I’m watching the live feed of Democracy Now!. Amy Goodman is interviewing Mel Goodman, a former CIA analyst and a senior fellow at the Center for International Policy. There is no tape or transcript yet. My notes:
Robert Novak: “A useful idiot.”
Lewis “Scooter” Libby: ” is just a aparatchik” — his patron was Dick Cheney
Cheney has lost his “plausible denial.” He may end up — it’s a long shot — as an unindicted co-conspirator.
It is very significant that the Niger documents are being investigated by Fitzgerald. The UPI story over the weeekend was by a very good longtime journalist.
Fitzgerald has access to the Italian parliamentary investigation. The Italians have investigated the documents, and they know something about the docs. FORMER AGENCY PEOPLE could be involved. Under Bill Casey, there was serious misuse of the agency … this could be a covert action to allow the president to say something in the State of Union that was not accurate.
Again, why didn’t the Senate Intel Committee look at this? Why didn’t the media? Because they were obsessed wtih leaks and sources.
The SP (Fitzgerald] is doing the job that the Senate should have done, the media should have done, Congress should have done. He is a hero.
WHIG (White House Iraq Group) was set up at the same time that Donald Rumsfeld set up a secret shop in the Pentagon.
The Office of Special Plans created fake intel — passed it along to WHIG — their job was to write materials for Condi Rice and Dick and Rummy so they could talk about the aluminum tubes, mushroom clouds, etc.. … More when the audio or transcript becomes available.
MORE SOURCES: David Wurmser et al.: See my “More Cheney Aides Targeted in CIA Leak Inquiry,” BooMan’s “As Indictments Loom: Old Hands Pile On Cheney,” Larisa and Jason’s brilliant report on Wurmser yesterday at Raw Story, and my Glengarry Glen Rove “bio pic” piece on the WHIG group.