Plame Was Spying on Iran when Cheney "Outed" Her

For the first time, and possibly the only time, we may actually have breaking news at Blue Fish Canoe. According to Larisa Alexandrovna of a blog called the Raw Story, Valerie Plame Wilson was investigating an underground network of terrorists who smuggled nuclear bomb making materials to Iran when she was “outed” by Cheney & co. This story is corroborated by Stephen Clemens, the Executive Vice President of the centrist think tank, the New America Foundation. Mr. Clemens appeared today on the Brian Lehrer Show where he mentioned the connection, and if Stephen Clemens is good enough for the great NYC radioman, Brian Lehrer, then he’s is good enough for me.

The underground network of nuclear smugglers that Plame infiltrated included known Pakistani granddaddy of proliferators, A.Q. Khan. The report is vague on what exactly Plames role was as a spy, but said her outing did “severe” damage to America’s ability to monitor the Iranian nuclear weapons program.

If this turns out to be true, will we finally have enough evidence to show Bush and friends have done far more to harm American security than to bolster it? During the elections two years ago only one candidate, Dean, clearly said Bush makes us vulnerable, but now it seems pretty obvious. The Iraq war has emboldened Iran to pursue nuclear weapons seeing we’re too weak to stop them. The only chance we have to slow Iran appears to be Russian diplomacy (imagine being dependent on Russia six years ago). The North Koreans have been forgotten and left to build who knows what—and again thanks to the war in Iraq we’re powerless to stop them. And now, our own efforts to keep tabs on a volatile nation, a nation run by people who openly hate us, were undermined by our own VPs office.