NYT: Democrat Questions Cheney's Role in Leak

[bklyncowgirl]

Suggests that Dean confused the NIE that Libby says Cheney told him to leak with a document. My understanding was that the document that Libby referred to contained the Plame information.

Anyone know anything about this?

WASHINGTON, Feb. 12 — Howard Dean, the Democratic Party chairman, said Sunday that Vice President Dick Cheney would need to resign if he had ordered a leak that resulted in the public exposure of an undercover C.I.A. officer.

Mr. Dean cited news reports last week that I. Lewis Libby Jr., Mr. Cheney's former chief of staff, had testified to a grand jury that his "superiors," whom he did not name, had told him to leak classified information to reporters to justify the Iraq war.

But Mr. Libby's testimony, according to the document that was the basis of the news reports, did not say anyone had told him to disclose the name of Valerie Wilson, the undercover operative, as Mr. Dean appeared to suggest. The testimony dealt with a different but related disclosure of classified information from a report about Iraq's nuclear capability.

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/02/13/politics/13leak.html

[liberal N proud]

1. Now is not the time to ask questions - Dick just shot a man and

he should not be the center of the media attention right now!
:sarcasm:

[Tesla]

2. If you got it, it is time to sell..

your Halliburton stock!!!!:headbang:

[Vidar]

3. Right on, Howard!

[CottonBear]

4. Fox & F riends First were busy trashing Dean this morning.

They called him a "nut." If Faux is trashing Dean then Dean must be telling the truth. :)

[rodeodance]

5. on cnn today--Dean clearly said 'if' the evidence shows (tentative tone)

even as O-brien tried to trip him up.



In an interview on the CBS News program "Face the Nation," Mr. Dean appeared to expand on the news reports about Mr. Libby's testimony, saying grand jury testimony showed that "it turns out that the vice president of the United States may have been responsible for those leaks" about Ms. Wilson's role with the Central Intelligence Agency for political reasons.

Any confusion on Mr. Dean's part about last week's disclosure underlines both the deep complexity of the investigation into who leaked Ms. Wilson's identity to the press and its potential for enormous political opportunities and pitfalls.

There are two reasons the confusion is likely to continue as a criminal case against Mr. Libby proceeds. The first is that Mr. Libby is not charged with improperly disclosing Ms. Wilson's identity in the summer of 2003; rather, he is charged with lying to investigators about how he learned of her position at the C.I.A. and her role in the agency assigning her husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV, to go to Africa to determine if Iraq was trying to acquire nuclear materials.

[rodeodance]

6. need to go after the words from the WH just as aggresively.

[Supersedeas]

7. Isn't Pat Robert's supposed to be investigating leaks of this nature?

[bemildred]

8. Dean calls for Cheney to resign

By Charles Hurt
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
February 13, 2006

Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean called for the removal of Vice President Dick Cheney if he authorized his chief of staff to leak classified material or the identity of CIA employee Valerie Plame.
"Scooter Libby testified to the grand jury that his superior ordered him to, or suggested that he leak the information to the press in order to discredit one of their political opponents," Mr. Dean said yesterday on CBS' "Face the Nation." "If that happened at a time of war, the vice president cannot sit in the office he now occupies."
I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Mr. Cheney's former chief of staff, has told a federal grand jury that he disclosed the contents of a July 2003 classified National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) as part of the Bush administration's effort to justify the invasion of Iraq, documents released last week showed.
"Mr. Libby testified that he was authorized to disclose the information about the NIE to the press by his superiors," wrote Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the special counsel in the case.

Mooney Times

[Jackpine Radical]

9. So howzcum the Moonies are giving this story any space?

Every once in a while I'm surprised at something they decide to run. I haven't quite figured out their game plan when they do that.

[redqueen]

14. So they can put their spin on it, of course:

"The detailed indictment of Mr. Libby issued last year said that administration officials were frustrated that Mr. Wilson claimed to have been dispatched to Africa by the vice president's office when, in fact, he had been sent because his wife, who held a desk job at the CIA, had recommended him.

Since being "outed," Mrs. Plame has posed for photo spreads in glossy magazines even as her husband claimed her safety was threatened by the leak. She has since retired from the agency."

:mad:

[Jackpine Radical]

16. Oh. Shit. That would have been obvious if I had read the article.

[redqueen]

17. I don't blame you for not doing so...

it is the Mooney Times, after all. x(

[HereSince1628]

10. It'll Never Happen.

Cheney resign? Even over Dean's dead 28 guage bird shot peppered body.

[gratuitous]

11. Let's get behind the Chairman, Democrats

We're either at war or we aren't. Bush keeps saying over and over again that we're at war, which is why he needs to act as not only the executive, but also the legislative and judicial branches of government. Since so many Democrats are willing to let that nonsense stand, then we must truly be at war. And if the vice president is playing games with our intelligence community in order to discredit political opponents, he needs to leave office. We're at war.

There is no alternative.

[rodeodance]

13. so, shall we say we do not have a 'war on terror"-?--

I recognize that the bushco war on terror is a farse for the most part--

[gratuitous]

15. I don't think we're at war, either

But a lot of the Democrats in Congress seem to be playing along with the fiction. And if we are truly at war, as they seem to think, then the vice president should tender his resignation for putting politics above national security.

As I say, there is no alternative. Unless the Democrats want to pretend that we weren't at war that particular day, but I don't think even the most supine Democrats (lookin' at you, Lieberman) would be that toadyingly brazen.

[rodeodance]

12. "if he authorized his chief of staff to leak classified material"--at leas

t the paper included the big "IF"--

[Jack Rabbit]

18. Jack Rabbit calls for the convening of a War Crimes Tribunal

Jack Rabbit today again called on the United Nations and the international community to convene a tribunal for war crimes in Iraq and crimes against humanity arising out of the war on terror.

"It is doubtful that the US justice system will ever seek accountability for the lies and distortions that Mr. Bush, Mr. Cheney, Dr. Rice, Mr. Rumsfeld, Mr. Feith and other high level members of the US junta made to justify an unnecessary colonial invasion of a sovereign state," said Mr. Rabbit. He also said, "It is doubtful that the US justice system will hold some of these same people and Mr. Gonzales, Professor Yoo and others responsible for violations of the Convention against Torture in the name of national security."

Mr. Rabbit also called on the proposed tribunal to assume responsibility for trying former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein and other members of his regime, stating that an Iraqi court instituted under the auspices of the Bush junta-backed Iraqi regime could not be trusted to give Saddam a fair trial. "I have no doubt that a fair trial will find Saddam and his lieutenants guilty of some very heinous crimes," said Mr. Rabbit. "We don't need a kangaroo court for that."

[applegrove]

19. It was sort of vague when the story broke. But Dean's question is

still valid. Libby may not have testified that Cheney & others told him to leak Plame specifically - but he admitted other classified information was declassified and leaked under orders. It shows a pattern.

Not a smoking gun. But Dean's point - that if it is true in the case of Plame - something needs to happen.

[raysr]

20. I hope this shooting gets

rammed down Cheney's throat until he chokes! Or strokes!