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THE TRIAL SO FAR
Witnesses have been testifying for more than three weeks in the trial of Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the former chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney. Some highlights..
Libby trial reveals a strategy of deceit
Too bad the trial of Vice President Dick Cheney's former top aide, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, is getting only a fraction of the media fuss stirred up by the death of Anna Nicole Smith.
No question, Smith's passing is more titillating. But Libby's perjury trial is crucial to U.S. security. It has laid bare how the White House skewed the intel on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and sold these distortions to the media. What makes the tale even more unnerving is the possibility that the process is being repeated - with Iran.
Employing selective secrecy
The Bush administration is keen on secrecy, and it makes no apologies for that policy. It believes in keeping a tight hold on information unless it has a good reason not to. Since it took office, the number of decisions to classify documents has soared, while the process of declassifying old secrets has slowed drastically. All this has been necessary, in the administration's view, to protect national security in time of war.
But it is not incapable of opening up to the public when it has sufficient motivation--as we have learned in the trial of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff. And when the White House decides to declassify secrets, it can do so with head-spinning alacrity. One such occasion came when former Ambassador Joseph Wilson wrote an article for The New York Times accusing the administration of distorting intelligence information to make its case for the invasion of Iraq.
Libby’s successor headed for stand
The man who took I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby’s seat as the vice president’s national security adviser may soon be taking Libby’s seat in the witness stand.
Defense attorneys say they plan to call John Hannah, who served as Libby’s deputy and was promoted to replace him when Libby was indicted in 2005 on perjury and obstruction charges.
Hannah’s testimony could effectively serve as a sit-in for Libby, whom attorneys seem reluctant to put on the stand. The attorneys want to make the case that any misstatements Libby made to investigators were the product of a faulty memory, not lies.
Witnesses have been testifying for more than three weeks in the trial of Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the former chief of staff for Vice President Dick Cheney. Some highlights..
Libby trial reveals a strategy of deceit
Too bad the trial of Vice President Dick Cheney's former top aide, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, is getting only a fraction of the media fuss stirred up by the death of Anna Nicole Smith.
No question, Smith's passing is more titillating. But Libby's perjury trial is crucial to U.S. security. It has laid bare how the White House skewed the intel on Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and sold these distortions to the media. What makes the tale even more unnerving is the possibility that the process is being repeated - with Iran.
Employing selective secrecy
The Bush administration is keen on secrecy, and it makes no apologies for that policy. It believes in keeping a tight hold on information unless it has a good reason not to. Since it took office, the number of decisions to classify documents has soared, while the process of declassifying old secrets has slowed drastically. All this has been necessary, in the administration's view, to protect national security in time of war.
But it is not incapable of opening up to the public when it has sufficient motivation--as we have learned in the trial of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Dick Cheney's former chief of staff. And when the White House decides to declassify secrets, it can do so with head-spinning alacrity. One such occasion came when former Ambassador Joseph Wilson wrote an article for The New York Times accusing the administration of distorting intelligence information to make its case for the invasion of Iraq.
Libby’s successor headed for stand
The man who took I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby’s seat as the vice president’s national security adviser may soon be taking Libby’s seat in the witness stand.
Defense attorneys say they plan to call John Hannah, who served as Libby’s deputy and was promoted to replace him when Libby was indicted in 2005 on perjury and obstruction charges.
Hannah’s testimony could effectively serve as a sit-in for Libby, whom attorneys seem reluctant to put on the stand. The attorneys want to make the case that any misstatements Libby made to investigators were the product of a faulty memory, not lies.
posted by Patrick J. Fitzgerald at 2/13/2007
1 Comments:
Fitz!
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