Democrats Want Probe of CIA After Tapes Are Destroyed

The Democrats are calling for hearings & investigations after the CIA revealed that interrogation tapes had been destroyed, apparently after a judge ruled that the items should have been kept as evidence. The tapes may have revealed whether waterboarding or other forms of torture were being used on "terror suspects".

But the CIA has a mandate to protect State secrets, including their sources and methods for gathering intelligence. They destroy items all the time in an effort to maintain secrets, classified information, etc. I predict that the Democrats in Congress will have a hard time making the case that anyone should be punished. Not much has come from their previous investigations and hearings, and I can't see much coming out of this case either.

But on the other hand, the CIA is not completely free to get rid of material that may be important to an investigation. But based on how the other egregious acts by this administration have been handled, I just don't see this case as having much traction. It may have legs...but not very long ones. The only way that this case might gain any real traction is if investigations or hearings lead to more revelations of illegal and unethical activity.

Valerie Plame Comes Out Swinging in New Memoir

Review by Chuck Leddy
Boston Globe, Oct. 22, 2007

When former undercover CIA agent Valerie Plame Wilson's identity was revealed by columnist Robert Novak in The Washington Post, she found herself at the center of a political and media maelstrom. Novak's July 14, 2003, column appeared a week after Plame's husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, had attacked President Bush for faulty intelligence claims prior to the Iraq invasion.

Wilson's New York Times op-ed piece contradicted Bush's contention that Saddam Hussein had tried to procure yellowcake uranium (used for developing nuclear weapons) from Niger. Wilson himself had gone to Niger the year before to investigate these claims and had found them baseless. Instead of answering Wilson directly, the White House went into attack mode.

Plame gets her book title from Karl Rove's assertion that Joseph Wilson's wife was "fair game." Plame meticulously describes the "smear campaign" orchestrated from the vice president's office intended to discredit her husband. Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, Scooter Libby, revealed Plame's identity to Novak and other media members, leading to Libby's indictment and a 30-month prison sentence. No charges were brought against Cheney or Rove, and on July 2 of this year President Bush used his executive power to commute Scooter Libby's 30-month prison sentence.

Plame, who worked on nuclear nonproliferation while at the CIA, remains disillusioned with both the White House and the media: "I believed in our democratic institutions," writes Plame, "I believed that the truth would prevail, but I would soon find out that in Washington, the truth is not always enough." Ironically, Plame's book seems to support the Bush administration's basic claim that Saddam's Iraq was a real threat. She describes pre-war Iraq as "dangerous and erratic," although she contends the White House oversold dubious intelligence to the public.

Plame admits to being shocked when she heard President Bush make the Niger yellowcake claim in his 2003 State of the Union address, and while watching Secretary of State Colin Powell's televised presentation to the UN regarding Iraq's alleged weapons of mass destruction (WMD): "I had been tracking Iraqi WMD efforts carefully for some time and the facts I knew simply did not match up with what Powell had just presented." Plame explains in great detail exactly why these pre-war intelligence claims were unreliable, despite being trumpeted by the White House as some sort of "slam dunk" case for war. Plame had a front-row seat on both the politicization of pre-war intelligence and White House efforts to stem post-invasion criticism.

Plame describes pervasive efforts to shut her and her husband up. Plame labels it "classic Karl Rove": "Their tactics would have made Joseph McCarthy proud: fearmongering, defamation of character, shameless disregard for the truth, and distortions of reality." Indeed, Plame's book was reviewed by the CIA prior to its publication, and she hasn't been allowed to disclose some of the relevant facts, which the CIA deems classified. Plame wonders whether her book, like her formerly covert CIA status, has been compromised because of political imperatives coming from the White House. Readers may be left thinking, "it wouldn't exactly be the first time."

Exhausted from court battles and a seemingly-endless smear campaign, Plame packed up her belongings and left Washington earlier this year, moving with her husband and two kids to Santa Fe "We had told the truth and tried to live honorably," Plame writes in her tale's final paragraph. The fact that her story ends in a symbolic retreat says something worrisome about our nation. Valerie Plame Wilson can be viewed as a canary in the proverbial coal mine, and her book reads like a grim testament to the noxious atmosphere of our current politics.

Related Links

Audio Report From NPR

MSNBC Report... including the CIA's effort to redact much of the book.

Coverage from Bradblog, including video from a recent 60 Minutes Interview.

Cheney Implicated in Plame Leak

New Documentary - Cheney's Law

President talks about WW III

First of all, I appreciate the invitation to post on Mirror on America

There are times when the White House press corps simply gives me chest pain. When President Bush mentioned that “if Iran would get plans for nuclear technology”, someone should’ve asked the following question — “Mr. President, didn’t we give Iran nuclear blueprints?”

“Didn’t we give technical designs to a TBA 480 Russian reactor? ” “Wasn’t the operation to give ‘phony plans’ to the Iranians code-named, MERLIN?” “Wasn’t the whole operation delineated in James Risen’s book, State of War?”

I hate it when the press corp is stupid. I also hate it when the President thinks that we are stupid. I mean this is readily available knowledge. It is in a book about the CIA. The book sold well. Didn’t they read it or get the Cliff Notes?

To sum up, we, the United States, gave the “altered” plans for a nuclear reactor to the Iranians.

The thought was that if we gave them plans then we would know where they were in development of nuclear technology. It was a stupid plan but that’s what happened. This happened in late 2000 or 2001. I’m not blaming the President for the CIA’s thoughtlessness. I’m blaming the president for thinking that we are stupid. Developing plans is not that hard any more. We did it 60 years ago. With modern technology it has to be easier. Getting the materials is the problem.

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