Dick Cheney is going down. The Vice President, a genetic mutation between Machiavelli, Dr. Strangelove and, uh, well, Dick Cheney, will no doubt resign soon for health reasons, with a subsequent pardon from the President (like
father like son) rather than face the alternative.
Dick Cheney is the Fixer-in-Chief of the Bush administration's lies and betrayals and the jig is almost up.
Let's face it: Nigergate makes Watergate look like Whitewater.
More -
First, it is without dispute that Bush/Cheney wanted to give the boot to Saddam Hussein since forever. As a matter of fact on
911 they began to make war plans against Iraq. They knew that America would not go to war because Saddam was a bad guy. And the truth, whatever it was - Bush getting Saddam after he put out a contract on his daddy; oil; PNAC agenda - would not get Americans all hot and bothered to go to war. So, a pretext had to be developed. And the
Downing Street Memos says very succinctly what that pretext was.
C reported on his recent talks in Washington. There was a perceptible shift in attitude. Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. The NSC had no patience with the UN route, and no enthusiasm for publishing material on the Iraqi regime's record. There was little discussion in Washington of the aftermath after military action.
"a conjunction between terrorism and WMD."
So they tried to convince us that Saddam was giving blowjobs to Osama and that Mohammad Atta met with Iraqi Intelligence officials. A story BTW most clearly linked to Dick Cheney.
Cheney has been in the middle of much of the lies and deceit and it is no wonder that so much effort has been made to distance Cheney from Nigergate.
Ray McGovern, the ex-career CIA guy who also `testified' at the Conyers' Downing Street Memos basement hearings has this article posted at After Downing Street that has some very interesting observations.
What strikes me more and more is the rather transparent two-year-old campaign to dissociate Cheney from L'Affaire Iraq-Niger.
On July 14, 2003, the day of Robert Novak's opening salvo against the Wilsons, VIPS issued a Memorandum for the President (http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0714-01.htm) with two main sections: "The Forgery Flap," and "The Vice President's Role." In that memo, we also made an important recommendation, which may have seemed a bit extreme at the time. But it was already possible to discern what was going on:
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.
Protesting (or Protecting) Too Much
We were all children once. Remember how, when you and your peers got caught in some mischief, the ringleader had to be protected? "Who decided to do this terrible thing?" was often the question. "Not Dick (or Tom or Harry)" was often the instinctive, immediate answer. Remember how, as a parent, that made you really wonder about Dick (or Tom or Harry)?
In our memo of July 14, 2003, we warned President George W. Bush that the Iraq-seeking-uranium-in-Niger forgery was "a microcosm of a mischievous nexus of overarching problems" in his White House. We cited the remarks of then-presidential spokesman Ari Fleischer earlier that week, which set the tone for what has followed--right up to today. When asked about the forgery Fleischer noted--as if drawing on well memorized talking points--that the vice president was not guilty of anything. (The denial was gratuitous; the question asked did not even mention the vice president's possible role.) And the liturgy of absolution continued on July 11, 2003, when then-director of the CIA, George Tenet, did his awkward best to absolve the vice president of responsibility.
Additionally you'll remember that the chief debunking of Wilson by Rove and Libby was of the non-Wilsonian claim that Cheney sent him to Niger. Wilson never said it, but this was the spin put out by the WH. Why? Cheney was intimately involved by all accounts of his pursuit of Iraqi WMDs. Remember the unprecedented visits by a sitting Vice President to the CIA to bully the analysts into seeing things his way? Sure you do. Cheney was clearly interested.
Oddly, the DIA report was flagged for Vice President Cheney. Why "oddly?" Because in more than two years of briefing then-Vice President George H. W. Bush every other morning, not once did he ask a question about a DIA report or even indicate that he had read one. That this particular report was given to Cheney almost certainly reflects the widespread practice of "cherry picking" intelligence--a practice honed to a fine art by the current administration--and suggests perhaps even more. It seems to me a safe bet that the DIA report was prepared in a response to a request from the vice president's office to come up with something on the subject that could be shown to the president--something not burdened by caveats regarding source and content from troublesome substantive experts.
Vice President Cheney immediately expressed interest in the report. According to the Senate intelligence committee, he asked his CIA morning briefer for CIA's analysis of the issue. And this, of course, is what set in motion CIA's hurried request of Joe Wilson that he go back to Niger to pursue the matter. When you receive a direct request from the vice president you leave no stone unturned.
The Senate intelligence committee report includes this portion of the CIA immediate response to Cheney's expression of interest:
"Information on the alleged uranium contract between Iraq and Niger comes exclusively from a foreign government service report that lacks crucial details, and we are working to clarify the information and to determine whether it can be corroborated...Some of the information in the report contradicts reporting from the U.S. embassy in Niamey [Niger]. U.S. diplomats say the French government-led consortium that operates Niger's two uranium mines maintains complete control over uranium mining and yellowcake production."
When the vice president of the United States expresses interest so keen that that an immediate interim response is deemed necessary, it is certain that the CIA will place considerable priority on reporting back to the vice president the results of its follow-up efforts--the more so, since in its initial response, the it said it was "working to clarify the information and determine whether it can be corroborated."
Thus, the pretense by administration officials that the vice president was never briefed on the results of former ambassador Joseph Wilson's inquiries in Niamey stretches credulity well beyond the breaking point.
And, well wait a minute, let's see here. Cheney and Libby pay endless visits to the CIA to bully them into seeing things their way and well, they weren't actually browbeating low-level analysts were they? No, gosh, they must have been in working groups with CIA officers and directors. And, hey, wait a minute wasn't Valerie Wilson a CIA officer working on Iraqi WMD issues?
Holy Leak, Batman, you don't suppose that Cheney worked with Valerie in trying to fix the intelligence around the facts do you?
Why else is Judith Miller still in jail with a Criminal Contempt charge being dangled over head like the sword of Damocles by Prosecutor Fitzgerald? He doesn't need Rove's name or Libby's name from her? What name is he trying to get her to divulge?
Methinks that Mr. Fitzgerald has bigger fish to fry and Big Dick Cheney is the fish he is trying to land.
We know that Miller was in tight with the highest players in the Bush administration to deceive the country into war.
Rove and Libby will fall on their swords to protect their bosses. That is why Fitzgerald has Miller in jail right now. That's why the Judges in this case with their redacted opinions have sided with Fitzgerald and why the Supreme Court washed their hands of it.
Dick Cheney, the Fixer-in-Chief, has been caught with more than his hands in the cookie jar. He's been caught in a high crime and misdemeanor. And he's going down.