The blogoshere is buzzing about possible indictments for two people on Dick Cheney's staff in connection with the shameful Valerie Plame episode. If two of Cheney's staff are about to be fingered as the culprits, it's not at all unthinkable that the White House may be looking for ways to dump Cheney from the ticket.
It's kind of hard to picture them setting Cheney up to take the fall for the WMD scam. But it could happen.
Before bloggers get completely lost in that story and the endlessly intriguing Bush AWOL document hunt, this quote from Plame's husband Joseph Wilson struck me as especially noteworthy:
[Geov Parrish]: Has it been particularly unusual in this administration that there seems to be a remarkable disconnect between what gets produced out of the State Department and the diplomatic community and the intelligence community, and what the political decision makers at the top are claiming? We still have Cheney saying there are weapons of mass destruction even after David Kay has been converted by his experiences in Iraq.
[Wilson]: Well, it's not only weapons of mass destruction. It's also on terrorism, after everybody else has said there's nothing on this, and the question is, what is the vice president basing his assertions on? It's all been discredited. It is clear that they've set up within this administration an unprecedented shadow government with offices in a number of different departments, notably this Office of Special Plans in Defense, the operation in John Bolton's office, he is the undersecretary for disarmament/arms control, as well as this parallel National Security Council in the Vice President's office. The people who play in this all circumvent established communications networks and talk directly with each other, and as Sy Hersch reported in the New Yorker, stovepipe information directly up to the policymakers before analysts have had a chance to vet them.
An ad hoc intelligence operation is what led to the Iran-Contra scandal as well.
No comments:
Post a Comment