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Last Updated: Jul 4, 2009 - 8:17:29 AM |
In early fall 2003, as the scandal over leaking a covert CIA officer’s
identity was exploding, President George W. Bush claimed not to know
anything about the leak and called on anyone in his administration who
had knowledge to come “forward with the information so we can find out
whether or not these allegations are true.”
How disingenuous the President’s appeal was has been underscored again
by a new Justice Department court filing sketching out the contents of
the 2004 interview between special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald and
Vice President Dick Cheney.
Though the Obama administration continues to balk at releasing the full
contents of the Cheney interview, it did reveal that Bush and Cheney
were in contact about the scandal, including what is described as “a
confidential conversation” and “an apparent communication between the
Vice President and the President.”
The filing in a federal court case also makes clear that Cheney was at
the center of White House machinations rebutting criticism from former
U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who charged in summer 2003 that the Bush
administration had “twisted” intelligence to justify invading Iraq in
March 2003. While seeking to discredit Wilson, administration officials
disclosed to reporters that Wilson’s wife, Valerie Plame, worked for
the CIA.
Bush and his subordinates then sought to deny a White House hand in the
leak. White House press secretary Scott McClellan later apologized for
his role in the deception in his 2008 book, What Happened, saying that
Bush and four other high-ranking officials caused him to lie to the
public in clearing Bush’s political adviser Karl Rove and Cheney’s
chief of staff I. Lewis Libby of any responsibility for the Plame leak.
“I had unknowingly passed along false information,” McClellan wrote.
“And five of the highest ranking officials in the administration were
involved in my doing so: Rove, Libby, Vice President Cheney, the
president’s chief of staff [Andrew Card], and the president himself.”
Eventually, the cover-up led to the prosecution of Libby, who was found
guilty in 2007 of four counts of perjury and obstruction of justice,
but Bush commuted Libby’s 30-month prison sentence.
When Fitzgerald’s investigation came to a close with only that one
prosecution, questions were raised about his reasoning for not bringing
legal action against Bush, Cheney or other senior officials implicated
in the leak and cover-up. Those questions led to congressional requests
for the Bush-Cheney interviews and to the current Freedom of
Information court case.
In its new court filing, the Obama administration opposed release of
the Cheney interview, but described the topics discussed. Besides the
contacts with Bush, the filing referenced Cheney’s questions to the CIA
about its decision to send Wilson to Africa in 2002 to investigate –
and ultimately refute – suspicions that Iraq was seeking yellowcake
uranium from the African country of Niger.
Cheney also was asked about his role in arranging a statement by
then-CIA Director George Tenet taking responsibility for including a
misleading claim about the African uranium in Bush’s 2003 State of the
Union address, and Cheney’s discussions with Libby and other White
House officials about how to respond to inquiries regarding the leak of
Plame’s identity, the court filing said.
Fitzgerald also questioned Cheney about his participation in the
decision to declassify parts of a 2002 National Intelligence Estimate
regarding Iraq’s alleged WMD. It ultimately fell to Bush to clear
selected parts of the NIE so they could be leaked as part of the White
House campaign to disparage Wilson.
Obama’s Resistance
A public interest group, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in
Washington, is seeking access to Fitzgerald’s interview with Cheney
under the Freedom of Information Act and now has confronted refusals
from both the Bush administration and the Obama administration.
Though President Obama declared a new era of openness when he entered
the White House in January, he has recently had his administration’s
lawyers resist releasing information about the secret dealings of the
Bush administration.
In the CIA leak case, Justice Department lawyers claimed that
disclosing Cheney’s interview might discourage future government
officials from cooperating with criminal inquiries.
“In any such investigation, it will be important that White House
officials be able to provide law enforcement officials with a full
account of relevant events,” said Lanny Breuer, assistant attorney
general for the criminal division.
“Baseless, partisan allegations that, easily could be investigated and
dismissed through voluntary interviews now may have to be investigated
through the specter of the grand jury process. In addition, if law
enforcement interviews are routinely subject to public disclosure,
there could be a significant risk of politicization of law enforcement
files and investigations, which could undermine the integrity and
effectiveness of, and public confidence in, those investigations.”
Last month, during a court hearing on the case, Justice Department
attorney Jeffrey Smith told the judge that release of the transcript
might open Cheney to ridicule from late-night comics and thus could
discourage other White House officials from cooperating with government
prosecutors.
"If we become a fact-finder for political enemies, they aren't going to
cooperate," Smith said during a court hearing. "I don't want a future
Vice President to say, 'I'm not going to cooperate with you because I
don't want to be fodder for The Daily Show.' "
When asked by U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan whether the
Obama administration was standing behind the refusal of Bush’s Justice
Department to release the transcript, Smith answered, “This has been
vetted by the leadership offices. … This is a department position.”
Melanie Sloan, executive director of Citizens for Responsibility and
Ethics in Washington, said, “It is astonishing that a top Department of
Justice political appointee is suggesting other high-level appointees
are unlikely to cooperate with legitimate law enforcement
investigations. What is wrong with this picture?”
Fitzgerald told a congressional committee last year that the interviews
he conducted with Cheney and Bush in 2004 were not protected by grand
jury secrecy rules, nor were there any pre-arranged agreements to keep
the interview transcripts secret.
The insistence on keeping the interviews secret arose late in the Bush
administration when Congress sought the transcripts. Bush’s Justice
Department cited executive privilege and national security in refusing
to turn them over, as well as the speculation about the effect on
future White House cooperation with investigations.
The Obama administration has now taken up that banner while also adding
concerns about possible comic use of the transcripts.
More CIA Delays
The CIA leak case was only one of two examples this week of the Obama
administration going back on its word about government transparency.
On Thursday, the Justice Department said it would not release until the
end of the summer a CIA inspector general’s report that was believed to
have been sharply critical of the Bush administration’s torture
program. Even then, the Justice Department said there is no guarantee
that any part of the report would be declassified.
The announcement was made following several previous delays in the
long-running court case between the CIA and the American Civil
Liberties Union. The ACLU filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit to
gain access to the report and other documents related to the treatment
of prisoners.
The Justice Department, acting on behalf of the CIA, previously told
U.S. District Court Judge Alvin Hellerstein that the agency would
reevaluate whether the report's contents could be at least partially
released by June 19. The CIA then requested two extensions – to June 26
and then July 1.
"The Report poses unique processing issues,” the Justice Department
said in a letter Thursday. “It is over 200 pages long and contains a
comprehensive summary and review of the CIA's detention and
interrogation program.
"The Report touches upon the information contained in virtually all of
the remaining 318 documents remanded for further review. Although the
Government has endeavored in good faith to complete the review of the
Special Review Report first, as we have gone through the process, we
have determined that prioritizing the Report is simply untenable. …
“We have determined that the only practicable approach is to first
complete the review of the remaining 318 documents, and then apply the
withholding determinations made with respect to the information in
those documents to the Special Review Report. ... One month into that
process, we have concluded that we must review all of the documents
together, and that the review will take until August 31, 2009.”
ACLU Objections
The ACLU, in a letter to Hellerstein, said it “strenuously” opposes the
two-month delay, which would amount to “a fourth extension” of the
original deadline.
Jameel Jaffer, director of the ACLU's National Security Project, said
the CIA "has already had more than five months to review the inspector
general's report, and the report is only about two hundred pages long."
"We're increasingly troubled that the Obama administration is
suppressing documents that would provide more evidence that the CIA's
interrogation program was both ineffective and illegal," Jaffer said.
"President Obama should not allow the CIA to determine whether evidence
of its own unlawful conduct should be made available to the public. The
public has a right to know what took place in the CIA's secret prisons
and on whose authority."
Amrit Singh, an ACLU staff attorney who has been working on the case,
said it's "apparent that the CIA report is not being delayed for
legitimate reasons, but to cover up evidence of the agency's illegal
and ineffective interrogation practices. …
"It is time for the President to hold true to his promise of
transparency and once and for all quash the forces of secrecy within
the agency. The American public has a right to know the full truth
about the torture that was committed in its name."
Source:Ocnus.net 2009
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