Reply #9: I hadn't seen that yet. Thanks.

[Pirate Smile]

"But now, thanks to Powell's former chief of staff, it's clear that the problems weren't just between two warring departments. Larry Wilkerson claims there was "a cabal between the vice president of the United States, Dick Cheney, and the Defense secretary of the United States, Donald Rumsfeld, that made decisions that the bureaucracy didn't know were being made." Chief among those decisions: to go to war in Iraq. "You have a president who isn't versed in international affairs and not too much interested in them either," Wilkerson told an audience at the New America Foundation on Wednesday. "So it's not too difficult to make decisions in this Oval Office cabal, and decisions often that are the opposite of what you thought were made in the formal process."

Wilkerson argues that the reason leaders need to be open and honest with their own bureaucracy is because in times of war you need all the help, advice and teamwork you can lay your hands on. Dissent should be welcomed because the dissenters then form part of your team. He also argues that the entire national-security process needs to be overhauled to stop the kind of secrecy and concentration of power that led to the decision to invade Iraq.

But his observations are also directly relevant to the Plame affair. Joe Wilson's mistake was that he crossed the so-called cabal by saying the administration knew there was nothing to the Niger story even before President George W. Bush cited it in his State of the Union Message in early 2003. Just like Powell's dissent in the run-up to war, the response inside the administration was personally critical and had a chilling effect on internal debate.

Whether or not you agree with the war, and whether or not Fitzgerald indicts anyone, it's worth remembering why Joe Wilson was at all important to the White House and the vice president's office in particular. As the president said in his 2003 State of the Union address, "Sending Americans into battle is the most profound decision a president can make." The Plame game gets to the heart of how that decision was made-and whether anyone could offer an alternative view and survive with their reputation intact."