"Scooter" Libby Is The Connection Between Plamegate and Downing Street

[DrFunkenstein]

Like Watergate, the outing of Valerie Plame has implications far beyond the literal infraction. Of course, it reveals a long pattern of vicious political skullduggery on the part of Karl Rove and swift White House revenge against any who cross its path.

It would be a grave mistake, though, to focus the attention on Rove's comeuppance. That would certainly be a bonus to Democrats still licking their wounds. And it feeds into the mindset of the media protecting its own (Miller and Cooper) by pursuing this story. But it is not the issue at hand.

The issue at hand is why revenge went to such extreme lengths - far beyond even the Swift Boat or character assassins.

The revenge was extreme because the stakes were so high.

After years of backroom sweat and millions and millions of dollars to groups like Chalabi's INC, the plans for invasion were finally clicking along. The architects of the invasion were finally going to see over a decade of work come to fruition. Chief among those architects were Cheney, Perle, Wolfowitz, and Wolfowitz's former student and Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

Libby is almost certainly the first person to contact the media with Plame's identity.

For one quick indication (amongst many):

Appearing on Wednesday's "Buchanan & Press," Johnson told the hosts, "I know the name of the person that spoke with Bob Novak," and that the person worked "at the White House," and more specifically, "in the Old Executive Office Buildings." The vice president's office is located inside the Old Executive Office Building.

And when Buchanan asked Johnson point-blank, "Scooter Libby. Now, is Scooter Libby the name you heard?" Johnson said simply, "I'm not going to comment on that."

http://fairuse.1accesshost.com/news1/libby.html

Did Libby out Plame for political revenge? Yes, but not in the public sense that Rove had. Not only was Wilson a blight on the President's name, but he threatened to derail a media asking few questions. At the time, defectors like Curveball were taken at their word over WMDs (except by the CIA and State Dept.), 70% of Americans believed Saddam was involved in 9/11, and no one looked too closely at the "cakewalk" scenarios.

If too much credence was given to Wilson's assertions, other questions might arise - leaving the house of cards extremely vulnerable. By the information we have pieced together from reports after the invasion, it was clear that the White House knew how tenuous their claims were:

http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0804-11.htm

The goal of the White House hawks was regime change at any cost (figuratively and literally), and the intelligence was "fixed" to sell the war as one of necessity.

Libby, like Cheney, was given virtually free access to CIA intelligence and knew that both the CIA and State Dept. did not believe Iraq to be an urgent issue. But the hawks looked down upon the two groups from day one as too soft. A figure like Wilson was not only soft, but had openly betrayed the administration by taking the fight into the public realm. In the eyes of an extremely secretive group, that was an inexcusable crime on part of the liberal and flamboyant Wilson.

The outing of Valerie Plame should not be limited to revenge for publicly accusing the President of lying in the State of the Union (the "16 words"). If the matter is left to go no further, it will be an injustice to the way future wars are fought by the United States. If Libby's part is downplayed, it will rob the entire matter of its martial context and render it a melodrama in the King's court.

Republican's who claim this is a "tempest in a teapot" will be proved right.

[goclark]

1. kick

[Norquist Nemesis]

2. I put my chips on Libby a long time ago

although I've added some other along with with along the way.

At this point, I'd go for Bolton as the Dog who dug up the bone and Libby as the one who tossed it for chasing. The others joined in with glee and became assessories(sp) after the fact.

[Imagevision]

20. Rove & Libby knew about outing Plame - but Bush & Cheney didn't?

is that supposed to be the cover story??

[DrFunkenstein]

23. Bush Probably Didn't Notice All The Media Attention on the "16 Words"

Or Condi publicly deflecting criticism by blaming Tenet (who had already told them not to include it, which is why "British" is one of the 16 words.)

And Cheney's been dead since 2001 and his robot double has hearing problems.

[NMDemDist2]

22. me too, Scooter was my pick as the leak from very early on n/t

[TNDemo]

3. Why exactly was Cheney so hell bent on this war?

I know they wanted to make Iraq a model (oops - their bad) and be able to blow things up so they could rebuild them at exorbitant prices and they wanted control of the oil (nasty little pipeline bombs) but am I missing the bigger picture?

[wli]

4. soft target for establishing more bases in the Middle East

[Norquist Nemesis]

6. A quick review

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/849893.stm

"But the veteran Mr Cheney, credited with masterminding the US success in the Gulf War, has seen off all younger, fitter, more hotly-tipped and higher-profile contenders to snatch the job himself."


You know...the one where they didn't go into Baghdad?

[benddem]

7. Halliburton, Halliburton, Halliburton n/t

[DrFunkenstein]

8. I've Always Found This Passage Revealing

Chalabi’s pitch stirred enthusiasm and curiosity among a group of American neoconservatives who had played crucial roles in the first Bush Administration but were now scattered among Washington think tanks. After the fall of Communism, the neoconservatives were eager for a new cause, and Chalabi—an educated, secular Shiite who was accepting of Israel and talked about spreading democracy throughout the Middle East—capitalized on their enthusiasm.

Judith Kipper, the Council on Foreign Relations director, said that, around this time, Chalabi made “a deliberate decision to turn to the right,” having realized that conservatives were more likely than liberals to back the use of force against Saddam.

Before long, Chalabi was on a first-name basis with thirty members of Congress, such as Trent Lott and Newt Gingrich, and was attending social functions with Richard Perle, a former Assistant Secretary of Defense, who was now a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, and Dick Cheney, who was the C.E.O. of Halliburton.

According to Brooke, “From the beginning, Cheney was in philosophical agreement with this plan. Cheney has said, ‘Very seldom in life do you get a chance to fix something that went wrong.’ ”

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content?040607fa_fact1

This is one of the most important articles you'll find on how we would get from Downing Street - a clear desire to invade Iraq - and how they put together the case to sell to the public. Chalabi was the perfect man for their plans - someone committed (for his own dubious ends) to invasion, and both willing and able to provide "intelligence" that would counter anything the CIA and State Dept. put out suggesting a lack of urgency.

You could not get from Downing Street to invasion without Chalabi.

It has never been clear to me what percentage of Cheney's desire for invasion was ideological, what was related to Bush I's aversion to regime change in the first Gulf War, and what was related to his economic connection to Halliburton and the energy industry. Certainly all play a part.

[Tin Man]

11. Succinct and enlightening, good stuff - n/t

[ncteechur]

12. Money Money Money Money

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

[ChiciB1]

21. AND That Means Saudi Arabia!!!

I've said this for years and years and years!!!

[jojo54]

5. Thanks, Dr

I've been trying to figure out links between DSM/Iraq war and Plamegate. It seems this article has filled in some of the holes.

[snippy]

9. The entire White House Iraq Group, including Libby, is the connection.

The Whig was given the responsibility for "marketing" the invasion of Iraq and decided early on to do such marketing with a campaign of lies. The WHIG was responsible for the white paper which contained the first known reference to the yellowcake lies. The WHIG also is almost certainly responsible for what Judge Tatel of the Court of Appeals called the "plot against Wilson," and as a part of that plot also likely was responsible for planning and coordinating the revelation of Plame's identity. Lies about invading Iraq and WMD fall squarely within the WHIG's area of responsibility.

[DrFunkenstein]

13. Office of Special Plans (OSP), Pentagon Hawks, VP Office (With INC)

Almost all of them had connections to the PNAC and/or the American Enterprise Institute or the Rand Corporation. Most of them knew of one another from the Bush I administration and kept in contact until Cheney put together Bush II's civilian team in charge of defense.

[flpoljunkie]

10. Very interesting reaction from Rove when he learned he may have broken law

From dailykos' Lizah: "Let's Scoot-er and Rove, and Look at the Chain-ey"

Sat Jul 16th, 2005 at 08:00:31 PDT

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2005/7/16/11031/3299

Excerpt from Lizah's above titled posting. Below is from Joe Wilson's book:

Wilson also mentions tensions in the WH over this.  

Apparently, according to two journalist sources of mine, when Rove learned that he might have violated the law, he turned on Cheney and Libby and made it clear that he held them responsible for the problem they had created for the administration. The protracted silence on this topic from the White House masks considerable tension between the Office of the President and the Office of the Vice President.

[DrFunkenstein]

14. That Is A Very Interesting Turn (Thanks for the Scoop)

Good to see you're still hanging around DU, flpoljunkie. It's been awhile since I could talk politics again. But I think this is a potentially enormous development and I can't resist.

[flpoljunkie]

15. Great to have you back, Dr. Funkenstein!

[DrFunkenstein]

16. Hey, Geov Parrish (Working For Change) Shares My Sentiment!

In their zeal to nail Rove, liberals and progressives may be missing the real story here. Rove says he first learned about Plame's status from reporters. If so, somebody had to tell those reporters.

A clue as to who comes from who the reporters are. Matthew Cooper, Time correspondent, says he talked with Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Dick Cheney's chief of staff, after he talked with Rove. Libby has also claimed in the past not to have talked with reporters about Plame.

The leak originally hit print with Robert Novak, a columnist tight with Bush's neocon crowd. But the most intriguing figure is Judith Miller, the New York Times reporter previously most notorious as the credulous scribe who reprinted, on page one, mountains of pre-war lies about Saddam Hussein and weapons of mass destruction, lies often sourced to Iranian spy Ahmed Chalabi.

Chalabi was a favored protégé of the neocon war hawks who pushed the Bush White House into war, a cabal led by Cheney himself. Miller was their favored mouthpiece.

It's no stretch of the imagination to picture a situation in which the neocons were alarmed by the nerve former Ambassador Joseph Wilson struck with his revelations that the Bush team knew that accusations Hussein tried to purchase yellowcake uranium from the African country of Niger were not only false, but based on crude forgeries. Their preferred response was to go after the messenger -- to discredit Joseph Wilson, just as this administration has attacked Richard Clarke, Paul O'Neill, and various other high-profile critics of administration policy.

http://www.workingforchange.com/printitem.cfm?itemid=19362

[imenja]

17. the connection is the war

both are evidence of the Bush administrating trying to manipulate intelligence and the press to promote their determination to go to war in Iraq. Why you have decided to reduce the problem to one individual escapes me. The entire administration was involved in beating the war drums. I fail to understand this obsession with the downing street memo. Did you really need that report to tell you the WH intended to invade Iraq long before they did? It was obvious at the time and since made clear by former administration officials like O'Neill and Clark.

[DrFunkenstein]

18. I Think You May Be Missing The Point

1. I'm hardly reducing it the drum beat to one person. However, Rove was not one of the prime architects for the invasion. Libby was. Rove can be simplified publicly as a political hit man out to protect his boss's image. If the focus is on Libby, though, the media attention will change this from a "personal" vendetta to something much broader about the lead up to war.

2. The Downing Street Memo is not earth-shaking news. However, the role of the media (as they understand themselves) is not to promote historical analysis, but to comment on contemporary issues. Without the memo, the determination towards regime change is not a scandal, but rather a history lesson.

We have to learn to be better at playing by the rules the media have set for themselves. The GOP have mastered getting messages through the "filter," but we too often seem content to be in the right. But being correct, as we have all painfully seen, has little to do with being political effective. Ask Kerry.

[imenja]

19. good points

though I think the Libby connection is not as politically useful for the Dems though, since Rove is far better known. The Plame leak is about the war, as a few analysts have pointed out. Rove is not a foreign policy analyst, but reports are that everything the White House does is filtered through Rove's ideas of what is politically expedient. Rove oversaw the selling of this war.

The most promising aspect of the Libby connection is that it means Cheney likely knew about the smear campaign. Whether Fitzgerald is focusing on Cheney, who knows. He can't get him on perjury charges since he wasn't under oath when he spoke to Fitzgerald.

[DrFunkenstein]

24. What Is So Tempting About Rove Is How Much It Would Kill Bush

To have to dump him. It would be like shooting Old Yeller.

As for Cheney, there would have to be a smoking gun document to break through the wall of plausible deniability.