Joe Wilson Sees Iraq-Torture-Plame Mega-Scandal

Joe Wilson Sees Iraq-Torture-Plame Mega-Scandal
By Bob Fertik | Democrats.com

Joe Wilson believes the Torture Scandal, Iraq Scandal and even the Plame Scandal are one mega-scandal:

The disinformation campaign to manipulate public opinion in favor of the invasion, the torture program, and the illegal exposure of a clandestine CIA agent-my wife, Valerie Plame Wilson-were linked events. In their desperate effort to gather material to whip up public support, Cheney and others resorted to torture, well known in the intelligence craft to elicit inherently unreliable information. Cheney & Co. then pressured the CIA to put its stamp of approval on a series of falsehoods-26 of which were inserted into Secretary of State Colin Powell's speech before the United Nations Security Council. At the same time, Cheney was furiously attempting to suppress the true information that Saddam Hussein was not seeking yellowcake uranium in Niger. After I published the facts in an article in The New York Times in July 2003, Cheney tried to punish me and discredit the truth by directing the outing of a CIA operative who happened to be my wife.

Wow - not even Keith Olbermann has connected the Plame dots to the Iraq-Torture dots.

Wilson also pounced on Dick Cheney's sudden passion for declassification.

Among other documents Cheney should release is his testimony to Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald about the role he played in the treasonous leak of the identity of a covert CIA officer. His chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, was convicted of obstruction of justice and perjury for his efforts to ensure that the "cloud over the vice president," as Fitzgerald noted, was not penetrated.

As a witness in the Libby case, Cheney has the legal grounds to release his own testimony. If he feels more comfortable, he can ask permission, though he does not need it, from former President George W. Bush-and ask that Bush release his testimony as well. Because Cheney has called for transparency, why should he or Bush object? Then Pat Fitzgerald can make public the transcripts. It's time for this coverup to end.

The American people deserve to know the truth at last, not to depend on Cheney's selective and biased versions. Let us take the former vice president up on his demand for documents and declassify them all. Then, and only then, will we fully understand what he and his henchmen did in the name of the United States.

Amen.