BuzzFlash.com
December 10, 2003
Whatever Happened to the Plame Investigation?
An Act of Treason by the Bush Administration
Gets Buried Alive.
A BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY
by Melanie Sloan, Executive Director of Citizens for Responsibility and
Ethics In Washington
To read the complete article, click
here-- http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/03/12/con03369.html [This link was found on the BuzzFlash website through a Google search on 3/21/04]
Excerpt--
Remember Valerie Plame? Ms. Plame was
the CIA undercover operative who was outed by the White House in effort to punish her husband former Ambassador Joseph Wilson,
who had publicly stated in a July 6, 2003 op-ed in the New York Times, that despite President Bush’s statements
to the contrary, Iraq had not attempted to purchase yellow cake uranium from Niger. The existence of that uranium, you may
recall, was presented to the public as "evidence" that Iraq had nuclear weapons which, in turn, was used to justify our unilateral
attack on Iraq.
Ms. Plame, however, had nothing to do
with any of that. Ms. Plame was an operative under deep cover -- the CIA had created an entire company just so that Ms. Plame
could claim that she worked there. Yet once Joseph Wilson broke his silence and announced that the White House was lying,
Karl Rove decided that Wilson needed to be punished and that his wife was "fair game." Two top government officials called
at least six Washington journalists and disclosed the identity and occupation of Wilson’s wife. But only the ever-ready
apologist for the Republican Party, Robert Novak, took the bait. On July 14, 2003, Novak wrote a piece outing Ms. Plame as
an operative.
Neither Karl Rove -- or whomever among
the Bush senior staff leaked it -- nor Novak gave a moment’s consideration to the lives that they may have jeopardized
by outing Ms. Plame. ... Never mind that outing an undercover CIA operative is a federal crime.
A very serious matter, yet you would
never know that from the White House’s response. ...
The Justice Department launched its
allegedly official probe on September 26th, but neglected to direct the White House to preserve critical evidence until the
evening of September 29th. Then, when the White House Counsel asked if he could wait until the next day to inform the staff
of the need to preserve documents, the Justice Department allowed it. ...
Since September 29th? Nothing, not a
word. Nothing from the White House and nothing from the Department of Justice. ...
I guess the truth is that neither this
administration, nor this Congress, cares nearly as much about national security and the safety of undercover operatives as
they do about politics.
* * *
Melanie Sloan is the Executive
Director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington ("CREW") [LINK]. CREW is a public interest legal watchdog group that exposes government officials who betray the public
trust. CREW aims to counterbalance the conservative legal watchdog groups that had such a strong impact over the past decade.
A BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARY
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