Bill Gertz of the Washington Times is reporting that the identity of Valerie Plame had already been compromised twice before Robert Novak's column ever was published.
Mrs. Plame's identity as an undercover CIA officer was first disclosed to Russia in the mid-1990s by a Moscow spy, said officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity.Could it have been by Nicholson?. Also according to the article:
In a second compromise, officials said a more recent inadvertent disclosure resulted in references to Mrs. Plame in confidential documents sent by the CIA to the U.S. Interests Section of the Swiss Embassy in Havana.Novak's claim that the CIA didn't warn him too strongly against naming Plame in his column suddenly makes more sense.
The documents were supposed to be sealed from the Cuban government, but intelligence officials said the Cubans read the classified material and learned the secrets contained in them, the officials said.
"Novak's claim that the CIA didn't warn him too strongly against naming Plame in his column suddenly makes more sense."
Why?
I read this news a couple of days ago, and I thought that it was slightly interesting, but I completely don't see what relevance it has to anything. That two foreign services knew she was CIA means... what?
She was still undercover.
We still have no idea what conclusion the investigation will come to, and what result from there, and that's all that's remotely important (and it's only faintly important, no matter what, save for anyone who might be indicted or convicted; if no one is, it will have been a lot of fuss over nothing).
There's still no excuse for Novak's irresponsible action. Neither Novak, nor those who leaked to him, nor Sandy Berger, should have defensive excuses made for them; just statements of fact.
Out in liberal blogland, the rumor is that Plame is one of the names that arch-traitor Aldrich Ames might have given to Moscow, but it isn't certain either way whether he actually did so.
If I may be blunt, this sounds like rape defense predicated on the complainant's lack of virginity, the more so that Novak isn't privy to details of out breaches of security, at least I hope not. Indictments are coming soon, I predict, and Novak's sources will turn out not to be in the CIA.
If she'd already been compromised to two different foreign intel services, her utility as an undercover officer was gone. It would explain why Novak's contact at the CIA confirmed she worked for the agency - if she had been undercover for real (as in, still active), the CIA's response to Novak's questions about Valerie Plame would have been: "Who?" "I have no clue what you're talking about." You do not disclose classified information, and that includes confirming that information someone presents to you is classified or true.
That was part of Novak's story that never made any damn sense to me. With the news that Plame had already been compromised, it does. It doesn't excuse him from having published her name despite their request not to, but it does make his conversation with his CIA contact seem possible to me now, where before I thought he must have been lying.
Celeste, you get the gold star. I actually worked in one of those undercover jobs, back around the dawn of time, and I've been pointing out all along that "Yes, she works for CIA, but we'd rather you didn't publish" is the same answer they'd give for a janitor.
Plame and Ames are related. The real answer is that Wilson was the second Wilson. Wilson and Ames had the same trainer, and both committed treason. Plame may have been operating like the trainer and was planning on running Wilson for CIA, but just could not get the job done.
Interesting facts: They were married five years. Wilson is an RPCV and so was Wilson I. There is a PCV in Morocco(terrorist haven and entrenched CIA global operation) who is retired and has the same name as the trainer of Wilson I and Ames.
Wilson I did not kill too many Russians. Ames,same trainer, managed to kill 20-30(this is revised down yearly). Wilson II, with much more firepower, killed no Russians, but has a very interesting Spanish background(Plame definitely gets credit for 7-10 Spanish operations officers and others listed as 'diplomats' murdered by Iraqi intelligence in Iraq after she confirmed her identity for cash in Vanity Fair). They also attacked the US government very effectively and compromised our WMD policy in Africa and elsewhere.
Vanity Fair the movie is a garbage movie about garbage people trying desperatley not to be garbage. Pass.