Damage to the CIA by the outing of Valerie Plame
June 2, 2006
Excerpts from New Concept Now - Sherri G.
Karl Rove's CIA Leak Involvement
- The Wheels Turn Round and Round 05.26.06
For 18 years Plame had kept her occupation a secret. She worked under the cover
of a CIA front company created and maintained at the taxpayer's expense, and
Bush administration officials at the highest levels destroyed all of that when
they leaked her identity.
It is now known that Plame was monitoring Iran's nuclear activities. According
to Raw Story investigative reporter Larisa Alexandrovna, former intelligence
officials, have said that Plame
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"worked on the clandestine side of the CIA in
the Directorate of Operations as a non-official cover (NOC) officer, was part of
an operation tracking distribution and acquisition of weapons of mass
destruction technology to and from Iran.
"The revelation that Iran was the focal point of Plame's
work raises new questions as to possible other motivating factors in the White
House's decision to reveal the identity of a CIA officer working on tracking a
WMD supply network to Iran, particularly when the very topic of Iran's possible
WMD capability is of such concern to the administration."
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On May 1,2006 Chris Matthews on MSNBC's Hardball confirmed what Alexandrovna
reported in February: that Plame was working on Iran's WMD network at the time
she was outed.
On July 27, 2005, the Boston Globe described what happens when a CIA agent's
cover is blown and said in part:
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"Whenever a spy's cover is revealed, a chain of setbacks ensues. Foreign
intelligence services then review everything they know about the undercover
officer who was operating in their country. Such a review can lead not only to
the discovery of informants who may have been recruited by the outed CIA officer
but also to an understanding of the practices and techniques used by an
undercover figure such as Plame, who posed as a businesswoman abroad.
"After one undercover CIA officer is exposed, others inevitably have a harder
time persuading potential sources to pass secrets about their government's - or
their terrorist network's - plans and capabilities."
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In recent years, Plame told people she worked for an energy-consulting firm -
Brewster Jennings & Associates - and [Robert] Novak disclosed that fact to the world on
CNN when he said, "she listed herself as an employee of Brewster Jennings &
Associates."
Upon the public exposure of this information, former CIA agents report that
intelligence agencies all over the world would have started searching the data
bases for any mention of Plame or the firm and that over the years, hundreds of
agents have worked under the cover of Brewster Jennings.
On October 5, 2003, Plame was described as a "NOC" in the New York Times by
Elisabeth Bumiller, who explained what a NOC position entails and how the
leaking of her identity was viewed by members of the CIA in general:
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"But within the C.I.A., the exposure of Ms. Plame is now considered an even
greater instance of treachery. Ms. Plame, a specialist in non-conventional
weapons who worked overseas, had "nonofficial cover," and was what in C.I.A.
parlance is called a NOC, the most difficult kind of false identity for the
agency to create.
"While most undercover agency officers disguise their real profession by
pretending to be American embassy diplomats or other United States government
employees, Ms. Plame passed herself off as a private energy expert."
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However, three intelligence officials speaking on the condition of anonymity to
Larisa Alexandrovna of Raw Story said that while undercover, Plame was involved
in identifying and tracking WMD technology to and from Iran and that her outing
compromised the identities of other covert operatives as well.
As a result, the officials said that CIA work on WMD had been set back "10
years."
© 2006 New Concept Now. (Used with permission)
Website: New Concept Now
Aloha, Larry
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