Abstract

White House Dirty Tricks

As George W. Bush tries to persuade the nation and the world that he knows what he's doing in Iraq, his credibility is undermined by lies and leaks. On the same day that news reports revealed that the House Intelligence Committee's review of prewar intelligence on Iraq found it to be "fragmentary," "circumstantial" and full of "uncertainties," it was reported that the CIA asked the Justice Department to investigate whether White House officials had illegally disclosed the identity of an undercover CIA agent to punish or discredit her husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, who challenged the Administration on the war and on its charge that Iraq had sought uranium in Niger. Bush takes the issue seriously, White House press secretary Scott McClellan claimed, then noted that Bush had ordered no action in the White House to find out if his aides had made vindictive leaks, which may have violated federal law and undermined the nation's secret counterproliferation efforts. Can the Justice Department be trusted to probe the White House? Since the Washington Post has reported that "top" White House officials were the leakers, it's obvious that the investigation should not be overseen by Attorney General Ashcroft, who would be conducting an investigation that could compromise his own job. Now the House Intelligence Committee, led by Porter Goss, a Republican and a former CIA case officer, says the prewar intelligence (which Bush had claimed left "no doubt" that Iraq had WMDs) was iffy. If the committee's conclusion is sound, the question is, Did Bush & Co. exaggerate the intelligence, or were they conned by the intelligence community? The Bush White House is stuck defending the indefensible (its prewar statements) and denying the indictable (the campaign against the Wilsons).