So-called "Liberal Media" BENDS OVER BACKWARDS to NOT ask the question:
Does Bush "WANT TO INSPIRE Terrorist Attacks against the USA"??
There. Eric Alterman actually asks the most truly important question left in "Through the Looking Glass" America-land....
The BIG QUESTION IS; does President Bush
<< WANT to INSPIRE TERRORIST ATTACKS AGAINST AMERICA?>>
This is right up there with "Did the US Slave States want SLAVE KINGS to launch SLAVE-RAID WARS on their neighboring African states, so to seize slaves?" Yep, scratch the Hard-Right neo-confederate view of things, "FREEDOM" means "slavery," "Rights" means NO RIGHTS for ANYONE except plantation-lord billionaires; "PEACE" means endless war, and "DEFENDING AMURICA" means "provoking MORE HATRED AND WARS and violence."
Now I realize that this important question was asked as
#1. a rhetorical question by an
#2. un-named former Republican staffer/official; and
#3. quoted as a paraphrase;
#4. by a genuine "liberal" reporter, ERIC ALTERMAN,
#5. and isn't even the centerpiece of this particular Op-ed....
...yet none-the-less, this is a question that ADDRESSES THE FACTS, and in its beautiful, stark simplicity ANSWERS EVERYTHING: DO the Righties who make up the Bush-Cheney agenda (namely bush, cheney, rumsfeld, and their billionaire to-the-right-of-the-John-Birch-Society Texas oilmen backers) WANT TO ENCOURAGE TERROR ATTACKS ON AMERICA?
The only sane answer is "YES." Of COURSE the Righties want to ENCOURAGE TERROR ATTACKS on America! They've ALREADY DONE IT!
Cheney and Bush IGNORED the threat of TERROR ATTACKS in the Summer of 2001, EVEN AS Attorney General Ashcroft STOPPED FLYING ON PUBLIC AIRLINERS due to a "terrorist threat assessment" from the FBI!
EVEN AS the Bush White House/US govt. was giving the Taliban its celebrated Mafia-eque "silver or lead" deal: either allow a US pipeline through Afghanistan, or face US bombs!" (The Bush-administration had a built-in excuse to BOMB Afghanistan: President Clinton had ALREADY sent cruise-missiles against Al Qaida training camps in Taliban Afghanistan, in retaliation for Al Qaida's simultaneous bombings of 2 US embassies in Africa.)
Here's the CBS page for the TERROR THREAT ASSESSMENT that the nation's TOP LAW ENFORCEMENT HONCHO (that would have been Atty. Gen. Ashcroft) COULDN'T BOTHER to EXTEND to the American traveling public that HE WAS PLEDGED TO PROTECT! http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2001/07/26/national/main303601.shtml
THAT is like ROLLING OUT A RED CARPET for bin Laden!
THAT is like waving a red-cape in front of a wounded, angry bull!
And all that was BEFORE photos of US TORTURE and HUMILIATION of Iraqi prisoners MADE WORLD NEWS, BEFORE photographs of children wounded by US bombs, guns, and war flooded the Muslim world.
Now a good, Red-State A'murican voter might ask, "Why would Cheney and Bush WANT TERRORISTS to ATTACK AMERICA?"
and the answer is obvious: 9-11 is THE BEST THING THAT HAPPENED to the Bush administration, it turned them from ONE-TERM LOSERS into "THE WAR PRESIDENT"; and banging the drum of "NATIONAL SECURITY" and secrecy in "the War on Terra!", the Bush-DeLay Republicans turned the Congress into an EXTORTION MACHINE, first LOOTING THE TREASURY of everything that was in it, and then (as if trillions of loot wasn't enough), "LEANING" on major corporations, "GIVE US good coverage, and campaign donations, and we will cut you HUGE TAX BREAKS that middle-class Americans must pay back in future taxes and interest on the deficits." Looting the US Treasury, Leaning on US corporations, "fixing" the news, and throwing EVERYTHING under a blanket of life-or-death secrecy and absolute powers: Nice work, if you can get it.
<<< And I was talking to a former Assistant Secretary of State for the Middle East (under a Republican administration) last night at a cocktail party and his position on Hersh was, “Who the hell knows with these people?” It could be a bluff, as it would be with any sensible, remotely responsible administration, but then again, if they WANT TO INSPIRE COUNTLESS TERRORIST ATTACKS AGAINST the United States and kill all these people, a little thing like reality is not going to stop them. >>
And we remind yet again: IF Bush-Cheney ROLLED OUT THE RED CARPET for Al Qaida's September 11, 2001 attack, THEY ARE DOING IT AGAIN: Look at all the "D's" and "Fs" - FAILURES! - on the 9-11 Commission Final Report on Dending America from FUTURE Terror attacks!
http://www.9-11pdp.org/press/2005-12-05_summary.pdf
(The Washington Post's take on the above appalling "final report" grades here:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/05/AR2005120500097.html )
___________________________________________
Bonus: How the Right spins their "major media" 'news' for the above Bush/neo-con agenda... by claiming that "liberals' HATE AMERICA!
That's right... for wanting to keep the LEAD out of our children's lungs, and the MERCURY out of their brains; for wanting the US to move PAST its gluttonous OIL ADDICTION instead of cheap, sleazy profits for the Oil robber-barons; for wanting PUBLIC EDUCATION, through college, for any American young adults who want it; for wanting HEALTH CARE for those 40 MILLION Americans who HAVE NONE; for wanting American made cars to be as GOOD AS the import competition; for wanting GOOD AMERICAN JOBS that will PAY ENOUGH to raise a family; for wanting the SEC to CRACK DOWN ON THE REAL CRIMINALS (fraud-meisters Enron-Ken Lay and Global Crossing, etc) instead of sham kangaroo courts against Martha Stewart ("dumped" a lousy $55,000 in stock in a company SHE HAD ZERO control over); for wanting American "news" corporations to REPORT HONEST NEWS, instead of karl rove's latest "SMEAR ANOTHER COMBAT WAR-WOUNDED VETERAN"; for wanting blue skies, green forests, and clean water we "liberals" OBVIOUSLY HATE America!
<< That is right up until the very last moment when, after someone brought up the question of the whether the Democrats will be able to present an effective alternative to Bush in the next election, Joe Klein shouted out, “Well they won’t if their message is that they hate America—which is what has been the message of the liberal wing of the party for the past twenty years.” >>
(Note: joe klein, like time russert and chris mathews, may at ONE TIME have been a "liberal", but all three of these "major media 'news' whores MADE FORTUNES off of Monica-gate: Russert and Mathews launched their cable 'news' shows catering to cable TV's incessant 24/7 demand for "MONICA MONICA MONICA" (or, as Bartcop puts it in his terrific little Russert video-thingy, "Clinton's Cock, Clinton's Cock, Clinton's Cock...") and joe klein wrote the book/later movie "Primary Colors," about how a womanizing gov. and his shrew wife of a redneck state won the White House. Notably in the movie, klein switched the real-life suicide of Vince Foster, traumatized over the Righties and news 'sharks' such as these three, trying to make a MAJOR SCANDAL our of "Travel-gate"- the Clinton's FIRING the Bush-friendly Travel Office staff, into the suicide of the the Gov's (played by John Travolta) closest political advisor, who is upset that the gov. and his wife would stoop to using COCAINE-use stories by their primary opponent. The whole "TRAVEL-GATE 'scandal' reminds us of how Repuglicans can turn NON SCANDALS into SCANDALS: travel-gate; Whitewater; Lincoln-bedroom; pardon-gate; White House trashing; while giving a Republican Administration a FREE PASS for TORTURE, kangaroo courts; LIES TO WAR; OUTING an entire CIA undercover operation as political revenge; extortion-bribery-corruption in Congress; GROSS incompetence, cronyism, and corruption re Katrina hurricane disaster management and rebuilding; and even a Macho Gay Hooker getting MIDNIGHT, OVERNIGHT PASSES into the Bush White House!
http://rawstory.rawprint.com/0405/guckert_access_a1.php
"Liberal Media Bias" MY ASS!! Do ya think if Gay Whore JEFF GANON/Jim Guckert got ONE TENTH of the slobering MEDIA ATTENTION that CHRIS MATHEWS, TIM RUSSERT, and JOE KLEIN gave to MONICA, that Bush would STILL be in the 34% approval range..??!!!
(White House SECRET SERVICE RECORDS requested, Freedom Of Information Act, re Ganon/Guckert's late-night visits to White House.
HANKY PANKY in the White House??? Bush-Repuglicans DON'T WANT TO KNOW!
Speaking of "Sexual Services Rendered" and "Republicans DON'T Want to Know", why here is Chris Mathews caught in "NINE ass-kissing Moments."
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/cenk-uygur/nine-ass-kissing-moments-_b_17077.html
Which is, alas, only the tip of the iceberg of the Mathews/Russert/Joe Klein efforts to portray themselves as "moderate" or even "liberal", while actually signing on the the Radical Right neo-con agenda of "wars, death squads, and suspect elections today, tomorrow, and forever!" (As author Cenk Uygur points out, the above "Nine Ass-Kissing Moments" come from A SINGLE Chris Mathews interview.)
________________________________________________
Believe it This Time, Buster!
Eric Alterman
• April 11, 2006
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12251928/#Time
My friend Fred Kaplan can’t bring himself to believe that the Cheney administration is, pick your adjective (sufficiently crazy, irresponsible, evil, uncaring about human life, happy to encourage terrorism against the United States, whatever) to launch a pre-emptive nuclear war against Iran. He writes:
Or maybe there's no gamesmanship going on here, maybe Hersh [which is here by the way]
[http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/060417fa_fact]
is simply reporting on a nuclear war plan that President Bush is really, seriously considering, a "juggernaut" that might not be stopped. If it's as straightforward as that, we're in deeper trouble than most of us have imagined.
I recall that Fred has publicly acknowledged his inability to judge the awfulness of this administration in deciding whether to support war in Iraq. Isn’t it about time we all stopped underestimating these people? Bush called it “wild speculation.” What was it called when anyone speculated that Cheney, much less Bush might be behind the anti-Plame leak, here?
And I was talking to a former Assistant Secretary of State for the Middle East (under a Republican administration) last night at a cocktail party and his position on Hersh was, “Who the hell knows with these people?” It could be a bluff, as it would be with any sensible, remotely responsible administration, but then again, if they want to inspire countless terrorist attacks against the United States and kill all these people, a little thing like reality is not going to stop them. (I paraphrase.)
This just in: I went to a breakfast this morning sponsored by HBO and the Council on Foreign Relations where Tina Brown interviewed Julia Sweig, author of Friendly Fire: Losing Friends and Making Enemies in the Anti-American Century, here, before a small gathering of media and foreign policy bigwigs. Sweig, a Latin America specialist, has written a subtle, historically-informed study about the phenomenon in which she sought to distinguish between those aspects that are structural and destined to plague our relations with the rest of the world as long as we are the world’s only superpower—which actually, is not as long as it sounds—and those aspects which are purely the fault of the incompetence, malevolence, dishonesty, etc. of the Bush administration. It was a useful discussion with many useful tributaries and give and take with the audience and we all felt better for it.
That is right up until the very last moment when, after someone brought up the question of the whether the Democrats will be able to present an effective alternative to Bush in the next election, Joe Klein shouted out, “Well they won’t if their message is that they hate America—which is what has been the message of the liberal wing of the party for the past twenty years.”
Excuse me, but I think this is worth some attention. It’s not about Klein per se, who after all, is best known to most Americans as the guy who lost his job at both Newsweek and CBS News for purposely misleading editors, readers and viewers in order to increase his own personal profit as the allegedly “anonymous” author of “Primary Colors.” (He also [classily] attacked the reputation of the linguist who figured out his identity in New York Magazine.) What is important, however, is the fact that Time is America’s highest circulation newsweekly. And since it fired Margaret Carlson, Joe Klein, believe it or not, is its most liberal columnist. That’s right. The most liberal columnist at the America’s largest weekly newsmagazine pretends that the message of liberals for the past twenty years has been that they “hate America,” just as if he were reading from talking points issued by Karl Rove, Rush Limbaugh or Ann Coulter. (Don’t get me started.)
Once again I am forced to say, “What the hell is going on here?” How about a little noise in the blogosophere politely asking Time to hire a genuinely liberal columnist? (Newsweek has three Jon Alter, Eleanor Clift and Anna Quindlen.) My nomination would be Josh Marshall, but that’s not important. What matters is that the magazine has four million readers and sets the agenda for much of the media, globally. And it not only won’t allow any liberals in the door, it continuously slanders them, both in its cover stories and in its columns. Forty-seven percent of Americans strongly oppose George Bush. Twenty nine percent say he deserves to be impeached. And yet these many tens of millions of people are treated with complete contempt by the pundits who are invited to determine the course of the political discourse. Why do we have to take this lying down? The address for letters to the editor is letters@time.com. [permalink]
posted by verifi at 6:27 AM 0 comments
Tuesday, April 11, 2006
Cowardly Bush:
Snivelling, whining, crying George W. Bush blames.... blames BILL CLINTON for 9-11 ??
The OUTRAGE!
NOTHING illustrates Pres. Bush's casual arrogance or sense of entitlement than watching him even IMAGINE going before TV cameras to say that it was "the previous administration" (read, "'that traitor rapist'/'rapist traitor' BILL CLINTON!") that was responsible for the destruction and terror of 9-11 attacks.
Video and audio catches COWARDLY Bush BLAMING "foreign polices of the past" for 9-11 attacks:
NEVER MIND that that President Bush, after stealing the election of 2000, spent THE ENTIRE MONTH OF AUGUST 2001 ON VACATION, ** IGNORING ** FBI, CIA, and his own "Counter Terror Czar's" "BLINKING RED WARNINGS" that Osama bin Laden's Al Qaida was looking to TOP their SUCCESSFUL October 2000 suicide bomb attack on a US warship (the USS Cole, in a Yemen harbor), with an even bolder, larger attack ON AMERICAN SOIL. (When bin Laden's bombers attacked and almost sank the Cole, Mr.Bush WAS ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL, SURROUNDED by all his "EXPERT" national security advisors, including Condi Rice, Don Rumsfeld, and Dick Cheney, both of whom had been Secretaries of Defense)
The MP-3 download of these Bush comments is available at the Ed Schultz radio show... CrooksAndLiars and other video-capture sites might have it as well. These comments from the first 2 minutes of this MP-3 segment, the Ed Schultz telephone interview with Senator Boxer: MP-3:
http://audio.wegoted.com/podcasting/41006Boxer.mp3
Ed Schultz: << You know on the Ed Schultz show we have our 10 rules, [one of the top 2 or 3 is "It is ALWAYS CLINTON's FAULT!"...]
The president, we've GOT to play this [on air]
...!
IF this isn't the BLAME GAME I don't know what is, you heard the president earlier in this prorgram, [before, in an earlier sound cut] he was laughing and jovial. Bush has these mood swings, listen to how pissed off he sounds in THIS comment talking about foreign policies of the past, before HE became president. This is unbelievable. Here it is:
[President Bush in a video speech 4-10-06 ]
<< And our foreign policy PRIOR TO MY ARRIVAL was 'IF IT SEEMS OK, LEAVE IT ALONE,' in other words if it's nice and placid out there on the surface, you know, "its OK, just let it sit." But unfortunately, beneath the surface was, was [sic] RESENTMENT and HATRED, and, that kind of resentment and hatred provided ah..ah, ample recruitment, fertile grounds for recruiting, people who came and killed over 3,000 of our citizens. >>
____________________________________
NOTHING better illustrates how COWARDLY and LYING Mr. Bush is, nor how COMPLETE the Bush-GOP ** CONTROL ** of the media is, than the fact that HE CAN even THINK about BLAMING CLINTON for the devastation of the 9-11 attacks, when;
#1. Clinton TRIED to kill bin Laden after the Africa Embassy COORDINATED bombings, but he (Clinton) was accused by TRAITOROUS Republicans of "wagging the dog," as if a blow-job from a girlfriend is MORE IMPORTANT THAN Bin LADEN BOMBING US EMBASSIES....
#2. Clinton and his ENTIRE top national security team, including outgoing Nat. Security Advisor Sandy Berger, TRIED to tell the incoming Bush people, including Nat. Security Advisor designate CONDOLEEZA RICE, that ** al QAIDA TERROR WOULD BE THE USA's NUMBER ONE THREAT in the future....***
#3. The HART-RUDMAN Commission on NATIONAL SECURITY PREDICTED that a HIJACKING would be the most probable means of a terror attack on America; which conclusion was SECONDED by another commission, THE GORE COMMISSION on AIRLINE SAFETY; and
#4. Bush had gone to the Genoa, Italy G-8 economic summit, WHERE ITALIAN f***ing POLICE stationed SURFACE TO AIR MISSILES AROUND THE CITY, because Al Qaida HAD THREATENED TO MAKE AN ATTACK ON THE SUMMIT !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!;
#5. Attorney General John Ashcroft had STOPPED FLYING PUBLIC AIRLINERS, citing an FB "TERRORIST THREAT ASSESMENT" against his person should he continue to fly PUBLIC airliners as Janet Reno had for her entire term as AG.
And then there is the little problem of all those ** Ds and Fs ** on the Final Report of the 9-11 Commission, released within the past 3 or 4 weeks...
Mr. Cowardly, ACCEPT NO PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY for ANYTHING President Bush, is THAT - the FAILING grades for CURRENT counter-terror preparations - ALSO the fault of "PREVIOUS ADMINISTRATIONS" ????
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/12/05/AR2005120500097.html
one-page PDF summary of FAILING and "D" grades for CURRENT counter-terror PREPARATIONS, Dec. 2005, Final Report of 9-11 Commission:
http://www.9-11pdp.org/press/2005-12-05_summary.pdf
And finally, there is the little problem of Mr. Bush's own words "RESENTMENT and HATRED" boiling just below surface, RESENTMENT and "HATRED" that will motivate people to become anti-American terrorists. The question is, "IS THERE MORE, or LESS, "resentment and hatred" in the Muslim world AFTER the invasion of Iraq, or BEFORE?
I belive the vast majority of observers in the world will agree, the United States has given potential enemies BUCKETS of "resentment" to recruit terrorists, SINCE the US invasion of Iraq, and all the bombings, raids, and torture since then - ALL under THE DIRECT COMMAND of President George W. Bush.
To be a bush supporter, you MUST feel that some people deserve to be impeached or tried for criminal conduct, and then when the vast preponderance of evidence points to the president and his staff and Republican Congress as guilty for that very conduct, you STILL want to HANG SOMEONE ELSE.
posted by verifi at 12:00 PM 0 comments
Sunday, April 09, 2006
DID BUSH LIE to INVESTIGATORS?
The great Robert Parry, among the small handful of reporters who broke the Iran-Contra story in the 1980s, is once again speaking "truth to power" in a manner that makes 95% of America's journalists and "news" reporters look like diletantes by comparison.
Parry is at it again, exposing the can of worms that the son of President George H.W. Bush has enmeshed himself in, that is, the role President George W. Bush has played in Libby-Cheney-Rovegate "OUTING" of an undercover CIA operative, AND HER ENTIRE UNDERCOVER CIA OPERATION (Brewster Jennings Co.), as a means for the Bush White House to demean and discredit (aka "smear") a vocal critic of the Bush-Cheney march to war. Veteran CIA officer Larry Johnson (cited at bottom of this post) explains how PREMEDITATED and CONSPIRATORIAL President Bush and Vice President Cheney's MARCH TO WAR truly was, and how the effort to SMEAR Ambassador Joe Wilson was also PREMEDITATED and ORCHESTRATED by President Bush and Vice President Cheney. It was a high-stakes example of President George W. Bush reprising his role as frat-house president, BLACKBALLING a hapless pledge. However, while President Bush may have been reverting to an old role, the stakes this time were much, much higher: instead of a hapless pledge being scorned and forced to attend another fraternity or do without the Greek system, the President and his staff LIED the nation into war, and engaged on a Jihad or Vendetta against any high-placed war critics who could vocally and articulately CONFRONT the president's rationals for war.
All the above is merely the SET-UP for Mr. Parry's latest article: As Justice Department prosecutors INVESTIGATED the ILLEGAL "outing" of an undercover CIA officer - AND HER ENTIRE COVER ORGANIZATION - the Bush White House went into full "delay, distort, cover, and whitewash" mode, denying that any crime had occurred, and stonewalling investigators as to wether any such White House effort to discredit Ambassador Wilson by "outing" his wife even existed.
The Bush White House's STONEWALLING efforts were successful, delaying any indictments or scandal from breaking out past the 2004 election, which Pres. Bush 'won' with a narrow 1% popular vote margin (49% vs 49% for Dem. Senator John Kerry), which almost certainly would have been closer (or reversed) had the nation's newspapers and 'news' media been publishing exposes, questions, and scandal headlines about a possibly criminal conspiracy to "out" an undercover CIA operative by White House officials. Indeed, the NEW YORK TIMES was cooperating with the White House, telling's its reporters (including Judith Miller) NOT to publish stories that would have more forcefully explained the ACTIVE ROLE the White House and senior White House officials had in contacting Times' reporters TO "mention" Valerie Plame's undercover CIA status.
______________________________________________
Did Bush Lie to Fitzgerald?
By Robert Parry
April 7, 2006
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2006/040706.html
Lewis Libby’s testimony identifying George W. Bush as the top official who authorized the leaking of intelligence about Iraq’s alleged nuclear weapons program raises two key questions: What did the President tell the special prosecutor about this issue in 2004 and what is Bush’s legal status in the federal criminal probe?
Bush’s legal danger came into clearer focus with the release of a court document citing testimony from Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff who claimed that Bush approved the selective release of intelligence in July 2003 to counter growing complaints that Bush had hyped evidence on Iraq’s pursuit of enriched uranium.
Libby, who is facing a five-count federal indictment, testified that he was told by Cheney that Bush had approved a plan in which Libby would tell a specific New York Times reporter about the CIA’s secret analysis, according to a court filing by special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald dated April 5.
_______________________________________________
George Bush, A Slam Dunk Liar
by
Larry C Johnson
April 7, 2006
http://noquarter.typepad.com
Today's Washington Post has a genuine barn burner of an article that settles the case that George Bush deserves impeachment. He lied to the American people and the world during his 2003 State of the Union Address when he claimed that:
“The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa .”
Up to this point the Bush apologists tried to argue he did not lie, but was simply reporting what the intelligence community was telling him. Now we know--HE LIED.
The Senate Intelligence Committee already has reported that the White House was warned not to use the Niger info. Now, according to the Washington Post, we learn that President Bush was warned specifically by the CIA in January, just a few weeks before the State of the Union, that the Niger story was not true.
Specifically, the story by Gellman and Linzer notes:
After that, the Pentagon asked for an authoritative judgment from the National Intelligence Council, the senior coordinating body for the 15 agencies that then constituted the U.S. intelligence community. Did Iraq and Niger discuss a uranium sale, or not? If they had, the Pentagon would need to reconsider its ties with Niger. The council's reply, drafted in a January 2003 memo by the national intelligence officer for Africa, was unequivocal: The Niger story was baseless and should be laid to rest. Four U.S. officials with firsthand knowledge said in interviews that the memo, which has not been reported before, arrived at the White House as Bush and his highest-ranking advisers made the uranium story a centerpiece of their case for the rapidly approaching war against Iraq.
The White House and Republican National Committee spin has been exposed now as a bald face lie. The CIA did not tell the President it was okay to say this. The told him it was wrong. What is it, Mr. President, about "baseless" that you do not understand?
And yet, despite being told by the CIA that the story was false, George Bush used the info in his State of the Union to build support for war. There is now no reason for any person of integrity to accuse Joe Wilson of lying. Moreover, the latest revelations, obtained from Patrick Fitzgerald's response to a filing by Scooter Libby's lawyers, show that there was an organized effort that included George Bush and Dick Cheney to smear Joe Wilson. Making matters worse, their effort ultimately exposed Valerie Wilson as an undercover CIA officer. Mr. Bush, have you no shame?
Instead of admitting their error, George Bush and Dick Cheney defamed Joe Wilson, destroyed Valerie's ability to serve as a clandestine CIA operative, and exposed a CIA front company. Why? Because Joe Wilson dared to tell the truth. God save us when our leaders decide to punish a citizen for telling the truth. And, at the end of the day, the President used these lies to take us to war. The survivors of the 2400 Americans who have died in Iraq deserve better from their President. I pray our members of Congress find the courage to punish the President and the Vice President for violating the trust the American people invested in them.
Posted by Larry Johnson on April 09, 2006 at 03:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)
April 06, 2006
George W. Bush, Rogue President
by
Larry C Johnson
If you saw Cameron's version of TITANIC, I am sure you recall the scene just after the ship disappeared below the surface and the heroine, Rose, was grabbed and forced underwater by another passenger who couldn't swim. Today, Scooter Libby was that passenger and George W. Bush is Rose. Only in this case, there is nothing heroic about George W. Bush. In fact, Bush is a coward.
It is important to put the chronology of the dispute about what the President knew about Iraq and its effort to get uranium and when he knew it in its proper order. First, the October 2002 NIE was issued with the following key judgements that clearly established there was no, REPEAT NO, consensus on Iraq's efforts to acquire nuclear weapons:
How quickly Iraq will obtain its first nuclear weapon depends on when it acquires sufficient weapons-grade fissile material.
* If Baghdad acquires sufficient fissile material from abroad it could make a nuclear weapon within several months to a year.
* Without such material from abroad, Iraq probably would not be able to make a weapon until 2007 to 2009, owing to inexperience in building and operating centrifuge facilities to produce highly enriched uranium and challenges in procuring the necessary equipment and expertise.
Continue reading "George W. Bush, Rogue President" »
http://noquarter.typepad.com/my_weblog/2006/04/george_w_bush_r.html#more
posted by verifi at 5:32 AM 0 comments
DID BUSH LIE to INVESTIGATORS?
The great Robert Parry, among the small handful of reporters who broke the Iran-Contra story in the 1980s, is once again speaking "truth to power" in a manner that makes 95% of America's journalists and "news" reporters look like diletantes by comparison.
Parry is at it again, exposing the can of worms that the son of President George H.W. Bush has enmeshed himself in, that is, the role President George W. Bush has played in Libby-Cheney-Rovegate "OUTING" of an undercover CIA operative, AND HER ENTIRE UNDERCOVER CIA OPERATION (Brewster Jennings Co.), as a means for the Bush White House to demean and discredit (aka "smear") a vocal critic of the Bush-Cheney march to war. Veteran CIA officer Larry Johnson (cited at bottom of this post) explains how PREMEDITATED and CONSPIRATORIAL President Bush and Vice President Cheney's MARCH TO WAR truly was, and how the effort to SMEAR Ambassador Joe Wilson was also PREMEDITATED and ORCHESTRATED by President Bush and Vice President Cheney. It was a high-stakes example of President George W. Bush reprising his role as frat-house president, BLACKBALLING a hapless pledge. However, while President Bush may have been reverting to an old role, the stakes this time were much, much higher: instead of a hapless pledge being scorned and forced to attend another fraternity or do without the Greek system, the President and his staff LIED the nation into war, and engaged on a Jihad or Vendetta against any high-placed war critics who could vocally and articulately CONFRONT the president's rationals for war.
All the above is merely the SET-UP for Mr. Parry's latest article: As Justice Department prosecutors INVESTIGATED the ILLEGAL "outing" of an undercover CIA officer - AND HER ENTIRE COVER ORGANIZATION - the Bush White House went into full "delay, distort, cover, and whitewash" mode, denying that any crime had occurred, and stonewalling investigators as to wether any such White House effort to discredit Ambassador Wilson by "outing" his wife even existed.
The Bush White House's STONEWALLING efforts were successful, delaying any indictments or scandal from breaking out past the 2004 election, which Pres. Bush 'won' with a narrow 1% popular vote margin (49% vs 49% for Dem. Senator John Kerry), which almost certainly would have been closer (or reversed) had the nation's newspapers and 'news' media been publishing exposes, questions, and scandal headlines about a possibly criminal conspiracy to "out" an undercover CIA operative by White House officials. Indeed, the NEW YORK TIMES was cooperating with the White House, telling's its reporters (including Judith Miller) NOT to publish stories that would have more forcefully explained the ACTIVE ROLE the White House and senior White House officials had in contacting Times' reporters TO "mention" Valerie Plame's undercover CIA status.
______________________________________________
Did Bush Lie to Fitzgerald?
By Robert Parry
April 7, 2006
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2006/040706.html
Lewis Libby’s testimony identifying George W. Bush as the top official who authorized the leaking of intelligence about Iraq’s alleged nuclear weapons program raises two key questions: What did the President tell the special prosecutor about this issue in 2004 and what is Bush’s legal status in the federal criminal probe?
Bush’s legal danger came into clearer focus with the release of a court document citing testimony from Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney’s former chief of staff who claimed that Bush approved the selective release of intelligence in July 2003 to counter growing complaints that Bush had hyped evidence on Iraq’s pursuit of enriched uranium.
Libby, who is facing a five-count federal indictment, testified that he was told by Cheney that Bush had approved a plan in which Libby would tell a specific New York Times reporter about the CIA’s secret analysis, according to a court filing by special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald dated April 5.
_______________________________________________
George Bush, A Slam Dunk Liar
by
Larry C Johnson
April 7, 2006
http://noquarter.typepad.com
Today's Washington Post has a genuine barn burner of an article that settles the case that George Bush deserves impeachment. He lied to the American people and the world during his 2003 State of the Union Address when he claimed that:
“The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa .”
Up to this point the Bush apologists tried to argue he did not lie, but was simply reporting what the intelligence community was telling him. Now we know--HE LIED.
The Senate Intelligence Committee already has reported that the White House was warned not to use the Niger info. Now, according to the Washington Post, we learn that President Bush was warned specifically by the CIA in January, just a few weeks before the State of the Union, that the Niger story was not true.
Specifically, the story by Gellman and Linzer notes:
After that, the Pentagon asked for an authoritative judgment from the National Intelligence Council, the senior coordinating body for the 15 agencies that then constituted the U.S. intelligence community. Did Iraq and Niger discuss a uranium sale, or not? If they had, the Pentagon would need to reconsider its ties with Niger. The council's reply, drafted in a January 2003 memo by the national intelligence officer for Africa, was unequivocal: The Niger story was baseless and should be laid to rest. Four U.S. officials with firsthand knowledge said in interviews that the memo, which has not been reported before, arrived at the White House as Bush and his highest-ranking advisers made the uranium story a centerpiece of their case for the rapidly approaching war against Iraq.
The White House and Republican National Committee spin has been exposed now as a bald face lie. The CIA did not tell the President it was okay to say this. The told him it was wrong. What is it, Mr. President, about "baseless" that you do not understand?
And yet, despite being told by the CIA that the story was false, George Bush used the info in his State of the Union to build support for war. There is now no reason for any person of integrity to accuse Joe Wilson of lying. Moreover, the latest revelations, obtained from Patrick Fitzgerald's response to a filing by Scooter Libby's lawyers, show that there was an organized effort that included George Bush and Dick Cheney to smear Joe Wilson. Making matters worse, their effort ultimately exposed Valerie Wilson as an undercover CIA officer. Mr. Bush, have you no shame?
Instead of admitting their error, George Bush and Dick Cheney defamed Joe Wilson, destroyed Valerie's ability to serve as a clandestine CIA operative, and exposed a CIA front company. Why? Because Joe Wilson dared to tell the truth. God save us when our leaders decide to punish a citizen for telling the truth. And, at the end of the day, the President used these lies to take us to war. The survivors of the 2400 Americans who have died in Iraq deserve better from their President. I pray our members of Congress find the courage to punish the President and the Vice President for violating the trust the American people invested in them.
Posted by Larry Johnson on April 09, 2006 at 03:05 AM | Permalink | Comments (4) | TrackBack (0)
April 06, 2006
George W. Bush, Rogue President
by
Larry C Johnson
If you saw Cameron's version of TITANIC, I am sure you recall the scene just after the ship disappeared below the surface and the heroine, Rose, was grabbed and forced underwater by another passenger who couldn't swim. Today, Scooter Libby was that passenger and George W. Bush is Rose. Only in this case, there is nothing heroic about George W. Bush. In fact, Bush is a coward.
It is important to put the chronology of the dispute about what the President knew about Iraq and its effort to get uranium and when he knew it in its proper order. First, the October 2002 NIE was issued with the following key judgements that clearly established there was no, REPEAT NO, consensus on Iraq's efforts to acquire nuclear weapons:
How quickly Iraq will obtain its first nuclear weapon depends on when it acquires sufficient weapons-grade fissile material.
* If Baghdad acquires sufficient fissile material from abroad it could make a nuclear weapon within several months to a year.
* Without such material from abroad, Iraq probably would not be able to make a weapon until 2007 to 2009, owing to inexperience in building and operating centrifuge facilities to produce highly enriched uranium and challenges in procuring the necessary equipment and expertise.
Continue reading "George W. Bush, Rogue President" »
http://noquarter.typepad.com/my_weblog/2006/04/george_w_bush_r.html#more
posted by verifi at 5:32 AM 0 comments
Saturday, April 08, 2006
The Bushes: A Hereditary Trait for Treason? Surely Not!
[It just seems to keep recurring in the family.... ed]
<< Any student of hereditary traits might conclude that one or more of GHW Bush's kids would have a tendency towards treason. Sure enough, his eldest son is now suspected of having authorized leaks of 'previously classified' material (aka 'material hurriedly declassified so you can use it to cover your ass, regardless of whom or what it threatens') very possibly including the identity of a CIA agent. Revealing a CIA agent's identity is illegal because it gives aid and comfort to the enemy by informing him that all the other people that person has dealings with may be threats to him. That's why officially it's an act of treason. Especially in time of war, a state in which we are currently residing. Such treason would for ordinary folks be punishable by death - and quite properly so. But GW Bush is a Skull and Bones man, so, well...you get the drift... >>
This essay by Tony Hendra doesn't even examine the WET BLANKET the administration has thrown on the ANTHRAX TERROR ATTACK investigation, or the gross dereliction of duty leading up to the 9-11 attacks (President Bush putting a MUCH HIGHER PRIORITY on photo-ops and Republican fundraisers through the hot summer of August 2001, rather than CIA and FBI warnings, and his own "Counter-Terror Czar" Richard Clarke, who were all proclaiming the threat of "bin Laden DETERMINED TO ATTACK IN AMERICA", a warning produced within 6 months of the SUCCESSFUL Al Qaida attack on the USS Cole warship in a Yemen harbor by suicide bombers.
The Bushes: A Hereditary Trait for Treason? Surely Not!
by Tony Hendra
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/tony-hendra/the-bushes-a-hereditary-_b_18728.htmlThree case studies:
1.
Prescott Bush (Senator (R) Conn. 1952-1963)
Like many US and UK bankers, Prescott Sheldon Bush, patriarch of the Bush clan, and partner in Brown Brothers Harriman, self-described as 'the world's largest private bank', grew rich in the 1930s, profiteering from Hitler's rise. His closest contact inside the Nazi war-machine was one Fritz Thyssen director (and scion) of a coal-and-steel empire central to the rearmament of Germany.
Unlike many fellow bankers, Prescott continued to reap profits from his German industrial interests after the invasion of Poland in 1939 - technically no crime but morally repugnant to me since the Luftwaffe he was helping bankroll were dropping bombs on my parents, and soon, me. Good old Prescott kept nuzzling up to the Nazis all the way to August 1942, eight months after the US declaration of war in Dec 1941, a blatant violation of the Trading with the Enemy Act. In a word, treason.
Treason in time of war would, for ordinary folks, be punishable by death. Prescott escaped having his scrawny neck stretched because you don't top a Skull-and-Bones man. (Id est, you don't turn a Skull and Bones man into skull and bones). It helped that Presky was soon cooperating with the brand-new US intelligence services ratting out his former Nazi pals. Thus exhibiting another congenital Bush trait: nuzzling up to genocidal killers during their rise, then at the right moment turning on them and coming off smelling like roses.
Old Presky never smelt much like roses. It's suspected - no paper trail survived to prove it, natch - that he continued until war's end to profit from dealings with the enemy. Odd if not, that he emerged from the war even wealthier than he went in, thus founding the Bush family fortune. Any way you cut it, that ain't blue-blood money. Just blood money.
2.
George H.W. Bush (US President 1988-1992)
As Vice-President, Prescott's second son George H.W. Bush was deeply enmeshed in the Iran-contra 'affair' of beloved memory. This involved selling 107 tons of missiles to a nation formally declared (by President Reagan) in July 1985 to be an 'enemy of the United States'. Bush's actions - later admitted in his own diaries - could well be judged an act of treason, as defined by the Constitution ('adhering to (U.S.) enemies and giving them aid and comfort'); a crime which, amazing to recount, would precisely replicate Bush pere's: trading with the enemy! How about that?
Of course like Papa, Bush fils was never tried for treason or anything close to it - he too being a Skull-and-Bones man. But he was faithful to the other hereditary Bush trait. Having fooled Americans into electing him President by posing as Reagan The Sequel, he turned on not one, but two old pals he'd nuzzled up to for years. First pizza-faced mini-dictator Manuel Noriega, and then mass-murderer Saddam Hussein, Reagan's made man in the epic struggle against Khomeini. Needless to say these well-timed betrayals didn't make him smell rose-like enough to get re-elected. But, thanks to the Carlyle Group's lavish rewards system for faithful service to the military-corporate complex while in public office, within a few years of his Presidential stint he was wealthier than ever. (I leave it to others to decide whether the Carlyle Group's profits are in any sense blood money).
3.
George Walker Bush (President 2000-200?)
Any student of hereditary traits might conclude that one or more of GHW Bush's kids would have a tendency towards treason. Sure enough, his eldest son is now suspected of having authorized leaks of 'previously classified' material (aka 'material hurriedly declassified so you can use it to cover your ass, regardless of whom or what it threatens') very possibly including the identity of a CIA agent. Revealing a CIA agent's identity is illegal because it gives aid and comfort to the enemy by informing him that all the other people that person has dealings with may be threats to him. That's why officially it's an act of treason. Especially in time of war, a state in which we are currently residing. Such treason would for ordinary folks be punishable by death - and quite properly so. But GW Bush is a Skull and Bones man, so, well...you get the drift...
As for the nuzzling-up-to-dictators thing, it has to be conceded that W has so far only piggybacked on his Poppy's ex-nuzzlee, Saddam. But DNA will not be denied. Should W survive, it would be smart for Musharaf, Putin, Berlusconi, even ex-strongman Tony Blair to watch their backs.
But George W Bush will NOT survive. The hour will come to EXORCIZE the Bush curse. To punish this appalling scion of an appalling family, this idiot son of an idiot son of a Nazi-enabler, IMPEACH him for high crimes...etc. etc. etc.
I wish. But I have a sneaky feeling this Bush won't be punished any more than his Dad or Grandad were. Whether because the Dems win yet another glorious victory of principle this year - just like 2000, 2002, 2004 - or whether they get the majorities but in fine fragmented fashion let impeachment slip through their fingers, Bush petit-fils will survive to have disgraced the office of the Presidency even more than his pandering, race-baiting, ignoramus of a father and, thanks to the Carlyle Group's lavish rewards system for faithful service to the military-corporate complex while in public office, survive his Presidential stint wealthier than ever.
That couldn't happen could it? Surely not.
(Check out a very different America in my brand-new book The Messiah Of Morris Avenue at:
henryholt.com/messiahofmorrisavenue/
Or - if you were so inclined - you could buy it on Amazon).
posted by verifi at 7:07 PM 0 comments
Friday, April 07, 2006
TREASON... AND Obstruction of Justice.
Not only did President Bush have a 'significant role' in the "leaking" of classified 'intel' in the early part of 2003 to bolster his case for war in Iraq, but that coordinated White House campaign almost certainly included efforts to marginalize and discredit "whistleblower" Ambassador Joe Wilson, who in July of 2003 had published an editorial in the New York Times directly confronting the president's inclusion of the "tons of Niger yellowcake uranium ore for Iraq's WMD program" story in the president's Jan. 2003 State of the Union speech. ("SOTU") As part of this effort to discredit - smear - Ambassador Wilson, it was revealed to members of the press, including Judith Miller and Bob Novak, that Ambassador Wilson's wife was an undercover CIA operative. Sufficient numbers of CIA officials and career (civil service) personel were appalled by this public "outing" of an undercover agent (and her entire cover operation, and thus every person who ever dealt with that operation) that a CRIMINAL REFERAL was made to the US Justice Department. At its inception, Attorney General John Ashcroft oversaw the investigation into the possibly criminal "OUTING" of those undercover CIA 'assetts", including Mrs. Valeri Plame Wilson's identity. Attorney Gen. Ashcroft was forced to recuse himself from the investigation, which was handed to an Independent Investigator, career prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald. When Special Counsel Fitzgerald took the investigation to the offices within the White House, he heard a chorus of pledges that no one in the White House knew ANYTHING about the "outing" of Mrs. Plame's identity.
This was the mantra of the Bush White House all through the summer and fall of 2003, and up to the elections of 2004.
Yet new testimony by indicted White House aide I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby not only directly refutes the White House contention that the "outing" of CIA secrets was an uncoordinated effort by "rogue" WH officials, but Mr. Libby's testimony
<< puts Bush at the center of the efforts to discredit Joseph Wilson -- and explains why he never bothered to ask his staff who leaked classified material, because he was the person authorizing the leaks. >> as KENNETH R. BAZINET writes over at the New York Daily News.
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/wn_report/story/406719p-344359c.html
The implication that President Bush was at the very center of a coordinated White House effort to "leak" secret information that would bolster the case for war, and "leak" information that would discredit critics, is confirmed in dozens of news reports today, including this one from the Washington Post. In the Post's typically DISINFORMATIVE style, they take 4 or 5 web-pages to tell a story, without giving the exact date, context, and quote of the president's vow to investigate and "take care of" any leakers.
Mr. Bush made his case for WAR IN IRAQ by pushing the threat of an Iraq armed with nuclear and other WMD weapons attacking America at any moment. We now know that not only was this categorically NOT TRUE, but, appallingly, Bush administration policies have ENCOURAGED NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION, both among our "friends" (GE signs $5 billion pact with India, an agreement which will allow India to process plutonium weapons cores at its 8 "secret" facilities), and potential enemies (North Korea, Iran, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia?)
Clearly, Mr. Bush has made a gamble: that nuclear proliferation, and nuclear brinksmanship (the president and his admin. are making threats of attack or war on Iran), are prices worth paying for FURTHER CONSOLIDATION OF POWER by the Bush administration and Republican Party.
To make this GAMBLE with current and future National Security, the president first had to DECIEVE VOTERS through the 2004 presidential elections. The Bush campaign "won" that election by portraying Democratic opponent John Kerry as "WEAK on national defense", and the president as the defender of national security. But as close as the 2004 election was (official returns credit Kerry with 48% of the vote), that election would almost certainly have had a NEW DYNAMIC if it had been publiclly revealed that #1. the president had used secret government files to wage a political "discredit" smear-campaign on vocal war critics; #2. such efforts had led to the "outing" and destruction of secret CIA COUNTERPROLIFERATION organizations and personel; and #3. the president's policies in general ENCOURAGED NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION, NUCLEAR BRINKSMANSHIP, and tied America's conventional (non-nuclear) military down in a grotesque war of attrition in Iraq that costs billions of dollars per month, and served to radicalize Muslim fighters to be "Jihadist" and even terrorists against America.
The MAJORITY of 9-11 terrorist attackers came from either Saudi Arabia or the United Arab Emirates... but instead of dealing with those nations, the president and vice president attacked Iraq. There are STILL hundreds of unanswered questions from the 9-11 attacks, foremost among them whether or not the Saudi government continues to support and export the fundamentalist brand of "Wahhabi" Islam, that critics have suggested serves as a breeding ground for future terrorists.
These fundamental questions:
- Did the president in any way participate in the "outing" of CIA assets for political gain?
- Did the president COVER UP any such participation, in order to win the 2004 election?
- if the above is true, is that OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE?
- do the president and vice president view NUCLEAR PROLIFERATION, and NUCLEAR BRINKSMANSHIP, as tools to gain or consolidate political power...
- does the president's policies re Saudi Arabia and the UAE encourage terrorism, or weaken America's defenses?
(eg, open ports, lack of port security, sale of US ports to foreign operators, export of fundamentalist Wahabism)
- does the president see future terrorist attacks as a potential blessing, as 9-11 was used to consolidate power and steamroll opposition to either war or domestic "warrantless" searches, seizures, and spying?
...these questions demand answers, and the fact that they can be compiled and listed so rationally, makes this website necessary.
_____________________________________
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/04/06/AR2006040600333.html
Three months before Fitzgerald began his probe in December 2003, Bush said at a news conference that "I've constantly expressed my displeasure with leaks, particularly leaks of classified information. . . . If there's a leak out of the administration, I want to know who it is. And if a person has violated law, the person will be taken care of."
President Bush authorized White House official I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby to disclose highly sensitive intelligence information to the news media in an attempt to discredit a CIA adviser whose views undermined the rationale for the invasion of Iraq, according to a federal prosecutor's account of Libby's testimony to a grand jury.
The court filing by Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald for the first time places Bush and Vice President Cheney at the heart of what Libby testified was an exceptional and deliberate leak of material designed to buttress the administration's claim that Iraq was trying to obtain nuclear weapons. The information was contained in the National Intelligence Estimate, one of the most closely held CIA analyses of whether Iraq had weapons of mass destruction before the war.
___________________________________________________________
White House Declines to Counter Leak Claim
By PETE YOST, Associated Press
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/cia_leak;_ylt=Aigp29eXWzb3RW5BZVE.yVKs0NUE;_ylu=X3oDMTA2Z2szazkxBHNlYwN0bQ--
WASHINGTON - The White House on Friday declined to challenge assertions that President Bush authorized the leaks of intelligence information to counter administration critics on Iraq.
But Bush's spokesman, Scott McClellan, appeared to draw a distinction about Bush's oft-stated opposition to leaks. "The president would never authorize disclosure of information that could compromise our nation's security," Bush's spokesman said.
Court papers filed by the prosecutor in the CIA leak case against I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby said Bush authorized Libby to disclose information from a classified prewar intelligence report. The court papers say Libby's boss, advised him that the president had authorized Libby to leak the information to the press in striking back at administration critic Joseph Wilson.
McClellan volunteered that the administration declassified information from the intelligence report — the National Intelligence Estimate — and released it to the public on July 18, 2003. But he refused to say when the information was actually declassified. The date could be significant because Libby discussed the information with a reporter on July 8 of that year.
On Thursday, disclosure of official authorization for Libby's leaks to reporters brought strong criticism from administration political foes, but little likelihood that their demands for explanations will be met.
Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass., citing Bush's call two years ago to find the person who leaked the CIA identity of Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, said the latest disclosures means the president needs to go no further than a mirror.
In his court filing, Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald asserted that "the president was unaware of the role" that Libby "had in fact played in disclosing" Plame's CIA status. The prosecutor gave no such assurance, though, regarding Cheney.
Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada said that "in light of today's shocking revelation, President Bush must fully disclose his participation in the selective leaking of classified information. The American people must know the truth."
Attorney General Alberto Gonzales said the president has the "inherent authority to decide who should have classified information." The White House declined to comment, citing the ongoing criminal probe into the leak of Plame's identity.
In July 2003, Wilson's accusation that the Bush administration had twisted prewar intelligence to exaggerate the Iraqi threat "was viewed in the office of vice president as a direct attack on the credibility of the vice president, and the president," Fitzgerald's court papers stated.
Part of the counterattack was a July 8, 2003, meeting with New York Times reporter Judith Miller at which Libby discussed the contents of a then-classified CIA report that seemed to undercut what Wilson was saying in public.
Separately, Libby said he understood he also was to tell Miller that prewar intelligence assessments had been that Iraq was "vigorously trying to procure" uranium, the prosecutor stated. In the run-up to the war, Cheney had insisted Iraq was trying to build a nuclear bomb.
The conclusion on uranium was contained in a National Intelligence Estimate, a consensus document of the U.S. intelligence community. Libby's statements came in grand jury testimony before he was charged with five counts of perjury, obstruction and lying to the FBI in the Plame probe.
Libby at first told the vice president that he could not have the July 8, 2003, conversation with Miller because of the classified nature of the National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq, Fitzgerald said. Libby testified to the grand jury "that the vice president later advised him that the president had authorized defendant to disclose the relevant portions" of the NIE.
Libby testified that he also spoke to David Addington, then counsel to the vice president, "whom defendant considered to be an expert in national security law, and Mr. Addington opined that presidential authorization to publicly disclose a document amounted to a declassification of the document."
Libby testified that he was specifically authorized to disclose the key judgments of the classified intelligence document because it was thought that its conclusions were "fairly definitive" against what Wilson had said and the vice president thought that it was "very important" for those key judgments to come out, the court papers stated.
After Wilson began attacking the administration, Cheney had a conversation with Libby, expressing concerns on whether a CIA-sponsored trip to the African nation of Niger by Wilson "was legitimate or whether it was in effect a junket set up by Mr. Wilson's wife," Fitzgerald wrote. The suggestion that Plame sent her husband on the Africa trip has gotten widespread circulation among White House loyalists.
Wilson said he had concluded on his trip that it was highly doubtful Niger had sold uranium yellowcake to Iraq.
The prosecutor's court papers offer a glimpse inside the White House when the Justice Department launched a criminal investigation of the Plame leak in September 2003. Libby "implored White House officials" to issue a statement saying he had not been involved in revealing Plame's identity, and that when his initial efforts met with no success, he "sought the assistance of the vice president in having his name cleared," the prosecutor stated.
The White House eventually said neither Libby nor Karl Rove had been involved in the leak. Rove remains under criminal investigation.
