CIA Spokesman Confirms Plame was an Undercover Operative

Hitting the net right now is massive new Walter Pincus Article in the Washington Post chock full of new revelations about Plamegate, including the fact that at least a half dozen CIA and State department officials have spoken with prosecutors.  

Here's one revelation I particularly like, since it thoroughly decimates Pat Roberts' insane talking point that Plame wasn't undercover since she frequently drove to CIA headquarters. Former CIA spokesman Bill Harlow confirms that Plame was, in fact, an undercover operative:

Harlow, the former CIA spokesman, said in an interview yesterday that he testified last year before a grand jury about conversations he had with Novak at least three days before the column was published. He said he warned Novak, in the strongest terms he was permitted to use without revealing classified information, that Wilson's wife had not authorized the mission and that if he did write about it, her name should not be revealed.

Harlow said that after Novak's call, he checked Plame's status and confirmed that she was an undercover operative. He said he called Novak back to repeat that the story Novak had related to him was wrong and that Plame's name should not be used. But he did not tell Novak directly that she was undercover because that was classified information.

Put that in your pipe and smoke it Pat Roberts, you lying partisan hack!

Seriously though, read the whole Pincus article.   Lots of new information to digest.

Update [2005-7-26 23:57:45 by pontificator]: Petrox points out another new revelation from the article:

In a strange twist in the investigation, the grand jury -- acting on a tip from Wilson -- has questioned a person who approached Novak on Pennsylvania Avenue on July 8, 2003, six days before his column appeared in The Post and other publications, Wilson said in an interview. The person, whom Wilson declined to identify to The Post, asked Novak about the "yellow cake" uranium matter and then about Wilson, Wilson said. He first revealed that conversation in a book he wrote last year. In the book, he said he tried to reach Novak on July 8, and they finally connected on July 10. In that conversation, Wilson said he did not confirm his wife worked for the CIA but that Novak told him he had obtained the information from a "CIA source."

Novak told the person that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA as a specialist in weapons of mass destruction and had arranged her husband's trip to Niger, Wilson said. Unknown to Novak, the person was a friend of Wilson and reported the conversation to him, Wilson said.

Again, read the whole thing. The article definitely fills in some of the missing pieces.