Would it not be wise for Bush to dump Cheney and pick another running mate?
Pressure mounts on Cheney over smears against diplomat and 'outing' of CIA wife
Row that began with 'IoS' interview deepens as Vice-President's officials are accused of serious felony
By Andrew Buncombe in Washington
02 May 2004
Vice-President Dick Cheney was under mounting pressure last night after he and his senior officials were accused of smearing a former ambassador and outing his wife as an undercover CIA officer in a deliberate act of revenge hatched inside the White House.
In a row which began with off-the-record comments he made to The Independent on Sunday last year, a former diplomat, Joe Wilson, said Mr Cheney oversaw a group of neo-conservatives who decided to try to damage his reputation. Because of Mr Wilson, the White House was forced to admit that a key claim in President Bush's 2003 State of the Union address - that Iraq was seeking uranium for nuclear weapons - should not have been made.
The controversy over what happened next could prove to be the most damaging yet to engulf the Bush administration. A criminal inquiry is investigating the unveiling in the press of Mr Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, as a CIA agent - a serious felony under US law. If one of Mr Cheney's senior officials were charged, the damage would be huge.
Should the Vice-President be personally implicated - which Mr Wilson believes he is - the outcome would be devastating for both Mr Cheney and Mr Bush as they campaign for re-election.
Mr Wilson has made his allegations in a newly published book, The Politics of Truth, subtitled "Inside the lies that led to war and betrayed my wife's CIA identity". In it he writes: "I am told ... that the Office of the Vice-President - either the Vice-President himself or more likely his chief of staff, Lewis 'Scooter' Libby - chaired a meeting at which a decision was made to do a work-up on me. As I understand it, this meant they were going to take a close look at who I was and what my agenda might be."
The former diplomat has claimed elsewhere that it was also at this meeting that the issue of his wife's identity and her role as a covert CIA operative was discussed. Mr Wilson said he believed it was very unlikely that Mr Cheney was not aware of this.
In an exclusive interview in his office in Washington, just a quarter of a mile from Mr Cheney's, he said: "I find it difficult to believe that a chief of staff would be undertaking something like this without - at a minimum - the Vice-President's knowledge." Mr Wilson stopped short of asking for Mr Cheney's resignation, but said: "If he [did not know] about it, he should be saying so. The leak took place at the nexus of national security, policy and politics."
His struggle with the White House dates to a mission in early 2002, at the request of Mr Cheney's office. He was sent to the west African state of Niger, where he was once ambassador, to investigate claims that Iraq was seeking to purchase uranium to develop nuclear weapons. The claims were based on a document obtained by Italian intelligence services, which had passed the information to Washington.
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