*** updates at the end ***

What boggles the mind is how much context and background surrounding the Plame Game is missing in the news media and forced to come to light through bloggers. I am always disturbed when someone like me, posting on the margins of his free time, can unearth something with Google that an average journalist should have discovered long before now. But this is where we are; stuck with a incompetent and partisan media during a period of serious challenges and internal debate.

The American Thinker has a great article out today on the relationship between Brent Scowcroft and Joe Wilson, and the whole Plame issue:

Ambassador Wilson has as much as admitted that it was Scowcroft who urged him to go public. Brent Scowcroft was at that time the head of the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board. Wilson has stated that Scowcroft asked Wilson if he could take Wilson’s San Jose Mercury News editorial to the White House. He told Wilson it would be good for people in the White House to see this from someone who had been in Iraq.

My personal opinion: Scowcroft was duped into believing he was the impetus behind the Wilsons’ (yes, both Joe and Val) gambit. While Scowcroft is adamanent about his views, he would not undermine a presidency to achieve them. He was bamboozled by Wilson. And as the article points out, should be a good witness for Team Libby in the pending trial. Why? Because Scowcroft could open a lot holes in the Wilson-Grossman cabal.

The question is will Scowcroft align with protecting our democracy or his world view of international policies. The reason I have to ask is because the source of the leaking and the finger pointing in the Plame gambit appears to be Marc Grossman. Grossman, possibly a long time friend of both Wilsons, may have been the ‘man on the inside’ who dropped information here and there to set up people so as to divert attention from Joe’s idiotic attempt to get Bush for Kerry.

Wilson’s gambit in the spring and summer of ’03 was to portray the rationale for the Iraq war to be knowingly fradulent. We all know that Wilson’s claims have all been debunked. But Wilson, with his media cohorts, was making the claim Bush and Cheney went to war on known, false information. The only thing he did not try and do was accuse them of cooking up the false information.

So when the claim fell apart because Wilson’s timeline was hopelessly conflicted with reality (by 6+ months!), they had to divert attention someplace else. Why? Because it was clear Wilson was privvy to classified information he should never had seen, and his only access to the information was the CIA group his wife worked for. They had held the Niger documents in their safe for 6 months – waiting for the optimal time to spring it on the world (via the UN’s IAEA no less).

So, is Scowcroft willing to stoop to this kind of gutter dirty tricks to gain control and change the direction of the country? I seriously doubt it. And I know Armitage and others had their positions to make their arguments and they would not risk losing their catbird seats. So who would bail out the Wilsons?

My intuition is it was Marc Grossman, since he parrots the Wilson, Larry Johnson and VIPS lines so well and accurately. Was Grossman someone who could associate with both Wilson (as seems likely now) and Scowcroft? The answer appears to be yes, if you look at the reporting from the left leaning media. Let’s step back to May 2002 and see how the Washington Post’s Dana Milbank describes the international policy wars in DC at the time:

On one side is Brent Scowcroft, who had been national security adviser for former president George Bush and is now the embodiment of the Republican establishment’s view of foreign policy. On the other side is Richard Perle, a Reagan administration Pentagon official called the “Prince of Darkness” by foes, and now intellectual guru of the hard-line neoconservative movement in foreign policy.

Typically, Washington chatter is about the internecine quarrels between the dovish Secretary of State Colin L. Powell and the hawkish Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld. But these men are just pawns in the decades-old global chess match between Perle and Scowcroft, who first faced off in the 1970s when Perle was an aide to Sen. Henry “Scoop” Jackson (D-Wash.) and Scowcroft was national security adviser to the establishment man, former president Gerald Ford.

…

Scowcroft’s lineup is far less deep. In addition to Powell, his allies are Powell’s policy planning director, Richard Haass, formerly with the Brookings Institution, the establishment-central think tank. Powell’s deputy, Richard Armitage, is loyal to his boss, although he is sometimes suspected of neoconservative tendencies. Marc Grossman, the No. 3 at State, is a career foreign service officer with establishment credentials.

CIA Director George J. Tenet, a Clinton administration holdover, is also grouped with the Scowcroft wing. United Nations Ambassador John D. Negroponte has establishment ties, as do Middle East specialists Anthony C. Zinni and Bill Burns.

I will give George Bush credit for one thing. He definitely allowed a broad range of opinions and views into his administrations. Too bad some did not have the professionalism and honor to respect their roles and seats at the table of debate. But I digress. Dana Milbank was quite presient 4 years ago when he wrote this. The usual suspects are aligned as he said.

But Grossman is a mixed bag. I rarely point to tinfoil theories, but when I see Sibel Edmond and Marc Grossman in the same sentence, I cannot resist wondering how much of this leftwing conspiracy stuff is real?

Interestingly enough, at the same time Feith and Perle were greasing Turkish palms and Grossman was presiding over in Ankara, the CIA’s Brewster-Jennings network and Valerie Plame were focusing on nuclear proliferation in Turkey. This scrutiny led them to trace private citizens in America as well as lobby groups like the American-Turkish Council – which is precisely where Plame met future husband Joseph Wilson, while “on duty” at a 1997 reception held by then-Turkish ambassador to the U.S. Nuzhet Kandemir.

The American Turkish Council – ATC. Headed by Brent Scowcroft. The nexus of Scowcroft, Grossman and The Wilsons is starting to become quite clear. Or is it? Could these leftwing sites be dupes to a well concieved cover or disinformation campaign? If the media will not investigate, hopefully the blogosphere will. They hate everything establishment, so when they see Grossman connecting up with an old Clintonite, they see two sides of the same evil coin (from the previous link above):

In June 2005, Grossman left the public sector and became vice chairman at all-powerful lobbying firm The Cohen Group, run by an old Kosovo War colleague, former Secretary of Defense Bill Cohen.

Team Libby is right. The Plame Game is a tangled, possibly ugly, web of power players and politics DC style. As Mac Ranger is want to ask – do we really want to know?

Addendum: Should have kept looking a little longer. The ATC is tied to Scowcroft and the Wilsons (it was at an ATC event the Wilsons met). So now is Mark Grossman. From March 2002:

I am pleased to report to you that the award was presented on Tuesday 19 March at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Washington, DC. Several hundred personnel were in attendance, including the Honorable Marc Grossman,, Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs.

The award was presented by General (Ret) Brent Scowcroft, the Chairman of ATC and a member of USMA class of 1947.

OK, we have our nexus.

Addendum: Marc Grossman speaks highly of Turkey in this March 2002 speech at the ATC, 6 months after 9-11.

The other constant is the US-Turkey relationship. We are friends and allies. Turkish troops and American troops have a history together. Turkey has supported us at the worst of times; the truest measure of its friendship.

We deeply appreciated the immediate and heartfelt condolences extended by Turks and by Turkey after September 11. Turkey has been a steadfast partner in the War on Terrorism since September 11. In addition to its role in ISAF, Turkey has extended basing rights and overflights to coalition forces. It has also provided trainers for the new Afghan police force and brought medical care for the people of Afghanistan.

In the six-month memorial ceremony at the White House, President Bush singled out Turkey for special thanks and Ambassador Logoglu was one of three Ambassadors chosen to speak at the commemoration.

Put this in context with his position now that we went into Iraq for all the wrong reasons, and recall how Turkey – the country he was Ambassador of – balked in allowing our forces passage into northern Iraq. A move that allowed the insurgency time to regroup. Did Scowcroft and Grossman attempt to get Turkey to move one way or the other on this critical matter for the invasion? I am still of mixed opinions about Grossman and Scowcroft, I must confess.

Addendum: Yes, Marc Grossman was heavily involved in wooing Turkey.  From December 28, 2002 (three months before the Iraq war):

UNDER SECRETARY TAYLOR: We’ve had a very good visit to Ankara. As you know, we came at the invitation of Minister Babacan, and we discussed three basic issues. One is the state of the Turkish economy, two is the economic reforms, and three is the economic assistance that the U.S. is discussing with Turkey in the event of a possible conflict in Iraq.

….

UNDER SECRETARY GROSSMAN: Thank you very much, and thank you all for coming here this morning. It’s been an honor for me to be part of Under Secretary Taylor’s delegation which, as he said, arrived here at the invitation of Minister for the Economy Babacan. I would also like to thank our Turkish hosts and pay tribute to Ambassador Pearson and his team here in Ankara. As all of you know, this is, for us, a continuation of a series of consultations which has intensified over the past few weeks.

…

QUESTION: Can you comment about your – Washington’s – requests, and how Turkey has replied? We know that the National Security Council meeting has taken some decisions which seem to be very vague. How do you respond to those decisions, first of all? And second, are you satisfied with the answers to the requests of Washington?

UNDER SECRETARY GROSSMAN: First, let me say it’s not for me to discuss the decisions of the National Security Council of Turkey. That is a Turkish responsibility. We had a very good consultation and conversation with Under Secretary Ziyal and his team today. He conveyed to us the sense of the National Security Council, and we conveyed to him our report of where we stand. Those consultations will continue. We’re very satisfied with the consultation and the cooperation we have from our Turkish ally. Thank you very much.

I am not sure we were satisfied in the end!  We all know Turkey decided not long afterward to put such a kink in the war planning there were discussions of aborting the effort.