Scooter Libby Verdicts

[Conan71]

"Your assertion would be laughable if so many hadn't died because of these lies."

Pure hyperbole.  Suspicion of buying yellow cake was hardly the only reason we toppled Hussein.  It was suspected from the Bush I and Clinton administrations forward that Hussein already had biologial and chemical weapons, as well as the possibility of smuggled nuclear capabilities.  Hussein repeatedly refused to allow U.N. inspections to continue un-impeded.

Wilson's report, as were the original reports of sales to Iraq, were reputed to be anywhere from accurate, to suspect, to completely flawed.  To this date, no one really seems to be able to state with complete authority whether the sales ever happened or not.

Wilson's investigation, amounted to talking to government officials of Niger ("Uh, sure we sold U.S. public enemy #2 uranium!") and assuming that their own accounting for their uranium was accurate.

What's the point in prosecuting Libby?  Other than Democrats being able to say: "Hah, hah!"?It's another waste of taxpayer money just like White Water was.

[Chicken Little]

quote:Originally posted by Conan71

Pure hyperbole.  Suspicion of buying yellow cake was hardly the only reason...

Yes or no, do you believe that the "16 words" in the President's speech contributed to the case for the invasion of Iraq?

Wilson's report is moot.  The administration has already admitted that the uranium claim was unfounded and that the "16 words" should not have been in the SOTU.  Tenent was booted for it, if you recall.

The "point" in prosecuting Libby is that we cannot have an executive branch that is allowed to lie with impunity.  That'd be some other country, not America.

[Conan71]

quote:Originally posted by rwarn17588

<Conan wrote:

The actual damage done by Libby's actions are about as innocuous as what Clinton lied about. Yes, Plame had NOC status at the time, but nowhere has it come out that this was a blow to national security.

<end clip>

Plame's outing wasn't innocuous. It messed up the CIA's Nonproliferation Division, which is designed to keep rogue countries from getting weapons of mass destruction.

Those rogue countries, by the way, include Iran.

But apparently Conan apparently doesn't give a rip of whether rogue nations get nukes. Comparing the outing of a CIA agent in a WMD division to covering up a blowjob is insulting to the intelligence.

Plame's outing hardly turned the CIA upside down.  If it was that big a deal, Armitage would be hanging by his toenails right now, since he's taken the blame for being the primary leak to Novak.  He came clean with the investigators right from the git-go.  Libby tried to lie his way out of it, that's why he was prosecuted.  I stand by my statement of saying that the actions Libby was convicted of were quite innocuous.

[Conan71]

quote:Originally posted by Chicken Little

quote:Originally posted by Conan71

Pure hyperbole.  Suspicion of buying yellow cake was hardly the only reason...

Yes or no, do you believe that the "16 words" in the President's speech contributed to the case for the invasion of Iraq?

Wilson's report is moot.  The administration has already admitted that the uranium claim was unfounded and that the "16 words" should not have been in the SOTU.  Tenent was booted for it, if you recall.

Uh, no one died because of Libby's lies.

The "16 words" were *part* of the justification, not sole justification.  I would think my saying: "Suspicion of buying yellow cake was hardly the only reason we toppled Hussein." would tell you I consider it part of the sale job for the war.

The Iraq invasion would have happened with or without the yellow cake intelligence.

No, leaders shouldn't be allowed to lie with impunity, but at what cost is it really worth to enforce it?

I'm pissed as hell about government waste, the White Water and Libby investigations have been a total waste of taxpayer funds, so differing factions can play childish politics. [xx(]

I'm going in the other room to take a nap, you guys can sit here and parse words all you want.[]

[Chicken Little]

quote:Originally posted by Conan71

The "16 words" were *part* of the justification, not sole justification.

So, the fake uranium claim was indeed part of the information used to lead us to war.

Perhaps it is an exaggeration to say that Libby's lie caused deaths.  It is no less a gross understatement to say that trying to coverup a stack of lies that led us to war is "innocuous".

quote: The Iraq invasion would have happened with or without the yellow cake intelligence.

Pure conjecture.[]  And it doesn't support your previous statement.  How can the uranium claim be a "*part* of the justification" and irrelevent at the same time?

[rwarn17588]

Nice argument, Mr. Little. Have you been taking lessons from a certain U.S. attorney? []

[Conan71]

quote:Originally posted by Chicken Little

quote:Originally posted by Conan71

The "16 words" were *part* of the justification, not sole justification.

So, the fake uranium claim was indeed part of the information used to lead us to war.

Perhaps it is an exaggeration to say that Libby's lie caused deaths.  It is no less a gross understatement to say that trying to coverup a stack of lies that led us to war is "innocuous".

quote: The Iraq invasion would have happened with or without the yellow cake intelligence.

Pure conjecture.[]  And it doesn't support your previous statement.  How can the uranium claim be a "*part* of the justification" and irrelevent at the same time?

Okay, CL, I told you I was taking a nap and you woke me up, damnit! [}:)]

Scooter Libby wasn't in the process of covering up a stack of lies that led us into the war.  He was tried for lying to federal investigators about what he said and/or who he told about Valerie Plame's identity in 2003.  He wasn't on trial for covering up faulty intelligence, or lies about it.  What about the news is so hard to decipher?

I never said yellow cake was irrelevant to the war in the first place, just that it was one component of justification for the war, amongst others.  

I've re-read this thread several times and I can't see how you inferred I thought it was irrelevant to justifying the war, I'm just saying it wasn't the sole motivating factor.

It is wholly irrelevant to Libby's trial,  since the trial was about whether or not he lied to the federales about leaking Valrie Plame's identity to the press.

Hell, Bill Clinton bombed Iraq w/o the yellow cake intelligence papers, none of that supposedly happened until 1999.  IOW- there was apparently plenty of justification w/o uranium sales.  

Bush actually cited British intelligence in the "16 words" and not the CIA documents Wilson was referring to in his op-ed piece.  To date, the British intelligence reports have not been recanted by their authors.  I'm tired of reading about it.  It was an intelligence cluster f*** and no one from either side of that intel issue has ever been able to say for certain whether or not Niger has sold yellow cake.

At very worst, Bush considered the British reports about the yellow cake sales to be valid, and ignored warnings to the contrary from the CIA, though the CIA has never said "without doubt" the allegations of the sales were false, only highly suspect.  

I guess he figured it was more prudent to err on the side of what he thought was in the best interests of national security and the security of our allies abroad.  If he'd have discounted the reports and all the sudden there were nuclear missiles flying out of Iraq everyone would have said he sat on his butt while Hussein was building nukes.

[Conan71]

quote:Originally posted by rwarn17588

Nice argument, Mr. Little. Have you been taking lessons from a certain U.S. attorney? []

Hey bud, I know where you get your hair cut, I might ask him to dip that comb in Nair the next time you go in. []

[Chicken Little]

quote:Originally posted by Conan71

Okay, CL, I told you I was taking a nap and you woke me up, damnit! [}:)]

Scooter Libby wasn't in the process of covering up a stack of lies that led us into the war.  He was tried for lying to federal investigators about what he said and/or who he told about Valerie Plame's identity in 2003.

And who was Valerie Plame?  Somemone in the Bush administration wanted to refute and/or punish Wilson for calling a lie a lie.    

British intelligence?  I call obfuscation.  US intelligence no longer believes that Iraq sought uranium.  It was a fake claim that ended up in the most important speech this President has ever made.  Maybe he didn't know it at the time.  In fact, I hope he didn't.  

But five months later, it was becoming obvious that WMD was a dry hole.  Wilson happened to be the first to say what everybody else was thinking and somebody wanted him to pay for it.  Libby is going to jail to protect that someone.

quote:I never said yellow cake was irrelevant...

What you said was, "The Iraq invasion would have happened with or without the yellow cake intelligence."  How is that different than saying yellow cake is irrelevent?

[Chicken Little]

Meanwhile, back in the "comfort zone"...

[Conan71]

Found not guilty of lying to the FBI about the Cooper conversation.

Found guilty of lying to the FBI about the Russert conversation.

Found guilty on two counts for lying to a grand jury and for obstructing justice.

Nice try at selective editing there, CL.

You keep trying to make Bush and Cheney the convicted criminals with your comments or at the very least commanders of a vast criminal conspiracy.  Sorry that's just not flying with me.  

Why do you think the impeachment rhetoric has died down since the mid-term elections?  Because the war has been used for political gain on both sides, mainly for a gain of control of the House and Senate by the Democrats.  House Democrats have known all along that impeachment talk was nothing more than election rhetoric and hype.

It's not because Ms. Pelosi has put the clamps on Mr. Conyers.  It's because House Democrats have known all along that the President has acted within the power granted to him and there is no legal basis for an impeachment.  I'll leave you and the other libs to be armchair lawyers and legislators with this point.

I'm not going to say that this war was Bush's best idea nor that we went in with both eyes wide open, but based on information deemed credible at the time- which is also some of the same information deemed credible during the Clinton administration, our leaders did what they thought was best in the interests of national security at the time.

Another convenient fact left out in the wake of the Libby convictions is that Joe Wilson was discredited in a bipartisan Senate sub-committee almost three years ago.  He is still being treated as a victim, when in reality this guy was a bungling Inspector Clouseau.

"...The panel found that Wilson's report, rather than debunking intelligence about purported uranium sales to Iraq, as he has said, bolstered the case for most intelligence analysts. And contrary to Wilson's assertions and even the government's previous statements, the CIA did not tell the White House it had qualms about the reliability of the Africa intelligence that made its way into 16 fateful words in President Bush's January 2003 State of the Union address."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A39834-2004Jul9.html

[cannon_fodder]

CL - Clinton was found not prosecuted in a political body.  That has no bearing on his guilt.

He told a grand jury and federal investigator that "I did not have sexual relations with that woman."  Then she produced a dress with his sperm on it.  Then he acquiesced and admitted having "relations" with her.  So his own admission, Bill Clinton is guilty of the same thing Scooter has been convicted of.

If you dont understand that, then you are really just a democrat on a witch hunt.  I am in no way defending Scooter, as I said above he should get whatever is coming.  I'm merely pointing out that this "SHOCKING" story isnt exactly a new turn of events in American politics.

and to head you off at the pass on the pardon - didnt Clinton pardon all of his friends that were convicted of fraud, mismanagement, and lying to protect his illegal financial activities?  Oh yeah, he did.

Both parties are corrupt and only concerned with their own power.  Screw 'em both.

[Wrinkle]

I do wonder how W^2 ('Weesel Wilson') has come this far without being prosecuted. He's admitted to lying twice.

The facts never seem to have gotten in the way here.

Libby did either lie or mis-remember, but so did a lot of other people. I'm willing to let the jurors speak there (though, the one who spoke, if representative, didn't seem to have a clue of what the trial was really about).

What is wrong, however, is for Democrats, and Wilson in particular to take it as validation to everything they've been promoting all along, which has little factual basis.

[Conan71]

Listening to Wilson's comments yesterday, he's anything but the patriot he's tried to make himself into.

[MichaelC]

It's amazing that you guys bring up Clinton, just because your buddies are wrong.  "They did something vaguely similar, so it must be ok for our guys to do it".

Here's Clinton's Statements

There's a big difference making false statements in a civil lawsuit, and obstructing a federal investigation.  You guys are making up a bunch of stuff about this being attached to "Whitewater", and there even being a federal grand jury attached to this.  You can claim that the Clinton impeachment was over pergery, but that's basically a lie.  Pergury is almost never prosecuted in a civil case.  And even if it was a federal case, Clinton had a well staked claim to the interpretation out.  It would have been nearly impossible to prosecute.

With Bush, impeachment just isn't likely.  The fed has less that two years to investigate everything, the Administration is obstructing justice, changing the rules when necessary, and loading up on plausible deniability.  The Democrats aren't on a witch hunt as the GOP was several years ago.  It's not likely to happen.