zombie84 said:

Since Iraq and the middle east is in a worse state than when Saddam was around, no, we didn't really gain anything through his downfall.

I can't believe that some people can possibly defend the war in Iraq. Okay, maybe some people had different expectations when they first went in there, but after everything thats happened and come out, theres really nothing positive to say about it.

Nothing positive? How about real elections. How about people not being put into meat grinders. How about peaceful political dissension (read non-violent protests) actually being tolerated instead of the perpetrators being killed. Every Democracy goes through this, or do you think the American Revolution was without its troubles to? You do realize that only 10-20% of the population at the time wanted to split with the crown. Everyone else wanted to stay loyal to the King.

The "lie" that sky refers to about 911 and Saddam and Iraq being related is no lie. What has been stated numerous times and is still true is that Al Qaeda had training camps within Iraq and Iraq was funding Al Qaeda. So while there is no direct link between Iraq and 911 (which has never been stated), Iraq was funding Al Qaeda, who did have a direct link to 911.

The CIA operative was not undercover according to Congressional rules. Congress makes the rules on who is undercover and who is not and she was not. Let's look at those rules:

http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/50/usc_sec_50_00000426----000-.html

(4) The term “covert agent” means—
(A) a present or retired officer or employee of an intelligence agency or a present or retired member of the Armed Forces assigned to duty with an intelligence agency—
(i) whose identity as such an officer, employee, or member is classified information, and
(ii) who is serving outside the United States or has within the last five years served outside the United States; or
(B) a United States citizen whose intelligence relationship to the United States is classified information, and—
(i) who resides and acts outside the United States as an agent of, or informant or source of operational assistance to, an intelligence agency, or
(ii) who is at the time of the disclosure acting as an agent of, or informant to, the foreign counterintelligence or foreign counterterrorism components of the Federal Bureau of Investigation; or
(C) an individual, other than a United States citizen, whose past or present intelligence relationship to the United States is classified information and who is a present or former agent of, or a present or former informant or source of operational assistance to, an intelligence agency.

Robert Novak is the one who first publicly mentioned her name. According to this http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9E06E2D6153FF932A25753C1A9659C8B63 New York Times article, reporters often learn the names of CIA operatives, but never publish their names. True, Novak learned of it from Armitage, but even he says that he did not know her status, other than as a CIA employee, at the time.

According to this blog post (it's the best I can do right now) http://decision08.net/2007/03/08/was-valerie-plame-covert/ (scroll down to Relish), Valerie Plame had not been overseas since the early 90's, which is necessary in order to be considered covert. Her name wasn't mentioned until 2003. In order to be covert, she would've had to work outside the country as late as 1998, not just travel outside the country.

This has taken up far to much of my time and I shall now give up. It won't matter what anyone says anyway, you'll all continue to believe what you want simply because you don't like Bush.