BEING "LIED" TO!!!