Tuesday, October 18, 2005

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The Plame Game - The Beginning

The beginning of the Plame Game?

While speculation is brewing that Cheney, Rove and Libby will walk the plank......hrrm Rawstory? Sorry, no dice.......yeah, Nevertheless....

An article link emailed to me today, from Insight Magazine, published Aug 2004, detailed the appointment of Porter Goss to the head of the CIA, and gives us some insight to possibly how the Plame Game began.

Analysis: CIA dismay at Porter Goss' nomination as DCIA
By Richard Sale


"President George W. Bush has nominated Rep. Porter Goss as new CIA director, a proposal which has so far caused little rejoicing at the agency, according to several serving and former agents interviewed by United Press International.

During an announcement made in the White House Rose Garden, Bush described Goss, 65, a Florida Republican as "the right man with strong experience in intelligence and in fighting against terrorism."

This was immediately disputed by two former senior agents.

"When was he in the CIA?" asked former top CIA Iraq analyst Judith Yaphe of Goss's agency career.

When told that Goss had been a case officer from the mid-1960s until 1971, dealing with Latin America, Yaphe said: "But that is so long ago. It's not as if the cultures at the agency now were anywhere near what they were back then. I would worry about his genuine depth of knowledge."

Yaphe said weeks ago Goss deliberately made statements that undercut Acting CIA Director John McLaughlin, adding, "John is a decent, well-meaning man, and Goss really screwed him."

Goss did not return phone calls. [But President Bush while in Florida Aug. 10 praised the Floridian as a man of honor and a good representative from the Sunshine state that would not only help reform the CIA but also boost the GOP.]

Former CIA agent Larry Johnson also questioned Goss's qualifications. "There is one thing Goss didn't really do for the last several years -- he didn't chair the House Intelligence Committee, in spite of what his resume claims," said Johnson. "Instead, he did the dead man's float."

Johnson said Goss did not have the experience claimed. Goss did not "push through real reforms, for example, getting more funding for badly clandestine assets. He didn't do any of it."

Former CIA Counter-terrorism Chief Vince Cannistraro agreed: "Goss has never been very distinguished, but he's protected. He's a Bush loyalist and has been in the forefront of those who have tried to place the major blame for the 9/11 attacks on the agency."


Of course names that might be familiar to you. Judith Yaphe, Larry C. Johnson, Vince Cannistraro are all members of VIPS.

Judith in fact was a speaker at EPIC in 2003 speaking on the subject of: A Short History of Western Imperialism in Iraq.

Larry C. Johnson is a frequent contributor to TPM and self-appointed defender of Valerie Plame (although he only trained with her back in 1985 and left service in 1989). He, Vaphe and Cannistraro are all staunch anti-Iraq war rogues.

Interesting enough the article give the lay person insight of the approval process of an NIE (National Intelligence Estimate).

” The normal practice in writing a first draft of an national intelligence estimate -- a policy finding that must be in place before action can be taken -- is to assign it to someone at WINPAC in the directorate of intelligence. Walpole skirted experts in his own agency and went over to a hard-line deputy NIO at the Defense Intelligence Agency, a person known to be hawkish and close to the neo-conservatives, the document said.

A former senior CIA official said, "Anyone in the DIA opposed to the views of the hawks had either been forced out or they had quit in disgust."


This sounds just like just like we know, that there was a real “war” going on inside the Agency over the Niger claims. Question, is though, were the so-called “experts” that Walpole ‘skirted’ guys like Joe Wilson and his "no report", and who we all know was full of crap? If so - good for him. But...

Did this begin the "War"?

How long had this "battle", this "chess game" been raging?

I used to think it began in 2001-2002, but it actually began long before that. You see the 'love' shown for Walpole wasn't new, it had festered long before and for different reasons. You see this isn't the first time that Walpole had had run-ins with the DO/CPD groups. When you read here, and here. You see that there has been this long standing 'defense of Saddam' by certain members of the Community. Most of these articles deal with the screw ups of our intelligence that allowed our Gulf War vets to get exposed to Chemical WMD.

This tension was brought more to light in 2004 with Ray McGovern's diatribe here, basically against Tenet (who has more to do with this than people think).

Remember, from the beginning I've preached the law enforcement principal of "motive" and "opportunity", as I will show, this disgruntled group of ops had both, intense anger to 'get even" and thus motive to go to any length to screw the White House but good. September 11th, was actually the breaking point when the bulk of the blame was placed on the Intel community. From then it's been all out war. It's been intense and it had been brewing since the first Gulf War. As I said on many occassions this story is bigger than a "leak". This period will be known as the time when the festering war between the White House and the Intelligence Community came to a head.

Remember, not all members of the community are roque - not all are traitors to the Nation. There there are others, there always has been. I and my colleagues fought these locust back when, now lifted from our confines we will fight them now.

Get ready to rock.





















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