<A HREF="http://www.habitablezone.com/currentevents/messages/401493.html#"Over here

If Plame was inactive OR active and feeding known classified information to Wilson for his articles against the administration which were being published, the administration then almost had the OBLIGATION to out Plame and simultaneously limit her ability to divulge classified information.

With a phone call Cheney, Rove, Libby....or anyone in the White House with oversight would make a request of an head agency official wherein the classification was originally sourced to reveal her status. In this case it would be the CIA since the CIA was the OCA/original classification authority.

It's standard procedure.

A negative article appears in the NY Times by a US ambassador? Heck the CIA file on that guy is on the Vice-President's desk before noon.

Plame, the whole works became obvious and where any classified info was coming from. Probably within the first week the article appeared, her status as a classified agent was verbally over-ridden.*

And that's why there's no indictment on Rove, Cheney or anyone. Fitzgerald is giving the left their money's worth after all their hyperbole and efforts with a small pyrrhic victory with charges against Libby.

Libby is going down so that no one will know who verbally authorized the Valerie "traitor" Plame's defrocking. It's clean. It's simple. It leaves Rove less hassled to work on someone's campaign starting in late 2006.

SDAI-Tech1

*All the above is pure speculation. I do not intend to be subpoenaed before Fitzgerald. Nor do I have first hand knowledge of anything relevant regarding this case. ;-)