Why Plamegate?

No post on this site has made me prouder than yesterday's offering on Plamegate from dr. elsewhere. If you haven't read it yet, I beg you to do so now.

The doctor directs our attention to this important thread on Democratic Underground, which asks a key question, a simple question, an overlooked question: Why was Valerie Plame outed as a CIA agent? (Yes, I know that she goes by her married name, Valerie Wilson -- but by this point, "Plame" has entered the national dialog, and that nomenclature will not soon be replaced.)

The commonly-heard story never made much sense. We have been told that the Office of the Vice President (OVP) outed Plame as a CIA agent to columnist Bob Novak in order to smear her husband, Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who had published a story embarrassing to the administration. But the "smear" wasn't much of a smear. Everyone agrees that Wilson was quite qualified to go to Niger and check out the yellowcake claim. His wife's employer did not affect his credibility in any way. Besides, we now know that the OVP had targeted Wilson and his wife well before Wilson went public. So what was the OVP trying to prove?

An alternative theory is gaining traction. Before we address it directly, let's review a few facts -- and please forgive me for over-simplifying:

1. Plame worked for a CIA unit tracking Weapons of Mass Destruction and the A.Q. Khan network, which sold nuclear secrets and materials to "rogue" nations.

2. Cheney knew all about Khan in 1989 and did nothing to stop him.

3. Cheney's company, Haliburton, received a hefty fine in 1995 for selling dual-use nuclear equipment to Libya, then considered the most roguish of rogue nations. This scam would have brought Haliburton into close contact with the Khan network.

4. A Khan associate named B.S.A. Tahir, based in Dubai, was helping to supply centrifuge equipment to Libya. (Dubai front companies are used to ship American goods to "forbidden" countries.) Tahir works for a business concern called the Scomi Group. Scomi links up with Haliburton via a German concern called Cognis. The exact nature of these linkages are complex. (If you really must know all the details, go here and re-read the middle section until your eyes explode.)

5. David Kelly, the British scientist who acted as a weapons inspector in Iraq, warned of "dark actors" and predicted that he would 'probably be found dead in the woods.' On July 17, 2003, that is precisely what happened. Many people believe that he was murdered.

6. Valerie Plame was outed just a few days before Kelly died or (more likely) was killed.

7. Journalist Judith Miller of the New York Times was used by the OVP to spread disinformation. Judith Miller was also close to Kelly; she had used him as a source for an earlier book on germ warfare.

8. When the A.Q. Khan nuclear network was revealed to the public, Khan received no punishment from the Pakistani government -- and the White House did not protest.

Oh, and here's one last little factoid: After the capture of Baghdad, Ron Reagan Jr. captiously predicted that planted WMD evidence would be discovered in Baghdad. But that prophecy failed.

Consider the dog that did not bark in the night. Consider Cheney and Rumsfeld's ever-so-confident prediction that WMDs would be found: "We know where they are..."

Which brings us, at last, to the TOP -- that is, to the Theory Of Plamegate.

What if both Kelly and Plame had stumbled across a plan to plant nuclear materials -- supplied by A.Q. Khan -- in Iraq? What if Kelly told what he knew to Judith Miller, who passed the info to Cheney's office? What if Plame's unit had scuttled the scheme?

Even if the Kelly death and the Plame outing have nothing in common but the coincidence of dates, we must still ask if Plame had stumbled across evidence of nuclear smuggling into Iraq.

This theory (and there is much more evidence to favor it) has been heard, in one form or another, since 2004. But nothing (to my knowledge) has come out during the Libby trial which would force us to scuttle this idea.

Decades after the Watergate break-in, people still wonder why those burglars targeted that office. Let's make sure that people aren't asking "Why Plamegate?" decades from now.