Cheney Plamegate Connection! More Evidence..

Alongside the excellent piece by Murray Waas yesterday, there was another breaking story by  Jason Lepold which directly connects Cheney to the carefully orchestrated effort to discredit Wilson.

First the blatant lie, on Sept. 14th 2003 in Meet the Press:

"I don't know Joe Wilson," Cheney said, in response to Russert, who quoted Wilson as saying there was no truth to the Niger uranium claims. "I've never met Joe Wilson. And Joe Wilson - I don't who sent Joe Wilson. He never submitted a report that I ever saw when he came back ... I don't know Mr. Wilson. I probably shouldn't judge him. I have no idea who hired him."

Never met him? Really? It is more like being obsessed about him.

"The way I remember it," the CIA official said about that first meeting he attended in Cheney's office, "is that the vice president was obsessed with Wilson. He called him an 'asshole,' a son-of-a-bitch. He took his comments very personally. He wanted us to do everything in our power to destroy his reputation and he wanted to be kept up to date about the progress."

Why was he so obsessed? Because, Wilson has this to say about the intelligence concerning Iraq's intent to buy Yellowcake from Niger.

"Well, this particular case is outrageous. We know a lot about the uranium business in Niger, and for something like this to go unchallenged by US - the US government - is just simply stupid. It would have taken a couple of phone calls. We have had an embassy there since the early '60s. All this stuff is open. It's a restricted market of buyers and sellers," Wilson said in the March 8, 2003, CNN interview. "For this to have gotten to the IAEA is on the face of it dumb, but more to the point, it taints the whole rest of the case that the government is trying to build against Iraq."

Now, Cheney was really mad.

The CIA and State Department officials said that a day after Wilson's March 8, 2003, CNN appearance, they attended a meeting at the Vice President's office chaired by Cheney, and it was there that a decision was made to discredit Wilson. Those who attended the meeting included I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Cheney's former chief of staff who was indicted in October for lying to investigators, perjury and obstruction of justice related to his role in the Plame Wilson leak, Hadley, White House Deputy Chief of Staff Karl Rove, and John Hannah, Cheney's deputy national security adviser, the officials said.

......

"Cheney and Libby made it clear that Wilson had to be shut down," the CIA official said. "This wasn't just about protecting the credibility of the White House. For the vice president, going after Wilson was purely personal, in my opinion."

•  Mr. Fitzgerald is not personal

  Nor will the investigation and resulting indictments be personal. Nor will the trial.

  But the sentencing: that will be quite personal.

  by walkshills on Fri Feb 10, 2006 at 08:33:28 AM PDT

•  as I said in another thread

  I have a growing suspicion that the repercussions of Plame's outing are what is driving this investigation - it's not just the character assassination of Wilson, but what happened after Plame's cover was blown.

  Something bad happened to CIA covert agents (other than Plame) because of this leak, and Fitz is trying to figure out how to charge this.

  Just a hunch I have.  There's something about this CIA damage assessment - which hasn't been made public, and the CIA at one point was claiming it didn't exist - that feels like it's the crux of the matter.

  by hrh on Fri Feb 10, 2006 at 08:51:55 AM PDT

  •  Cheneys Head

     on a platter is the only right way for Fitz to serve this up.

    by OneCrankyDom on Fri Feb 10, 2006 at 08:58:01 AM PDT

  •  One covert CIA agent was killed

    after Wilson published his op-ed. We will never know that person's name, what he or she was working on, or if the Plame outing had anything to do with the death.  But it could be a reason for CIA activism.

    Another reason could be that the CIA had been seriously undermined by failing to predict the implosion of the USSR, and by failing to predict and/or deter 9/11. After those failures, they really wanted to get Iraq right. They were ignored, and they hated that George Tenet fell on his sword for the administration. Just another possible reason for the CIA to start talking.

    by sailmaker on Fri Feb 10, 2006 at 09:07:11 AM PDT

    •  Do we know that for sure?

      I thought that all we knew was that an anonymous star went up on the CIA wall.  That could have been from natural causes.  

      But yes, it's provocative.

      by hrh on Fri Feb 10, 2006 at 09:16:17 AM PDT

      •  The Wall honors the KIA CIA agents

        a star went up between February 9th, 2003, and October 25th, 2003.

        by sailmaker on Fri Feb 10, 2006 at 10:34:07 AM PDT