Cheney’s Aide Indicted

US Vice President Dick Cheney’s Chief of Staff, Lewis Libby, has been indicted by the special prosecutor investing the leaking of CIA agent, Valerie Plame Wilson’s identify to the media.

The charges against him are:

“obstructing justice, perjury and lying”.

I would have thought these are just business as usual in Washington (or Canberra for that matter in the local context).

In addition, President George W. Bush’s top political adviser, Karl Rove, was not indicted along with Mr Libby, but special counsel Patrick Fitzgerald has made clear to Mr Rove that he remains under investigation and in legal jeopardy, lawyers said.

This looks very much like a case of dirty politics going just that step or two too far.

Valerie Plame Wilson, is the wife of former US ambassor, Joseph Wilson. Wilson was critical of the Bush Administration’s use of dodgy evidence as part of its attempts to justify the decision (which had clearly already been taken well before the time) to go to war in Iraq. Plame is/was a CIA operative, and her identity was leaked to the media …which is a criminal offence.

The allegations are that Bush administration officials leaked her identity to get back at Wilson after his criticisms. Now, how surprising would it be if Libby as chief of staff, did this without his boss, Cheney’s, knowledge. Of course, it would all have happened in a “wink wink nudge nudge” type of way so that Cheney’s knowledge is all indirect and deniable. Likewise with Rove and Bush, when and if the prosecutor gets right to the bottom of that.