A friend of mine left the following comment on my post from yesterday (McClellan Rats Out Bush...):
"In any case, perjury is only a crime if done under oath, so the President could only be accused of lying at best, but no crime. Furthermore, there was no crime committed in the first place since Valiere Plame was not a active field spy when her career was leaked and leaked not just by the White House."
I don't know if the CIA actually has a designation of "active field spy," but they do have the designation of an employee with "non-official cover," or NOC, which is what Plame was--a NOC ("knock"). She was working on WMD issues with respect to Iran:
"The 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."
Plame WAS a covert, "active field spy"
An unclassified summary of Plame's CIA work history was released in May of this year. It explained that she was in fact covert at the time of the leak and that she also conducted CIA/national security business overseas:
"The unclassified summary of Plame's employment with the CIA at the time that syndicated columnist Robert Novak published her name on July 14, 2003 says, "Ms. Wilson was a covert CIA employee for who the CIA was taking affirmative measures to conceal her intelligence relationship to the United States."
Plame worked as an operations officer in the Directorate of Operations and was assigned to the Counterproliferation Division (CPD) in January 2002 at CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.
The employment history indicates that while she was assigned to CPD, Plame, "engaged in temporary duty travel overseas on official business." The report says, "she traveled at least seven times to more than ten times." When overseas Plame traveled undercover, "sometimes in true name and sometimes in alias -- but always using cover -- whether official or non-official (NOC) -- with no ostensible relationship to the CIA."
That, good people, is a genuine spy. So to have George Bush and Dick Cheney and their "familiars in the media" (how I miss "The Majority Report") portray the Bush administration as the party of national security is a JOKE. What's even more of a sick, unfunny, and ruinous joke is that they blew the cover of an agent working on issues with Iran and now have decidedd that we have to attack Iran.
So by outing Plame, they killed two birds with one stone--they smeared Wilson for revealing that there was no Iraq/Niger deal for uranium (a claim based on badly forged documents), and they blew the career and cover of his wife, who might have stood between the neocons and a war with Iran.
That's why we should impeach
Either one of those offenses is worthy of impeachment, but they gave us a twofer! Forget perjury--for Bush and Cheney, that's kid stuff--their aphrodisiac is starting wars and then cashing in. Lying may not be a crime, but starting wars of aggression is [just to be perfectly clear--that's what Bush and Cheney did].
Notice those bastards never testify under oath and, as in the case of their appearance before the 9/11 Whitewash Commission, they specifically stipulate that they are not to be sworn. They used the ol' "raise your right hand" trick on Clinton--but Willie wasn't as slick as the oilbirds Bush and Cheney and he fell right into the trap.
McClellan's revelation is big, big news--of course we all knew it all along anyway, but to have confirmation is nice. Now will the Democrats do anything about it? I doubt it, but we shall see...they need to get behind my man Kucinich. And/or my man Ron Paul.
