Indictments will come later today in the investigation of the outing of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) agent Valerie Plame and currently circulating rumors suggest that Karl Rove will not be indicted and that Lewis “Scooter” Libby will be.
While the prosecution of any members of President George W. Bush’s administration is a good thing, the investigation has focused almost exclusively on the leak of Valerie Plame’s name and the lies officials have told to cover-up the leak when it is really the public lies told to support the war on Iraq that should be the focus of attention. The claims that Iraq tried to buy uranium from Niger, which former Ambassador Joseph Wilson (Plame’s husband) investigated in February of 2002 and found to be baseless, were a central part of the Bush administration’s effort to “sell” the war on Iraq to the United States’ public by using deception and lies. Vice President Dick Cheney, who has recently been the subject of rumors suggesting the possibility that he played a role in the leaking of Plame’s name, played an active role in spreading the idea that Iraq had nuclear weapons and according to many sources, vigorously defended the Niger uranium claim. The Niger uranium claim had “shadowy” origins with Italy’s military intelligence service who gave the information directly to high-ranking Bush administration officials (1, 2, 3). The fact that the Bush administration believed these claims continued to cite these claims after the CIA and Joseph Wilson said they were not credible shows the administration’s willingness to distort the truth in order to support the war. Moreover, reports have also recently come out that Cheney and his Chief of Staff Libby blocked the release of numerous pre-war intelligence documents that they authored when the Senate Intelligence Committee was investigating false pre-war intelligence.
Despite the fact that some top officials will likely be indicted, there is reason to remain skeptical that any substantial good will come from the investigation as it is unlikely that the investigation will broaden to look at the issue of purposely misleading the US public in order to manufacture support for an illegal war on Iraq. Even more frustrating is the fact that critics of the war have had to wait nearly three years for a special prosecutor to raise questions about the widespread, purposeful use of misleading intelligence since the Democratic Party has been unwilling to do so itself.
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- Rumsfeld should be Tried for War Crimes, Gates should not be confirmed
- Levin Raises Possibility of Torture Indictments
- Headlines: Obama Continues Bush Assertion of “State Secrets” in Torture Case; $9.7 Trillion Govt. Tab in Financial Crisis
