Plame adds Armitage to civil suit against gov’t

Another opportunity to promote that upcoming book (emphasis added):

One-time covert CIA officer Valerie Plame on Wednesday sued the former No. 2 official at the State Department for violating her privacy rights.

The suit does not accuse Richard Armitage, who was deputy secretary of state in the Bush administration, of participating in an administration conspiracy to blow her cover.

Plame added Armitage’s name to a civil suit in U.S. District Court against Vice President Dick Cheney, his former chief of staff I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby and White House adviser Karl Rove.

Plame and her husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, say the White House leaked Plame’s identity as retribution for Wilson’s criticisms of prewar intelligence on Iraq.

Armitage admitted last week that he told two reporters in 2003 that Plame worked for the CIA, but he said the disclosure was inadvertent. Armitage said he knew of no plan to leak Plame’s identity; some people said that admission disproved the conspiracy theory.

By adding Armitage’s name to the suit, Plame’s lawyers set up a different scenario. They contend a White House conspiracy existed, but that Armitage’s leak was independent of it.

So the bottom line is that Armitage is not being named in the suit for an ‘intentional outing’ of la Plame, and la Plame and Co. are still doing their level best to make discrediting your political opponents a crime. Classic! Now, if Rove and Co. are found guilty of a ‘conspiracy’ against Plame and her hubby, can they in turn sue on conspiracy charges Joe Wilson and the other Democrats he has aligned himself with who have targeted the Bush admin, in what may have been a concerted effort to undermine the President’s war rationale?