Subpoena Dick Cheney
06 March 2007 2:11 pm by Taylor Marsh
Subpoena Dick Cheney
| VIDEO: Matthews on Dick Cheney |
After 9/11, Vice President Richard Cheney seized the initiative. He pushed
to expand executive power, transform America\’s intelligence agencies and bring
the war on terror to Iraq. But first he had to take on George Tenet\’s CIA
for control over intelligence. \”The
Dark Side,\” – FRONTLINE
Dick
Cheney has been after
the C.I.A. for decades. Today, with the
guilty verdict of Scooter Libby, the career intelligence professionals saw the tables turned and got their scalp. Firedoglake (among others) have done the most incredible job of liveblogging this trial, providing the information
and truth for all to see. The rest is up to Congress.
Congressional hearings should be sought. Dick
Cheney should be subpoenaed. If he refuses, the man should be impeached.
Something is rotten in the heart of Washington; and it lies in the vice-president\’s
office. The salience of this case is obvious. What it is really about – what
it has always been about – is whether this administration deliberately misled
the American people about WMD intelligence before the war. The risks Cheney
took to attack Wilson, the insane over-reaction that otherwise very smart
men in this administration engaged in to rebut a relatively trivial issue:
all this strongly implies the fact they were terrified that the full details
of their pre-war WMD knowledge would come out. Fitzgerald could smell this.
He was right to pursue it, and to prove that a brilliant, intelligent, sane
man like Libby would risk jail to protect his bosses. What was he really trying
to hide? We now need a Congressional investigation to find out more, to subpoena
Cheney and, if he won\’t cooperate, consider impeaching him.After
Libby, by Andrew Sullivan
Then again, Cheney\’s health is once again in the news, with a blood clot in
his leg revealed yesterday. Like Nixon, Cheney\’s feeling the stress of his manipulations.
He may yet choose another way out.
However, make no mistake about it, Scooter Libby was told about Valerie Plames\’
classified identity by the vice president in order to silence a critic of the
war whose material evidence proved the president had lied in his SOTU speech
about a critical reason of why we went to war in Iraq. Dick Cheney sought to
use the press to harm the reputation of Joe Wilson, which isn\’t so surprising,
because a White House under fire for a war policy has every right to push back against critics.
They don\’t, however, have the right or authority to out a classified agent, which is beyond doubt what happened,
then when the vice president\’s main man, as well as an aide to the president
of the United States, is asked about it under oath, lie about material information. This is a fatal error committed by the Bush administration. The cover up of the war took many forms, but none more sinister than the lies
Libby offered under oath to protect the vice president and his other boss, the
president, from the lies being told about the urgency and reasoning for going
to war.
War and the reasons to justify that war against another sovereign nation
are the most critical decisions our leaders make. The public must trust our
leaders and government, sure that we are being told the truth. The Bush-Cheney
administration used every means at their disposal to hide the truth from the
public, including using the press to do it, which is a foundational part of
our democratic republic.
And do not forget our soldiers who got caught in the White House lies and who are still paying the price with their lives and limbs. It\’s about the lack of planning for war; the lack of respect for our soldiers, which we have seen play out in the most despicable carefree attitude of veterans in the history of our country.
The Libby guilty verdict today shines a light on the callous manner in which the Iraq war was waged and the lengths to which the vice president\’s office would go to make the case and keep that case protected at all costs.
Patrick Fitzgerald and his team have done their job. It\’s time for Congress
to do theirs.
(Photo above: Win McNamee/Getty.)
