VPW - A Letter To House Speaker Hastert

Following the Valerie Plame Wilson affir,we see this in the NY Times:

A group of former intelligence officers is pressing Congressional leaders to open an immediate inquiry into the disclosure last summer of the name of an undercover C.I.A. officer, Valerie Plame.

Their request, outlined in a letter on Tuesday to Speaker J. Dennis Hastert and others, reflects discontent and unrest within the intelligence services about the affair, along with concern that a four-month-old Justice Department investigation into the matter may never identify who was behind the disclosure. The syndicated columnist Robert Novak, who first identified Ms. Plame as a C.I.A. officer in a column last July, has identified his sources only as Bush administration officials, and the Justice Department inquiry has not yet produced any public findings.

Yeah, yeah. We infer that the letter is to the House, rather than the Senate, because (we predicted) the Chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee is no longer interested in participating in a partisan circus.

Next, who are these former CIA folks, and in particular, are they the VIPers who so muddied the waters last spring? One of the signatories is Ray McGovern, leader of the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, so we have the connection.

Now,the Justice Dept is investigsting, and Ashcroft has recused himself, so what is the problem? Let's extend some props to Timesman Douglas Jehl, who knows a silly story when he writes it:

Asked to describe the current sentiment within the community about the affair, an intelligence official said that "people within the agency obviously don't like it when classified information appears in the press, and they especially don't like it when the names of intelligence officers get into the press."

The intelligence official added, however: "There's an investigation under way at the Justice Department, and that's appropriate. If Congress gets involved, there's always the risk of turning this into a political football, and that would make it even worse."

But maybe Congressional pressure for results is mounting?

Ms. Harman, the top Democrat on the intelligence panel, said in a separate interview that Justice Department investigators "should be given time to complete their work" and that Congress should "not meddle in the investigation." But she said she would consider joining the call for a Congressional inquiry if the leaker was not identified by next month.

She "would consider" joining the call. And I will consider taking this seriously.

However, we have a related tidbit! A leak investigation from September 2001 is proceeding apace:

The Justice Department's 18-month investigation into the leak of classified intercepted messages is focusing on Senator Richard Shelby, Republican of Alabama, who was chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence at the time of the disclosure, according to a law enforcement official and congressional sources.

My guess is that Sen. Shelby is a bone - this is a Bush-friendly leak, the point of which is, these things take time, but we will look at Republicans if that is where the road leads. That said, the Senator is up for re-election this fall in what is considered to be a safe seat, so this may double as a ploy to release bad news early, while we are distracted by New Hampshire and whatever.

Comments

[HH]

Fix your italics. ;)

[narciso]

This McGovern cat, seems to have wrangled a better kind of intel officer; McCavitt, a
former station chief in Libya, then Guatemala
& El Salvador, (where he ran across another
conspiratorial whistle blower, Celerino Castillo,
who in turn provided leads for John Kerry's early
contra-gate witchhunt: while said Senator did his
part by signing up the frontman for South
Florida's BCCI connection; CenTrust's David
Paul for his Senate Committee treasurer, who was
covering for another Saudi; Mssr. Pharoan, who was
the son of the Saud family doctor) was outed by
Agee's KGB front rag, in '79; Wagner, is one of
the major players in taking down Pablo Escobar in
'93, where he worked hand in hand, with Col. Boykin; he also shares a billet with two of Larry
"terrorism is not a threat" Johnson's security
consultancies
in turn was

[TM]

I'm on those italics like Drudge on Edwards. Well, with the primary difference being that I am getting results.

[toy]

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