According to the Financial Times, the outing of Valerie Plame’s identity as a CIA operative was as more a shot across the bow of the intelligence community rather than an individualized retaliation at Joseph Wilson:
Vince Cannistraro, former CIA operations chief, charged yesterday: “She was outed as a vindictive act because the agency was not providing support for policy statements that Saddam Hussein was reviving his nuclear programme.”
The leak was a way to “demonstrate an underlying contempt for the intelligence community, the CIA in particular”.
He said that in the run-up to the Iraq war, the White House had exerted unprecedented pressure on the CIA and other intelligence agencies to find evidence that Iraq had links to Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda and that Baghdad was trying to build a nuclear bomb.
While the intelligence agencies believe their mission is to provide accurate analysis to the president to aid policy decisions, in the case of Iraq “we had policies that were already adopted and they were looking for those selective pieces of intelligence that would support the policy”, Mr Cannistraro said.
Strong words from a man who served on the National Security Council during the Reagan administration.
Since the beginning, I’ve suspected this Plame episode was part of a larger intelligence battle. Had the White House merely wanted to retaliate Wilson for his role in the Yellowcake controversy, they could have done so directly. But they wanted to intimidate potential whistle blowers: stay in line with the government policy–or else. So that’s why they struck Plame–they wanted to highlight the vulnerability of intelligence agents.
This story hasn’t got much buzz recently, while the Department of Justice ramps up its leak investigation. But I suspect we’re going to hear more intelligence people talking to the media if we don’t get answers from the DOJ soon.
That’s pretty damning, if true.
The CIA had an opening for an assassin. After all of the background checks, interviews, and testing were done there were three finalists – two men and one woman. For the final test, the CIA agents took one of the men to a large metal door and handed him a gun.
“We must know that you will follow your instructions, no matter what the circumstances. Inside this room you will find your wife sitting in a chair. You have to kill her.” The first man said. “You cant be serious. I could never shoot my wife!”The agent replies, “Then you?re not the right man for this job.”
The second man was given the same instructions. He took the gun and went into the room. All was quiet for about five minutes. Then the agent came out with tears in his eyes. “I tried, but I cant kill my wife.” The agent replies, “You dont have what it takes. Take your wife and go home.”
Finally, it was the womans turn. Only she was told to kill her husband. She took the gun and went into the room. Shots were heard, one shot after another. They heard screaming, crashing, banging on the walls. After a few minutes, all was quiet. The door opened slowly and there stood the woman. She wiped the sweat from her brow and said, “You guys didnt tell me the gun was loaded with blanks. So I had to beat him to death with the chair.”