Several commentators are wondering why the CIA sent a non-operative like Joseph Wilson to Africa in order to verify the British report of possible illicit yellowcake sales to Saddam Hussein. Why would the CIA send someone over whom they had no control on such a sensitive trip? And why would they send a man whose relationship to one of their "secret operatives" was so close that any public disclosures from the man could endanger that operative?
Assuming that Valerie Plame was some sort of genuinely covert operative -- something that's not actually quite clear from the [Libby] indictment -- the chain of events looks pretty damning: Wilson was sent to Africa on an investigative mission regarding nuclear weapons, but never asked to sign any sort of secrecy agreement(!). Wilson returns, reports, then publishes an oped in the New York Times (!!) about his mission. This pretty much ensures that people will start asking why he was sent, which leads to the fact that his wife arranged it. Once Wilson's oped appeared, Plame's covert status was in serious danger. Yet nobody seemed to care.Cliff Kincaid:
In my recent special report on this matter, former prosecutor Joseph diGenova called the Wilson mission a CIA "covert operation" against Bush. Like the Novak column, a [New York Times reporter Judith] Miller story about this matter could have raised questions about the purpose of the trip and who was behind it. But if Miller had done such a story for the Times, the impact could have been enormous. After all, the Times was the chosen vessel for Wilson to write his column claiming there was no Iraq uranium deal with Niger.(All emphasis mine.)Miller could have revealed that Wilson was recommended for the mission by his own wife, a CIA employee. His wife's role was critically important because a truly undercover CIA operative would not recommend her husband for an overseas trip and then expect to maintain her "secret" identity as he proceeded to write an article for the New York Times and become a public spectacle because of it. Her role in the trip means that she was not undercover in any real sense of the word.
Also note that, following his trip to Africa, Mr. Wilson was debriefed in his home by two CIA personnel with his wife present. Additionally, he never filed any kind of written report.
Anyone who has done anything remotely governmental knows that such missions nearly always require some sort of hardcopy report. But, since Mr. Wilson was not one of their assets, they couldn’t make him write a report, which brings us back around to the original question: why him? Surely, the CIA has people versed in the geopolitics of Central Africa, who could be expected to file a timely report and who could be expected to have the usual CIA-required amount of discretion; unless the CIA actually wanted Mr. Wilson to talk.
However, I’m not usually inclined to be this conspiracy-minded and I don’t think that the Plame/CIA “leak” is one. I think that it’s merely a case of human laziness and short-sightedness on the CIA’s part: instead of looking for an Africa expert among their own ranks, they have one dropped in their proverbial laps by one of their WMD analysts (Plame). They assume that a retired ambassador like Mr. Wilson will understand the value of secure information. It never occurs to them that he might be an attention-seeking narcissist who will blab his (self-)importance all over the media and, therefore, invite questions as to how he got the job in the first place.
And, to point out the obvious, it’s not as if it was the first time that the CIA got something wrong. “Slam-dunk!”
(Thanks to reader Steve)
