Thanks to Larry C. Johnson of No Quarter (see links) for clearing this up. Mr. Johnson is a counter-terrorism expert who has worked previously with the CIA.

For starters, why can’t conservative talkers and bloggers accept the fact that Valerie Plame was undercover until exposed in Bob Novak’s column? Patrick Fitzgerald spoke in English and did not stutter when he said very clearly at the start of his press conference last Friday, “Valerie Wilson’s cover was blown”. You can only blow a cover if a cover exists.

Then there is the claim that the law to protect intelligence identities could not have been violated because Valerie Wilson had not lived overseas for six years. Too bad this is not what the law stipulates. The law actually requires that a covered person “served” overseas in the last five years. Served does not mean lived. In the case of Valerie Wilson, energy consultant for Brewster-Jennings, she traveled overseas in 2003, 2002, and 2001, as part of her cover job. She met with folks who worked in the nuclear industry, cultivated sources, and managed spies. She was a national security asset until exposed by Karl Rove and Scooter Libby.

How about the charge that Joe Wilson lied because he denied that it was his wife who got him sent to Niger in February 2002 to check out claims that Saddam Hussein had tried to buy uranium? Ladies and gentlemen, pay close attention—CIA officials in July 2003 and in July 2005 have said on the record that Valerie Wilson played no role in the decision to send Joe Wilson to Niger. Although the Senate Intelligence Committee report from July of 2004 tried to insinuate otherwise, Valerie’s bosses asked her to write a memo outlining her husband’s qualifications for a mission to Niger and she introduced her husband at a meeting (and then left). She was an undercover case officer, not a manager with the authority to make such a decision.

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