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Miller's Confession; the last gasp before the
indictments
By Mike Whitney
10/17/05 "ICH" -- -- If you plan to read Judy Miller's long and
circuitous apology in the New York Times Sunday edition, bring
your hip-waders. The obfuscating manure is knee-deep and bound
to stymie even the most curious reader.
Miller's a slippery customer, but a picture is slowly developing
of someone who was deeply involved in White House maneuverings
to discredit Joseph Wilson.
It's clear now that Dick Cheney's right-hand man, Scooter Libby
provided Miller with the name of ex-CIA agent Valerie Plame.
Plame's name appears at least twice in the notebook Miller used
when she interviewed Libby although she pretends that she cannot
remember whether or not he furnished the name.
It's also clear that Libby tried to coerce Miller into silence
by dispatching his lawyer, Joseph Tate, to tell Miller that she
"was free to testify" but that Libby "had not told Ms. Miller
the name or undercover status of Mr. Wilson's wife." In other
words, Libby lied to the Grand Jury and was signaling to Miller
to shut up. If Miller told the truth she knew that Libby would
go to jail and the administration would be exposed as plotting
to disgrace Joseph Wilson.
Fortunately, Miller got tired of her role as 1st amendment
martyr and decided to testify. That prompted Libby to send her a
frantic letter which stated that "the public report of every
other reporter's testimony makes clear that they did not discuss
Ms. Plame's name or identity with me." Libby was informing
Miller as clearly as possible that she was the key figure in the
investigation and advising her not to spill the beans.
Miller had a problem though, she had no way of knowing what the
other reporters had said to the Grand Jury and she also had to
weigh the possibilities of being indicted on perjury or
obstruction charges. So she did what most people would do in her
situation; she tip-toed through the questioning "denying and
forgetting" as much as possible.
It's beginning to look like Miller is the pivotal figure in
investigation and her role could be the undoing of the Bush
regime. In one telling comment, Millers notes that (2 days
before Robert Novak's article appeared in the Washington Post
exposing CIA agent Valerie Plame) "I MIGHT HAVE CALLED OTHERS
ABOUT MR WILSON'S WIFE".
Really? Two days before Novak's earth-shaking article Miller was
giving out Plame's name?!?
This suggests that Miller may have been the ONLY reporter who
got Plame's name from Libby and then spread it around to
everyone else. No wonder Libby's so worried. That puts Miller at
the very center of the Bush administration's biggest nightmare.
Miller already admitted that Libby had told her that Plame
"worked at Winpac. Winpac stood for Weapons Intelligence,
Non-Proliferation, and Arms Control, the name of a unit within
the CIA that, among other things, analyses the spread of
unconventional weapons." (NY Times)
That's an odd thing to confide in a reporter if it's not
intended to start a "leak". Remember, Miller never even wrote a
story about anything she gathered from these private interviews
with Libby.
So, what was her role? Were they just friends having a casual
conversation or was she a mule for the information that the
White House wanted to disseminate about Wilson?
Libby also asked Miller to have the Times refer to him as a
"former Hill staffer" rather than "a senior administration
official" in stories written about Wilson. He obviously didn't
want it to seem like the administration was carrying out a
personal vendetta against Wilson.
No problem. The administration makes a request and the New York
Times carries it out forthwith. One hand washes the other.
The question remains, though, why the cover-up? Why would Libby
care what the papers call him if, as he claims, he wasn't doing
anything wrong? The larger question is, however, where did Libby
get Valerie Plame's name? The only person who would have had
access to classified CIA information like that would have been
his boss, Dick Cheney.
Ah-ha!
Cheney presided over a secret group of administration hawks
known as the White House Iraq Group (WHIG). Their mission was to
promote the danger of Saddam's WMD and discredit those who tried
to mitigate the danger. The biggest part of their strategy was
to exaggerate the threat of Saddam's imaginary nuclear weapons
program. The administration knew through their own polling data
that the American people would support a preemptive war if it
appeared as though Saddam had nuclear weapons. So, it was
incumbent on them to make the case.
Wilson's op-ed piece in the New York Times, challenged the
administration's conclusions about Niger yellow-cake uranium,
and undermined the claims about Saddam's nuclear capacity. So,
Wilson had to be destroyed.
Miller, who had served as the conduit for most of the
administration's phony stories about biological weapons sites,
mobile-weapons labs, and aluminum tubes for nukes; was the
logical choice to start the smear campaign against Wilson. Her
role was to spread the "classified information" to her sources
in the media who would, in turn, discredit Wilson.
Libby has done his best to protect Cheney from being implicated,
saying that the VP didn't know anything about Wilson, but the
claim is absurd. As Jason Leopold notes in Raw Story, "Cheney
was present at several of the WHIG's meetings. They say Cheney
personally discussed with individuals in attendance at least two
interviews in May and June of 2003 Wilson gave to New York Times
columnist Nicholas Kristof and Washington Post reporter Walter
Pincus, in which he claimed the administration "twisted" prewar
intelligence and what the response from the administration
should be."
("Vice President's Role in outing of CIA agent under
Examination", Jason Leopold)
Leopold's article also points out the cozy relationship between
the Miller and the members of WHIG prior to the Iraq war. After
Miller had written her damning article about aluminum tubes in
Iraq that could be used as centrifuges in nuclear weapons (a
story that was later discredited); Cheney, Rumsfeld, Bush and
Rice swung into high-gear, flooding the Sunday talk-shows and
citing the story as proof that Saddam's nukes would ultimately
engulf America in a "mushroom cloud".
The media's disinformation-campaign must have been coordinated
with Miller and key members of the Bush administration. The plan
worked flawlessly. Clearly, both Miller and NY Times publisher
Arthur Sulzberger were intimately involved in manufacturing the
fraudulent evidence that dragged the nation to war. Neither has
ever expressed any regret over the role they played.
Libby's Caveat
Ironically, Libby's cryptic comments to Miller may turn out to
be the best summary of the ongoing investigation. He said, "Out
West, where you vacation, the aspens will already be turning.
They turn in clusters, because their roots connect them."
Yes, and if Libby goes down, so will Cheney, Rove, Card, Rice,
and perhaps even Bush, because "their roots connect them".
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