NYT--In Indictment's Wake, a Focus on Cheney's Powerful Role

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http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/30/politics/30cheney.html

October 30, 2005 - By ELISABETH BUMILLER and ERIC SCHMITT (NYT) -
Front Page - News

October 30, 2005- NYTimes
The Vice President
In Indictment's Wake, a Focus on Cheney's Powerful Role
By ELISABETH BUMILLER and ERIC SCHMITT

WASHINGTON, Oct. 29 - Vice President Dick Cheney makes only three brief appearances in the 22-page federal indictment that charges his chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby, with lying to investigators and misleading a grand jury in the C.I.A. leak case. But in its clear, cold language, it lifts a veil on how aggressively Mr. Cheney's office drove the rationale against Saddam Hussein and then fought to discredit the Iraq war's critics.

The document now raises a central question: how much collateral damage has Mr. Cheney sustained?

Many Republicans say that Mr. Cheney, already politically weakened because of his role in preparing the case for war, could be further damaged if he is forced to testify about the infighting over intelligence that turned out to be false. At the least, they say, his office will be temporarily off balance with the resignation of Mr. Libby, who controlled both foreign and domestic affairs in a vice presidential office that has served as a major policy arm for the West Wing.......



Mr. Cheney's allies noted that there was no suggestion in the indictment that the most powerful vice president in American history, with enormous influence into all important corners of administration policy, had done anything wrong. They also said that Mr. Libby, whose role has been diminished in the past year as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice became more powerful and the leak investigation took its toll, could be quickly replaced from the vice president's large Rolodex of support.

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