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Jewish World Review Nov. 14, 2005 / 12 Mar-Cheshvan, 5766 Plame's life in danger? Spare me! By Tucker Carlson
http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
I've heard the same talking point for two years now, on talk show
after talk show: The leak of CIA officer Valerie Plame's name was
more than simply illegal, it was immoral and dangerous. As Senator
Chuck Schumer floridly put it, divulging Plame's name "not only put
an agent's life in danger, but many of that agent's sources and
contacts." Senator Dick Durbin of Illinois told me virtually the
same thing the other night in almost exactly the same words.
(There's no such thing as an uncoordinated thought in politics.) It
sounds compelling — her life was in danger! — but is it true?
The short answer: probably not. Though the CIA has never described
exactly what Valerie Plame does for the agency, we do know a few
things about her career there. First, she operated under remarkably
thin cover. Plame posed as an employee of an energy company called
Brewster Jennings and Associates. A simple Internet search turns up
virtually no mention of Brewster Jennings & Associates. Dig a little
deeper and it becomes clear that Brewster Jennings is a theoretical
entity; it's obviously phony, a shell of some kind. This is
something foreign intelligence services could and would have figured
out in about 20 minutes.
Second, at the time she was outed by Bob Novak, Valerie Plame was
working at the CIA's main offices in Langley, Virginia. Why would
the agency ask someone who was pretending not to be a CIA employee
to report to its (closely monitored) headquarters every day?
Third, there's the matter of her husband. If the CIA was intent on
keeping Plame's identity secret, why would it send Joe WIlson on a
mission to Niger, then allow him to write about it in the New York
Times? It wouldn't. Of course.
And, finally, if the leak of Plame's name actually put her life or
the lives of agency assets at risk, do you really think we wouldn't
have heard about it by now? The White House and the CIA hate each
other. If the CIA could show that the Bush Administration had
damaged national security with this leak, it would, likely on the
front page of the Washington Post. In fact, as NBC's Andrea Mitchell
has reported, an internal CIA investigation found that Plame's
outing caused no discernable damage to anyone.
None of this is a defense of Valerie Plame's outing. The leak may
have been a crime. We'll see. But a threat to her life? Spare me.
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© 2005 Tucker Carlson |
Mitch Albom | ||||||||||||
