Ex-judge on Iraq inquiry 'involved in cover-up'

[G_j]

www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4855200-103550,00.html

Ex-judge on Iraq inquiry 'involved in cover-up'

Julian Borger in Washington
Tuesday February 10, 2004

The Guardian

Laurence Silberman, a retired judge nominated by the Bush administration as the co-chairman of the commission investigating pre-war intelligence on Iraq, was involved in a major cover-up during the Reagan era, his critics alleged yesterday.

Mr Silberman sat on the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court of Review, which approved the expanded surveillance powers for the justice department under the controversial Patriot Act.

President Bush named him as the senior Republican on a nine-member bipartisan commission examining how and why US intelligence had been so wrong about
Saddam Hussein's alleged weapons of mass destruction. It will report next spring - well after the November elections.
Democrats are sceptical about Judge Silberman's presence. Nan Aron, head of the Alliance for Justice, a liberal pressure group, said: "This is not a statesman of the sort the president should be seeking to preside over this crucial and sensitive investigation."

Judge Silberman is most notorious in American liberal circles for his 1990 judgment overturning the conviction of Colonel Oliver North, who admitted his central role in the Iran-Contra affair, in which proceeds from secret arms sales to Iran were diverted illegally to the Contra anti-communist rebels in Nicaragua.

..more..

[AliceWonderland]

1. "In American liberal circles"??

Man, that annoys me. WTF? Silberman should be just plain ol' norotorious, to anyone.

[The Backlash Cometh]

2. North should have never been pardoned.

Letting him go free condoned what the Republicans did back in Reagan's time.

[JHB]

3. They missed his post-Reagan antics....

...such as aiding and abetting the character assasination of Anita Hill (and coverup of materials damaging Clarence Thomas' veracity), and his roles (both behind the scenes and as part of a three-judge panel) in fomenting and sustaining the legal attacks on President Clinton.

Whatever the actual titles or positions he's held, his actual career has been first and foremost an operative of the conservative wing of the Republican Party, working as an "inside man" to advance their cause. All other responsibilities of those jobs came in second.

It won't be any different now.

[G_j]

4. a zero qualifications for this committee

all he brings is conflicts of interest

[Jackpine Radical]

5. "conflicts of interest"...

Hey, those ARE his qualifications for the position.