MSNBC confirms: Outed CIA agent was working on Iran

This story came out on yesterday's Hardball, and it is a devastating little piece of information. While the blogs have been picking this up, it really hasn't attracted the attention of the mainstream media --yet. Here is what MSNBC correspondent David Shuster had to say in his report on Hardball:

SHUSTER: MSNBC has learned new information about the damage caused by the White House leaks. Intelligence sources says Valerie Wilson [Plame] was part of an operation three years ago tracking the proliferation of nuclear weapons material into Iran. And the sources allege that when Mrs. WilsonÂ’s cover was blown, the administrationÂ’s ability to track IranÂ’s nuclear ambitions was damaged as well.

The White House considers Iran to be one of AmericaÂ’s biggest threats.

GEORGE W. BUSH, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: Iranians should not have a nuclear weapon, the capacity to make a nuclear weapon or the knowledge as to how to make a nuclear weapon. And now,that weÂ’ve got the goal in mind, weÂ’re working on the tactics.

Valerie Plame was tracking the nuclear weapons material coming into Iran? That is certainly news to me. I'm not sure what to make of this revelation, aside from the fact that the U.S. ability to track Iranian nukes have been damaged by individuals within the Bush White House, who felt that outing Plame would discredit Joe Wilson's criticisms on the lack of intelligence, while supporting the White House claims that Iraq was developing WMDs. Now that Iran is speeding up their own development of nuclear weapons in response to the Bush administration's veiled threats of war, the U.S. has lost a major intelligence source that could determine the extent of Iranian nuclear capabilities, in a region of which we're lacking credible intelligence sources. And since we don't have reliable intelligence on Iranian nuclear capabilities, the Bush White House is going to assume the worst case scenario on Iran, and could seriously consider going to war with Iran as a means to stop the supposed Iranian WMD threat.

Why do I feel like we're chasing our tails here?