When Dick Cheney's erstwhile chief of staff, I. Lewis Libby, was indicted on Friday for lying and generally obstructing the federal investigation into the leak of a CIA operative's name, old questions about the Bush administration's intelligence massaging activities in late 2002 and early 2003 boiled to the fore of American political consciousness. Cheney and Karl Rove (named ominously only as "Official A"), while not yet indicted for any criminal acts, were mentioned in the indictment and portrayed as working to include questionable intelligence in the administration's case for war.
This new public consciousness of the administration's less-than-honest activities during the build up to the invasion of Iraq had immediate consequences on Tuesday in the U.S. Senate. As popular opinion turns further against the war in Iraq and the public begins to question the ethics and honesty of those who work in the White House (see the Oct. 30 Washington Post-ABC News poll), Washington Democrats - traditionally cowardly creatures of comfort - seem to have finally grown a collective pair. On Tuesday, Harry Reid shut down the U.S. Senate for two hours by forcing it into a closed session to discuss Senate Intelligence Committee chairman Pat Roberts' lengthy delay in issuing the promised report on the administration's manipulation of intelligence in support of the Iraq War. Reid's actions resulted in the creation of a bipartisan panel to investigate the delay, and he has promised to keep forcing the Senate into closed session if Republicans continue to lollygag with regard to what is expected to be a politically damning report.
Reid's actions also coincide with new information coming out of Italy regarding the very content of the expected report. It appears that the forged documents which were the basis of Bush's declaration in Jan. 2003, which said that Saddam Hussein had sought Uranium from Niger, were passed to Washington by a now-indicted (on separate espionage charges) Pentagon staffer named Larry Franklin and a neoconservative activist named Michael Ledeen. Administration officials were aware of casual and unauthorized meetings between the two Americans, Italian intelligence officials and a previously discredited CIA source. That such fragile and clearly untrustworthy intelligence was allowed to become a part of the official narrative of Saddam Hussein as supreme threat to American security only reinforces the now popular view that Americans were bamboozled in 2002 and 2003. The result was a foreign policy disaster of untold proportions.
The significance of Tuesday's events in the U.S. Senate cannot be overstated. With an epic ideological fight brewing over the Neanderthal nominated Monday to the Supreme Court, Democrats must arm themselves for political warfare. The White House has apparently surrendered to the far-right wing of the Republican Party even as its support among Americans who actually care about ethics, honesty and effective government dwindles. In the wake of a succession of scandals and massive failures, President Bush is finally losing his carefully crafted image as a strong and effective leader. But the country is now more than ever in need of real leaders.
Bill Frist accused Senator Reid on Tuesday of hijacking the U.S. Senate. A more accurate vehicle-related analogy is that of a friend not letting a friend drive drunk with power.
