From Larisa Alexandrovna: "Rather Bold of Cheney to Mention Dismantling AQ Khan's Network..."

"... considering that Cheney outed Brewster Jennings."

Here's the background:

http://www.rawstory.com/news/2005/Outed_CIA_officer_was_working_on_0213.html

Outed CIA officer was working on Iran, intelligence sources say

Larisa Alexandrovna
Published: February 13, 2006

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.

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.

MORE AT THE LINK

they are just trying to make america safe....time to accept and move on.

:kick:

Did she do a new article last night? After this thread I thought she might.

-Hoot

Armitage gave an interview to Rupert Murdoch's Sunday Times published June 1, 2001 in which he said the US was aware that a senior "retired" figure in the Pakisani nuclear establishment was involved in proliferation activities with North Korea and others. That comment effectively blew Plame's cover at Brewster Jennings and the rest of the decade-old CIA/CPD efforts to track AQ Khan.

That disclosure allowed all of Khan's customers and suppliers around the world to close their books and cover their tracks.

Of course, outing CIA-CPD was quite okay with Cheney, because he wanted a new policy of regime change of the "axis of evil" countries to replace the careful intelligence monitoring that had been going on.

as are those who kept him funded throughout the last 3 decades - the Dubai and Saudi royals.

Does anyone really think Poppy Bush stopped his global drugrunning, armsdealing and moneylaundering ways just because he wasn't physically IN the WH past Jan1993?

that Brewster Jennings was a cover nor did he out it. he did tip them off that they had someone who knew something obviously. i think if we want to get really technical, it was Marc Grossman, in the kitchen, with a candlestick:)

Posted in its entirety with permission.

http://rawstory.com/blog/2009/05/cheney-lies-in-defense-of-torture

The Lie Cheney Told About A.Q. Khan

May 22nd, 2009
by Larisa Alexandrovna

Somewhere among the strategically placed references to September 11, 2001 and his unapologetic defense of torture, Dick Cheney managed to lie about a series of topics and events that are well documented. It is, after all, the electronic age and facts are not difficult to come by.

One must consider too what motivated the networks to carry a speech by a former Vice President in defense of torture. Perhaps former Chilean torturer Augusto Pinochet would have received a similarly warm reception from our broadcasters if he had chosen to deliver a speech on the benefits of torture.

The ethics vacuum is mind-boggling.

We have come to a point where a former Vice President told the world that America tortures – but calls it something else - and the networks cover this as though it were a random stump speech, not the actual embarrassment and horror that it is. The facts too are missing, although only a few news outlets seem interested in the truth.

No One Could Have Imagined

Cheney says that the attacks of September 11, 2001 “caused everyone to take a serious second look at threats that had been gathering for a while and enemies whose plans were getting bolder and more sophisticated.”

On the contrary, the plans were not new and bold and were well documented by the Central Intelligence Agency. In fact, a month prior to the attacks, President Bush and Dick Cheney both received a briefing on the matter. The August 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Briefing entitled “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in the US,” is fairly clear. The PDB mentions the following:


What did Bush do after receiving this briefing? He promptly went on vacation. It is unclear what Cheney did, but whatever it was, it had nothing to do with national security. In addition, torture was unneeded in obtaining this information. What was needed, however, was a White House interested in protecting our nation. It is therefore remarkable that Cheney continues to use 9/11 as a reason for his abuses of power, rather than be shamed by his indifference and negligence.

A.Q. Khan Network

Here is what he says about A.Q. Khan, the "father" of Pakistani nuclear weapons and a Middle East black market that sprang up around him:

This was the world in which al-Qaida was seeking nuclear technology and A.Q. Khan was selling nuclear technology on the black market. We had the anthrax attack from an unknown source. We had the training camps in Afghanistan and dictators like Saddam Hussein with known ties to Mideast terrorists.

--snip--

We did all of these things and, with bipartisan support, put all of these policies in place. It has resulted in serious blows against enemy operations: the takedown of the A.Q. Khan network and the dismantling of Libya's nuclear program.

Now let's look at the actual facts of this.

In 2007, BBC’s Newsnight and the Guardian reported the following:


Moreover, in 2003 it was Cheney and his team, including his former Chief of Staff I. Scooter Libby who outed a covert operation tracking some - at least minimally - of the A.Q. Khan network. I broke this story in 2005 and here is what I reported then:


Although I was told a good deal more than this, including her then-most recent work on Iraq, I was restricted by my sources to reporting ONLY about Iran and ONLY touching on Pakistan. The nature of the "minimal support" remains highly classified. I was also restricted from using certain words and still have not been released from that restriction.

The reason for why my sources insisted on these conditions was that although they had felt strongly that what Cheney had done was indeed treason, they also felt strongly that too much information would expose the operation further and cause additional damages to agency methods and sources.

What we do know is that a group of clandestine officers provided at least "minimal support" in monitoring the A.Q. Khan network. What we also know is that this operation was compromised because Dick Cheney's office had to silence a good, honest, few Americans from speaking out about the lies that led us into Iraq.

Yet Cheney claims success in taking down A.Q. Khan's network.

Yes, it boggles the mind. These are but two examples in a speech littered with such claims despite well documented facts. Imagine, too, the networks covered this for the world to see. What did they cover? The world saw a former Vice President giving a speech in defense of torture and lying about even the most basic, known facts of what the Bush administration has done. If he could so brazenly lie about topics such as these, what else is he lying about? What must the world think of us for giving this man a podium on national television? Worse still, there are many defending him, regardless of the truth and regardless of the illegality of torture.