THE US, THE UN AND IRAQ, TENTH THREAD.

I´m now out of the US, so haven´t been in touch with the latest news. Is the Bush admin still refusing to call it a civil war? I wonder what they´d call it if the repubs and democs started a ´real´war in the US with bombs and guns? Bushco just about destroyed everything else!

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Cicerone, What does America look like from where your standing?

I'm trying to compare it to how it looks to me. I'm a "Minority thinker".

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c.i.,
The press has moved on. Now it is about Bush being the leaker, through Cheney to Libby to Judith Miller, of classified info to back up the war.

THat, and immigration.

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You can ready between the lines in this excerpt from:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/04/08/world/middleeast/08iraq.html?_r=1&th&emc=th&oref=slogin

On the mosque attack killing 71 yesterday:

"....The well-guarded Baratha Mosque is the main religious stronghold of the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, an Iranian-backed party that leads Parliament's major Shiite political bloc.

It was clear that the explosions went to the very heart of the Shiites' long-held feeling that they are victims, as had scores of other attacks in the past three years of civil strife. On Thursday, a car bomb exploded just hundreds of yards from the golden-domed Imam Ali mosque in Najaf, killing at least 10 people in what appeared to be an attempt to provoke a bloody cycle of reprisals.

"The Shia are being targeted in this dirty sectarian war," Sheik Sagheir said in a telephone interview with the television network Al Arabiya. "The world is watching as if what is happening means nothing."

The sheik said there were reports that one of the bombers had been trying to go to the imam's office.

In his Friday Prayer speech, the white-turbaned Sheik Sagheir had called for the prime minister, Ibrahim al-Jaafari, to withdraw his bid to hold on to his job in the next government. "There are rules in the political game, and he who can't read them will lose," Sheik Sagheir said.

Last Sunday, the sheik said in a telephone interview that Mr. Jaafari should abdicate to break the deadlock in forming a new government, a demand that fractured the religious Shiite bloc, which dominates the Parliament.

Sheik Sagheir's party, the Supreme Council, is offering one of its deputies, Vice President Adel Abdul Mahdi, as the new nominee for prime minister. Mr. Mahdi lost to Mr. Jaafari by one vote in a secret ballot in February among the 130 members of the Shiite bloc. Mr. Jaafari has the backing of Moktada al-Sadr, a rebellious cleric who despises the Supreme Council.

Both Mr. Sadr and the Supreme Council have formidable militias that have clashed in open street battles.

But the mosque attack appeared to be the work of jihadists aligned with the Sunni-led insurgency rather than violence between Shiites.

Followers of Mr. Sadr were at the compound talking politics with mosque officials right after Friday Prayer, and may well have ended up among the dead or wounded."

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sumac wrote:

#1 is an atrocious policy for a democracy.

#2 is ludicrous - what protection are we giving anyone there now?

ican711nm wrote:

To begin with, I recommend these two steps.

#1 Declare a new terrorist malignancy policy: The USA military will exterminate all terrorist malignancy and take no prisoners.

#2 Declare a new Iraq government re-organization policy: The current Iraq government must form its new Iraq government by June 30, 2006, in order to retain USA military protection after that date.

Step #1 is necessary for the survival of the Iraq democracy -- and any other democracy -- upon which terrorist malignancy is waging war.

Step #2 is necessary to get the newly elected Iraq government representatives, who are currently being well protected by USA military in the so-called greenzone in Baghdad, to organize their new democratic government.

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revel wrote:

There is a thread to discuss the CIA leak thing, however, the status of Valerie Plame at the time of the leak was marked (S) in a CIA memo. The CIA uses that sign to mark CIA employees whose indenties are covert.
That (S) signifies that Valerie Plame had a secret clearance. The possession of such a clearance is not itself a secret. I know that because back in the olden days I possessed a secret clearance and that fact was no secret.

The identiities of current covert agents are not bandied about in Secret CIA memos to avoid further endangering them in their current covert agent activities. Memos that disclose the identities of current covert agents are classified by clearances even higher than Top Secret.

Quote:
The paragraph identifying her as the wife of former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV was clearly marked to show that it contained classified material at the "secret" level, two sources said. The CIA classifies as "secret" the names of officers whose identities are covert, according to former senior agency officials.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/20/AR2005072002517.html
This statement in this Washington Post article is false (emphasis added by ican)!
Quote:
The CIA classifies as "secret" the names of officers whose identities are covert, according to former senior agency officials.[/b]

This statement in this Washington Post article is true (emphasis added by ican)!
Quote:
Anyone reading that paragraph should have been aware that it contained secret information, though that designation was not specifically attached to Plame's name and did not describe her status as covert, the sources said. It is a federal crime, punishable by up to 10 years in prison, for a federal official to knowingly disclose the identity of a covert CIA official if the person knows the government is trying to keep it secret.

As for why Fitzarold settled on issues of perjury, I guess it's like the Capone case, they got him on tax evasion because it was easier.
You guess ??? "it's like the Capone case, they got him on tax evasion because it was easier." Well, I guess they got Libby on a minor conflict of statements and called that a perjury infraction, because they could not get him on anything more serious.

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Revel, here is some insight into why I perceive the Washington Post to be a member of the LIEbral opinion-news media. Like other members, the Washington Post makes repeated illogical inferences to support its opinions.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/20/AR2005072002517.html
(emphasis added by ican)

Quote:

Plame's Identity Marked As Secret
Memo Central to Probe Of Leak Was Written By State Dept. Analyst

By Walter Pincus and Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writers
Thursday, July 21, 2005; Page A01

A classified State Department memorandum central to a federal leak investigation contained information about CIA officer Valerie Plame in a paragraph marked "(S)" for secret, a clear indication that any Bush administration official who read it should have been aware the information was classified, according to current and former government officials.

Plame -- who is referred to by her married name, Valerie Wilson, in the memo -- is mentioned in the second paragraph of the three-page document, which was written on June 10, 2003, by an analyst in the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), according to a source who described the memo to The Washington Post.

The paragraph identifying her as the wife of former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV was clearly marked to show that it contained classified material at the "secret" level, two sources said. The CIA classifies as "secret" the names of officers whose identities are covert, according to former senior agency officials.

Anyone reading that paragraph should have been aware that it contained secret information, though that designation was not specifically attached to Plame's name and did not describe her status as covert, the sources said. It is a federal crime, punishable by up to 10 years in prison, for a federal official to knowingly disclose the identity of a covert CIA official if the person knows the government is trying to keep it secret.

Prosecutors attempting to determine whether senior government officials knowingly leaked Plame's identity as a covert CIA operative to the media are investigating whether White House officials gained access to information about her from the memo, according to two sources familiar with the investigation.

The memo may be important to answering three central questions in the Plame case: Who in the Bush administration knew about Plame's CIA role? Did they know the agency was trying to protect her identity? And, who leaked it to the media?

Almost all of the memo is devoted to describing why State Department intelligence experts did not believe claims that Saddam Hussein had in the recent past sought to purchase uranium from Niger. Only two sentences in the seven-sentence paragraph mention Wilson's wife.

The memo was delivered to Secretary of State Colin L. Powell on July 7, 2003, as he headed to Africa for a trip with President Bush aboard Air Force One. Plame was unmasked in a syndicated column by Robert D. Novak seven days later.

Wilson has said his wife's identity was revealed to retaliate against him for accusing the Bush administration of "twisting" intelligence to justify the Iraq war. In a July 6 opinion piece in the New York Times and in an interview with The Washington Post, he cited a secret mission he conducted in February 2002 for the CIA, when he determined there was no evidence that Iraq was seeking uranium for a nuclear weapons program in the African nation of Niger.

White House officials discussed Wilson's wife's CIA connection in telling at least two reporters that she helped arrange his trip, according to one of the reporters, Matthew Cooper of Time magazine, and a lawyer familiar with the case.

Prosecutors have shown interest in the memo, especially when they were questioning White House officials during the early days of the investigation, people familiar with the probe said.

Karl Rove, President Bush's deputy chief of staff, has testified that he learned Plame's name from Novak a few days before telling another reporter she worked at the CIA and played a role in her husband's mission, according to a lawyer familiar with Rove's account. Rove has also testified that the first time he saw the State Department memo was when "people in the special prosecutor's office" showed it to him, said Robert Luskin, his attorney.

Quote:

according to current and former government officials.

Because the Washington Post article did not reveal who the sources for this article were, there isn't any way one can determine their credibility.

Quote:

The paragraph identifying her as the wife of former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV was clearly marked to show that it contained classified material at the "secret" level

A reader of the memo could infer that the fact Plame was Wilson's wife was classified as Secret?

Quote:

The CIA classifies as "secret" the names of officers whose identities are covert, according to former senior agency officials.

The CIA classifies other things in addition to the identities of covert agents. In the 1950s, covert agents were not classified as Secret, but for their own protection were classified at a higher level than Secret. By the way, a covert agent is one that physically infiltrates enemy groups to obtain information about enemy plans.

Quote:

though that [secret] designation was not specifically attached to Plame's name and did not describe her status as covert,

The fact that Plame's employment by the CIA was mentioned in a classified Secret paragraph does not imply Plame was once a covert agent or even that her employment by the CIA is itself Secret.

Quote:

to knowingly disclose the identity of a covert CIA official if the person knows the government is trying to keep it secret.

The three-page document referred to in this article was written on June 10, 2003, by an analyst in the State Department and classified Secret. This document was written more than five years after Plame was no longer a covert agent. The Secret classification of the paragraph mentioning Plame is not itself sufficient for identifying Plame as a covert agent.

Quote:

... senior government officials... leaked Plame's identity as a covert CIA operative to the media

No senior government officials revealed Plame to be a covert CIA operative. They revealed only that Plame was Wilson's wife, a CIA employee, and helped arrange Wilson's trip.

Quote:

Only two sentences in the seven-sentence paragraph mention Wilson's wife.

If those two classified Secret sentences did not explicitly state that Plame was a covert agent, then there is no logical way for a reader of the secret document to infer from the document that Plame was once a covert agent.

Quote:

White House officials discussed Wilson's wife's CIA connection in telling at least two reporters that she helped arrange his trip,

Telling reporters that Plame was an employee of the CIA, helped Wilson, and was Wilson's wife is not equivalent to telling reporters that Plame was a covert agent. A reader of the memorandum could infer that the fact that she helped arranged Wilson's trip was classified Secret.

Quote:

she worked at the CIA and played a role in her husband's mission

That certainly doesn't imply Plame was a covert agent.

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It's a 'state of civil war', admits Iraqi government official

Quote:

Iraq is in a state of civil war, a senior Iraqi official admitted for the first time yesterday, on the eve of today's third anniversary of the fall of Baghdad.

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Mubarak warns civil war started in Iraq

Quote:

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak has warned that civil war had started in Iraq, where three consecutive days of bombings killed about 100 people, inflaming sectarian tensions.

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Ican, anyone can clearly see that Plame's name was classified by the CIA and the bush administration had no business exposing it for political purposes or any other purpose for that matter. Your opinions on the washington post matter not a bit. Other than that, I have no interest in furthering this conversation here. There is a thread where this issue (two I think) is discussed.

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Another Shiite Site Is Bombed

Quote:

At Least 6 Dead Outside Mosque in Third Such Attack in 3 Days

BAGHDAD, April 8 -- A car bomb blew up outside a Shiite mosque 35 miles south of Baghdad on Saturday, killing six people and wounding 19 in the third attack on a Shiite place of worship in as many days, heightening fears that a concerted effort is underway to spark another deadly round of sectarian violence.

The blast occurred as pilgrims were entering and leaving the Awlad Muslim Shiite shrine and mosque in Musayyib, according to police Capt. Muthanna Ahmed. He said a pickup truck parked near shops exploded at the entrance to the mosque.

The Reuters news agency quoted a town resident, Ahmed Abbas, as saying that a man parked the vehicle outside a busy shop, said it was broken down and walked away.

The blast followed a triple suicide bombing Friday at the Baratha mosque in Baghdad that killed at least 79 people. The mosque is the religious center for the Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq, the biggest Shiite religious party in Iraq's governing coalition. On Thursday, at least 13 people were killed when a minibus exploded near the Imam Ali mosque in the southern city of Najaf, the home of numerous Shiite religious leaders.

Although it was unclear who was behind the attacks -- and whether they were related -- political and military analysts here assert that Sunni insurgents, particularly the al-Qaeda in Iraq organization led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, have targeted Shiites to incite retaliatory attacks. The aim, they say, is to foment a cycle of sectarian bloodshed, destabilize the country and drag Iraq into civil war.

So what are the Shiite's supposed to do? Sit back allow themselves to be slautered so that the Bush administration can say there is no civil war?

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AP released this story about 8:45 am this morning. There is something about it that doesn't feel right. Is there disinformation in here for public relations purposes?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060409/ap_on_go_pr_wh/cia_leak

"Bush Role in Intelligence Leak Questioned
By JENNIFER LOVEN, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON - President Bush declassified sensitive intelligence in 2003 and authorized its public disclosure to rebut Iraq war critics, but he did not specifically direct that Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, be the one to disseminate the information, an attorney knowledgeable about the case said Saturday.

Bush merely instructed Cheney to "get it out" and left the details to him, said the lawyer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the case for the White House. The vice president chose Libby and communicated the president's wishes to his then-top aide, the lawyer said.

It is not known when the conversation between Bush and Cheney took place. The White House has declined to provide the date when the president used his authority to declassify the portions of the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate, a classified document that detailed the intelligence community's conclusions about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq."

More of the story at the link.

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Ican, how's this from the LIEbral Washington Post? From today's editorial page:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/08/AR2006040800895.html?referrer=email&referrer=email

"A Good Leak
President Bush declassified some of the intelligence he used to decide on war in Iraq. Is that a scandal?

Sunday, April 9, 2006; B06

PRESIDENT BUSH was right to approve the declassification of parts of a National Intelligence Estimate about Iraq three years ago in order to make clear why he had believed that Saddam Hussein was seeking nuclear weapons. Presidents are authorized to declassify sensitive material, and the public benefits when they do. But the administration handled the release clumsily, exposing Mr. Bush to the hyperbolic charges of misconduct and hypocrisy that Democrats are leveling.

Rather than follow the usual declassification procedures and then invite reporters to a briefing -- as the White House eventually did -- Vice President Cheney initially chose to be secretive, ordering his chief of staff at the time, I. Lewis Libby, to leak the information to a favorite New York Times reporter. The full public disclosure followed 10 days later. There was nothing illegal or even particularly unusual about that; nor is this presidentially authorized leak necessarily comparable to other, unauthorized disclosures that the president believes, rightly or wrongly, compromise national security. Nevertheless, Mr. Cheney's tactics make Mr. Bush look foolish for having subsequently denounced a different leak in the same controversy and vowing to "get to the bottom" of it.

The affair concerns, once again, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV and his absurdly over-examined visit to the African country of Niger in 2002. Each time the case surfaces, opponents of the war in Iraq use it to raise a different set of charges, so it's worth recalling the previous iterations. Mr. Wilson originally claimed in a 2003 New York Times op-ed and in conversations with numerous reporters that he had debunked a report that Iraq was seeking to purchase uranium from Niger and that Mr. Bush's subsequent inclusion of that allegation in his State of the Union address showed that he had deliberately "twisted" intelligence "to exaggerate the Iraq threat." The material that Mr. Bush ordered declassified established, as have several subsequent investigations, that Mr. Wilson was the one guilty of twisting the truth. In fact, his report supported the conclusion that Iraq had sought uranium.

Mr. Wilson subsequently claimed that the White House set out to punish him for his supposed whistle-blowing by deliberately blowing the cover of his wife, Valerie Plame, who he said was an undercover CIA operative. This prompted the investigation by Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald. After more than 2 1/2 years of investigation, Mr. Fitzgerald has reported no evidence to support Mr. Wilson's charge. In last week's court filings, he stated that Mr. Bush did not authorize the leak of Ms. Plame's identity. Mr. Libby's motive in allegedly disclosing her name to reporters, Mr. Fitzgerald said, was to disprove yet another false assertion, that Mr. Wilson had been dispatched to Niger by Mr. Cheney. In fact Mr. Wilson was recommended for the trip by his wife. Mr. Libby is charged with perjury, for having lied about his discussions with two reporters. Yet neither the columnist who published Ms. Plame's name, Robert D. Novak, nor Mr. Novak's two sources have been charged with any wrongdoing.

As Mr. Fitzgerald pointed out at the time of Mr. Libby's indictment last fall, none of this is particularly relevant to the question of whether the grounds for war in Iraq were sound or bogus. It's unfortunate that those who seek to prove the latter would now claim that Mr. Bush did something wrong by releasing for public review some of the intelligence he used in making his most momentous decision."

©

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/08/AR2006040800916_pf.html

"A 'Concerted Effort' to Discredit Bush Critic
Prosecutor Describes Cheney, Libby as Key Voices Pitching Iraq-Niger Story

By Barton Gellman and Dafna Linzer
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, April 9, 2006; A01

As he drew back the curtain this week on the evidence against Vice President Cheney's former top aide, Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald for the first time described a "concerted action" by "multiple people in the White House" -- using classified information -- to "discredit, punish or seek revenge against" a critic of President Bush's war in Iraq.

Bluntly and repeatedly, Fitzgerald placed Cheney at the center of that campaign. Citing grand jury testimony from the vice president's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Fitzgerald fingered Cheney as the first to voice a line of attack that at least three White House officials would soon deploy against former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV.

Cheney, in a conversation with Libby in early July 2003, was said to describe Wilson's CIA-sponsored trip to Niger the previous year -- in which the envoy found no support for charges that Iraq tried to buy uranium there -- as "a junket set up by Mr. Wilson's wife," CIA case officer Valerie Plame."

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revel wrote:

Ican, anyone can clearly see that Plame's name was classified by the CIA and the bush administration had no business exposing it for political purposes or any other purpose for that matter. Your opinions on the washington post matter not a bit. Other than that, I have no interest in furthering this conversation here. There is a thread where this issue (two I think) is discussed.

The Wasington Post wrote:

[The memorandum] was written on June 10, 2003, by an analyst in the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), according to a source who described the memo to The Washington Post.

The date of that memorandum is more than five years after Plame ceased being a covert CIA agent.

The Wasington Post wrote:

It is a federal crime, punishable by up to 10 years in prison, for a federal official to knowingly disclose the identity of a covert CIA official if the person knows the government is trying to keep it secret.

This is a distortion of the actual law. The truth is: "It is a federal crime, punishable by up to 10 years in prison, for a federal official to knowingly disclose the identity" of a current covert CIA official, or the identity of a recent covert CIA official, where recent means, one who was a covert CIA official within the previous five years.

The Wasington Post wrote:

The paragraph identifying her as the wife of former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV was clearly marked to show that it contained classified material at the "secret" level ...

What was classified secret in that paragraph?

Was it secret that Plame was married to Wilson? I don't think so.

Was it secret that Plame was a CIA official? Possibly it was!

Was it secret that Plame assisted in her husband's trip? Probably it was!

However, even if it was secret that Plame assisted in her husband's trip, the President is empowered to declassify -- as well as classify-- secrets in secret documents (other than the identity of current or recent covert CIA officials). Presidents have done that frequently at the urging of the Washington Post among others.

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Quote:

Was it secret that Plame assisted in her husband's trip? Probably it was!

There is no proof that this is true, and a good amount of evidence that this is not true.

Cycloptichorn

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The president's argument sums up to 'information is declassified, when I say it is declassified.'

And that is true to an extent.

But when the information in question was passed from Libby to reporters, it wasn't, in fact, officially declassified. The only people who knew the information classification status were Bush, Cheney, Libby, and David Addington, Bush's legal counsel.

The document wasn't actually formally declassified until ten days later.

Libby instructed Judith Miller to attribute what she had heard to a 'former hill staffer.' Does this sound like declassified information?

They also only declassified the portions of the NIE which supported their claims. The fact that there were portions of the NIE which directly contradicted their claims was not revealed. Because the goal, of course, wasn't to reveal the 'truth' to the American people; it was to push the Admin's position on the Iraq war.

This also conveinently forgets the fact that someone within the administration outed Valerie Plame. Fitzgerald said in his filing,

Quote:

Valerie Wilson was a CIA officer. In July 2003, the fact that Valerie Wilson was a CIA officer was classified. Not only was it classified, but it was not widely known outside the intelligence community. Valerie Wilson's friends, neighbors, college classmates had no idea she had another life. The fact that she was a CIA officer was not well-known, for her protection or for the benefit of all us. It's important that a CIA officer's identity be protected, that it be protected not just for the officer, but for the nation's security. Valerie Wilson's cover was blown in July 2003. The first sign of that cover being blown was when Mr. Novak published a column on July 14th, 2003.

It has been confirmed that Plame worked for Brewster-Jennings Inc., a CIA front company tasked with counter-proliferation of WMD. The question of her covert status lies in:

Was her identity kept secret? Fitzgerald and the CIA assert that it was.

Had she done business outside of the US in the last five years under her secret identity?

Former CIA officer Larry Fitgerald, a 'classmate' of Plames and a card-carrying Republican, had this to say on the matter:

Quote:

"The law actually requires that a covered person 'served' overseas in the last five years. Served does not mean lived. In the case of Valerie Wilson, energy consultant for Brewster-Jennings, she traveled overseas in 2003, 2002, and 2001, as part of her cover job. She met with folks who worked in the nuclear industry, cultivated sources, and managed spies. She was a national security asset until exposed by Karl Rove and Scooter Libby."

There is at least some evidence that she did work overseas in the required time period, and pretty much none that she did not.

I have lately been reading a whole lot of scuttle from Fitzgerald's investigation, and there are a lot of phrases such as 'conspiracy' being tossed around. It turns out that there are significant differences between Bush&Cheney's story about the concerted and covert effort to discredit Wilson, and their account of there being 'no such coordinated effort.' Apparently there are some emails which show this to be a complete lie.

Cycloptichorn

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revel wrote:

...
So what are the Shiite's supposed to do? Sit back allow themselves to be slautered so that the Bush administration can say there is no civil war?

The Shiite's are supposed to defend themselves.

Associated Press, 4/9/2006 wrote:

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- A car bomb killed six people Saturday near a Shiite shrine south of Baghdad, and the death toll from the deadliest attack of the year rose to 85. A senior official warned that Iraq was in an "undeclared civil war" that can be curbed only by a strong government and greater powers for security services.

Emphasizing:

Associated Press, 4/9/2006 wrote:

BAGHDAD, Iraq -- ... A senior official warned that Iraq was in an "undeclared civil war" that can be curbed only by a strong government and greater powers for security services.

We Americans better help the Iraqis succeed in exterminating the terrorist malignancy in their midst, or a great many of us Americans will also join terrorist malignancy's slaughter victims.

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Cycloptichorn wrote:

The president's argument sums up to 'information is declassified, when I say it is declassified.'

And that is true to an extent.
That is true, period!

But when the information in question was passed from Libby to reporters, it wasn't, in fact, officially declassified. The only people who knew the information classification status were Bush, Cheney, Libby, and David Addington, Bush's legal counsel.
"it wasn't, in fact, officially declassified"???
...
Former CIA officer Larry Fitgerald, a 'classmate' of Plames and a card-carrying Republican, had this to say on the matter:

Quote:
"The law actually requires that a covered person 'served' overseas in the last five years. Served does not mean lived. In the case of Valerie Wilson, energy consultant for Brewster-Jennings, she traveled overseas in 2003, 2002, and 2001, as part of her cover job. She met with folks who worked in the nuclear industry, cultivated sources, and managed spies. She was a national security asset until exposed by Karl Rove and Scooter Libby."

There is at least some evidence that she did work overseas in the required time period, and pretty much none that she did not.
Phrases like "some evidence" and "pretty much none" are a bit ambiguous, don't you think?

I have lately been reading a whole lot of scuttle from Fitzgerald's investigation, and there are a lot of phrases such as 'conspiracy' being tossed around. It turns out that there are significant differences between Bush&Cheney's story about the concerted and covert effort to discredit Wilson, and their account of there being 'no such coordinated effort.' Apparently there are some emails which show this to be a complete lie.
You left out the "some evidence" that what Wilson reported orally to the CIA after his African trip contradicted what he wrote in his published article: that is, in Wilson's oral report, Saddam sought yellow cake; in Wilson's written article, Saddam did not seek yellow cake.

I agree that the administration probably chose to reveal Plame's relationship with Wilson to combat what Wilson claimed in his article.

Also, please remember that the Bush administration has repeatedly argued that we invaded Afghanistan and Iraq because both harbored al-Qaeda. The last time prior to the invasion of Iraq 3/20/2003 that was argued was 2/5/2003:

Powell to the UN wrote:
But what I want to bring to your attention today is the potentially much more sinister nexus between Iraq and the al-Qaida terrorist network, a nexus that combines classic terrorist organizations and modern methods of murder. Iraq today harbors a deadly terrorist network headed by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi an associate and collaborator of Usama bin Laden and his al-Qaida lieutenants.

Note: this harboring allegation was never refuted by Saddam's regime (and verified by our troops in April 2003), while the Iraq WMD and Iraq abetting 9/11 allegations were refuted by Saddam's regime (and refuted by our troops).

Cycloptichorn

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The president's argument sums up to 'information is declassified, when I say it is declassified.'

And that is true to an extent.
That is true, period!

No, it isn't.

Witness the fact that the WH staff was 'working to declassify' the information for an additional ten days after the president had already 'declassified' the information.

What were they working on? Was the information officially declassified, or not? If Bush has the power to declassify with a wave of a hand, then there would be no need for further work; his word is, as you would have it be, law, if the truth is that That is true, period!

So there is some question of what the procedure is for declassification. I reject your assertion that the president merely has to wave his hand for a document to be officially declassified. I have no doubt that he sits at the top of the procedure; that he can order it done at any time; but there exists no evidence that Bush followed existing WH procedures, procedures he had used often in the past to declassify information, in order to declassify. This is his perogative, you may argue; but it certainly speaks to the concept of a concerted, co-ordinated and secret effort to pass NIE information to reporters, under false pretense of being a 'former hill staffer,' in order to politically attack Joe Wilson. During this process, his wife, Valerie Plame, and her company, Brewster Jennings and Associates, were revealed to be a CIA front.

This is a point that isn't discussed very often; Brewster-Jennings had how many NOC agents (Which Plame was in the past, though not neccessarily at the time of the revealing of her identity; we will see about that one) working for them in the last several years? How many people were revealed as having been working for the CIA, when the 'bad guys' didn't know before? We don't know. The damage done could have been large. And an effort to discredit a political attacker by the upper levels of the White House, directly or indirectly, has lead to this.

Phrases like "some evidence" and "pretty much none" are a bit ambiguous, don't you think?

Sorry. There is evidence that Plame did work overseas:

First, direct statements from Larry Johnson

Second, logical inferrence; the CIA and DoJ certainly have given some evidence that they believe Plame to have been covert, or other associates of hers at Brewster Jennings & assoc. This can been seen both in Fitzgerald's statements, and in the fact that the case is being pursued in the first place.

There is zero documented evidence that Plame did not serve overseas in the last five years before 2003. Do you have such evidence which I am unaware of? Present it, please. Otherwise, the preponderance of evidence would seem to indicate that she had done covert work overseas in the previous five years.

You left out the "some evidence" that what Wilson reported orally to the CIA after his African trip contradicted what he wrote in his published article: that is, in Wilson's oral report, Saddam sought yellow cake; in Wilson's written article, Saddam did not seek yellow cake.

Where is this evidence, in writing? Link please.

Here's a link from a 2005 Bloomberg article examining whether or not Wilson's claims have held up:

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000103&sid=a8dab8rni_Do&refer=us

I agree that the administration probably chose to reveal Plame's relationship with Wilson to combat what Wilson claimed in his article.

Essentially, Bush authorized a leak of sensitive information in order to attack a poltical rival who was exposing their manipulation of evidence presented to the public Re: WMD. The Bush WH entered into a concerted effort to do so, and this effot lead in one fashion or another to the revealing of CIA counter-proliferation assets, both Plame and her associates at Brewster Jennings. This is certainly worth investigation, as I'm sure you agree, and during the course of the investigation the WH has told some conflicting stories (lies) about the course of events. Information shows that Bush&Cheney&Rove may not have told the truth on the issue of a secret effort - conspiracy - to attack wilson, defend completely false Iraq war intelligence, and then cover the fact up afterwards.

Also, please rememblah blah blah..,..

Immaterial to the discussion at hand, and frankly nothing more than another attempt by you to change the subject.

Cycloptichorn

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THE US, THE UN AND IRAQ, TENTH THREAD.

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