7/24/2003 09:45:00 AM | Brad Plumer Spies like us Should former Ambassador Joseph Wilson IV get most of the credit for the Niger uranium flap? The Bush administration apparently thinks so. They've conducted a wonderful smear campaign that went so far as to out Wilson's wife-- Valerie Plame-- as an undercover CIA operative to reporter Robert Novak. David Corn reports: The sources for Novak's assertion about Wilson's wife appear to be "two senior administration officials." If so, a pair of top Bush officials told a reporter the name of a CIA operative who apparently has worked under what's known as "nonofficial cover" and who has had the dicey and difficult mission of tracking parties trying to buy or sell weapons of mass destruction or WMD material. If Wilson's wife is such a person--and the CIA is unlikely to have many employees like her--her career has been destroyed by the Bush administration.Now I don't really care about the whole uranium fiasco, but this is far, far different. Any government that reveals its own secret agents out of spite is either incompetent, destructive, or both. Oh, and as Corn points out, those senior officials have nicely violated the 1982 Intelligence Identities Protection Act. Good to know the Republicans are still the party of national security. Update: Newsday reports that a Congressional probe is forthcoming. Double update: TAPPED has more, analyzing an interview with Press Secretary Scott McLellan. And Just One Minute has a thorough summary of the whole ordeal. perma link |
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