Indictment of Vice President's Former Chief of Staff Prompts Demand to Investigate White House Role in Misrepresenting Rationale for Iraq War

Interview with John Nichols, Washington correspondent for The Nation magazine, conducted by Scott Harris

After two years of investigation, Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald unveiled what he has learned thus far in looking into who in the White House leaked the identity of a covert CIA agent. On Oct. 28th Fitzgerald indicted Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff Lewis Libby on two counts of making false statements to federal agents, two counts of perjury and one count of obstruction of justice for misleading and deceiving the grand jury about how he learned that former US ambassador and White House critic Joseph Wilson's wife, Valerie Plame, worked as a CIA operative.

Vice President Cheney, it turns out, was the originator of information passed on to Libby, who in turn spoke with reporters about Wilson's wife's job at the CIA. While Fitzgerald did not indict President Bush's senior advisor Karl Rove, the federal prosecutor announced that the investigation of Rove - and others -- would continue.

Republicans have done their best to minimize Libby's indictment, while anti-war activists and 40 members of the House have urged Fitzgerald to broaden the scope of his probe, focusing on the lies and distortions used by the Bush administration to win support for their war with Iraq. Between The Lines' Scott Harris spoke with John Nichols, Washington correspondent for The Nation Magazine. Nichols, author of a biography on Dick Cheney, examines the indictment of Lewis Libby and the possible involvement of his boss in the scandals emanating from the dishonest justifications for the Iraq war.

Read Nichols' column online at www.thenation.com. Nichols, biography on Dick Cheney, will be published this fall under the new title, "The Rise and Rise of Richard B. Cheney."

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