Ray McGovern, a former CIA intelligence analyst who has been highly critical of the Bush Administration, and founder of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) has just posted a lengthy article,
Cheney's chickens come home to roost.
Pass the gravy...
First, some really good news...
In 21-plus months of digging and interviewing, Fitzgerald and his able staff have been able to negotiate the intelligence/policy/politics labyrinth with considerable sophistication. In the process, they seem to have learned considerably more than they had bargained for. The investigation has long since morphed into size extra large, which is the only size commensurate with the wrongdoing uncovered - not least, the fabrication and peddling of intelligence to justify a war of aggression.
Confirming our suspicions, Powell and Cheney don't get along, but Powell lacks a spine.
owell had long since decided that the Iraq-Niger report did not pass the smell test. But he was apparently afraid to incur Cheney's wrath by telling the president.
WTF? Wrath of Cheney? Call Cap'n Kirk!
McGovern gives props to Rep. Henry Waxman, D-CA, for trying to stop the invasion before it began
In the days before the attack on Iraq, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.) wrote the president to complain that Waxman and his colleagues had been deceived out of their constitutional prerogative to declare or otherwise authorize war. None of this put the brakes on the intrepid Cheney, who three days before the war told NBC's Tim Russert, "We believe he [Saddam Hussein] has, in fact, reconstituted nuclear weapons."
McGovern dicusses meeting Joe Wilson in June 2003, and how Wilson predicted that the Bush Administration would go after him when he spoke out:
Wilson then turned dead serious and, with considerable emphasis, told me the White House had already launched a full-court press in an effort to dredge up dirt on him. He added, "When I do speak out, they are going to go after me big time. I don't know the precise nature the retaliation will take, but I can tell you now it will be swift and vindictive. They cannot afford to have people thinking they can escape unscathed if they spill the beans on the dishonesty undergirding this war." (Sad to say, the White House approach has worked. There are perhaps a hundred of my former CIA colleagues who know about the lies; none - not one - has been able to summon the courage to go public.)
McGovern reiterates the advice that VIPS gave to President Bush in June 2003, and asks that Bush fire Cheney:
Recommendation #1: We recommend that you call an abrupt halt to attempts to prove Vice President Cheney 'not guilty.' His role has been so transparent that such attempts will only erode further your own credibility. Equally pernicious, from our perspective, is the likelihood that intelligence analysts will conclude that the way to success is to acquiesce in the cooking of their judgments, since those above them will not be held accountable. We strongly recommend that you ask for Cheney's immediate resignation.
McGovern fears that Bush may fire Fitzgerald before indictments are handed down, and says that a few in the MSM have laid the groundwork for it:
When the Watergate scandal reached a similar stage in October 1973, President Richard Nixon ordered Attorney General Elliot Richardson to fire the intrepid special prosecutor Archibald Cox. Richardson resigned rather than carry out Nixon's order; and so did his deputy William Ruckleshaus. So Nixon had to reach farther down into the Justice Department, where he found Robert Bork, who promptly dismissed Cox in the so-called Saturday Night Massacre.
Fitzgerald is at least as vulnerable as Cox was. Indeed, in recent days some of the fourth estate, Richard Cohen in the Washington Post and John Tierney in The New York Times, for example, seem to have accepted assignments to help lay the groundwork for Fitzgerald's dismissal.
Will the White House decide to fire special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald and simply absorb the PR black eye, as Nixon did? There is absolutely nothing to prevent it. Can you imagine Attorney General Alberto Gonzales refusing on principle an order from President Bush?
Could Bush himself be named an unindicted co-conspirator? If that or something like it happens, we can expect a circling of the wagons and Fitzgerald cashiered.
If the case Fitzgerald has built, however, is not strong enough to implicate Bush personally, it seems likely that the president will acquiesce in the wholesale frog-marching of others from the White House.
It will be a tough couple of weeks, but Bush can look forward to Thanksgiving:
Cindy Sheehan is planning Thanksgiving in Crawford: she still hopes to see the president so that he can explain to her personally what the "noble cause" was for which her son died.
Maybe Cheney & Co will get lucky. The annual Thanksgiving pardon will soon be upon us.