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Thus, here is where things stood on July 8, 2003, two days after Joseph Wilson's op-ed piece appeared in the New York Times, a piece which controverted the Administration's claim that Saddam Hussein ("SH") had been trying to acquire uranium for Weapons of Mass Destruction ("WMD") from Niger. The Administration knew it would have to attack Wilson, but decided to do so through its most reliable reporter, Judith Miller. In other words, Miller, whose career is now in shambles I would imagine, was the person who became the unofficial mouthpiece for the Administration's propaganda effort. Libby, Cheney's Chief of Staff, would be the one to leak classified information to her at a July 8 meeting at the St. Regis Hotel, but Libby contends that the President approved the leak, thus possibly making it not a "leak."

A few legal questions emerge here. Does the President have the power to declassify any classified document he desires? And, if he does, what is the procedure he must use in order to do so? If the procedure takes a while can he declassify them retroactively as it were--by simply releasing them to the public and then pursuing whatever process is necessary to declassify them? By allowing Libby to reveal highly selective and pro-Administration material from hitherto classified documents, the Adminstration was declassifying material for political gain. Thus, even if it was within the legal power of the President so to declassify a document, it looks very much like he did so to further his end of destroying a political opponent. I think the reason the Bush Administration did this is that the American people gave the Administration a 2-year (and more) "grace period" in which they could do nearly anything in order to fight the perceived terrorist threat. What will increasingly come out in the ensuing years, and especially if the Democrats win back the House or the Senate in the Fall, is that the Administration abused the trust placed in it by the American people by conducting all manner of illegal activities under the broad banner of "national security" or the "war against terror." The President still constantly intones those phrases as if they are the mantra of the year, though with every successive repetition of the the phrases they sound more and more hollow.

Further Revelations in July 2003

Thus, on July 8, 2003, Libby revealed information in classified documents to the effect that Iraq was vigorously pursuing a plan to obtain uranium from Africa. This was released specifically to counter Wilson's allegations. Then, just six days later, conservative columnist Robert Novak, who has been a political columnist since 1967, revealed the name of Wilson's wife as the one working on WMD issues in the CIA. There are lots of questions relative to this revelation, the major one for me is why Fitzgerald isn't pursuing some kind of legal action against Novak for the release of the name. But, in any case, the purpose of this "leak" was to further coordinate the attack against Wilson by sending a strong signal to anyone who disagreed with the Adminstration's tactics that dissent would be punished quickly and severely. The arrogance in this kind of approach to a citizen speaking out against our government is palpable, but nevertheless the Adminstration, through its conservative supporters and dupes, put out the word that Wilson was a superannuated diplomat on a junket to Africa, that his wife had engineered the visit, and that therefore he really had nothing to say of any use. That is where things stood in the summer of 2003, and the Administration was still at a relatively high water mark of its popularity.

Things Crumble

But there were just too many things that didn't add up. A series of increasingly shocking revelations in 2004 and 2005 (including the beating and maltreatment of prisoners at Abu Ghraib and the revelation of wiretapping citizen conversations) tarnished the Bush image, and then the insistent work of reporters and the Special Prosecutor on the leaking of the name of Wilson's wife began to expose the modus operandi of this White House for all to see. In a word, that modus is to do anything that the Administration felt it ought to do and then try to cover itself retroactively by post-hoc legal justifications relying primarily on the inherent powers of the Presidency under the US Constitution. The only "checks and balances" in fact were within the Administration itself, as hard liner battled with harder liner for the upper hand in that Administration.

But now things are beginning to unravel, and for good reason. American deaths continue to rise in Iraq, and there is no sense that the country is becoming any more stable even though we are three years after victory was proclaimed. Under the Administration's guidance we have taken a country that was politically stable, though ruled by a ruthless dictator, and brought to the surface all the lurking and lingering sectarian struggles that exist in this Sunni/Shiite/Kurd land. Whether "Civil War" has broken out hinges quite a bit on what the meaning of those loaded words are, but an increasingly large cast of characters doesn't hesitate to say that this is precisely what is now occurring in this land. And, to make things yet worse. A few weeks ago the Adminstration sent up a kind of "trial balloon" (as Adminitrations are wont to do) regarding US pullout and leaving the Civil War, if that is what it is, in the hands of the Iraqi troops and police. If the US did this it would be tantamount to someone coming into your house, destroying it, letting all your goods be exposed to the elements, starting to help you rebuild it and then telling you that it is your responsibility to rebuild the house that we have destroyed. Such a response by Americans would be off the charts of reprehensibility.

Conclusion

So now the Administration has gotten us stuck, really stuck. I am not a prophet nor the son of a prophet, but I would say that the Administration will still try to pull out some kind of "October surprise" this year to aid them in the November elections. But it seems to me that the Republicans have had their chance to deal with the terror issue and haven't done very well. Time to pass the baton.

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