[Marxism] Indictment Gives Glimpse Into a Secretive Operation

["Walter Lippmann" <walterlx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

(The Bush administration seems to be disintegrating as we watch.
The DeLay indictment was featured here on Cuban television, as
has the Libby indictment, the Miers nomination and withdrawal and
much more are being followed consistently in the Cuban media. All
of this provides powerful educational material for the public in
Cuba. Each days news lately features images of Bush flashing his
copy of the Bush "transition" plan to bring capitalist "freedom"
to the Cuban people. Cubans have plenty of reason to complain of
life's daily trials and tribulations, of course. And while none
of Bush's troubles put a single grain of rice on a single Cuban
table, those who imagine that the Cuban government exaggerates
when it talks about the blockade and the kidnapping of the five
receive steady reminders from the US media of the nature of the
regime in Washington campaigning to bring capitalism back to Cuba.

(While not central to the Libby indictments and the scandal about
the outing of Valerie Plame, Cuba remains an element of continuing
importance because of the way Washington continues to stubbornly
use, and openly defend its use, of the US-occupied military base
at Guantanamo as place where it has the LEGAL RIGHT to do things
to its capitives which it wouldn't have the legal right to do if
they were held on the territitory of the United States itself.

("Mr. Addington, still Mr. Cheney's counsel, has been a major 
participant in debates within the administration about the 
treatment of terror suspects, and whether those held at the 
American facility in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, should face military 
tribunals.")
===========================================================

October 30, 2005
The Vice President's Office
Indictment Gives Glimpse Into a Secretive Operation
By DOUGLAS JEHL
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/30/politics/30indict.html

WASHINGTON, Oct. 29 - Over a seven-week period in the spring of 2003,
Vice President Dick Cheney's suite in the Old Executive Office
Building appears to have served as the nerve center of an effort to
gather and spread word about Joseph C. Wilson IV and his wife, a
C.I.A. operative.

I. Lewis Libby Jr., the vice president's chief of staff, was charged
Friday in an indictment that provides a rare glimpse inside a vice
presidential operation that, under Mr. Cheney, has been extraordinary
both for its power and its secrecy. The indictment also leaves
unanswered some questions about the way the vice president's office
responded to Mr. Wilson and his criticism of the administration's
case for going to war in Iraq.

Mr. Libby is the only aide to Mr. Cheney who has been charged with a
crime. But the indictment alleges that Mr. Cheney himself and others
in the office took part in discussions about the origins of a trip by
Mr. Wilson to Niger in 2002; about the identity of his wife, Valerie
Wilson; and whether the information could be shared with reporters,
in the period before it was made public in a July 14, 2003, column by
Robert D. Novak.

The indictment identifies the other officials only by their titles,
but it clearly asserts that others involved in the discussion
included David Addington, Mr. Cheney's counsel; John Hannah, deputy
national security adviser; and Catherine Martin, then Mr. Cheney's
press secretary.

Mr. Addington and Mr. Hannah in particular were powerful forces
within the administration, and like Mr. Cheney and Mr. Libby, they
had often been at odds with the C.I.A. before the war in Iraq.

Mr. Hannah, Mr. Addington and Ms. Martin have all declined to
comment, citing legal advice. The fact that they were not named in
the indictment suggests that they will not be charged, but all can
expect to be called as witnesses in any trial of Mr. Libby, setting
up a spectacle that could be unpleasant for the administration, in
part because their own actions could be questioned.

That Mr. Cheney and his office sparred with the C.I.A. before the
invasion of Iraq has never been a secret. Mr. Cheney and Mr. Libby
made repeated trips to C.I.A. headquarters in Langley, Va., in the
months before the American invasion in March 2003, and Mr. Libby was
often on the phone with senior C.I.A. officials to challenge the
agency's intelligence reports on Iraq. A principal focus, former
intelligence officials say, was the question of whether Al Qaeda had
had a close, collaborative relationship with Saddam Hussein's
government, an argument advanced publicly by Mr. Cheney but rejected
by the C.I.A. intelligence analysts.

The antipathy felt by Mr. Cheney and Mr. Libby toward Mr. Wilson, in
the aftermath of the invasion, has also long been known. But the
events spelled out in the 22-page indictment suggest a far more
active, earlier effort by the vice president's office to gather
information about him and his wife.

The indictment tracks a period in the spring of 2003, at a time when
the American failure to find illicit weapons in Iraq meant that the
administration's rationale for war was beginning to unravel, and when
early reports about Mr. Wilson's 2002 trip, which had not yet
identified him by name, raised questions about whether the White
House should have known just how weak its case had been, particularly
involving Iraq and nuclear weapons.

By any measure, the indictment suggests that Mr. Libby and others
went to unusual lengths to gather information about Mr. Wilson and
his trip. An initial request on May 29, 2003, from Mr. Libby to Marc
Grossman, the undersecretary of state for political affairs, led Mr.
Grossman to request a classified memorandum from Carl Ford, the
director of the State Department's intelligence bureau, and later Mr.
Grossman orally briefed Mr. Libby on its contents.

Later requests appear to have prompted C.I.A. officials, on June 9,
to fax classified information to Mr. Cheney's office about Mr.
Wilson's trip, which Mr. Wilson made on behalf of the C.I.A. to
investigate reports that Iraq had struck a deal to acquire uranium
from Niger for use in its nuclear weapons program.

Mr. Cheney himself is alleged to have shared details about the nature
of Ms. Wilson's job with Mr. Libby, on June 12. The indictment says
that Mr. Libby first shared information about Mr. Wilson's trip with
a reporter, Judith Miller of The New York Times, on June 23; but it
also describes discussions involving Mr. Libby, Mr. Addington, Mr.
Hannah, Ms. Martin and White House officials, about whether the
information could be shared with reporters.

Among the discussions, the indictment says, was one in mid-June, in
which Mr. Libby is said to have told Mr. Hannah that there could be
complications at the C.I.A. if information about Mr. Wilson's trip
was shared publicly. It is not clear how Mr. Cheney may have learned
"from the C.I.A." that Ms. Wilson worked in the agency's
counterproliferation division, a fact that meant she was part of the
C.I.A.'s clandestine service, and that she might well be working
undercover.

Lawyers in the case say that notes taken by Mr. Libby indicate that
detail was provided to Mr. Cheney by George J. Tenet, who was the
director of central intelligence at the time, but several former
intelligence officials say they do not believe that Mr. Tenet was the
source of the information.

Many questions remain unanswered in the indictment. The special
counsel, Patrick J. Fitzgerald, said that Ms. Wilson's affiliation
with the C.I.A. had been classified, but he did not assert that Mr.
Libby knew that she had covert status, something the prosecutor would
have had to prove to support a charge under the Intelligence
Identities Protection Act.

It is not clear, for example, what guidance, if any, Mr. Cheney gave
to Mr. Libby about whether or how to share information about Mr.
Wilson's trip with reporters. Among their discussions, lawyers in the
case have said, was one on July 11, 2003, on a trip to Norfolk, Va.,
that preceded by a day what two reporters, Ms. Miller and Matthew
Cooper of Time magazine, have said were conversations in which Mr.
Libby mentioned Mr. Wilson's wife.

Beyond Mr. Cheney's office, some of the government officials involved
in the discussions have yet to be identified. It is not clear from
the indictment, for example, who faxed the "classified information
from the C.I.A." about Mr. Wilson's trip to the vice president's
office on June 9, or which "senior C.I.A. officer" provided further
information to Mr. Libby on June 11.

Another question is whether Mr. Libby made appropriate use of the
top-level briefings provided to him by the C.I.A. The indictment says
that Mr. Libby complained to a C.I.A. briefer on June 14 that C.I.A.
officials were making comments critical of the Bush administration,
and that he mentioned, among other things, "Joe Wilson" and "Valerie
Wilson" in the context of Mr. Wilson's trip to Niger. Also still
unclear is how Ms. Martin, the press secretary, may have learned in
June or early July that Mr. Wilson's wife worked at the C.I.A. The
indictment says that Ms. Martin learned the information from "another
government official" and shared that information with Mr. Libby.

Mr. Grossman, who served under Colin L. Powell, left the government
in January and is now a private consultant. Mr. Addington, still Mr.
Cheney's counsel, has been a major participant in debates within the
administration about the treatment of terror suspects, and whether
those held at the American facility in Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, should
face military tribunals. Mr. Hannah, a Middle East specialist, was a
main liaison between the vice president's office and Ahmad Chalabi,
who as an Iraqi exile was a major force in urging the administration
toward war.

Mr. Hannah and Mr. Libby were also the main authors of a 48-page
draft speech prepared in January 2003 that was intended to make the
administration's case for war in Iraq before the United Nations. The
draft was provided to Mr. Powell before his speech to the Security
Council on Feb. 5, 2003. But most of its contents were cast aside by
Mr. Powell and Mr. Tenet, who ultimately rejected many claims related
to Iraq, its weapons program and terrorism as exaggerated and
unwarranted.

* Copyright 2005 The New York Times Company



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