WH exposure of Plame shut down monitoring of Iranian WMD

The exposure of Valerie Plame as a covert CIA agent shut down a major CIA effort to monitor Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iran. Raw Story presents the story:

According to current and former intelligence officials, Plame Wilson, who worked on the clandestine side of the CIA in the Directorate of Operations as a non-official cover (NOC) officer, was part of an operation tracking distribution and acquisition of weapons of mass destruction technology to and from Iran.

Speaking under strict confidentiality, intelligence officials revealed heretofore unreported elements of Plame's work. Their accounts suggest that Plame's outing was more serious than has previously been reported and carries grave implications for U.S. national security and its ability to monitor Iran's burgeoning nuclear program.

[Snip]

According to intelligence expert John Pike of GlobalSecurity.org, U.S. officials were not aware of the extent of the proliferation until around the time of Khan's dismissal.

"It slowly dawned on them that the collaboration between Pakistan, North Korea and Iran was an ongoing and serious problem," Pike said. "It was starting to sink in on them that it was one program doing business in three locations and that anything one of these countries had they all had."

After the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, Pakistan became the United States' chief regional ally in the war on terror.

The revelation that Iran was the focal point of Plame's work raises new questions as to possible other motivating factors in the White House's decision to reveal the identity of a CIA officer working on tracking a WMD supply network to Iran, particularly when the very topic of Iran's possible WMD capability is of such concern to the Administration.

So, somebody tell me again how the Bush administration is making America safer from its enemies. Please be convincing this time.

First the Bush administration preemptively invades Iraq for no rational reason, using non-existent WMDs as an excuse. The result of this has been to turn Iraq into a failed state soon to break up into three warring small states, the southernmost small state to be effectively controlled by the Shiites of Iran.

Then the Bush administration shuts down the CIA effort to monitor and possibly control WMD in Iran.

Are George W. Bush, Dick (lawyer-shooting) Cheney and Don Rumsfeld paid agents of the Iranian Mullahs? They couldn't be more supportive of them if they were.

Steve Clemons in his blog The Washington Note suggests that this story can take three different directions. First, certain members of the Bush administration might have objected to the direction the results of Valerie Plame's teams work was taking, and used the means to shut it down. Steve considers this unlikely, but possible. He thinks that it is more likely to be merely internal pettiness in the Cheney groups of actors.

Another possible dimension for this story to take is the damage the outing of Plame has caused to the opinions of America's Intelligence output as a whole. How much will our allies trust our Intelligence product in the future?

Third, Joe Wilson's report on the Niger Yellowcake issue had two notes on possible Iranian efforts to purchase the yellowcake that have received little public attention. This story could be a lead to further investigation of Iran's activities in Niger. Steve Clements is checking the available documents to see if this leads anywhere.

All in all, I really suspect that if American journalists still exist, we will hear more about this story soon.