Chicago Trib: Answers, Mr. Cheney

[paparush]

Answers, Mr. Cheney

Published April 11, 2006

Vice President Dick Cheney is among the most secretive members of the Bush administration. But he's been in his bunker long enough. It's time for him to answer some questions--and not in the friendly venue of Fox News.

Given the allegations about his role in the surreptitious disclosure of classified information related to the war in Iraq, Americans have a right to hear his story. The best way to get it is by an unscripted news conference in which the vice president confronts all the questions that have been raised. For him to remain silent amid the current turmoil suggests that he--or the president--has something to hide.

Cheney has long been suspected of involvement in revealing the identity of CIA agent Valerie Plame--whose husband, Joseph Wilson, had publicly disputed the Bush administration on Saddam Hussein's supposed attempts to obtain uranium for nuclear weapons. The vice president's former chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby, has been indicted on perjury and obstruction of justice charges over conversations he had with reporters about Plame.

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/chi-0604110280apr11,1,2886841.story?coll=chi-opinionfront-hed

[rodeodance]

1. well, if Libby drops on his sword for loyality to Cheney--then he deserves

to sit in jail.

[Supersedeas]

2. everytime the WH uses the 'ongoing investigation' card -- they are hiding

[stop the bleeding]

3. Darth Cheney - Do you hear that drum beat? it beats for you

So someone is lying. It could be that Libby acted on his own in leaking the information. It could be that Cheney told him to do so without the president's approval. Or it could be that Bush was behind the leak. Those are questions that the Cheney ought to step forward and answer, along with questions about the unmasking of Plame.

Another issue worth scrutiny goes to the accuracy of, and motive for, the leak. It came in July 2003, when the administration was being faulted for its failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq--which sparked claims that it dissembled in the runup to war. The leak was meant to show that the president had solid grounds to think Hussein might acquire nuclear weapons.

We now know, however, that the leak itself was anything but solid. In the first place, the charge about Hussein's quest for uranium was not among the four "key judgments" of the assessment. In the second place, far from confirming that allegation, the report said the evidence was "inconclusive."

Why would someone in the White House want to perpetrate this sort of deception? Excusing the failure to find the forbidden weapons is one explanation. Another, offered by prosecutor Fitzgerald, is that it was part of a "concerted action" to "discredit, punish or seek revenge" against Wilson.

Bush was well within his authority to declassify the report. But for anyone in the administration to misrepresent its conclusions, particularly if the motive was to punish a critic, is an abuse of the public trust on a subject of the gravest urgency--the decision to go to war.

Who was responsible for that apparent misconduct? We don't know. But the American people deserve an answer. And a no-holds-barred news conference with the vice president would go a long way toward providing one.



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Darth Cheney - Do you hear that drum beat? it beats for you

good article - nominated

[stop the bleeding]

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[stop the bleeding]

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[stop the bleeding]

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kick