Exposure of Rove’s lies throws Bush White House into crisis

[IndianaGreen]

Exposure of Rove’s lies throws Bush White House into crisis
By Patrick Martin
13 July 2005

The claim of an intensive effort by Iraq to obtain nuclear materials was central to the Bush administration lie that it was invading Iraq to prevent Saddam Hussein from developing a nuclear bomb. Bush cited the “Africa uranium” story in his 2003 State of the Union Address.

Five months later, after the US conquest of Iraq, Wilson wrote an op-ed column in the New York Times revealing that he had investigated the uranium claims in 2002 at the request of the CIA and found they were bogus. The White House was compelled to issue a retraction of the Niger story, but within days it began leaking information to the media in an effort to discredit Wilson.

The implication of both Novak’s column and Rove’s comments to Cooper was that Wilson had not gone to Niger on a mission for top CIA officials, but on a quasi-private junket, for which his wife was responsible. There were multiple lies in this account—Valerie Plame was a CIA analyst with no authority to orchestrate such a mission, and an expenses-only visit to Niger, one of the poorest countries in the world, was hardly a perk. Moreover, Wilson’s findings were reported up the chain of command at the CIA to Director George Tenet, ultimately reaching the White House.

The importance of the Newsweek report is that it confirms the thuggish and anti-democratic response of the Bush administration to political criticism. Rather than attempting to rebut the criticism by Wilson—a retired State Department official with two decades of experience in the Middle East and Africa—the White House sought to smear him as corrupt, and endanger the livelihood and possibly the physical safety of his wife.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2005/jul2005/rove-j13.shtml

[rasputin1952]

1. There were never any concepts of morality in this WH...they don't care

if people die...this is the "Administration of Death"...everything they have done has resulted in death and destruction for millions...they are downright evil.

[Demeter]

2. This White House Was ALWAYS In Crisis

they're just starting to realize that they have lost control. So now it's PANIC time!