He has a new story posted at the National Journal regarding the CIA Leak case:
Late in the morning of July 12, 2003, Vice President Dick Cheney stood atop a pier at Naval Station Norfolk in Virginia awaiting the commissioning of the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan, a ship 20 stories high that took eight years to construct. …
Cheney himself later took the podium, and as he spoke, the spirit of the crowd turned somber: “The Ronald Reagan sets sail in a world with new dangers,” he said, “The outcome is certain. There will be victory for the United States.” […]
On the flight back to Washington, Cheney huddled with two of his top aides — I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, his then-chief of staff, and Catherine Martin, then assistant to the vice president for pubic affairs. According to federal court records, the three discussed how to counter and discredit the allegations made by a former U.S. ambassador, Joseph C. Wilson IV, that the Bush administration had manipulated and distorted intelligence information to make the case to go to war with Iraq.
That’s right. After sending out our sailors and airmen in harm’s way on the fool’s mission to liberate Iraq, Cheney plotted how to take down Joe Wilson , his wife and CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson, and, oh by the way, endanger our national security. All in a day’s work for a man who likes to relax shooting farm raised quail at canned hunts.
(cont.)
In attempting to determine Libby’s motives for allegedly lying to the FBI and a federal grand jury about his leaking of Plame’s CIA identity to journalists, federal investigators theorized from the very earliest stages of the case that Libby may have been trying to hide Cheney’s own role in encouraging Libby to discredit Wilson, according to attorneys involved in the case.
Cheney is scheduled to be a defense witness in the Libby trial. Regarding this, a spokesperson for the Vice President says: “We’ve cooperated fully in this matter and will continue to do so in fairness to the parties involved.”
Both Cheney and Libby have repeatedly denied — both publicly and to federal investigators — that Cheney ever encouraged Libby specifically to leak information to the press about Plame. But since the early days of the leak probe in fall 2003, even before it was taken over by Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald, investigators have maintained that Libby devised an elaborate cover story even though he must have known that contemporaneous records and the testimony of others was very likely to show that he was lying. Other than the motive to protect himself, the only other driving force behind Libby’s actions, federal investigators have theorized, was to protect Cheney or other superiors, according to attorneys who have been involved in the CIA leak probe.
Bush is the Decider, perhaps, but the man who tells him what to decide when it comes to the Middle East, the “War on Terror” and Iraq has always been the most powerful, and I would add dangerous, Vice President in the history of our country. He had “cherry picked” raw intelligence stove-piped into his office to justify the invasion of Iraq, and he lied about it numerous times on national television. Who can forget the many times he claimed 911 plotter Mohammed Atta met with an Iraqi agent in Prague, or the numerous times he warned of the dangers of Saddam’s nuclear weapons program when he knew there was scant, and very unreliable, evidence for either contention.
It would have been no surprise then that, as Murray Waas reports, Cheney was incensed by Wilson’s allegations that the Bush administration had been lying about the danger Saddam’s regime posed to America’s national security. The initial phase of the war against Saddam’s forces had been a grand success, along the lines of a classic blitzkrieg attack by a better armed, more mobile and far more powerful military force against an opponent whose own military had been weakened by the first Gulf War and the subsequent UN sanctions, lacked any effective air force to counter US dominance of the skies and was in many cases unwilling to fight for a brutal and bloody dictator.
However, already by June of 2003 questions were being raised about the US military’s inability to locate Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction, which had been the primary rationale advanced by the Bush administration for the war. The last thing the Vice President wanted was for Wilson’s story to gain any traction, because it would only lead to further exposure of the extent he and his neocon supporters in and out of the federal government had misled, deceived and outright lied to the American Public about their real reasons for risking the lives of American troops in a military adventure in the Middle East.
All the more reason for the Vice President and his closest advisor, Mr. Libby, to foment a strategy to discredit Joe Wilson by any means necessary. And one of those means just happened to be the outing of Wilson’s wife, Valerie, as a CIA agent whose portfolio included countering nuclear proliferation to countries such as Iran. Since Iran was also a country Cheney desired to attack using US military forces to accomplish a regime change mission, taking down Mrs. Wilson was, in effect killing two birds with one stone. Although this approach at intimidating CIA analysts may have backfired on the administration (the CIA, after all, has not exactly cooperated in its assessment of the threat posed by Iran’s nascent nuclear research program), at that moment in time outing Wilson’s wife was clearly intended to send a stark message to any CIA analyst who sought to present evidence in the future regarding either Iraq or Iran which might be contrary to the official White House (i.e., Cheney) line.
Just take a gander at what Libby has said, for the record, regarding his “discussions” with Cheney about the Wilson’s in June and July of 2003:
The vice president had apparently first learned in June 2003, according to the indictment, that Wilson’s wife was a CIA officer, and that she might have been responsible for her husband being sent to Niger. He scribbled in the margins of Wilson’s New York Times op-ed: “Have they done this sort of thing before? Send an Amb. [sic] to answer a question? Do we ordinarily send people out pro bono to work for us? Or did his wife send him on a junket?”
During testimony before the federal grand jury in the CIA leak case, a federal prosecutor approached Libby with a copy of the marked-up column and asked if he recalled the Vice President expressly raising the same issues with him. A small amount of grand jury testimony has been made public in court filings by the special prosecutor. Additional accounts of what occurred in the grand jury were provided by sources with first-hand knowledge of the testimony.
“Do you recall ever discussing those issues with Vice President Cheney?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And tell us what you recall about those conversations,” the prosecutor pressed Libby.
“I recall that along the way he asked, ‘Is this normal for them to just send somebody out like this uncompensated, as it says?’ He was interested in how did that person come to be selected for this mission. And at some point, his wife worked at the Agency, you know, that was part of the question.”
The extraordinary amount of time and energy that Cheney personally devoted to the issue, as well as his intensity of emotion regarding it is underscored by this exchange between a federal prosecutor and Libby when Libby testified before the grand jury:
“Was it a topic that was discussed on a daily basis?” a federal prosecutor asked.
“Yes, sir,” answered Libby.
“And it was discussed on multiple occasions each day in fact?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And during that time did the vice president indicate that he was upset that this article was out there which falsely in his view attacked his own
credibility?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And do you recall what it is the vice-president said?”
“I recall that he was very keen to get the truth out. He wanted to get all the facts out about what he [Cheney] had or hadn’t done–what the facts were or were not. He was very keen on that and said it repeatedly. ‘Let’s get everything out.'”
Clearly the administration’s conspiracy to destroy the Wilson’s credibility was all Cheney’s show, and one he obsessed about. He strategized with many top Bush officials, including Stephen Hadley, Dan Bartlett and others on ways to selectively declassify information which Cheney believed would be damaging to Wilson. But he also allegedly worked with Libby to leak classified material that these other Bush officials were not informed about:
[A senior Bush administration] official confirmed in an interview what has also been said in federal grand jury testimony and public court filings: that Cheney and Libby often acted without the knowledge or approval and of other senior White House staff when it came to their efforts to discredit Wilson — including leaking classified information to the press.
Aboard Air Force Two, Cheney, Libby, and Martin discussed a then-still highly classified CIA document that they believed had information in it that would undercut Wilson’s credibility. The document was a March 8, 2002 debriefing of Wilson by the CIA’s Directorate of Operations after his trip to Niger. The report did not name Wilson or even describe him as a former U.S. ambassador who had served time in the region, but rather as a “contact with excellent access who does not have an established reporting record.” The report made no mention of the fact that his wife was Valerie Plame, or that she may have played a role in having her husband sent to Niger.
Cheney told Libby that he wanted him to leak the report to the press, according to people with first-hand knowledge of federal grand jury testimony in the CIA leak case, and federal court records.
But, if this is true, why did Libby leak the name of Valerie Wilson to reporters? If Cheney’s scheme only involved releasing newly declassified (allegedly) CIA reports on Wilson’s trip that didn’t mention Valerie Wilson by name, what made Libby spill the beans about her career at CIA?
Libby was Cheney’s “fixer.” He was the person designated to make certain that Cheney’s orders were implemented as quickly as possible. It’s hard to believe such a loyal and effective subordinate of the Vice President would take it upon himself to make that decision, not after all the time and effort Cheney and he spent working on a plan to take down Joe Wilson.
According to a court filing by the special prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald, Libby also testified to the federal grand jury “that on July 12, 2003, he was specifically directed by the Vice President to speak to the press in the place of Cathie Martin (then the communications person for the Vice President) regarding the National Intelligence Estimate [on Iraq] and Wilson. [Libby] was instructed… to [also] provide information contained in a document [he] understood to be the cable authored by Mr. Wilson.”
Four other people — including a senior White House official involving in the effort to declassify Wilson’s debriefing, a former senior CIA official, and two private attorneys involved in the CIA leak case — had previously told National Journal the document in question was not a cable regarding the trip but rather the March 8, 2002 CIA debriefing report.
Almost immediately after disembarking Air Force Two [on July 12, 2003], once back in Washington, D.C., Libby made three telephone calls to two journalists: Matthew Cooper, then of Time magazine, and Judith Miller, then of The New York Times.
During both of those conversations, according to the federal grand jury testimony of both Cooper and Miller, Libby said absolutely nothing at all about the March 8, 2002 CIA debriefing report regarding Wilson.
Instead, both testified that Libby discussed the fact that Valerie Plame was a CIA officer, and that she had been responsible for sending her husband on his mission to Niger. The discussion between Libby and Cooper was the first that the then-vice presidential chief of staff and the Time correspondent spoke of Plame.
So, Libby makes no mention of the 2002 CIA debriefing report about Ambassador Wilson’s trip to the reporters he called, even though he later claimed that was what Cheney had expressly ordered him to disclose. Why would Libby do that? The only possible explanation is that Libby lied to the FBI, the federal prosecutors and the Grand Jury about Cheney’s involvement in the decision to leak Valerie Wilson’s name to the press. He’s was covering his boss’ great big rear end the only way he could, by perjuring himself. I believe that the entire story regarding this 2002 report was merely a “macguffin” to throw the investigators off the trail of what Cheney really ordered Libby to do: out Valerie Wilson.
Not only that, but I think this is what Fitzpatrick and Waas also believe happened. Look at this little tidbit involving Judith Miller’s testimony to see why I come to that conclusion:
What Miller herself did not know during her grand jury testimony was that a key issue for federal investigators was whether she would testify as to whether Libby had attempted to leak her anything about the CIA debriefing report of Wilson after his Niger trip. Prosecutors believed that Miller was perhaps attempting to protect Libby in her testimony.
As National Journal first reported, during her first grand jury appearance Miller did not even tell prosecutors about a June 23, 2003 meeting with Libby about Plame and prewar intelligence about Iraq that took place at Libby’s office at the Old Executive Office Building which adjoins the White House.
Prosecutors did not want to tip Miller as to why it was so crucial to them to learn whether Libby had ever mentioned the March 2002 Wilson debriefing report to her or Cooper shortly after he disembarked Air Force Two.The reason was that Libby’s failure to mention the March 2002 debriefing was one more piece of an ever increasing body of circumstantial evidence that led prosecutors to believe that Libby had devised a cover story to protect himself, and perhaps even the Vice President, to conceal the fact that his agenda was to leak information about Plame from the very start.
So Judith Miller was merely Libby’s patsy. She did not even know that her own prevarications and obfuscations during her grand jury testimony were hurting her dear friend Libby, because he never took the time to mention the “2002 report” angle of his cover-up scheme to her. In the end, she was a pawn first of the Bush administration and then later of Fitzpatrick’s prosecutorial team. Unfortunately, her testimony alone was not sufficient to pin the responsibility on Cheney for the Plame disclosures.
Still, Libby’s trial is a real risk for the administration. Perhaps there simply wasn’t enough time to coordinate everyone’s story, or maybe they simply, in their usual arrogance, assumed the Fitzpatrick’s investigation would simply be squashed before he was ever able to issue any indictments. If that was the case, they seriously miscalculated:
During one of his initial interviews with the FBI, Libby was shown copies of his own notes showing that as early as June 11 or June 12, 2003, Vice President Cheney was either the first or second person to tell him that Plame was a CIA officer and might have also played a role in sending her husband to Niger. At the time, Wilson had not yet written his New York Times op-ed or put a public face to his allegations, but press reports had already aired Wilson’s account of his trip to Niger without naming him.
Cheney, Libby, Martin, and a score of other White House officials worked together from that point on to discredit Wilson’s allegations, although Cheney and Libby frequently did things without the knowledge of other White House officials, according to the federal grand jury testimony of several of those officials. Those efforts intensified after Wilson’s July 6, 2003 op-ed. The indictment of Libby charges that he lied to the FBI and a federal grand jury to conceal that he had leaked information to journalists that Plame was a CIA officer. […]
In his interviews by the FBI and testimony before the federal grand jury, Libby testified that it was the reporters who told him, and not the other way around, that Plame was a CIA officer. Prosecutors are expected to argue during the trial next week that Libby lied because to tell the truth Libby would have to admit that he leaked classified information and might politically embarrass the White House. But the prosecution may very well subtly make the case that another motive was for Libby to protect his then-boss, Cheney. In private, some federal investigators have asserted that Libby might have lied from the beginning to protect Cheney.
Yes, Scooter Libby is taking the fall for Cheney. The question is, will his trial spark enough interest in Congress to pursue this matter further in an investigation into Cheney’s role? In my humble opinion, assuming Cheney did indeed order Valerie Plame’s CIA status to be disclosed to the media, and thus damaging our national security by harming the CIA’s ability to stymie nuclear proliferation, that action constitutes an impeachable offense. One of many, no doubt, if Congress is ever able to turn over all the rocks under which the Vice President has hidden his dirty little secrets.
More ominous, perhaps, is whether the threat of those potential investigations may be pushing Bush and Cheney to become even more reckless by upping the ante and attacking Iran before Congress has a chance to start issuing subpoenas. Let’s hope (against hope?) for everyone’s sake that doesn’t prove to be the outcome. For when the noose starts to tighten, I fear a desperate man like Dick Cheney is literally capable of anything.
