by TChris

It’s a familiar story: facing a stiff sentence, a defendant hopes to gain the government's favor (and “earn” a lesser penalty) by pointing the finger of blame at someone else. When there’s nobody else to blame, the desperate defendant makes something up, perhaps sensing from investigators’ questions that they have a target in mind.

Pvt. Michael Williams, convicted of murdering unarmed Iraqis, told an Army investigator that his platoon leader, 2nd Lt. Erick J. Anderson, gave him the order to kill. Now Williams says he did so only in exchange for a reduction of his life sentence to 25 years.

"I just felt that pressure of getting a life sentence instead of 25 years," Williams said. "It's just a lot of my fear."

by TChris

Kudos to the three Republicans who joined three Democrats today to protest reauthorization of the Patriot Act. Although House and Senate negotiators tentatively agreed to make most provisions of the existing law permanent, the bipartisan group of senators -- Larry Craig, John Sununu, Lisa Murkowski, Dick Durbin, Russ Feingold and Ken Salazar -- threatened to block the bill if it did not restore protections the Senate had included against "unnecessary and intrusive government surveillance."

"We cannot support a conference report that would eliminate the modest protections for civil liberties that were agreed to unanimously in the Senate," they said.

Sen. Bill Frist today said the Senate will need to address the legislation "before we leave" for Thanksgiving vacation at the end of the week. If the Patriot Act isn’t reauthorized before the end of the year, many of its more obnoxious provisions would blissfully expire. Frist, of course, doesn’t want that to happen.

by TChris

Dick Cheney stands at the intersection of the war in Iraq and secret meetings with oil company executives to shape energy policy. The administration’s consistent denials that the war had anything to do with oil may unravel if the oil executives are placed under oath and compelled to answer questions about the meeting with Cheney -- questions they evaded during their unsworn congressional testimony.

The Senate is demanding that executives from Big Oil return to testify about a secret meeting with Cheney on energy policy that took place soon after Bush came to office. The Big Oil men denied knowledge of the gathering in earlier testimony. But that testimony was not under oath so they cannot be charged with perjury. Cheney has been vigorously trying to keep secret what happened at this meeting. It is suspected the vice president and the oil companies hammered out an aggressive energy policy, and possibly discussed the administration’s plans to go to war in Iraq, well before 9-11.

by TChris

Rep. John Murtha, described in the linked AP story as “one of Congress' most hawkish Democrats,” today announced his support for the immediate withdrawal of troops from Iraq.

"It is time for a change in direction. Our military is suffering, the future of our country is at risk. We cannot continue on the present course. It is evident that continued military action in Iraq is not in the best interests of the United States of America, the Iraqi people or the Persian Gulf region," Murtha said.

How long before the Bush administration brands this decorated Vietnam War veteran as unpatriotic?

by TChris

Apparently adopting the “lie and deny” strategy that served the Bush administration well until lies spawned the threat of indictments, Iraq’s interior minister “accused critics Thursday of exaggerating reports of torture at a lockup seized by U.S. troops last weekend, saying inmates included both Shiites and Sunnis and only a handful showed signs of abuse.” Not so, says Catherine Philp, who reports that the interior minister was “extremely defensive and not very convincing.”

"Sunni groups have been trying to present evidence - photographs, videos and testimony - for months, but they have only been taken seriously now that the Americans have become involved. …

"I've been collecting testimony today from people who have been held in all sorts of centres: interestingly, none of them was held in the Jadriya prison - they were all held in other places, which have apparently not been declared. It suggests that this is just the tip of the iceberg. …

"Now it has become much more publicly clear that the Shia have been waging their own form of civil war through their security services and death squads.

The interior minister's spin is unlikely to succeed in light of torture photos that are appearing in the Iraqi press.

It's a court day here, so if you have something to say, here's some space. You pick the topics, there sure are alot of them these day.s

Lewis Libby's lawyers are crowing mightily about how Bob Woodward's disclosures help their case. In doing so, they misinterpret Patrick Fitzgerald's comments.

At the news conference the day of the Indictment, Fitzgerald did not say that Libby was the first Administration official to disclose Valerie Plame Wilson's identity to a reporter. He said Libby was the first person known to the Government to have disclosed her identity. There's a sea of difference between the two.

In fact, Mr. Libby was the first official known to have told a reporter when he talked to Judith Miller in June of 2003 about Valerie Wilson.

Now, later in the press conference, he does say:

He was at the beginning of the chain of phone calls, the first official to disclose this information outside the government to a reporter. And then he lied about it afterwards, under oath and repeatedly.

I think it's perfectly clear what Fitzgerald meant in light of his statement at the beginning of the conference - Libby was the first person the investigation uncovered who disclosed the information to a reporter.

Think Progress has put together a video chronicling the CIA leak scandal. They pulled footage directly from the White House, from network news and other sources. The idea is that someone can watch this video and, in just a few minutes, understand what has happened and why it's important.

Update: AmericaBlog found some big inconsistencies in Woodward's latest account.

Woodward says that when he learned Plame's name (in mid-June 2003), he was in the middle of finishing a book, and that's why he didn't want to come clean with his executive editor at the Washington Post about his involvement in the Valerie Plame affair - he was afraid of getting subpoenaed while working on the book.

...But no one was being subpoenaed in June 2003, no one was even talking about subpoenas at that time. Patrick Fitzgerald wasn't even appointed as special prosecutor until December 2003, and the first journalists, from NBC and Time, weren't subpoenaed until May 2004. Judy Miller wasn't subpoeaned until August 2004, and she didn't do jail time until summer 2005.

Arianna has a great roundup of blog reaction to Bob Woodward and his dramatic morphing from one who reports the news to one who becomes the news.

She also called Carl Bernstein today and has some choice quotes from him.

Raw Story reports that Bob Woodwards source for the information that Joseph Wilson's wife worked for the CIA and was involved in the decision to send Wilson to Niger was Stephen Hadley.

As Woodward has said, the source did not mention that she was a covert employee, only an analyst in the weapons of mass destruction unit.

Hadley was a member of the White House Iraq Group.

Background:

• Report: Wurmser Told Libby and Hadley

• Condi Rice Press Briefing, 7/11/03:

by Last Night in Little Rock

The NY Times reports this afternoon that a Congressional conference committee compromise was reached just before dawn today on the PATRIOT Act renewal. Some provisions that sunset December 31st are extended 7 years, but Democrats claim 4 was agreed to and that they were cut out of the final negotiations. As for the infamous National Security Letters:

Bob Woodward apologized today to the Washington Post and said he did not reveal his source until last month because he wanted to avoid being subpoenaed by Fitzgerald.

Woodward, an assistant managing editor and best-selling author, said he told Leonard Downie Jr. that he held back the information because he was worried about being subpoenaed by Patrick J. Fitzgerald, the special counsel in the case.

"I hunkered down. I'm in the habit of keeping secrets. I didn't want anything out there that was going to get me subpoenaed."

The Post is standing by Woodward. Others are far less charitable.