Outed CIA officer was working on Iran, intelligence sources say

Larisa Alexandrovna
Published: February 13, 2006

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IranThe unmasking of covert CIA officer Valerie Plame Wilson by White House officials in 2003 caused significant damage to U.S. national security and its ability to counter nuclear proliferation abroad, RAW STORY has learned.

According to current and former intelligence officials, Plame Wilson, who worked on the clandestine side of the CIA in the Directorate of Operations as a non-official cover (NOC) officer, was part of an operation tracking distribution and acquisition of weapons of mass destruction technology to and from Iran.

Speaking under strict confidentiality, intelligence officials revealed heretofore unreported elements of Plame's work. Their accounts suggest that Plame's outing was more serious than has previously been reported and carries grave implications for U.S. national security and its ability to monitor Iran's burgeoning nuclear program.
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While many have speculated that Plame was involved in monitoring the nuclear proliferation black market, specifically the proliferation activities of Pakistan's nuclear "father," A.Q. Khan, intelligence sources say that her team provided only minimal support in that area, focusing almost entirely on Iran.

Plame declined to comment through her husband, Joseph Wilson.

Valerie Plame first became a household name when her identity was disclosed by conservative columnist Robert Novak on July 14, 2003. The column came only a week after her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, had written an op-ed for the New York Times asserting that White House officials twisted pre-war intelligence on Iraq. Her outing was seen as political retaliation for Wilson's criticism of the Administration's claim that Iraq sought uranium from Niger for a nuclear weapons program.

Her case has drawn international attention and resulted in the indictment of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, on five counts of perjury, obstruction of justice, and making false statements. Special Prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald, who is leading the probe, is still pursuing Deputy Chief of Staff and Special Advisor to President Bush, Karl Rove. His investigation remains open.

The damages

Intelligence sources would not identify the specifics of Plame's work. They did, however, tell RAW STORY that her outing resulted in "severe" damage to her team and significantly hampered the CIA's ability to monitor nuclear proliferation.

Plame's team, they added, would have come in contact with A.Q. Khan's network in the course of her work on Iran.

While Director of Central Intelligence Porter Goss has not submitted a formal damage assessment to Congressional oversight committees, the CIA's Directorate of Operations did conduct a serious and aggressive investigation, sources say.

Intelligence sources familiar with the damage assessment say that what is called a "counter intelligence assessment to agency operations" was conducted on the orders of the CIA's then-Deputy Director of the Directorate of Operations, James Pavitt.

Former CIA counterintelligence officer Larry Johnson believes that such an assessment would have had to be done for the CIA to have referred the case to the Justice Department.

"An exposure like that required an immediate operational and counter intelligence damage assessment," Johnson said. "That was done. The results were written up but not in a form for submission to anyone outside of CIA."

One former counterintelligence official described the CIA's reasons for not seeking Congressional assistance on the matter as follows: "[The CIA Leadership] made a conscious decision not to do a formal inquiry because they knew it might become public," the source said. "They referred it [to the Justice Department] instead because they believed a criminal investigation was needed."

The source described the findings of the assessment as showing "significant damage to operational equities."

Another counterintelligence official, also wishing to remain anonymous due to the nature of the subject matter, described "operational equities" as including both people and agency operations that involve the "cover mechanism," "front companies," and other CIA officers and assets.

Three intelligence officers confirmed that other CIA non-official cover officers were compromised, but did not indicate the number of people operating under non-official cover that were affected or the way in which these individuals were impaired. None of the sources would say whether there were American or foreign casualties as a result of the leak.

Several intelligence officials described the damage in terms of how long it would take for the agency to recover. According to their own assessment, the CIA would be impaired for up to "ten years" in its capacity to adequately monitor nuclear proliferation on the level of efficiency and accuracy it had prior to the White House leak of Plame Wilson's identity.

A.Q. Khan

While Plame's work did not specifically focus on the A.Q. Khan ring, named after Pakistani scientist Dr. Abdul Qadeer Khan, the network and its impact on nuclear proliferation and the region should not be minimized, primarily because the Khan network was the major supplier of WMD technology for Iran.

Dr. Khan instituted the proliferation market during the 1980s and supplied many countries in the Middle East and elsewhere with uranium enrichment technology, including Libya, Iran and North Korea. Enriched uranium is used to make weaponized nuclear devices.

The United States forced the Pakistan government to dismiss Khan for his proliferation activities in March of 2001, but he remains largely free and acts as an adviser to the Pakistani government.

According to intelligence expert John Pike of GlobalSecurity.org, U.S. officials were not aware of the extent of the proliferation until around the time of Khan's dismissal.

"It slowly dawned on them that the collaboration between Pakistan, North Korea and Iran was an ongoing and serious problem," Pike said. "It was starting to sink in on them that it was one program doing business in three locations and that anything one of these countries had they all had."

After the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Pakistan became the United States' chief regional ally in the war on terror.

The revelation that Iran was the focal point of Plame's work raises new questions as to possible other motivating factors in the White House's decision to reveal the identity of a CIA officer working on tracking a WMD supply network to Iran, particularly when the very topic of Iran's possible WMD capability is of such concern to the Administration.

Related Raw Story articles by Larisa Alexandrovna

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Mr. Bush, Go Cheney Yourself!

READ MORE: Scooter Libby, George W. Bush, Halliburton, Fox News, FEMA, Karl Rove, Hurricane Katrina, Homeland Security, Dick Cheney, Hurricane

We have no leadership, no captain at the helm as it were. We are, in effect, being led from disaster to disaster by a headless horseman run amok with stuffed pockets and an empty conscience.

SUSPENDING HIGHER GROUND

On September 11, 2001, The Vacationing and un-elected President of this country was tooling around on his holiday and even making time to fit in a little PR in Florida too.

Later it was the "bring it on" hubris of a boy-king, who had spent his entire life doing absolutely nothing of value, now deciding the fate of thousands upon thousands of people.

Still later, it was a Veruca Salt-like tantrum of "I want it now Daddy, I WANT IT NOW!" demanding of either Rummy or Cheney that he get his golden- egg- laying Goose.

Now this dim-witted and loathed bully of a child still sits on his beach blanket while "his" toy soldiers are sent to kill "his" toy victims. "Daddy, I WANT IT NOW!"

Daddy VP Delivers:

So what happens when, once again, our leadership is sun-bathing and there is a national emergency? What happens when children are drowning in attics while others are burning in the sun on Cajun hot roofs? What happens to a great city like New Orleans when funding for emergency spending has been cut so that Bush can play war and "toys can kill toys?"

What happens when the entire military and emergency resources of a nation – the ones not yet outsourced to Project Lying Bastards – are tied up in simulations of being prepared for emergencies, and by being tied up are not prepared at all?

Just a few of these simulations listed below, taking place over the last few weeks, have tied up all of our resources that are otherwise needed for a catastrophe like Katrina that is unfolding before our eyes:

Alaska, also here

Virginia

Fort Monroe

Town Hall Set, Roll Camera:

So while children are drowning and others are floating around, dead in the water, the wannabe Yale cowboy struts around the set of his faux town hall meetings, has a bit of cake with John McCain, and takes in some fresh air in Colorado.

Congress? Anyone?

Dick? Where is Dick? Anyone?

Condi? Rummy? Any other Iran-Contra Folks?

Bueller? Bueller? Anyone?

Hello?

So where does that leave us, the citizens of this raped, pillaged, terrorized, demoralized, freedom loving nation?

Floating face down, eyes affixed on a once great New Orleans!

Screw you and the horse you rode in on:

I am more afraid of my leadership than I am of the looming “terrorist” threat. What is terrorism if not the instilling of “fear” on a consistent basis and negligence that results in massive death tolls? I am more afraid of this psychotic designer cowboy (and Yale cheerleader) and his circle of friends than I am of the color coded boogeyman used by a corrupt corporate brood to frighten the very people they are tasked with nurturing.

Are we really this stupid or do we just pretend to be in order to get a tax cut? Where are the billionaires of this country who have so lovingly raped the conscience of a nation in order to get those few extra billions?

I can imagine fleets of private planes sent to Katrina’s ground zero and how many lives could be lifted and flown to safety. Imagination is good; it keeps us from going mad. Pat Robertson, that bastion of Christian pay-per-view values, is worth upwards of half a billion dollars. Care to write a check, Pat?

How about ExxonMobil, Halliburton, and other war profiteers, you guys want to help out for operation Save the Drowning Children?

Homeland Front Group:

What happens when Chertoff (whose name actually means "of the Devil" in Russian) decides to forgo civil liberties in general and abuses his office, err, industrial department of Homeland Security? What happens when these Homelanders declare Martial Law in order to keep people from looting, but will not supply them with water, food, and other life sustaining supplies?

Apparently not a damn thing.

After all, no blond "good Christian" wealthy Republican children are drowning. Fox News anchors sit laughing at this tragedy but cry and **** on themselves because a blond girl on an island went missing (no offense to the family of the missing girl).

Do you realize that one person - one single person who is white, blond haired, and blue eyed - is more important to the networks than the thousands of black children spiraling to their deaths in a swirl of sewage in a once historic city?

Looting is what the networks are covering, as though such activity is "typical" of what "black people" do. The majority of residents left behind were the poor, who - due to the inexcusable mismanagement of emergency resources, coupled with high oil prices - were unable to leave on their own. The poor in this country happen to be minorities, so the people left behind were minorities.

Take away food, water, and other supplies and what should someone do? Swim over to an ATM and get some soggy money out? Or maybe dive in, holding their breath, and swim through their underwater living room looking for a lost wallet? Not to worry, the Pentagon is on its way, Martial law is declared, journalists are forced out, and those saved are happily dining on cat food.

Bush's cutting of his vacation short by a whole two hours - jetting off to DC, from where he can look Presidential -- is almost as timely as is him finally putting down My Pet Goat.

And where is that treasure of a mother, that national “I love my gay daughter when it works for the campaign” bastion of integrity? Lynn Cheney, the doyenne of Christian values, is probably rehearsing her “I am an indignant mother” routine, somewhere in the bowls of her underground mansion. Because she is not out, carrying buckets or collecting donations or for god’s sake doing something to help the people of “her country.”

Congress is still on vacation even though we are witnessing a national tragedy that could produce the worst death toll in recent US history.

Condi’s father – a prominent minister and educator - is spinning in his grave as black women and children drown, while Condi stands and shills somewhere – who the hell knows where – on how we are spreading Democracy. As though such a thing as Democracy could be spread through rape, torture, and murder, like some venereal disease.

Where is the god damn leadership of this country? Dick, Condi, Rummy, anyone? Bueller? Anyone?

Screw It:

There is no representation of the people and there is no care for the people, just as long as the consumer keeps on consuming and the breeder keeps on breeding. We are a commodity, nothing more. How else to explain such indifference and barrage of smiling, giggling photo ops?

How else to explain the military allegiance to a small group of men and not to the country and its people? A Secret Service agent will take a bullet for a traitor or put one into an innocent person for a group of traitors, but will not come out as a whistleblower against a treasonous leadership gluttonous on its power binge. Yes, what a noble job, to be privy to atrocity after atrocity and still bow down and say “sir, may I have another?”

I am horrified at this gross neglect, abuse of power, and absolute disregard for decency. I remember Lynn Cheney, in her smarmy over-glossed way, staging that attack on John Kerry - who unlike her war dodging husband and ruthless corporate dictator, managed to go to Vietnam, come back to fight for the rights of soldiers and against an illegal war, and serve his country for 30+ years. Speaking of Kerry, Lynn said – memorably - “this is not a good man.”

Oh? Mrs. Cheney, Mrs. Bush (all of you, collectively), given that you are mothers, do explain to us what any of your husbands has ever done that did not directly benefit himself and/or his friends financially? One act of note, of real noble value should be easy to locate from such “good men” as these.

What have you fine ladies done with your very public time? Well Lynn wrote a little sexy Romance novel, and Laura is in charge of “gangs,” whatever the hell that means.

Why are you fine mothers not swimming in the sea of New Orleans rescuing children? Why are you not screaming in horror as the Children’s Hospital becomes slowly submerged under water?

How about one Christian act of selflessness that you and yours have done (excluding large charitable donations that pay out in bigger tax cuts)? Such good Christians should have armies of cross-worthy accomplishments.

One example is all that is needed for a full pardon from us, the small “we the people” who can die for this country, bleed for this country, starve in this country, and work to death in this country so that “you, the employees” can have cocktail parties and take the twins to NYC for fashion week.

Twins? You girls shopping okay?

This entire lot is nothing more than a bunch of hooligans, all of whom should be held accountable for dereliction of duty, crimes against the citizens of this nation, and crimes against humanity.

My god, cutting funding (alone, without adding the negligence and middle finger to “duty”) for emergency services to pay off the already rich “Bush Pioneers” in tax cuts, results in this: death. What will the Bush minions say now: “We did not know that a Hurricane could or would do that?”

Odd, we knew about hurricanes, especially those of us who went through four of them last year in a three week run. FEMA warned of them for New Orleans starting in 2001. We knew. Scientists knew. So did city of New Orleans via its mayor who repeatedly asked for government funding, over and over, and over. In fact, every rational person on the planet knows that the top priority of a good leader is "the people", not his frat house pals!

Tax cuts to the top-already-grossly-rich 2% of the nation over the duties to the other 98% of the people, is unpardonable!

We have to sit and watch the myriad of horrors inflicted on us and on others on behalf of us: Dick simulates, Bush tans, Laura reads, twins go shopping, Lynn writes trite tales of love, and a psychotic Rummy tortures, rapes, and murders in our name.

That about cover it? Not quite.

Mr. Bush, go Cheney yourself!

And Mr. Cheney, take your war games, your Rummy, Rove, Condi, Hadley, Libby, and especially your over priced and frozen over wife, and shove them up your Ashcroft.

RESUMING HIGHER GROUND
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Democrats and Republicans Both Adept at Ignoring Facts, Study Finds
By LiveScience Staff

posted: 24 January 2006
10:03 am ET


Democrats and Republicans alike are adept at making decisions without letting the facts get in the way, a new study shows.

And they get quite a rush from ignoring information that's contrary to their point of view.

Researchers asked staunch party members from both sides to evaluate information that threatened their preferred candidate prior to the 2004 Presidential election. The subjects' brains were monitored while they pondered.

The results were announced today.

"We did not see any increased activation of the parts of the brain normally engaged during reasoning," said Drew Westen, director of clinical psychology at Emory University. "What we saw instead was a network of emotion circuits lighting up, including circuits hypothesized to be involved in regulating emotion, and circuits known to be involved in resolving conflicts."

Bias on both sides

The test subjects on both sides of the political aisle reached totally biased conclusions by ignoring information that could not rationally be discounted, Westen and his colleagues say.

Then, with their minds made up, brain activity ceased in the areas that deal with negative emotions such as disgust. But activity spiked in the circuits involved in reward, a response similar to what addicts experience when they get a fix, Westen explained.

The study points to a total lack of reason in political decision-making.

"None of the circuits involved in conscious reasoning were particularly engaged," Westen said. "Essentially, it appears as if partisans twirl the cognitive kaleidoscope until they get the conclusions they want, and then they get massively reinforced for it, with the elimination of negative emotional states and activation of positive ones."

Notably absent were any increases in activation of the dorsolateral prefrontal cortex, the part of the brain most associated with reasoning.

The tests involved pairs of statements by the candidates, President George W. Bush and Senator John Kerry, that clearly contradicted each other. The test subjects were asked to consider and rate the discrepancy. Then they were presented with another statement that might explain away the contradiction. The scenario was repeated several times for each candidate.

The brain imaging revealed a consistent pattern. Both Republicans and Democrats consistently denied obvious contradictions for their own candidate but detected contradictions in the opposing candidate.

"The result is that partisan beliefs are calcified, and the person can learn very little from new data," Westen said.

Vote for Tom Hanks

Other relatively neutral candidates were introduced into the mix, such as the actor Tom Hanks. Importantly, both the Democrats and Republicans reacted to the contradictions of these characters in the same manner.

The findings could prove useful beyond the campaign trail.

"Everyone from executives and judges to scientists and politicians may reason to emotionally biased judgments when they have a vested interest in how to interpret 'the facts,'" Westen said.

The researchers will present the findings Saturday at the Annual Conference of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology.