Plame Game Update

Today it was reported that Valerie Plame Wilson was not only an undercover CIA operative specializing in weapons of mass destruction, but an undercover CIA operative specializing in WMD in Iran. Thus, the blowing of her cover by White House officials, including Karl Rove and Dick Cheney's Chief of Staff Scooter Libby, in order to discredit her husband, Ambassador Joe Wilson, when Wilson reported that the Bush Administration's claims about Saddam Hussein seeking uranium from Niger were false, which resulted in Plame's resignation from the CIA, has hurt U.S. intelligence efforts regarding Iran's nuclear program. We all know that this is hardly a good time for that to happen.

At best, this is a case of gross negligence by Bush Administration officials, who were obsessed with winning a political argument and selling a war in Iraq by cherry-picking intelligence, ignoring reports that ran counter to their arguments, and attacking officials who disagreed with their message without regard to the consequences. The irony is that these officials sacrificed intelligence necessary to confront a real danger in Iran in order to sell a fake war against Iraq. At worst, one needs to ask whether the Administration officials checked, and thus knew, that Valerie Wilson was a WMD specialist in Iran, and that disclosing her identity would cause her to have to leve her post, resulting in a setback regarding our WMD knowledge about Iran. Remember that, when it came to Iraq, the lack of better knowledge of WMD made it easier for Bush to invade.