| Patrick Fitzgerald indicted the puppet and let the puppeteer go. Hopefully his strategy is to hang a long enough prison sentence around Scooter Libby's neck to convince him to testify against members of an administration that let him take the fall for the lies that led to the invasions of Afghanastan and Iraq. And hopefully that strategy will work. |
| Mr. Libby is the only aide to Mr. Cheney who has been charged with a crime. But the indictment alleges that Mr. Cheney himself and others in the office took part in discussions about the origins of a trip by Mr. Wilson to Niger in 2002; about the identity of his wife, Valerie Wilson; and whether the information could be shared with reporters, in the period before it was made public in a July 14, 2003, column by Robert D. Novak.
The antipathy felt by Mr. Cheney and Mr. Libby toward Mr. Wilson, in the aftermath of the invasion, has ... long been known. But the events spelled out in the 22-page indictment suggest a far more active, earlier effort by the vice president's office to gather information about him and his wife. By any measure, the indictment suggests that Mr. Libby and others went to unusual lengths to gather information about Mr. Wilson and his trip. [R]equests appear to have prompted C.I.A. officials, on June 9, to fax classified information to Mr. Cheney's office about Mr. Wilson's trip, which Mr. Wilson made on behalf of the C.I.A. to investigate reports that Iraq had struck a deal to acquire uranium from Niger for use in its nuclear weapons program. Mr. Cheney himself is alleged to have shared details about the nature of Ms. Wilson's job with Mr. Libby, on June 12. The indictment says that Mr. Libby first shared information about Mr. Wilson's trip with a reporter, Judith Miller of The New York Times, on June 23 It is not clear how Mr. Cheney may have learned "from the C.I.A." that Ms. Wilson worked in the agency's counterproliferation division, a fact that meant she was part of the C.I.A.'s clandestine service, and that she might well be working undercover. Lawyers in the case say that notes taken by Mr. Libby indicate that detail was provided to Mr. Cheney by George J. Tenet, who was the director of central intelligence at the time, but several former intelligence officials say they do not believe that Mr. Tenet was the source of the information. Many questions remain unanswered in the indictment. It is not clear, for example, what guidance, if any, Mr. Cheney gave to Mr. Libby about whether or how to share information about Mr. Wilson's trip with reporters. Among their discussions, lawyers in the case have said, was one on July 11, 2003, on a trip to Norfolk, Va., that preceded by a day what two reporters, Ms. Miller and Matthew Cooper of Time magazine, have said were conversations in which Mr. Libby mentioned Mr. Wilson's wife. Source: "Indictment Gives Glimpse Into a Secretive Operation" By DOUGLAS JEHL - NY Times - October 30, 2005 Incidentally…we still don't know who revealed Valerie Plame's covert C.I.A. status. (For that matter, we still don't know who forged the original documents tying Hussein to Niger yellowcake either.) |
No one has submitted a comment on this statement yet.
Be the first and submit your feedback below.
Submit your comment below |