We were lied into the war on
Iraq. There is simply no denying it now. The Bush
Administration will still insist they had bad intelligence, while at
the same time, they were persecuting people like Joseph Wilson, and by
extension his wife, Valerie Plame Wilson, for Ambassador Wilson's
revelation in a New York Times Op-Ed piece, that George W. Bush's claim
in his 2003 State of The Union Address that Iraq was trying to buy
"yellowcake" Uranium from the nation of Niger was entirely false.
Ambassador Wilson, a man of immense honor and credibility in this
nation, with contacts worldwide, and a man who was Ambassador to Iraq
during the build-up to the Gulf War/Desert Storm under senior President
Bush 41, wrote in the New York Times Op-Ed piece that the documents
alleging Iraq's attempt to buy Uranium from Niger were forged, and no
such attempt by Iraq had been attempted.
In the months leading up to the 3/19/03 attack on Iraq, others like
United Nations Weapons Inspector Scott Ritter, a former U.S. Marine,
were also under attack by the Bush Administration, alleging Ritter was
on the payroll of Saddam Hussein himself. None of the allegations
against Ritter ever proved true. In the aftermath, and in
hindsight, Scott Ritter was trying desperately to stop the United
States from making what has turned out to be the worst global screw-up
by the United States in United States government history -- next to the
Vietnam disaster in terms of needless loss of life.
We, the people of the United States were told, no, assured, in that
State of The Union Address, that Saddam Hussein, Dictator of Iraq, not
only had massive stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons, but
that he had also acquired nuclear matter from Niger to build nuclear
weapons, and that Saddam was planning to use those weapons against the
United States and our allies like Israel, imminently. After our
invasion of Iraq, our troops discovered no such stockpiles or such
planning.
The significance of the recent indictments against Louis "Scooter"
Libby, Chief Advisor to Vice President Dick Cheney, clearly point to a
Bush Administration policy of punishing and silencing anyone who
attempted to discredit anyone of national credibility who might bring
into question the President's allegations against Iraq. Previous
to these outrageous acts, the Bush Administration had been pressuring
the Central Intelligence Agency to produce "evidence" of Saddam's
alleged stockpiles of WMD and nuclear capabilities. In real
terms, the Bush guys were trying to force the CIA to produce evidence
against Iraq that just was not there.
Afterward, President Bush replaced CIA Director Tennant with crony
Goss, who began firing and replacing any CIA assets and officials who
might have the temerity to tell the truth about Iraq and Iraq's true
weapon capabilities.
To say the CIA has been gutted for political passion is an
understatement, and it is completely against the interests of the
People of The United States.
In their zeal to discredit an honorable and patriotic man like Joseph
Wilson, the Bush Administration intentionally leaked to the press that
Joseph Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame Wilson, was a CIA employee.
Journalist Robert Novak published that information in his column, and
that public information totally destroyed Valerie Plame Wilson's cover
as a NOC -- a Non-Official-Cover CIA operative who was engaged in
trying to ascertain the proliferation of Weapons of Mass Destruction
worldwide.
To understand how important and sensitive CIA Operative Valerie Plame
Wilson was, you need to know her official CIA designation. A CIA
agent with an "Official Cover" is a CIA agent assigned to an embassy as
something other than a CIA agent, but everybody knows they are an
intelligence agent under cover of diplomatic immunity. But a
"NOC", is a "Non-Official-Cover CIA agent, who poses as a
business-person or something other -- anything but a covert CIA
agent. If they are discovered by an enemy source, they are often
tortured for their information and eventually executed. In
addition, anyone in their contact is immediately arrested,
interrogated, tortured and often executed. As a NOC that was
"outed" by Robert Novak, not only was Valerie Plame Wilson in jeopardy,
but so were people worldwide who had contact with her in many various
ways.
At this time, we do not know how much damage was done to Valerie Plame
Wilson's intelligence network -- but be assured it was serious and deep
before all the other players could be warned to run.
Which brings us to the supreme question of the day, which is: Why
was Valerie Plame "outed" in the first place? What did Karl Rove,
President Bush's senior advisor, and Louis "Scooter" Libby, senior
advisor to Vice President Cheney, hope to gain, in terms of damage
control, by revealing to reporters that Joseph Wilson's wife was a CIA
employee? There is no question now that they did "out" her to
reporters, but WHY did they think doing that would silence Ambassador
Joseph Wilson? Wilson had already published his article, so that
was already U.S. news, so why did Rove and Libby go out of their way to
reveal to the press that Wilson's wife was CIA?? What did those
idiots hope to gain or recoup by doing that, even if they didn't know
Valerie Plame Wilson was a NOC CIA employee????
In their feeble little minds, did they think revealing Valerie Plame
Wilson as a CIA employee would somehow impeach the credibility of
former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, and silence him from publishing
anything further?
I just don't get it.
What I do know is that Valerie Plame Wilson is now useless as a CIA NOC
operative forever. I hope she can type and make decent coffee,
because clerical is the only thing that comes to mind with regard to
her future employment with the CIA.
But what we all have to ask ourselves is why the Bush guys went after
Joseph Wilson, and by extension, his wife, with such viciousness.
Hey, if I was a good-hearted president and I found out I was wrong
about Saddam trying to buy nuclear matter, I'd be relieved to know
that. But if I deliberately told the American people a fat lie to
get them to accept my prosecuting an illegal, undeclared war on Iraq,
then I might find Wilson's discovery that the whole story about Niger
was false to be a threat I need to deal with. Get it now?
In the final analysis, it was the Bush Administration's actions in
response to Joseph Wilson's Op-Ed in the New York Times that gave them
away. People in search of the truth don't do what Rove and Libby
did. If good intelligence comes in that proves what you thought
was a threat really isn't, you feel relieved. But if you've
deliberately told the American people a lie to get permission to wage
an illegal war, and some former ambassador reveals a major part of your
lies was a lie, you see him as a threat and someone to discredit.
Now you know the truth.
Carl F. Worden
