| Topic: |
Politics > Politics-USA |
| User: |
"Harry Hope" |
| Date: |
02 Nov 2005 09:45:24 AM |
| Object: |
The CIA leak investigation: Bigger fish, deeper water |
http://www.citypages.com/databank/26/1300/article13827.asp
Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald isn't finished with the Bush
White House yet
The CIA leak investigation: Bigger fish, deeper water
The extension of special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's investigation
is bad news for the Bush White House
by Steve Perry
November 2, 2005
Winston Churchill once said that "There is nothing more exhilarating
than to be shot at and missed," and last Friday afternoon a lot of
Bush partisans were buoyed by the same sentiment.
Writing at Power Line, John Hinderaker mused, "Having now read 15 or
20 news stories about what a devastating blow the Lewis Libby
indictment was to the administration...I couldn't help wondering: does
anyone remember who Al Gore's chief of staff was when he was
vice-president? My guess is that the large majority of people who read
these stories are asking themselves, 'Scooter who?'"
He's right.
On its own, the public fallout from Libby's indictment on five counts
of perjury, false statements, and obstruction of justice will be
minimal.
One could even add that the indictment of Karl Rove would make less
difference in the court of popular opinion than most followers of the
case think.
Poll after poll has shown that only about half of Americans have ever
heard of Rove.
The gravity of his loss would be strategic:
Without him, the great orchestra of White House staffers,
congressional GOP foot soldiers, and the Washington press corps would
be without a conductor.
Meantime, only a very few pundits of the right made mention of the
shoe that has not yet dropped.
Proving again that crazy is not the same as stupid, Ann Coulter told
CNN that the extension of special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald's
investigation "is, like, the worst possible outcome."
She is right, too.
Where is Fitzgerald's case headed now?
The arc of Plame leak coverage in the press underscores the futility
of reading too much into any particular leak from the grand jury.
As recently as last Friday, the New York Times and Washington Post
were diametrically opposed on the very basic question of whether the
probe would continue.
(The Times said yes, the Post no.)
The trouble is that all the leaks seem to be coming from defense
attorneys close to the case, and criminal lawyers
a) don't know Fitzgerald's theory of the case, only what he has said
to them regarding their clients;
and b) are duty-bound, wherever possible, to spin any disclosures they
make so as to aid their clients.
But there is one point on which every major news outlet, and
presumably every leaker, has fallen into accord in the past week or
two.
Last Wednesday's Wall Street Journal put it concisely:
"With the grand jury in the CIA leak case expected to vote as soon as
today to bring charges against White House officials, the two-year
probe appears to be focused on the office of Vice President *****
Cheney, one of the chief architects and defenders of the
administration's Iraq war policy."
The accent belongs on the last clause.
Cheney's office is the Pandora's Box of the Bush administration
campaign to invade Iraq.
Most of the planning as to both the waging and selling of the war
occurred under his direction, along with that of Donald Rumsfeld and
Paul Wolfowitz at the Pentagon.
It was Cheney who played the point in beating up the CIA for its
unhelpful analysis of the non-threat posed by Saddam, and Cheney along
with his Defense Department pals who effectively circumvented the CIA
by setting up the Office of Special Plans at the Pentagon to funnel
the administration the kind of intelligence it wanted, largely
courtesy of their longtime double-dealing stooge, Ahmed Chalabi.
At this point it's altogether unclear where or when Fitzgerald's
investigation will conclude--or simply run into a wall he can't break
through.
But there's little need to speculate as to how far he's reaching.
The investigative reporter Jason Leopold, a former Dow-Jones Newswire
reporter who has put the Raw Story website on the map in a new way
with his Plame leak reporting, points out that a court filing posted
at Fitzgerald's DoJ website refers to subpoenas issued regarding
"conversations between [NYT reporter Judith] Miller and a specified
government official occurring between on or about July 6, 2003 and on
or about July 13, 2003, concerning Valerie Plame Wilson (whether
referred to by name or by description) or concerning Iraqi efforts to
obtain uranium."
The implication is that Fitzgerald's inquiry is now looking all the
way back to the claims about Saddam, uranium, and Niger that were
touted in a pair of 2001 forged documents that turned up in Italy.
This jibes with a little-noted story filed by veteran UPI editor
Martin Walker on October 23.
In what may be the first major leak in the case not disseminated by
criminal defense lawyers, Walker cited "NATO intelligence sources" as
saying, "Fitzgerald's team of investigators has sought and obtained
documentation on the forgeries from the Italian government.
Fitzgerald's team has been given the full, and as yet unpublished
report of the Italian parliamentary inquiry into the affair....
This opens the door to what has always been the most serious
implication of the CIA leak case, that the Bush administration could
face a brutally damaging and public inquiry into the case for war
against Iraq being false or artificially exaggerated."
All we know for sure now is that, as the dolorous Coulter saw too
well, every outcome remains on the table.
It's entirely possible that no more indictments in the case will be
forthcoming--though unless the leaks last week about conferences
between Fitzgerald and Rove attorney Robert Luskin were pure hooey,
that seems doubtful.
On the other hand, it is also possible that this investigation will
dog Cheney from now until 2008 and raise him to the status of
unindicted co-conspirator, or beyond.
If that is where Fitzgerald means to go, there's every reason to
suppose he'll find ample cooperation from the ranks of CIA and State
Department officialdom whose advice was spurned or subverted en route
to war.
The list starts with former CIA director George Tenet, who was first
pressured to disregard the word of his own analysts and then made to
fall on his sword for having done so, and also includes Colin Powell
and a host of folks most of us have never heard of.
One of them, former Powell chief of staff Lawrence Wilkerson, wrote a
fairly breathtaking op-ed titled "The White House Cabal" in the L.A.
Times on October 25.
I've never read anything remotely like it from a former member of a
sitting administration:
"In President Bush's first term, some of the most important decisions
about U.S. national security--including vital decisions about postwar
Iraq--were made by a secretive, little-known cabal.
It was made up of a very small group of people led by Vice President
***** Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld....
I believe that the decisions of this cabal were sometimes made with
the full and witting support of the president and sometimes with
something less....
The administration's performance during its first four years would
have been even worse without Powell's damage control.
At least once a week, it seemed, Powell trooped over to the Oval
Office and cleaned all the dog poop off the carpet....
Today, we have a president whose approval rating is 38 percent and a
vice president who speaks only to Rush Limbaugh and assembled military
forces.
We have a secretary of Defense presiding over the
death-by-a-thousand-cuts of our overstretched armed forces (no
surprise to ignored dissenters such as former Army Chief of Staff Gen.
Eric Shinseki or former Army Secretary Thomas White).
It's a disaster.
Given the choice, I'd choose a frustrating bureaucracy over an
efficient cabal every time."
These are the sorts of folk the Bush White House's pursuit of the Iraq
war has left waiting in the wings with scores to settle.
Time will tell whether Fitzgerald can work his way to them, but
knowing they are out there cannot be good for ***** Cheney's heart, or
his sleep.
_______________________________________________________
Patience, folks.
Harry
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