Rove leak is just part of larger scandal

[kentuck]

http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0715/p09s02-cods.html

<snip>
The role of Rove and associates added up to a small incident in a very large scandal - the effort to delude America into thinking it faced a threat dire enough to justify a war.

<snip>
In 2002 President Bush, having decided to invade Iraq, was casting about for a casus belli. The weapons of mass destruction theme was not yielding very much until a dubious Italian intelligence report, based partly on forged documents (it later turned out), provided reason to speculate that Iraq might be trying to buy so-called yellowcake uranium from the African country of Niger. It did not seem to matter that the CIA advised that the Italian information was "fragmentary and lacked detail."

Prodded by Vice President Dick Cheney and in the hope of getting more conclusive information, the CIA sent Joseph Wilson, an old Africa hand, to Niger to investigate. Mr. Wilson spent eight days talking to everyone in Niger possibly involved and came back to report no sign of an Iraqi bid for uranium and, anyway, Niger's uranium was committed to other countries for many years to come.

No news is bad news for an administration gearing up for war. Ignoring Wilson's report, Cheney talked on TV about Iraq's nuclear potential. And the president himself, in his 2003 State of the Union address no less, pronounced: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

Wilson declined to maintain a discreet silence. He told various people that the president was at least mistaken, at most telling an untruth. Finally Wilson directly challenged the administration with a July 6, 2003 New York Times op-ed headlined, "What I didn't find in Africa," and making clear his belief that the president deliberately manipulated intelligence in order to justify an invasion.

[The Traveler]

1. Exactly so

The betrayal of an American intelligence gathering network was just part of a larger betrayal.

[longship]

2. That's Daniel Schorr!!!

Daniel Schorr was a pain in the ass for Nixon, too. Nixon put him on his "enemies list". Heaven only knows what Nixon intended to do with that. But Schorr was a principal CBS correspondent at the time.

He's getting on in years, but he's still got the zing in his reporting.

Go! Daniel Schorr, Go!

:bounce: :woohoo:

[Tommymac]

3. I cried when they forced Daniel out of PBS...

DSM/Plamegate/Iraq...all will be tied together in one bright package with a pretty bow compliments of Mr. Fitzgerald...

do you think Ashcroft intended for all this when he appointed him?

[longship]

4. Ask Elliot Richardson that same question

about when he appointed Archie Cox.

Of course, Richardson was a good and honest man.

[aquart]

5. No. No, I don't.

[Imagevision]

6. Like Rove we should pay attention to mistakes made in Watergate

No reswignations -- no firing's we need to prosecute ALL those involved and it doesn't stop at Rove's desk!