No, Monica, I Really Don't Care What John Fund Thinks
So what does an ex-CIA agent think of the outing of Valerie Plame, and the cackle of the Mighty Wurlitzer that no damage was done? Former CIA special agent Jack Rice was on Countdown last night with Allison Stewart. Enough with the smear Joe Wilson distraction. This is what we should be talking about:
STEWART: At the time she was outed, Valerie Plame was working for a CIA front company, and obviously she didn't work there alone Can you explain the ripple effect of her outing?Stuff like this doesn't happen very often, and when it does it should be big news. That the major media outlets are letting themselves be hijacked by Rove's thugs attempting to divert attention onto Joe Wilson, who has absolutely nothing to do with the damage that has been done to national security shows what a bunch of old syphilitic whores they have become.
RICE: Well, this is potentially huge, because what happens now is, everything that she touched, every person that she touched, every asset that she may have come across, is now potentially exposed. Every intelligence organization in the world will now go back and scour their files to see if she was ever in their country, was ever involved with anybody, and try to wrap up every operation. The potential is huge.
STEWART: And you're talking about in terms of five, 10 years ago, even.
RICE: Oh, certainly. Because if you can get a good operation going, if you have a good asset that has very good access, that person can be involved for years, decades, potentially. And you open those people up. I'm not just talking about physically for her directly, but for all of those assets, and sadly, for the intelligence that some of those assets may provide.
STEWART: In your experience, is something like this, the outing of a CIA agent or operative, has it ever happened?
RICE: Well, there's been one prosecution in the past under this statute that everybody's been talking about. But it's a very rare circumstance. It doesn't happen that often. So when it does, it can be a big deal, and it should be a big deal. This should be nonpartisan.
STEWART: Is it likely that national security has been compromised because of this?
RICE: I think it's very possible. We'll never completely know. Ideally, I hope it hasn't been. But at the same time, what happens here is, if we ever, either side, either political party, start using politics over what's right, over patriotism, we're going to have a very serious problem in this country.
STEWART: And in terms of that ripple effect you talked about, in terms of things being compromised and people's situations being compromised, and their assignments being compromised, how could the damage be repaired?
RICE: I think in this case, what needs to be done is, it needs to be addressed. It needs to be treated as seriously as it should.
Look, if we -- —if you look at this two ways, you can look back and see what this may have done. You can go back and see what she may have done, and you can look at those assets. That is one implication.
There's a second implication, at what may happen in the future, what happens for any future operations, what other CIA or other intelligence operatives may be willing to do in the future.
If there's a perception that you're going to see people in blue pinstripe suits in Washington wrapping themselves in the flag and talking about God and country while they're exposing CIA and intelligence operatives, you're going to have a real hard time convincing CIA officers to get out into the field and risk their lives for those people.
(my emphasis)
I hope someone besides me is keeping track of all these bilious old frauds and self-styled legal experts on TV saying Rove did nothing wrong. It'll make for a nice little montage the day Fitzgerald comes back with his indictments.
posted by Jane Hamsher @ 7/15/2005 09:55:00 AM
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