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.

by TChris

It’s a crime to lie to Congress (although, sadly, it isn’t a crime for Congress to lie to us). Will anything happen to the oil executives who apparently lied when they testified (albeit not under oath, for reasons that are now obvious) that nobody from their companies met with Vice President Cheney’s energy task force?

[A White House] document, obtained this week by The Washington Post, shows that officials from Exxon Mobil Corp., Conoco (before its merger with Phillips), Shell Oil Co. and BP America Inc. met in the White House complex with the Cheney aides who were developing a national energy policy, parts of which became law and parts of which are still being debated.

Back when Bernie Kerik withdrew as Bush's nominee for Homeland Security Chief, there were allegations of misconduct.

The New York Times today reports:

New Jersey officials said yesterday that Bernard B. Kerik abused his position as New York City correction commissioner in the late 1990's by accepting tens of thousands of dollars from a construction company that he was helping to pursue business with the city. They say the company has long had ties to organized crime.

After Kerik withdrew his name from consideration for HSC Chief, the New Jersey Gaming Commission began an investigation.

by TChris

Where do you suppose officials in the Iraqi government would have gotten the idea that it's acceptable to torture detainees?

Iraq's government said Tuesday that it had ordered an urgent investigation of allegations that many of the 173 detainees American troops discovered over the weekend in the basement of an Interior Ministry building in a Baghdad suburb had been tortured by their Iraqi captors. A senior Iraqi official who visited the detainees said two appeared paralyzed and others had some of the skin peeled off their bodies by their abusers.

by TChris

The FBI thinks environmental activists (and animal rights activists) are the most serious domestic terrorist threat facing the US, so it isn’t surprising that it took 50 FBI agents to raid the home of a 27 year old environmentalist who, it turns out, hadn’t violated any laws. The FBI thought Josh Connole was responsible for vandalizing SUV’s at dealerships in the Los Angeles area. He was arrested and held for four days before (to the FBI’s embarrassment) the real culprit was discovered. (TalkLeft background here.)

An assistant U.S. attorney had advised the FBI that it lacked probable cause to arrest Connole, but Special Agent Edward Ochotorena arrested him anyway. FBI agents were following Connole when they noticed that he was going toward a Pomona police station. Ochotorena arrested Connole for “officer safety” reasons (apparently believing it’s unsafe to allow environmentalists into a police building), but Connole was actually going to the police station to report that he was being followed.

Ochotorena should have realized his error and immediately released Connole, particularly after the AUSA chewed him out for making the bogus arrest.