What Next?

Watching the detectives...

This is a critical moment for US democracy. A great crime has been exposed at the highest levels of government. So what do we do? Dig deep and look for the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? Or start taking the same Brave New World Soma drugs as that ultimate embedded journalist, White House puppy Bob Woodward:

There's a lot of innocent actions in all of this but ... this is a junkyard dog prosecutor ... I don't see an underlying crime here... I don't know how this is about the build-up to the war...

Et tu, Bob?

The real reporters today are over at Knight-Ridder, chasing the unresolved questions of who forged the Niger intelligence and how it got into Bush's speech:

Italy's military intelligence agency, SISMI, and people close to it, repeatedly tried to shop the bogus Niger uranium story to governments in France, Britain and the United States. That created the illusion that multiple sources were confirming the story.

The CIA had begun receiving intelligence reports based on the same forgeries in October 2001, but they could not be confirmed. Copies of the fake documents suddenly surfaced at a critical point in the White House's fall 2002 campaign to take the country to war in Iraq.

The CIA eventually determined that the earlier reports were "based on the forged documents" and were "thus ... unreliable," a presidential commission on unconventional weapons proliferation said in March.

-State Department intelligence analysts and some in the CIA discounted the uranium story. But White House officials, working through a back channel to one CIA unit, seized on the tale, and it was included in Bush's case for war.

That "back channel" sounds like Cheney's link to the Office of Special Plans. And sure enough:

With the White House's public campaign against Iraq in full swing, Nicolo Pollari, head of SISMI, met with then-Deputy National Security Adviser Stephen J. Hadley at the White House. Hadley later took the blame for including the false Niger allegation in Bush's 2003 State of the Union speech.

It seems clear that this is also the road that Pat Fitzgerald is now travelling with his ongoing investigations.

Karl "Official A" Rove still has a lot of explaining to do, of course, and the more serious charges could still be coming. But as things stand right now, this could all easily blow over and end with the ultimate insult, a Presidential Pardon for Libby.

So what does Bush do now? Walk away from his neo-conservative base and try to become the "non-partisan" President he always pretended he might be? Call a PRess conference and reveal everything he knows about the neo-con lies? Step down? Run away from the press for another three years? Pick up the phone and call Daddy? Or hang tight with the neo-cons and declare war on Syria? Bush still has three more years to plumb the depths, if that's what he chooses to do. Here's Robert Kuttner in the Globe:

Given all the temptations in this dangerous world, and all we've learned about the administration's cynicism in using the politics of fear and division to manipulate public opinion, one shudders to think what Rove, Cheney, et al. might dream up if Bush, in his present damaged condition, circles the wagons.

What does Fitzgerald do? Close the book and walk away? I don't think so... not unless he gets one of those mobster-like calls you can't refuse. Here's a good sign:

Mr. Fitzgerald was spotted Friday morning outside the office of James Sharp, Mr. Bush's personal lawyer.

What do the Democrats do? Admit their own complicity in the Bush war lies? Back Joe Wilson's call for some real answers from the President?

The attacks on Valerie and me were upsetting, disruptive and vicious. They amounted to character assassination. Senior administration officials used the power of the White House to make our lives hell for the last 27 months.

But more important, they did it as part of a clear effort to cover up the lies and disinformation used to justify the invasion of Iraq. That is the ultimate crime.

The war in Iraq has claimed more than 17,000 dead and wounded American soldiers, many times more Iraqi casualties and close to $200 billion.

It has left our international reputation in tatters and our military broken. It has weakened the United States, increased hatred of us and made terrorist attacks against our interests more likely in the future.

It has been, as Gen. William Odom suggested, the greatest strategic blunder in the history of our country.

We anticipate no mea culpa from the president for what his senior aides have done to us. But he owes the nation both an explanation and an apology.

17,000 Iraqi dead is a very conservative estimate, of course. These people, and their families, deserve some real answers.

What do we do? Keep on blogging, I guess...

Oh, and by the way:

Exxon Mobil, the world's largest publicly traded oil company, reported on Thursday that profit rose 75 percent from a earlier, to $9.92 billion. Revenue rose 31.9 percent, to $100.7 billion.

Shell is up 68% and Marathon Oil is up 40%. So much for that oil crisis we keep hearing about (and paying for).

UPDATE: Silvio Berlusconi, one of Bush's closest military allies in Iraq, is on his way to Washington this week. Sounds like he wishes he wasn't:

I tried many times to convince the American president not to go to war," Berlusconi was quoted as saying by La7 television network, which recorded the interview.

"I tried to find other avenues and other solutions.. I have never been convinced that war was the best system to make a country democratic and help it escape dictatorship, even a bloody one.."

Tell it to the hand, Silvio. Meanwhile, Sismi intelligence agency chief Nicolo Pollari is due to address a closed-door Italian parliamentary panel on November 3. Could be interesting... Io vado buscare alcuni URLs per la prensa Italiana..!