From the frontpage of wapo, sunday by Barton Gellman and Dafna Linzer - here are the first 2 paras:
"As he drew back the curtain this week on the evidence against Vice President Cheney's former top aide, Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald for the first time described a "concerted action" by "multiple people in the White House" -- using classified information -- to "discredit, punish or seek revenge against" a critic of President Bush's war in Iraq.there are lots of goodies in the article too - and it is kinda constructed weirdly... I'm sure it will be picked apart by all & sundry...
Bluntly and repeatedly, Fitzgerald placed Cheney at the center of that campaign. Citing grand jury testimony from the vice president's former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Fitzgerald fingered Cheney as the first to voice a line of attack that at least three White House officials would soon deploy against former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV."
This para seems odd:
"At the same time, top officials such as then-deputy national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley were pressing the CIA to declassify more documents in hopes of defending the president's use of the uranium claim in his State of the Union speech. It was a losing battle. A "senior Bush administration official," speaking on the condition of anonymity as the president departed for Africa on July 7, 2003, told The Post that "the reference to Iraq's attempt to acquire uranium from Africa should not have been included in the State of the Union speech." The comment appeared on the front page of the July 8 paper, the same morning that Libby met Miller at the St. Regis hotel. "For some reason, it seems odd that they would put quotes around "senior Bush administration official" - quoting their own article... It's probably nuthin.
3 comments:
I've been reading stories all over the Net about the NIE leak. Over and over and over the stated motive is revenge against Wilson...ie...leaking classified intel and outing Plame was the best revenge so Cheney (and Bush) went with it.
1) Why aren't people constantly reminding themselves how CONVENIENT it was that Wilson's wife was undercover CIA?
2) Why aren't people constantly reminding themselves how strange it is for a former Ambassador to be elevated into the administration's most fearsome critic? Especially considering that another source went on the same mission and determined exactly what Wilson did.
Still confused as to what is really going on with this Plame case.
Another possibility:
Tenet was a bad guy. He had (IMO) been complicit in 9/11 and the Iraq invasion. So how do you distract the public? Tenet in an indignant fit DEMANDS the DoJ open an investigation. "See (you cynical bastards), Tenet isn't a puppet of the White House. There is conflict. There is friction between the CIA and the White House. Tenet is very, very upset."
noise - i couldnt agree with you more. the idea that this was to Get Wilson just looks even more absurd every day - i've been saying the same thing since Day One
i'm still not sure about why Plame was outed - but i'm sure it had to do with Iran.
i agree that Tenet is a creep - but i dont think the investigation into plame was a distraction (at least, not to protect Tenet) as per your suggestion. i think there is some serious factional warfare going on.
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