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<div>All-</div>
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<div>Scooter Libby was complicit in a coordinated effort in the Bush administration that jeopardized the protections that undercover CIA operatives require to protect national security, via the outing of Valerie Plame's undercover CIA status. These protections are in place to enable CIA operatives to earn the trust, on foreign soil, of informants who might be killed if it is discovered that they were cooperating with the CIA. The outing of a CIA undercover operative sends a message to all those cooperating with the CIA in foreign nations that they cannot rely on the US government to ensure that their cooperation will not be exposed. This results in a serious impairment of intelligence gathering efforts. And this behavior came from an administration that has made protecting national security and pursuing the war on terror as a primary campaign issue!
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<div>This was a deliberate effort to intimidate Plame and Wilson, because of Wilson's exposure of Bush administration fabrications regarding Iraq WMDs; and to send a message to others who might challenge the Bush administration's fabrications on Iraq WMDs.
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<div>To minimize the seriousness of what Libby did by reference to Sandy Berger's document "theft," even if Berger committed grave violations of law meriting jail time, is to not take account of the full implications of outing a CIA undercover operative. Perjury or obstruction of justice does not describe the full implications of Libby's cooperation in outing Plame.
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<div>Ted Moffett</div>
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<div><span class="gmail_quote">On 7/11/07, <b class="gmail_sendername">Andreas Schou</b> <<a href="mailto:ophite@gmail.com">ophite@gmail.com</a>> wrote:</span>
<blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="PADDING-LEFT: 1ex; MARGIN: 0px 0px 0px 0.8ex; BORDER-LEFT: #ccc 1px solid">On 7/11/07, lfalen <<a href="mailto:lfalen@turbonet.com">lfalen@turbonet.com</a>> wrote:<br>> No, It does not satisfy me. It does not answer the question of why he took them. Stuffing secret documents in your pants is not normal behavior.
<br><br>Roger --<br><br>These were classified anti-terrorism documents. Sandy Berger was<br>preparing to testify in front of the 9/11 Commission, and no longer<br>lives in Washington DC, where the National Archvies are. Rather than
<br>imputing some nefarious motive to him, as you seem ready to do, how<br>about "he didn't want to fly all the way back to Washington DC every<br>time he wanted to look at them?"<br><br>This doesn't, of course, excuse what he did. But it does explain it
<br>better than a right-wing conspiracy theory that's at odds with what<br>even the professional advocates of his punishment (i.e. the<br>prosecution itself) believe.<br><br>-- ACS<br><br>=======================================================
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