Right-wing CIA Conspiracy Nuts

Once upon a time the left side of the political spectrum had a monopoly on nutty conspiracy theories involving the alleged ability of the CIA to control the world and be the puppet master of all right-wing tyrants. Boy, those were the good old days–the CIA deposing democratic governments and assassinating noble politcians yearning to breathe free (if you don’t understand irony and sarcasm you should stop reading now and go elsewhere).

Now we have the right-wings answer to the left-wing kooks and it is equally nutty and out of touch with reality. The latest example is someone named, Jack Kelly.

Evidence of Kelly’s kookiness commences with his sincere repetition of a lie about Valerie Plame. He writes:

The presidency of George W. Bush began to unravel when some in high positions at the Central Intelligence Agency began waging a covert campaign against him.
began
It in the summer of 2003 when officials at the CIA asked the Justice department to open a criminal investigation into who had disclosed to columnist Robert Novak that Valerie Plame, wife of controversial former diplomat Joseph Wilson, worked at the CIA.

The officials knew at the time the Intelligence Identities Protection Act did not apply to Ms. Plame, who’d been out of the field for more than five years.

Kelly apparently is the type of fellow who believes that if you close your eyes tight enough you can deny that the sun rises in the east. He is ignoring several pieces of evidence from CIA and prosecutors that completely contradict his delusion. Federal Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald released the following unclassified summary in 2007 that details Valerie’s activities:

On 1 January 2002, Valerie Wilson was working for the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) as an operations officer in the Directorate of Operations (DO). She was assigned to the Counterproliferation Division (CPD) at CIA Headquarters, where she served as the chief of a CPD component with reponsibility for weapons proliferation issues related to Iraq.

To be more specific, Valerie was Chief of Operations for the Iraq Task Force. She was in charge of overseeing and coordinating all clandestine operations carried out by assets of the Task Force.

Fitz continues:

While assigned to CPD, Ms. Wilson engaged in temporary duty (TDY) travel overseas on official business. She traveled at least seven times to more than ten countries. When traveling overseas, Ms. Wilson always traveled under a cover indentity–sometimes in true name and sometimes in alias–but always using cover–whether official or non-official cover (NOC)–with no ostensible relationship to the CIA.

At the time of the initial unauthorized disclosure in the media of Ms. Wilson’s employment relationship with the CIA on 14 July 2003, Ms. Wilson was a covert CIA employee for whom the CIA was taking affirmative measures to conceal her intelligence relationship to the United States. . . .

As a result of the leak and subsequent media reporting of Ms. Wilson’s relationship with the CIA, in December 2003 the CIA lifted Ms. Wilson’s cover effective 14 December 2003, and then in February 2004 the CIA rolled back her cover effective 14 July 2003, the date of the leak. . . .

In October 2005, the CIA determined, inits discretion, that the public interest in allowing the criminal prosecution to proceed outweighed the damage to national security that might reasonably be expected from the official disclosure of Ms. Wilson’s employment and cover status.

Fitzgerald released this information in order to specifically rebut those who lamely insisted that Valerie was just a glorified secretary who sat at CIA Headquarters drinking coffee and doing crossword puzzles. Fitzgerald establishes under oath that she was undercover, she did conduct operations outside the United States (i.e., resided) and that the CIA was taking steps to protect her identity.

Here’s what the Intelligence Identities Protection Act stipulates:

(4) The term “covert agent” means:
(A) a present or retired officer or employee of an intelligence agency or a present or retired member of the Armed Forces assigned to duty with an intelligence agency—
(i) whose identity as such an officer, employee, or member is classified information, and
(ii) who is serving outside the United States or has within the last five years served outside the United States; or

(B) a United States citizen whose intelligence relationship to the United States is classified information, and—
(i) who resides and acts outside the United States as an agent of, or informant or source of operational assistance to, an intelligence agency, or
(ii) who is at the time of the disclosure acting as an agent of, or informant to, the foreign counterintelligence or foreign counterterrorism components of the Federal Bureau of Investigation; or

(C) an individual, other than a United States citizen, whose past or present intelligence relationship to the United States is classified information and who is a present or former agent of, or a present or former informant or source of operational assistance to, an intelligence agency.

Jack Kelly is wrong about a very simple fact. I guess when you have an ideological agenda facts do not matter. Valerie was undercover, she was working on one of the most sensitive matters of U.S. national security and she was carrying out undercover operations overseas until her identity was compromised.

Jack Kelly has no experience in national security matters other than what he reads second hand or hears from people claiming to have such expertise.

What did the number two guy at CIA say about Valerie? According to an affidavit filed by Stepehn Kappes not only reiterates the points presented by Patrick Fitzgerald but insists that Valerie’s relationship with the CIA prior to 2002 cannot be even acknowledge because of the damage that could be done to U.S. national security.

Yet Mr. Jack Kelly insists that CIA was simply making up a lie about Valerie Plame and her past as a covert operator. Let’s ignore the fact that I, along with more than 50 other people (e.g., Jim Marcinkowski, Brent Cavan and Mike Grimaldi, among others). trained with Valerie and were placed undercover the day we walked thru the doors of CIA Headquarters in September 1985.

Right-wing nuts like Kelly persist in touting the fantasy that Valerie was basically a brainless office girl who did nothing of any consequence. Yet we have the evidence that even today the CIA refuses to admit that Valerie even worked for the CIA prior to February 2002. The CIA will only state that from February 2002 until July 2003 Valerie made seven overseas trips to ten different countries as an undercover CIA officer collecting intelligence and running operations to determine the status of Saddam Hussein’s alleged weapons of mass destruction.

It is impossible to respect someone like Jack Kelly, who has no regard for the truth and is intent only in spreading the old leftist lie that the CIA is a rogue elephant operating independently of political control.

That is the heart of the matter. The CIA is a bureaucracy and has its flaws. But at the end of the day the real fault of the CIA has been its willingness to carry out the demands of a President regardless of their political position. George W. Bush wanted to go to war in Iraq and did everything in his power to coerce and subvert the CIA’s attempts to downplay the threat posed by Iraq. And some in the CIA willingly played along and enabled the Bush Administration.

In case you have forgotten how you were played here is the chronology thanks to the folks at the Information Clearinghouse:

Intelligence leaves no doubt that Iraq continues to possess and conceal lethal weapons
George Bush, US President 18 March, 2003
Saddam’s removal is necessary to eradicate the threat from his weapons of mass destruction
Jack Straw, Foreign Secretary 2 April, 2003
Before people crow about the absence of weapons of mass destruction, I suggest they wait a bit
Tony Blair 28 April, 2003
We are asked to accept Saddam decided to destroy those weapons. I say that such a claim is palpably absurd
Tony Blair, Prime Minister 18 March, 2003
It is possible Iraqi leaders decided they would destroy them prior to the conflict
Donald Rumsfeld, US Defense Secretary 28 May, 2003
Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction.
Dick Cheney
Speech to VFW National Convention
August 26, 2002

Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons.
George “aWol” Bush
Speech to UN General Assembly
September 12, 2002

If he declares he has none, then we will know that Saddam Hussein is once again misleading the world.
Ari Fleischer
Press Briefing
December 2, 2002

We know for a fact that there are weapons there.
Ari Fleischer
Press Briefing
January 9, 2003

“25,000 liters of anthrax … 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin … materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent … upwards of 30,000 munitions capable of delivering chemical agents … several mobile biological weapons labs … thousands of Iraqi security personnel … at work hiding documents and materials from the U.N. inspectors.”
George “aWol” Bush
State of the Union Address
January 28, 2003

We know that Saddam Hussein is determined to keep his weapons of mass destruction, is determined to make more.
Colin Powell
Remarks to UN Security Council
February 5, 2003

We have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons — the very weapons the dictator tells us he does not have.
George “aWol” Bush
Radio Address
February 8, 2003

So has the strategic decision been made to disarm Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction by the leadership in Baghdad? . . . I think our judgment has to be clearly not.
Colin Powell
Remarks to UN Security Council
March 7, 2003

Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised.
George “aWol” Bush
Address to the Nation
March 17, 2003

Well, there is no question that we have evidence and information that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, biological and chemical particularly . . . all this will be made clear in the course of the operation, for whatever duration it takes.
Ari Fleisher
Press Briefing
March 21, 2003

There is no doubt that the regime of Saddam Hussein possesses weapons of mass destruction. And . . . as this operation continues, those weapons will be identified, found, along with the people who have produced them and who guard them.
Gen. Tommy Franks
Press Conference
March 22, 2003

I have no doubt we’re going to find big stores of weapons of mass destruction.
Defense Policy Board member Kenneth Adelman
Washington Post, p. A27
March 23, 2003

One of our top objectives is to find and destroy the WMD. There are a number of sites.
Pentagon Spokeswoman Victoria Clark
Press Briefing
March 22, 2003

We know where they are. They’re in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad and east, west, south and north somewhat.
Donald Rumsfeld
ABC Interview
March 30, 2003

Obviously the administration intends to publicize all the weapons of mass destruction U.S. forces find — and there will be plenty.
Neocon scholar Robert Kagan
Washington Post op-ed
April 9, 2003

I think you have always heard, and you continue to hear from officials, a measure of high confidence that, indeed, the weapons of mass destruction will be found.
Ari Fleischer
Press Briefing
April 10, 2003

We are learning more as we interrogate or have discussions with Iraqi scientists and people within the Iraqi structure, that perhaps he destroyed some, perhaps he dispersed some. And so we will find them.
George “aWol” Bush
NBC Interview
April 24, 2003

There are people who in large measure have information that we need . . . so that we can track down the weapons of mass destruction in that country.
Donald Rumsfeld
Press Briefing
April 25, 2003

We’ll find them. It’ll be a matter of time to do so.
George “aWol” Bush
Remarks to Reporters
May 3, 2003

I’m absolutely sure that there are weapons of mass destruction there and the evidence will be forthcoming. We’re just getting it just now.
Colin Powell
Remarks to Reporters
May 4, 2003

We never believed that we’d just tumble over weapons of mass destruction in that country.
Donald Rumsfeld
Fox News Interview
May 4, 2003

I’m not surprised if we begin to uncover the weapons program of Saddam Hussein — because he had a weapons program.
George “aWol” Bush
Remarks to Reporters
May 6, 2003

U.S. officials never expected that “we were going to open garages and find” weapons of mass destruction.
Condoleeza Rice
Reuters Interview
May 12, 2003

I just don’t know whether it was all destroyed years ago — I mean, there’s no question that there were chemical weapons years ago — whether they were destroyed right before the war, (or) whether they’re still hidden.
Maj. Gen. David Petraeus, Commander 101st Airborne
Press Briefing
May 13, 2003

Before the war, there’s no doubt in my mind that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction, biological and chemical. I expected them to be found. I still expect them to be found.
Gen. Michael Hagee, Commandant of the Marine Corps
Interview with Reporters
May 21, 2003

Given time, given the number of prisoners now that we’re interrogating, I’m confident that we’re going to find weapons of mass destruction.
Gen. Richard Myers, Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff
NBC Today Show interview
May 26, 2003

They may have had time to destroy them, and I don’t know the answer.
Donald Rumsfeld
Remarks to Council on Foreign Relations
May 27, 2003

For bureaucratic reasons, we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction (as justification for invading Iraq) because it was the one reason everyone could agree on.
Paul Wolfowitz
Vanity Fair interview
May 28, 2003
It was a surprise to me then ™Eit remains a surprise to me now ™Ethat we have not uncovered weapons, as you say, in some of the forward dispersal sites. Believe me, it’s not for lack of trying. We’ve been to virtually every ammunition supply point between the Kuwaiti border and Baghdad, but they’re simply not there.
Lt. Gen. James Conway, 1st Marine Expeditionary Force
Press Interview
But for those who say we haven’t found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they’re wrong, we found them.

–George W. Bush
Interview with TVP Poland
5/30/2003

You remember when [Secretary of State] Colin Powell stood up in front of the world, and he said Iraq has got laboratories, mobile labs to build biological weapons …They’re illegal. They’re against the United Nations resolutions, and we’ve so far discovered two…And we’ll find more weapons as time goes on And we’ll find more weapons as time goes on

–George W. Bush
Press Briefing
5/30/2003
But for those who say we haven’t found the banned manufacturing devices or banned weapons, they’re wrong, we found them.

–George W. Bush
Interview with TVP Poland
5/30/2003

You remember when [Secretary of State] Colin Powell stood up in front of the world, and he said Iraq has got laboratories, mobile labs to build biological weapons …They’re illegal. They’re against the United Nations resolutions, and we’ve so far discovered two…And we’ll find more weapons as time goes on And we’ll find more weapons as time goes on

–George W. Bush
Press Briefing
5/30/2003

Enough of the lies by the likes of Jack Kelly. The only issue now is whether or not Barack Obama is going to try his hand at playing politics with intelligence.