Kraven Moorehead

Prosecutor In CIA Leak Case Casting A Wide Net
White House Effort To Discredit Critic Examined in Detail

By Walter Pincus and Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, July 27, 2005; Page A01

The special prosecutor in the CIA leak probe has interviewed a wider range of administration officials than was previously known, part of an effort to determine whether anyone broke laws during a White House effort two years ago to discredit allegations that President Bush used faulty intelligence to justify the Iraq war, according to several officials familiar with the case.

Prosecutors have questioned former CIA director George J. Tenet and deputy director John E. McLaughlin, former CIA spokesman Bill Harlow, State Department officials, and even a stranger who approached columnist Robert D. Novak on the street.

Karl Rove
Steele Fundraiser Draws Rove, Democratic Attacks
Bush Aide Learned Early of Leaks Probe
Unraveling the Twists and Turns of the Path to a Nominee
Democratic Booster Cuts Liberal Spending
Leak Riddle: Who's Playing Whom?

Politics Trivia
Since the Court was established in 1789, how many Supreme Court nominees submitted to the Senate were not confirmed?
2
13
27
36

In doing so, special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald has asked not only about how CIA operative Valerie Plame's name was leaked but also how the administration went about shifting responsibility from the White House to the CIA for having included 16 words in the 2003 State of the Union address about Iraqi efforts to acquire uranium from Africa, an assertion that was later disputed.

Most of the questioning of CIA and State Department officials took place in 2004, the sources said.

It remains unclear whether Fitzgerald uncovered any wrongdoing in this or any other portion of his nearly 18-month investigation. All that is known at this point are the names of some people he has interviewed, what questions he has asked and whom he has focused on.

Fitzgerald began his probe in December 2003 to determine whether any government official knowingly leaked Plame's identity as a CIA employee to the media. Plame's husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, has said his wife's career was ruined in retaliation for his public criticism of Bush. In a 2002 trip to Niger at the request of the CIA, Wilson found no evidence to support allegations that Iraq was seeking uranium from that African country and reported back to the agency in February 2002. But nearly a year later, Bush asserted in his State of the Union speech that Iraq had sought uranium from Africa, attributing it to British, not U.S., intelligence.

Fitzgerald has said in court that he had completed most of his investigation at a time when he was pressing for New York Times reporter Judith Miller to testify about any conversations she had with a specific administration official about Plame during the week before Plame's identity was revealed.

Miller, who never wrote a story about the matter, is in jail for refusing to comply with a court order to testify. Court records show Fitzgerald is seeking information about communications she had with the Bush official between July 6 and July 13, 2003, when the White House was attempting to discredit Wilson and his allegations.

Fitzgerald appears to believe that Miller's conversations may help him get to the bottom of the leak and the damage-control campaign undertaken by senior Bush officials that week.

Using background conversations with at least three journalists and other means, Bush officials attacked Wilson's credibility. They said that his 2002 trip to Niger was a boondoggle arranged by his wife, but CIA officials say that is incorrect. One reason for the confusion about Plame's role is that she had arranged a trip for him to Niger three years earlier on an unrelated matter, CIA officials told The Washington Post.

Miller's role remains one of many mysteries in the leak probe. It is unclear whom, if anyone, she spoke to about Plame, and why she emerged as a central figure in the probe despite never having written a story about the case. Also murky is the role of Novak, who first publicly identified Plame in a syndicated column published July 14, 2003.

Lawyers have confirmed that Novak discussed Plame with White House senior adviser Karl Rove four or more days before the column identifying her ran. But the identity of another "administration" source cited in the column is still unknown. Rove's attorney has said Rove did not identify Plame to Novak.

Prosecutor In CIA Leak Case Casting A Wide Net
In a strange twist in the investigation, the grand jury -- acting on a tip from Wilson -- has questioned a person who approached Novak on Pennsylvania Avenue on July 8, 2003, six days before his column appeared in The Post and other publications, Wilson said in an interview. The person, whom Wilson declined to identify to The Post, asked Novak about the "yellow cake" uranium matter and then about Wilson, Wilson said. He first revealed that conversation in a book he wrote last year. In the book, he said that he tried to reach Novak on July 8, and that they finally connected on July 10. In that conversation, Wilson said that he did not confirm his wife worked for the CIA but that Novak told him he had obtained the information from a "CIA source."

Novak told the person that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA as a specialist in weapons of mass destruction and had arranged her husband's trip to Niger, Wilson said. Unknown to Novak, the person was a friend of Wilson and reported the conversation to him, Wilson said.

Karl Rove
Steele Fundraiser Draws Rove, Democratic Attacks
Bush Aide Learned Early of Leaks Probe
Unraveling the Twists and Turns of the Path to a Nominee
Democratic Booster Cuts Liberal Spending
Leak Riddle: Who's Playing Whom?

Politics Trivia
Since the Court was established in 1789, how many Supreme Court nominees submitted to the Senate were not confirmed?
2
13
27
36

Novak and his attorney, James Hamilton, have declined to discuss the investigation, as has Fitzgerald.

Harlow, the former CIA spokesman, said in an interview yesterday that he testified last year before a grand jury about conversations he had with Novak at least three days before the column was published. He said he warned Novak, in the strongest terms he was permitted to use without revealing classified information, that Wilson's wife had not authorized the mission and that if he did write about it, her name should not be revealed.

Harlow said that after Novak's call, he checked Plame's status and confirmed that she was an undercover operative. He said he called Novak back to repeat that the story Novak had related to him was wrong and that Plame's name should not be used. But he did not tell Novak directly that she was undercover because that was classified.

In a column published Oct. 1, 2003, Novak wrote that the CIA official he spoke to "asked me not to use her name, saying she probably never again will be given a foreign assignment but that exposure of her name might cause 'difficulties' if she travels abroad. He never suggested to me that Wilson's wife or anybody else would be endangered. If he had, I would not have used her name."

Harlow was also involved in the larger internal administration battle over who would be held responsible for Bush using the disputed charge about the Iraq-Niger connection as part of the war argument. Based on the questions they have been asked, people involved in the case believe that Fitzgerald looked into this bureaucratic fight because the effort to discredit Wilson was part of the larger campaign to distance Bush from the Niger controversy.

Wilson unleashed an attack on Bush's claim on July 6, 2003, appearing on NBC's "Meet the Press," in an interview in The Post and writing his own op-ed article in the New York Times, in which he accused the president of "twisting" intelligence.

Behind the scenes, the White House responded with twin attacks: one on Wilson and the other on the CIA, which it wanted to take the blame for allowing the 16 words to remain in Bush's speech. As part of this effort, then-deputy national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley spoke with Tenet during the week about clearing up CIA responsibility for the 16 words, even though both knew the agency did not think Iraq was seeking uranium from Niger, according to a person familiar with the conversation. Tenet was interviewed by prosecutors, but it is not clear whether he appeared before the grand jury, a former CIA official said.

On July 9, Tenet and top aides began to draft a statement over two days that ultimately said it was "a mistake" for the CIA to have permitted the 16 words about uranium to remain in Bush's speech. He said the information "did not rise to the level of certainty which should be required for presidential speeches, and the CIA should have ensured that it was removed."

A former senior CIA official said yesterday that Tenet's statement was drafted within the agency and was shown only to Hadley on July 10 to get White House input. Only a few minor changes were accepted before it was released on July 11, this former official said. He took issue with a New York Times report last week that said Rove and Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, had a role in Tenet's statement.

The prosecutors have talked to State Department officials to determine what role a classified memo including two sentences about Plame's role in Wilson's Niger trip played in the damage-control campaign.

People familiar with this part of the probe provided new details about the memo, including that it was then-Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage who requested it the day Wilson went public and asked that a copy be sent to then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell to take with him on a trip to Africa the next day. Bush and several top aides were on that trip. Carl W. Ford Jr., who was director of the Bureau of Intelligence and Research at the time and who supervised the original production of the memo, has appeared before the grand jury, a former State Department official said.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 02:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Prosecutor In CIA Leak Case Casting A Wide Net
White House Effort To Discredit Critic Examined in Detail

By Walter Pincus and Jim VandeHei
Washington Post Staff Writers
Wednesday, July 27, 2005; Page A01

The special prosecutor in the CIA leak probe has interviewed a wider range of administration officials than was previously known, part of an effort to determine whether anyone broke laws during a White House effort two years ago to discredit allegations that President Bush used faulty intelligence to justify the Iraq war, according to several officials familiar with the case.

Prosecutors have questioned former CIA director George J. Tenet and deputy director John E. McLaughlin, former CIA spokesman Bill Harlow, State Department officials, and even a stranger who approached columnist Robert D. Novak on the street.

Karl Rove
Steele Fundraiser Draws Rove, Democratic Attacks
Bush Aide Learned Early of Leaks Probe
Unraveling the Twists and Turns of the Path to a Nominee
Democratic Booster Cuts Liberal Spending
Leak Riddle: Who's Playing Whom?

Politics Trivia
Since the Court was established in 1789, how many Supreme Court nominees submitted to the Senate were not confirmed?
2
13
27
36

In doing so, special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald has asked not only about how CIA operative Valerie Plame's name was leaked but also how the administration went about shifting responsibility from the White House to the CIA for having included 16 words in the 2003 State of the Union address about Iraqi efforts to acquire uranium from Africa, an assertion that was later disputed.

Most of the questioning of CIA and State Department officials took place in 2004, the sources said.

It remains unclear whether Fitzgerald uncovered any wrongdoing in this or any other portion of his nearly 18-month investigation. All that is known at this point are the names of some people he has interviewed, what questions he has asked and whom he has focused on.

Fitzgerald began his probe in December 2003 to determine whether any government official knowingly leaked Plame's identity as a CIA employee to the media. Plame's husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, has said his wife's career was ruined in retaliation for his public criticism of Bush. In a 2002 trip to Niger at the request of the CIA, Wilson found no evidence to support allegations that Iraq was seeking uranium from that African country and reported back to the agency in February 2002. But nearly a year later, Bush asserted in his State of the Union speech that Iraq had sought uranium from Africa, attributing it to British, not U.S., intelligence.

Fitzgerald has said in court that he had completed most of his investigation at a time when he was pressing for New York Times reporter Judith Miller to testify about any conversations she had with a specific administration official about Plame during the week before Plame's identity was revealed.

Miller, who never wrote a story about the matter, is in jail for refusing to comply with a court order to testify. Court records show Fitzgerald is seeking information about communications she had with the Bush official between July 6 and July 13, 2003, when the White House was attempting to discredit Wilson and his allegations.

Fitzgerald appears to believe that Miller's conversations may help him get to the bottom of the leak and the damage-control campaign undertaken by senior Bush officials that week.

Using background conversations with at least three journalists and other means, Bush officials attacked Wilson's credibility. They said that his 2002 trip to Niger was a boondoggle arranged by his wife, but CIA officials say that is incorrect. One reason for the confusion about Plame's role is that she had arranged a trip for him to Niger three years earlier on an unrelated matter, CIA officials told The Washington Post.

Miller's role remains one of many mysteries in the leak probe. It is unclear whom, if anyone, she spoke to about Plame, and why she emerged as a central figure in the probe despite never having written a story about the case. Also murky is the role of Novak, who first publicly identified Plame in a syndicated column published July 14, 2003.

Lawyers have confirmed that Novak discussed Plame with White House senior adviser Karl Rove four or more days before the column identifying her ran. But the identity of another "administration" source cited in the column is still unknown. Rove's attorney has said Rove did not identify Plame to Novak.

Prosecutor In CIA Leak Case Casting A Wide Net
In a strange twist in the investigation, the grand jury -- acting on a tip from Wilson -- has questioned a person who approached Novak on Pennsylvania Avenue on July 8, 2003, six days before his column appeared in The Post and other publications, Wilson said in an interview. The person, whom Wilson declined to identify to The Post, asked Novak about the "yellow cake" uranium matter and then about Wilson, Wilson said. He first revealed that conversation in a book he wrote last year. In the book, he said that he tried to reach Novak on July 8, and that they finally connected on July 10. In that conversation, Wilson said that he did not confirm his wife worked for the CIA but that Novak told him he had obtained the information from a "CIA source."

Novak told the person that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA as a specialist in weapons of mass destruction and had arranged her husband's trip to Niger, Wilson said. Unknown to Novak, the person was a friend of Wilson and reported the conversation to him, Wilson said.

Karl Rove
Steele Fundraiser Draws Rove, Democratic Attacks
Bush Aide Learned Early of Leaks Probe
Unraveling the Twists and Turns of the Path to a Nominee
Democratic Booster Cuts Liberal Spending
Leak Riddle: Who's Playing Whom?

Politics Trivia
Since the Court was established in 1789, how many Supreme Court nominees submitted to the Senate were not confirmed?
2
13
27
36

Novak and his attorney, James Hamilton, have declined to discuss the investigation, as has Fitzgerald.

Harlow, the former CIA spokesman, said in an interview yesterday that he testified last year before a grand jury about conversations he had with Novak at least three days before the column was published. He said he warned Novak, in the strongest terms he was permitted to use without revealing classified information, that Wilson's wife had not authorized the mission and that if he did write about it, her name should not be revealed.

Harlow said that after Novak's call, he checked Plame's status and confirmed that she was an undercover operative. He said he called Novak back to repeat that the story Novak had related to him was wrong and that Plame's name should not be used. But he did not tell Novak directly that she was undercover because that was classified.

In a column published Oct. 1, 2003, Novak wrote that the CIA official he spoke to "asked me not to use her name, saying she probably never again will be given a foreign assignment but that exposure of her name might cause 'difficulties' if she travels abroad. He never suggested to me that Wilson's wife or anybody else would be endangered. If he had, I would not have used her name."

Harlow was also involved in the larger internal administration battle over who would be held responsible for Bush using the disputed charge about the Iraq-Niger connection as part of the war argument. Based on the questions they have been asked, people involved in the case believe that Fitzgerald looked into this bureaucratic fight because the effort to discredit Wilson was part of the larger campaign to distance Bush from the Niger controversy.

Wilson unleashed an attack on Bush's claim on July 6, 2003, appearing on NBC's "Meet the Press," in an interview in The Post and writing his own op-ed article in the New York Times, in which he accused the president of "twisting" intelligence.

Behind the scenes, the White House responded with twin attacks: one on Wilson and the other on the CIA, which it wanted to take the blame for allowing the 16 words to remain in Bush's speech. As part of this effort, then-deputy national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley spoke with Tenet during the week about clearing up CIA responsibility for the 16 words, even though both knew the agency did not think Iraq was seeking uranium from Niger, according to a person familiar with the conversation. Tenet was interviewed by prosecutors, but it is not clear whether he appeared before the grand jury, a former CIA official said.

On July 9, Tenet and top aides began to draft a statement over two days that ultimately said it was "a mistake" for the CIA to have permitted the 16 words about uranium to remain in Bush's speech. He said the information "did not rise to the level of certainty which should be required for presidential speeches, and the CIA should have ensured that it was removed."

A former senior CIA official said yesterday that Tenet's statement was drafted within the agency and was shown only to Hadley on July 10 to get White House input. Only a few minor changes were accepted before it was released on July 11, this former official said. He took issue with a New York Times report last week that said Rove and Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, had a role in Tenet's statement.

The prosecutors have talked to State Department officials to determine what role a classified memo including two sentences about Plame's role in Wilson's Niger trip played in the damage-control campaign.

People familiar with this part of the probe provided new details about the memo, including that it was then-Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage who requested it the day Wilson went public and asked that a copy be sent to then-Secretary of State Colin L. Powell to take with him on a trip to Africa the next day. Bush and several top aides were on that trip. Carl W. Ford Jr., who was director of the Bureau of Intelligence and Research at the time and who supervised the original production of the memo, has appeared before the grand jury, a former State Department official said.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 02:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Clash likely over Roberts documents
White House says it won't release memos
By Rick Klein, Globe Staff | July 25, 2005

WASHINGTON -- The White House signaled yesterday that it does not intend to release documents produced by Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr. during his service in the Reagan and George H. W. Bush administrations, setting up a clash with Democrats who are insisting that internal memos prepared by Roberts be released for lawmakers to review.

Fred D. Thompson, the Bush administration's point person for shepherding Roberts's nomination through the Senate, said the administration feels strongly about the need to shield such documents from review to maintain candor in internal deliberations. He said the documents are protected by attorney-client privilege and added that the White House does not intend to waive that privilege.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 02:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Clash likely over Roberts documents
White House says it won't release memos
By Rick Klein, Globe Staff | July 25, 2005

WASHINGTON -- The White House signaled yesterday that it does not intend to release documents produced by Supreme Court nominee John G. Roberts Jr. during his service in the Reagan and George H. W. Bush administrations, setting up a clash with Democrats who are insisting that internal memos prepared by Roberts be released for lawmakers to review.

Fred D. Thompson, the Bush administration's point person for shepherding Roberts's nomination through the Senate, said the administration feels strongly about the need to shield such documents from review to maintain candor in internal deliberations. He said the documents are protected by attorney-client privilege and added that the White House does not intend to waive that privilege.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 02:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Federalist Society Has Ties to White House, Supreme Court
The Associated Press
Published: Jul 25, 2005

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Federalist Society has close ties to the Bush administration and top legal leaders, including two Supreme Court justices.
The group, formally called the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies, was founded in 1982 as a debating society by students who believed professors at the top law schools were too liberal. Early advisers were Interior Secretary Gale Norton and Justice Antonin Scalia, a former law professor at the University of Chicago.

Spencer Abraham, the Bush administration's former energy secretary, was a founder of the Harvard Law School chapter.

The group is named after the "Federalist Papers," in which James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and John Jay argued for ratification of the Constitution.

Conservatives and libertarians mainly make up the 25,000 members. The group does not take positions on issues, but members have been promoting Bush's Supreme Court nominee, John Roberts.

Scalia regularly speaks and teaches at Federalist Society events. Justice Clarence Thomas, White House chief of staff Andy Card, former Attorney General John Ashcroft and former Solicitor General Theodore Olson have headlined meetings.

Fred D. Thompson, the former Tennessee senator guiding Roberts through the confirmation process, has been a Federalist Society speaker, as has Roberts.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 02:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Federalist Society Has Ties to White House, Supreme Court
The Associated Press
Published: Jul 25, 2005

WASHINGTON (AP) - The Federalist Society has close ties to the Bush administration and top legal leaders, including two Supreme Court justices.
The group, formally called the Federalist Society for Law and Public Policy Studies, was founded in 1982 as a debating society by students who believed professors at the top law schools were too liberal. Early advisers were Interior Secretary Gale Norton and Justice Antonin Scalia, a former law professor at the University of Chicago.

Spencer Abraham, the Bush administration's former energy secretary, was a founder of the Harvard Law School chapter.

The group is named after the "Federalist Papers," in which James Madison, Alexander Hamilton and John Jay argued for ratification of the Constitution.

Conservatives and libertarians mainly make up the 25,000 members. The group does not take positions on issues, but members have been promoting Bush's Supreme Court nominee, John Roberts.

Scalia regularly speaks and teaches at Federalist Society events. Justice Clarence Thomas, White House chief of staff Andy Card, former Attorney General John Ashcroft and former Solicitor General Theodore Olson have headlined meetings.

Fred D. Thompson, the former Tennessee senator guiding Roberts through the confirmation process, has been a Federalist Society speaker, as has Roberts.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 02:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

WASHINGTON (AP) - Supreme Court nominee John Roberts declined Monday to say why he was listed in a leadership directory of the Federalist Society and the White House said he has no recollection of belonging to the conservative group.
The question of Roberts' membership in the society - an influential organization of conservative lawyers and judges formed in the early 1980s to combat what its members said was growing liberalism on the bench - emerged as a vexing issue at the start of another week of meetings for President Bush's nominee on Capitol Hill.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 02:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

WASHINGTON (AP) - Supreme Court nominee John Roberts declined Monday to say why he was listed in a leadership directory of the Federalist Society and the White House said he has no recollection of belonging to the conservative group.
The question of Roberts' membership in the society - an influential organization of conservative lawyers and judges formed in the early 1980s to combat what its members said was growing liberalism on the bench - emerged as a vexing issue at the start of another week of meetings for President Bush's nominee on Capitol Hill.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 02:05 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Link to Cheney deepens ‘leak-gate’ scandal
By Derrick Z. Jackson, Globe Columnist | July 19, 2005

THE NEWS that Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff was the second possible source in the leaking of the identity of a CIA agent to Time magazine elevates the scandal to a whole new level. It is bad enough for Karl Rove to be accused of being a leaker, since he is President Bush’s chief political strategist.
But if Time’s story holds, I. Lewis Libby’s involvement represents an even more insidious abuse of power. The Bush administration is being accused of leaking the name of Valerie Plame in retribution for a New York Times op-ed article written by her husband, diplomat Joseph Wilson. Wilson wrote that he never found any evidence in a 2002 trip to Africa, contrary to claims made by President Bush in his 2003 State of the Union address, that Saddam Hussein was procuring uranium from Niger for nuclear weapons.

Bush would invade Iraq over weapons of mass destruction that were never found. But Libby, Cheney, and the other influential right-wing hard-liners, such as Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Armitage, Richard Perle, and Douglas Feith, saw their dreams come true. Back in the administration of the senior President Bush, Cheney was defense secretary and Libby and Wolfowitz were two of his aides who, after the first Gulf War left Saddam in power, drafted a document advocating ‘‘preemptive’’ war against possible threats.

They said the United States should be ‘‘postured to act independently when collective action cannot be orchestrated.’’

Such provocation was kept at bay when President Clinton beat Bush in 1992 and took office for eight years. But when the junior Bush became president in 2000, the hard right on foreign policy took the helm. They used the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 as an excuse for invading Iraq, even though President Bush’s own 9/11 Commission found no tie between Saddam and 9/11.

Libby was in the thick of whipping up fear over the thinnest of evidence. The level to which Libby and Cheney stooped to get their war was highlighted by the momentous presentation of Saddam’s ‘‘threat’’ before the United Nations Security Council by then Secretary of State Colin Powell. Powell gave a presentation six weeks before the war where he said, ‘‘every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. These are not assertions.’’ Those assertions resulted in grudging acceptance of the war from many Democrats.

Virtually all of Powell’s solid sources fell apart when the United States turned Iraq upside down, killing thousands of Iraqi civilians in the process. He would have looked much worse had he listened to everything Libby and Cheney tried to feed him. It was Cheney’s staff who wrote the first draft of Powell’s UN speech. It was Libby who suggested, in strategy meetings at the White House, playing up every possible, conceivable threat of Saddam — with the emphasis on the word ‘‘conceive.’’

A US News and World Report story in the summer of 2003 quoted a senior administration official as saying Libby’s presentation ‘‘was over the top and ran the gamut from Al Qaeda to human rights to weapons of mass destruction. They were unsubstantiated assertions, in my view.’’

Powell, according to both US News and Vanity Fair, was so irritated by Libby’s hodgepodge of unsubstantiated facts that he threw documents into the air and said, ‘‘I’m not reading this. This is bull ...’’

Libby, whose nickname is Scooter, was particularly unhappy that Powell had thrown out sections of the presentation that would have attempted to link Al Qaeda to Saddam, including a discredited report that top 9/11 Al Qaeda airline hijacker Mohamed Atta had a meeting with an Iraqi intelligence official in Prague. According to Vanity Fair, ‘‘Cheney’s office made one last ditch effort to persuade Powell to link Saddam and Al Qaeda and to slip the Prague story back into the speech. Only moments before Powell began speaking, Scooter Libby tried unsuccessfully to reach [Larry] Wilkerson by phone. Powell’s staff chief, by then inside the Security Council chamber, declined to take the call. ‘Scooter,’ said one State Department aide, ‘wasn’t happy.’’’

According to Vanity Fair, Cheney himself urged Powell to go ahead and stake his national popularity on the nonexistent evidence by saying to Powell, ‘‘Your poll numbers are in the 70s. You can afford to lose a few points.’’

America and Iraq would go on to lose more than a few points. Libby may end up as a symbol of a government so driven to ignore the truth it was willing to resort to dirty tricks to stop anyone from telling it.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 10:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Link to Cheney deepens ‘leak-gate’ scandal
By Derrick Z. Jackson, Globe Columnist | July 19, 2005

THE NEWS that Vice President Dick Cheney’s chief of staff was the second possible source in the leaking of the identity of a CIA agent to Time magazine elevates the scandal to a whole new level. It is bad enough for Karl Rove to be accused of being a leaker, since he is President Bush’s chief political strategist.
But if Time’s story holds, I. Lewis Libby’s involvement represents an even more insidious abuse of power. The Bush administration is being accused of leaking the name of Valerie Plame in retribution for a New York Times op-ed article written by her husband, diplomat Joseph Wilson. Wilson wrote that he never found any evidence in a 2002 trip to Africa, contrary to claims made by President Bush in his 2003 State of the Union address, that Saddam Hussein was procuring uranium from Niger for nuclear weapons.

Bush would invade Iraq over weapons of mass destruction that were never found. But Libby, Cheney, and the other influential right-wing hard-liners, such as Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Armitage, Richard Perle, and Douglas Feith, saw their dreams come true. Back in the administration of the senior President Bush, Cheney was defense secretary and Libby and Wolfowitz were two of his aides who, after the first Gulf War left Saddam in power, drafted a document advocating ‘‘preemptive’’ war against possible threats.

They said the United States should be ‘‘postured to act independently when collective action cannot be orchestrated.’’

Such provocation was kept at bay when President Clinton beat Bush in 1992 and took office for eight years. But when the junior Bush became president in 2000, the hard right on foreign policy took the helm. They used the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11 as an excuse for invading Iraq, even though President Bush’s own 9/11 Commission found no tie between Saddam and 9/11.

Libby was in the thick of whipping up fear over the thinnest of evidence. The level to which Libby and Cheney stooped to get their war was highlighted by the momentous presentation of Saddam’s ‘‘threat’’ before the United Nations Security Council by then Secretary of State Colin Powell. Powell gave a presentation six weeks before the war where he said, ‘‘every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. These are not assertions.’’ Those assertions resulted in grudging acceptance of the war from many Democrats.

Virtually all of Powell’s solid sources fell apart when the United States turned Iraq upside down, killing thousands of Iraqi civilians in the process. He would have looked much worse had he listened to everything Libby and Cheney tried to feed him. It was Cheney’s staff who wrote the first draft of Powell’s UN speech. It was Libby who suggested, in strategy meetings at the White House, playing up every possible, conceivable threat of Saddam — with the emphasis on the word ‘‘conceive.’’

A US News and World Report story in the summer of 2003 quoted a senior administration official as saying Libby’s presentation ‘‘was over the top and ran the gamut from Al Qaeda to human rights to weapons of mass destruction. They were unsubstantiated assertions, in my view.’’

Powell, according to both US News and Vanity Fair, was so irritated by Libby’s hodgepodge of unsubstantiated facts that he threw documents into the air and said, ‘‘I’m not reading this. This is bull ...’’

Libby, whose nickname is Scooter, was particularly unhappy that Powell had thrown out sections of the presentation that would have attempted to link Al Qaeda to Saddam, including a discredited report that top 9/11 Al Qaeda airline hijacker Mohamed Atta had a meeting with an Iraqi intelligence official in Prague. According to Vanity Fair, ‘‘Cheney’s office made one last ditch effort to persuade Powell to link Saddam and Al Qaeda and to slip the Prague story back into the speech. Only moments before Powell began speaking, Scooter Libby tried unsuccessfully to reach [Larry] Wilkerson by phone. Powell’s staff chief, by then inside the Security Council chamber, declined to take the call. ‘Scooter,’ said one State Department aide, ‘wasn’t happy.’’’

According to Vanity Fair, Cheney himself urged Powell to go ahead and stake his national popularity on the nonexistent evidence by saying to Powell, ‘‘Your poll numbers are in the 70s. You can afford to lose a few points.’’

America and Iraq would go on to lose more than a few points. Libby may end up as a symbol of a government so driven to ignore the truth it was willing to resort to dirty tricks to stop anyone from telling it.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 10:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Soldiers exonerated on obscenity photo
Taliban captive was blindfolded
By Robert Burns, Associated Press | July 20, 2005

WASHINGTON -- Army investigators concluded that soldiers who photographed American-born Taliban fighter John Walker Lindh in captivity in Afghanistan with an obscenity written on his blindfold were guilty of <em>''barracks humor" but not intentional wrongdoing, according to documents released yesterday.
The investigators also found no evidence to support allegations that members of the 5th Special Forces Group, based at Fort Campbell, Ky., intentionally destroyed evidence or impeded a Justice Department investigation of the wartime treatment of Lindh, who denies having fought against US forces in Afghanistan.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 10:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Soldiers exonerated on obscenity photo
Taliban captive was blindfolded
By Robert Burns, Associated Press | July 20, 2005

WASHINGTON -- Army investigators concluded that soldiers who photographed American-born Taliban fighter John Walker Lindh in captivity in Afghanistan with an obscenity written on his blindfold were guilty of <em>''barracks humor" but not intentional wrongdoing, according to documents released yesterday.
The investigators also found no evidence to support allegations that members of the 5th Special Forces Group, based at Fort Campbell, Ky., intentionally destroyed evidence or impeded a Justice Department investigation of the wartime treatment of Lindh, who denies having fought against US forces in Afghanistan.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 10:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Tech firms slash jobs amid shifts
Changes in markets drive prices down, fuel unpredictability
By Robert Weisman, Globe Staff | July 20, 2005

Even in a growing economy with a recovering technology sector, high-tech companies from Hewlett-Packard Development Co. to Teradyne Inc. continue to pare their payrolls in response to falling technology prices and a more unforgiving attitude on Wall Street.
HP yesterday said it will lop off 14,500 jobs, about 10 percent of its worldwide workforce, including an unspecified number of employees in Massachusetts. Teradyne last week said it will eliminate 400 jobs,

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 10:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Tech firms slash jobs amid shifts
Changes in markets drive prices down, fuel unpredictability
By Robert Weisman, Globe Staff | July 20, 2005

Even in a growing economy with a recovering technology sector, high-tech companies from Hewlett-Packard Development Co. to Teradyne Inc. continue to pare their payrolls in response to falling technology prices and a more unforgiving attitude on Wall Street.
HP yesterday said it will lop off 14,500 jobs, about 10 percent of its worldwide workforce, including an unspecified number of employees in Massachusetts. Teradyne last week said it will eliminate 400 jobs,

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 10:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Memo data disclosed in CIA leak probe
Could have been evidence for ID
By Barry Schweid, Associated Press | July 20, 2005

WASHINGTON -- A State Department memo that has caught the attention of prosecutors describes a CIA officer's role in sending her husband to Africa and disputes administration contentions that Iraq was shopping for uranium, a retired department official said yesterday.
The classified memo was sent to Air Force One just after former US ambassador Joseph Wilson went public with his assertions that the Bush administration overstated the evidence that Iraq was interested in obtaining uranium from Niger for nuclear weapons.

The memo has become a key piece of evidence in the CIA leak investigation because it could have been the way someone in the White House learned -- and then leaked -- the information that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA and played a role in sending him on the mission.

The document was prepared in June 2003 at the direction of Carl W. Ford Jr., then head of the State Department's bureau of intelligence and research, for Marc Grossman, the retired official said. Grossman was the undersecretary of state who was in charge of the department while Secretary Colin L. Powell and his deputy, Richard L. Armitage, were traveling.

''It wasn't a Wilson-Wilson wife memo," said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation is still underway. ''It was a memo on uranium in Niger and focused principally on our disagreement" with the White House.

Armitage called Ford after Wilson's op-ed piece in The New York Times and his TV appearance on July 6, 2003, in which he challenged the White House's contention that Iraq had purchased uranium yellowcake from Niger.

Armitage asked that Powell, who was traveling to Africa with Bush, be given an account of the Wilson trip, the former official said. The original June 2003 memo was readdressed to Powell and was sent to Powell on Air Force One the next day.

The memo said Wilson's wife worked for the CIA and suggested her husband go to Niger because he had contacts there and had served as an American diplomat in Africa; however, the official said the memo did not say she worked undercover for the spy agency nor did it identify her as Valerie Plame.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 10:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Memo data disclosed in CIA leak probe
Could have been evidence for ID
By Barry Schweid, Associated Press | July 20, 2005

WASHINGTON -- A State Department memo that has caught the attention of prosecutors describes a CIA officer's role in sending her husband to Africa and disputes administration contentions that Iraq was shopping for uranium, a retired department official said yesterday.
The classified memo was sent to Air Force One just after former US ambassador Joseph Wilson went public with his assertions that the Bush administration overstated the evidence that Iraq was interested in obtaining uranium from Niger for nuclear weapons.

The memo has become a key piece of evidence in the CIA leak investigation because it could have been the way someone in the White House learned -- and then leaked -- the information that Wilson's wife worked for the CIA and played a role in sending him on the mission.

The document was prepared in June 2003 at the direction of Carl W. Ford Jr., then head of the State Department's bureau of intelligence and research, for Marc Grossman, the retired official said. Grossman was the undersecretary of state who was in charge of the department while Secretary Colin L. Powell and his deputy, Richard L. Armitage, were traveling.

''It wasn't a Wilson-Wilson wife memo," said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the investigation is still underway. ''It was a memo on uranium in Niger and focused principally on our disagreement" with the White House.

Armitage called Ford after Wilson's op-ed piece in The New York Times and his TV appearance on July 6, 2003, in which he challenged the White House's contention that Iraq had purchased uranium yellowcake from Niger.

Armitage asked that Powell, who was traveling to Africa with Bush, be given an account of the Wilson trip, the former official said. The original June 2003 memo was readdressed to Powell and was sent to Powell on Air Force One the next day.

The memo said Wilson's wife worked for the CIA and suggested her husband go to Niger because he had contacts there and had served as an American diplomat in Africa; however, the official said the memo did not say she worked undercover for the spy agency nor did it identify her as Valerie Plame.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 10:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

US asks court for power to detain
Case on Illinois Muslim convert sparks debate
By Larry O'Dell, Associated Press | July 20, 2005

RICHMOND, Va. -- A government attorney argued yesterday that America is a battlefield and President Bush therefore has the authority to detain enemy combatants indefinitely in this country.
Clement, acting solicitor general of the United States, made the comments as a three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit here is considering whether to overturn a lower court ruling that Jose Padilla should be charged with a crime or released. In 2002, Padilla, a former Chicago gang member and Muslim convert, was taken into custody by the military and has been held without trial ever since.

The government alleges that Padilla, an American citizen, trained with Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and arrived in the United States in May 2002 with the intent to blow up apartment buildings.

The panel assigned to hear the arguments was Judge Michael Luttig of Alexandria, Va.,an appointee of former President George H.W. Bush, and two appointees of former President Clinton: Judge Blane Michael of Charleston, W.Va., and Judge William B. Traxler Jr. of Greenville, S.C.

The judges were most concerned with how to handle Padilla in light of the Supreme Court's ruling last year on Yaser Esam Hamdi. Another American citizen, Hamdi was captured by the military with Taliban forces in Afghanistan and placed in a Navy brig in Norfolk. The Supreme Court ruled that his detention was lawful, but he was entitled to a hearing to challenge the allegations against him.

But moments after Clement began his oral argument, Luttig interrupted to say that ''arguably, Judge [Sandra Day] O'Connor in 'Hamdi' limited that law to the battlefield detention, did she not?" Padilla was picked up at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport on a warrant from a federal court in New York, and only later turned over to the military.

''That's not how I would read the case," Clement responded.

Luttig repeatedly pressed Clement, even after the solicitor general noted that Padilla's alleged intentions as a soldier of al Qaeda -- to target civilians -- constituted ''unlawful combatancy" even if he were on a battlefield in uniform.

''Those accusations don't get you very far," Luttig replied, ''unless you're prepared to boldly say the United States is a battlefield in the war on terror."

Clement answered, ''I can say that, and I can say it boldly."

But Michael said that Padilla wasn't captured anywhere near a battlefield. ''You captured Padilla in a Manhattan jail cell," Michael said. ''What, in the laws of war, allows you to undertake a nonbattlefield capture and hold them for the duration? I don't think you cite anything."

Michael, addressing Clement's claim that America is a battlefield, then asked, ''to call the United States a battlefield, wouldn't you have needed a specific authorization from Congress? It's not up to us as a court to develop laws of war."

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 10:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

US asks court for power to detain
Case on Illinois Muslim convert sparks debate
By Larry O'Dell, Associated Press | July 20, 2005

RICHMOND, Va. -- A government attorney argued yesterday that America is a battlefield and President Bush therefore has the authority to detain enemy combatants indefinitely in this country.
Clement, acting solicitor general of the United States, made the comments as a three-judge panel of the US Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit here is considering whether to overturn a lower court ruling that Jose Padilla should be charged with a crime or released. In 2002, Padilla, a former Chicago gang member and Muslim convert, was taken into custody by the military and has been held without trial ever since.

The government alleges that Padilla, an American citizen, trained with Al Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and arrived in the United States in May 2002 with the intent to blow up apartment buildings.

The panel assigned to hear the arguments was Judge Michael Luttig of Alexandria, Va.,an appointee of former President George H.W. Bush, and two appointees of former President Clinton: Judge Blane Michael of Charleston, W.Va., and Judge William B. Traxler Jr. of Greenville, S.C.

The judges were most concerned with how to handle Padilla in light of the Supreme Court's ruling last year on Yaser Esam Hamdi. Another American citizen, Hamdi was captured by the military with Taliban forces in Afghanistan and placed in a Navy brig in Norfolk. The Supreme Court ruled that his detention was lawful, but he was entitled to a hearing to challenge the allegations against him.

But moments after Clement began his oral argument, Luttig interrupted to say that ''arguably, Judge [Sandra Day] O'Connor in 'Hamdi' limited that law to the battlefield detention, did she not?" Padilla was picked up at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport on a warrant from a federal court in New York, and only later turned over to the military.

''That's not how I would read the case," Clement responded.

Luttig repeatedly pressed Clement, even after the solicitor general noted that Padilla's alleged intentions as a soldier of al Qaeda -- to target civilians -- constituted ''unlawful combatancy" even if he were on a battlefield in uniform.

''Those accusations don't get you very far," Luttig replied, ''unless you're prepared to boldly say the United States is a battlefield in the war on terror."

Clement answered, ''I can say that, and I can say it boldly."

But Michael said that Padilla wasn't captured anywhere near a battlefield. ''You captured Padilla in a Manhattan jail cell," Michael said. ''What, in the laws of war, allows you to undertake a nonbattlefield capture and hold them for the duration? I don't think you cite anything."

Michael, addressing Clement's claim that America is a battlefield, then asked, ''to call the United States a battlefield, wouldn't you have needed a specific authorization from Congress? It's not up to us as a court to develop laws of war."

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 10:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Expansion of daylight saving time gets push
Lawmakers work to finalize energy bill
By Tom Doggett and Chris Baltimore, Reuters | July 20, 2005

WASHINGTON -- A joint Senate-House committee working out the details of a broad US energy bill voted yesterday to expand US daylight saving time by two months to help reduce energy use.
Negotiators from both chambers are racing against the clock to put a final energy package on President Bush's desk by a self-imposed deadline of Aug. 1.

Among the conflicts to be resolved is the cost of energy production tax breaks, which totaled $8 billion in the House bill and $16 billion in the Senate bill, and legal protection for oil refiners that manufactured a fuel additive suspected of being a carcinogen.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 10:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Expansion of daylight saving time gets push
Lawmakers work to finalize energy bill
By Tom Doggett and Chris Baltimore, Reuters | July 20, 2005

WASHINGTON -- A joint Senate-House committee working out the details of a broad US energy bill voted yesterday to expand US daylight saving time by two months to help reduce energy use.
Negotiators from both chambers are racing against the clock to put a final energy package on President Bush's desk by a self-imposed deadline of Aug. 1.

Among the conflicts to be resolved is the cost of energy production tax breaks, which totaled $8 billion in the House bill and $16 billion in the Senate bill, and legal protection for oil refiners that manufactured a fuel additive suspected of being a carcinogen.

Posted by Kraven Moorehead at 10:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)