TIME Outed Rove and Libby
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The articles in Time this week have clarified a number of issues that have been bouncing around Joe User. The first issue is the status of Valerie Plame in the CIA. Many bloggers on Joe User have claimed she was not a covert CIA Agent. The CIA, in a very unusual action, confirmed that Valerie Plame was in fact an NOC covert agent. This is an agent who works undercover without the protection of any diplomatic immunity and are the agents in the most danger for themselves and the contacts that they develop in living their double life for the CIA. These agents are difficult to establish and are the type of agent that was intended to be protected under 1982 Intelligence Identities Protection Act. Unfortunately, this law was designed to be very difficult to violate and the one thing that the Time articles did not address is whether Rove or Libby met all the technical requirements that violated this particular statute.
The second issue that was clearly documented in the Time articles was the fact that it was Karl Rove that first identified Wilsonâ's wife as a CIA operative to Matt Cooper of Time magazine. It was not another reporter, it was Rove. In addition, Rove told Cooper Valerie was involved in the WMD which has also been confirmed by the CIA. In addition, Matt Cooper testified before the grand jury that Scooter Libby, the vice presidentâ's chief of staff, confirmed the fact that Wilsonâ's wife was a CIA operative working on WMD. It is now clear that the two White House staff members mentioned in the Bob Novak article which identified Valerie Plame as a CIA Agent were Rove and Libby.
These two individuals consistently lied saying that they were not involved with identifying Wilsonâ's wife as a CIA agent. It is likely that President Bush was unaware at the outset that Rove and Libby were the White House staffers that outed Plame given the fact that Bush said he would fire the persons responsible for identifying Plame as a CIA agent. No one knows exactly when Bush and Cheney learned it was their principal assistants that had loose lips but Bush has now changed the criteria to being convicted of a crime not merely violating the spirit of law which was to protect agents such as Valerie Plame.
Time magazine has done us a great service in identifying Rove and Libby as liars who endangered one of our CIA. Agents. In addition to the potential harm to Plame, there is the danger to people Valerie Plame worked with while she lived her secret life as a covert agent. That is why the CIA went to the Justice Department and a Special Prosecutor was appointed. It is also the reason that the FBI is conducting a major investigation of this matter. Only Patrick Fitzgerald, the Special Prosecutor will be able to determine whether Rove or Lobby actually violated the complex law intended to protect the identity of clandestine operatives in the CIA. There is no question that Rove and Libby are the people that violated at least the spirit of law and lied to the American people. It is time for President Bush to follow his original commitment to terminate Rove and Libby for their actions in identifying one of our covert CIA Agents.
