Valerie Plame

Is Peter Osnos Withholding Impeachable Evidence For "Lucre"?

Bob Fertik — Thu, 29 Nov 2007 16:47:47 -0500

Let me state at the outset that I bear no ill will towards Peter Osnos, the highly-respected founder and editor-at-large of PublicAffairs, which publishes outstanding books, including Scott McClellan's forthcoming memoir.

But I'm writing this blog because Osnos has just published a column about the media frenzy that followed publication of McClellan's now-famous excerpt about the Plame lies.

“The most powerful leader in the world had called upon me to speak on his behalf and help restore credibility he lost amid the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. So I stood at the White House briefing room podium in front of the glare of the klieg lights for the better part of two weeks and publicly exonerated two of the senior-most aides in the White House: Karl Rove and Scooter Libby.

“There was one problem. It was not true.

“I had unknowingly passed along false information. And five of the highest ranking officials in the administration were involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, the vice-President, the President’s chief of staff and the President himself.”

Osnos concludes his column with this:

Scott McClellan is writing a responsible book about his moment in history. Much of our popular media, including some leading brand names, apparently shoot first and ask later. The blogosphere and cable news operate in a universe of their own in which frenzy and vituperation are the major currency. As for the known perpetrators of the Plame leak, whatever they may have done to McClellan and the pursuit of truth, they seem to have gotten away with it. Karl Rove is now a contributing columnist for Newsweek and is getting a substantial book contract. Libby was convicted of perjury but excused from jail time by President Bush.

All of which is true. And as a blogger, my skin is thick enough to take the slings and arrows that come with the territory. I'm not trying to prove Osnos wrong or defend my own or anyone else's blogs.

But I do want to add an important point that Osnos leaves out.

Scott McClellan is a witness to a criminal conspiracy to obstruct justice by the five most powerful people in the White House.

We do not yet know exactly which members of that conspiracy committed exactly which actions, but we know that at least two of them (Libby and Rove) participated in the outing of Valerie Plame, which shut down her urgent work stopping the spread of WMD's to our enemies, and was therefore an act of treason - not to mention a probable violation of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act (IIPA) and a certain violation of the law governing use and abuse of classified information.

The CIA investigated the outing, concluded a serious crime was committed, and referred it to the Justice Department for prosecution. Patrick Fitzgerald was appointed Special Prosecutor and tried to get to the bottom of the crime but was prevented from doing so by Scooter Libby's lies. Based on the limited evidence available, everyone who followed the trial believes Libby lied to conceal the role of his immediate boss, Dick Cheney, and possibly George Bush as well, in Plame's outing.

In a further act of obstruction, George Bush commuted Libby's 30-month prison term to keep Libby from cooperating with Fitzgerald. Bush reportedly did so at the urging of Cheney.

So based on available evidence, Bush and Cheney may have participated in the crime of outing Plame. They certainly participated in the coverup of that crime. Either way, they committed impeachable offenses.

Scott McClellan has important evidence about these impeachable offenses. And Osnos is likely in possession of that evidence, if McClellan has written the whole truth (naturally a big "IF"):

The chapter cited in the catalog has been drafted. It is a meticulous account of the period at the start of McClellan’s tenure, when he had to handle the flap over the disclosure that Valerie Plame was a covert CIA operative, collateral damage in the Washington fracas over blame for the Iraq war blunders...

Before taking on his book, my colleagues and I talked to White House correspondents and reporters in Texas and were assured that if McClellan said he would write a book without fear or favor, he would. And he is. (The Associated Press put out a story under the headline “Aides Choose Royalties over Loyalties,” listing the press secretaries who have written memoirs for large advances. I can assure you, as anyone familiar with PublicAffairs will attest, that lucre is not McClellan’s incentive to work with us.)

If McClellan is not after "lucre," then why doesn't Osnos immediately publish McClellan's complete chapter on this episode, so Congress and the American people can determine whether McClellan has material evidence of impeachable offenses?

Osnos of course has no legal obligation to do so, but he has a moral obligation at a time when a majority of Americans suspect impeachable crimes but lack firm enough evidence to convince Congress to act.

The only reason for Osnos not to publish this chapter now is fear it would hurt sales of the book.

So if McClellan is not after "lucre," why is Osnos?

Did Ed Gillespie Help Roger Stone Create the Rathergate Forgery?

Bob Fertik — Tue, 04 Sep 2007 13:24:21 -0400

emptywheel has become obsessed with Ed Gillespie, which is a very good thing.

I'm increasingly fascinated with the prominent role of Lobbyist-in-Chief, Ed Gillespie. We now know he was included in discussions, in spring of 2006 (at precisely the time Andy Card and Scottie McClellan were ousted), about whether or not to fire Rummy. He picked up the portfolios of both Dan Bartlett and Karl Rove, two of the last hold-outs from the Texas Mafia. And now here he is, promising to do what Karl Rove couldn't do--excommunicate the corruption from the Corruption Party.

The Lobbyist-in-Chief is accruing an awful lot of power in fairly short order. Is Gillespie the guy corporate America imposed on BushCo to ensure the Republicans not lose power for all eternity? And is Gillespie the guy who told Rove and Gonzales to leave?

Gillespie doesn't make a lot of headlines so I checked my archives and was surprised to find Gillespie on a conference call at the height of the Rathergate scandal, courtesy of NewsMax:

Many questions still remain. Was a crime committed? I believe so. Obviously, forgery is involved. But the Texas Legal Code also says it is a third-degree felony if one "makes, presents, or uses any record, document, or thing with knowledge of its falsity and with intent that it be taken as a genuine governmental record" or "makes, presents, or uses a governmental record with knowledge of its falsity."

Did the Kerry campaign know about the existence of the documents in question in advance of the CBS report? A chronology of events indicates they did.

At the time, I loved the rightwing argument that the forgeries were a crime that absolutely positively had to be prosecuted - because I knew the forger wasn't Bill Burkett (who freaked out when he received the forgeries) but most likely GOP dirty trickster Roger Stone, whose Cuban wife most likely played the role of "Lucy Ramirez," the woman who arranged the delivery of the forgeries to Burkett.

But was Stone working alone, or was he working with the Busheviks who scrubbed all records of Bush's National Guard desertion from 1998 to the present - people like Karl Rove, Karen Hughes, Dan Bartlett - and Ed Gillespie?

It's hard to imagine Stone worked alone. And it's Standard Operating Procedure for the Busheviks to use a string of intermediaries to create "plausible deniability" for the insider operatives who are actually pulling the strings. (Think how Cheney used Libby to quietly spread Plame's identity through a series of White House officials and reporters.)

And it's also SOP for Busheviks to aggressively blame Democrats for the crimes they commit. So the fact that Ed Gillespie led the charge to blame the Kerry campaign for the forgeries is powerful circumstantial evidence that Gillespie himself helped create the forgeries - and is therefore guilty of the very crimes he cites.

At the time, DNC chairman Terry McAuliffe asked exactly the right question:

Terry McAuliffe, the Democratic national chairman, attempted to turn the matter against Republicans. McAuliffe cited a New York Post story that said Roger Stone, a Republican consultant based in Miami Beach, had declined to comment on whether he was the source of the documents. "Will Ed Gillespie or the White House admit today what they know about Mr. Stone's relationship with these forged documents?" McAuliffe said.

"I have nothing whatsoever to do with this," Stone told USA TODAY. "I'm a firm believer in political hardball, but I draw the line at forged documents."

So c'mon bloggers, let's find the connections between Gillespie and Roger Stone!

p.s. since emptywheel is also obsessed with Plamegate, she will also find this interesting from 9/30/03, when the Plamegate scandal was breaking:

RNC CHAIRMAN ED GILLESPIE: I think if the allegation is true, to reveal the identity of an undercover CIA operative -- it's abhorrent, and it should be a crime, and it is a crime.

CHRIS MATTHEWS: It'd be worse than Watergate, wouldn't it?

GILLESPIE: It's -- Yeah, I suppose in terms of the real world implications of it. It's not just politics.

Now that Gillespie has access to all the secret White House files about Plamegate, isn't it his duty as a lawyer to help solve the crime by turning those documents over to Patrick Fitzgerald and Henry Waxman?

"Loyal Bushie" Judge Dismisses Plame Lawsuit

Bob Fertik — Thu, 19 Jul 2007 15:34:20 -0400

So who is Judge John D. Bates, the judge who threw out Valerie Plame's lawsuit against Dick Cheney, Karl Rove, Scooter Libby, and Richard Armitage?

A "loyal Bushie," of course.

Deputy Independent Counsel for the Whitewater investigation from 1995 to mid-1997, where he forced the White House to release thousands of documents related to Hillary Clinton's conversations about Whitewater.
Appointed as Federal judge in December 2001 by George W. Bush
In December 2002, he dismissed a lawsuit filed by the GAO against Cheney over access to his energy task force documents, claiming the GAO lacked authority to sue the VP.
In February 2006, he was appointed by Chief Justice Roberts to serve as a judge of the United States Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court - replacing a judge who resigned in protest over the illegal NSA wiretapping. It's a safe bet Bates has been a reliable rubber stamp allowing Bush's NSA to spy on millions of Americans without a warrant.
In August 2006, Bates declared it acceptable for Bush to sign a bill that had not been passed by Congress.

And why did Bates reject Plame's lawsuit? Because after Joe Wilson told the truth about Niger, the Bush Administration was allowed to do anything it wanted to get Wilson - including outing Wilson's wife.

The alleged means by which defendants chose to rebut Mr. Wilson's comments and attack his credibility may have been highly unsavory. But there can be no serious dispute that the act of rebutting public criticism, such as that levied by Mr. Wilson against the Bush administration's handling of prewar foreign intelligence by speaking with members of the press, is within the scope of defendants' duties as high-level Executive Branch officials.

Unsavory??? Within the scope of their duties??? The defendants exposed a covert CIA agent and endangered her life, destroyed her network of spies trying to stop the spread of WMD's to terrorists and endangered our Nation - and may have gotten some of her spies murdered. That's not unsavory - that's treason.

Joe Wilson, always the patriot, puts national security ahead of his family's security:

"This case is not just about what top government officials did to Valerie and me." Wilson said. "We brought this suit because we strongly believe that politicizing intelligence ultimately serves only to undermine the security of our nation. Today's decision is just the first step in what we have always known would be a long legal battle and we are committed to seeing this case through."

But Valerie Plame will never get justice - and our nation will never be safe - by relying on the Bush-controlled Federal courts.

It is way past time for Congress to Impeach Dick Cheney.

Move on to impeachment

richardmathews — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 18:49:16 -0400

MoveOn is finally moving on to talk about the possibility of impeachment proceedings!

Sign their petition:
http://pol.moveon.org/subpoena/

It states:

"Congress must force Vice President Cheney to respond to its subpoenas. If he continues to obstruct justice and disregard the rule of law, Congress has no choice but to begin impeachment proceedings against him."

Richard M. Mathews

Ambassador Joe Wilson Reacts: "Corrupt to the Core...Congress Should Investigate;" Bush: "Tell Truth, Or Be Held Accountable"

Chip — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 03:15:39 -0400

The career of Ambassador Joe Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, ended when her cover was blown as retribution for Ambassador Wilson's exposing the falsity of the Niger yellowcake story as a premise for the Iraqi war. Ambassador Wilson spoke tonight with MSNBC's Keith Olbermann about Bush's commutation of Scooter Libby's prison sentence. You can watch it here.

In giving the commutation, Bush said: "... a jury of citizens weighed all the evidence and listened to all the testimony and found Mr. Libby guilty of perjury and obstructing justice. They argue, correctly, that our entire system of justice relies on people telling the truth. And if a person does not tell the truth, particularly if he serves in government and holds the public trust, he must be held accountable. They say that had Mr. Libby only told the truth, he would have never been indicted in the first place...The Constitution gives the President the power of clemency to be used when he deems it to be warranted. It is my judgment that a commutation of the prison term in Mr. Libby's case is an appropriate exercise of this power."

A Proclamation by the President of the United States of America

WHEREAS Lewis Libby was convicted in the United States District Court for the District of Columbia in the case United States v. Libby, Crim. No. 05-394 (RBW), for which a sentence of 30 months' imprisonment, 2 years' supervised release, a fine of $250,000, and a special assessment of $400 was imposed on June 22, 2007;

NOW, THEREFORE, I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, pursuant to my powers under Article II, Section 2, of the Constitution, do hereby commute the prison terms imposed by the sentence upon the said Lewis Libby to expire immediately, leaving intact and in effect the two-year term of supervised release, with all its conditions, and all other components of the sentence.

IN WITNESS THEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this second day of July, in the year of our Lord two thousand and seven, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirty-first.

GEORGE W. BUSH

Ambassador Wilson also spoke with Keith Olbermann when Libby, who had been assigned Inmate No. 28301 - 016 by the US Board of Prisons, was convicted of 4 out of 5 of the felonies with which he was charged.

You can check the status of the civil case against Defendants' Cheney, Libby, Rove and Armitage at: http://www.wilsonsupport.org/.

Keith Olbermann, visibly angry, promised a special comment tomorrow, the eve of our national Independence Day, to suggest that Bush and Cheney resign.

Your congressional representatives are in their home districts for the holiday. Let them know your opinion!

Libby IS Bush’s Legacy

Tom Ball — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 13:25:55 -0400

As record high fuel prices, category 5 hurricanes, and drowning polar bears have helped slap some sense into the reluctant minds of many science-denying troglodytes, so to must the record hubris, category 5 incompetence, and drowning integrity of this administration slap some sense into the reluctant minds of the remaining reality-denying Bush supporters.

Oddly enough, you'd think that pardoning a traitor would be the last straw -- even for these people. You'd be wrong. In fact, acting as savior for the American betrayer known as I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby might be the only thing that can salvage Bush's remaining barrel-scum protectorate. That is what they find important. So too must he.

And so, this single act of apologist, vicarious treason will be the defining moment in Bush's presidency -- encompassing within it all the lies, bullying and incomprehensible ineptitude that was the hallmark of this administration. This will be Bush's legacy.

He has no choice... and essentially nothing to lose.

That's the way it is. The chorus of prideless conservatives -- also known as Bush's remaining base -- are relentlessly pressuring Bush to Pardon Libby with nary a moment of time served. Heck, even Paris served a couple days.

They dismiss the irony that "the judge that gave Libby the 2 ½ year sentence was "one of the first appointments that Bush made to the federal bench" and fail to note that Libby's judge was known as a 'Tough Guy'. "That's Why Bush Appointed Him."

The Los Angeles Times notes, "That Walton would put the Bush administration in an uncomfortable position of having to consider a politically charged pardon for Libby is highly ironic."

Yes, being held accountable for your trespasses to humanity is always an 'uncomfortable' activity. And a Bush appointee respecting the rule of law is truly 'ironic'. Still, I can't help but feel that President Bush should be suffering far more discomfort than his widely televised, smirky, smirk-faced smirk suggests he is.

Seems 'discomfort' is something for which Bush and his beloved 29% must have little time. According to the New York Times, "a conservative with close ties to the administration" said, "Letting Scooter go to jail would be a politically irrational symbol to the last chunk of the 29 percent upon which he stands."

Irrational indeed. Bush has pandered to the AEI 29% with untouchable integrity over the last 7 years. Thus the royal screwing administered to the other 71% of us.

Maybe that's because Bush's 29% are an influential bunch -- people like potential future convict Tom Delay. Tom recently noted, "The President should pardon Scooter Libby. I mean, what -- what's he worried about? Is it his ratings? I mean, his approval ratings? ... This -- this is a travesty of justice."

Yes, like the 'travesty of justice' that will no doubt bare its ugly face if Mr. Delay fails to garner a Bush pardon when he's sized for an orange jumpsuit.

And then there are blind loyalists like former Justice Department official Victoria Toensing who offered a spin sure to be embraced by conservative traitor-lovers across the nation, "Patrick Fitzgerald abused his prosecutorial powers when he indicted Scooter Libby for a faulty memory. The only remedy is a presidential pardon."

"Faulty memory"? "Only remedy"? "Abused his prosecutorial powers"?

No matter. It's the 'conservative movement' that matters now. The New York Times opines, "a decision not to pardon Mr. Libby would further alienate members of Mr. Bush's traditional base of support in the conservative movement, a group already angry about his proposed immigration policy, his administration's spending and his approach to Iran."

Tim Russert concurs, "A lot of conservatives are saying to the President, you are antagonizing the base about immigration. This is the way to reach out to your base."

Reach the base, eh? Hmmmm. Who else is trying to reach this magic 29%?

The Libby pardon issue "has thrown a twist into the race for the Republican presidential nomination, forcing candidates to make an awkward choice between loyalty to a party stalwart and reverence for the rule of law."

Ohhhhhh. So that's it. Well, we all know which choice will be made here.

And that, my friends, will establish the legacy for the next generation of the conservative movement.

A Libby Leniency Letter Received From SATAN

thepen — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 00:50:26 -0400

NATIONAL CHENEY IMPEACHMENT POLL: http://www.usalone.com/cheney_impeachment.php

The judge contemplating sentencing in the "Scooter" Libby case, after his conviction on five counts of perjury, false statements and obstruction of justice, took the unusual step of ordering the letters pleading for leniency on his behalf to be published. There were letters from Paul Wolfowitz, John Bolton, Don Rumsfeld, and others, in some part perhaps a veritable rogue's gallery of scoundrels who have themselves been forced to resign in disgrace recently.

But conspicuously missing was a letter from the Vice President himself, Dick Cheney.

And then lo and behold, we were leaked a copy of one additional letter that had not been published with the rest, apparently signed by Satan, probably not the same person as the vice president, unless it's a pen name of some kind. We reproduce the text of that letter below at the peril of our mortal souls.

******

Dear Judge Walton,

I submit this letter for your consideration in the sentencing of "Scooter" Libby.

I am currently the overlord of the underworld, and have been since my own fall from grace many eons ago. In all that time I have had the opportunity to encounter many individuals distinguished by their utterly pathological evil. In comparison to some of those, Mr. Libby, who stands convicted of less than a half a dozen counts of perjury and false statements and such, is hardly enough to stoke a major fire about. We like to call them little "white" lies down here, cigarette burn level stuff really.

Mr. Libby has not in my professional opinion been given sufficient credit for his role in the outing of Valerie Plame, in as much as the grand jury failed to indict on the underlying treason of that, so I see no reason for your honor to enhance his sentence because he helped by his actions to shield those even more guilty. I must tell you, I feel just terrible about this whole thing for Mr. Libby and his family. Of course, that's the way I usually feel about everything.

I'm sure you have received many other letters praising Mr. Libby for his government service, but you may not be aware of his very active creative writing career. His novel, "The Apprentice", is one of my personal favorites. It was recently republished by St. Martin's Press, described by them as "an everyday tale of bestiality and paedophilia in 1903 Japan . . . packed with sexual perversion, dwelling on prepubescent girls and their training as prostitutes." I highly recommend it for your honor's own late night reading.

In my own experience I have always found Mr. Libby to be a loyal company man, giving me many years of dedicated service already. In fact, I have reserved a special place for him in my organization in the hereafter. From his aggressive defense of fugitive billionaires, to his founding role in the Project for the New American Century, alumni of which masterminded the illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq, Mr. Libby has never failed to do my bidding in every possible respect.

As you may anticipate there will be an appeal pending, and it is my respectful hope that "Scooter" will ultimately skate, at least in this life. I'd like to think that we have the appeals courts packed with enough of "our" people so that we may well prevail there. In the meantime, I am asking you to show Mr. Libby the maximum leniency, otherwise it tends to hurt my own recruiting. Instead of prison time I would counsel an official commendation of honor by the court, perhaps even a handsome cash reward as a incentive for others in my minions.

Rest assured that regardless I will take responsibility for all deserving punishment for him for all eternity myself.

Your humble tormentor in chief,

Satan, Esq.

Dr. Dean's Diagnosis on the Libby Verdict

CactusPat — Thu, 08 Mar 2007 05:25:50 -0500

The DNC's callin' it a video note, my security software is blocking the akamai server the DNC's using so I snagged it from someone kind enuff to upload it to YouTube...

(bonus video)

Dr. Dean's reaction to the Libby verdict on MSNBC...

Why Cheney Lost It When Joe Wilson Spoke Out

CactusPat — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 22:59:05 -0500

Why Cheney Lost It When Joe Wilson Spoke Out By Ray McGovern
Testimony at the Libby trial showed a vice president obsessed with retaliating against former ambassador Joseph Wilson for writing, in the New York Times op-ed section on July 6, 2003, that intelligence had been "twisted" to justify attacking Iraq. How to explain why the normally stoic, phlegmatic Cheney went off the deep end?... (more).

Vice President Dick Cheney can be forgiven for feeling provoked. The Times, having been led by Cheney and others down a garden path littered with weapons of mass destruction that were not really there, did some retaliation of its own with the snide title it gave Wilson's op-ed: "What I Did Not Find in Africa." Adding insult to injury, Wilson chose to tell Washington Post reporters, also on July 6, in language that rarely escapes an ambassador's lips, the bogus report regarding Iraq obtaining uranium from Niger "begs the question regarding what else they are lying about." That threw down the gauntlet, and Cheney had to worry that others who knew about the lies might feel it safe to go to the press and spill the beans. Retaliation had to be swift and as unambiguous as possible.

Having successfully browbeat then-CIA director George Tenet and other malleable managers of intelligence into doing his bidding, Cheney immediately tried to get the CIA to support the cockamamie story about Iraq getting uranium from Niger. He was no doubt surprised to be stiff-armed by Tenet, who had been warning senior officials about that bogus report for almost ten months. On July 7, the administration publicly conceded that the Iraq-Niger fable should not have been included in the State of the Union address.

On July 8, Cheney mounted his counteroffensive. Libby was sent to Bush administration darling Judith Miller of the New York Times to prove Wilson's charges wrong: the White House did not "twist" intelligence; the CIA made us do it. To prove that, Libby was given permission to release a passage buried on page 24 of the 90-page National Intelligence Estimate (NIR) of October 1, 2002, claiming that Iraq was "vigorously trying to procure uranium ore and yellowcake.... A foreign government service reported that as of early 2001, Niger planned to send several tons of 'pure uranium' (probably yellowcake) to Iraq."

Cheney intended this revelation to hoist Tenet on his own petard. Under great pressure from Cheney, Tenet and his timorous team had acquiesced in allowing the Iraq-Niger fable into the NIE Tenet signed on October 1. It had already become the centerpiece of the administration's cynical but successful effort to get Congressional approval, culminating in the October 10/11 vote for war.

In the midst of all this, Tenet was successful in getting the Iraq-Niger story out of President George W. Bush's key speech on Iraq on October 7. Yes, you read that right. Tenet signed the NIE on October 1, and a few days later successfully insisted that this dubious intelligence be taken out of the president's speech on October 7.

This piece of "intelligence" smelled so bad that then-Secretary of State Colin Powell, who threw everything but the kitchen sink into his (in)famous UN speech of February 5, 2003, deemed it below his very low threshold. A month later, the International Atomic Energy Agency director, Mohamed ElBaradei, told the UN Security Council that the documents upon which the story was based were "obvious" fakes-forgeries.

Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), then-chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, rebuffed an urgent appeal from ranking member Jay Rockefeller (D-West Virginia) to have the FBI investigate the forgery. Cheney told him not to, and so Roberts said that would be "inappropriate." Which raises the question, whom are they trying to protect? I don't think either Dick or Lynne Cheney has a cottage industry of forgery preparation, but they are in close touch with those who do. I continue to believe Cheney and Libby were the intellectual authors of that incredibly clumsy operation.

There was plenty else to enrage Dick Cheney. It is a safe bet that he went bananas when he learned that Joe Wilson's wife was a CIA officer - and working on the issue of highest priority, how to prevent countries like Iraq and Iran from obtaining weapons of mass destruction.

Cheney smelled a rat. It was easy to jump to the conclusion that Valerie Plame and her knowledgeable colleagues would have seen right through the Iraq-Niger report. The embassy in Niger had poured cold water on it, and a very senior US Army general, who had journeyed to Niger, came to the same conclusion. So here was Plame, and by extension her CIA colleagues, preparing to administer the coup de grace. The CIA would send a person with deep substantive expertise on the subject and also very good contacts in Niger (from previous service in Niger and other African countries, not to mention Baghdad).

Already, there was no love lost between Cheney and the CIA. And vice versa, Cheney having destroyed the agency's reputation for objective analysis by insisting on the creation of a fraudulent NIE to get Congress to approve an unnecessary war. The CIA could not very well say, well, Cheney made us do it. Cheney, on the other hand, was free to say, well, the CIA misled us badly - and did say that.

Cheney would have seen the daggers out for him, with the Plame/Wilson team commissioned to administer the coup de grace. For who was in better position to know how spurious the Iraq-Niger report was than the woman professional leading the clandestine effort to collect intelligence on precisely that subject? The agency, Cheney must have thought, was out to knock down his favorite report, the premium "evidence" that Iraq was "reconstituting" its nuclear weapons program, for what it was - a fraud.

The Worst of Times

Wilson's op-ed of July 6 could not have come at a worse time for the White House. Barely four months into invasion of Iraq, the "justifications" had already evaporated.

CIA analysts were still insisting, correctly, that there were no meaningful ties between al-Qaeda and Iraq, despite Tenet's acquiescence to Powell's request that Tenet sit behind him on camera as Powell wove his web of half- and un-truths at the UN. (Watching Tenet sit impassively as Powell spoke of a "sinister nexus" between al-Qaeda and Iraq was a tremendous blow to the morale of the courageous analysts who had resisted that particular recipe for cooking intelligence. As for their colleagues working on WMD, most of them had long since been pressured to cave in to Cheney's pressure during the dozen visits he made to CIA headquarters and were not as incensed.)

No trace had been found of weapons of mass destruction. In some quarters (even in the corporate press) the casus belli had morphed into a casus bellylaughi. Reports in Fox News that Saddam had somehow transported his WMD to Syria undetected (or maybe buried them in the desert) elicited widespread ridicule. Constant reminders of how difficult it is to find something in such a large country as Iraq - "the size of California" - were wearing thin. The attempt to associate uranium enrichment with the (in)famous aluminum tubes had, well, gone down the tubes. And the "mobile biological weapons laboratories," initially applauded by the president himself as proof the administration had found the WMD, turned out to be balloon-making machines for artillery practice, as the Iraqis had said. It was getting very embarrassing.

So this new challenge from Joe Wilson and his obnoxiously expert wife made for a very bad hair day. Cheney readily saw it as payback by honest CIA professionals for all the crass arm-twisting they had experienced at the hands of Cheney and kemosabe Libby. It is not hard to put oneself in Cheney's frame of mind as he witnessed the gathering storm.

Worst of all, the Iraq-Niger caper was particularly damaging, since it was tied directly to the office of the vice president. There was that unanswered question regarding who commissioned the forgery in the first place. And not even Judy Miller could help this time, since most thinking folks knew her to be a shill for the Bush administration.

And yet this insubordination, this deliberate sabotage, had to be answered. Something had to be done, and quickly, so that others privy to sensitive information about the litany of lies leading up to the war would not think they could follow Wilson's example and go to the press.

It is hard to believe that the best thing Cheney could come up with was to out Wilson's wife. It is not even clear that this is what he had in mind. It may have been no more than a decision to name her, irrespective of her cover status, in order to suggest that she had been responsible for sending her husband to Niger on an all expenses-paid "boondoggle!" - that somehow nepotism was involved - as if that would somehow impeach Wilson's negative findings regarding the Iraq-Niger fable. Cheney clearly felt that something had to be done - anything. It seems a mark of desperation that this is the best they could come up with. They may have concluded that launching a hardknuckle campaign against Wilson might at least deter others from becoming patriotic truth tellers of the kind Joseph Wilson has modeled so well. Initially, this tactic succeeded. More recently a cottage industry of patriotic truth tellers has taken shape, and (surprise, surprise!) even some among the mainstream media have given them ink and air time.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Ray McGovern works with Tell the Word, the publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in Washington, DC. He was a CIA analyst for 27 years and is on the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).

Libby's Lies, Cheney's Lies - Juan Cole for Cheney's Impeachment

CactusPat — Wed, 07 Mar 2007 22:24:11 -0500

Juan Cole over at Informed Comment calls Libby's conviction the tip of the iceberg and calls for Cheney's impeachment while laying out a comprehensive time-line of the Affair de Plame. Add another bigtime blogger to the list of bloggers for impeachment...

Libby's Lies, Cheney's Lies
Irv Lewis Libby is a convicted liar and perjurer, guilty of obstruction of justice. Unfortunately, he was not convicted of revealing to the public the identity of Valerie Plame Wilson as a covert operative at the CIA, who was working against Iranian development of nuclear weapons.

It is time for the Democrats in Congress to step up and impeach Vice President Richard Bruce Cheney... (more) Enough came out in this trial to make it clear that Cheney was deeply involved in the operation to smear Wilson. The vice president of the United States should not be in the business of outing CIA operatives! This was a high crime, and Congress could impeach if it desired. A conviction in the House of Representatives could, I believe, easily be gotten. The Senate would be more difficult, given the strength of the Republicans there. But Republicans would have voted to impeach Nixon. Why not Cheney?...

What follows is an extended time-line by Juan Cole complete with pictures!