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Edited on Sat Feb-25-06 09:00 AM by Peace Patriot
of emails the purpose of which we cannot even fathom yet--and also fake sentences and other facts within otherwise authentic emails. The fake material could possibly be figured out by means of internal inconsistencies, or inconsistency with other known facts. Although they've given themselves lots and lots of time to invent whatever facts they think they need, the Bush junta is not all that clever; they rely on secrecy and thuggery and money to accomplish their purposes, and the lapdog press and lapdog Congress have schooled them in intellectual laziness. In other words, they can't be bothered with much intellectual effort; they believe they can get away with murder (probably quite literally--as well as figuratively), so it might not be that difficult to sort out the fake from the real. In addition, there are the computers themselves. I don't know what powers Fitzgerald may have to seize the machines, if he suspects fakery. Expert examination of the machines might reveal false dates, etc.
I don't think the search for fake material should be limited to items that are helpful to Libby's defense. We don't know what purposes the "White House" might have in producing fake facts. For instance, if Traitorgate involved the murder of the British chief weapons expert David Kelly (which I and others suspect), and those in the White House who doctored the emails were out to remove any tracks to that crime, there could be deleted or phony material that only someone looking for that connection would notice, and it might not seem to be related to Libby's defense on the perjury/obstruction charges or to the Plame outing itself.
I am intrigued by the fact that Judith Miller wanted to limit her testimony on her meetings with Libby just to the matter of Plame/Wilson, not other things that they discussed. She made quite a point of it in her jail negotiations. There are many possibilities as to what else they discussed, that Miller would want to conceal--but she knew Kelly; they'd written a book together and he was whistleblowing in England along the same lines as Wilson--exaggerated pre-war WMD intel--on a hauntingly parallel time-time with the Plame outing.
Time-line: Kelly began whistleblowing anonymously to the BBC in late May 2003; he was outed to his bosses, by an unknown party, and interrogated in late June; Blair was informed that Kelly knew something more damaging on July 7, the day after Wilson published his article; Plame was outed by Novak July 14; Kelly was found dead under highly suspicious circumstances four days later (July 18); his office and computers were searched, and four days after that (July 22), Brewster-Jennings, the entire CIA counter-proliferation network with which Plame was associated, was outed (also by Novak). Another intriguing fact: One of Kelly's last emails, on the day he died (July 17) was to his old colleague Judith Miller. In it he expressed concern about the "many dark actors playing games." Miller wrote Kelly's obit for the NYT and failed to disclose this email or her close connections to Kelly; this came out later when Kelly's family released his emails.
Theory: The WMD-planting theory of Traitorgate is that the Bush junta had a plan in motion to plant WMDs in Iraq; that the plan was foiled (obviously); that Kelly found out about it, or helped foil it; that, since he was already whistleblowing, he was a great threat and had to be killed; and that Plame/BJ were outed, not because of Wilson's publication July 6 (or not primarily because of it), but because of a (theorized) Blair phone call to Bush July 7 about Kelly, which prompted the Bushites to act immediately--and quite precipitously, putting many top Bushites at great risk--to silence and/or punish Plame/BJ/CIA for doing its job of counter-proliferation (stopping the WMD planting). And there is a Part 1 to this plot, involving the Niger forgeries and Wilson (that the "crudeness" of the Niger forgeries--they were very easily detectable as forgeries--was deliberate; they were intended to be exposed as forgeries, in order to bait the CIA into a public position of no nukes in Iraq; then to discredit the CIA when the planted nukes were "found.")
There are some very good reasons to suspect a Plame/Kelly connection, besides the striking coincidence of dates. For one thing, Bush and Blair were in close communication at that time, and had a mutual interest in concealing their tissue of lies about Iraq (and any associated skulduggery--such as trying to plant WMDs in Iraq). And there is also a possible Rumsfeld connection to Plame/Kelly that might be hidden in Cheney emails. (Rumsfeld is the one who set Miller up in Iraq, with the US troops, to be the reporter on the spot when they "found" the WMDs that they all knew did not exist.)
Speaking of a "tissue of lies," here's an interesting sentence in Jason Leopold's article on Cheney's lies about his role in outing Plame:
"Some of the (Cheney aides) emails that were turned over to Fitzgerald contained references to Plame Wilson's identity and CIA status, **and developments related to the inability of ground forces to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq after the start of the war in March 2003."** (emphasis added)
We need to remember how closely the two things were related at that time--Wilson's exposure of the Niger forgeries, and the "hunt" for WMDs. There were dramatic daily headlines--"yes, we found them!", "oops, no, we didn't" (for months)--with Miller in a high profile position, and so anxious about the "search" that she became a positive annoyance to local commanders.
Leopold writes that "The emails are said to be explosive." Here's one way that they are explosive. Contrary to all previous Cheney statements, "...the emails...will show that the vice president spearheaded an effort in March 2003 to attack Wilson’s credibility **and used the CIA to dig up information on the former ambassador that could be used against him...". ** (emphasis added)
This has to be a crime. I don't know what the statute might be--against "using the CIA" to get dirt on a political opponent--but surely there must be one (unless the junta has rescinded that law, too, by secret "executive order").
So, if the WMD-planting theory of Traitorgate is true, Cheney "using the CIA" to try to destroy Wilson occurred amidst mounting anxiety about the failure of their plan to plant WMDs in Iraq, and the Bushites were then pushed into panic mode when they learned from Blair that Kelly was onto them, and further learned, after Kelly was dead, and in the course of the Plame outing (to the July 22 date, the Brewster-Jennings outing) details of how the BJ counter-proliferation network got onto their plan and foiled it (possibly without knowing it was being directed from the White House or the Pentagon--that is, possibly only seeing Manucher Ghorbanifar's tail disappearing around a corner). (Ghorbanifar is the notorious Iranian arms dealer who was present at the Rome meeting in 2001--that included Michael Ladeen and other Neo-Cons--where the Niger forgeries were likely concocted. He was known to the CIA as a disseminator of disinformation. He may also be the one who was to procure the illicit WMDs and get them into Iraq.)
There are a number of potentially explosive things in Leopold's article, involving likely Cheney destruction of emails, Alberto Gonzales concealment/withholding of emails, and a new whistleblower (someone working at the NSC). Excessive secrecy, destruction of documents, guilty behavior, and panic are all evident. (Gonzales was the one who gave White House aides prior notice of the Fitzgerald investigation--and 12 hours or so to trash emails and shred documents.)
I was quite struck, early on, by the evidence of panic in the Bush junta's outing of Plame. They contacted at least SIX reporters--six journalist witnesses to treason--in one week (July 6-14), apparently in a frantic search for a patsy to out Plame immediately (and/or, in a wild, scattershot method of dropping the seed all over town, to make her identity bounce back at them and make it look like they didn't disclose it). This was a very crude and highly risky method of "punishing" Wilson. A deeper motive--to silence/punish Plame--seems likely. And the outing of the Brewster-Jennings network--putting all U.S. agents and contacts around the world at risk of getting killed--seems way, way beyond the supposed "punish Wilson" objective. It is "aid and comfort to the enemy," and if, as Bush claims as an excuse on other matters (such as domestic spying), we are "at war," then the destroyers of the Plame/BJ operation are in fact traitors, by definition.
They destroyed--and put at great risk--a network of spies and contacts who were working to keep us safe from the odd WMD that might cross our borders or those of our allies, and harm many people. They were thus familiar with--and were watching--illicit movements of arms all over the world, and, in that process, may have tripped over Ghorbanifar and caught him or others sneaking nukes into Iraq. That was their job. And whether the WMD-planting theory of Traitorgate is true, or not, they all got a nice thanks from the U.S. government for trying to keep us safe--possibly a bullet in the head, in some cases. This seems quite excessive as "punishment" of one ex-diplomat dissenter, whose article and interviews might otherwise have slipped on by in the illusion-land of the war profiteering corporate news monopolies, where all dissent from this junta eventually disappears and is forgotten.
I also sense anger and revenge in the Bushites' hearts--beyond what a mere dissenter might cause. (The "Rovian revenge" story was suspicious from the beginning.) And what I'm sensing in their behavior is possibly aggravation at nifty plans foiled (planted nukes, a triumphant "find"), and the consequent desire to...um...put a shotgun blast in the faces of those who foiled them? (Actually, I think Rumsfeld is the most guilty--the mastermind--and he probably handles firearms with perfect control.) What they did to Plame/BJ is a metaphorical shotgun blast--or maybe machine gun spray is more accurate. For an article, for a book, written by her HUSBAND? ALL the U.S. agents/contacts she was running, all over the world, put at risk?
There is something about this case that has them REALLY, REALLY worried--worried then, worried now. Bush could have gone on TV and admitted the outing long ago--and tried to excuse it as political zeal, or war worries, or whatever--and the lapdog press would have called it forgivable and even noble. They could have stopped this in its tracks. Instead, they're treating it like a Pandora's box, to be covered up at any cost--most likely because that's what it IS, a snake-filled horror chest of Bush junta crimes.
Who knows what may be hidden in these recently disclosed emails--or in the emails that Cheney's office has tried to destroy (or that were not "preserved through the normal archiving process on the White House computer system," as Fitzgerald politely puts it), or that are being withheld for "national security" reasons by Bush Cartel toady Gonzales?
Fitzgerald has the authority to pursue any related crime. I hope that the right questions are being asked, and the right clues are being pursued, to get to the bottom of what I perceive as panic and rush in the Bush junta's outing of Plame. There is more here than "punishing" Wilson. And the coincidence of dates with the events in England (re David Kelly) are just too striking to be ignored.
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