Spotlight on Cheney in intelligence leak row
Dick Cheney was thrust into the centre of the criminal investigation of an intelligence leak yesterday after details were reported of a White House meeting in which the vice-president discussed a CIA officer whose cover was blown a few weeks later.
The discussion two years ago between Mr Cheney and his top aide, Lewis “Scooter” Libby, would not represent a crime in itself, as both men have top security clearance. But the new revelations leave Mr Libby vulnerable to indictment for perjury or obstruction of justice. He is said to have testified to a grand jury that he heard about the CIA agent’s identity from journalists.
It is not known what Mr Cheney told a federal prosecutor investigating the leak, but if he failed to mention the reported meeting on June 12 2003, he could also be in danger of perjury or obstruction charges. The new report also conflicts with public remarks the vice-president made not long after the alleged White House meeting.
guardian.co.uk
Rep. Jerrold Nadler: Fitzgerald Must Broaden Investigation
“Did the Bush Administration deliberately mislead Congress about the war?
WASHINGTON, D.C. – In light of recent developments in the CIA leak investigation and other recent revelations, Congressman Jerrold Nadler today called for Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald to expand his investigation to include a criminal investigation to examine whether the President, the Vice President, and members of the White House Iraq Group conspired to deliberately deceive Congress into authorizing the war in Iraq.
“The CIA leak issue is only the tip of the iceberg,” Congressman Nadler said. “This is looking increasingly like a White House conspiracy aimed at misleading our country into war – in part by manufacturing now-refuted evidence in support of its rationale, in part by smearing and silencing critics, and in part by manipulating media complicity. There is mounting evidence that there may have been a well-orchestrated effort by the President, the Vice President, and other top White House officials to lie to Congress in order to get its support for the Iraq War.”
It is a crime to lie to Congress under several federal statutes. Congressman Nadler requested that Special Counsel Fitzgerald follow the leads he has already discovered and broaden his investigation to include charges of lying to Congress. In his letter to Acting Deputy Attorney General McCallum asking for a broadening of Special Counsel Fitzgerald’s investigation, Nadler cited the President’s infamous reference to African Uranium in the 2003 State of the Union Address, reports of the White House Iraq Group’s singular mission to sell the war at all costs, assertions made in the “Downing Street Memo,” and reporters’ own accounts of media manipulation.
“Honest, if mistaken, reliance on faulty intelligence to convince Congress to authorize a war is bad enough,” Congressman Nadler wrote in his letter to McCallum. “But, if, as mounting evidence is tending to show, Administration officials deliberately deceived Congress and the American people, this would constitute a criminal conspiracy against the entire country.”
Italy’s intelligence chief met with Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley just a month before the Niger forgeries first surfaced.
With Patrick Fitzgerald widely expected to announce indictments in the CIA leak investigation, questions are again being raised about the intelligence scandal that led to the appointment of the special counsel: namely, how the Bush White House obtained false Italian intelligence reports claiming that Iraq had tried to buy uranium “yellowcake” from Niger.
The key documents supposedly proving the Iraqi attempt later turned out to be crude forgeries, created on official stationery stolen from the African nation’s Rome embassy. Among the most tantalizing aspects of the debate over the Iraq War is the origin of those fake documents — and the role of the Italian intelligence services in disseminating them.
In an explosive series of articles appearing this week in the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, investigative reporters Carlo Bonini and Giuseppe d’Avanzo report that Nicolo Pollari, chief of Italy’s military intelligence service, known as Sismi, brought the Niger yellowcake story directly to the White House after his insistent overtures had been rejected by the Central Intelligence Agency in 2001 and 2002. Sismi had reported to the CIA on October 15, 2001, that Iraq had sought yellowcake in Niger, a report it also plied on British intelligence, creating an echo that the Niger forgeries themselves purported to amplify before they were exposed as a hoax.