[gallo]

Quote by: xyzer Gallo, I don't know where you get your information but I do know it's flawed?

Why ask me what you think? However, I will answer your question. No. You do not know that my information is flawed.

Quote by: xyzer Plame was a CIA employee at the time in question.

Yes. That's true. Valerie Plame Wilson was a covert agent for the CIA.

Quote by: xyzer She worked openly and was not in a covert status.

Wrong. She was working at Langley at the time for the Counterproliferation Division of the Directorate of Operations (the spying part of the CIA). No one who works for the CPD or the DO works "openly" for the CIA. She began working for the CIA in 1985 as a overseas case officer, first posing as a State Department employee and then as a NOC (nonofficial cover). Her cover was that she worked for an energy firm. She was a spy who recruited and ran foreign spies. At the time in question, she was working for the CPD at Langley, still maintaining her NOC status (her paycheck was issued by a phony energy company that was a front for the CIA), running covert ops.

Quote by: xyzer She was never revealed to be covert by anyone of those involved was she?

She was outed as a CIA agent. Since she was still employed in a covert status, so I guess the answer is yes, she was revealed to be covert, since she can no longer serve in that capacity.

Quote by: xyzer She was revealed as the one who suggested (since confirmed) her husband Wilson for a trip to find out about the Yellow Cake" British intelligence report.

Blatant lie. Anybody in the Bush administration tells you a lie and you take it for gospel. Another CIA official (superior to Wilson) who was involved in the investigation, being aware of Joseph Wilson's experience and knowledge of the African uranium operations, asked Valerie Wilson if she would ask her husband if he would go to Africa to discuss the question with some of his contacts. Joseph Wilson agreed. When he came to a meeting at the CIA, his wife, who was known to most present, introduced him since few knew who Joseph Wilson was. Valerie Wilson then left the meeting.

Your false information, willfully propagated by those involved in the leak came from one Bush flunky who attended the meeting and was late. He was told that Valerie Wilson had introduced her husband and assumed that she had suggested him for the mission. If the Bush flunky had been on time, he would have known the truth. However, since the story cast a better light on the leakers (Libby, Rove, and Armitage), that's the one pushed by the administration. You fell for it.

Quote by: xyzer His assignment was highly irregular because he was not affiliated with the CIA and thus not bound by any rules of secrecy.

Except rules about the status of his wife's employment. However, how is the fact that a former ambassador was sent back to Africa relevant to the fact that three of Bush's administration leaked secret information? The problem was that Joseph Wilson had been critical of Bush's war policy and certain members of the administration were trying to get even with him. They broke the law.

Quote by: xyzer How can anyone(Libby included) leak something that is not a secret?

They were not accused of leaking information about Joseph Wilson's trip. They were accused of revealing an undercover CIA operative and thus endangering the lives of foreign spies who had had open contact with her.

Quote by: xyzer Sounds more like gossip to me.

That's what Bush and the rest of the liars in his administration wanted you to believe. At one time he said that no one who leaked secret information would be employed in his administration. When he found out that it had been Libby, Rove, and Armitage, he did nothing. When asked, he claimed that he had meant that no one who had been convicted of a crime would be employed in his administration.

Quote by: xyzer IMNSHO the 'railroading' of Libby was politically motivated.

By whom? The Bush administration and it's zeal to prosecute leakers who leaked information it didn't like? Bush's administration has been plagued by leaks for a long time and Bush made it a policy to go after leakers.

Quote by: xyzer I've never seen the record of the specific statments he made in response to the questions but I can only conclude that his word was compared to that of other witnesses and obviouly differed from theirs.

Not exactly. Reporters take notes and those notes revealed meetings with Libby that he denied, and comments that he denied making. The evidence that he had lied under oath was overwhelming - he was charged by a grand jury and later found guilty by another jury. But of course, Bush whiners think he was railroaded.

Quote by: xyzer Word about whether someone did or did not work for the CIA and what he said about Plame.

What he said to more than one reporter was that Joseph Wilson's wife (Valerie Plame Wilson), who had proposed him for the mission, worked as an undercover agent for the CIA.

Quote by: xyzer Was he right or were those others who had different stories right?

He lied under oath and tried to obstruct the investigation. He got caught. There is no doubt that he did it and no doubt that he lied about it. And now, Bush lets him off. It seems he wants to punish leakers unless they are "his" leakers.

Quote by: xyzer Above all was it worth the millions of dollars involved to invesitgate gossip?

It wasn't gossip. It was the betrayal of public trust by three officials of the Bush administration. And the President and his faithful dupes continue to cry foul after being caught in lie after lie. There was no yellow cake, there were no WMDs, and Libby, Rove, and Armitage leaked secret information to the press in violation of the law and then lied about it. Rove and Armitage had the brains to not do so while under oath.