Outed CIA officer was working on Iran, intelligence
sources say
Larisa Alexandrovna
Published: February 13, 2006
http://rawstory.com/news/2005/Outed_CIA_officer_was_working_on_0213.html
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.
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.
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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.
Plame declined to comment through her husband, Joseph
Wilson.
Valerie Plame first became a household name when her
identity was disclosed by conservative columnist Robert
Novak on July 14, 2003. The column came only a week
after her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, had
written an op-ed for the New York Times asserting that
White House officials twisted pre-war intelligence on
Iraq. Her outing was seen as political retaliation for
Wilson's criticism of the Administration's claim that
Iraq sought uranium from Niger for a nuclear weapons
program.
Her case has drawn international attention and resulted
in the indictment of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice
President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, on five
counts of perjury, obstruction of justice, and making
false statements. Special Prosecutor Patrick J.
Fitzgerald, who is leading the probe, is still pursuing
Deputy Chief of Staff and Special Advisor to President
Bush, Karl Rove. His investigation remains open.
The damages
Intelligence sources would not identify the specifics of
Plame's work. They did, however, tell RAW STORY that her
outing resulted in "severe" damage to her team and
significantly hampered the CIA's ability to monitor
nuclear proliferation.
Plame's team, they added, would have come in contact
with A.Q. Khan's network in the course of her work on
Iran.
While Director of Central Intelligence Porter Goss has
not submitted a formal damage assessment to
Congressional oversight committees, the CIA's
Directorate of Operations did conduct a serious and
aggressive investigation, sources say.
Intelligence sources familiar with the damage assessment
say that what is called a "counter intelligence
assessment to agency operations" was conducted on the
orders of the CIA's then-Deputy Director of the
Directorate of Operations, James Pavitt.
Former CIA counterintelligence officer Larry Johnson
believes that such an assessment would have had to be
done for the CIA to have referred the case to the
Justice Department.
"An exposure like that required an immediate operational
and counter intelligence damage assessment," Johnson
said. "That was done. The results were written up but
not in a form for submission to anyone outside of CIA."
One former counterintelligence official described the
CIA's reasons for not seeking Congressional assistance
on the matter as follows: "[The CIA Leadership] made a
conscious decision not to do a formal inquiry because
they knew it might become public," the source said.
"They referred it [to the Justice Department] instead
because they believed a criminal investigation was
needed."
The source described the findings of the assessment as
showing "significant damage to operational equities."
Another counterintelligence official, also wishing to
remain anonymous due to the nature of the subject
matter, described "operational equities" as including
both people and agency operations that involve the
"cover mechanism," "front companies," and other CIA
officers and assets.
Three intelligence officers confirmed that other CIA
non-official cover officers were compromised, but did
not indicate the number of people operating under
non-official cover that were affected or the way in
which these individuals were impaired. None of the
sources would say whether there were American or foreign
casualties as a result of the leak.
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.
A.Q. Khan
While Plame's work did not specifically focus on the A.Q.
Khan ring, named after Pakistani scientist Dr. Abdul
Qadeer Khan, the network and its impact on nuclear
proliferation and the region should not be minimized,
primarily because the Khan network was the major
supplier of WMD technology for Iran.
Dr. Khan instituted the proliferation market during the
1980s and supplied many countries in the Middle East and
elsewhere with uranium enrichment technology, including
Libya, Iran and North Korea. Enriched uranium is used to
make weaponized nuclear devices.
The United States forced the Pakistan government to
dismiss Khan for his proliferation activities in March
of 2001, but he remains largely free and acts as an
adviser to the Pakistani government.
According to intelligence expert John Pike of
GlobalSecurity.org, U.S. officials were not aware of the
extent of the proliferation until around the time of
Khan's dismissal.
"It slowly dawned on them that the collaboration between
Pakistan, North Korea and Iran was an ongoing and
serious problem," Pike said. "It was starting to sink in
on them that it was one program doing business in three
locations and that anything one of these countries had
they all had."
After the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Pakistan became the
United States' chief regional ally in the war on terror.
The revelation that Iran was the focal point of Plame's
work raises new questions as to possible other
motivating factors in the White House's decision to
reveal the identity of a CIA officer working on tracking
a WMD supply network to Iran, particularly when the very
topic of Iran's possible WMD capability is of such
concern to the Administration.
Related Raw Story articles by Larisa Alexandrovna
Spurious Attempt to Tie Iran/Iraq/Uranium Ledeen and
Panorama Phase II Stalled Phase II and Feith OSP Runs
off books missions/wmd political problem Senate Intel
Chair Quietly Fixes Intel
Related update: The Washington Note reports that
Wilson's Niger report contained elements about Iran.
More here.
http://www.thewashingtonnote.com/archives/001246.php
RAW STORY INDEX:
http://www.rawstory.com
=========================================================
Documents Reveal Karl Rove as Source in Plame Case
http://www.apfn.org/APFN/LEAKGATE.HTM
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by Jeffrey A. Tucker
http://www.lewrockwell.com/tucker/tucker64.html
