Text 28962, 95 rader
Skriven 2007-05-30 19:41:00 av Jeff Binkley (1:226/600)
Ärende: Plame
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No liberal democrat ever lies.  Never...

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http://usatoday.printthis.clickability.com/pt/cpt?action=cpt&title=USATO
DAY.com&expire=&urlID=22512034&fb=Y&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.usatoday.com%2F
printedition%2Fnews%2F20070530%2Fa_plame30.art.htm&partnerID=1660

Ex-CIA officer called on to explain varied accounts
Senator: Plame's versions add to 'misinformation'
By Richard Willing
USA TODAY 

WASHINGTON — Former CIA officer Valerie Plame should explain 
"differences" in her various accounts of how her husband was sent to the 
African nation of Niger in 2002 to investigate reports Iraq was trying 
to buy uranium there, the vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence 
Committee said.

Plame's differing versions have furthered "misinformation" about the 
origins of the case that roiled Washington beginning in July 2003, said 
Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo. Plame gave those accounts to the CIA's inspector 
general, Senate investigators and a House committee in March.

A February 2002 CIA memo released last week as part of a study of pre-
Iraq-war intelligence shows that Plame suggested her husband, former 
State Department official Joseph Wilson, for the Niger trip, Bond said. 
That "doesn't square" with Plame's March testimony in which she said an 
unnamed CIA colleague raised her husband's name, Bond told USA TODAY.

Here are Plame's three versions of how Wilson was sent to Niger, 
according to Bond:

•She told the CIA's inspector general in 2003 or 2004 that she had 
suggested Wilson.

•Plame told Senate Intelligence Committee staffers in 2004 that she 
couldn't remember whether she had suggested Wilson.

•She told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee in March 
that an unidentified person in Vice President Cheney's office asked a 
CIA colleague about the African uranium report in February 2002. A third 
officer, overhearing Plame and the colleague discussing this, suggested, 
"Well, why don't we send Joe?" Plame told the committee.

CIA officials have been unable to verify Plame's March version, Bond 
said. Paul Gimigliano, a CIA spokesman, said the "public record on the 
matter is extensive, and, at this point, I can't add anything to it."

Plame's identity as an undercover CIA operative was revealed after 
Wilson accused the Bush administration of ignoring his Africa findings. 
The disclosure of Plame's status led to a federal investigation that 
culminated in former White House aide Lewis "Scooter" Libby's conviction 
on charges of perjury and obstruction of justice.

Libby is scheduled to be sentenced next Tuesday. In court papers made 
public last weekend, prosecutors recommended he be sentenced to 30 to 37 
months in prison.

A spokeswoman for Sen. Jay Rockefeller, chairman of the Senate 
Intelligence Committee, said she's not sure whether Rockefeller would 
support having committee investigators interview Plame. The priority for 
Rockefeller, D-W.Va., is finishing the committee's investigation into 
Iraq war intelligence, Wendy Morigi said.

Bond said he has written to the CIA for permission to re-interview 
Plame.

Plame has "always been very consistent that she is not the person 
responsible for sending Joe Wilson" to Africa, said Melanie Sloan, 
Plame's attorney.

Questioning Plame's truthfulness now, she said, is an attempt to draw 
attention from the "real wrong here — a White House that outed a covert 
operative and undermined national security."

Wilson, a former ambassador to Gabon, said later that he had found 
nothing to support the report that Iraq was trying to buy uranium for a 
secret nuclear program from Niger.

In July 2003, Wilson wrote a column in The New York Times accusing the 
Bush administration of twisting prewar intelligence by including the 
erroneous report in the president's State of the Union address the 
previous January — two months before the war began.

Days later, Plame's CIA employment was revealed by syndicated columnist 
Robert Novak. Plame and Wilson said the implication that she had used 
her CIA status to arrange her husband's Niger trip was false. The 
disclosure, they argued, was meant to discredit Wilson and his findings 
by suggesting that the trip was merely a junket.



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