Scooter Libby's testimony that Bush authorized Plamegate is subterfuge, plain and simple. The Bush administration and the current GOP leadership, always --
always -- lie. The trick is to ask how
a particular lie serves their interests.
Remember why Scooter Libby stands indicted: obstruction of justice. He is not charged with the crime of revealing Plame's undercover status, but for impeding the investigation of it. And yet now -- not at trial, but again before a grand jury -- he provides information that would almost certainly have prevented his indictment in the first place. Why?
My opinion, FWIW? The GOP is planning to run Condoleezza Rice for President in 2008.
Rice-2008 is hardly a new idea, I know. But to me, the White House has just provided the clearest indication of it.
The exposed underbelly of this administration is Rice's on-the-record admission that those "16 words" in the President's 2003 State of the Union Address were based on intelligence in the classified 2002 NIE.
And that she was responsible.
The Bush White House has worked ceaselessly to obfuscate both the timeline and events between the initial release of the NIE and the SOTU.
Initially, they lied about the contents of the NIE, approved and printed on October 1, 2002:
"Iraq has attempted to purchase high-strength aluminum tubes and other equipment needed for gas centrifuges, which are used to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons.?"
President George W. Bush
October 7, 2002
Cincinnati, Ohio
----
"...[Director of Central Intelligence Tenet] told the Committee that he was not aware that there were dissenting opinions within the Intelligence Community on whether Iraq intended use [sic] the...aluminum tubes for a nuclear program until the NIE was drafted in September 2002, despite the fact that intelligence agencies had been fervently debating the issue since the spring of 2001.
Report on the U.S. Intelligence Community's
Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq
Or, more to the point, DCI Tenet knew in Sept. 2002 that Iraq's uses for the aluminum tubes was a matter of "fervent" debate. And in 2002, Condoleezza Rice was responsible for the President's speeches, in conjunction with Tenet.
But now the lie has changed as the administration uses its uncanny ability to rewrite history as it is still unfolding. The propaganda mills masquerading as news and the independent media spread it around like a virus:
"The NIE said that Iraq was vigorously pursuing yellowcake uranium from Niger, which was contradictory to critics of the administration, including [former Ambassador Joseph] Wilson..."
FOXNews.com
Thursday, April 06, 2006
--
"...according to accounts given by both [Judith] Miller and [I. Lewis] Libby, Libby provided the reporter with details of a then-classified National Intelligence Estimate. The NIE contained detailed information that Iraq had been attempting to procure uranium from Niger and perhaps two other African nations."
Murray Waas
National Journal
Thursday, March 30, 2006
No. No, god damnit, no.
In fact, the classified NIE portrayed exactly the opposite picture. The CIA knew it, the White House knew it, and Condoleezza Rice knew it:
"more on why we recommend removing the sentence about procuring uranium oxide from Africa:
(1) The evidence is weak...
(2) The procurement is not particularly significant to Iraq's nuclear ambitions...
(3) we have shared points one and two with Congress, telling them that the Africa story is overblown..."
CIA Fax to the White House
October 6, 2002
Report on the U.S. Intelligence Community's
Prewar Intelligence Assessments on Iraq
"We have shared points one and two with Congress."
Shared with Democratic members of Congress who have security clearance. Shared via the classified NIE.
Which brings us to Murray Waas. Though he mis-fired on a few details, he hit two dead-on, one intentionally, and one by accident. Waas' article is an excellent bit of analysis demonstrating that President Bush knew the prewar intelligence didn't support invading Iraq.
But how many Americans didn't at least suspect that already? Waas even couched his article in terms of "Bush's 2004 re-election prospects," in terms of Bush's popularity. But it's 2006 now, and what is "popularity" to a lame duck president?
Libby gave his testimony about Bush one week after Waas' article. And the media swarmed. Are they related? I believe so. In addition, Libby's testimony is de facto confirmation of Waas' claims, ultimately placing all the blame on a president who can't be re-elected and a vice president whose career in public politics is over.
But Libby's testimony also diverted attention from a little-known press conference aboard Air Force One, casually cited by Murray Waas.
In that press conference, Condoleezza Rice admitted she was both responsible for those "16 words" and that she knew they were false. And the White House has been covering for her ever since.