Recent speculation has Fitzgerald expanding his investigation to explore abuse of intelligence issues. Conspiracy charges -- e.g. amongst WHIG members -- have always been a possibility. In these regards, might Miller have participated in a conscious, deliberate deception of the public...i.e. in service of long-standing Neocon causes? Or was she used...and a dupe, like the rest of us? Regarding Ms. Miller...
There's this cryptic communication between Scooter Libby and Miller, which sounds almost like a recruitment letter:
A 'Dear Judy' Letter from 'Scooter'--With 'Admiration' By E&P Staff, Published: October 1, 2005
“Dear Judy, Your reporting, and you are missed. Like many Americans, I admire your principled stand. But, like many friends and readers, I would welcome you back among the rest of us, doing what you do best—reporting.”
...
“You went into jail in the summer. It is fall now. You will have stories to cover—Iraqi elections and suicide bombers, biological threats and the Iranian nuclear program. Out West, where you vacation, the aspens will already be turning. They turn in clusters, because their roots connect them. Come back to work—-and life. Until then, you will remain in my thoughts and prayers.”
“With admiration, Scooter Libby.”
And this background, in a broader context:
Judy and the Neocons By Juan Cole, Salon.com, 14 October 2005
...
Yet over time Miller came to subscribe to key neocon ideas - and began increasingly to rely on neocons and their allies for sources. As a June 2004 profile of Miller in New York magazine makes clear, perhaps the pivotal moment in this evolution came in the '90s, when Miller began focusing on the link between terrorism and WMD. She was particularly interested in al-Qaida's plans to acquire WMD. Her work on this subject put her in contact with Ahmad Chalabi, whose party line she began to recite as early as 1998. Before 9/11, her beat made her look obsessed; afterward, as the piece's author, Franklin Foer, notes, "she seemed more like Cassandra, the only one who'd been right. And this fact gave her tremendous power at the paper."
In any case, Miller began to uncritically parrot even some of the neocons' loonier claims...