California Conservative

Bottom Line Up Front: Joe Wilson/Valerie Plame’s witch hunt was a farce, aided by the State Department.

THE PLAYERS:

Joe Wilson: Retired US diplomat, anti-war nut and pathological liar sent to Niger by his CIA wife Valerie Plame to debunk justification for the war in Iraq by disproving Saddam’s attempt to acquire uranium from Niger (starting the “Bush Lied” lie). Wilson was the Foreign Service officer from 1975-90. In 1990, as charg d’affaires in Baghdad, he was the last American diplomat to meet with Saddam Hussein before the 1 Gulf War. He was then President George H. W. Bush’s ambassador to Gabon and So Tom and Principe. Under President Bill Clinton, he helped direct Africa policy for the National Security Council. He is also a self-proclaimed child of the 60’s anti-war peacenik.
Valerie Plame: Not so undercover CIA agent/operative on weapons of mass destruction; wife of Joe Wilson.
Nobert Novak: Columnist who unwittingly broke the story outing Plame as a CIA covert agent.
Patrick Fitzgerald: US Special Prosecutor investigating the Bush administration for the Plame outing.
Lewis “Scooter” Libby: Vice President Dick Cheney’s former Chief of Staff.
Karl Rove: Pres. Bush’s personal political advisor.
Richard Armitage: Former Deputy Secretary of State

For three years, special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald pursued charges against the Bush administration based on Joe Wilson’s accusation that the administration purposely outed his not-so-covert wife Valerie Plame to Robert Novak. This comes at the release of “Hubris: The Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War” by Newsweek’s Michael Isikoff, Newsweek, with David Corn . Disclosing the identity of a CIA undercover agent is a federal offense under the Intelligence Identities Act. Wilson claimed that the ‘outing’ was retaliation, in part, for In his op-ed in the New York Times on July 6, 2003, which began:

“Did the Bush administration manipulate intelligence about Saddam Hussein’s weapons programs to justify an invasion of Iraq?

“Based on my experience with the administration in the months leading up to the war, I have little choice but to conclude that some of the intelligence related to Iraq’s nuclear weapons program was twisted to exaggerate the Iraqi threat.”

It turns out that leaker of the Plame identity (which was not a crime in the first place) was not anyone in the Bush Administration but rather former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage. Despite the apparent inadvertent outing, Armitage, not a “not a partisan gunslinger” according to Novak, kept quiet and for 3 years did not set the record straight.

If that weren’t enough, Special Prosecutor Fitzgerald knew in his first few days on the job that Armitage was the leaker, yet he continued in the “sham prosecution” of Libby, Rove and others. Fitzgerald eventually indicted Lewis “Scooter” Libby , then the chief of staff to the vice president.

National Review reported:

“A new book by Michael Isikoff and David Corn , ‘Hubris: the Inside Story of Spin, Scandal, and the Selling of the Iraq War,’ reports that it was Armitage, the former number-two at the State Department and a confidant of former secretary of state Colin Powell , who told columnist Robert Novak about Valerie Plame — thus setting off the CIA leak ’scandal’ and a years-long investigation.”

“Today, nearly three years on, we are basically right where we started. There’s a lot of blame to go around. First up is Armitage. There was absolutely nothing illegal about the original leak he committed, but he chose to remain silent while others — principally [Karl] Rove and [Lewis 'Scooter'] Libby — endured years of accusations in the press. (Armitage’s close friend Colin Powell also deserves a dishonorable mention for keeping quiet after learning of Armitage’s role.)

“The administration’s leftist adversaries in and out of government who have spent years shrieking ‘traitor’ should be ashamed of themselves. Likewise, the New York Times editorial board , which screamed for an investigation until it got bit on the backside in the form of the media subpoenas.”

The Wilsons, knowing the Bush administration had nothing to do with the outing (or that it was an actual outing) brought legal suit in July against VP Cheney, Rove, and Libby, along with ten other un-named co-defendants, charging they were part of a conspiracy to “discredit, punish and seek revenge against the plaintiffs that included, among other things, disclosing to members of the press Plaintiff Valerie Plame Wilson’s classified CIA employment.” Armitage was not named in the suit. Despite the bombshell development exonerating the Bush administration, Wilson and Plame will not be “derailed” from pursuing their witch hunt of a lawsuit saying that the development “has no impact on the case. This case is about top-level White House officials who conspired against Valerie Wilson.”

Some of Wilson’s lies include his assertion that VP Cheney sent him to Niger, not his wife, that Saddam did not try to procure uranium from Niger, that the Iraq war was pursued baselessly, that his wife Valerie Plame was covert and that she was outed as retaliation by the Bush Administration for his adherence to the “unjust war” doctrine. Some of Wilson’s lies are caught here in his July 2004 Senate Intelligence Committee Report testimony and put into detailed context in THIS previous post.

Isikoff and Corn in their book that revealed this info write:

“The Plame leak in Novak’s column has long been cited by Bush administration critics as a deliberate act of payback, orchestrated to punish and/or discredit Joe Wilson after he charged that the Bush administration had misled the American public about prewar intelligence.”

The Washington Post, which was an accomplice in the entire ordeal, issued as a retraction of sorts for it’s three years of slander against the Bush administration:

End of an Affair

It turns out that the person who exposed CIA agent Valerie Plame was not out to punish her husband.

Nevertheless, it now appears that the person most responsible for the end of Ms. Plame’s CIA career is Mr. Wilson. Mr. Wilson chose to go public with an explosive charge, claiming — falsely, as it turned out — that he had debunked reports of Iraqi uranium-shopping in Niger and that his report had circulated to senior administration officials. He ought to have expected that both those officials and journalists such as Mr. Novak would ask why a retired ambassador would have been sent on such a mission and that the answer would point to his wife. He diverted responsibility from himself and his false charges by claiming that President Bush’s closest aides had engaged in an illegal conspiracy. It’s unfortunate that so many people took him seriously.

And whose fault is that? The vast left wing conspiracy is a fraud pimped up by the liberal media, unscrupulous politicians, blind-eye turning participants and the usual suspects of left nut fringe pundits and talking heads. Conservatives have been detailing the lies since the beginning, which have been totally ignored by the media and poo-pooed by rank and file liberals. Now and only now is this story accepted because the truth was outed by Newsweek’s Michael Isikoff. News agencies and outlets who have been willing accomplices from the start now only offer up a limp-wrested Gilda Rader type “Never mind!” as their concession to defeat. Careers and reputations have been ruined by a willful liberal lie-fest that will go ignored by the left wing nuts, but then this is what liberals do best: lie, cheat and destroy.

Cross-posted at Amy’s Blog Bottom Line Up Front

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 2nd, 2006 at 7:53 am and is filed under Author: Amy Proctor, Iraq, Law, Liberals, Media, Washington, DC. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.