About today’s column of Novak about Armitage involvement in Plamegate – it’s all spider fight in the bottle. Especially stupid the Novak spider looks when he claims that he is not Bush’s lapdog. Then who is he?

I want to see the blood, not saliva. Keep working, Mr. Fitzgerald.

So is Rove indicted or not? Why there are only denials and no reports? Simple. He was indicted but is bargaining a plea deal, which is still refused by Fitzerald. It could take a while, so be patient. Read

Thank you Mr. Patrick Fitzgerald. America stands on people like you. Thank you.

Thanks transparent greed for letting us to know that Rove is indeed the next target. It's amazing how many people from Bush inner circle are under criminal investigation. Surely, America is still a free country. In most places in the world the president would just stop all those investigations.

To answer this post, I want to point to my older post. Cheney managed to out the whole CIA cover company, Brewster-Jennings & Associates. If that's not a crime – then what's a crime?

More:

At the least, a dummy company ought to create the appearance of activity, with an office and a valid mailing address, he said. "A cover that falls apart on first inspection isn't very good. What you want is a cover that actually holds up . . . and this one certainly doesn't."

Some in the real estate industry believe something was amiss, if not illegal. "It's almost like out of a spy novel — the tenant that wasn't there," said Griffin, who once oversaw management of the tower. "And they picked a nice address."

The collapse of Plame's cover could compromise any other operatives who claimed to work for Brewster Jennings. Although former officials wouldn't confirm that Plame's cover company used the Arch Street address, they offered no other explanation of the phantom tenant.

My answer to this post, claiming that the latest Fitzgerald filing is invalidating the case against Bush, because uranium claim was not so important.

I'm sorry ma'm, but you have no clue. Nobody is suing anyone for leaking classified or rather quickly de-classified information. The event that triggered the investigation was the blew-up of the fake front company that was pretending to be an energy materials trader and operated on Pakistan and Iran black market, specifically focused on Iran nuclear efforts. The cover was blown up and the company ceased to exist.

The investigation was set to determine the source of the leak to cut hairy tails quickly. The Bush, Cheney and Co denial of involvement had suggested that there is a real problem with classified information. Someone somewhere just knows too much. That damages the whole net of operations, because you don't know what the other side knows anymore.

If the secret service knew from the day one that the source of the operation blew-up is just this stupid idiot Bush, they would cut the damage more efficiently than otherwise. But Bush went onto denial and misled them.

The crime is not the leak. Big deal, we know what kind of idiots are located in WH, so we can expect them to do stupid things. The crime is obstruction of investigation. This whole crowd: Bush, Cheney, Card, Rice, Hadley must be prosecuted for perjury and obstruction of justice, as soon as possible. Let them leak besides the bars.

Looks like the conservative press (I don't use consrvative as a swear term here, I love Bloomberg and use it for my investment choices) signals the shift somewhere in Republican secret rooms to cut the damage and get rid of Bush before elections. This piece at Bloomberg compares Bush with Nixon and Simpson:

It's all of a piece. Since Sept. 11, Bush has acted as if he can do anything he wants because we're at war. How extensive are his war powers and when do they end? When Osama's captured? When the Iraqi Army “stands up''? Before his term ends? He doesn't say.

And what are those powers? As the president interprets them, he can round up anyone, hold and torture them as enemy combatants without benefit of counsel or trial. He can fudge the number of troops and amount of money needed in Iraq.

He can wiretap anyone without a warrant, even though getting a warrant is swift, is nearly automatic, and can be sought retroactively.

Domestically, he also has a free hand. He can ignore settled scientific judgments (and disband his science board, as he did last week) and make his own intuitive judgments about global warming, stem-cell research and the success of abstinence versus vaccines in reducing sexually transmitted diseases. He can get rid of any government employee who tells Congress or the public the true cost of the prescription-drug bill or his tax cuts.

If there's justice in the world, the clip of Bush's promise to hold the leakers responsible will replace, or at least accompany, every replay of the tape of Bill Clinton's “I didn't have sexual relations with that woman'' whopper. Bush joins Richard Nixon and O.J. Simpson and all the other Hall of Fame hypocrites who made such a to-do over searching far and wide for the miscreants they saw in the mirror each morning.

I hink Bush is a toast. 

Libby disclosure left few words about how the Iraqi nuclear thread was unrolled:

Mr. Libby also inaccurately described the CIA report on Mr. Wilson's trip, saying the former ambassador reported information about an Iraqi delegation visiting Niger in 1999 that was "understood to be a reference to a desire to obtain uranium." In fact, Mr. Wilson said he was told that a Niger official was contacted at a meeting outside the country by a businessman who said an Iraqi economic delegation wanted to meet with him. The Niger official guessed the Iraqis might want to talk about uranium, since Iraq had purchased uranium from Niger in the mid-1980s. But when they met, no talk of uranium took place.

So some little-thinking Iraqis requested a meeting with a Niger official and did not disclose in advance that they are not going to speak about uranium. As a result, they got their country destroyed and 100,000 people killed. Ups, sorry about that folks . Next time just watch your mouth.

Scooter, I like you. I almost love you, but like you. Gosh, you are good. You make me wanna smile, you make me wanna sing. I owe you a hug!

After Libby did so few weeks ago, now his boss is doing the same. It seems WH, which already regarded Cheney as liability, finally made a decision to get rid of him. It may take few months, but I bet Cheney won’t be vice-president by the end of summer. Vacation time is the best to cut dead meat.

Another interesting thing. I think the hunting incident that happened a little while ago confirms that Cheney, in fact, had presidential ambitions. At that very moment he learned that Bush decided to surrender the smoking evidence of his participation in Plamegate, which made not only his ambitions, but his career over. So he went heavy drinking and shooting with lobbyists. Maybe decided to make some more money before leaving?

Reported here and here (and ridiculed by some moron here): the Cheney’s outing of Valerie Wilson (Plame) triggered the outing the chain of other agents working in Iran. The damage is possibly very huge – say thanks to Cheney, Libby and Rove.

It was also reported that the information about Plame was directly stolen from Bush morning briefings. Assuming those briefings are chewed enough to adjust for Bush intelligence, he was also quite aware of what was happening.

Just looking how the mainstream press dump more trash on the stupid Bush in one article than I can do in weeks. Truly, I dust my head with ashes. The bastard can’t get away with all he had done.

Reported here and here: Libby testified that Cheney authorized him the Plame leak. That’s a boomer!

I recall an article somewhere here that Cheney was supposed to deliver Libby $3 million cash to compensate him for covering his ass. What exactly happened? Maybe Libby asked too much, maybe Cheney was not able to fetch his funds from closely watched now offshore locations where he keeps his retirement savings from taxes – it is clear that Libby did not get the money.

I wonder if Cheney will collect now some cash in his turn to cover the ass of other White House folks? It will be too late to give some to Libby, I’m afraid…

What’s interesting is that apparently Libby was extremely clever from the day one. His back-up plan was to be accused, if ever, just in perjury so that he can either get a huge kick-back from Cheney and be rich, or strike a deal with Fitz and be free. Either way he is either rich or free, and Cheney is either poor or behind the bar.

Monica was just waisting her time, this WH is such a golden pipe…

Just to not forget how Plame investigation is moving, this article will remind us that Cheney stuff were shredding important documents related to Plamegate affair.

Fitzgerald, who is fighting Libby’s request, said in a letter to Libby’s lawyers that many e-mails from Cheney’s office at the time of the Plame leak in 2003 have been deleted contrary to White House policy.

More reading here.

Just for exercise, let’s try to pick the real reason for Iraq war. The suggested reasons are:

1. Iraq was close to producing nuclear weapons. This report of International Atomic Energy Agency states that “after three months of intrusive inspections, we have to date found no evidence or plausible indication of the revival of a nuclear weapon program in Iraq�
2. Bush said “The British Government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa�. There are evidences that, apparently, the evidence supporting Bush’ claim was forged by CIA officers
3. Bush linked the Iraqi regime with terrorists and 9/11. At the secret briefing in ‘01 Bush was informed that Saddam regarded Al Qaeda as a potential threat to his secular regime
4. Iraq has 11% of world oil reserves

The homework: please try to pick the most likely reason for the war

After you do, please join NoR11

 

Interesting article to digest from the Daily Heretic. No need to comment from my side, as I was not even aware that Cheney runs an offshore trust

I’ve just created a website for the NoR11 campaign, which stands for “No Republicans for 11 years”. This is an experiment in folksonomy and tagging. Anyone can post, nobody can control what is posted. Please visit the navigation bar for campaign details, what it is, how to participate. You are also welcome to write a campain manifesto and even create a new, different website for it!

Fitzgerald said on his press conference:

But I think what we see here today, when a vice president’s chief of staff is charged with perjury and obstruction of justice, it does show the world that this is a country that takes its law seriously; that all citizens are bound by the law.

But what we need to also show the world is that we can also apply the same safeguards to all our citizens, including high officials. Much as they must be bound by the law, they must follow the same rules.

So I ask everyone involved in this process, anyone who participates in this trial, anyone who covers this trial, anyone sitting home watching these proceedings to follow this process with an American appreciation for our values and our dignity.

Indeed.

Let me also point to the article titled “One indictment for a thousand crimes”, which nails down the whole story better than any before. 

This is my response to this post commenting on my previous opinion. Let me get back to those two claims I’ve made:

The nation was involved into war based on forged evidences and 20,000 – 50,000 people died

No, I do not think that WH was involved in forging the Niger evidence (good overview of this story is here).  The fact that Cheney asked to investigate that claims supports that.

But once Wilson got back from Niger and his report reached Cheney strange things happened. Cheney had two good options to react on the Wilson report: “This guy is probably not credible enough check it again, but we will hold off from spreading the story for now� and “Ok, this Niger evidence is a hoax, let drop it�.

Instead, they behaved in a very strange and suspicious way. First, they continued to use the Niger story to promote the war, especially in the Bush State of the Union speech that happened one year (!!) after the report. Is one year enough to read and understand a piece of paper?

Second, they started digging over Wilson identity to find any way to discredit him. As I recall just after the Bush speech Wilson anonymously leaked his story to the press. It took Cheney several months to find out that his wife worked for CIA. At the moment Wilson published this article the WH Iraq team was ready and immediately started the operation to dismiss the credibility of his report. I would say that probably they also tried to dismiss the possibility that his report was known to WH at the moment Bush did a speech. Is it strange or not?

The unknown number of CIA agents, possibly dozens went uncovered because they were related to Valerie Wilson. It is likely that serious damage to nuclear intelligence was done

As explained here her identity was indeed secret. It took Cheney a year to figure it out, and he learned it from the memo prepared by CIA. And so why CIA went ballistic if it was no big deal?

I think you are more partisan than I am

This blog claims that if the only reason for indictments is perjury and obstruction of justice but not the Agent Protection Act – why not just close the affair and go home? Let me remind the real damage that resulted from the Cheney/Rove/Libby/etc cabal actions:

1. The nation was involved into war based on forged evidences and 20,000 – 50,000 people died
2. The unknown number of CIA agents, possibly dozens went uncovered because they were related to Valerie Wilson. It is likely that serious damage to nuclear intelligence was done

Let me ask you – isn’t that enough of damage to keep digging?

This is my answer to this post claiming that the ‘82 statute protects agents that are covert at the moment the identity leak happens.

This is wrong. The agent establishes connections that are secret for years. Practically it means the identity of a retired agent must be protected for 15-20 years, but the law protects it indefinitely. We don’t know how many agents Rove and Libby have uncovered – it might be 10 or even 20 people, not just Valerie Wilson.

We will never know the exact damage done by outing agent Plame, but if one day terrorists will blow a nuclear device on american soil, don’t forget that Mr. Cheney, Rove and Libby did their part of the job.