'Plamegate' is no summer squall

[lovuian]

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Front_Page/GG20Aa03.html

'Plamegate' is no summer squall
By Jim Lobe

WASHINGTON - While to people living outside the Washington "Beltway" the current affair over the disclosure by top White House officials of the identity of a covert intelligence officer may seem somewhat esoteric, the stakes could not be higher.

It is not just that Karl Rove, President George W Bush's top political adviser, and Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, I Lewis "Scooter" Libby, may have violated a 1982 law to protect US spies and could face criminal indictments, at least for perjury or obstruction of justice.

The case may also prove to be one more string - albeit a very central one - that, if pulled with sufficient determination, could well unravel a very tangled ball of yarn, and one that would confirm recent revelations in the British press about the so-called Downing Street memo, which indicates that the Bush administration was "fixing the facts" about the alleged threat posed by Iraq's Saddam Hussein in order to grease the rails to war.

It may also expose how a close-knit group of neo-conservatives and Republican activists both inside and outside the administration also waged war against professionals in the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and the State Department in the run-up to war, precisely because, as experts, they repeatedly came up with new facts that contradicted the propaganda of both the White House and its backers. Facts that somehow either had to be "fixed" or discredited.
snip...

He also wrote that he originally understood that Cheney had asked the CIA that such a mission be carried out and thus assumed it had been reported back up to the vice president's office.

The fact that references to Saddam's alleged acquisition of yellowcake kept popping up in Bush's and Cheney's speeches over the following months, however, prompted him to pose the key question in his article: "Did the Bush administration manipulate intelligence about Saddam Hussein's weapons programs to justify an invasion of Iraq?"
more...

I guess someone has looked at Bush and Cheneys speeches ... I love it!!! The Timeline is killing the Whitehouse!!!

[Trillo]

1. This dwarfs any other government scandal in my days. nt

[VegasWolf]

13. Yes, this is how Watergate unraveled, one piece at a time slowly

burning a corrupt president.

[WhiteTara]

20. IMHO it is right up there with Iran/Contra

even though the meaner pardoned everyone, what happened there is almost as terrible as this pre-emptive war. That one was a dirty secret war. I hope we can keep pulling on the strings of this knotty ball of lies and deceit.

[Straight Shooter]

2. Of course it was reported back up to Cheney's office.

Cheney is lying if he says he didn't see the report, unless Libby intercepted it per Cheney's instructions to him. IOW, Cheney gave orders that he didn't want to see the report.

I hope Fitzgerald throws the book at this pack of rat bastards.

[kestrel91316]

3. Plamegate = Andrew ..................a Category 5, my dearies.

[Athame]

4. I had not heard of the role of Clifford May before

>from the article

The White House "off-the-record" campaign against Wilson was supplemented by a very loud "on-the-record" effort by prominent neo-conservatives and their news media, including the Wall Street Journal's editorial page, The Weekly Standard, and The National Review Online.

The last kicked it off on July 11 with an article by Clifford May, the president of the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies (FDD) and the only person who was neither a journalist nor an administration official who claims to have known about Plame's relationship to Wilson before Novak reported about it.

While May, a former communications director for the National Republican Committee, did not identify Wilson's relationship with Plame, he included a litany of "talking points" about Wilson's objectivity. "He's a pro-Saudi, leftist partisan with an ax to grind," May declared. < end snip


This seems to spread the conspiracy beyond the established media to the think tank talking points and the Republican leadership and way beyond authorized need-to-know individuals.

Interesting that this point comes out in the Asia Times.

[dArKeR]

5. You probably didn't hear that Bolton's intel intercepts were on Fitzgerald

Remember how Nixon put the CIA into covert action to destroy the Justice Dept. investigation into Watergate? Wake up. It's the Bolton!

[Athame]

10. I do think that Bolton is very much involved in this

Did you mean that Bolton's intercepts were on Fitzgerald? Or Wilson/Plame?

Either way, when those intercepts eventually are released, he's toast (to use a soggy expression).

[Name removed]

6. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[rodeodance]

8. you are way off base Mr.. free---perre!!

[shraby]

11. Bye Bye

:hi:

[oioioi]

12. This is the story of Johnny Rotten

Not a scandal?

Dream up, dream up, let me fill your cup.

The fish is gonna rot from the head down.

Perhaps you can take some solace - it's better to burn out, than to fade away.

My My Hey Hey.

[VegasWolf]

17. Drip! Drip! Drip! nt

[grasswire]

18. Cliff? Is that you?

Mods, PLEASE don't delete that post. It's the funniest, most pathetic thing I've ever seen on DU.

[rodeodance]

7. "The real culprit ... is ..but the gang that (troops) to war" YES!!

....."The real victims are the American people, not the Wilsons," Rich went on. "The real culprit ... is not Mr Rove but the gang that sent American sons and daughters to war on trumped-up grounds and in so doing diverted finite resources, human and otherwise, from fighting the terrorists who attacked us on 9/11. That's why the stakes are so high ..."

[rodeodance]

9. "Three months before the Downing Street memo, the "fix" was in"

[Athame]

15. Yes! pound that point home!

The Republicans know what is at stake here and they are going down scratching and clawing at the edge of the drain. If it weren't so awful, it would be fun to watch.

[thebigidea]

16. pro-Saudi? what the fuck is Bush then, Cliffy?

[Pachamama]

14. Treasongate & the investigation is more like "Global Climate Change" - a

long time in the making and will happen gradually and then at an accelerated and dramatic rate towards the end when its reaching its peak....

They wish this was a summer squall....Sorry *, FUCheney and KKKarl...this isn't going away...even if the media isn't focused on it, its still happening behind the scenes and people are aware of it....

[ngGale]

19. That last sentence got to me saying ...

the papers never got to Cheney's desk. That, IHMO is a lie and ruined the whole article for me. Cheney is not an innocent lamb.