Thursday, January 22, 2004

Ex-CIA agents ask Congress to Get to the bottom of the Plame affair.

And I'm sure the first thing Hastert and Frist said was "Oh, yeah, that's *real* important to us."

The NYTimes article contains some very interesting updates, and is a must-read if you are following this --- which, if you are at all interested in the political independence of our intelligence agencies, and unfolding cloak-and-dagger politics in the highest circle in the White House, you should be.

  • Justice Department officials have said almost nothing in public about the status of the investigation. But they have said they are focusing on conversations between White House officials and reporters that both sides might try to cast as private.
  • Critics of the White House, including Representative Rush D. Holt, a New Jersey Democrat who is a member of the House Intelligence Committee, have said they fear that the administration may eventually call a halt to the inquiry by announcing that investigators have found no evidence of criminal wrongdoing
  • The ex-CIA agents wrote: "The disclosure of Ms. Plame's name was an unprecedented and shameful event in American history and, in our professional judgment, has damaged U.S. national security, specifically the effectiveness of U.S. intelligence-gathering using human sources".
  • In the letter, the former officers called on Congress to act "for the good of the country" and said it was time to "send an unambiguous message that the intelligence officers tasked with collecting or analyzing intelligence must never be turned into political punching bags."

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