It’s The Same Old Song
Mar 12th, 2006 at 8:39 am by Susie
The conservative Chicago Tribune has a story that purports to show that no, really, Valerie Plame wasn’t really a NOC for the CIA and so everything’s okay, no crime was committed!
After Plame left her diplomatic post and joined Brewster-Jennings, she became what is known in CIA parlance as an “NOC,” shorthand for an intelligence officer working under “non-official cover.” But several CIA veterans questioned how someone with an embassy background could have successfully passed herself off as a private-sector consultant with no government connections.
Genuine NOCs, a CIA veteran said, “never use an official address. If she had [a diplomatic] address, her whole cover’s completely phony. I used to run NOCs. I was in an embassy. I’d go out and meet them, clandestine meetings. I’d pay them cash to run assets or take trips. I’d give them a big bundle of cash. But they could never use an embassy address, ever.”
Another CIA veteran with 20 years of service agreed that “the key is the [embassy] address. That is completely unacceptable for an NOC. She wasn’t an NOC, period.”
After Plame was transferred back to CIA headquarters in the mid-1990s, she continued to pass herself off as a private energy consultant. But the first CIA veteran noted: “You never let a true NOC go into an official facility. You don’t drive into headquarters with your car, ever.”
A senior U.S. intelligence official, who like the others quoted in this article spoke on condition of anonymity, noted that Plame “may not be alone in that category, so I don’t want to suggest she was the only one. But it would be a fair assumption that a true-blue NOC is not someone who has a headquarters job at any point or an embassy job at any point.”
Their entire story is constructed around (and I know you’ll be surprised) anonymous sources. Feel free to balance them against former CIA agents like Larry Johnson (who trained with Plame) and who is more than willing to go on the record with his opinions on her status.
It rehashes a 10/10/03 Boston Globe story that said many of the same things. So why now? And why Chicago?
Let’s see: Conservative paper, rehashed story, Patrick Fitzgerald’s home turf, anonymous sources. Smells awfully Rovian to me…
She was the wife of a diplomat wasn’t she?
She was transfered in the mid 1990s. Aimes was arrested in 95? He was also a PC like Wilson. She never went to the embassy? NOCs that work for the US government go there all the time. No big deal, like any other American. Working out of an emabassy, not as common,but Aimes would explain her recall from an embassy, where? Ever work in Central America? Russian desk?
Larry leaked her employment in WMD at CIA pointing out she was an Iranian specialist just before the State Department he worked for in WMD created the Iranian desk due to the threat. Why confirm her employment as a friend from ‘the farm’ just before the US governemnt makes the announcement last week?
Plame knew Aimes how well? He killed over 35 Russians who worked for the US. Plame’s pattern was not dissimilar, but the Spain bombings were new.
Gordon:The diplomat grew up in Spain with his diplomat father.
The Trib reporter on this story is a contrarian more than a ideologue. He is the guy who spent years on the AIDS beat proving that the guy who claimed to have discovered HIV stole his work from someone else. I think his angle is the same here: what people think is not really what’s what. The Trib is not so conservative in the Rove sense as in the old-school rich Republican sense. They steer clear of the fundamentalist right wingers in state level endorsements in favor of the more moderate Republicans. Unfortunately, there’s no Democratic paper here anymore. Enjoy your blog a lot.