Why the NIE Claims Are Important
As a review, here’s what Libby’s NIE lies are all about. This is all documented in this post, and here is the court transcript in which most of this is revealed.
- Scooter Libby has instructions in his notes to leak something to Judy Miller on July 8, 2003
- When questioned about the notation, Libby claimed the instructions related to the NIE
- Libby went further to make certain claims about the NIE leak–that the leak was authorized by Dick Cheney and George Bush, that such an authorization was totally unique in his career, and that Libby was so worried about leaking the NIE to Judy that he double checked to make sure he was authorized to do so
- Libby later made claims that directly contradicted these assertions–most importantly, even though Libby claims the Judy leak was totally unique in his career, he also leaked the NIE to three other people: Bob Woodward, a journalist on July 2, and the WSJ
- Also, in spite of the fact that Libby says he was really worried about getting authorization to leak the NIE to Judy, he’s not really sure whether he was authorized to leak the NIE to Woodward; his concern about the leak to Judy only extended to whatever he leaked to Judy
In short, Libby is almost certainly lying about what he was authorized to leak to Judy on July 8, 2003, in a meeting where Judy Miller admits he talked about Valerie Plame, and where Libby tried to get her to falsely attribute the story. Or let me put it even more plainly:
Evidence suggests that the Vice President of the United States authorized the outing of the CIA spy who could prove Cheney ignored evidence that Iraq didn’t have WMDs.
Scooter Libby’s behavior, his testimony, his story doesn’t make any sense. In some ways, it seems like awkward lies to cover his own ass because he was up to no good. Patrick Fitzgerald said it well when he said that Libby’s lies made it impossible to complete his investigation – so he was indicting him for obfuscating any possibility of discovering the truth about how the C.I.A. Leak was orchestrated.
Right now, the party line is that it wasn’t orchestrated at all. Bumbling Richard Armitage blabbed and gossiped. Then Key Administration Officials, not knowing Plame was couvert, confirmed when they were asked – sure they wanted to protect the President, but that was just "politics." Judy Miller was just the reporter Libby knew best. He was "just" leaking like he had been doing. It was all just a funny set of events that happened. You know, that Washington stuff that’s just part of the game.
That’s not what emptywheel thinks. She thinks that it wasn’t just a "get Joe Wilson for questioning our integrity" deal. It was a much more devious plot. It was a premeditated attempt to neutralize Valerie Plame, the operations officer at the C.I.A. who knew that there was never any real evidence of Weapons of Mass Destruction in Iraq, and who knew when Cheney knew that evidence was lacking and decided to ignore it. When Joseph Wilson went public, Cheney was afraid of much more than just Joseph Wilson. He was afraid of what Valerie knew, and what publicizing his actively ignoring the C.I.A. would do to him. So he sent Scooter Libby on a search and destroy mission. That’s what explains Scooter’s peculiar inconsistent story. It’s not just a bunch of understandable serendipity, it’s a special_ops-esque dirty trick to cover a crime.
At least that’s what I think emptywheel thinks. It’s what I think. I’m looking forward to Marcy’s Firedoglake book to see if she can nail it. Have you contributed? I have…
The idea that Liddy’s leak “was a premeditated attempt to neutralize Valerie Plame, the operations officer at the C.I.A. who knew that there was never any real evidence of Weapons” seems a little far fetched. First it seems far fetched that Plame would be the only one in the CIA that knew that there were no weapons of mass destruction. Second instead of neutralizing Plame it moved her to the center of the nation’s attention, and I find it hard to believe that the person that conceived of this plot, wouldn’t have know that leaking the name of a CIA agent would cause massive political fallout. I think Plame was stepping on some big toes, but I think knocking her out of the CIA was a small “perk” of this plot rather than the main goal. It feels like a distraction that I can’t help thinking was 100% effective since I can’t for the life of me figure out what it was meant to distract us from. Then again maybe Bush and his administration are as stupid as they seem to be. Dare we dream?
I thought about that too, but I’m becoming convinced that they are so arrogant that they think this way. “Let’s take them out!”
them=Taliban [did they think they’d just go away?]
them=Hussein [how could they not know Iraq would erupt into chaos?],
them=Wilson [did they think he’d be quiet?],
them=Plame [sworn to secrecy, unable to defend herself, spilling the beans].
Your argument makes good sense and may well be true. Bush and Cheney, however, don’t have “good sense” and really don’t always think the consequences of their vindictiveness through.
The ‘Administration’ was simply operating in business-as-usual mode. I think the inner neo-circle saw Wilson/Plame as merely the next gnat to squash, and they acted hastily, by rote– cockily anticipating an ability to create new realities as time (and their war) wore on. THE ONLY THING that mattered to them, was that Wilson’s message NOT get into the vernacular.
IF the 16-word LIE in Bush’s SOTU speech were to have become the over-arching issue, as opposed to the outting of a CIA agent-convolusion, the TRUTH would have been evident to THE WORLD (including Congress,) YEARS AGO.
Imagine. Congress would have HAD to act– and EVERYONE would know the Yellowcake documents were forgeries. Most of our soldiers and countless innocent people would still be alive. Blair’d probably be gone and maybe Dr. David Kelly would be PM (RIP) (or Robin Cook-RIP), or Claire Short.. Dan Rather would still be at CBS. http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/0923-02.htm
[There may have been a Rovealization that there’d be future ‘merit’ in eliminating Valerie (also), but IF so, that expectation was IMHO, secondary to the absolute ‘urgency’ of discrediting Wilson. ] They’re spinning this one as they go along.
“They’re spinning this one as they go along.”
That is really true!
I really would prefer to believe that these guys are just stupid or misguided, but maybe I should follow the principle of parsimony and accept the simple answer. Bush and his cronies are straight up evil.