Cheney's Washington Waterloo
Does anyone really doubt
Cheney was involved?
By Tom Scott
A special prosecutor's intensifying focus into who criminally exposed a CIA spy has raised serious questions about whether Vice President Dick Cheney himself is involved, and it is very doubtful that he wasn't deeply involved to this reporter. Evidence is also building that the probe has extended beyond the leaking of a covert CIA agent's name to include questioning about the administration's mishandling of pre-Iraq war intelligence for political purposes.
At least 2 persons who have testified in the probe said special prosecutor U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald is heavily pursuing Cheney's role in the whole sordid Valerie Plame affair.
In addition, at least six current and former Cheney staffers have testified before the grand jury, including Cheney's top lieutenant, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, and two other Cheney national security lieutenants. That would be all nine members of the White House Iraq Group to have been questioned by Mr. Fitzgerald. The team, which includes senior national security officials, was created in August 2002 to "educate the public" about the risk posed by weapons of mass destruction on Iraq.
Cheney's name has come up amid indications Fitzgerald may be edging closer to a blockbuster conspiracy charge with help from a secret informant. Mr. Fitzgerald, who has been applauded for conducting a leak-free inquiry, has said little publicly about his 22-month probe, other than that it is about the "potential retaliation against a whistleblower", former Ambassador Joseph Wilson after he went public with doubts about the evidence that Iraq was developing nuclear weapons. The name of Mr. Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, a CIA covert agent, was leaked to reporters.
"They have got a senior cooperating witness, someone who is giving them all of that," according to reliable sources. But the prosecutor has given no indication whether he will charge anyone in the case. Over the weekend Judith Miller, the New York Times reporter jailed for 85 days after refusing to testify, provided new details about the scope of Mr. Fitzgerald's evolving investigation. She was asked "repeatedly" how Lewis "Scooter" Libby, chief of staff to Vice-President Dick Cheney, "handled classified information".
Ms. Miller testified that Mr. Libby had made "a sharp critique of Mr. Wilson", and referred several times to the fact his wife worked at the CIA. Ms. Miller also expressed surprise at a letter sent by Mr. Libby while she was jailed that, she said, "could imply he was trying to influence her testimony". "I replied that this portion of the letter had surprised me because it might be perceived as an effort by Mr. Libby to suggest that I too would say we had not discussed Ms. Plame. Yet my notes suggested that we had discussed her job," she wrote. In fact Ms. Plame's name did show up in her notebook with notes taken the same day that she had met for lunch with Mr. Libby. The notes had misspelled her name as a Ms. Flame although it was apparent they referred to Ms. Joseph Wilson.
Cheney was questioned last year by prosecutors and has hired a private attorney, former colleague Terrence O'Donnell, who has repeatedly declined to comment. Cheney spokeswoman Lea Anne McBride has only offered the standard canned response that her boss is cooperating.
"Scooter" Libby and President Bush's political mastermind Karl "Turd Blossom" Rove remain the focus of the probe into whether Ms. Plames cover was blown in a scheme to embarrass her husband, ex-Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who debunked claims that Iraq tried to buy nuclear materials in Niger. According to sources, both Mr. Libby and Mr. Rove, who has appeared four times before the grand jury, would resign or take unpaid leave if indicted for their role in the case. Accordingly Mr. Rove has been adopting a lower profile, backing out of two public speeches over the last week. However, Scott McClellan, White House spokesman, said yesterday: "Karl is here at the White House doing his duties, as he always does."
Libby is often described as "Cheney's Cheney," a loyal and discreet top lieutenant who shares his boss's hard-line philosophy and bare-knuckle attitude toward political enemies of the Bush administration.
Cheney and Libby spend hours together in the course of a day, which causes sources that know both men very well to assert that any attempts to discredit Wilson would almost certainly have been known to the vice president if not initiated by him.
"Scooter wouldn't be freelancing on this without Cheney's knowledge," according to sources knowledgeable with both men. "It was probably some sort of comment like: 'This guy [Wilson] could be a problem, see what we to can to shut him up.'"
According to sources Libby has been "totally obsessed with Wilson" since Wilson first reported his findings in direct contradiction with the lies of the Bush administration that led us into the illegal war on Iraq. The US failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq resulted in two inquiries into the prewar intelligence, one led by the Senate intelligence committee and the other by a White House-appointed panel. But both panels confined themselves to investigating the intelligence community, concluding that the White House was largely the innocent victim of faulty intelligence. Neither delved into the improper political misuse of the available intelligence by the administration.
Whether Cheney's, Rove's and Libby's obsession amounts to criminal misconduct will be decided by Fitzgerald, but if Libby is indicted or implicated in wrongdoing, Cheney's reputation will suffer as well, and a indictment of Cheney and possibly President Bush is sure to follow.
Tom Scott is Senior Investigative Reporter for Choice America Network
