Say Anything Blog

This is going to be a wild one.

When the people fear their government, there is tyranny; when the government fears the people, there is liberty.

-- Thomas Jefferson

Rob’s recently listened-to songs:

Yes, yes it is… I can’t WAIT for the libs to go nuts.  They figure if they can nail Rove on something, Bush will be done fore… should be fun to see them go after priority#1

If Rove broke the law on this one, he should be held accountable.  He was in no position to judge whether leaking sensitive information like this could harm the CIA, or put other CIA operatives lives in danger.  I don’t think anybody can argue that leaking a classified agents name is anything other than gravely irresponsible.  I think our focus should start there, and worry about the political consequences to the White House later.

If the White House knows the identity of the leaker, they should announce that persons identity before the press runs the story, and take appropriate punitive measures (i.e., fire the person)..  I think this is called “inoculation”.  In my opinion, Bush has shown few signs recently that he has any real grasp of public relations, so I don’t exactly expect a clever Reagan-era move like this to actually occur.

No doubt the DNC will exploit this sotry to its hilt, regardless of which person in the White House leaked the story.  Keeping the majority party honest is a legitimate role of the minority, after all, so you can hardly censor them for this.

So Rove is the culprit?  And GWB knows nothing about it?

I’m actually ready to agree with you Carrick, but how much more proof do you need that Rove was the source? Are you waiting for the Bush White House to officially give Rove up?

You know that ain’t gonna happen.

This is worse than an actual indictment. All this corroborated evidence Rove was the leak, plus Robert Novak’s deadly silence, will only fester while the administration circles its wagons.

And Aaron, as much as you want this to be driven by the ‘Libs’ and the DNC, it’s the news media that will ‘go nuts’ - because it’s a scandal about them.

I didn’t mean to say the libs are driving it… I understand this has much more to do with the media.  What I meant to say is that Rove is the libs public enemy #1 and so it’s interesting to watch Rove be put in a position of vulnerability.  Libs are foaming at the mouth waiting for an opportunity to see this one play out.

I’m trying not to take a position yet, because I’ve really hardly paid attention.  Even when the story broke two years ago it seemed like a non-story then, regardless of who the leak was.  And as Rob pointed out, it wasn’t really a secret in the first place… but we’ll see what happens

By the way there is one telling paragraph in the findlaw article:

The Plame leak is a very serious one. It is an especially nasty case of revenge for truth-telling: To go after Wilson’s wife, for his Op Ed, is dirty business indeed. Even more important, for Valerie Plame (and possibly others who covertly associated with her abroad, and were outed when she was outed) this leak could be life-threatening.

Robert Novak makes the case that it was Wilson who was acting vindictively, and playing fast and lose with the truth.  Nothing excuses the outing of a classified agent as retaliation though. I just wanted to make that clear before somebody jumped the shark over my pointing out questions about Wilson or his motivations.

I also should concretely state that I think the real story here may turn out to be perjury charges, and not the outing of the agent.  There are legalistic reasons to believe that no crime was committed, as long as the persons responsible for the leak were unaware of the classified natured of Plume’s status with the CIA.

TCF says:

how much more proof do you need that Rove was the source?

It is my understanding that Robert Novak has already appeared in front of or otherwise answered questions from the grand jury.  In any case, here is what he says about his silence:

Because a U.S. Justice Department special prosecutor is investigating whether any crime was committed when my column first identified Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame, as a CIA employee, on advice of counsel I have not written on the subject since last October.

By the way, I’ve just finished reading the Newsweek article everybody was buzzing about.  As far as I can tell, it is a no-show (just a rehash of old news).  This Find Law article was actually much more illuminating.

[...] The Newsweek article about Karl Rove and the Plame leak (mentioned previously here) is out. Here’s the key excerpt: The e-mails surrendered by Time Inc., which are largely between Cooper and his editors, show that one of Cooper’s sources was White House deputy chief of staff Karl Rove, according to two lawyers who asked not to be identified because they are representing witnesses sympathetic to the White House. Cooper and a Time spokeswoman declined to comment. But in an interview with NEWSWEEK, Rove’s lawyer, Robert Luskin, confirmed that Rove had been interviewed by Cooper for the article. It is unclear, however, what passed between Cooper and Rove. [...]

If you can not disprove the message destroy ths messanger.
The issue here is bogus atomic (yellow cake) purchases from
Nigeria. There were none. Therefore we shall destroy the
messenger and change the subject. The real investigation
and conversation should be why were the american people fed bulshit about Sadam buying yellow cake from anywhere.
Thats the perjury.

Ellinas~

1) You obviously don’t understand what perjury is.  No one has ever, to my knowledge, testified in a court or in front of a grand jury that Saddam bought yellow cake from Niger.

2) The UK, last I heard, still stands by that assertion.  It has never been discredited. Show me where the UK has backed down from this allegation and I’ll gladly retract

Doesn’t the fact that British Intelligence stands by this as true “speak volumes” as well?

If one takes an oath to serve his country,one swear to defend the country fom all enemies. That includes false speach. If one violates that oath, then in a larger context he or she has commited perjury. As for the British goverment’s refusal to retract, it does not make those documents true. Remember that the documents were forgeries. And that sir speaks volumes.

If you stand next to a pile of shit and SAY you cant smell it does that change the fact? No sir. It only speaks volumes about your ability to discern that pile of shit. Standing next to forged documents and saying they are real, is bullshit the same way were the documents about Mr Bush’s national guard service

I don’t know anything about these forged documents. Like I said, I have followed this story hardly at all and haven’t really cared.  What documents are you talking about?

The documents that purported that Iraq/saddam tried to and or purchased raw materials from Nigeria, were proven forgeries. Even our goverment conceded this fact. Just because you did not read or hear about it those documents were forgeries. Thats what the spooks husband reported, that is what was proved,and thats why the spook was outed.

ellinas says:

As for the British goverment’s refusal to retract, it does not make those documents true. Remember that the documents were forgeries. And that sir speaks volumes.

Ellians goes on to say

Thats what the spooks husband reported, that is what was proved,and thats why the spook was outed.

This shows only that you don’t really follow the news, but still think you can comment intelligently on it.  In fact, it has sense been shown that Joe Wilson exaggerated his role in the CIA investigation and more importantly misrepresented (aka “lied about") his findings in his July 6, 2003 New York Times editorial.  Rightfully, many in the White House regarded Wilson’s article as a politically motivated attack, and properly responded in kind.

Here is a nice “money quote” to end on, from the WSJ:

The Senate Intelligence Committee found, finally, that far from debunking the Iraq-Niger story, Mr. Wilson’s debrief was interpreted as providing “some confirmation of foreign government service reporting” that Iraq had sought uranium in Niger. Why? Because he’d reported that former Nigerien Prime Minister Ibrahim Mayaki had told him of a 1999 visit by the Iraqis to discuss “commercial relations,” which the leader of the one-industry country logically interpreted as interest in uranium.

170. The JIC also noted that Iraq:
. . . intended to use nuclear material held under IAEA safeguards in Iraq. The Iraqis
claim the plan was abandoned because they concluded that the IAEA would detect
their activities. In fact,they had insufficient fissile material to make a nuclear device.
Hussein Kamil’s reported claim that,at the time of the Gulf conflict,Iraq was only
three months from completing a nuclear weapon probably refers to the ‘crash
programme’. It is very unlikely to be true.
[JIC, 24 August 1995]

The investigation was centred on documents provided by a number of States that
pointed to an agreement between Niger and Iraq for the sale of uranium to Iraq
between 1999 and 2001. The IAEA has discussed these reports with the
Governments of Iraq and Niger,both of which have denied that any such activity took
place. For its part,Iraq has provided the IAEA with a comprehensive explanation of
its relations with Niger,and has described a visit by an Iraqi official to a number of
African countries,including Niger, in February 1999,which Iraq thought might have
given rise to the reports. The IAEA was able to review correspondence coming from
various bodies of the Government of Niger,and to compare the form, format,
contents and signatures of that correspondence with those of the alleged
procurement-related documentation. Based on thorough analysis,the IAEA has
concluded,with the concurrence of outside experts,that these documents,which
formed the basis for the reports of recent uranium transactions between Iraq and
Niger,are in fact not authentic. We have therefore concluded that these specific
allegations are unfounded. THE ABOVE WAS COPIED FROM THE LINK YOU PROVIDED ME

ellinas, I think you have missed the point.

What you have provided is more evidence that there are forged documents.  I am not arguing that the forged documents are legitimate.  Far from it.  What I am saying is that 1) the British report was not based on these forged documents and 2) that the underlying evidence provided in the British intelligence report has been independently confirmed by the British (the “Butler Report") and the US (the Joint Intelligence Committee). 

And what exactly is that claim that has been independently validated?  It is the claim that Iraq attempted to obtain uranium from Nigeria for the purpose of making WMD.  Specifically, Butler’s report, page 123, paragraph 499,

We conclude that, on the basis of the intelligence assessments at the time, covering both Niger and the Democratic Republic of Congo, the statements on Iraqi attempts to buy uranium from Africa in the Government’s dossier, and by the Prime Minister in the House of Commons, were well-founded. By extension, we conclude also that the statement in
President Bush’s State of the Union Address of 28 January 2003 that: The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa was well-founded.

Secondly, what exactly is this about the forged documents?  Here is what the WSJ article says:

Mr. Wilson also seems to have dissembled about how he concluded that there was nothing to the Iraq-Niger uranium story, serving for example as the anonymous source for a June 12, 2003, Washington Post story saying “among the Envoy’s conclusions was that the documents may have been forged because ‘the dates were wrong and the names were wrong.’ “ There were some forged documents related to an Iraq-Niger uranium deal. Trouble was, such documents had not even come to the intelligence community (never mind to Mr. Wilson’s attention) by the time of his trip, and obviously hadn’t been the basis of the report he’d been sent to investigate. He told the Senate he may have “mispoken"--at some length we guess--on this issue.

If it smells like shit, it is shit. How fresh or stale are the shit does not matter. If they had the truth about Iraq and uranium purchases then there was no need for forging any documents, by anyone. The same goes for the outing of the spook.

ellilnas says:

If it smells like shit, it is shit. How fresh or stale are the shit does not matter. If they had the truth about Iraq and uranium purchases then there was no need for forging any documents, by anyone. The same goes for the outing of the spook.

This is an incredibly lame argument.  Somebody makes a poor quality forgery after Joe Wilson makes his fact-finding mission to the Niger.  Joe then writes a New York Times editorial placing the forged documents front and center and claiming they were the prima facie for his original report (a bald-faced lie, since the forged documents were discovered after his fact finding mission).  I further present further evidence that the forged documents played no role in the British Intelligence threat assessment.

You also make the bizarro statement: … then there was no need for forging any documents, by anyone. Well, you are using the forged documents to discredit the factual statement that Iraq attempted unsuccessfully to obtain yellow cake from Nigeria.  One could conclude from this that somebody is benefiting from the presence of the forged documents.  Can you work out on your own who that could be and what their motivation for producing forged documents is, or do I need to connect the dots for you there as well?

The only way things could fall out the way you argue is if M6 were to build a time-machine and go forward in time (accompanied by that super-agent team of Wilson-Plame), obtain the forged documents, and then somehow be fooled by these obvious forgeries.  Sans a time-machine, your scenario is physically impossible. The only thing that smells here frankly is your logic (or lack of it).

Right. All that to discredit the messenger, and give a message to everybody else: “If you dont shut up, we are going to fuck with you till your ability to earn a living is diminished.” “If you dont retract publicly or otherwise, your ass is grass.”
Watch what we do to your wife’s ability to earn a living. We have the resourses and willingness to fuck with you till kingdom come.

Calling it “shit” all the time doesn’t make it thus, ellinas.  You’ve got to produce reliable data, such as Carrick did, to make your point.

Ellinas: All that to discredit the messenger, and give a message to everybody else

Congratulations, Ellinas.  Tnhis is quite a logical pretzel you’ve made to this point.  Let me break it down for you:

1) The first issue at had is whether Iraq attempted to obtain yellow cake.
2) The British Intelligence made an assessment that #1 is true.
3) You claimed that the forged documents were the basis of #2.
4) I demonstrated (here and here that your assertion (#3) is patently false.
5) You now claim that the forged documents were produced to discredit Wilson.  You make no mention of that fact that this new theory contradicts your original theory #3.

This is pretty amazingly poor logic.

As confirmed by the JIC, Wilson’s original report confirmed that Iraq had previously attempted to obtain yellow cake from Nigeria.  The forged documents were “discovered” after this and used by Wilson in his politically motivated editorial in the NYT.  This is not a classic “whistle-blower” case, regardless of what you would like to believe.

How does it follow that forged documents (already being circulated in press) used as a basis for a political attack by Wilson were placed there to discredit him after he had made the attack?  This could make sense only if Wilson had used other evidence as the basis of his claim that the threat of Iraqi obtaining uranium was overstated.

You also say:

Watch what we do to your wife’s ability to earn a living.

The brutal truth is you can’t attack powerful people, especially using lies and innuendo, and expect to go unscathed.  This is a political reality.  Even if we accept that the outing of Plame was used to discredit Wilson, it in no way affects Valerie’s current job as a WMD analyst, which is an unclassified position.

The real problem is not the effect that the outing of Valerie had on her career (no effect) or on Wilson (it made him a folk hero with the left), but rather the effect on the US national interests and on the collateral damage that it caused.

Ouch! Carrick, you are spot-on today! Keep ‘em swingin!

I’ll repeat, spot-on, Carrick.. nicely done

5) You now claim that the forged documents were produced to discredit Wilson. You make no mention of that fact that this new theory contradicts your original theory #3.
I never claimed such a thing, nor did it ever cross my mind. Please enumerate the US national interests you are talking about.

Elllinas:

I never claimed such a thing, nor did it ever cross my mind.

Then what exact did you mean by this? 

All that to discredit the messenger, and give a message to everybody else.

I think it is becoming pretty obvious that you are forming opinions without being informed by the facts.  You’re entitled to your opinions, regardless of how they are formed.  Just to expect to persuade anybody with your arguments, if you can’t back them up by facts.

You ask

Please enumerate the US national interests you are talking about.

See this comment.

I’m heading out for 4th of July festivities now.  I’m going to celebrate it by blowing things up.

What harm has come of the leak?  Novak not only released Plume’s name, but also the CIA cover, the name of her fake employer.  By exposing the name of the cover company, Novak (and if the blog on huffingtonpost.com is true, Rove), placed many more operatives and assets at risk in the field than just Plume.

None of us engaged in this debate know all the facts concerning this issue. It has become obvious to me that some participants are very inteligent but blinded by partisanship.Some participants are very well informed in their respective political party’s agenda and propaganda. All of us have strong opinions about issues that affect us and and about issues that don’t affect us.
Throughout this conversation issues were presented intelligently by all. The one thing that is clear to me, regardless of ones beliefs is that the person or persons behind this leak whether any damage was dne or not is a COWARD. This person should have came out long time ago and accepted full responsibility. If the law was
broken than he should be punished according to the law. If the law was not broken than the ones pushing the issue are ASSHOLES.

On another episode of What is the Operative Truth? we have ‘that colored fella’. What did this colored fella have to say? Well let’s take a look:

I’m actually ready to agree with you Carrick, but how much more proof do you need that Rove was the source? Are you waiting for the Bush White House to officially give Rove up?

Is that the right answer?: NO!

Reality says: Richard Armitage is the source of the leak!

What does our partisan wanker win?: A lifetime of his stuck on stupid moment cached on the Internet. Congratulations!

I’d like to thank our other stuck on stupid contestant, ellinas, who gave us this bit of wisdom, “If it smells like shit, it is shit.” Indeed it does ellinas! That was an apt description of your wild and frantic conspiracy theories.

Thank you and see us next time What is the Operative Truth?