Story Highlights
• NEW: 4killed by car bomb near Baquba bus station; 14 killed in Baghdad
• U.S. says ground fire apparently downed four U.S. helicopters recently
• Iraqi Interior Ministry estimates 1,000 people killed in past week
• Massive truck bomb in Baghdad market Saturday killed at least 128
BAGHDAD, Iraq (CNN) -- The Iraqi Interior Ministry estimates that about 1,000 people have been killed throughout Iraq in the past week due to gunbattles, drive-by shootings and bomb attacks, a ministry official said Sunday.
The figure includes members of militia and terrorist groups, civilians and Iraqi security forces. The official said the data was gathered by Iraq's Interior, Health and Defense ministries.
The grim estimate came just a day after a bloody bomb attack on a crowded market in central Baghdad that killed 128 people and wounded 343 others Saturday, according to a Health Ministry official. (Watch chaos as dozens are rushed to hospitalsVideo)
The incident, which also destroyed cars and surrounding stores, occurred in Sedriya, a mixed district of Sunni Arabs, Shiites and Kurds.
The Health Ministry official said he expected the death toll from that attack to rise. Already, it is the deadliest attack in Iraq since November 23, when Shiites were targeted by coordinated car bomb attacks in Sadr City. At least 200 civilians were killed in those attacks.
Jihad Jabri, head of the Interior Ministry's bomb squad, said a Mercedes truck used in Saturday's blast contained a ton of explosives.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki blamed the attack on Saddam Hussein loyalists and Sunni extremists.
18 killed in Sunday attacks across Iraq
Four people were killed and 20 wounded Sunday when a car bomb exploded near a bus station in the town of Khalis, about 12 miles (20 kilometers) north of Baquba, an official with Baquba police told CNN.
In Kanan, about 12 miles east of Baquba, five people were wounded when a motorcycle rigged with explosives detonated near an outdoor market, police said.
Baquba is about 37 miles (60 kilometers) north of Baghdad.
In Baghdad on Sunday, gunmen, bombs and mortar attacks killed 14 people and injured 46 more, Baghdad police officials said.
The deadliest attack was a roadside bomb that exploded near an Iraqi police patrol in the northern Baghdad neighborhood of Kasra, killing four Iraqi police officers.
Other victims were killed or wounded by roadside and car bombs, attacks on their vehicles by gunmen, and mortar fire on a residential neighborhood, police said.
Iraqiya TV anchor Suhad Ibrahim was wounded when U.S. forces opened fire on her car while she was driving behind a U.S. military convoy near the Iraqi Foreign Ministry, Baghdad police said. The U.S. military did not immediately comment on the incident.
U.S.: Ground fire apparently brought down four helicopters
An ongoing U.S. military investigation has found that ground fire apparently brought down four U.S. helicopters in Iraq over the past few weeks, a Multi-National forces spokesman said Sunday.
The crashes killed 21 Americans.
"It does appear that they were all the result of some kind of Iraqi ground fire that did bring those helicopters down," U.S. Maj. Gen. William Caldwell said.
The downed helicopters -- which include two Apaches, a Black Hawk and a U.S. security contractor's helicopter -- pose a concern for the coalition in Iraq, where aircraft play a critical role. It could signal growing sophistication among insurgents determined to shoot down coalition aircraft.
Caldwell said the military is already making adjustments in tactics, techniques and procedures.
On Friday, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Peter Pace said that ground fire has been "more effective against our helicopters" in recent weeks and the military is studying the development.
The most recent crash occurred Friday when an AH-64 Apache flying northwest of Baghdad near Taji was shot down. Two U.S. soldiers were killed.
The next day, an al Qaeda-linked group claimed responsibility for the downed helicopter, claiming that God has granted them "new ways" to confront aircraft.
Earlier downings of aircraft believed to be the result of hostile ground fire include a U.S. military helicopter that went down January 29 during a battle in Najaf, killing two soldiers aboard; a U.S. helicopter that crashed in eastern Baghdad January 23, killing five employees for the Blackwater private security company; and a Black Hawk helicopter that went down in Diyala province on January 20, killing 12 U.S. troops.
Other developments
* One man suspected of leading a car bomb cell was killed and five suspected cell members were arrested Sunday in Mosul by U.S. forces, the military announced. Coalition forces also detained two suspected terrorists during a raid in Baghdad, the military said.
* In Kirkuk, north of the capital, the casualty toll from a series of nine bomb attacks launched Saturday rose to three dead and 23 wounded, Iraqi police told CNN on Sunday. Seven of the bombs were car bombs and the other two were roadside bombs, occurring in different locations across the city. A suicide car bombing at the headquarters of the Kurdistan Democratic Party was among the attacks.
CNN's Mohammed Tawfeeq and Barbara Starr contributed to this report.
Sunday, February 4, 2007
Captain America calls it friendly fire. We call it murder
Jasper Gerard
Sunday February 4, 2007
The Observer
You can see where America is coming from: having killed so many in Iraq - some innocent, some not - is it worth making a fuss about one more? The one more is Lance Corporal Matty Hull of Windsor. He died four years ago in a so-called 'blue on blue' killing, which has usurped that other laughably hollow euphemism: 'friendly fire'. A pair of circling American A-10 tankbuster planes opened fire on the Household Cavalry troop in 2003 and Hull died of multiple injuries in his blazing Scimitar armoured truck. So far, so Iraq.
Sunday February 4, 2007
The Observer
You can see where America is coming from: having killed so many in Iraq - some innocent, some not - is it worth making a fuss about one more? The one more is Lance Corporal Matty Hull of Windsor. He died four years ago in a so-called 'blue on blue' killing, which has usurped that other laughably hollow euphemism: 'friendly fire'. A pair of circling American A-10 tankbuster planes opened fire on the Household Cavalry troop in 2003 and Hull died of multiple injuries in his blazing Scimitar armoured truck. So far, so Iraq.
But now it emerges there is a cockpit recording of the incident which America refuses to allow our - visibly furious - coroner to play in court. This despite the tape's crucial importance, as it is said to contain 'incriminating' information, including the line: 'Someone's going to jail for this.'
Susan, Hull's widow, is rather keen to hear it. Alas, our Ministry of Defence is complicit in a cover-up. Not merely because it will not let the Oxfordshire coroner flick the 'play' switch until America gives permission, but because, scandalously, for four years it has denied 'categorically' that any such recording exists, knowing this to be a lie. The MoD claims to be 'in discussions' with America, but that promises quite a phone bill. How many years can one conversation take?
Hitherto, Des Browne, bumbling Defence Secretary, has escaped parliamentary gunfire because even Mrs Browne would struggle to put a face to him. But if he can't ensure this tape is admissible when the inquest reconvenes later this month, shouldn't he be fired in a manner most unfriendly?
And what of America? It claims the right to try foreign nationals in foreign countries for 'crimes' defined by American law. It requires Britain to extradite suspects while failing to ratify a treaty that would let us try Americans, such as those who kill our citizens. So often, British ministers plead with this administration to show some slight consideration that would make our support for the Iraq war easier, but usually they are rebuffed.
And so, while George and Tony smile on deck suggesting a chipper Anglo-American relationship, below, the good ship Atlantic slowly sinks. Not only are their policies in Iraq diverging - Britain pulling out, America pushing in - but British hearts are hardening.
Proof came last week when William Hague called on Britain to be less slavish. Hague! If the American ambassador gives a damn about British domestic opinion, he must have choked on his pretzel.
Hague was the arch-Atlanticist who urged war in Iraq - not, primarily, because he gave much of a hoot about Iraq - but because he believed the world tends to be safer when Britain acts in consort with America.
The sadness is that with a Democrat Congress and - we hope - a less ideological President, American activism and interventionism could become a more consensual force for good in the world once again. But that might be too late for Britain. It certainly is for Lance Corporal Hull.
Dick Cheney Was Briefed by CIA on Niger
Saturday, 03 February 2007
by Larry C Johnson
One of the peripheral benefits from the Scooter LIbby trial (apart from the pleasure of watching the Bush Administration lies exposed) is the release of documents that provide concrete evidence of the events that produced Nigergate (or, if you prefer, Plamegate). Scooter may be claiming a foggy memory but if you read and compare the new documents with previous material, such as the Senate Intelligence Committee Report on Iraq released in the summer of 2004, the fog will lift and you'll glean some new insights.
We have known all along that Dick Cheney asked the CIA to follow up on a DIA report about Iraq's effort to get uranium from Niger. Thanks to the latest document dump we now know that Dick Cheney received a preliminary brief from the CIA and the the Senate Intelligence Committee, in its 2004 report, covered up this fact.
On a chilly Tuesday morning almost five years ago, February 12, 2002, Dick Cheney’s CIA briefer arrived with a piece of finished intelligence that set in motion a series of events that exposed the identity of a CIA undercover officer, destroyed a CIA front company and compromised its various assets, and sent Scooter Libby to trial for perjury and obstruction of justice.
Dick Cheney read an article written by an analyst at the Defence Intelligence Agency titled, "Niamey signed on agreement to sell 500 tons of uranium to Baghdad". This report was based on intelligence obtained by CIA field operatives and published as an intelligence report (i.e. TD) on 5 February 2002. The source, our buddies the Italians. Thanks to the CIA memo introduced during the first week of the Libby trial, the CIA reported that Iraq and Niger allegedly signed an agreement in July of 2000 to purchase uranium. This TD was a follow up to information the CIA obtained in October 2001, also from the Italian intelligence service, which claimed the negotiations had started in 1999 and came to fruition in 2000.
We know from the July 2004 Senate Intelligence Committee (SSCI) report that the CIA analysts viewed the October report as uncorroborated and noted that even if this was true Iraq had no capability to process the yellowcake (see p. 36 of the SSCI July 2004 report).
DIA was less skeptical than the CIA and left the impression that it was a done deal. As the Senate Intelligence Committee reported in 2004, Dick Cheney asked his briefer to find out what the CIA knew about this. When a Vice President or President asks a question or makes a substantive comment in response to the briefing material, the Briefer always goes back to CIA Headquarters and sits in on a morning meeting of Senior CIA officials. When the CIA briefer got back to Headquarters, he briefed the Director of Operations (or his Deputy) and the the Director of Intelligence (or his Deputy).
This led to two courses of action. First, the Director of Intelligence sent the rock rolling down the hill until it hit an analyst in WINPAC--the analytical shop in CIA tasked with monitoring Iraq's WMD program. According to the CIA memo released in the Libby trial, we now know that In response to this tasking the analyst produced a Senior Power Executive Intelligence Brief on 14 February 2002 that concluded:
information on the alleged uranium contract between Iraq and Niger comes exclusively from a foreign government service report that lacks crucial details, and we are working to clarify the information and to determine whether it can be corroborated.
Now here is the bullshit. The Republican led Senate Select Intelligence Committee claimed in July 2004 that:
The CIA sent a separate version of the assessment to the Vice President which differed only in that it named the foreign government service.
BULLSHIT, BULLSHIT, BULLSHIT!!! No. Unlike the DIA analyst, who accepted the report at face value, the CIA expressed skepticism and clearly conveyed that the information was suspect. Moreover, the CIA morning briefer gave this information to Vice President Cheney on Thursday morning, 14 February 2002.
Second, on Tuesday morning, 19 February 2002, the CIA's Counter Proliferation Division chaired an interagency meeting to discuss whether to send Ambassador Joe Wilson to Niger. As noted in a previous post (see Joe Wilson Vindicated), Joe even tried to talk them out of sending him but, as a good American, accepted the so-called boondoggle to Niger. And, when he returned, an intelligence report was generated.
Be sure of this, Dick Cheney was briefed on the results of Joe's trip. He may not have remembered the substance because the report--based on the debriefing of Joe Wilson--told a story that Dick Cheney did not want to hear. There is no way that a CIA Briefer, who knew of the Vice President's keen interest in the issue of Iraq, Niger, and uranium, would not present a piece of raw intelligence to the Vice President that addressed Cheney's question. In fact, the Vice President received the report on March 8, 2002 or March 9, 2002. Look for yourself. On page DX64.4 of the CIA memo, paragraph 6, we are informed that the CIA's Directorate of Operations widely disseminated the report and that the sensitive source, Joe Wilson, is highly reliable.
Cheney was given an intelligence report in response to his original query on 12 February, 2002. The report made clear that Niger was playing ball with the U.S. and was not about to even meet with Iraqis, much less sell them uranium. But Cheney and Bush had other plans. They were going to go to war with Iraq regardless of what the intelligence said. But we now have a clear picture that the intelligence community was trying to tell them uncomfortable truths that Bush and Cheney did not want to hear. Just remember that as the U.S. death toll in Iraq continues to soar.
Furore over Jewish critics' challenge to state of Israel
Ned Temko
The Observer
The Observer
A major battle has erupted in Jewish communities on both sides of the Atlantic over accusations that left-wing Jews are fuelling anti-Semitism by challenging the existence of Israel.
The heated argument escalated further with a feature on the dispute in the New York Times. Judt, who was criticised in the article for having denounced Israel as 'arrogant, aggressive, anachronistic, infantile... [and] immoral,' told the New York Times he was convinced that leading Jewish voices simply wanted to stifle any harsh criticism of Israel.
On one side is an array of prominent Jewish community leaders and institutions saying that such criticism plays into the hands of Muslim radical groups and other extremists.
On the other side, left-wing Jewish writers and academics insist that basic freedom of expression is at stake. Some British Jewish voices have warned of an atmosphere of 'McCarthyism' reminiscent of the anti-Communist witchhunts in 1950s America.
The current dispute erupted earlier this year in the United States, home to the world's largest diaspora Jewish community, with an essay published by the American Jewish Committee. The AJC urged the community to 'confront' those Jews who had joined in the 'verbal onslaught against Zionism and the Jewish state'. The essay denounced some critics by name, including prominent historian Tony Judt and Tony Kushner, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of the play Angels in America.
The heated argument escalated further with a feature on the dispute in the New York Times. Judt, who was criticised in the article for having denounced Israel as 'arrogant, aggressive, anachronistic, infantile... [and] immoral,' told the New York Times he was convinced that leading Jewish voices simply wanted to stifle any harsh criticism of Israel.
But in a separate article, Boston-based sociologist Shulamit Reinharz - wife of the president of America's leading Jewish university, Brandeis - rejected the idea that Jewish left-wingers could question the very existence of Israel without imperilling Jews. 'Most would say they are simply anti-Zionists, not anti-Semites. But I disagree, because in a world where there is only one Jewish state, to oppose it vehemently is to endanger Jews.'
In London, a similar battle has erupted around academic Tony Lerman, head of think-tank the Institute of Jewish Policy Research (JPR). At issue are remarks he made before taking up the post in which he questioned the viability of Israel as a Jewish state. He suggested replacing it with a Jewish-Arab state that would also offer a home for Palestinian refugees. Four JPR directors, and one of its honorary patrons, the Tory peer Lord Kalms, have resigned in protest.
Against this background, a new British group calling itself Independent Jewish Voices is planning to launch tomorrow on Comment Is Free, the Guardian's and Observer's online comment site. The group - including more than 100 writers, academics, doctors, lawyers, actors and others - objects to what it terms the misconception that British Jews 'speak with one voice and that this voice supports the Israeli government's policies'.
Kalms has insisted that he has no problem with criticism of individual Israeli government policies, but has suggested that Lerman's questioning of the Jewish state's existence risks providing cover for extremists who want Israel destroyed. Writing in the Jewish Chronicle on Friday, he said he had been told that he should be 'tolerant of Mr Lerman's views'. But, he argued, 'that is difficult when he proposes the suicide of the state of Israel.'
Echoing Kalms's view, a former Australian Jewish community leader, Isi Leibler, also wrote in the Chronicle: 'How can a person publicly state that Israel should be displaced as a Jewish state... [and] still occupy the role of executive director of Anglo-Jewry's principal think-tank?'
But JPR chairman Peter Levy - who also chairs the Chronicle - voiced strong support for Lerman and denounced the 'deeply disturbing, orchestrated campaign' against him. 'The people responsible do not seem to value independent thinking, and wish to prevent discussion of matters that may be uncomfortable but are essential for us to address. Their campaign demeans our community... and should be brought to an end,' Levy said.
Vice President's Shadow Hangs Over Trial
Testimony Points Out Cheney's Role in Trying to Dampen Joseph Wilson's Criticism
By R. Jeffrey Smith and Carol D. Leonnig
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, February 4, 2007; A05
Vice President Cheney's press officer, Cathie Martin, approached his chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, on Air Force Two on July 12, 2003, to ask how she should respond to journalists' questions about Joseph C. Wilson IV. Libby looked over one of the reporters' questions and told Martin: "Well, let me go talk to the boss and I'll be back."
On Libby's return, Martin testified in federal court last week, he brought a card with detailed replies dictated by Cheney, including a highly partisan, incomplete summary of Wilson's investigation into Iraq's suspected weapons of mass destruction program.
Libby subsequently called a reporter, read him the statement, and said -- according to the reporter -- he had "heard" that Wilson's investigation was instigated by his wife, an employee at the CIA, later identified as Valerie Plame. The reporter, Matthew Cooper of Time magazine, was one of five people with whom Libby discussed Plame's CIA status during those critical weeks that summer.
After seven days of such courtroom testimony, the unanswered question hanging over Libby's trial is, did the vice president's former chief of staff decide to leak that disparaging information on his own?
No evidence has emerged that Cheney told him to do it. But Cheney's dictated reply is one of many signs to emerge at the trial of the vice president's unusual attentiveness to the controversy and his desire to blunt it. His efforts included the extraordinary disclosure of classified information, including one-sided synopses of Wilson's report and a 2002 intelligence estimate on Iraq.
Under questioning from FBI agent Deborah S. Bond, Libby acknowledged that he and Cheney "may have talked" aboard the plane from Norfolk that day about whether to make public Plame's CIA employment, Bond testified Thursday.
Her testimony brought Cheney closer than ever to the heart of the controversy surrounding the Bush administration's efforts to discredit Wilson, who had accused the White House of twisting intelligence he had gathered as it sought to justify the invasion of Iraq.
White House officials testified that Cheney was irritated because he thought Wilson had alleged the vice president sent him on the fact-finding trip to Niger but rejected the investigation's conclusions. Time after time at the height of the controversy, they said, Cheney directed the administration's response to Wilson's criticism and Libby carried it out.
Cheney personally dictated other talking points for use by the White House press office; helped negotiate the wording of a key statement by then-CIA Director George J. Tenet; instructed Libby to deal directly with selected reporters; told Libby to disclose selected passages from the national intelligence estimate and other classified reports; and held a luncheon for conservative columnists to discuss the controversy.
Throughout this period, Cheney kept a news clipping of Wilson's criticisms on his desk, annotated with the question, "did his wife send him on a junket?" according to court statements. Libby told a grand jury that he and Cheney discussed it on multiple occasions each day.
Randall Eliason, a former chief of public corruption prosecutions for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Washington, said, "There has been significant evidence of how deeply the vice president was involved. If Cheney is personally, deeply involved in it, it's Libby's job to be personally, deeply involved."
Wilson was a former U.S. ambassador dispatched by the CIA the previous year -- at the suggestion of his wife but on a decision by other officials -- to determine whether Iraq had recently tried to acquire nuclear materials from Niger. The agency later said that it was responding to inquiries made by Cheney's office, the State Department and the Defense Department.
On July 6, 2003, 16 months after his return, Wilson publicly accused the administration of ignoring his report, which debunked the Iraq-Niger speculation, and of twisting his information to justify the invasion of Iraq.
Wilson's allegations provoked a political firestorm. Within days, the White House was forced to repudiate a key assertion President Bush had made in his State of the Union address, and Tenet issued an unusual public apology for failing to stop the president from making it. But rather than tamping down the controversy, the administration's backtracking only "made it flare up," as then-White House spokesman Ari Fleischer testified last week.
In its response, the White House wound up training its fire not only on the substance of Wilson's allegations but on him personally, trial testimony has shown.
Over the course of that week in July, bracketed by Wilson's published criticism and Cheney's flight back from Norfolk, three senior White House officials -- Libby, Fleischer and special presidential assistant Karl Rove -- inaccurately told or suggested to five reporters that Wilson had been dispatched to Niger by Plame, according to the testimony. Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage separately told columnist Robert D. Novak that Plame worked at the CIA, and Novak made that news public July 14.
The belittling implication of the disclosure, as Fleischer and others testified last week, was that nepotism, rather than Wilson's knowledge and experience, lay behind his involvement in the matter.
While Cheney and Libby have asserted that their sole intent in contacting journalists was to defend the credibility of their policy, prosecutors disclosed new evidence on Wednesday that the administration was focusing on Wilson himself. Cheney's then-communications director, Mary Matalin, advised Libby in a phone call July 10, prosecutor Peter Zeidenberg said.
Matalin, according to notes Libby made of the conversation, called Wilson "a snake" and warned that his "story has legs," Zeidenberg said. She laid out a plan: "We need to address the Wilson motivation. We need to be able to get the cable out. Declassified. The president should wave his wand."
While arguing unsuccessfully that the jury should see all of Libby's notes on the conversation, Zeidenberg said, "All we have heard from the defense all along is that Mr. Libby was only interested in responding on the merits." He said it was significant that Libby wrote down word for word "an extremely negative and ad hominem attack, if you will, about a critic."
Plame's employment at the CIA was classified, making it illegal for any official to knowingly and intentionally disclose it. Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald's 22-month investigation did not produce charges of that offense.
But Libby was indicted on charges of making false statements, obstruction of justice and perjury for denying that he was aware of Plame's employment and had disclosed it to journalists.
In courtroom testimony, witnesses have asserted that Cheney and two others told Libby about Plame in June, and that he told two journalists and Fleischer -- who in turn said he told two more journalists. It was, in short, a hot topic of gossip by the administration.
According to Martin's testimony, Cheney directed her early in the week of July 6 to keep track of daily news coverage of the controversy, including "who was continuing to comment." During a meeting on Capitol Hill, Martin said, Cheney "dictated to me what he wanted me to say" about it to reporters.
In a meeting July 8, Martin said, Cheney also decided that Libby would call NBC News reporters Andrea Mitchell and David Gregory to discuss the matter. Martin said she walked out during Libby's subsequent calls to the reporters.
After Mitchell suggested in a broadcast that the White House was "pushing blame" for the mess toward the CIA, Martin said, then-deputy national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley looked directly at Martin during a staff meeting and said such efforts were improper. At that moment, Martin said, Libby "looked down," in effect leaving her to absorb the blame.
Three months later, White House spokesman Scott McClellan publicly cleared Rove of leaking Plame's name -- inaccurately, as it turned out -- but provided no such statement about Libby.
According to Cheney's own notes, introduced at the trial last week, Cheney told McClellan that such a statement "has to happen today. Call out key press saying same thing about Scooter as Karl. Not going to protect one staffer and sacrifice the guy that was asked to stick his neck in the meat grinder because of the incompetence of others."
Staff writer Amy Goldstein contributed to this report.
By R. Jeffrey Smith and Carol D. Leonnig
Washington Post Staff Writers
Sunday, February 4, 2007; A05
Vice President Cheney's press officer, Cathie Martin, approached his chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, on Air Force Two on July 12, 2003, to ask how she should respond to journalists' questions about Joseph C. Wilson IV. Libby looked over one of the reporters' questions and told Martin: "Well, let me go talk to the boss and I'll be back."
On Libby's return, Martin testified in federal court last week, he brought a card with detailed replies dictated by Cheney, including a highly partisan, incomplete summary of Wilson's investigation into Iraq's suspected weapons of mass destruction program.
Libby subsequently called a reporter, read him the statement, and said -- according to the reporter -- he had "heard" that Wilson's investigation was instigated by his wife, an employee at the CIA, later identified as Valerie Plame. The reporter, Matthew Cooper of Time magazine, was one of five people with whom Libby discussed Plame's CIA status during those critical weeks that summer.
After seven days of such courtroom testimony, the unanswered question hanging over Libby's trial is, did the vice president's former chief of staff decide to leak that disparaging information on his own?
No evidence has emerged that Cheney told him to do it. But Cheney's dictated reply is one of many signs to emerge at the trial of the vice president's unusual attentiveness to the controversy and his desire to blunt it. His efforts included the extraordinary disclosure of classified information, including one-sided synopses of Wilson's report and a 2002 intelligence estimate on Iraq.
Under questioning from FBI agent Deborah S. Bond, Libby acknowledged that he and Cheney "may have talked" aboard the plane from Norfolk that day about whether to make public Plame's CIA employment, Bond testified Thursday.
Her testimony brought Cheney closer than ever to the heart of the controversy surrounding the Bush administration's efforts to discredit Wilson, who had accused the White House of twisting intelligence he had gathered as it sought to justify the invasion of Iraq.
White House officials testified that Cheney was irritated because he thought Wilson had alleged the vice president sent him on the fact-finding trip to Niger but rejected the investigation's conclusions. Time after time at the height of the controversy, they said, Cheney directed the administration's response to Wilson's criticism and Libby carried it out.
Cheney personally dictated other talking points for use by the White House press office; helped negotiate the wording of a key statement by then-CIA Director George J. Tenet; instructed Libby to deal directly with selected reporters; told Libby to disclose selected passages from the national intelligence estimate and other classified reports; and held a luncheon for conservative columnists to discuss the controversy.
Throughout this period, Cheney kept a news clipping of Wilson's criticisms on his desk, annotated with the question, "did his wife send him on a junket?" according to court statements. Libby told a grand jury that he and Cheney discussed it on multiple occasions each day.
Randall Eliason, a former chief of public corruption prosecutions for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Washington, said, "There has been significant evidence of how deeply the vice president was involved. If Cheney is personally, deeply involved in it, it's Libby's job to be personally, deeply involved."
Wilson was a former U.S. ambassador dispatched by the CIA the previous year -- at the suggestion of his wife but on a decision by other officials -- to determine whether Iraq had recently tried to acquire nuclear materials from Niger. The agency later said that it was responding to inquiries made by Cheney's office, the State Department and the Defense Department.
On July 6, 2003, 16 months after his return, Wilson publicly accused the administration of ignoring his report, which debunked the Iraq-Niger speculation, and of twisting his information to justify the invasion of Iraq.
Wilson's allegations provoked a political firestorm. Within days, the White House was forced to repudiate a key assertion President Bush had made in his State of the Union address, and Tenet issued an unusual public apology for failing to stop the president from making it. But rather than tamping down the controversy, the administration's backtracking only "made it flare up," as then-White House spokesman Ari Fleischer testified last week.
In its response, the White House wound up training its fire not only on the substance of Wilson's allegations but on him personally, trial testimony has shown.
Over the course of that week in July, bracketed by Wilson's published criticism and Cheney's flight back from Norfolk, three senior White House officials -- Libby, Fleischer and special presidential assistant Karl Rove -- inaccurately told or suggested to five reporters that Wilson had been dispatched to Niger by Plame, according to the testimony. Deputy Secretary of State Richard L. Armitage separately told columnist Robert D. Novak that Plame worked at the CIA, and Novak made that news public July 14.
The belittling implication of the disclosure, as Fleischer and others testified last week, was that nepotism, rather than Wilson's knowledge and experience, lay behind his involvement in the matter.
While Cheney and Libby have asserted that their sole intent in contacting journalists was to defend the credibility of their policy, prosecutors disclosed new evidence on Wednesday that the administration was focusing on Wilson himself. Cheney's then-communications director, Mary Matalin, advised Libby in a phone call July 10, prosecutor Peter Zeidenberg said.
Matalin, according to notes Libby made of the conversation, called Wilson "a snake" and warned that his "story has legs," Zeidenberg said. She laid out a plan: "We need to address the Wilson motivation. We need to be able to get the cable out. Declassified. The president should wave his wand."
While arguing unsuccessfully that the jury should see all of Libby's notes on the conversation, Zeidenberg said, "All we have heard from the defense all along is that Mr. Libby was only interested in responding on the merits." He said it was significant that Libby wrote down word for word "an extremely negative and ad hominem attack, if you will, about a critic."
Plame's employment at the CIA was classified, making it illegal for any official to knowingly and intentionally disclose it. Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald's 22-month investigation did not produce charges of that offense.
But Libby was indicted on charges of making false statements, obstruction of justice and perjury for denying that he was aware of Plame's employment and had disclosed it to journalists.
In courtroom testimony, witnesses have asserted that Cheney and two others told Libby about Plame in June, and that he told two journalists and Fleischer -- who in turn said he told two more journalists. It was, in short, a hot topic of gossip by the administration.
According to Martin's testimony, Cheney directed her early in the week of July 6 to keep track of daily news coverage of the controversy, including "who was continuing to comment." During a meeting on Capitol Hill, Martin said, Cheney "dictated to me what he wanted me to say" about it to reporters.
In a meeting July 8, Martin said, Cheney also decided that Libby would call NBC News reporters Andrea Mitchell and David Gregory to discuss the matter. Martin said she walked out during Libby's subsequent calls to the reporters.
After Mitchell suggested in a broadcast that the White House was "pushing blame" for the mess toward the CIA, Martin said, then-deputy national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley looked directly at Martin during a staff meeting and said such efforts were improper. At that moment, Martin said, Libby "looked down," in effect leaving her to absorb the blame.
Three months later, White House spokesman Scott McClellan publicly cleared Rove of leaking Plame's name -- inaccurately, as it turned out -- but provided no such statement about Libby.
According to Cheney's own notes, introduced at the trial last week, Cheney told McClellan that such a statement "has to happen today. Call out key press saying same thing about Scooter as Karl. Not going to protect one staffer and sacrifice the guy that was asked to stick his neck in the meat grinder because of the incompetence of others."
Staff writer Amy Goldstein contributed to this report.
Argentinian critics say an American campaigner is buying up vast wetlands for US strategic goals
Eco-millionaire's land grab prompts fury
Uki Goñi in Buenos AiresSunday February 4, 2007
The Observer
Douglas Tompkinscalls himself a 'deep ecologist'. He is a millionaire on a quest to preserve some of Argentina's last frontier lands from human encroachment by buying them and turning them into ecological reserves.
But Argentina may not permit him such philanthropy. Opponents are branding him a new-age 'imperialist gringo' and claim he has a secret aim: to help the US military gain control of the country's natural resources. Tompkins, who sold his Esprit clothing firm in 1989 for a reported $150m to devote his time and wealth to ecology, takes such attacks in his stride. 'Land ownership is a political act; it arouses passions,' he says.
Tompkins, 63, holds to a very severe brand of environmentalism and is fond of reminding listeners that, unless runaway consumerism is halted, 'we humans will be building ourselves a beautiful coffin in space called planet Earth'.
Yet such statements do not carry much weight with Argentinian nationalists. The heaviest fire has come from radicals in the ruling Peronist party. Left-wing legislator Araceli Mendez introduced draft legislation in Congress a few months ago to confiscate the American's vast holdings. At the centre of the storm is a 310,000-acre estate Tompkins owns in the Ibera wetlands, a labyrinth of marshes, lakes and floating islands of nearly 2 million acres. 'He says he's worried about the birds and the wildlife,' said Mendez. 'But his land is above the Guarani aquifer, one of the most important fresh water reserves in the world, only 700km from an airbase the United States plans to build in neighbouring Paraguay.'
The aquifer is soon to become an issue of strategic defence policy. Argentina's military planners are convinced the country's oil and fresh water deposits could become targets for world powers in an ecologically dark future, and are putting together 'Plan 2025', dividing the country into regions based on their resource potential.
The Argentinian press has suggested Tompkins might be a covert CIA operative securing US access to the aquifer. And even Argentinians who don't share such conspiracy theories are uncomfortable with Tompkins transforming his properties into environmentally pristine but unpopulated and economically unproductive areas.
Tompkins and his wife, Kristine McDivitt, a former CEO of the Patagonia clothing retail chain, first went to Ibera in the late 1990s. After being initially unimpressed - 'it's as flat as a billiard table' - they eventually succumbed to the challenge, putting the accent on restoring the original wildlife.
'Wetlands are not up there in the collective human mind, they get very poor conservation protection, but there is an enchantment in every ecosystem,' said Tompkins. 'The land has been environmentally degraded and many of the indigenous animals have disappeared,' he went on. 'We've started with the marsh deer. Eventually we'll be able to reintroduce the jaguar, the top of the food chain.'
Tompkins expects that in 15 to 20 years he could turn his Ibera estate into a national park. 'It can take that long to generate a change in attitude. Tourism has to become a national priority.'
Tompkins and his wife say they are not old-fashioned imperialists in a new guise. 'All the fears created by the fact that I am American buying land are ridiculous,' said Tompkins. 'My intention has always been to eventually turn over the land to the Argentinian government for a national park.' He has already done so, donating an estate in Patagonia to the National Parks administration in 2004. In the late Nineties he had bought the 155,000-acre Monte Leon sheep farm, including a 25-mile stretch of South Atlantic coast, home to one of the largest Magellan penguin rookeries in the world and also abundant in sea lions, pumas and birds.
But pressure to pass an anti-Tompkins bill in Congress could be strong. The presence of other high-profile foreigners fuels passions. The Italian clothing giant Benetton holds 2.2 million acres in sheep farms in Patagonia and has clashed with the indigenous Mapuche people over land ownership claims. And US media magnate Ted Turner likes to go trout fishing on his Patagonian estates.
For Tompkins, it has been a long road from fashion king to 'deep ecologist'. As the founder of North Face and Esprit, he sold hundreds of millions of dollars worth of clothes worldwide every year. All that changed when he became involved in radical environmental projects, what he calls his 'restoration work', returning native animal and plant species to the nation-sized swaths of land he owns.
Tompkins and his wife have acquired properties encompassing Pacific coastal fjords, Patagonian virgin forest and tropical wetlands, a total area of some 2.2 million acres - about the size of Cyprus -in Argentina and neighbouring Chile.
Despite all the difficulties, Tompkins is optimistic about converting opponents to his way of thinking. 'I see an unstoppable wave of environmentalism. Environmental problems arise from the mistaken notion that humans come first. They have to come second. This has not sunk into the political and social leadership.'
Ex U.S. military commanders warn against Iran attack
February 4, 2007
LONDON (Reuters) - Three former senior U.S. military officials warn that any military action against Iran would have "disastrous consequences" and urged Washington to hold immediate and unconditional talks with Tehran.
The Bush administration has increased the regularity and vehemence of its accusations against Iran, prompting speculation it could be laying the ground for military attack against the Islamic state.
Washington has also sent a second aircraft carrier to the Gulf, a move seen as a warning to Iran which the United States accuses of seeking atomic arms and fuelling instability in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East. Iran denies the charges.
A technician checks valves at the uranium conversion facility in Isfahan, 450 km south of Tehran, February 3, 2007. Three former senior U.S. military officials warn that any military action against Iran would have "disastrous consequences" and urged Washington to hold immediate and unconditional talks with Tehran.
In a letter to London's Sunday Times newspaper, the three former U.S. military leaders said attacking Iran "would have disastrous consequences for security in the region, coalition forces in Iraq and would further exacerbate regional and global tensions," they wrote.
"The current crisis must be resolved through diplomacy," they said.
The letter was signed by retired army Lieutenant General Robert Gard, a former military assistant to Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, retired U.S. Marine Corps General Joseph Hoar, a former commander in chief of U.S. Central Command; and retired Navy Vice Admiral Jack Shanahan, a former director of the Center for Defense Information.
They urged the U.S. government to "engage immediately in direct talks with the government of Iran without preconditions.
"There is time available to talk, we must ensure that we use it," they said.
The three men have joined previous petitions calling on the Bush administration to change course in its policy on Iran.
Washington broke ties with Iran in 1980. It has offered to hold direct talks with Iran but only once Tehran halts its drive to produce nuclear fuel through uranium enrichment.
Iran, which says it wants to enrich uranium to make nuclear reactor fuel, not bombs, has refused.
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Friday said Washington was not planning for war with Iran, but again accused Tehran of supplying bombs for deadly attacks against U.S. troops in Iraq.
Copyright © 2006 Reuters
LONDON (Reuters) - Three former senior U.S. military officials warn that any military action against Iran would have "disastrous consequences" and urged Washington to hold immediate and unconditional talks with Tehran.
The Bush administration has increased the regularity and vehemence of its accusations against Iran, prompting speculation it could be laying the ground for military attack against the Islamic state.
Washington has also sent a second aircraft carrier to the Gulf, a move seen as a warning to Iran which the United States accuses of seeking atomic arms and fuelling instability in Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East. Iran denies the charges.
A technician checks valves at the uranium conversion facility in Isfahan, 450 km south of Tehran, February 3, 2007. Three former senior U.S. military officials warn that any military action against Iran would have "disastrous consequences" and urged Washington to hold immediate and unconditional talks with Tehran.
In a letter to London's Sunday Times newspaper, the three former U.S. military leaders said attacking Iran "would have disastrous consequences for security in the region, coalition forces in Iraq and would further exacerbate regional and global tensions," they wrote.
"The current crisis must be resolved through diplomacy," they said.
The letter was signed by retired army Lieutenant General Robert Gard, a former military assistant to Defense Secretary Robert McNamara, retired U.S. Marine Corps General Joseph Hoar, a former commander in chief of U.S. Central Command; and retired Navy Vice Admiral Jack Shanahan, a former director of the Center for Defense Information.
They urged the U.S. government to "engage immediately in direct talks with the government of Iran without preconditions.
"There is time available to talk, we must ensure that we use it," they said.
The three men have joined previous petitions calling on the Bush administration to change course in its policy on Iran.
Washington broke ties with Iran in 1980. It has offered to hold direct talks with Iran but only once Tehran halts its drive to produce nuclear fuel through uranium enrichment.
Iran, which says it wants to enrich uranium to make nuclear reactor fuel, not bombs, has refused.
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates on Friday said Washington was not planning for war with Iran, but again accused Tehran of supplying bombs for deadly attacks against U.S. troops in Iraq.
Copyright © 2006 Reuters
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