The Plame Page

A reader points out that blowing Iran intel makes it easier to start a war there:

Perhaps outing plame was a pre-meditated two-fer. It's hard to instigate war against solid intelligence, but much easier to do it based on sketchy intelligence. In compromising Plame, they broke the whole Iran nukes intel machine. Now they can make stuff up (as they are doing), justify a strike and then blame the CIA for incompetance later. Cheney is not stupid, but he doesn't mind the label. I wouldn't either if my assets were growing in 10x increments.

Posted by: Bat Guano | April 6, 2006 12:24 PM

David Glenn crafts a perceptive analysis of veteran intel reporter Walter Pincus in Columbia Journalism Review. It's aptly titled The Optimist. The theme throughout is journalists and sources.

"Pincus scoffs at the idea of turning over his Wilson notes, which, he says, could not possibly include anything relevant to the perjury and obstruction-of-justice charges facing I. Lewis Libby. ... ...
But during precisely the same conversations, alongside the avuncular growls, there are moments when Pincus’s eyes light up and he launches into a soliloquy about some interesting new thing he has learned. He attended Georgetown Law School part-time beginning in 1995 and graduated in 2001, at the age of sixty-eight. While there, he says, he picked up new perspectives on the history and structure of the reporter-source privilege..."

On a different but earth shattering and loud note -- from Steve Clemons at The Washington Note: On Iran, Intelligence-Blind American War Planners Should Consult with the Better-Informed Israelis

Add to this the Valerie Plame affair -- in which it has been reported that she too was working to gain intelligence on Iran's nuclear program. Of course, that operation has been spiked.
And does anyone remember that it was Ahmed Chalabi's team who informed Iran that the U.S. had broken its codes. It was the Iraqi National Congress's intel chief who turned out to be an Iranian spy. Chalabi's operation worked out of Douglas Feith's legal office before Feith moved into DoD. And Chalabi and the Iraqi National Congress's lawyer was former CIA Director R. James Woolsey.
Yes, those putting war plans together for Iran think carefully. We have botched so much already; don't repeat errors.
And in this case, TALK TO THE ISRAELIS -- the ones responsible for national security there. I found their sensibilities on Iran to be remarkably well informed, nuanced, confident, and sensible.

it seems that while U.S. hawks are worried about a nuclear Iran, Israeli hawks are more worried about the consequences of a deranged U.S. attack on Iran.

Meanwhile, Talkleft continues investigating LIbby's blame State campaign --'Predicting Scooter Libby's Next Move'