Scooter's hard blackmail: visavis R.Cheney

[Sid Walker]

I guess that when war crimes, mass murder, grand theft and election rigging go unpunished, it would be most unfair to trouble anyone unduly over minor offenses such as perjury and obstructing justice.

Perhaps we should have a whip round to help poor Scooter pay his fine?

[Guest Stephen Turner]

This was only ever going to in end one of two ways, either, "Bush pardons Libby" or " Scooter dies of a sudden heart attack"

Aren't you forgetting the old plane crash trick?

Yes indeed Gary, and not just plane crashes, which I now call "out of the blue's" But several other physical ways to make potentially troulesome people shut up.

"Libby sleeps with the fishes"

"Libby in housefire horror"

" Libby leaves suicide note"

" Libby accidentally killed in police shootout"

" Libby cuts own head off, and fries it in olive oil, in bizzare accident"

"Libby eats poisonous blowfish"

[Charles Drago]

Let's put on the SCUBA gear and dive deep ...

The names "Scooter" Libby and Marc Rich have been bandied about quite freely over the past two days, especially by neocons and their mouthpieces arguing that Bush's commutation of the former's jail time sentence is no different -- and perhaps even more noble -- than Bill Clinton's full pardon of the latter.

They should be careful.

What they dare not tell you is that Libby represented fugitive financier Rich dating back to 1985 (although the representation ended in the spring of 2000).

From a March 2, 2001 CNN story: "'There are no facts that I know of that support the criminality of the client based on the tax returns,' [Libby said].

"Libby then said prosecutors from the Southern District of New York 'misconstrued the facts and the law' when they prosecuted Rich.

"'(Rich) had not violated the tax laws,' said Libby.

"At a later point, Libby said he thought Rich was a traitor for his company engaging in trades with Iran at a time when that country was holding U.S. hostages. 'I did not condone it, I didn't advise it, I don't admire it,' he said."

From other news accounts of the period: Rich was intertwined with BCCI. Terrorist Abu Nidal's so-called "link man" for the BCCI accounts was an Arab based in Iraq named Samir Najmeddin. Throughout the 80s, BCCI had set up millions of dollars worth of letters of credit for Najmeddin, largely for arms deals with Iraq. Qassem later swore in an affidavit that Najmeddin was often accompanied by an American, whom Qassem subsequently identified as the financier Marc Rich.

Cut to the attack ostensibly on Valerie Plame.

Were the motives of Cheney, Libby, et al restricted to issues relating to the cover-up of their contemporary war crimes and the political ramifications thereof? Or was there a deeper motivation?

Plame's cover outfit, Brewster-Jennings and Associates, was the creation of the CIA's Center for Weapons Intelligence, Nonproliferation, and Arms Control.

When Bush and Cheney take the fall ostensibly for the Plame outing, we'll know that they're doing so to cover up a crime even more hideous than the war crimes of Iraq.

Charles

[Sid Walker]

Let's put on the SCUBA gear and dive deep ...

The names "Scooter" Libby and Marc Rich have been bandied about quite freely over the past two days, especially by neocons and their mouthpieces arguing that Bush's commutation of the former's jail time sentence is no different -- and perhaps even more noble -- than Bill Clinton's full pardon of the latter.

They should be careful.

What they dare not tell you is that Libby represented fugitive financier Rich dating back to 1985 (although the representation ended in the spring of 2000).

From a March 2, 2001 CNN story: "'There are no facts that I know of that support the criminality of the client based on the tax returns,' [Libby said].

"Libby then said prosecutors from the Southern District of New York 'misconstrued the facts and the law' when they prosecuted Rich.

"'(Rich) had not violated the tax laws,' said Libby.

"At a later point, Libby said he thought Rich was a traitor for his company engaging in trades with Iran at a time when that country was holding U.S. hostages. 'I did not condone it, I didn't advise it, I don't admire it,' he said."

From other news accounts of the period: Rich was intertwined with BCCI. Terrorist Abu Nidal's so-called "link man" for the BCCI accounts was an Arab based in Iraq named Samir Najmeddin. Throughout the 80s, BCCI had set up millions of dollars worth of letters of credit for Najmeddin, largely for arms deals with Iraq. Qassem later swore in an affidavit that Najmeddin was often accompanied by an American, whom Qassem subsequently identified as the financier Marc Rich.

Cut to the attack ostensibly on Valerie Plame.

Were the motives of Cheney, Libby, et al restricted to issues relating to the cover-up of their contemporary war crimes and the political ramifications thereof? Or was there a deeper motivation?

Plame's cover outfit, Brewster-Jennings and Associates, was the creation of the CIA's Center for Weapons Intelligence, Nonproliferation, and Arms Control.

When Bush and Cheney take the fall ostensibly for the Plame outing, we'll know that they're doing so to cover up a crime even more hideous than the war crimes of Iraq.

Charles

This is very interesting Charles.

I recall hearing Ralph Schoenman discussing Plame and her husbands interesting careers in rather more detail than one obtains from the Washington Post.

It is almost as though the entire debate has been a stage-managed distraction. Something Democrats and Republicans can argue over, while the real action is elsewhere.

[Charles Drago]

The Brewster-Jennings operation was blown when Plame was outed.

So too were agents being run by Plame and others under the WINAC umbrella -- most notably those looking into nuclear proliferation in general and related Russian/former Soviet actitivies in particular.

As Bud Fensterwald used to preach: Every intelligence operation worth the name has at least two objectives. In this case: "do" Joe Wilson and disrupt WINAC ops.

Bottom line 1: At this stage I'm merely engaging in connect-the-dots exercises -- the kind that, on few occasions, lead to important destinations.

Bottom line 2: Hypothesis -- When the decision was made to "out" Plame and, as an unavoidable consequence, blow her networks, it was not done in ignorance of her work. Whatever she was up to was deemed by the traitors in the White House (and elsewhere) to be either insignificant or too significant.

I'll argue for the latter description.

Bottom line 3: The Rich/Libby/Plame-as WINAC operative connections are too ... well ... rich to be ignored.

Charles

Edited July 4, 2007 by Charles Drago

[Tim Gratz]

The McLellan story makes little sense. Libby was not prosecuted for leaking Plame's name and the SP had also cleared Rove. I understand that all now agree that Plame was "outed" (as a CIA agent that is) by Richard Armitage.