Author: catnip

Today not only marks the announcement of at least one indictment in the Plame affair – that of Lewis “Scooter” Libby for making false statements as has been widely reported even before Patrick Fitzgerald makes the official announcement this afternoon at 2pm ET. It also marks the beginning of what has to be a strong and relentless campaign by the Democrats and others on the left to make the case that it is not only one or two “bad apples” in the White House who are guilty, it’s also the President and the Vice President.

Bush and Cheney cannot be allowed to distance themselves from Libby and Rove by simply forcing Libby to resign or by having Rove take a leave of absence, which he should rightly do while he is still under investigation in this matter.

The president and the vice president know both of these men well. They have known them and worked with them for many, many years. They know their characters. They know their motives and methods. Bush and Cheney will have no credibility in any attempts they may now make to distance themselves from two of their closest allies. They fostered this culture of corruption and deceit and they allowed this to happen under their watch – just as they did in their tacit approval of torture which they blamed on “a few bad apples”. They are as guilty as Libby and Rove and must not be allowed to skirt any blame or guilt.

If Libby is indicted only on the false statements charge, we cannot fall into the right-wing’s trap of minimizing the importance of such an event. Libby has not operated in a vacuum. Neither has Rove. No one in the White House does. They work in concert and their aim in dealing with their opponents has always been focused on complete destruction.

This administration has been one of the most secretive, nasty, deceptive, irresponsible, power-hungry and vindictive in US history. It cannot sustain that release of poison upon its citizens for an extended period of time without experiencing blowback. Now is the time when they are experiencing what rest of us have been for years – the pain of their own attacks.

Make them feel it.

Consider this week, this day as the unofficial kickoff of Campaign 2006; these “very, very dark days for the White House”, as Andrew Card laments. You can bemoan the fact that some of the Democratic leaders have not been as aggressive as you would have liked in the past. You can stay behind if you like. Or, you can hop on the bus and move forward with the rest of us who are seizing this day as a new beginning. Sometimes, you create revolutions. Sometimes, your foes bring them upon themselves. Regardless, this revolution is moving ahead with or without you. Its time has come.

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Niranjan Ramakrishnan, writing at Counterpunch, reminds us of a very disturbing reality: the fact that many of us hope that prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald will finally be the one to finally convince all Americans that the Bush administration lied its way into the Iraq war and that he will tell us all exactly how it happened.

Despite the fact that most Americans are now opposed to the war and President Bush, many still choose not to hold the Bush administration fully accountable for what it has done. If they did, they would be screaming for their representatives to impeach Bush and Cheney for what they’ve perpetuated: the destruction of Iraq and the deaths and injuries of countless soldiers and civilians – all based on lies.

We see it in congresspeople on both sides who, as Meteor Blades reminds us, still call the war a “mistake”. As he tells us: this was not a mistake, this was a deliberate deception by power-hungry warmongers. Surely there can be no greater outrage than knowing that your country’s leaders have sent its sons and daughters to die over lies.

Yet, here we are on the eve of possible indictments in the Plame affair, after more than 2000 US soldiers have perished in Iraq and the people’s best hope for getting to the bottom of the trail of deceit that led there is one lone prosecutor – Patrick Fitzgerald – because those in power and those in the opposition cannot rock the foundations of the administration hard enough to move them out of DC permanently.

As Counterpunch’s Ramakrishnan, concludes:

So why is this riveting the country’s attention? Because the story follows the familiar theme so beloved of Hollywood and John Grisham — the lone hero struggling against a sinister web of evil, where everything comes down to one last battle on the edge of the cliff . Now playing at a TV set near you: Fitzgerald Against the Machine.

But when institutions have been hollowed out, consigning checks on unbridled power to hopes of individual heroism and goodness, we have doubly arrived, to the promised land of the Reagan revolution, and at the doorstep of the third world.

There is something very broken about a system of government that is unable and unwilling to thoroughly account for how it got itself into an illegal war and that refuses to inform its people and the rest of the world about how it will finally get out.

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The Wall Street Journal (subscription only) adds its voice in Friday’s edition to those at the NYT and WaPo which have both reported that Libby will likely be indicted for making false statements and that Karl Rove is still in serious legal jeopardy, regardless of the fact that Patrick Fitzgerald’s current grand jury ends its term on Friday. Indictments of others involved in the Plame leak case have not been ruled out.

Mr. Rove’s lawyer has tried in recent weeks to persuade Mr. Fitzgerald not to charge his client, and met with the prosecutor as recently as Tuesday to discuss the case.

The potential indictment of Mr. Rove has been considered a nightmare scenario by members of the Republican party,

Welcome to the nightmare the rest of us have been living ever since Bush and Turdblossom took over the country.

In a WSJ companion piece on the leak investigation, “At Root of Leak Probe
Is Prewar Dispute”, reporter Jay Solomon details the rift between the White House and the CIA with the help of two of our regular contributors: Larry Johnson and Col. Patrick Lang.

WASHINGTON — At the root of the investigation into the leaking of the identity of a CIA operative is a feud between the Central Intelligence Agency and the White House over whether top administration officials politicized intelligence information in the buildup to the Iraq war.

With charges likely to be filed as early as today, the ripple effects of that feud are still being felt. The same tension over prewar intelligence that led to the leaking of a CIA operative’s identity also led to finger-pointing between the agency and the White House and contributed to a decision to reorganize the intelligence community and put the CIA under new White House oversight. Dozens of senior CIA analysts and covert operatives, including the No. 2 at the Directorate of Operations — the agency’s clandestine network — have in recent months left the Langley, Va., offices, often to higher wages in the private sector.

Now some intelligence professionals think indictments might help clear the air by effectively penalizing administration aides for intruding into intelligence matters and prompting the White House to tread more carefully. And that, say current and former intelligence officials, might embolden the CIA to be more forceful in its analysis, without fearing information would be twisted.

Any indictments would be a “huge deal … because they will help restore hope that the system works,” said Larry Johnson, a former CIA analyst and counterterrorism official at the State Department.

According the article, there is also growing tension as Bush appointee John Negroponte, Director of the Office of National Intelligence, attempts to reorganize the system by “stripping out some units of the CIA and placing them under his direct control” along with “seeking to institute standard procedures across the intelligence community, such as ways to handle clandestine agents”.

Much displeasure has also been aimed at Porter Goss who has been tasked with overseeing the restructuring of the CIA:

Critics say Mr. Goss brought senior-level aides and an aloof management style that didn’t mesh with the CIA’s culture, and failed to restore the confidence of the U.S.’s principal intelligence body.

The article goes on to look at the history of conflicts between the White House, CIA analysts and former CIA Director George Tenet who claimed the CIA had a “slam dunk” case to invade Iraq.

Responding to the White House’s claims that there was no political pressure on intelligence analysts and professionals before the war to fix the intelligence and that the Fitzgerald investigation may finally prove that there was, Col. Patrick Lang tells the WSJ:

“Many people will feel vindicated,” said Patrick Lang, a former head of human intelligence collection at the Pentagon’s Defense Intelligence Agency, who has regular contact with many active analysts and agents. “There’s a deep sense of satisfaction among those who were pressured [on intelligence issues] but were told not to say they were pressured.”

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Just in…

Rove will not be indicted…remains under investigation…grand jury will ask to extend its term…

more as we get it…

Update [2005-10-27 22:45:35 by catnip]:: Here’s the link to the NYT story which reads:

WASHINGTON, Oct. 27 – Associates of I. Lewis Libby Jr., Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff, expected an indictment on Friday charging him with making false statements to the grand jury in the C.I.A. leak inquiry, lawyers in the case said Thursday.

Karl Rove, President Bush’s senior adviser and deputy chief of staff, will not be charged on Friday, but will remain under investigation, people briefed officially about the case said. As a result, they said, the special counsel in the case, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, was likely to extend the term of the federal grand jury beyond its scheduled expiration on Friday.

As rumors coursed through the capital, Mr. Fitzgerald gave no public signal of how he intends to proceed, further intensifying the anxiety that has gripped the White House and left partisans on both sides of the political aisle holding their breath.

[…]

Administration officials said that the White House would seek to keep as low a profile as possible if indictments were issued; Scott McClellan, the White House press secretary, did not schedule a briefing for Friday, and Mr. Bush plans to leave in the afternoon for a weekend at Camp David.

Note: I heard about this NYT story originally on CNN’s NewsNight show with Aaron Brown who said exactly what I had written: that Libby will be indicted according to the NYT. The NYT article does not actually say as much. I will double-check Brown’s transcript once it’s up. – catnip

[editor’s note, by catnip]: Brown has now read the partial text of the NYT’s article on his show and discussed with WH correspondent John King that the indictment of Libby is “expected”. King says he’s spoken to several collegues of Libby’s tonite and that they too expect him to be indicted but none of them would say for certain.

more updates on the flip side including a statement from Booman, currently on assignment…

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The BBC reports that Israel’s Prime Minister Ariel Sharon wants Iran expelled from the UN after Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad called for Israel to be “wiped off the map”. Probably not a smart move on Iran’s part.

Sharon also said, “A country calling for the destruction of another people cannot be a member of the UN”.

Pot. Kettle. Black.

EU leaders stated, “Calls for violence, and for the destruction of any state, are manifestly inconsistent with any claim to be a mature and responsible member of the international community”.

Pot. Kettle. Black. on the part of some of those countries too.

Here are some past quotes from George W Bush about Saddam Hussein, the GWOT and the Iraq war:

Our nation is somewhat sad, but we’re angry. There’s a certain level of blood lust, but we won’t let it drive our reaction. We’re steady, clear-eyed and patient, but pretty soon we’ll have to start displaying scalps.

For all who love freedom and peace, the world without Saddam Hussein’s regime is a better and safer place.

Every nation in every region now has a decision to make. Either you are with us, or you are with the terrorists.

I just want you to know that, when we talk about war, we’re really talking about peace.

All told, more than 3,000 suspected terrorists have been arrested in many countries. Many others have met a different fate. Let’s put it this way — they are no longer a problem to the United States and our friends and allies.

There’s just something very disgusting about hypocrisy, isn’t there? I don’t recall Sharon and the EU leaders calling for the US to be expelled from the UN.

Surprisingly, or maybe less so since the Bush administration used the same kind of rhetoric in the past, the US is not backing the call for Iran’s expulsion from the UN.

“Iran is a member of the United Nations,” State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said. “What I think we would encourage instead is Iran to start behaving in a responsible manner as a member of the international community.”

Pot. Kettle. Black.

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