2 Disclaim Leaking Name of Operative (Lewis Libby & Elliott Abrams)

[Khephra]

As the Bush administration worked to assemble records sought by the Justice Department in the inquiry into who leaked the identity of an undercover C.I.A. operative, the White House on Saturday added to the list of senior officials who it said had disclaimed responsibility.

Spokesmen said I. Lewis Libby, the chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney, and Elliott Abrams, the director of Middle East affairs at the National Security Council, were not sources of the leak. The White House has said the same of Karl Rove, the president's chief political adviser.

Scott McClellan, the White House spokesman, said that Mr. Libby "neither leaked the classified information, nor would he condone it."

Later in the day, the White House issued a statement saying Mr. Abrams had denied being the source.

more...........

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/10/05/national/05CIA.html?ex=1065931200&en=b207baf324e93495&ei=5062&partner=GOOGLE

[Catherine Vincent]

1. The thing about the people in this administration denying that they

are not the leaker is hogwash. They can deny all they want, as long as they are not under oath.

[Flying_Pig]

2. Both, major mean and evil PNAC'ers. Abrams, was convicted in

Iran/Contra, and then pardoned by BushI, was he not? Of note, both Libby and Abrams have extensive ties to Likud as well.

[roguevalley]

3. It will only be one more lie on record for people to assimilate

when they are proven wrong. "I will never lie to the
American People."

Right.

[w13rd0]

4. We should send them to Gitmo...

...where they can use more unorthodox methods to "extract the truth". We've seen that these men can't be trusted at their word...

[grasswire]

5. this is quite bizarro

Why would they throw out Abrams' name? As far as I have seen, nobody has mentioned his name. Why would they toss it out there?

[MGKrebs]

7. Only thing I can think of is

that he is a KNOWN, CONVICTED, LIAR.

How bizarre would it be that since this guy lied to protect his boss before, that now they have to insist that he is NOT lying this time?

Pre-empting the "round up the usual suspects" syndrome.

I ain't no Karnak, but it seems that once you get a glimpse of how these guys operate, everything falls into place. Everyday, every statement, every action, is understandable from the context of them doing whatever they want to enrich themselves, as long as they stick together.

Rules don't matter, laws don't matter, running the country doesn't matter. Loyalty and greed are all that matters. Oh yeah, and beating Democrats. It's like a football game to them. You get away with whatever the ref can't see. Accuse your opponent of doing the very thing you are trying to do.

Abrams ADMITTED A FELONY, and only avoided prison because of immunity in his testimony. And they hired him AGAIN anyway! it is just too surreal.

[remfan]

8. Wondering the same thing

but I must admit his name had crossed my mind as one of the leakers.

Isn't he on the NSC?

[kainah]

16. Larry Johnson on Buchanan & Press last week

suggested that he knew who had been involved and that when the name came out, it would be someone we recognize from former scandals. Abrams immediately came to my mind. While this has gotten little attention in the press -- I've seen nothing written about the various, very interesting interviews of Larry Johnson -- my guess is that it did get noticed by Abrams and others......

[lovedems]

6. It's like watching an episode of Law and Order

Within the first 15 minutes you've "met" the perp. You just don't know who it is yet. The first 5 names that get thrown out as the leaker...One is the perp, we just don't know which one yet. (It is safe to have your suspicions)

[oxycontinrush]

9. Because K-K-Karl did the leakin'

I'm waiting anxiously along with the Ambassador for Rove to be frog-marched out of the White House.

[Waistdeep]

10. Would I love to see Abrams in jail!

I still get chills when I remember some of his sneering, obviously lying, testimony to congress during Iran-Contra days. I wish some of you youngsters could see some tape of him testifying. I was astonished that he did not serve time then, and I can only hope that he does this time. A truly repulsive human being.

[ILeft]

11. Maybe it was "Mr. Kenilworth"

...But it wasn't his lies about mass murder that got Abrams into trouble. After a contra resupply plane was shot down in 1986, Abrams, one of the coordinators of Reagan's pro-contra policy (along with the NSC's Oliver North and the CIA's Alan Fiers), appeared several times before Congressional committees and withheld information on the Administration's connection to the secret and private contra-support network. He also hid from Congress the fact that he had flown to London (using the name "Mr. Kenilworth") to solicit a $10 million contribution for the contras from the Sultan of Brunei. At a subsequent closed-door hearing, Democratic Senator Thomas Eagleton blasted Abrams for having misled legislators, noting that Abrams's misrepresentations could lead to "slammer time." Abrams disagreed, saying, "You've heard my testimony." Eagleton cut in: "I've heard it, and I want to puke." On another occasion, Republican Senator Dave Durenberger complained, "I wouldn't trust Elliott any further than I could throw Ollie North." Even after Abrams copped a plea with Independent Counsel Lawrence Walsh, he refused to concede that he'd done anything untoward. Abrams's Foggy Bottom services were not retained by the First Bush, but he did include Abrams in his lame-duck pardons of several Iran/contra wrongdoers.

Abrams was as nasty a policy warrior as Washington had seen in decades. He called foes "vipers." He said that lawmakers who blocked contra aid would have "blood on their hands"--while he defended US support for a human-rights-abusing government in Guatemala. When Oliver North was campaigning for the Senate in 1994 and was accused of having ignored contra ties to drug dealers, Abrams backed North and claimed "all of us who ran that program...were absolutely dedicated to keeping it completely clean and free of any involvement by drug traffickers." Yet in 1998 the CIA's own inspector general issued a thick report noting that the Reagan Administration had collaborated with suspected drug traffickers while managing the secret contra war.

So Bush the Compassionate may hand the White House portfolio on human rights to the guy who lied and wheedled to aid and protect human-rights abusers. As Adm. William Crowe Jr. said of Abrams in 1989, "This snake's hard to kill."

http://www.thenation.com/doc.mhtml%3Fi=20010702&s=corn

[suegeo]

13. Some poop on Abrams I have logged...

ELLIOTT ABRAMS

A former assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, Abrams was hired by Bush last year as special White House assistant for democracy and human rights. Abrams pleaded guilty to withholding Iran-Contra information from Congress and was among six Iran-Contra figures pardoned on Dec. 24, 1992 by the first President Bush.

From Iran Contra Alumni in Bush Gov’t by the Associated Press, Wed. March 13, 02


Here’s just one exchange Abrams had with the Senate Select Committee that investigated Iran-Contra:

…in the aftermath of Attorney General Edwin Meese's press conference on November 25, 1986, prompted by the unraveling of the Iran arms- for-hostages initiative, did Congress actively scrutinize the testimony of u.s. officials regarding the Contras.

Elliott Abrams provided the first opportunity. As Meese was revealing the diversion to the American public, Assistant Secretary of State Abrams was testifying before the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence about the State Department's knowledge of Contra funding sources. He was asked by Senator Bill Bradley of New Jersey whether he had ever discussed Contra fund-raising problems with members of the NSC staff.

'We're not-you know, we're not in the fundraising business," Abrams replied, even though he personally had solicited funds from Brunei. 'We don't engage-I mean the State Department's function in this has not been to raise money, other than to try to raise it from Congress.""

After the Los Angeles Times story revealed his Brunei contacts, Abrams returned to the Senate intelligence committee on December 8, still insisting, under oath, that "I have never lied to this committee." An irate Senator Thomas Eagleton reminded Abrams of his earlier testimony:

EAGLETON:'We're not, you know, we're not in the fundraising business." No one intimidated that out of you. That was your answer. You're not in the fundraising business. Today I asked were you at any time in the fundraising business.

ABRAMS: We made one solicitation to a foreign government.

EAGLETON: Were you then in the fundraising business?

ABRAMS: I would say we were in the fundraising business. I take your point.

EAGLETON: Take my point? Under oath, my friend, that's perjury. Had you been under oath, that's perjury.

ABRAMS: Well, I don't agree with that, Senator.

EAGLET0N:That's slammer time.

Abrams objected. "You've heard my testimony," he told Senator Eagleton.

"I've heard it," Eagleton: replied, "and I want to puke."

The Iran Contra Scandal: The Declassified History, Peter Kornbluh and Malcolm Byrne eds, copyright 1993, the National Security Archive, ISBN 1-56584-047-X, pgs. 190-191

----------------------------------------
Here’s a quick reminder of Elliott Abrams’ involvement with (support of?) Noriega, former brutal dictator of Panama. Noriega started out as a CIA boy, then the US government turned on the nasty Noriega, mostly because he stopped being the USA’s lapdog.


The US government knew that Noriega was involved in drug trafficking since at least 1972 when the Nixon administration considered assassinating him. But he stayed on the CIA payroll. In 1983. a US Senate committee concluded that Panama was a major center for the laundering of drug funds and drug trafficking.

The US government continued to value Noriega's services. In May 1986. the Director of the Drug Enforcement Agency praised Noriega for his "vigorous anti-drug trafficking policy." A year later. the Director "welcomed our close association" with Noriega while Attorney-General Edwin Meese stopped a US Justice Department investigation of Noriega's criminal activities.

In August 1987, a Senate resolution condemning Noriega was opposed by Elliott Abrams, the State Department official in charge of US policy in Central America and Panama.

And yet. when Noriega was finally indicted in Miami in 1988 all the charges except one were related to activities that took place before 1984-back when he was our boy, helping with the US war against Nicaragua stealing elections with US approval and generally serving US interests satisfactorily. It had nothing to do with suddenly discovering that he was a gangster and a drug-peddler - that was known all along. It's all quite predictable, as study after study shows. A brutal tyrant crosses the line from admirable friend to "villain" and "scum" when he commits the crime of independence. One common mistake is to go beyond robbing the poor - which is just fine - and to start interfering with the privileged, eliciting opposition from business leaders.

FROM:
What Uncle Sam really wants
Noam Chomsky
ISBN 1-878825-01-1, pp 51-52

[Guaranteed]

12. How do they know?

If they know who didn't do it, doesn't that mean they know who did it?
And if they know who did it, why don't they tell us?

[leetrisck]

14. Nobody did it,

doncha know. This White House is full of integrity.

[tlcandie]

15. No ONE in this admin lies EVER!!!!!!!

ALL of them keep telling us that over, and over, and over, and over, and over!!!!!

WMD anyone? Mushroom cloud anyone? The air was safe and clean at Ground Zero?

I'm sure we could list numerous pages of LIES! Why should we even listen to them spin their deceit? Nothing is real, nothing is sacred, nothing is truth...empty, meaningless words spewed to the public for distraction only.

[Terran]

17. Almost like 20 Questions

Notice they're not denying it came from the White House, or somewhere in the administrations.

"Is It Rove?" "No."

"Is it Libby?" "No."

"Is it Abrams?" "Um, No."

"Well, how about we sit down with a WH directory and go down the list, okay." "Er, uh, um..."