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and that the reason is Libby's lying and obstruction. There is a big difference between you, me or a prosecutor being personally convinced that a crime took place and who did it, and being able to PROVE it in a court of law. Read Fitzgerald's filing again. A short translation would be this: Libby is "falling on his sword" for Dick Cheney, and his lying and obstruction prevented the prosecution from getting the goods on Cheney and clearly understanding the conspiracy to out Plame (and--notably, in my opinion, the entire Brewster-Jennings WMD counterproliferation network). They committed a crime; they got away with it because Libby OBSTRUCTED and continues to obstruct the prosecutor's clear view of the perpetrators (and, of course, access to evidence against Cheney, such as Libby's knowledge of their conversations and of Cheney's actions).
Check-mate. Libby is covering for Cheney.
There is more to it than this--that goes beyond the specific matter of Libby's conviction and sentencing. For instance, the current AG of the US, Alberto Gonzales, when he was WH counsel, gave the perps a 12 hour heads up to shred documents and burn hard-drives. And we now know that that is only one of many crimes that Gonzales is likely guilty of. Fitzgerald has been operating in a poisonous and highly dangerous atmosphere of massive crime on the part of those ABOVE HIM. He cannot appeal to the president. He cannot appeal to the vice president. He cannot appeal to the attorney general. All are involved in COVERING UP this crime. In this context, he was able to pinpoint ONE of the obstructors--probably a designated "fall guy" (Libby)--and nail him on his lies. But until Bush, Cheney and Gonzales suddenly turn into honest men (or somebody rats on them), or until Congress takes this on, there is no breaking this conspiracy.
Fitzgerald got past the Rove cover story. I applaud him for that. Cheney was the main perp in this crime, on the political end of things. (I think Rumsfeld was the mastermind, however.*). And Rove more than likely was, in this case, merely one of the political operatives. Indeed, there is evidence that Cheney/Libby tried to set Rove up as the "fall guy." (Rove, a wily maneuverer, saw that coming, and quickly went back to the Grand Jury to head it off.) The Rove cover story was that Rove did the outing for political revenge. A very believable cover story, but not the truth. Political revenge was more than likely a MINOR part of this conspiracy--which has much more to do with the operational plotting of Rumsfeld's Office of Special Plans and Cheney's and Rumsfeld's moves to destroy the independence and professional judgment of the CIA, and to thereby be able to cook intelligence for their own warmongering purposes.
These larger matters--the overarching conspiracy to perpetrate an unjust war--are very, very difficult for an individual prosecutor to address--especially given that the perpetrators are still in power, still lying, still committing crimes, still covering their own asses and politicizing the Justice Department (which has become little more than a criminal enterprise itself), and, furthermore, with the new Democratic Congress dashing everyone's hopes that THEY would go after these criminals and end their heinous war. Prosecutors can only do so much to bring such high placed criminals to justice. Ultimately, it is a matter of political will, and, although the American people are sick to death of this war and this crime regime, our leaders, apparently, are not.
In this document, Fitgerald seems to me to be signaling as well as he can, under the circumstances, that Cheney is the one who should be going to jail--and would be, but for Libby's lies and obstruction. Who is he signaling to? The political establishment, and the American people. Notice how many times he mentions the gravity of this matter due, he says, to its connection to the vice president.
There is also the possibility that Fitzgerald's limited prosecution is something of a cover up, in itself. But there is little evidence to support that hypothesis, and there is much reason to believe his narrative (above) as a straightforward account of what happened: Libby PREVENTED him from getting to the next level--Cheney--and should go to jail for it, because (implied) he is STILL obstructing the investigation. (Fitzgerald granted immunity to others, and probably offered immunity to Libby, to break the conspiracy. But Libby continued to obstruct.)
If you want to blame someone for why the crime of treason has not been prosecuted--when treason was committed--blame Libby.
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*(The Bushite with the main operational interest in purging the CIA of honest professionals was Rumsfeld. Personally, I think the outing of Plame and Brewster-Jennings was connected to Rumsfeld's OSP operations: the forging of the Niger nuke documents, and possibly a plot to PLANT nukes in Iraq--to be "discovered" by the US troops who were searching for WMDs--as a followup to the forged documents. Someone foiled Part 2 of that plot, obviously. No WMDs were found. And the B/J counter-proliferation network of covert agents/contacts around the world--the network that the Bushites specifically outed in a SECOND column by Novak (after Plame was outed)--is a good candidate for who might have foiled those plans. The Rumsfeld idea would have been to justify the war, in retrospect, by a "find" of the weapons, to cement Bush/Blair's political positions, and move on to the NEXT completely unjustified war: Iran. Further, the Plame/B-J outings have a smell of panic about them, and may have been connected to the death of the British top WMD expert, David Kelly, in the same week that Plame was outed. He had been whistleblowing to the BBC about the "sexed up" prewar WMD intelligence at the same time as Wilson. Kelly was found dead four days after Plame was outed; his office and computers were searched; and, four days later, after his body was discovered (a highly suspicious death), B-J was ADDITIONALLY outed, putting all of its agents/contacts at extreme peril. These would be deep cover people in foreign governments who were tasked with spotting unusual WMD activity, and preventing WMDs from getting into the wrong hands. The Bushites, by naming Plame's front company in Novak's second column, pointed a gun at their heads.)
(The Rovian political revenge story, re the Plame outing, can thus be seen as a cover story, for these deeper, currently hard-to-see crimes. Fitzgerald got past that story, and understood that it was a Cheney-led conspiracy. But--if the above theory is true--Cheney was running the political end of the conspiracy--and still is--while Rumsfeld ran the operational end of it. Also, Rumsfeld's FAILURE to plant and "discover" the nukes in Iraq has resulted in serious political and legal problems for Cheney and Bush, which may be why Rumsfeld is the one who is gone.)
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