Congratulations to Victoria Toensing, former Reagan Administration Justice Department official, for plumbing new depths of delusion and crazed fantasies in her latest Washington Post op-ed. Ms. Toensing's piece — Trial in Error — should have been titled, "I Am Ignorant of Basic Facts". She offers up two special gems:
Valerie Plame was not covert.
Ambassador Joseph Wilson (Valerie's husband) misled the public about how he was sent to Niger, about the thrust of his March 2003 oral report of that trip, and about his wife's CIA status
Valerie Plame was undercover until the day she was identified in Robert Novak's column. I entered on duty with Valerie in September of 1985. Every single member of our class — which was comprised of Case Officers, Analysts, Scientists, and Admin folks — were undercover. I was an analyst and Valerie was a case officer. Case officers work in the Directorate of Operations and work overseas recruiting spies and running clandestine operations. Although Valerie started out working under "official cover" — i.e., she declared she worked for the U.S. Government but in something innocuous, like the State Department — she later became a NOC aka non official cover officer. A NOC has no declared relationship with the United States Government. These simple facts apparently are too complicated for someone of Ms. Toensing's limited intellectual abilities.
She also is ignoring the facts introduced at the Libby trial. We have learned that Scooter Libby, Karl Rove, Ari Fleischer, and Richard Armitage told various members of the press that Valerie worked for the CIA. In fact Scooter Libby was the one who told Bush press flack, Ari Fleischer, about Valerie's covert status. Richard Armitage told Novak (who confirmed the story with Karl Rove) and Novak ultimately exposed not just Valerie but her NOC cover company, Brewster Jennings. That leak by the Bush Administration ruined Valerie's ability to continue working as a case officer and destroyed an international intelligence network.
You do not have to take my word alone that Valerie was under
cover. Other members of our training class also came forward in 2003
and vouched for Valerie's covert status - Jim Marcinkowski, Brent Cavan,
and Mike Grimaldi. We appeared on Nightline
three years ago, accompanied by another classmate who remains
anonymous, and testified about our personal knowledge of Valerie's
status as a covert CIA officer.
Toensing's bill of particulars about Joe Wilson and his mission to Niger is equally bizarre. She recites the usual lies:
Joe Wilson said he was sent by Cheney
Valerie Plame sent Joe on the boondoggle
Joe misrepresented the findings from his trip
Let's take up a collection and get Victoria some help with her obvious
reading disability. The whole sordid affair got started in early
February 2002. Vice President Cheney asked his briefer about the claim
on 12 February 2002 and the CIA convened an interagency meeting with
Ambassador Joseph Wilson one week later, February 19, 2002. Joe was a
natural choice for the job. He had headed up the Africa desk at the
National Security Council, he had served as an Ambassador in West
Africa, and had saved American lives from Saddam during the first Gulf
War. He was not chosen by his wife, Valerie Plame. She only wrote a
memo, at the behest of her boss in the Counter Proliferation Divison of
the Directorate of Operations, identifying Joe's qualifications. And
she was asked to inform her husband about the CIA's interest in him
going to Niger to help answer a request from Vice President Cheney, who
wanted to know if there was any truth to reports that Iraq was seeking
uranium in Niger.
We now know, thanks to the INR memo,
that Joe did not want to go to Niger and supported the position of INR
analysts who thought the US Ambassador in Niger was quite capable of
investigating the matter. Ultimately the CIA prevailed and Joe was
sent. Valerie was not in the room when the decision was made nor was
she in an administrative position with the clout to send her husband on
such a mission.
The INR memo
introduced in the Libby trial confirms Joe's account as well about what
he told the CIA debriefing team. Too bad Ms. Toensing did not take time
to read the CIA report produced from Mr. Wilson's trip. He made it very
clear in that report that Iraq had not purchased or negotiated the
purchase of uranium.
Fair minded, reasonable people now
understand that Vice President Cheney and his bag carriers embarked on
a deliberate, organized campaign to smear and discredit Joe Wilson. In
the process they ignored their obligation to protect our nation's
secrets and told reporters about Valerie's ties to the CIA. It is time
for all thinking Americans to ask why the Washington Post editorial
page has decided to give a partisan hack like Toensing a platform for
jury tampering? Just days before the Libby Jury retires to consider a
verdict, why was Toensing allowed to publish an article rife with lies
and misstated facts? Why does the paper that played a key role in
exposing the tyranny of Richard Nixon now allow this shallow woman to
smear prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald?
Thanks to the work of Patrick Fitzgerald and his team of prosecutors,
we now know beyond any doubt that the Vice President of the United
States and members of his staff ignored intelligence and tried to spin
the press away from the truth that Joe Wilson found in Africa--Iraq had
not sought uranium. Cheney and Libby feared what the American people
might do if they discovered they had been lied to about the case for
war in Iraq. Now there is no doubt. They did lie and these lies have
been exposed. Unfortunately, the Victoria Toensings of the world seem
hell bent on perpetuating the lies and living in the delusional world
that it is okay to out an under cover CIA officer during a time of war.
While Toensing has the right to be wrong, we ought to ask why a paper
with the reputation of the Washington Post is lowering its journalistic
standards, ignoring ethics, and enabling the spread of lies. I think
the owner of the Washington Post has some "splaining" to do.
Writings 
Congratulations to Victoria Toensing, former Reagan Administration Justice Department official, for plumbing new depths of delusion and crazed fantasies in her latest Washington Post op-ed. Ms. Toensing's piece — 
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