The trial of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby may cast a shadow over the Bush administration.
Photo: AP
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False Witness for the Prosecution
// Trial of former Bush advisor may cost the American president his job
The biggest trial of George W. Bush's presidency began yesterday with jury selection in the case of Lewis Libby, the president's former adviser and vice president's former assistant for national security. Formally, he is only charged with perjury, but he may be imprisoned for 30 years just for that charge. The real judgment is of whether or not the White House falsified the intelligence reports that indicated the necessity of the Iraq war. Now that George W. Bush has his own Vietnam, he may get his Watergate too.
Lying under Oath
It was understood long ago by both the prosecution and defense that it was a predominantly political trial. District Judge Reggie Walton did everything in his power to make the trial as non-politicized s possible, even limiting the decision of the jury. The jury is to determine just one thing: did Lewis, who is known around Washington as “Scooter,” lie under oath. But even during the jury selection process it became obvious that the real subject of the trial was going to be the policy of the Bush administration in Iraq.
Judge Walton gave the 60 candidates for the jury a questionnaire compiled jointly by the defense and prosecution yesterday. It contained such detailed questions as whether the potential jurors think that the Bush administration deceived the American people trying to justify the war in Iraq; whether they have formed an opinion about the war; whether they have followed the political scandals connected with Jack Abramoff, William Jefferson, Tom DeLay, Cynthia McKinney or Mark Foley; what newspapers they read and what their sources of news are; and what their feelings toward Vice President Dick Cheney are. The opposing sides think that the candidates' opinions on these problems will help them choose more unprejudiced jurors. As journalists note, however, that won't be easy to do. Registered Democrats outnumber Republicans in Washington 10 to 1, so finding 12 people would can sympathize with the Bush administration will be difficult for the defense.
Obviously, the jurors will not be as formal as the judges. They will demand a full picture of the events of 2003, both those that preceded the Iraq war and those that immediately followed it. The details of that hazy and contradictory period in the Bush presidency may cause serious political shakeups in the United States.
Lying to the People
The events that the current trial are supposed to elucidate took place in 2003. In January of that year, U.S. President George W. Bush stated in his regular address to the nation that Saddam Hussein wanted to create nuclear weapons and had even tried to buy uranium in Niger for that purpose. In March, the war started and the battle phase of the war lasted about a month. No traces of weapons of mass destruction were found in Iraq. In July, American diplomat Joseph Wilson wrote an article for The New York Times in which he practically accused the president of lying. Wilson recounted how he traveled to Niger in 2002 on the behalf of the State Department to investigate Saddam Hussein's possible interest in local uranium, and found no evidence of such a deal. Wilson's findings were known to the president, but he used the false information in his January speech nonetheless.
A week later, journalist Robert Novak, who was known for his sympathy toward the administration, struck back at Wilson in a column in which he wrote that the career diplomat owed his position not to his own qualities but to his wife, a CIA employee for whom he had served as a cover all his life. Even the trip to Niger was arranged for him by his wife, Valerie Wilson Plame.
A scandal broke out. Disclosing the name of a CIA agent working under cover is a criminal offense under U.S. law. Independent prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald was appointed to investigate. The Wilsons accused the White House and said that the leak was arranged by the gray cardinal of the Bush administration Karl Rove.
Fitzgerald questioned dozens of people and found out that several dozen journalists in Washington beside Novak knew about Plame, have heard rumors about Wilson's wife from various sources close to the White House. After lengthy questioning, Time magazine correspondent Matthew Cooper and New York Times writer Judith Miller confessed that their source was Lewis Libby from the vice president's office. Criminal charges were immediately pressed against Libby. Fitzgerald stated that he questioned Libby several times and that Libby had done everything he could to impede the investigation.
It was later learned that Richard Armitage, another high-placed State Department official, cooperated with the investigation and confessed to Fitzgerald that he told Novak and legendary Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward about Plame. Fitzgerald did not press charges against Armitage, and Libby became the sole defendant in the case. Even the Wilsons forgave Armitage. They were convinced that the campaign to discredit them was organized by Vice President Cheney with Libby and Rove. The current trial should shed light on the question of whether there was a secret conspiracy to smear Ambassador Wilson, or whether the leak and the inaccuracies in Bush's speech were unfortunate coincidences.
A New Watergate
Three major law firms are working on Libby's defense. There are taking a simple line. They will argue that the vice presidential aide was so preoccupied with issues of global importance that he did not even pay attention to the Plame case. If he discussed her with journalists and then hid that fact from the prosecutor, it was only forgetfulness, not ill intent. As evidence of this the lawyers will present Libby's diary from July 2003, where his schedule is recorded down to the minute and most entries concern meetings with the leading members of the government. Fitzgerald was not convinced by those conclusions. He said that the defense is arguing that high-placed White House employees were above the law.
Libby said in preliminary questioning that he first heard Plame's name from NBC new anchorman Tim Russert. Russert, however, says that that is not so. In addition, journalists Cooper and Miller say that Libby was their source, which means that the court will have to determine whom Libby heard about Plame from. That source may be Cheney, which would place the case on a different level.
Even in its initial stages the trial is unprecedented. A serving vice president will appear in court (as a witness for the defense) for the first time in U.S. history. Many stars of American journalism, including Woodward and Russert, will also be witnesses, as will many people close to Bush, such as his former press secretary Ari Fleischer.
The trial is being compared more and more often with the Watergate affair, and it may have equally unpleasant consequences for the current president. President Nixon paid for lying under oath by resigning, and the present trial is rooted in lies Bush told the nation. The Scooter Libby case may also become Bush's Watergate because it is closely tied to the administration's most painful problem, it's Vietnam. If it comes to light that the war in Iraq was waged with intrigue and falsification, the current president may be forced from office in even greater disgrace than Richard Nixon.
Mikhail Zygar
All the Article in Russian as of Jan. 17, 2007
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