Who leaked the identity of Valerie Plame to Bob Woodward in mid-June, 2003? David Corn, citing Benjamin Bradlee, has claimed that the source was arch neo-con Richard Armitage. Although Bradlee now denies the quote, I suspect that identification will prove correct.
Woodward may believe that his source had "no ax to grind," but everyone in DC has a hatchet of some sort. As we try to work out motives, the following seemingly-unrelated data points may prove worthy of consideration:
1. Plame, we now know, was a potential impediment to the administration's long-term plan to conquer Iran.
2. Armitage served in Tehran during the important 1975-76 period, under master spook Richard Helms (who is widely held to have engineered Nixon's downfall).
3. Several sources have connected Armitage to drug trafficking sanctioned by a faction within American intelligence. If this claim is justified, one might want to trace the entire post-Vietnam history of these drug networks, and of the banks used for money laundering. One would also want to study further Daniel Hopsicker's contention that Bin Laden's stateside "associates" were involved with a protected drug importation operation linked to Jack Abramoff and -- ultimately -- the Bush family.
4. Under the Shah, Iran was a massive (MASSIVE) producer of opium, and also provided a huge consumer market. The mullahs shut down the dope trade. No-one who knows how the world really works will have any doubt that this trade will resume in full force if America succeeds in dislodging the current Iranian regime. Lots of money to be made there.
3 comments:
ooh, lots of fascinating assertions here. would it be too much trouble to maybe slip in a couple of links for these? would really enjoy chasing them down.
as for the iran poppies, easy to follow that lead. afghanistan had essentially brought heroine production to zero under the taliban. within two years of the us invasion, the country was once again THE top producer of smack.
duh.
Actually the information in point 4 about Iran and the Shah being a big producer and consumer of heroin is contradicted in the most authoritative text I know of: Alfred McCoy's The Politics of Heroin in Southeast Asia. According to McCoy, starting in the early 1950's before the CIA's covert ouster of PM Mossadegh and into the reign of the Shah, Iran had very deliberately, and mostly successfully, stamped out the production and consumption of heroin in that country. That was also true of the Communist Chinese in stamping out the production in Yunnan province. That is why the focus shifted to heroin production in Southeast Asia: Laos, Burma, northern Thailand, etc., especially among the hilltribe peoples with support of the CIA and the KMT Nationalist Chinese of Chiang Kai Shek.
With all due respect to Dr. McCoy (whose book is definitely worth purchasing), you might want to go here...
http://www.rand.org/commentary/050405UPI.html
...for another view of opium production under the Shah. (Eight paragraphs down.) You will also find a fleeting reference in the opening paragraph of this page:
http://www.unodc.org/pakistan/en/country_profile.html?print=yes
Perhaps more importantly for my larger point is the resurgence of opium usage and cultivation in Iran. Anyone who controls that trade will control an unimaginable fortune. See here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/09/22/AR2005092202287.html
...and especially here:
http://www.iranian.com/Opinion/2004/August/Drugs/index.html
The last-mentioned site claims that there are 2 million opium addicts in Iran, including Khamanei himself...!
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