The Bulletpoint Blog

Okay, now it's a conspiracy.

The Washington Post yesterday published an article indicating that Assistant Managing Editor Bob Woodward was informed of Plame's identity in Mid-June 2003. Raw Story identifies the source of this leak as National Security adviser Stephen Hadley.

This is a big deal.

Why? Because It provides iron-clad proof of conspiracy among top administration officials. These smart guys didn't all decide to do something as stupid as this independently. They wouldn't have done it unless they were ordered to do so by someone really vindictive and dumb.

The Raw Story National Security Adviser was Woodward's source, attorneys say

Cheney and Rove, they're coming for you.

The timeline

The Wayne Madsen Report has published a compelling explanation of why there was such an overreaction to Wilson's OP-ed.

November 11, 2005 -- New aspect of Valerie Plame/Brewster Jennings exposure revealed. According to U.S. intelligence sources, the White House exposure of Valerie Plame and her Brewster Jennings & Associates was intended to retaliate against the CIA's work in limiting the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. WMR has reported in the past on this aspect of the scandal. In addition to identifying the involvement of individuals in the White House who were close to key players in nuclear proliferation, the CIA Counter-Proliferation Division prevented the shipment of binary VX nerve gas from Turkey into Iraq in November 2002. The Brewster Jennings network in Turkey was able to intercept this shipment which was intended to be hidden in Iraq and later used as evidence that Saddam Hussein was in possession of weapons of mass destruction. U.S. intelligence sources revealed that this was a major reason the Bush White House targeted Plame and her network.

In fact, U.S. intelligence sources report that the first shipment of VX nerve gas to Saddam Hussein was carried out between 1988 and 1989. The gas was shipped to Iraq by a U.S. company that was established in 1987 -- The Carlyle Group.

Plame was outed for the purpose of shutting down Brewster-Jennings because they intercepted the WMD that was intended to be the smoking gun in Iraq.

posted by Lumberjack @ 2:54 PM