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Politics : View from the Center and Left -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: JohnM who wrote (11467)	2/10/2006 11:55:21 AM
From: Suma	Respond to of 541183

NATIONAL SECURITY The Cheney Factor Fresh evidence emerged yesterday that the CIA leak scandal extends to the highest levels of the White House. Court documents filed by special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald reveal that I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, "told a grand jury that he was authorized by his 'superiors' to disclose classified information to reporters." In October, Libby was indicted "on five counts of perjury and obstruction of justice" for "willfully misleading...investigators about his role in exposing Valerie Wilson as an officer of the Central Intelligence Agency." The National Journal reports that those superiors were "Vice President Cheney and other senior Bush administration officials." Cheney and others "encouraged and authorized him [Libby] to share classified information with journalists to build public support for going to war." After the war began, "Cheney authorized Libby to release additional classified information, including details of the National Intelligence Estimate [NIE], to defend the administration's use of prewar intelligence." REVELATION IS NOT A DEFENSE FOR LIBBY: On CNN, former presidential advisor David Gergen said, "Legally it does mean that Scooter Libby may be arguing as Oliver North did earlier, basically a lot of what he did was authorized by others. Therefore, as in the Oliver North case, legally he may be a lot closer to acquittal than anybody thought." His analysis is wrong, legally and factually. The fact that Cheney authorized Libby's disclosures is irrelevant to the crimes charged against him. If anything, it weakens his case. He was indicted for misleading prosecutors, specifically claiming that he "was only passing along what he understood to be unverified gossip that he had heard from other journalists." The new evidence reinforces the falsity of this claim, and it indicates that Libby would be unlikely to forget that Cheney was his original source. It was not a casual, off-hand conversation, but part of a specific job assignment that Libby executed. Libby's lawyers acknowledge that Cheney's orders are not a get-out-of-jail free card. William Jeffress, Libby's lawyer, said, "'There is no truth at all' to suggestions that Libby would try to shift blame to his superiors as a defense against the charges." CHENEY'S ROLE ESTABLISHES MOTIVE: The new information helps explain why Libby would take the extraordinary risk of providing false information to the special prosecutor. Libby could have been attempting to conceal that he was "broadly authorized by Cheney and others to rebut former Ambassador Wilson's charges" to disclose classified information to journalists and avoid political embarrassment. CHENEY'S READING LIST: Cheney should take a look at the column by CIA Director Porter Goss in today's New York Times called "Loose Lips Sink Spies." Goss writes, "At the Central Intelligence Agency, we are more than holding our own in the global war on terrorism, but we are at risk of losing a key battle: the battle to protect our classified information." He explains that those who disclose classified information are "committing a criminal act that potentially places American lives at risk. It is unconscionable to compromise national security information."

To: JohnM who wrote (11467)	2/10/2006 3:53:17 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Respond to of 541183

"Official intelligence on Iraqi weapons programs was flawed, but even with its flaws, it was not what led to the war," Pillar wrote in the upcoming issue of the journal Foreign Affairs. Instead, he asserted, the administration "went to war without requesting -- and evidently without being influenced by -- any strategic-level intelligence assessments on any aspect of Iraq." Translation: Sure, we told them it was a "slam-dunk" case that Saddam had WMD, but they didn't listen to us, so our screwups don't matter, only theirs. Besides, they probably remember how we had missed Saddam's entire nuke program in 1990. So it's their fault!

To: JohnM who wrote (11467)	2/11/2006 2:01:06 AM
From: KLP	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 541183

Is it possible that the CIA is peopled by "SOME" people who have their own political agenda? Is it possible that "SOME" of these same people had an ax to grind with the Republican Administration, and just didn't get their job done???? There are too many leakers from that direction, too many people who work/worked there, that had a job to do, and too many holes in our intel.... Why is that? Unless of course, people think that the entire CIA employment is completely turned over every four years......and all are apolitical....