April 29, 2006
by Zen Garcia

President Bush has continually stressed his hard line approach to National Security and the war on terror, promising to protect the American people at all costs and with whatever tools deemed necessary. He claims above the law authority to do whatever it takes to secure America including breech of international laws and violation of our own Constitution. When confronted with statements Libby made to a federal grand jury that he had received "approval from the President through the Vice President" to leak portions of a National Intelligence Estimate including Valerie Plame Wilson's covert identity as a way of defending the Bush administration's decision to go to war with Iraq, and as an attempt to silence war critic Ambassador Joe Wilson; Scott McClellan in response said, "The President believes the leaking of classified information is a very serious matter. And I think that's why it's important to draw a distinction here. Declassifying information and providing it to the public, when it is in the public interest, is one thing. But leaking classified information that could compromise our national security is something that is very serious. And there is a distinction."

He attempted to illustrate this distinction by pointing to the leaking of the existence of the warrantless NSA spying program to the press by someone, McClellan claims put our National security at risk because it had informed Al-Qaeda that we were snooping on their international calls to the U.S. However, contrary to his claims it has been known since 1998 that "Bin Laden and his lieutenants quit using satellite phones the day after a cruise missile attack by the Clinton administration on a facility in Sudan because it was known that the United States was eavesdropping on their calls." Al-Qaeda since that time uses only encrypted phone calls and E-mail messages. "Calls are also hard to trace. One government official explains: 'A guy buys 10 or 15 cellphones' services, and the minute he thinks we might be on to him, he throws it away.' Forsaking legitimate banks, al Qaeda moves its money through a network of underground exchangers." Even Time magazine reported in September 24, 2001, that Bin Laden "had already quit using his satellite phone because its signal can be traced."

Thanks to documents released by the ACLU, we know that the real target of the warrantless spying being carried out by the NSA, is the Antiwar groups here in America opposed to the current administration's corrupt, immoral, and criminal war in Iraq. Whereas leaking of the NSA program to the press may have endanger our country's National Security to some degree, I believe the White House was more concerned with disclosure of the impeachable conduct being carried out with the President's authority. McClellan said, "The President of the United States has the authority to declassify information. I also indicated to some reporters earlier today that the President would never authorize the disclosure of information that he felt could compromise our nation's security."

And yet the leaking of Valerie Plame's covert identity truly did place this country in grave danger and may have even lead to the death of a covert CIA agent associated to Valerie Plame Wilson. Wayne Madsen, a reporter and former NSA employee, has claimed, "CIA sources report that at least one anonymous star placed on the CIA's Wall of Honor at its Langley, Virginia headquarters is a clandestine agent who was executed in a hostile foreign nation as a direct result of the White House leak." For those who have not followed or do not understand the intricacies behind the Valerie Plame case, I will revisit the story so that in understanding this, you will see how the Bush administration put this country and many of our covert agents at risk, all just to get back at Ambassador Wilson for debunking the Niger uranium story. Please reaffirm for yourself what I am about to reveal to you.

First, I'd like to state that Iraq has within its borders significant quantities of uranium and would not need to purchase yellow cake from outside sources. "Because Iraq has natural uranium deposits, all they need to do is build a process to enrich that uranium to weapons grade and then enrich enough to make one or more Hiroshima-sized weapons." said Kenneth M. Pollack, in his book "The Threatening Storm." This fact has been further corroborated by certain declassified portions of a 2002 National Intelligence Estimate, "Iraq possesses significant phosphate deposits, from which uranium had been chemically extracted before Operation Desert Storm. Intelligence information on whether nuclear-related phosphate mining and/or processing has been reestablished is inconclusive."

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Now the story-

Ambassador Joseph Wilson, had been involved in international politics for more than 20 years at the time that his wife Valerie Plame Wilson was outed by the Bush administration. He was the acting U.S. Ambassador to Iraq during Operation Desert Shield and was the last American official to meet with Saddam Hussein prior to the first invasion. In 2002 at the behest of Vice-president Cheney, Mr. Wilson was assigned to the CIA to investigate whether Saddam Hussein had been seeking uranium from Niger for the purpose of advancing Iraq's nuclear program. The Bush administration was trying desperately to drum up support for their claims that America was in imminent danger. Most of the assessments being provided by the intelligence communities did not support their claims, and with little evidence they were desperate to keep alive those few rumors that still did exist. They were basing their trumped up threat assessment on basically 4 stories - 1) the Niger procurement story, 2) the aluminum tubes story, and 3) the mobile biological, nuclear, chemical lab story and 4) an allegation by Czech intelligence that Atta had met with an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague in April 2001. All statements since have been proven to be false.

Ambassador Wilson having had a special relationship with the Nigerian government, went to Africa to verify whether the allegations brought forth by the Bush administration, that Iraq was indeed trying to procure uranium from Niger, had any truth to it. He found the story to be baseless and upon returning from Africa, Wilson filed a report stating so. He never expected to hear anything further about the report until he heard President Bush repeat the Niger claims in his 2003 State of the Union address even though it had been removed from several drafts of his previous speeches. Ambassador Wilson not believing the President used the Niger procurement story in his speech, then wrote a New York Times op-ed piece asserting that the Bush administration was overly exaggerating the case for an invasion of Iraq. It was at that time that the White House began scheming on how to discredit Ambassador Wilson, first assassinating his character, and then by publicly outing the covert identity of his wife Valerie Plame, a clandestine CIA operative. The White House desired to make an example out of Wilson to others that might also attempt to challenge the administration; and like a playground bully, Wilson's wife was outed as revenge for debunking the Niger procurement story.

While McClellan claims, "it was in the public interest that (this) information be declassified," the administration's actions outing Valerie Plame, placed this nation at grave risk especially considering the kind of covert work Valerie Plame did for our country. Valerie Plame was an undercover CIA agent that worked covertly for Brewster Jennings and Associates. Brewster Jennings was a well-established CIA proprietary company that worked specifically on removing illicit black market weapons of mass destruction, by purchasing them off of the streets, and delivering them to a secure site where they were dismantled rendering them useless. She was part of an operation tracking distribution and acquisition of weapons of mass destruction technology to and from Iran. "Speaking under strict confidentiality, intelligence officials revealed heretofore unreported elements of Plame's work. Their accounts suggest that Plame's outing was more serious than has previously been reported and carries grave implications for U.S. National security and its ability to monitor Iran's burgeoning nuclear program. While many have speculated that Plame was involved in monitoring the nuclear proliferation black market, specifically the proliferation activities of Pakistan's nuclear 'father,' A.Q. Khan, intelligence sources say that her team provided only minimal support in that area, focusing almost entirely on Iran."

"Several intelligence officials described the damage in terms of how long it would take for the agency to recover. According to their own assessment, the CIA would be impaired for up to "ten years" in its capacity to adequately monitor nuclear proliferation on the level of efficiency and accuracy it had prior to the White House leak of Plame Wilson's identity." There is speculation from Wayne Madsen, a reporter and former NSA employee, who wrote on July 2, 2005, "CIA sources report that at least one anonymous star placed on the CIA's Wall of Honor at its Langley, Virginia headquarters is a clandestine agent who was executed in a hostile foreign nation as a direct result of the White House leak." Whether this is true or not, just the fact that the administration blew the cover of myriad's of America's covert CIA agents working to prevent Iran from garnering material which could be used in constructing a nuclear weapon, does not make sense when taking into account Bush's so called stance on national security and rhetoric towards Iran on enriching uranium.

This should inform America on the dangers of our allowing this President and his entire cover-up administration to remain in office. This administration is dangerous to the safety and protection of the American people. The borders are still wide open, our military is stretched so thin that we couldn't counter another threat if we wanted to. Our nation risks going bankrupt due to the frivolous spending of Bush as he has already borrowed more money than all other Presidents combined. The outing of Valerie Plame Wilson by the White House in 2003 for political gain, caused significant damage to U.S. National security and its ability to counter nuclear proliferation abroad. America does not yet fully understand how and to what extent we as a public and our intelligence apparatus were put at risk, however it is absolutely clear to even average Americans struggling just to survive, that this President holds no credentials at all to be trusted further with any matter important to America. Bush said, "If there's a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is. If the person has violated law, that person will be taken care of. I welcome the investigation. I am absolutely confident the Justice Department will do a good job. I want to know the truth. Leaks of classified information are bad things." He also said that he did not know of "anybody in my administration who leaked classified information" and that he told his administration to "cooperate fully with the investigation and asked anyone with knowledge of the case to come forward." He even made his staff go through an ethics class after the leak was reported.

Isn't it passed due that we impeach this criminal President. How can we trust him to defend our nation when he violates international law, our Constitution, and places us in grave danger by following a unilateral declaration of preemptive war, CIA sanctioned kidnapping, and torture. When will the rest of America join John Bonifaz,E  lawyer for the Center for Constitutional Rights call to impeach Bush. "The President of the United States has been actively engaged in a conspiracy to deceive and mislead the United States Congress and the American people about the basis for going to war against Iraq. If true, such conduct constitutes a High Crime under Article II, Section 4 of the United States Constitution: The President, Vice President, and all civil officers of the United States shall be removed from office on impeachment for, and conviction of, treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors." George Herbert Walker Bush said in 1991 at the dedication of the George Bush CIA headquarters, "Even though I'm a tranquil guy now at this stage of my life, I have nothing but contempt and anger for those who betray the trust by exposing the name of our sources. They are, in my view, the most insidious of traitors." Little did he know his own son would be this most 'insidious of traitors' and as an insidious traitor he needs to be impeached and removed from office before he places our nation at even greater risk. "The fact that the president was willing to reveal classified information for political gain and put the interests of his political party ahead of America's security shows that he can no longer be trusted to keep America safe," said Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean

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Zen Garcia [send him email] is an activist and writer in Athens, GA.  Find more of his writings at www.endeavorfreedom.org/