Maybe instead of crowing like roosters they should have protected Brewsters…

posted by Bill Arnett @ 1:27 PM Permalink

The manner and means by which certain arrogant officials in the bush maladministration exposed Valerie Plame and utterly destroyed her career, as well as blowing up her non-official cover company of Brewster Jennings & Associates through that exposure, is by now the stuff of legend and lore. Very few remember that the Brewster's set-up, which took years to create, provided Plame the cover to study Iranian nuclear proliferation specifically, an ability lost when she was exposed by White House criminals.

As the GOP icon, Ronnie Raygun would have said, "Well, Mommy, there they go again." And not very well or effectively at that.

See this article from the LA Times titled, "CIA's ambitious post-9/11 spy plan crumbles" to further explore the terrible damage done to our spying abilities and the millions wasted trying to replace those capabilities:

The CIA set up a network of front companies in Europe and elsewhere after the Sept. 11 attacks as part of a constellation of "black stations" for a new generation of spies, according to current and former agency officials.

But after spending hundreds of millions of dollars setting up as many as 12 of the companies, the agency shut down all but two after concluding they were ill-conceived and poorly positioned for gathering intelligence on the CIA's principal targets: terrorist groups and unconventional weapons proliferation networks.

The closures were a blow to two of the CIA's most pressing priorities after the 2001 terrorist attacks: expanding its overseas presence and changing the way it deploys spies.[…]

But the plan became the source of significant dispute within the agency and was plagued with problems, officials said. The bogus companies were located far from Muslim enclaves in Europe and other targets. Their size raised concerns that one mistake would blow the cover of many agents. And because business travelers don't ordinarily come into contact with Al Qaeda or other high-priority adversaries, officials said, the cover didn't work.

Summing up what many considered the fatal flaw of the program, one former high-ranking CIA official said, "They were built on the theory of the 'Field of Dreams': Build them and the targets will come."[…]

The vast majority of the CIA's spies traditionally have operated under what is known as official cover, meaning they pose as U.S. diplomats or employees of another government agency.

The approach has advantages, including diplomatic immunity, which means that an operative under official cover might get kicked out of a country if he or she is caught spying, but won't be imprisoned or executed.[…]

One of the CIA's commercial cover platforms was exposed in 2003 when undercover officer Valerie Plame was exposed in a newspaper by columnist Robert Novak. Public records quickly led to the unraveling of the company that served as her cover during overseas trips, a fictitious CIA firm called Brewster Jennings & Associates.

This is obviously pointing out that most of our intelligence agencies have no idea what they're doing, that by sitting by and doing nothing when Plame was exposed they also created the distinct possibility that she or any other Brewster Jenning's employees could have been imprisoned or executed, and that they currently lack to ability to replace such valuable assets such as those that had already been in place and operating well.

bush has no compunctions about using our military for his private ends, hiring contractors who will do things official agencies won't or can't do, that he will violate any law of his choosing, and that he will allow criminals in the White House subject our spies to imprisonment or death just to get revenge against those who would speak truth to the American people.

Fine legacy, bush.

Labels: Bush, bush as chimp, bush war doctrine, disinformation, foreign policy, hypocrisy, Iran, spying