"This case is bigger than the leak of highly classified information" [View All]

[dajoki]

NYT
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/29/politics/29ASSESS.html?th&emc=th

A Prosecutor's Focus Shifted to a Cover-Up

By TODD S. PURDUM
Published: October 29, 2005

<<snip>>

Ms. Wilson's husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV, a former ambassador who cast doubt on the administration's prewar assertion that Iraq had tried to buy uranium from Niger, did not get his wish to see Mr. Bush's chief political aide, Karl Rove, "frog-marched" from the White House. Mr. Fitzgerald brought no charges against him. But the investigation is continuing, preventing the president from being able to put the matter behind him.


"This keeps it hanging over their heads," said one senior official from a past Republican White House, speaking on the condition of anonymity so as not to quarrel publicly with Mr. Bush. "He needs to start anew. Now is the time to start anew. But I see no sign that they're going to."

And Mr. Fitzgerald's unvarnished charges that Mr. Libby lied repeatedly about his knowledge of Ms. Wilson's role (when Mr. Cheney was one of those who told him most explicitly that she was involved in counterproliferation work at the C.I.A.) kept alive questions about whether the administration misled Congress and the public with its original rationale for a war with Iraq that this week logged its 2,000th fatality.

"This case is bigger than the leak of highly classified information," said Senator Harry Reid of Nevada, the Democratic leader. "It is about how the Bush White House manufactured and manipulated intelligence in order to bolster its case for the war in Iraq, and to discredit anyone who dared to challenge the president."