In the Addington 1 live-blog, Addington describes to Fitz his July 8th meeting with Libby in the morning just before the Secret Mission to Judy:

“F Conversation about CIA paperwork

A Asked if someone worked at CIA, would there be records. Normal for him to ask me bc he knew I worked at the CIA. Kind of paperwork would depend on whether you were on the Operations or Analytical side. On operational side, CIA officers are not just free to use whoever they want, need to get approval, requesting permission to use someone, would generate paperwork approval. On analytical side there’d be a letter of instruction or contract. In any case, this is the govt, when you spend money, there’s a money trail. I did tell him also it had been 20 years since I worked at the CIA.”

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Addington’s response on the records question contains an ‘implicit discriminator’ that is True beyond just issues of documentation – Operators – CPD – are Covert, while Analysts – WINPAC – are not Covert (unless they are ‘on-loan’ from Operations.)

It certainly seems to me that Valerie’s 2/13/02 Cable would have been a dead giveaway that she was on the Operational side of the House – and Operators are Covert. Frankly, in addition, her 2/12/02 Memo is written in the voice of an Operator Team Leader/Manager talking to the Operators on her Team, too.

So, Joe Wilson was sent on a Covert Mission to Niger, arranged according to the Usual Covert Protocols, by the Covert Operators in CPD, and debriefed just like a Covert Operator after his Mission.

After McLaughlin’s 6/11 meeting with Cheney to explain Joe Wilson’s Trip – “sent by the functional office,” and Grenier telling Libby later that afternoon that “Joe Wilson’s wife works in CP, the division that sent Joe” – How could Cheney and Libby Not have known Valerie was Covert – especially if Cheney had seen Valerie’s 2/13/02 Cable (the only ’source fit’ for Cheney’s Talking Point #4 – “OVP, Defense and State expressed strong interest”)?

Up to now, I’ve been certain that Bush, Cheney and Libby knew Valerie’s CIA Employment was Classified before they leaked it, but skeptical that they ‘knew’ she was Covert.

Now, however, I strongly suspect that they Knew she was Covert, and outed her anyway, as part of their Plan to Blame the CIA for the Bad Intell Work that led to the Invasion.

I think it’s simpler than that. The documents which Edelman claims he may have seen but which I think Cheney saw–my understanding is they made it clear that Valerie’s identity was protected.

In addition, It seems clear that both the 2/13/02 Cable/E-mail and the 6/12 CPD Note make it plain that Valerie Wilson and “his wife,” respectively, work in the Counterproliferation Division.

When a guy like Libby, who had all the Security Clearances, hears that someone, anyone, is in CPD, he would have assumed Classified CIA Employment – in the same way that if you were an academic and someone gave a paper at a Symposium on Quantum Physics, you would assume that that speaker was a PhD.

Libby ‘could’ have known that she was Covert, allthough he denied it, but by 6/12 he and Cheney almost certainly ‘knew’ her CIA Employment was Classified by virtue of knowing Valerie worked in the Counterproliferation Division – which meant “complications at the CIA” with public disclosure, as Edelman would come to hear it from Libby on 6/19.

It looks like those ‘complications’ were overcome about three weeks later…

When you consider that US could BUY the entire Afghan opium crop for about $4 billion annually and deprive Taliban of an income source… WTF????

Oh, wait… then we’d be depriving our poor starving arms manufacturers of a percent of their livelihood. Nevermind.

Remember, the Nixon team’s most comprehensive snooping operations were conducted not on civilians, but on fellow administrative operators.

Also, it seems pretty clear that if Sibel Edmonds’ story is correct that Edelman would have known who Plame was and what she was doing with Brewster Jennings….and that Plame was a threat to their nuclear proliferation operations in Turkey and that stopping Brewster Jennings and Plame was the motive to go after her…and that the attack on Joe Wilson was really the red herring in the whole story.

The characters that keep coming up are Edelman and Feith….in both stories.