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Jennifer03801
Starlite Member
Username: Jennifer03801
| | Posted on Tuesday, March 06, 2007 - 04:23 pm: | 
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Speaker Nancy Pelosi released the following statement today on the guilty verdicts in the CIA leak trial of former White House aide Lewis Libby:
"Today's guilty verdicts are not solely about the acts of one individual. "This trial provided a troubling picture of the inner workings of the
Bush Administration. The testimony unmistakably revealed -- at the highest levels of the Bush Administration -- a callous disregard in handling sensitive national security information and a disposition to smear critics of the war in Iraq."
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"I welcome the jury's verdict. It's about time someone in the Bush Administration has been held accountable for the campaign to manipulate intelligence and discredit war critics," said Reid in a press statement. "Lewis Libby has been convicted of perjury, but his trial revealed deeper truths about Vice President Cheney’s role in this sordid affair. Now President Bush must pledge not to pardon Libby for his criminal conduct." ---Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid
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"If, there was no underlying crime, then WHY did Libby lie ?" Pat Buchanan
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Scooter Libby: guilty as charged
...So what does this mean? At least three important things. First, the verdict means that it's now been officially established in a court of law that the administration was engaged in a campaign to discredit an undercover officer and a diplomat, Valerie Plame and Joe Wilson. Libby's defense - that he learned about Plame's identity from journalists - paralleled the administration's public arguments that it made no effort to try to expose Plame and Wilson to criticism. The jury didn't buy that.
Second, the verdict vindicates the prosecutor, Patrick Fitzgerald. Mountains of calumny have been heaped on him by the right since he brought the indictment against Libby. Conservatives were waiting for an acquittal to pounce on Fitzgerald, on Wilson, on Plame - and on Democrats and liberals generally for having made a federal case out of nothing. They would have used an acquittal to shut down all the talk about the manipulation of pre-war intelligence, which was Joe Wilson's initial accusation. And not only conservatives - a lot of the paragons of Washington morality (yes, an oxymoron) were waiting, too. Bob Woodward, who used to be a great investigative reporter, once called Fitzgerald a "junkyard dog prosecutor". Can't be said now.
Third and most important, the guilty verdict means that pre-war intelligence manipulation will continue to be a political issue. When it was in Republican hands, the United States Senate summarily shut down an inquiry into the matter. Now that Democrats are in charge, they will pursue it. The trial was focused on Libby, but questions remain about how directly Cheney and chief presidential aide Karl Rove were involved in all this. The verdict gives Democrats, who by dint of their majority control can now subpoena administration officials, added momentum to turn over the rocks. A juror said that Libby, though guilty, was just a "fall guy". Congress now has to look higher than Libby's level, especially at Cheney.
Far from being the sideshow that conservatives and moralists like Woodward described, this trial was always centrally about the Iraq war. The Bush administration built much of its case for invasion on lies. When those lies were exposed, its response was to try to destroy the whistleblowers - even one who was a covert CIA officer.
Here's what one noted American had to say about this kind of behavior: "I have nothing but contempt and anger for those who betray the trust by exposing the name of our sources. They are, in my view, the most insidious of traitors." The speaker was George Bush Sr, in 1999. And that's exactly what his son oversaw.
3185
Total Fatalities - 3,169 Total Wounded - 23,417
Diseases Medical Air Transport Required - 18,704
Total Medical Air Transported - 32,544
Total Non-Mortal Casualties - 54,910
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Jennifer03801
Starlite Member
Username: Jennifer03801
| | Posted on Wednesday, March 07, 2007 - 05:01 am: |
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In a conference call later, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, husband of the outed CIA agent Valerie Plame, noted the president's expression of sympathy for Libby and his family, but asked why the White House had never expressed similar feelings for his wife after losing her career at the agency.
3185
Total Fatalities - 3,169 Total Wounded - 23,417
Diseases Medical Air Transport Required - 18,704
Total Medical Air Transported - 32,544
Total Non-Mortal Casualties - 54,910
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