Reply #119: Ex-ambassador turned whistle-blower says Bush administration has failed

[seemslikeadream]

Saturday, October 23, 2004
Amanda Garrett
Plain Dealer Reporter

National security adviser Condoleezza Rice stood before the Cleveland City Club last week and insisted that President Bush was right to invade Iraq and that a broad war against terror was the only way to protect the nation.

On Friday, former ambassador Joseph Wilson IV told the City Club the opposite. He argued that the United States is less safe today, after invading Iraq, than it was when terrorists rammed planes into our buildings three years ago.


Within days, Wilson said, the White House retaliated by telling a reporter that Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, was a CIA agent.

Revealing an undercover operative's identity is a crime, and a federal grand jury is investigating. Last week, Bush's top political adviser, Karl Rove, spent more than two hours testifying before the panel.

Wilson said Friday that the revelation not only scared his family, but its underlying message also should scare the nation.

Democracy, he said, is based on citizens holding their government accountable, asking questions and demanding the truth.

The Bush administration, he said, won't abide that. It will use "every weapon in its political arsenal" to stifle those who contradict it, Wilson said.

"Be afraid," he said. "Be very afraid."
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