Rove to Appear Before Grandy Jury to Discuss Leak Testimony

By William Branigin and Jim VandeHei / Washington Post

Top presidential adviser Karl Rove has been called to testify this afternoon before a federal grand jury investigating the 2003 leak of a CIA operative's identity, a source close to Rove said.

Rove, President Bush's chief political strategist, will be asked about discussions his attorney had with Time magazine reporter Viveca Novak, the source said. Novak testified last year that she alerted Rove's lawyer in early 2004 that Rove had leaked information to her colleague, Matthew Cooper, about CIA operative Valerie Plame.

Rove's appearance this afternoon would mark the fifth time he has testified before a grand jury in connection with the leak.

Earlier today, Special Prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald met with the grand jury for the second time since it was empaneled following the expiration of an original grand jury investigating the leak.

The first grand jury returned an indictment last year against I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff, on charges of perjury, obstruction of justice and lying to federal agents in the case. But Fitzgerald wanted to continue the investigation after the grand jury finished its term on Oct. 28, leaving open the prospect of additional indictments.

Novak wrote in Time in December that she mentioned to Rove's attorney Robert D. Luskin in early 2004 that the magazine's reporters were buzzing that Rove was a source for a story by Cooper about Plame in July 2003. The tip prompted Luskin to set in motion a chain of events that led Rove and his lawyers to search phone logs and other material to determine whether Rove had talked to Cooper. It also eventually prompted Rove to change his grand jury testimony.

Until Rove testified for a second time in October 2004, he maintained he did not recall talking to Cooper. Shortly before testifying, Luskin found an e-mail written by Rove to then-deputy national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley in July 2003 in which Rove mentioned the conversation with Cooper. Rove then testified that the e-mail jarred his memory.

Novak initially did not tell her editors at Time that she may have tipped off Rove's lawyer or that Fitzgerald was interested in her conversation with Luskin. She took a leave of absence from the magazine while editors contemplated her future and ultimately left Time earlier this month.

Rove, 55, who serves as deputy White House chief of staff, has been under a cloud in the CIA leak case for more than two years. The case was initiated to discover who leaked Plame's CIA employment to the news media in July 2003 in an apparent effort to retaliate against her husband, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, who had emerged as a prominent critic of Bush's rationale for invading Iraq. The CIA employment of Plame was first reported by conservative columnist Robert D. Novak on July 14, 2003, shortly after Wilson went public with his criticism in an op-ed piece in which he accused the Bush administration of twisting pre-war intelligence about Iraq. Robert Novak is not related to Viveca Novak.

In a White House shake-up, Rove was relieved of his responsibilities for domestic policy last week by new Chief of Staff Joshua B. Bolten. But Rove has retained his title, White House office and security clearances as he turns his attention to Republican political strategies ahead of the November midterm elections.

Here's the Final Jeopardy Question for Mr. Bush:


Full source HERE.

"To allow the White House counsel to review records before the prosecutors would see them is just about unheard of in the way cases are always prosecuted," said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., speaking on NBC's Today show. "And the possibility of mischief, or worse than mischief, is very, very large."

Administration officials said the White House counsel's office may need up to two weeks to organize documents that some 2,000 employees are required to submit by 5 p.m. Tuesday.

Gonzales testified about the Plame leak in June 2004. I guarantee Fitzgerald asked him about the destruction of evidence. How can I guarantee that? Well, remember that Fitzgerald wrote to then Acting Attorney General Comey to clarify the scope of his investigation. Comey replied to Fitzgerald as follows (PDF):

At your request, I am writing to clarify that my December 30, 2003, delegation to you of "all the authority of the Attorney General with respect to the Department's investigation into the alleged unauthorized disclosure of a CIA employee's identity" is plenary and includes the authority to investigate and prosecute violations of any federal criminal laws related to the underlying alleged unauthorized disclosure, as well as federal crimes committed in the course of, and with intent to interfere with, your investigation, such as perjury, obstruction of justice, destruction of evidence, and intimidation of witnesses...

I've always wondered why Fitzgerald requested the clarification. The request took place in early 2004. Around the same time, Fitzgerald subpoenaed the records of Air Force One. It is possible that Fitzgerald has known about the existence of deleted communications early on. Did Gonzales' explanation of why he waited 12 hours hold up at the grand jury? Does Fitzgerald indeed have proof that evidence was destroyed? If so, does Fitzgerald have evidence that the Department of Justice tipped the Administration to destroy that evidence?

Whatever the answers, this latest bombshell proves that the CIA leak scandal is still simmering--and administration officials are still squirming

Fitzgerald Eyes Plame-Niger Conspiracy

Prosecutor Probing Niger Forgeries, Possible Conspiracy in CIA Leak

By Jason Leopold / t r u t h o u t

"There was a discussion about what to do about Mr. Wilson," the current State Department official said. "There was a decision to leak a story to the press - I think a few journalists - about the Wilson trip, that it was a non-issue because his wife set it up for him."

Over the past few months, Special Prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald has been questioning witnesses in the CIA leak case about the origins of the disputed Niger documents referenced in President Bush's January 2003 State of the Union address, according to several current and former State Department officials who have testified in the case.

The State Department officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because some of the information they discussed is still classified, indicated that the White House had substantial motive for revealing undercover CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity to reporters.

They said the questions Fitzgerald asked them about the Niger documents suggested to them that the special prosecutor was putting together a timeline. They said they believe Fitzgerald wants to show the grand jury how some people in the Bush administration may have conspired to retaliate against former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, an outspoken critic of the administration's pre-war Iraq intelligence.

The officials said Fitzgerald's interest is not in the the war's validity. Instead, Fitzgerald is trying to find out if Wilson's public questions about the administration's intelligence and its use of the Niger documents led members of a little known committee called the White House Iraq Group to leak Plame's name and CIA status to reporters.

The officials have provided the first in-depth look at how the administration came to rely upon the Niger documents in the fall of 2002, and how it played a direct role in the Plame leak, which ultimately forced the White House to acknowledge that it shouldn't have allowed President Bush to cite the uranium claims in his State of the Union address - a move the White House had hoped it could avoid.

Wilson was chosen by the CIA in February 2002 to travel to Niger to check on questions Vice President Dick Cheney had about Iraq's interest in buying yellowcake uranium from the African country. Uranium is the key component used to build an atomic bomb. The State Department had first expressed doubts about the vice president's inquiries. Officials at the State Department, including Colin Powell, according to sources, told Cheney the intelligence was suspect.

"We already expressed our opinion about the intelligence the vice president was asking about. We thought it had no merit," one former senior State Department official said. "We resented that they didn't trust what we said."

Indeed, earlier that month, Carlton Fulford Jr., a four-star Marine general, was sent to Niger to check on the security of Niger's uranium. He returned to the United States convinced that the supply was secure. Fulford informed Gen. Richard B. Myers, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, about his findings. It's unclear whether Myers ever shared the information with White House officials. A spokesperson for Myers said the general would not respond to questions for this story.

Later that same month, the State Department official said, Wilson traveled to Niger on behalf of the CIA. That's the trip the State Department had initially protested because Fulford had already looked into it. But Wilson confirmed that there was no truth to the allegations.

"We felt vindicated," the State Department official said because there had long been animosity between the White House and State over disagreements concerning intelligence on the Iraqi threat.

However, seven months later, the British government prepared a "white paper" giving validity to the claims that Iraq tried to purchase uranium from Niger which the State Department and Wilson had already proved false.

"Some very senior people in the vice president's office saw that as an opportunity," an official who currently works at the State Department in a senior capacity said. "They took it and ran with it, and it was wrong."

I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby - Cheney's former chief of staff, who was indicted on five-counts of lying to federal investigators, perjury, and obstruction of justice related to his role in the Plame leak - National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley, and Cheney had embraced the uranium claims cited in the"white paper," according to the State Department sources, and they had all pushed for its inclusion in the National Intelligence Estimate in October 2002.

I have no idea how or why [the Niger uranium claim] got in there," one of the current State Department sources said. "To this day I don't know. Secretary Powell knew that we disagreed with the intelligence. It wasn't that we disagreed with the White House per se. It's that we disagreed with the intelligence regarding Niger. We were the only people in the intelligence community who thought the documents were bogus."

Numerous messages were left at the offices of Hadley, Cheney and Powell, and there was no response.

Iraq's interest in the yellowcake caught the attention of Mohammed ElBaradei, the head of the International Atomic Energy Association. ElBaradei had read a copy of the National Intelligence Estimate and had personally contacted the State Department and the National Security Council, where Hadley was then deputy advisor, to obtain the evidence so his agency could look into it.

ElBaradei sent a letter to the White House and the National Security Council in December 2002, warning senior officials he thought the documents were forgeries and should not be cited by the administration as evidence that Iraq was actively trying to obtain WMDs. ElBaradei said he never received a written response to his letter, despite repeated follow-up calls he made to the White House, the NSC and the State Department.

The State Department officials said they did not know whether Powell ever saw ElBaradei's letter, but they were unaware that ElBaradei had inquired about the allegations made in the Niger documents.

In a second letter sent to Congressman Henry Waxman, D-California, in March 2003, after the Iraq had war started, ElBaradei laid out the details of his attempts to get to the bottom of the Niger uranium story.

ElBaradei said that when the Niger claims were included in the State Department fact sheet on the Iraqi threat in December 2002, "the IAEA asked the U.S. Government, through its Mission in Vienna, to provide any actionable information that would allow it to follow up with the countries involved, viz Niger and Iraq."

ElBaradei said he was assured that his letter was forwarded to the White House and to the National Security Council. He added that he and his staff were suspicious about the Niger documents because it had long been rumored that documents pertaining to Iraq's attempt to obtain uranium from Niger had been doctored.

In conversations and correspondence with Waxman in March 2003, ElBaradei said White House officials pledged to cooperate with United Nations inspectors but repeatedly withheld evidence from them.

Cheney, who made the rounds on the cable news shows that month, tried to discredit ElBaradei's conclusion that the documents were forged.

"I think Mr. ElBaradei frankly is wrong," Cheney said. "[The IAEA] has consistently underestimated or missed what it was Saddam Hussein was doing. I don't have any reason to believe they're any more valid this time than they've been in the past."

Two months earlier, Wilson re-emerged. It was one day after President Bush's January 28, 2003, State of the Union address, in which the president said: "The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa."

Wilson said he met with a friend who worked at the State Department and asked why the president cited the British intelligence report about Iraq's attempt to buy uranium, when he had debunked the allegation a year earlier.

"I reminded a friend at the State Department of my trip and suggested that if the president had been referring to Niger, then his conclusion was not borne out by the facts as I understood them. He replied that perhaps the president was speaking about one of the other three African countries that produce uranium: Gabon, South Africa or Namibia. At the time, I accepted the explanation. I didn't know that in December, a month before the president's address, the State Department had published a fact sheet that mentioned the Niger case," Wilson wrote in his infamous July 6, 2003, op-ed in the New York Times, which preceded his wife's identity being leaked to reporters by about a week.

Many career State Department officials were also livid that the so-called "16 words" made its way into the State of the Union address, the current and former department officials who commented for this story said.

"To me it showed a total disregard for the truth, plain and simple," said one former State Department official who had worked closely with former Secretary of State Colin Powell, referring to the administration's use of the flawed intelligence.

"I refuse to believe that the findings of a four-star general and an envoy the CIA sent to Niger to personally investigate the accuracy of the intelligence, as well as our own research at the State Department, never got into the hands of President Bush or Vice President Cheney. I don't buy it. Saying that Iraq sought uranium from Niger was all it took, as far as I'm concerned, to convince the House to support the war. The American people too. I believe removing Saddam Hussein was right and just. But the intelligence that was used to state the case wasn't."

The officials said Scooter Libby and Stephen Hadley had pressured Powell to reference the Niger documents in his presentation to the United Nations in February 2003, but Powell did not believe the intelligence was solid and refused. The officials said there was a verbal confrontation between the men over the issue. Other sources close to Powell confirmed this as well.

Although there were suspicions that the Niger documents were forgeries, the White House went to great lengths to defend its use of the report in Bush's State of the Union address, saying the CIA signed off on it.

At this time, Wilson was also unconvinced that the White House did not see his report. In private conversations with a State Department official and a few reporters, he accused the White House of twisting the intelligence to fuel the administration's war machine. He let it be known that he had personally investigated the allegations on behalf of the CIA.

By May 2003, Wilson had made enough noise in Washington, DC, political circles about the veracity of pre-war Iraq intelligence to attract the attention of Libby and Hadley. Wilson had been a source for Nicholas Kristoff's New York Times column that suggested the administration knowingly used the phony Niger documents to win support for the war.

"You have to understand," the former State Department official said, "this was two months after the invasion, and here was a person contradicting what the administration felt strongly about. The administration put so much stock into the fact that WMDs (weapons of mass destruction) were there. But it was clear that in May 2003 there was no evidence of WMDs. Anyone bringing it up, calling the administration out, so to speak, became a target."

All of the officials said that after Kristoff's column was published, they received phone calls from from Libby and Hadley inquiring about the unnamed official in Kristoff's column, who turned out to be Wilson. For the first time, the public learned that the US had sent an American envoy to personally check on the accuracy of the Niger claims.

This was in stark contrast to what the administration had been saying publicly up until this point: that they only cited the Niger documents because they had been confirmed by British intelligence. But the column raised new questions about what the administration knew and when they knew it. The revelation in Kristoff's report threatened to expose how senior White House officials ignored Wilson and all the other warnings they had received about the veracity of the documents.

Cheney found out who Wilson was in May 2003, according to the indictment handed up against Libby in late October. Cheney found out that Wilson's wife worked at the CIA. He shared the information with Libby, although Libby had been snooping around on his own and found out the same information, too.

In fact, according to sources knowledgeable about the discussions that took place during this time, only a handful of Cheney's very close aides knew the identity of the person trashing the administration's pre-war intelligence. Karl Rove wasn't even in the know yet, the sources said.

White House officials' decision to retaliate against Wilson by blowing his CIA wife's cover to reporters would come less than a month later - in early June 2003.

The Wilson story had legs. Walter Pincus of the Washington Post started poking around. He called the CIA to check on Wilson's story. He called other people at the White House, too. Reporters were becoming very interested in the fact that the Bush administration failed to inform Congress or the public that Cheney asked the CIA to look into the Niger uranium allegations a year before, and that Wilson was chosen for the mission. It started to appear as if the administration had manipulated the intelligence and duped Congress into backing the war.

Marc Grossman, then Undersecretary of State for Political Affairs, read about the Niger story, and the unnamed special envoy that was sent to check out the bogus claims, in Kristoff's column.

"He got a request from someone at the White House to look into it, the Niger issues that is, and he asked INR about it," the current State Department official said.

Grossman was scheduled to meet with Cheney and Libby and other senior officials who were members of the White House Iraq Group to discuss the war and the negative stories that were flooding the media about the absence of WMDs in Iraq.

There is no indication that Fitzgerald is investigating Cheney.

The White House Iraq Group (WHIG) was formed in August 2002 by Andrew Card, President Bush's chief of staff, to publicize the threat posed by Saddam Hussein. WHIG operated out of the Vice President's office.

The group's members included Rove, Bush advisor Karen Hughes, Senior Advisor to the Vice President Mary Matalin, Deputy Director of Communications James Wilkinson, Assistant to the President and Legislative Liaison Nicholas Calio, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, National Security Advisor Stephen Hadley and I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

Last week, this State Department official said that a meeting took place in the office of the Vice President after Libby read the memo, to decide how they would respond to Wilson's increasing public criticism about the administration.

"There was a major, major concern about the polls, the public response, that Mr. Wilson could cause enormous damage," the retired senior State Department official said.

Grossman asked Carl Ford, then the head of the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research, to prepare what is known as an INR report about the Niger claims to shed additional light on what Wilson had been referring to in news reports.

The four-page memo indicated that the State Department long had doubts about the veracity of the administration's claims about Iraq's attempts to purchase yellowcake uranium from Niger. The memo made scant reference to Wilson and his wife, Valerie Plame.

"We had real qualms that the intel was not true. When the report was prepared, we were actually happy, because it was an opportunity to talk about Niger again and why we thought there was absolutely no truth to the intelligence," one senior State Department official who saw the report said. "It was not intended to be a report about Mr. Wilson or Ms. Plame."

A retired State Department official who was a source for a July 20, 2005, Associated Press story told the AP that the memo was drafted to respond to specific questions about Wilson's debunking of the Niger uranium claims.

"It wasn't a Wilson-Wilson wife memo," the State Department official told the AP. "It was a memo on uranium in Niger and focused principally on our disagreement with the White House."

The retired official was tracked down and interviewed by this reporter. This person said some senior members of Cheney's staff wanted the memo "toned down" after they read it.

"Try to understand their concern," the retired State Department official said. "This was the very first time there was written evidence - not notes, but a request for a report - from the State Department that documented why the Niger intel was bullshit. It was the only thing in writing, and it had a certain value because it didn't come from the IAEA. It came from State. It scared the heck out of a lot of people because it proved that this guy Wilson's story was credible. I don't think anybody wanted the media to know that the State Department disagreed with the intelligence used by the White House. That's why Wilson had to be shut down."

The current State Department official said the INR memo was discussed at length during the meeting Grossman attended at the White House. That meeting may have been the first time other White House officials, including Karl Rove, White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card, and other unknown administration officials learned that Valerie Plame was Wilson's wife and that she worked at the CIA in a covert capacity.

All of the sources interviewed separately for this story said they were told that Karl Rove was the person who first suggested using the media to "turn the tables on Wilson." The officials wouldn't identify the person who told them this. The decision, however, was made during a meeting that took place between the White House Iraq Group.

"There was a discussion about what to do about Mr. Wilson," the current State Department official said. "There was a decision to leak a story to the press - I think a few journalists - about the Wilson trip, that it was a non-issue because his wife set it up for him. They were going to show that Wilson and his wife were Democrats. Can you imagine? They were going to say 'don't listen to them, they're partisan.' It was a coordinated effort to turn him into the story. Much to my surprise, it worked."

One of the officials interviewed for this story was also cited in a September 28, 2003, Washington Post story about the motivation to leak Wilson's wife's identity to the media. "Clearly, it was meant purely and simply for revenge," the State Department official told the Post. The Post did not name the official.

Lawyers close to the leak case said Fitzgerald seems to be pursuing conspiracy charges against some of the higher-profile suspects in the leak, such as Rove.

Robert Luskin, Rove's attorney, did not return numerous messages left at Patton Boggs, the law offices where he works in Washington, DC.

The State Department officials said they were asked by Fitzgerald how important they thought the Niger uranium claims were in making a case for war. He also asked them why they doubted the authenticity of the Niger documents, why the reports appeared to be dubious, if they knew how Wilson was picked to investigate it, whether they heard about his verbal report upon his return, how and why the INR memo was prepared, and whether it was done in response to Wilson's claims about the Niger intelligence or so officials could find out how Wilson was chosen for the trip, and why any reference to his wife was made in the memo.

Ironically, a day after Wilson's July 6, 2003, op-ed titled "What I didn't Find in Niger" was published in the New York Times, Hadley accepted responsibility for allowing the infamous "16 words" to be included in Bush's State of the Union address. Hadley was sent two separate letters from the CIA, warning him not to allow Bush to cite the Niger uranium claim in his State of the Union address. Hadley said he forgot about the letters.

Exactly one week later, Valerie Plame Wilson's cover was blown in a column written by conservative journalist Robert Novak.

So the WH press briefing got all hot and nasty this AM again. The press twits grew they balls back for a few moments...only to shrink back into their loins later in the day, I'm sure...

In any case, here it is....



Woo Hoo!

Newspaper columnist Robert Novak is still not naming his source in the Valerie Plame affair, but he says he is pretty sure the name is no mystery to President Bush.

"I'm confident the president knows who the source is," Novak told a luncheon audience at the John Locke Foundation in Raleigh on Tuesday. "I'd be amazed if he doesn't."

"So I say, 'Don't bug me. Don't bug Bob Woodward. Bug the president as to whether he should reveal who the source is.' "

[SNIP]

Where in the world is Karl Rove?

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This war can best be told by narrating the stories of two women. One woman played an instrumental role in launching the invasion of Iraq and the other is determined to end the occupation and bring the troops home. One woman wants to shed light on the lies that led to war and the other is willing to hide in jail to avoid telling the truth about her role in this catastrophe.

One lady is the mother of a fallen soldier who only demands a few rational answers as to why her son died. The second is a war mongering tramp and WMD huckster who refuses to divulge her role in outing Valerie Plame. One woman is an outsider demanding a single hour of the President’s attention. The other is a power broker from Sulzberger’s New York Times with ready access to Bush administration insiders like Karl Rove and Lewis Libby. One woman is invigorating the entire peace movement and the other is a bona fide neo-con operative of a War Party in retreat.

Cindy Sheehan wants to tell the very same tale that Judith Miller refuses to narrate. Miller was a one-woman propaganda squad on a mission to blast American minds with weapons of mass deception. She marketed the war that Cindy refused to buy. Even so, it was Cindy’s son who ended up paying the ultimate price at the age of 24.

Cindy has been compared favorably to Rosa Parks who ignited the civil rights struggle by refusing to move to the back of the bus. I think a more apt historical comparison is to a union electrician and a Polish patriot – Lech Walesa. Cindy and her band of supporters in Crawford are electrifying the nation with a crusade for the truth as to the reasons we went to war.

If the war wasn’t for the WMDs that Miller promised. If it wasn’t justified by the neo-con canard that Saddam Hussein had ties to Al Qaeda and was involved in the 9/11 atrocities. Then why did Bush send Casey Sheehan and nearly two thousand of his comrades to kill and die in the deserts of the Gulf? For the record, Casey Sheehan died after volunteering for a dangerous mission to save wounded soldiers in Sadr City. Why can’t Bush demonstrate a fraction of Casey’s courage by sparing an hour to meet Cindy?

The Mess on Potamia started when the president decided to illegally attack Iraq under the cover of the ‘war on terror.’ We now have ample evidence that his decision resulted in establishing a production line for insurgents fueled by anger and rage at the humiliating conquest of their country. Recent reports reveal that by the summer of 2002, Bush and Blair had already initiated hostilities by intensifying air strikes to soften up Iraqi targets. The Downing Street Memos are yet another confirmation that WMD intelligence was fixed and that the decision to go to war was made long before it was announced to the public. And the Plame games prove that Joseph Wilson was punished for refusing to go along with the Yellow cake uranium scam and for exposing the ‘intelligence failure’ cover-up.

Bush’s neo-cons brigades - including Judith Miller - continue to dodge any further probing of the WMD hoax. They lied in the firm belief that - once their delusional expectations materialized - they would be forgiven for the minor sin of telling WMD fibs.

Cindy Sheehan’s only sin is that she wants to force a frank and constructive national debate about the hidden agenda behind this war. She is demanding a clear definition of the ‘noble mission’ the President keeps talking about. And she wants an exit plan. So far, the response from the White House is that no such discussion is warranted.

Bush continues to hide behind the 9/11 atrocities – a blow back catastrophe that happened on his watch and as a result of foreign policies engineered by his dad. He responded to the 9/11 assaults by immediately putting Iraq on the short list of countries that were in dire need of an American invasion. He lied about the WMDs and was wrong about the cost and wrong about the outcome. It took him a year to cope with the fact that he had an insurgency on his hand. He now insists on ‘staying the course’ while navigating a maze that brings a new unexpected twist every day. By now, even Bush must realize that the net result of his misadventure in Mesopotamia will be a theocratic republic or a civil war or both.

Judith Miller and Cindy Sheehan’s tales are intertwined. Both narratives are directly connected to this war of choice. One of them is a hero and one of them is a villain. One of them seeks answers for the nation and the other keeps secrets to protect her neo-con friends in high place. The hero of this epic is taking on the combined forces of the administration and mass media moguls – both intent of drowning her voice in the shark infested waters off the coast of Aruba.

The mass media pundits have taken to writing odes to Miller as a ‘free speech martyr’ while simultaneously unleashing Karl Rove’s neo-con attack squads to muzzle Cindy. They send their investigative reporters in search of the flimsiest excuse to smear the lady from Vacaville. They attack Sheehan’s character and motives while refusing to probe Miller’s neo-con ideological baggage and her intimate connections with the Office of Special Plans.

Even as she emerges as a unifying leader of the anti-war movement, Sheehan is being portrayed as a vulnerable woman manipulated by leftist ‘peace extremists’ who are exploiting her grief. Of course, the reality is that conservative and libertarian pundits were among the first to man the barricades in opposition to this war. This is not Vietnam. This time around, the anti-war movement includes Americans from across the political spectrum – from Patrick Buchanan on the right to Ralph Nader on the left.

The War Party fixers are now claiming that Cindy has already been granted enough face time with Bush. Apparently, the president is already sacrificing enough of his five-week siesta for Republican fund raising. It doesn’t seem to matter that most of the questions Cindy wants answered relate to matters that became public knowledge long after her one and only ten minute encounter with the president – a meeting where Cindy generously accepted the President’s condolences for her son’s death.

By now, Bush must realize that Sheehan is not going to pack up and return to Vacaville. Thanks to journalists from the alternative and international press, her compelling message is getting through to millions of Americans. After denying her coverage for the first week, even the mainstream media is now on the story – if only to defuse her message and smear her reputation.

The administration is now trying to reduce their conflict with Sheehan to a dispute between Americans who want to ‘cut and run’ and those who want to ‘stay the course and complete some yet to be defined noble mission.’ But Cindy Sheehan is not only demanding an immediate withdrawal of American troops – she also wants to know why they were sent to Iraq in the first place and she wants Bush to explain their current mission and elaborate on why he considers it noble. She is also demanding that the President desist from using Casey’s sacrifice to justify sending more young soldiers to an early grave.

The only thing Bush has going for him now is the neo-con mass media brigades. We’ve all had excellent exposure to their talent for burying a story. To avoid embarrassing themselves, the media moguls have gone to great lengths to bury the Plame/Miller scandal. Karl Rove and Lewis Libby have drifted already back into the background without sustaining a scratch in the Plame games. The Israel/AIPAC spy ring at the Pentagon is another story that vanished without a trace. CNN and FOX have permanently relocated their staff to Aruba and can hardly be expected to chew gum and cover a tourist homicide at the same time. Instead of confronting the president with the same questions that Cindy is asking – they insist on joining a smear campaign led by the usual low life suspects.

Cindy has drawn a line in the sand for George Bush. In doing so, she has energized tens of thousands of peace activists and tens of millions of Americans. By now, it should be clear that Sheehan is speaking for the silent majority of Americans who want some straight answers from Bush instead of bumper sticker slogans. One out of three Americans already backs her demand for an immediate withdrawal and two out of three think that the war was a rotten idea from the start. Given the cost in blood and treasure, shouldn’t every American support a spirited debate between citizen Sheehan and her President? Doesn’t the disastrous outcome of this venture entitle Cindy Sheehan to ask a few uncomplicated questions about Judith Miller’s war?