Barry Sheppard, San Francisco
The October 28 indictment of Lewis "Scooter" Libby, US Vice-President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, on charges of obstruction of justice and perjury are the latest blow to the already reeling administration of US President George Bush. The charges stem directly from the war against Iraq and reflect the growing unpopularity of that war.
Libby's indictment stems from an investigation of the "outing" in July 2003 of covert CIA officer Valerie Plame by the administration in retaliation against her husband, Joseph Wilson, for exposing one of the administration's lies to justify the war.
A former US diplomat in Africa, Wilson was sent by the CIA in February 2002 to Niger to investigate a claim being made by Cheney's office that Iraq had bought uranium ore from Niger. Wilson found the claim to be a lie, reporting his findings to the CIA.
In January 2003, Bush repeated the lie in his State of the Union address to Congress as part of his administration's justification for going to war against Iraq.
The July 6, 2003, New York Times carried an article by Wilson in which he exposed the lie and attacked the Bush administration for "manipulating intelligence" about Saddam Hussein's weapons programs to justify the March 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq.
Shortly afterwards, the administration "leaked" the information about Valerie Pame to a few reporters, one of whom, Robert Novack, printed it. Another reporter who was told was Judith Miller of the New York Times. Miller's source was Libby.
It's an open secret that Bush's top adviser, Karl Rove, was the source of the leak to Novack, and Rove may also be indicted.
Miller has long been in cahoots with Libby, and was the administration's most important media mouthpiece in whipping up war sentiment before the Iraq invasion. In front-page article after article in the NYT, she made the case that the US was in immediate danger of "weapons of mass destruction" attack from Iraq, including possibly from nuclear weapons.
Given the NYT's reputation for factual reporting (more a myth than a reality), newspapers around the country repeated the charges, helping create a solid wall of support for the war. The majority of US citizens fell for the WMD lies. They were encouraged in this by the fact that the Democrats in Congress, with a few exceptions, enthusiastically endorsed the war and voted for it.
Many US citizens at the time saw through the lies. Two million marched against the war during its buildup, representing some tens of millions — a minority to be sure, but a substantial one.
The Democrats are now bleating that they were "misled" by the administration, a ridiculous charge unless they are pleading severe mental retardation given that so many millions of ordinary citizens knew the truth.
The 1982 law that the Bush administration broke in outing Valerie Plame makes it a crime to publicly reveal the identities of CIA officers. Ironically, the law was passed in an attempt to get former CIA officer Phillip Agee, who had exposed CIA crimes and named names of CIA personnel engaged in that criminal activity. Agee found refuge in Cuba.
There are other legal problems for the administration. Tom DeLay, the Republican leader of the House of Representatives, is under indictment with two of his cronies for money laundering in a scheme to fund Republican candidates. Senate Republican leader Bill Frist is under investigation for a deal where he sold stocks in his own company just before a bad earnings report was released that sent the stock price crashing.
These investigations and prosecutions could not have happened before the last eight months or so, because of the political pressure to get behind the president during wartime. But support for the war has been steadily deteriorating, and reached a point some months ago where a majority of US citizens think going to war against Iraq was wrong to begin with.
The vigil by Cindy Sheehan outside Bush's ranch in Texas in August suddenly gave expression to the new mood, and put the administration's war policy on the defensive.
Then came the administration's calculating callous response to the devastation of New Orleans by Hurricane Katrina. Tens of millions saw on TV the plight of thousands of poor people, mainly black, who were abandoned by the government. Hundreds were drowned and tens of thousands lost their homes. The facts of deeply rooted racism and poverty that are built into the US capitalist system were graphically brought home and further alienated people, including many better-off whites.
The issues of the war and of Katrina became intertwined at the September 24 anti-war demonstrations, the largest since the war began.
Among African-Americans, Bush's approval rating has fallen to just 2%, in a poll with a margin of error of 3%!
At a mainly black march in October, Louis Farakan, the leader of the Nation of Islam (which organised the march), lambasted Bush on the war and Katrina, but also attacked the Democrats. He made a call for a third party to represent blacks and all poor people. This is significant because Farakan is not known for leading politically, but he felt constrained to express black people's outrage.
The Bush administration is reeling. But the Democrats are not offering any credible alternative. Farakan is right. We need a third party — one that fights for the interests of working people at home and abroad.
From Green Left Weekly, November 9, 2005.
Visit the Green Left Weekly home page.