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Jlortlattb © bseruer______________________ November 2. 200S
Indictment Casts Light on Push to War
Bush official
charged in CIA
leak investigation
(AP) — The vice president’s chief of
staff. 1. Lewis “Scooter" Libby Jr., was
indicted Friday on charges of obstruction
of justice, perjury and making false state­
ments in the CIA leak investigation, a
politically charged case that casts a harsh
light on President Bush’s push to war.
Libby. 55, resigned and left the White
House.
Karl Rove. Bush’s closest adviser, es­
caped indictment Friday but remained
under investigation, his legal status cast­
ing a dark cloud over a White House
already in trouble. The U.S. military death
toll in Iraq exceeded 2,000 this week, and
the president’s approval ratings are at the
lowest point since he took office in 2001.
Bush praised Libby’s service and said
he is “presumed innocent and entitled to
due process.”
Friday’s charges stemmed from a two-
year investigation by special counsel
Patrick Fitzgerald into whether Rove, Libby
have conducted my re­
spo n sib ilities h o n o r­
ably and truthfully, in­
cluding with respect to
this investigation.”
He added, “lam con­
fident that at the end of
this process I will be
completely and totally
exonerated.”
In h is c h a rg e s,
F itz g e ra ld ac c u se d
Libby o f lying about his
conversations with re­
porters, not outing a
spy.
“Mr. Libby’s story
that he was at the tail
end o f a chain of phone
calls, passing on from
one reporter what he
heard from another, was
not true. It was false,”
Bush Administration official I. Lewis ‘Scooter’ Libby Jr. leaves his home in the back o f a
the prosecutor said. “He
limousine on his way to the White House Friday.
was at the beginning of
the chain of the phone
In a statement released Friday after­ calls, the first official todisclose this infor­
or any other administration officials know­
mation outside the government to a re­
ingly revealed the identity of CIA officer noon, Libby said, “I’ve spent much of my
porter. And he lied about it afterward,
V alerie Plame or misled investigators about career working on behalf of the American
people and for the safety of our citizens. I under oath, repeatedly.”
their involvement.
Libby’s indictment is a political embar­
rassment for the president, paving the
way for a possible trial renewing the focus
on the administration’s faulty rationale for
going to war against Iraq — the erroneous
assertion that Saddam Hussein possessed
weapons of mass destruction.
The indictment could also mean that
Cheney, who prizes secrecy, will be called
upon as a witness to explain why the
adm inistration launched a cam paign
against Plame’s husband, diplomat Jo­
seph Wilson, a critic of the war who ques­
tioned Bush’s assertion that Iraq had
sought nuclear material.
The grand jury indictment charged
Libby with one count o f obstruction of
justice, two of perjury and two of making
false statements. If convicted on all five,
he could face as much as 30 years in prison
and $ 1.25 million in fines.
Democrats suggested the indictment
was just the tip of the iceberg. Senate
Minority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev„ said
the case was larger than Libby and "about
how the Bush White House manufactured
and manipulated intelligence in order to
bolster its case for the war in Iraq and to
discredit anyone who dared to challenge
the president.”
Conservative Judge Nominated
Bush pick
unites party,
divides nation
(AP) — President Bush nomi­
nated Appeals Court Judge Samuel
Alito to the Supreme Court on
Monday, hoping to usher in a his­
toric new era of judicial conserva­
tism while ending a Republican di­
vide that doomed an earlier pick.
Members of the Senate’s Demo­
cratic minority signaled a poten­
tially bruising confirmation battle
ahead, with abortion a key issue.
Sen. Harry Reid of Nevada, the
party ’ s leader, asked whether Alito
was “too radical for the American
people” and wondered aloud “why
President Bush introduces Appeals Court Judge Samuel Alito as
his latest pick for the Supreme Court.
those who want to pack the court
with judicial activists are so much
more enthusiastic about him” than
Harriet Miers.
Bush, naming a replacement for
Justice Sandra Day O ’Connor four
days after Miers withdrew her name;
said Alito “has a deep understand­
ing of the proper role o f judges in
our society.”
“He understands that judges are
to interpret the laws, not to impose
their preferences or priorities on
the people,” the president said.
Within hours, Alito collected sup­
port from many of the critics who
had opposed Miers.
Alito’s politically conservative
views were not in dispute. “O f course
he’s against abortion,” his 90-year-
old mother, Rose, told reporters at
her home in Hamilton, N.J.
Despite the unguarded com ­
ments of a proud mother. Sen. Arlen
Specter, who will chair Judiciary
Committee hearings, told reporters
in the Capitol, “There is a lot more
to do with a woman’s right tochoose
than how you feel about it person­
ally.” The Pennsylvania Republi­
can cited adherence to legal prece­
dent in rulings over 30 years up­
holding abortion rights.
Later, after a private meeting,
Specter said, “I have no reason to
catalogue him as an ideologue.”
A lito pledged at the W hite
House to uphold the duty of a judge
to “interpret the Constitution and
the laws faithfully and fairly.”
An Iraqi woman and her children walk past a U.S. soldier
covering other soldiers from possible sniper fire Sunday at a
checkpoint in Mosul, north o f Baghdad.
Deadly Month for U.S. Troops
(A P)— Seven U.S. troops were
killed by bombs near Baghdad, the
military said Monday, making O c­
tober the bloodiest m onth for
Americans in Iraq since January.
U.S. jets struck insurgent targets
near the Syrian border and a, least
six people were killed.
Four soldiers from the A rm y’s
Task Force Baghdad soldiers died
Monday when their patrol struck
a roadside bomb in Youssifiyah,
12 miles south of Baghdad in an
area known as the “triangle of
death."
I believe in my
Two other soldiers from the
29th Brigade Combat Team were
also killed in a bombing Monday
near Balad, 50 miles north of
Baghdad, The U.S. military also
said a Marine was killed Sunday
near Amiriyah, 25 miles west of
Baghdad.
A week after the U.S. death toll
since the March 2003 invasion
passed the 2,000 mark, it rose to at
least 2,026 with the attacks; they
brought to 93 the number of Ameri­
cans to die in October, the highest
since 107 died in January.
Treatment of Detainees Defended
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(A P) — D efense S ecretary
D onald H. Rum sfeld on Tuesday
defended the gov ern m en t's d e­
cision not to perm it U nited N a­
tions hum an rights investigators
to meet with detained terror sus­
pects at G uantanam o Bay.
Last week the Pentagon invited
three U.N. experts to visit the
detention facilities in Cuba. But
while the experts said they were
happy the invitation finally came
after more than three years of
requests, they said they would
not go if they could not interview
prisoners.
Rumsfeld told a Pentagon news
conference that it was not appro­
priate to give U.N. investigators
the sam e ex te n siv e access at
Guantanamo that has been granted
to officials of the International Com­
mittee of the Red Cross.
Rum sfeld also was asked why
he believes some of the detainees
have been conducting a hunger
strike.
“W hat they’re trying to do is
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld with Secretary o f State
Condolezza Rice during a press briefing at the Pentagon Satur­
day. (AP photo)
cap tu re press a tten tio n , o b v i­
ously, and th e y ’ve succeeded,”
he replied.
Seven o f the detainees on the
hunger strike are hospitalized and
being force-fed, according to the
governm ent.
Many of the nearly 500 prison­
‘ri’f ^Inrtlanh (©bseruer Established 1970
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ers at G uantanam o Bay have been
held m ore than 3 1/2 years w ith­
out charge or access to law yers.
M ost were captured in the A f­
ghanistan war, suspected o f ties
to the al-Q aida terrorist network
or the Taliban regim e ousted by
U.S. forces in late 2001.
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