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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: carranza2 who wrote (126116)	7/19/2005 11:35:55 AM
From: michael97123	Respond to of 793974

I am not sure he is wrong. Arent we looking at these axis of evil nations as a one trick pony and is that an error? Remember the Pueblo By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF PYONGYANG, North Korea Moored on a river here in the North Korean capital is the U.S.S. Pueblo, described as an "armed spy ship of the U.S. imperialist aggression forces." The Pueblo is the Navy ship that North Korea seized in 1968 in waters off the country's east coast, setting off an international crisis. One American sailor was killed and 82 others were imprisoned for nearly a year and tortured into writing confessions. To signal that the confessions were forced, the sailors listed accomplices like the television character Maxwell Smart. When forced to pose for a photo, some crew members extended their middle fingers to the camera, explaining to the North Korean photographer that this was a Hawaiian good luck sign. After the photo was published and the North Korean guards realized they'd been had, the sailors suffered a week of particularly brutal torture. As the first Navy vessel to surrender in peacetime since 1807, the Pueblo was a humiliation for America. And it has become a propaganda trophy for North Korea, with ordinary Koreans paraded through in organized tours to fire up nationalist support for the Dear Leader, Kim Jong Il. Then Mr. Kim decided the propaganda would be even better if the ship was moved from the east coast to the capital. So the Korean Navy disguised the Pueblo as a freighter, ran up the North Korean flag and sailed it for nine days through international waters around South Korea to the west coast of North Korea, and then up a river to Pyongyang. In 1999, the Pueblo opened triumphantly to crowds in Pyongyang. (Photos are at nytimes.com/opinion.) "When this ship left Wonsan port [on the east coast], Japanese ships mobilized to check it," said Col. Kim Jung Rok, who as a 28-year-old sailor helped storm the Pueblo and is now in charge of it. "But then they saw it was an ordinary freighter and withdrew." It's a bad sign that the Western intelligence experts who monitor North Korean ports and examine satellite images didn't notice that the Pueblo had moved. President Bush's refusal to engage North Korea, as the Clinton administration had done, has already led the North to revive plutonium production. Mr. Bush's backup plan is to stop North Korean nuclear proliferation by intercepting nuclear materials as they leave the country - but that's wishful thinking. If we couldn't detect the transfer of a famous 176-foot ship, it's ludicrous to think we could stop the smuggling of a grapefruit-size chunk of plutonium. The Pueblo is also a reminder that Kim Jong Il is unrelenting in promoting nationalism - and hostility to the West - to keep himself in power. That prickly Korean nationalism - think of the French, cubed - offers the only shred of legitimacy the Dear Leader has. Many tens of thousands of ethnic Koreans in Japan support North Korea, not because they are Communists but because they are patriots - they see the Dear Leader as an authentic Korean nationalist, in contrast with the American quislings in the South. The biggest mistake America has made since World War II has been to misunderstand nationalism. That myopia now bolsters Kim Jong Il. When Bush administration officials rattle sabers at North Korea, they're helping to keep Kim Jong Il in power. Since the War of 1812, only two nations, Russia and China, have posed a major military threat to our home turf. Now North Korea, with its nuclear weapons and three-stage Taepodong missiles, is apparently joining that list, and emerging as a potential global eBay for anyone seeking plutonium. And our plans to deal with that problem by intercepting shipments are as loony as North Korea itself. But the story of the Pueblo's capture also offers a hint of how to proceed. Initially, many Americans favored a hard line. The chairman of the House Armed Services Committee, for example, urged dropping a nuclear bomb on one North Korean city. President Lyndon Johnson resisted, noting that bombing North Korea would not bring our hostages home. So the U.S. tried full-bore diplomacy. It was frustrating, slow and not wholly successful, but in the end was the best of a bunch of bad alternatives. It's time for us to learn from the Pueblo again. The Bush administration's dismissal of serious, direct diplomacy has made Korea more dangerous. Engagement may be arduous, frustrating and often unsatisfying, but it's the only option we have left. E-mail: nicholas@nytimes.com * Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company

To: carranza2 who wrote (126116)	7/19/2005 11:40:57 AM
From: carranza2	Respond to of 793974

And David Corn replies to Andrew May's suggestion that Corn, who first reported that Plame was undercover, was given the information by Wilson in an attempt to set up the GOP. His retort is a bit weak and emotional, in my estimation, yet highly readable. May might be on to something in his discussion about Corn--the plot is thickening: davidcorn.com The Rove Scandal: Now I'm Smeared as the Leaker I have rarely read a column as stupid, absurd and wrong as the one posted today by Clifford May, a former New York Times reporter who left journalism and became a spokesman for the Republican Party. It begins: This just in: Bob Novak did not reveal that Valerie Plame was an undercover agent for the CIA Who did? Apparently, I did. And, by the way, Mark Felt was not Deep Throat; it was me. May notes that in Bob Novak's column that first outed Valerie Wilson, Novak described her as "an Agency operative on weapons of mass destruction." He argues that this did not reveal Valerie Wilson as a truly undercover CIA officer--what's known as a NOC (an officer under "nonofficial cover"). He then points out that when I wrote about the Novak column two days later, I referred to Valerie Wilson as "a U.S. intelligence officer working covertly in a field of vital important to national security." Breathlessly, May writes, "Since Novak did not report that Plame was 'working covertly' how did Corn know that's what she had been doing?" His answer: Joseph Wilson must have told me when I interviewed him after the Novak leak. Thus, Valerie Wilson was really outed by me because Joe Wilson leaked to me. Got that? There are several problems with May's piece. He claims that Novak's story did no real harm to Valerie Wilson's standing as a CIA officer. He writes, "On the basis of Novak's story alone, it is highly unlikely that anyone would have had a clue that Plame...had been a NOC. At most, her friends in Washington would have been surprised to learn that she didn't work where she said she worked." May is assuming that an undercover intelligence officer is not really outed unless a journalist writes something like, "She works at the CIA and and she's undercover there." That is incredibly daffy. If Cliff May had been a CIA NOC when he was stationed overseas for the Times and a newspaper published a piece saying he was an "operative" for the CIA, that would have indeed outed him as a NOC. And it would have caused a mess of trouble. Revealing an undercover officer's relationship to the CIA is what blows the cover. One need not spell out the NOC's relationship to the agency. Once Valerie Wilson's name appeared in Novak's column, her days as a CIA undercover official were done. Moreover, operation that she worked on--and possibly other officers and agents with whom she had worked--were compromised. Before Valerie Wilson was exposed, she was known to family and friends as an energy analyst who worked for a private firm. That was her cover. When Novak said she was a CIA "operative," that cover was destroyed. This was not just a matter of letting her friends and relatives in on a little secret. Novak's column was not merely an inconvenience for her. (Remember, the CIA did ask the Justice Department to investigate this leak; the special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has repeatedly called it a big deal: and various federal judges have affirmed Fitzgerald's characterization.) So May is profoundly wrong when he argues Novak's leak was not all that consequential. He's also off the deep end when he claims that I outed Valerie Wilson. In my article--which was the first piece to suggest that the Novak leak might be evidence of a crime committed by Bush aides--I did not report that she was an undercover officer. I posed a question: Did senior Bush officials blow the cover of a US intelligence officer working covertly in a field of vital importance to national security--and break the law--in order to strike at a Bush administration critic and intimidate others? That was not a statement of fact. And in that article, I noted that I had spoken to Joseph Wilson and that he had refused to say whether his wife worked at the CIA: Wilson says, "I will not answer questions about my wife. This is not about me and less so about my wife. It has always been about the facts underpinning the President's statement in the state of the union speech." So he will neither confirm nor deny that his wife--who is the mother of three-year-old twins--works for the CIA. May does not believe me. He argues that I could not have written that Bush officials might have outed an undercover officer without Wilson having told me she was an undercover officer. He writes: Any reporter worth his salt would immediately wonder: Did Wilson indeed answer Corn's questions about his wife--after Corn agreed not to quote his answers but to use them only on background? He can wonder all he likes. I noted rather clearly in my piece that Wilson did not answer my questions. And when May emailed yesterday about this, I sent him a rather unambiguous note: When I spoke to Joe Wilson after the Novak leak, he would not tell me whether or not his wife worked at the CIA. He spoke only in hypotheticals. He said, imagine if she did, what would this leak mean, AND imagine if she did not, what would this leak mean. So I do deny that he told me because he did not. That's the truth, the absolute truth. No spin. No parsing. No stonewalling. If you find any wiggle room in this response, let me know and I will unwiggle it. And you can believe it or not. May, the former reporter, did not believe me. Worse, he did not quote this email in his column. He only mentioned an earlier email in which I pointed out to him that I was asking a question not making a "statement of fact." (That explanation apparently did not suffice, so after he queried me again, I sent him the above note, which he ignored.) Now let's turn to the great mystery May believes he has solved: how did Corn know--even in his supposin'--to describe Valerie Wilson as a "top-secret" operative? Two explanations. First, I assumed the worst, in order to explore fully the possible ramifications of the Novak leak. Second, I knew that the Wilsons had told friends and family members that Valerie was an energy analyst at a private firm. That would mean that if she was a CIA operative (as Novak reported--and don't we trust his reporting?) then she had to be an undercover CIA operative. Could there be any other alternative? CIA employees who work overtly at the CIA--and there are many--do not tell people they work for a private firm. And since the story was that Valerie worked for an energy firm, that meant that she could not have what's known as "official" cover. (That's when a CIA officer is stationed as a diplomat in an embassy overseas.) And Novak had reported her field was weapons of mass destruction--which is a top-secret field. So this is the info I possessed: she was a CIA "operative" working on WMD issues and she told people she was an energy analyst at a private firm. In my calculations, that could only add up to one thing: if Novak's report was accurate, she was a NOC working in a highly sensitive field. I needed no secrets from Joe Wilson to reach that conclusion. And he gave me no secrets--on background, on foreground, or on any ground. Novak ruined Valerie Wilson's career. His words put her past operations in jeopardy. May is now desperately trying to absolve Novak and the Bush administration leakers (such as Karl Rove) by blaming Joe Wilson (a victim) and me. Here's another fact that may interest anyone who thinks May might have a point: Number of times I've been contacted by Patrick Fitzgerald, interviewed or contacted by his investigators, and called before the grand jury: 0. What motivated May, who now is the press flack at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (a conservative outfit much in favor of the Iraq war), to write such hyperbolic and false tripe? Only he can answer that question. In the past, I have enjoyed debating politics and policy with him on various talk shows. I considered him an honest--though misguided--adversary. But now I will regard him as a hack who cares not a whit for facts and truth. And if this is the sort of defense--and defender--that Rove needs, then maybe Rove really is in trouble. ****** Back to the Real World: If you want to see my analysis of the most recent Rove scandal news, click here. In short, Rove is now defending himself by admitting he leaked classified information to two reporters and by proving that the White House did lie about his involvement in the Plame/CIA leak. What a defense!

To: carranza2 who wrote (126116)	7/19/2005 2:03:28 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793974

I still can't fathom how anybody could have "exposed" Valerie Plame's employment when it was obviously already public knowledge, whatever her status on the CIA books might have been.

To: carranza2 who wrote (126116)	7/20/2005 1:17:16 AM
From: KLP	Respond to of 793974

Why did Plame "out" HERSELF....??? with 1999 Al Gore Campaign Fund Donation...!!! washingtonpost.com Leak of Agent's Name Causes Exposure of CIA Front Firm By Walter Pincus and Mike Allen Washington Post Staff Writers Saturday, October 4, 2003; Page A03 The leak of a CIA operative's name has also exposed the identity of a CIA front company, potentially expanding the damage caused by the original disclosure, Bush administration officials said yesterday. The company's identity, Brewster-Jennings & Associates, became public because it appeared in Federal Election Commission records on a form filled out in 1999 by Valerie Plame, the case officer at the center of the controversy, when she contributed $1,000 to Al Gore's presidential primary campaign. After the name of the company was broadcast yesterday, administration officials confirmed that it was a CIA front. They said the obscure and possibly defunct firm was listed as Plame's employer on her W-2 tax forms in 1999 when she was working undercover for the CIA. Plame's name was first published July 14 in a newspaper column by Robert D. Novak that quoted two senior administration officials. They were critical of her husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, for his handling of a CIA mission that undercut President Bush's claim that Iraq had sought uranium from the African nation of Niger for possible use in developing nuclear weapons. The Justice Department began a formal criminal investigation of the leak Sept. 26. The inadvertent disclosure of the name of a business affiliated with the CIA underscores the potential damage to the agency and its operatives caused by the leak of Plame's identity. Intelligence officials have said that once Plame's job as an undercover operative was revealed, other agency secrets could be unraveled and her sources might be compromised or endangered. A former diplomat who spoke on condition of anonymity said yesterday that every foreign intelligence service would run Plame's name through its databases within hours of its publication to determine if she had visited their country and to reconstruct her activities. "That's why the agency is so sensitive about just publishing her name," the former diplomat said. FEC rules require donors to list their employment. Plame used her married name, Valerie E. Wilson, and listed her employment as an "analyst" with Brewster-Jennings & Associates. The document establishes that Plame has worked undercover within the past five years. The time frame is one of the standards used in making determinations about whether a disclosure is a criminal violation of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act. It could not be learned yesterday whether other CIA operatives were associated with Brewster-Jennings. Also yesterday, the nearly 2,000 employees of the White House were given a Tuesday deadline to scour their files and computers for any records related to Wilson or contacts with journalists about Wilson. The broad order, in an e-mail from White House counsel Alberto R. Gonzales, directed them to retain records "that relate in any way to former U.S. Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson, his trip to Niger in February 2002, or his wife's purported relationship with the Central Intelligence Agency." White House employees received the e-mailed directive at 12:45 p.m., with an all-capitalized subject line saying, "Important Follow-Up Message From Counsel's Office." By 5 p.m. on Tuesday, employees must turn over copies of relevant electronic records, telephone records, message slips, phone logs, computer records, memos, and diaries and calendar entries. The directive notes that lawyers in the counsel's office are attorneys for the president in his official capacity and that they cannot provide personal legal advice to employees. For some officials, the task is a massive one. Some White House officials said they had numerous conversations with Wilson that had nothing to do with his wife, so the directive is seen as a heavy burden at a time when many of the president's aides already feel beleaguered. Officials at the Pentagon and State Department also have been asked to retain records related to the case. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell said yesterday: "We are doing our searches. . . . I'm not sure what they will be looking for or what they wish to contact us about, but we are anxious to be of all assistance to the inquiry." In another development, FBI agents yesterday began attempts to interview journalists who may have had conversations with government sources about Plame and Wilson. It was not clear how many journalists had been contacted. The FBI has interviewed Plame, ABC News reported. Wilson and his wife have hired Washington lawyer Christopher Wolf to represent them in the matter. The couple has directed him to take a preliminary look at claims they might be able to make against people they believe have impugned their character, a source said. The name of the CIA front company was broadcast yesterday by Novak, the syndicated journalist who originally identified Plame. Novak, highlighting Wilson's ties to Democrats, said on CNN that Wilson's "wife, the CIA employee, gave $1,000 to Gore and she listed herself as an employee of Brewster-Jennings & Associates." "There is no such firm, I'm convinced," he continued. "CIA people are not supposed to list themselves with fictitious firms if they're under a deep cover -- they're supposed to be real firms, or so I'm told. Sort of adds to the little mystery." In fact, it appears the firm did exist, at least on paper. The Dun & Bradstreet database of company names lists a firm that is called both Brewster Jennings & Associates and Jennings Brewster & Associates. The phone number in the listing is not in service, and the property manager at the address listed said there is no such company at the property, although records from 2000 were not available. Wilson was originally listed as having given $2,000 to Gore during the primary campaign in 1999, but the donation, over the legal limit of $1,000, was "reattributed" so that Wilson and Plame each gave $1,000 to Gore. Wilson also gave $1,000 to the Bush primary campaign, but there is no donation listed from his wife. Staff writers Dana Milbank, Susan Schmidt and Dana Priest, political researcher Brian Faler and researcher Lucy Shackelford contributed to this report.