One More Time: No Law Broken by Rove

The Washington Times: "A former CIA covert agent who supervised Mrs. Plame early in her career yesterday took issue with her identification as an 'undercover agent,' saying that she worked for more than five years at the agency's headquarters in Langley and that most of her neighbors and friends knew that she was a CIA employee.

'She made no bones about the fact that she was an agency employee and her husband was a diplomat,' Fred Rustmann, a covert agent from 1966 to 1990, told The Washington Times. "Her neighbors knew this, her friends knew this, his friends knew this..."

Mr. Rustmann, who spent 20 of his 24 years in the agency under "nonofficial cover" -- also known as a NOC, the same status as the wife of Mr. Wilson -- also said that she worked under extremely light cover.

In addition, Mrs. Plame hadn't been out as an NOC since 1997, when she returned from her last assignment, married Mr. Wilson and had twins, USA Today reported yesterday.

The distinction matters because a law that forbids disclosing the name of undercover CIA operatives applies to agents that had been on overseas assignment "within the last five years."

"She was home for such a long time, she went to work every day at Langley, she was in an analytical type job, she was married to a high-profile diplomat with two kids," Mr. Rustmann said. "Most people who knew Valerie and her husband, I think, would have thought that she was an overt CIA employee."

And NOW, we discover that Karl Rove learned about Valerie Plame's role in the Wilson Niger Affair FROM Reporter, Robert Novak, not the other way around.

"Chief presidential adviser Karl Rove testified to a grand jury that he talked with two journalists before they divulged the identity of an undercover CIA officer but that he originally learned about the operative from the news media and not government sources, according to a person briefed on the testimony."

And how much more evidence do clear thinking rational people need to conclude that Iraq was up to something when it tried to acquire Niger's Uranium?

Again, no DIRECT evidence was uncovered that this interest in uranium was related to what WAS an ongoing nuclear weapons program, HELLO DUELFER REPORT!. Just as with Saddam Hussein's ties to Osama bin Laden and September 11, you have to ask: "WHAT WAS HE DOING WITH THIS STUFF?"

Oh well, I don't expect this recitation to penetrate the lefty fog which can only see President Bush as the problem. But when more innocent people die in terror attacks... just remember who wants to put the handcuffs on effective U.S. efforts to defend us from such evil!