Plame Investigation

Laura Rozen at War and Piece has some thoughts on the Valerie Plame leak investigation that I hadn't seen discussed before.

It's also an interesting look at the way working journalists think through promising leads.

Here's an excerpt:

But who passed on the 'dirt' about Plame was probably not likely the person who came up with the idea -- who had access to the information about Plame's job at the CIA. That is the kind of information much more likely to be known by the few people who were frequenting the CIA at that time haranguing CIA analysts to come up wtih the Iraq intel findings they believed to be true. We now know one of the people they were haranguing is Alan Foley, the head of the non proliferation office at the CIA, who was Valerie Plame's boss, and who reportedly quit under the pressure. As the New Republic reported, those doing that haranguing were John Hannah and Libby Lewis, from the Office of the Vice President. After all, Wilson got sent on his fact finding trip to Niger in the first place because the Vice Presidnet's office had been fed (by whom?) this report of the documents which surfaced in Italy that purported to show sales of uranium from Niger to Iraq. Documents which Wilson's research suggested were fraudulent.