USA Today - CIA leak probe circles back to cast Bush as leaker in chief

[kpete]

USA Today
CIA leak probe circles back to cast Bush as leaker in chief
Posted 4/9/2006

President Bush's quest to muzzle leakers in his administration has always looked a bit odd. In the most charitable interpretation, it's a naïve waste of time and resources. Leaks are part of every administration, and Bush's claims that national security has been undermined appear dubious at best.
In a less forgiving light, the effort can be cast as a Nixonesque attempt to intimidate anyone who dares interfere with administration policy by disclosing facts that it is hiding. Among the leaks that angered Bush most have been disclosures that the administration was engaging in wiretaps without court approval and that someone in the administration leaked the identity of a CIA operative.

The latest news from the leak front, if true, just makes the whole effort look foolish.

After two unproductive years, the federal investigation into the 2003 leak of the operative's identity has finally come full circle to wound the instigator of the probe himself — the president.

I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Cheney's top aide before being indicted in the leak probe in October, pointed the finger at Bush in grand jury testimony, according to an account filed last week by special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald. Libby testified that in the summer of 2003, Cheney told him that Bush had personally approved disclosing parts of the classified National Intelligence Estimate — though not the operative's name — to bolster one of the administration's key claims for going to war — Iraq was trying to buy uranium to produce nuclear weapons. That, like the administration's other rationales for war, proved false.

more at:
http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/editorials/2006-04-09-edit-cia-bush_x.htm

[rodeodance]

1. too bad it is not front page. WaPost and NYTimes did good this week-

end.

[Name removed]

2. Deleted message

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[Name removed]

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[stop the bleeding]

4. do more research

your understanding is severely lacking

[trotsky]

5. LOL

"Anti-Bush elements of the CIA"??? :rofl:

Well, there probably are now, since Bush set the CIA up as the fall guys for the failed invasion of Iraq.

But seriously, the old yellowcake claim has been thoroughly discredited. You're using debunked, recycled right-wing talking points. Stick around and learn.

[leftchick]

10. no really! They found YELLOWCAKE!!!!!

just not the right kind!



:rofl:

[AllieB]

6. Hi nonsocialist

I love your handle, considering you are on a Democratic message board and not a socialist one.

I was wondering where on earth you got the notion that it was 'anti-Bush elements of the CIA' that sent Joe Wilson to Niger. Could it be Rush? Hannity? Fox News? DU has a lot of information about this issue-information that is based on facts and not spin. Happy reading!

[leftchick]

7. wow, you need some facts fast!

here is a starting point....

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2006/04/10.html#a7871

[Beetwasher]

8. Damn Boy, You Need Some Grammar Lessons

Among other things.

"...what was the Iraqi's doing there?"

:eyes:

[dogday]

9. It was Cheney himself that requested the CIA

send someone there to check it out... He wanted evidence to support his claim, but Wilson could not find that evidence...

[Beetwasher]

11. Nice To See This in USAT

n/t

[Arkham House]

12. Does anyone else feel we've drifted into a parallel universe...?

I mean--everyone in the world has known, for almost three years, that Bush personally authorized this. We had an election with this lurking in the background, never really becoming an issue, just like Watergate in '72...Bush was "re-elected"...and yet, everyone KNEW. Everyone knows it now...but nobody says it, even now is this possibility even being raised, no matter how gingerly, in the media...and yet: we've all known all along... What in Chrissake is the matter with this country...?

[Supersedeas]

13. Exactly - the public could have used this info in Oct/Nov of 2004