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Beneath spy `outing' lies story of lies about Iraq
By Linda McQuaig
11/06/05 "Toronto
Star" -- -- If George W. Bush had announced, prior
to invading Iraq, that his motive was to seize Iraq's oil, to
enhance Israel's power or to ensure U.S. military dominance of the
Middle East, none of these justifications would have satisfied the
public.
Hence the need for a cover story, something sufficiently alarming to
convince Americans there was an urgent need to go to war. Claims
that Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein harboured weapons of mass
destruction seemed the best bet.
Concocting a cover story of this magnitude is not easy. But then the
U.S. government is not without resources.
Inside the office of Vice-President Dick Cheney, a group of
war-hawks, under the direction of top Cheney aide Scooter Libby,
operated as a secret war-planning department, furnishing "evidence"
of Saddam's non-existent arsenal.
The administration largely got away with this. Even after the
invasion, the media and the Democrats shied away from making a fuss
over the fact that no weapons of mass destruction were found. The
blame, if any, was pinned on the CIA for its "faulty intelligence."
Libby's team remained in the shadows, its fraud and deception
largely unknown.
Joseph Wilson alone threatened to blow its cover. He knew too much.
Specifically, he knew about a key piece of "evidence" touted by the
Libby team — a forged document purporting to show Saddam had tried
to buy nuclear weapons material from Niger. Wilson had been sent to
Niger by the CIA in 2002 to investigate the story. He quickly
concluded it was a crock, and reported that back to the
administration.
So he was surprised to hear George W. Bush repeat the bogus Niger
story in his 2003 State of the Union address, as a key justification
for the imminent U.S. invasion of Iraq.
Months later, Wilson went public with the truth.
Suddenly, the spotlight seemed dangerously close to highlighting the
war disinformation spun by Libby's team.
The indictment brought down last month doesn't deal with any of
this.
It simply charges Libby with lying to a grand jury about his
apparent attempts to discredit Wilson, by outing his CIA agent wife.
But lurking beneath the outing-the-agent story lies the much bigger
story — easily a match for Watergate — of how a small cabal in the
vice-president's office falsified the case for a war that has
already killed tens of thousands.
Whether that bigger story, and the role played by Cheney, emerges
depends partly on the media and the Democrats, which is not
encouraging.
In a TV interview, top Democrat lawyer David Boies told CNN's Lou
Dobbs that he'd like to see a deal worked out because if the Libby
case goes to trial "a lot comes out" and "it damages America."
Responded Dobbs: "I'm like you. I would like to see this resolved so
that it is less injurious to the nation."
Richard Nixon would have dreamed of such an opposition.
Linda McQuaig is a Toronto-based author and commentator. lmcquaig@sympatico.ca.
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