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[Hank Chinaski]

Originally posted by Shape Shifter
Ambassador Joseph Wilson was no friend of SH. In fact, he faced down SH prior to Gulf War I as the ranking US diplomat in Iraq at the time and arranged for the release of hundreds of Americans. His efforts in this dangerous situation earned great praise from GHWB.

Prior to the second Gulf War, the present admin hired him to research claims that Iraq was importing uranium from Niger. He reported to the admin that the claims were certainly false. He was the third person tasked by the admin to look into the claims, and he was the third person to report that the claims were false. Wilson was not compensated for his services. He was only reimbursed for expenses.

Later, making the case for war in Iraq during his State of the Union address, W repeated the claims about Iraq attempting to obtain uranium from Niger. There may have been other areas in his speech where W may be accused of "embroidering key assertions," but not here. Bush lied.

Wilson did not want to believe that Bush lied, so he contacted the admin and informed them of their error and gave them the opportunity to correct it. Instead of thanking the Ambassador for giving them this opportunity, the admin sought to discredit Wilson personally. The admin did this by leaking to Novak that Wilson was merely a profiteer and the only reason he got the job investigating Niger was because his wife, Valerie Plame, is a CIA operative.

Which is funny because Wilson had extensive diplomatic experience in the region and was well qualified to research the claims and because he was not compensated for his services. They lied again. But they did tell the truth about one thing - Valerie Plame is in fact Ambassador Wilsons wife. Oh, another thing - she was also a CIA operative.

And not just any CIA operative. She was an undercover CIA operative who specialized in rooting out WMDs (the reason we went to war in Iraq, remember?). Compromising CIA operatives does not seem like a very effective way of combatting the spread of WMDs, and it is also illegal. A grand jury is trying to determine the source of the leak.

To recap, in order to avoid political embarrassment, the admin compromised national security interests by exposing an experienced CIA operative. Now who's playing politics with the war on terror?

By the way how could an ambassador's wife be an effective undercover agent?