Valerie Plame Back in the News

Valerie Plame, the CIA operative who claims she was 'outed' by Bush Administration officials in retaliation against her husband, Joe Wilson, is back in the news. This time she claims her 'covert' work involved gathering information on Iran's nuclear program.

Immediately both the mainstream media and the Left are placed in a precarious situation by the claim.

Supposedly Iran had no such program. Conventional wisdom, as relayed by the mouthpieces of the mainstream media, always cast doubt on the suggestion that Iran was working on a nuclear weapons program.

One can safely assume that the reason for such well-placed doubt was the suspicion that Bush Administration officials were using such claims as justification for attacking Iran. Thus, any slight hint that Iran either had nukes or was intending to develop such weapons had to be dismissed.

For example, as recently as June, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi claimed that Iran was absolutely no threat to the U.S. or the world, and that there was no credible evidence that Al Qaeda or any other terrorist group in Iran was sending insurgents into Iraq.

And this leads us to the following question. Where did the materials for Iran's nuclear program come from?

We know that loosely connected terrorist organizations and rogue nations have a vested interest in Iranian nukes.

The bottom line is that if what Plame is saying is true, then the preconceived notions concerning Iran on the part of the mainstream media and the Left have been totally wrong.

The other alternative is the possibility that Plame is making the whole thing up. While this alternative is highly unlikely, such a possibility raises the stakes in the charges made against Scooter Libby. If Plame is no more trustworthy a witness than to fabricate or exaggerate her work with the CIA, then how can she be believed when giving testimony concerning her supposed 'outing' by the Bush Administration?

Her credibility at that point goes out the window.

Yet we already know there is at least some credibility to Plame's claims. We know that Iran has been developing nuclear weapons, and we have a good idea who is helping them do it. But we knew this anyway, without any information provided by Plame.

The problem is we cannot know for sure if Plame is being totally candid concerning the role she played, if any, in the Iranian nuke intelligence gathering process. But we do know enough to totally debunk the Left's contention that Iran is no serious threat.