The campaign to discredit Wilson's accusations came at a critical
moment in the Bush presidency.
It occurred a few months after the United States invaded Iraq and at a
time when Bush, Cheney and the entire administration were under
extraordinary pressure to back up their prewar allegations that Iraq
had large stockpiles of chemical weapons and was working on a nuclear
weapons program.
The Niger claim was central to the White House's rationale for war,
and Wilson was on a one-man crusade to disprove it.
Early on, his actions caught the eye of the vice president's office,
which was often the emotional and intellectual force pushing the
United States to war based on fears of potential weapons of mass
destruction in Iraq.
Cheney and Libby were intimately involved in building the case for the
war, which included warnings that Iraqi President Saddam Hussein was
actively pursuing nuclear weapons.
Cheney's staff was looking into Wilson as early as May 2003, nearly
two months before columnist Robert D. Novak identified Wilson's wife
as a CIA operative, according to administration sources familiar with
the effort.
What stirred the interest of the vice president's office was a May 6
New York Times column by Nicholas D. Kristof in which the mission to
Niger was described without using Wilson's name.
Kristof's column said Cheney had authorized the trip.
According to former senior CIA officials, the vice president's office
pressed the CIA to find out how the trip was arranged, because Cheney
did not know that a query he made much earlier to a CIA briefer about
a report alleging Iraq was seeking Niger uranium had triggered
Wilson's trip.
"They were very uptight about the vice president being tagged that
way," a former senior CIA official said, speaking on the condition of
anonymity because of the ongoing investigation.
"They asked questions that set [off] a chain of inquiries."
By early June, several weeks before Libby is said to have known
Plame's name, the State Department had prepared a memo on the Niger
case that contained information on Plame in a section marked "(S)" for
secret.
Around that time, Libby knew about the trip's origins, though in an
interview with The Washington Post at the time, he did not mention any
role played by Wilson's wife.
By July 12, however, both Rove and Libby and perhaps other senior
White House officials knew about Wilson's wife's position at the CIA
and, according to lawyers familiar with testimony in the probe, used
that information with reporters to undermine the significance of
Wilson's trip.
From The Washington Post, 10/2/05:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/01/AR2005100101317.html
Role of Rove, Libby in CIA Leak Case Clearer
Bush and Cheney Aides' Testimony Contradicts Earlier White House
Statement
By Jim VandeHei and Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, October 2, 2005; Page A05
As the CIA leak investigation heads toward its expected conclusion
this month, it has become increasingly clear that two of the most
powerful men in the Bush administration were more involved in the
unmasking of operative Valerie Plame than the White House originally
indicated.
With New York Times reporter Judith Miller's release from jail
Thursday and testimony Friday before a federal grand jury, the role of
I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, came
into clearer focus.
Libby, a central figure in the probe since its earliest days and the
vice president's main counselor, discussed Plame with at least two
reporters but testified that he never mentioned her name or her covert
status at the CIA, according to lawyers in the case.
His story is similar to that of Karl Rove, President Bush's top
political adviser.
Rove, who was not an initial focus of the investigation, testified
that he, too, talked with two reporters about Plame but never supplied
her name or CIA role.
Their testimony seems to contradict what the White House was saying a
few months after Plame's CIA job became public.
In October 2003, White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters
that he personally asked Libby and Rove whether they were involved,
"so I could come back to you and say they were not involved."
Asked if that was a categorical denial of their involvement, he said,
"That is correct."
What remains a central mystery in the case is whether special
prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald has accumulated evidence during his
two-year investigation that any crime was committed.
His investigation has White House aides and congressional Republicans
on edge as they await Fitzgerald's announcement of an indictment or
the conclusion of the probe with no charges.
The grand jury is scheduled to expire Oct. 28, and lawyers in the case
expect Fitzgerald to signal his intentions as early as this week.
Fitzgerald is investigating whether anyone illegally disclosed Plame's
name or undercover CIA job in retaliation against her husband, Joseph
C. Wilson IV.
In the summer of 2003, Wilson, a former diplomat, accused the White
House of using "twisted" intelligence to justify the invasion of Iraq.
He claimed firsthand evidence:
At the behest of the CIA, he had flown to Niger in February 2002 to
investigate the administration's assertion that Iraq was trying to
purchase uranium in the African nation for use in its nuclear weapons
program.
Wilson returned unconvinced the assertion was true.
However, Bush himself made the charge in his 2003 State of the Union
address, prompting Wilson to spread word throughout the government and
eventually make public his rebuttal.
Many lawyers in the case have been skeptical that Fitzgerald has the
evidence to prove a violation of the Intelligence Identities
Protection Act, which is the complicated crime he first set out to
investigate, and which requires showing that government officials knew
an operative had covert status and intentionally leaked the
operative's identity.
But a new theory about Fitzgerald's aim has emerged in recent weeks
from two lawyers who have had extensive conversations with the
prosecutor while representing witnesses in the case.
They surmise that Fitzgerald is considering whether he can bring
charges of a criminal conspiracy perpetrated by a group of senior Bush
administration officials.
Under this legal tactic, Fitzgerald would attempt to establish that at
least two or more officials agreed to take affirmative steps to
discredit and retaliate against Wilson and leak sensitive government
information about his wife.
To prove a criminal conspiracy, the actions need not have been
criminal, but conspirators must have had a criminal purpose.
____________________________________________________
The volcano's rumblin' and gettin' ready to blow.
Harry
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