Friday, July 13, 2007

Bush admits his administration leaked CIA agent's name

When it was first disclosed that someone had leaked the name of an undercover CIA operative, Valerie (Wilson) Plame, President Bush said he would fire anyone in his administration who had participated in the leak. Shortly before Plame's cover was blown in 2003, her husband, Joseph Wilson, a former Ambassador, had accused the Bush administration of manipulating intelligence to exaggerate the threat from Iraqi weapons and thus help justify the war. Wilson has said he believes his wife's identity was disclosed in retaliation.

Yesterday, President Bush publicly acknowledged that someone in his administration had been the first to leak the operative’s name.

A lengthy investigation found that several high ranking administration officials revealed Plame's identity. White House political adviser Karl Rove and Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage were the primary sources for a 2003 newspaper column outing Plame. Former White House press secretary Ari Fleischer also admitted telling reporters about her. Scotter Libby was the only one charged in the matter and not for leaking. And his sentence was commuted by President Bush last week.

But surprise...no one has been fired. Instead the President announced: “Its (the investigation) run its course. And now we are going to move on.”

Evidently the decider has decided that he didn’t really mean what he said about firing anyone way back then when the press and public were demanding to know what he would do if his staff was involved. The decider has decided to do nothing; nothing that is but cover up a crime.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is a total non-issue. Richard Armitage has admitted to leaking her name. Scooter Libby's judge found that Plame is not even considered "undercover" according to the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982. (look it up on lexis-nexis) Hence, the only crime Libby was found guilty of is perjury.

The real motive of Chuck Schumer in this investigation is to get some other administration official under oath and trap them into perjury by asking about emails, calls, and letters that they may or may not have sent or received years ago.

The reason the press runs this story is because they get better ratings by running stories that make people angry. A person will watch or read a newstory for hours if it makes them mad.

Anonymous said...

The fact that the president of the united states admits that his adminstration leaked the name of an undercover CIA operative is tantamout to treason. That's what Bush I called it.