Valerie Plame leak case indictments.

[bigfish]

Iraq war is the real “underlying crime” in the Libby indictment

The indictment against this prominent senior official is not, as Fitzgerald claimed Friday, an indication that the US is a “country that takes its law seriously.” If this were the case, the legally binding treaties that bar wars of aggression and torture would have brought Bush, Cheney and the entire administration into the defendant’s dock long ago.

Rather, it is a manifestation of a bitter conflict within the state itself. The tensions over intelligence that arose in the run-up to the war between the Pentagon and the White House, on the one hand, and the State Department and the CIA, on the other, have now given rise to recriminations over the political and military disaster that US imperialism is confronting in Iraq.

This has found expression in recent weeks in the statement of former State Department Chief of Staff Lawrence Wilkerson—undoubtedly reflecting the views of ex-Secretary of State Colin Powell—denouncing “a cabal between the vice president of the United States, Richard Cheney, and the secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld” operating outside of normal government channels and controls. Also weighing in with open criticism in the New Yorker magazine of the administration’s decision to go to war is Brent Scowcroft, the former national security advisor and close political confidante of Bush senior.

 

[bigfish]

Forging the Case for War/Indicting America

Who was behind the Niger uranium documents?

Information developed by Italian investigators indicates that the documents were produced in Italy with the connivance of the Italian intelligence service. It also reveals that the introduction of the documents into the American intelligence stream was facilitated by Undersecretary of Defense Doug Feith’s Office of Special Plans (OSP), a parallel intelligence center set up in the Pentagon to develop alternative sources of information in support of war against Iraq.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10816.htm

===

Scott Ritter

The indictment of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby by Special Prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald provides the most cogent and visible evidence to date of the criminal mindset that exists inside the Bush administration regarding the decision to invade Iraq.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article10820.htm

 

[scott_forester]

Won't they all get a free pardon is a few years anyway?

 

[oi2002]

The Belgravia Dispatch on a rather shriveled Dick.

Cheney's so key role in navigating the ship of state doesn't provide the same comfort and confidence it did just a few years back. People are worried. And, with apologies to distinguished intellectuals, a steady diet of Bernard Lewis and VDH doesn't necessarily provide, dare I say it, the requisite nuance to navigate such things as the generational challenge of democratizing the Arab world (hint: nettlesome little things like the Arab-Israeli peace process matter too, and Arabs don't only react to the language of force or some such).

I always thought if Dubya got holed below the waterline that Rummie would be the first to be thrown to the sharks. Well Dubya is sinking fast and with all the friends of Poppy turning on him it might well be Dick who gets sacrificed.

 

[Descartes]

The normal course of events,

A. case for the prosecution, lots of evidence and lots of names and even number of each to bring to the witness stand, Some will lie, some will falter and some will just stand there. But the truth, when did that ever matter?

B Case for the defense, closing of ranks, damage limitation exercise. Gather the faithfull round and get to the media. Finding or electing the 'Fall Guy' and getting the said fall guy to go with the game plan, All the necessary expenses for family and all the shredders working over time.

C. The public, watching and muttering, some hoping it will go away and some hoping the barstards get nailed.

D The Bad Guys, the guys at the top giving the orders or at least agreeing to the orders. Standing back and making sure the lovely phrase of immunity of office still works.

It will be entertaining, it will make some seat up, others will nod and say, told you so, but for the out and out down to earth, pragmatic approach, the French attitude is best, the shrug of the shoulders, the hands out stretched, palms upwards and the conspiratal expression that sez, "but, it goes on all the time, but wnere are the mistresses, the scandal??, hmm, it is only politics."

 

[Bernie Gunther]

The Belgravia Dispatch on a rather shriveled Dick.I always thought if Dubya got holed below the waterline that Rummie would be the first to be thrown to the sharks. Well Dubya is sinking fast and with all the friends of Poppy turning on him it might well be Dick who gets sacrificed.

Interesting. I just found a TPM post where a reader points out that an article written by Libby's pet reporter, Judith Miller of the NYT, makes it clear that the conversation of the plane (mentioned for no obvious reason in the Libby indictment) about what story Libby should tell included Cheney.

On July 12, 2003, four days after his initial conversation with Ms. Miller, Mr. Libby consulted with Mr. Cheney about how to handle inquiries from journalists about the vice president's role in sending Mr. Wilson to Africa in early 2002 to investigate reports that Iraq was trying acquire nuclear material there for its weapons program, the person said. <snip>

Mr. Libby has said he spoke with Mr. Cheney on July 12, six days after Mr. Wilson's article.

Mr. Libby said he told Mr. Cheney that reporters had been pressing the vice president's office for more details about who sent Mr. Wilson to Africa. The two men spoke when Mr. Cheney was on a trip to Norfolk, Va., for the commissioning of the carrier Ronald Reagan.

Mr. Libby said Mr. Cheney directed him to refer reporters to Mr. Tenet's statement, which said that the C.I.A. had been behind Mr. Wilson's selection for the trip.

source

I also note that another NYT reporter, also strongly suspected of being a White House propaganda mouthpiece, just wrote a piece about Cheney that sounds suspiciously like the damage-limitation stuff that was coming out about Libby this time last week.

source

 

[oi2002]

Dubya's sinking popularity looks pretty scary:

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Here's something from a former SEC prosecutor.

No, the real reason to lay out as much factual detail as he did was for Fitz to show the world (and in particular, the world within the White House) that he has the goods, and that he won't hesitate to drop the dime on some additional malefactors, particularly, Cheney. Let's face it: Libby is only the consigliere to Cheney's don. Even though the threat of spending 30 years in the pokey will be a powerful incentive for Libby to cut some kind of deal that might include turning on his boss, the possibility of the additional charges of revealing classified information, particularly against Cheney, is even more powerful since, presumably, Cheney does't appear to be at risk of a truth-telling-related indictment.

Let's agree on something else right now: Libby's case will never get to trial, primarily because Bush and Cheney will never allow such a trial to become precisely the kind of exposé of the administration's motives and actions in the run-up to the war they were worried the indictments would constitute. It would be their worst nightmare to have their war machinations presented to a jury of 12 ordinary citizens in the District of Columbia (read: predominantly African Americans) who would be sitting as proxies for the families of 2,000 plus military fatalities in Iraq and the plurality of the country that opposes the war. The risk there is not just exposure to the possibility of conviction in Washington, D.C., but a subsequent prosecution in The Hague as w ell.

source

This theme is taken up by the other blogging prosecutor I was quoting earlier.

But here is the big question: Does Fitz want the cooperation from Libby? Or is he using Libby to widen that crack in the foundation -- and go after someone else who was on the brink of spilling what Fitz needs? Someone who is even more afraid of prison than Libby, and a whole lot more craven and less loyal in terms of thinking of "what's in it for me"?

Federal indictments do not have to be as detailed as the one that Libby received yesterday. Prosecutors are only required to bare bones the indictment in order to cover the essential facts. Fitz did a hell of a lot more than that and, to the folks on the inside of the White House, laid out a map to who has been talking a lot and who hasn't. <snip>

And that, my friends, sows an awful lot of dissent, mistrust and all sorts of other nasties within the ranks.

Which often leads to a widening of the cracks, and a crumbling of the wall itself, holding back the whole cover-up in a conspiracy. There is no honor among thieves, and that "take care of myself first" mentality starts to take hold when you think folks around you have been sticking a knife in your back all along and weren't even decent enough to let you know.

source

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Interesting. Here's *another* story, this time from Time, that sounds awfully like someone in the White House briefing against Cheney (and Rove and Bush's Chief of Staff Andrew Card)

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,17089213-38198,00.html

I wonder if they *all* got 'target letters' last week?

 

[laptop]

I wonder if they *all* got 'target letters' last week?

"Mister President, Sir, you might want to hold that the other way up..."

 

[Bernie Gunther]

They keep coming. Here's Newsweek, again with White House sources briefing against Rove and Cheney.

"This is a White House in turmoil right now," said a senior aide, one of many who declined to speak on the record at a time of peril and paranoia. As for Rove, the aide said, some insiders believed that he had "behaved, if not criminally, then certainly unethically."

Perhaps it's no surprise, therefore, that at least some administration officials—speaking on background, of course—have begun retroactively to dismiss Cheney's role. Even if they are rewriting history, the revision is politically significant—and an ominous sign for Cheney in a city where power is the appearance of power. As an aide now tells it, Cheney's influence began to wane from the start of the second term and effectively came to an end as the Fitzgerald investigation gained momentum in recent months. "You can say that the influence of the vice president is going to decrease, but it's hard to decrease from zero," said a senior official sympathetic to Cheney's policies.

source

 

[Bernie Gunther]

More Republicans briefing against Cheney, this time in the Washington Post.

Bush also must consider the degree to which Cheney has now become a liability in his efforts to recover politically. Two Republicans privately said yesterday the taciturn Cheney has become a major burden to the president, and that his association with an unpopular war and proximity to the Libby embarrassment will eat at the administration's credibility. "This 'I'm a sphinx' gig just doesn't get it any more," one of the GOP strategists said.

source

I'm seriously wondering if Cheney and Rove got 'target letters' or that it's just obvious to the White House from the Liddy indictment that Fitzgerald has everything he needs in the way of testimony and evidence to nail them.

 

[farmer]

Jo/Joe...........I have wondered the same thing.........

These people have been bullet proof for so long, Blair too, so I'm not confident that what should happen will happen. What I wonder where Blair is concerned, is what course of action he would have advocated if a president with a different foreign policy had been in power. I doubt he would have argued for invading Iraq with a president committed to a more intelligent and international approach.

.........................
(Blair being a greater psychological conundrum than Bush.......the latter being more of a simpleton).......but in my eyes it makes Blair either VERY weak or seriously, seriously compromised in some way. Who, anywhere with an ounce of savvy, could ever even try to spin war into a "humanitarian" solution to ANYTHING? ...........(it's got to be a "money" thing behind it all, since ONLY money speaks louder than common sense and decency and justice etc)

 

[newharper]

Seen Cole

"Top Five Resignations the American People Should Demand
In the Wake of Libby's Indictment"

four and five are bete noirs of mine.

 

[farmer]

BG...........you think Mr. Fitzgerald is going to survive long

One thing I found interesting about the indictment is that it makes clear that Libby exchanged information about Plame's classified work at the CIA with about half a dozen other White House people and then with several reporters

It looks like Fitzgerald has very solid evidence to that effect, e.g. testimony of some of those officials, all of those reporters and probably a whole bunch of documentary stuff like building security and phone logs to back it up with.

What I'm thinking is that he's already got the bulk of what he'd need to make a much wider case for violation of espionage laws and conspiracy and is just getting the ball rolling with a nice uncomplicated perjury and obstruction charge that he knows he won't have any trouble proving.

His track record in mafia and state government corruption trials is one of methodically chewing his way up the food chain by absolutely nailing lower level people on stuff he knows he can prove, then getting them to rat out their bosses. Illinois Governor Ryan was the 66th indictment in such a chain.

This chain is probably a bit shorter though, because Libby worked for Cheney.

............................
enough to do his "duty"? ( I hope his high-profile will protect him but I am reading "Confessions of an Economic Hit Man" by John Perkins and I begin to feel that Wilson, Plame, Fitzgerald, along with Chavez and Castro are not long for this world.)
Hope I'm just insane.

 

[sparticus]

Dubya's sinking popularity looks pretty scary:

Must be time for another false flag terror masterclass then?

 

[fela fan]

There’s a lot about WHIG in this story, which I wondered if anyone had heard of. I’ve never heard of them. By the way, this thread is a nice positive one so far; hope that some of the criminal fuckers end up behind bars. Be funny as hell…

“But Fitzgerald’s investigation into the leak has led to many discoveries by the prosecutor, one of which is that Cheney played a key role in the leak and the reason was to closely guard the fact that the White House knowingly used false intelligence, specifically the Niger documents, to build a case for war against Iraq.

Over the past month, Fitzgerald has turned his attention to a little known cabal of administration hawks known as the White House Iraq Group (WHIG), which came together in August 2002 to publicize the threat posed by Saddam Hussein. WHIG was founded by Bush chief of staff Andrew Card and operated out of the Vice President’s office.”

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=LEO20051029&articleId=1168

 

[slaar]

This is like Christmas.

I'm liking this Fitzgerald guy more and more.

Say what you like about US democracy,the fact that things like this can come out is a very strong thing indeed. We didn't manage it here over Kelly, it was just a mandarin whitewash.

 

[nino_savatte]

This is like Christmas.

I'm liking this Fitzgerald guy more and more.

Say what you like about US democracy,the fact that things like this can come out is a very strong thing indeed. We didn't manage it here over Kelly, it was just a mandarin whitewash.

Despite what we like to think about the US, this is a serious indictment of our secretive state.

 

[Fruitloop]

Shit like this only comes to light in the US when there's disagreement between elite groups - I don't think it says anything positive about the US system in the long run.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Shit like this only comes to light in the US when there's disagreement between elite groups - I don't think it says anything positive about the US system in the long run.

I'd be inclined to agree. It looks to me like the paleocon/wall street establishment, people like the Bush 1 White House guys and the CIA, are finally getting sick of Junior's pack of cronies/fundies/military-industrial complex fringe crooks and mad Likudniks screwing things up so badly in the middle east they have an impending disaster on their hands and threatening to implode the US economy with rising debt.

I'm defining those two power blocs very approximately, but you get the general idea ...

 

[Bernie Gunther]

See for example this. Taking particular note of where it was published. I found it on the blog of former Defence Intelligence Agency Middle East chief Pat Lang

This was published in "The American Conservative" in their 31 October, 2005 number. I was recently "talked to" by a friend and colleague of one of those mentioned in this piece. He maintained stoutly that nothing wrong had been done deliberately.

Are they really that naive and/or utopian or are they all liars?

and from the linked document itself

The possible forgery of the information by Defense Department employees would explain the viciousness of the attack on Valerie Plame and her husband. Wilson, when he denounced the forgeries in the New York Times in July 2003, turned an issue in which there was little public interest into something much bigger. The investigation continues, but the campaign against this lone detractor suggests that the administration was concerned about something far weightier than his critical op-ed.

http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/files/GiraldiLedeen.pdf (pdf!)

 

[fela fan]

I'd be inclined to agree. It looks to me like the paleocon/wall street establishment, people like the Bush 1 White House guys and the CIA, are finally getting sick of Junior's pack of cronies/fundies/military-industrial complex fringe crooks and mad Likudniks screwing things up so badly in the middle east they have an impending disaster on their hands and threatening to implode the US economy with rising debt.

I'm defining those two power blocs very approximately, but you get the general idea ...

Bernie, sorry about this mate, but you're talking here as if only a few men could pull so many levers of power and have so much influence over what's going on here. [And in two different groups to make it all the more incredible!]

A line i tend to take myself, although i'm not fully convinced of it - or rather i take a similar position - but not a line i thought you generally went down! It is not being able to do down this train of thought that stops people considering foul play over 911.

Anyway, i was just interested. It's a great thread, so ignore me for now if you wish. But i'll get back to you on it one day...

 

[Bernie Gunther]

I don't see what's peculiar about the notion. Chomsky says pretty explicitly when he's talking about the propaganda model that this kind of stuff (in the passage I'm recalling he's talking about Watergate I think) only happens when various elites fall out. I can't help it if other people, who I'd agree with less often that I'd agree with Chomsky about the media, say similar things too.

I mean, it's not like the evidence is hard to come by. oi2002 has linked a whole bunch of criticism in the last few months from serious US establishment figures, Generals, senior spooks and analysts, military theorists and so on.

Most recently a bunch of stuff has appeared written by Bush 1 White House foreign and security policy heavies like Scowcroft, saying that Junior and his boys are incompetent morons who have made existing problems in the middle east far worse and invented a whole bunch of new ones. It's no conspiracy of just a few powerful men, it's right there out in the open. Pretty much anyone remotely sane on the military and security side is looking at the awful mess in Iraq and seeing real trouble as a result, so the ones who are comfortably retired are on the attack and the ones still on the inside are leaking to 'em.

Similarly the finance capital heavies are looking at the spiralling US budget deficit and thinking "there go all our lovely tax cuts, and oh my god, maybe the economy will implode"

Probably the only thing keeping them in line this long was the fear that Karl Rove would run a media campaign branding them as a kiddy fiddler or something if they dared to step out of line. He's been doing that shit for years, while the pressure built up. Now he's looking like he'll go down (possibly several times a day in a federal prison) the dam is bursting.

 

[oi2002]

Tompaine has a nice little schematic on The Cabal.

What team Dubya has done is follow their hunches, bullshit and then wing it and that's what most politicians are prone to do. That's not to say it's wise and the American system is meant to discipline its executive functionaries rather than be a servant to them.

Wilkersons reference to The Cabal recognises the frailty of secretive scheming and deceit in major affairs of state: more often than not the ideas have never been exposed to hard criticism and the result is a strategic disaster.

In the panic after 9-11 all the institutional checks and balances in DC failed. The Dems sat on their hands, Congress failed to scrutinize the case for going to Baghdad, the press swallowed nonsense, the likes of Tenet and Wilkerson fell for group think and The Brass forgot the Powell doctrine. Far too many Americans in a patriotic fugue simply forgot their civic duty of vigilence, dumbshit happened and unpunished error after error compounded the problems.

The friends of Poppy may be part of a power play in the GOP but they are also involved in a sincere attempt to get the US back on the rails.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

It appears the Democrats have just found one tiny shrivelled-up testicle someplace and are now trying to force the Senate Intelligence committee that's supposed to be investigating White House lies about Iraq to actually investigate. Which being controlled by Republicans they don't want to do.

There's a kind of ongoing commentary on all of this stuff that appears to be fairly cogent going on just here

 

[nino_savatte]

With this Bush administration the smear job has been developed into an art form. Here's one from the LA Times, which is often described by the US right as a "liberal paper". It sounds like they haven't got a clue.

Making the best of a weak hand, Democrats argued that the case was not about petty-ante perjury but, as Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid put it, "about how the Bush White House manufactured and manipulated intelligence in order to bolster its case for the war in Iraq and to discredit anyone who dared to challenge the president." The problem here is that the one undisputed liar in this whole sordid affair doesn't work for the administration. In his attempts to turn his wife into an antiwar martyr, Joseph C. Wilson IV has retailed more whoppers than Burger King.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion...326316.column?coll=la-util-opinion-commentary

 

[oi2002]

Wilkerson cattle prods the Veep:

Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson, former chief of staff to Colin Powell, then the secretary of state, told National Public Radio he had traced a trail of memos and directives authorizing questionable detention practices up through Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld's office directly to Cheney's staff.

"The secretary of defense under cover of the vice president's office," Wilkerson said, "regardless of the president having put out this memo" - "they began to authorize procedures within the armed forces that led to what we've seen."

He said the directives contradicted a 2002 order by President George W. Bush for the U.S. military to abide by the Geneva conventions against torture.

"There was a visible audit trail from the vice president's office through the secretary of defense, down to the commanders in the field," authorizing practices that led to the abuse of detainees, Wilkerson said.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Better not plan any holidays abroad Dick, especially in the Hague.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

Meanwhile it looks like Rove may be involved in using a crony currently being investigated for corruption to divert the US's public broadcasting service into becoming another Republican propaganda outfit.

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/article325160.ece