I. Lewis ("Scooter") Libby: The Nexus of Wash Neocon Network

[katty]

http://www.wrmea.com/archives/Sept_2004/0409018.html
Washington Report on Middle East Affairs

September 2004, pages 18-20

Neocon Corner

I. Lewis (“Scooter”) Libby: The Nexus of Washington’s Neocon Network
By Richard H. Curtiss

Lewis Libby, chief of staff to Vice President Richard Cheney and former attorney for fugitive financier Marc Rich, testifies at a March 1, 2001 hearing on the Rich pardon by the House Committee on Government Reform (AFP photo/Shawn Thew).

IT'S DIFFICULT TO categorize I. Lewis Libby, who seems to have lived every minute of his 54 years. He currently is chief of staff to Vice President Richard Cheney—which, of course, makes him one of the most powerful people in Washington. Libby also is a red-hot suspect as the man who leaked the name of CIA undercover agent Valerie Plame—a federal offense not just in Washington, but in real life. Plame’s husband, former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, exposed the Bush administration’s false claim that Iraq had purchased uranium from Niger.

The story, in brief, is that agent Plame got her husband a brief assignment to check out a story that “yellow cake” nuclear ore was sent to Iraq from Niger. After traveling to Niger to investigate, Wilson reported back that the story was untrue. In President George W. Bush’s 2002 State of the Union address, however, he mentioned the bogus uranium plot as if it were fact.

The story refused to die, although it seemed to be an out-and-out forgery. It appeared in the U.S. press and was knocked down. Its subsequent appearance in Britain was used to raise the charge again.

continue at: http://www.wrmea.com/archives/Sept_2004/0409018.html

[KoKo]

1. Excellent article on Lbby and the article on Kagan that follows. And,

that he worked for the Democrats and was layer for Marc Rich that Clinton pardoned yet he was a founder of PNAC and Wolfowitz is his buddy after being his Poli-Sci Professor at Yale.

He made his money on "armaments," worked for Rand, etc. And of course he wanted war....Sheesh this whole bunch needs to be prosecuted for "conflict of interest causing financial gain, war profiteering and probably other deeds that worked against the "business of the American people." Also his supposed secretiveness about his "family" makes me wonder if he has one. Is he another closeted gay who might have ties to Gannon? If no one can find out info about a wife or children, it sounds like he's hiding something.

snip....

Along with Wolfowitz, William Kristol, Robert Kagan and others, Libby was a founding member of the Project for the New American Century (PNAC). He has served on the board of the Rand Corporation, owned shares in armaments companies and has oil interests. He also has been a consultant to Northrop Grumman, the defense contractor, and active in the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board, formerly chaired by neocon extraordinare Richard Perle.

In 1992, while working with then-Defense Secretary Cheney, Libby co-wrote with Wolfowitz a policy guidance memorandum aimed at formulating a post-Cold War defense posture. Upset by President George H.W. Bush’s decision to leave Saddam Hussain’s regime in place after the 1991 Gulf war, Libby and Wolfowitz argued that the U.S. should actively deter nations from “aspiring to a larger regional or global role,” and suggested the use of pre-emptive force to prevent countries from developing weapons of mass destruction. They also advocated unilateral action, if necessary. Although the draft memorandum was quashed soon after it was leaked to The New York Times, many of its ideas—in particular, the doctrine of pre-emption—later resurfaced as part of President George W. Bush’s national security strategy.

[lumpy]

2. Why is Libby a re-hot suspect in the

Plame case? Hope we hear more about this man and his connection to Cheney, Wolfowitz and the PNAC. Appears he is an important actor in the radical drama being played out by this powerfull organization.