A Shaky Briefing on Iran?

"Why wasn't any official willing to take personal responsibility for the reliability of alleged evidence of Iranian mischief, as opposed to being an anonymous source? If the evidence is solid enough to bear close scrutiny, why were all cameras and recording devices, including cellphones, banned from yesterday's Baghdad briefing?

"It's still hard to believe that they're really planning to attack Iran, when it's so obvious that another war would be a recipe for even bigger disaster. But remember who's calling the shots: Dick Cheney thinks we've had 'enormous successes' in Iraq."

Dick Cheney Watch

Will Cheney testify at Scooter Libby's trial? We're on pins and needles waiting to find out.

Scott Shane and Jim Rutenberg write in the New York Times: "One figure has dominated the trial of I. Lewis Libby Jr. without even showing up in the courtroom. Day after day, the jury has heard accounts of the actions of Vice President Dick Cheney, watched as his handwritten notes were displayed on a giant screen, heard how he directed leaks to the news media and ordered the White House to publicly defend Mr. Libby, his top aide and close confidante. . . .

"If he testifies, Mr. Cheney will bring to the jurors the awesome authority of his office and could attest to Mr. Libby's character as policy adviser and family man, and to his crushing workload and dedication to keeping the country safe. . . .

"Under cross-examination by Patrick J. Fitzgerald, a veteran prosecutor who is likely to be deferential but dogged with questions, the vice president may be forced to describe in uncomfortable detail how he directed the counteroffensive on Joseph C. Wilson IV, the former ambassador who accused the administration of twisting prewar intelligence.....

"If Mr. Cheney makes a statement that conflicts with the public record -- and nearly every witness so far has done so at least once -- it could prove embarrassing for him and for the administration."

David Johnston writes in the New York Times: "If he testifies as expected, Dick Cheney would be the first sitting vice president, at least in modern times, to appear as a witness in a criminal trial. And if he testifies in court, he may also be the first to give live testimony in defense of a subordinate's actions on his behalf, legal historians said."

Michael Isikoff writes in Newsweek with an important point: If Libby's lawyers want Cheney to testify, they'd better act quick.

Cheney "is due to leave the country for a 10-day trip to Asia on Feb. 19.

"So conveniently or not, the vice president's loyalty to his former top aide may now run smack up against the imperatives of U.S. foreign relations. The vice president recently called Libby 'a strong friend and supporter.' But Cheney already has meetings scheduled with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Australian Prime Minister John Howard, according to a recent press release from his office that has gotten virtually no media attention."

Other Libby News

Amy Goldstein and Carol D. Leonnig write for washingtonpost.com today: "Washington Post reporter Walter Pincus testified in court this morning that then-White House press secretary Ari Fleischer, not I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby, was the first person to tell him that a prominent critic of the Iraq war was married to undercover CIA officer Valerie Plame."

Richard B. Schmitt of the Los Angeles Times wonders if Libby himself will testify.

"Libby and his lawyers face a Hobson's choice about what is normally the make-or-break decision in criminal trials.

"His unusual defense to perjury charges in the CIA leak case -- that he misspoke because he was having to juggle so many other duties as Cheney's chief of staff -- would seem to require that he take the witness stand to explain it.

"But if he testifies, Libby also risks exposing himself to serious questions about his credibility and a grilling by a prosecutor with a reputation for doggedness."

Carol D. Leonnig writes in The Washington Post: "Just when you thought it was impossible for more harm to come to the national news media's reputation, the defense in the trial of Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff is about to present its case.

"Starting today, when Libby's attorneys try to show that he did not intentionally lie about his role in leaking the identity of CIA officer Valerie Plame, they will rely heavily on a string of journalists as witnesses. In several ways, those witnesses will be asked to raise doubts about the testimony and accuracy of other reporters, and some may end up tarnishing themselves or their sources."

The Big Picture

Linda Feldmann writes in the Christian Science Monitor that "what has captured the fascination of the press and observers of the Bush administration is how this case has pulled back the curtain on the inner workings of a White House known for being secretive and on the ways of elite Washington -- much of it less than flattering. And even if the perjury trial of a former aide may seem to be a sideshow to the weightier issues of the day, the context of the Libby trial remains central: the runup to the Iraq war and its aftermath when the rationale for the war came under question.

"'This trial stands for something much bigger than what it is,' says Paul Rothstein, a law professor at Georgetown University. 'In the public mind, it stands for, "Was Bush lying about the war, and was he willing to destroy a woman's career to cover up a lie about the war?" Viewed that way, it's a big case. The case doesn't actually go that far, but that's how it will be read if Libby is convicted.' "

Tom Raum writes for the Associated Press: "Sworn testimony in the perjury trial of I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby has shone a spotlight on White House attempts to sell a gone-wrong war in Iraq to the nation and Vice President Dick Cheney's aggressive role in the effort. . . .

"'What didn't he touch? It's almost like there was almost nothing too trivial for the vice president to handle,' said New York University professor Paul Light, an expert in the bureaucracy of the executive branch.

"'The details suggest Cheney was almost a deputy president with a shadow operation. He had his own source of advice. He had his own source of access. He was making his own decisions,' Light said."

Cheney's Power

Yochi J. Dreazen writes in the Wall Street Journal (subscription required): "Dick Cheney's diminished popularity outside the White House hasn't affected his power within the Bush administration, where he continues to hold considerable clout. From the surge of troops in Iraq to the tough line on Iran to opposition to tax increases, the vice president has helped to shape an array of recent administration policies. . . .

"Mr. Cheney's top foreign policy aide, John Hannah, shaped the administration's 'surge' proposal for Iraq. David Wurmser, Mr. Cheney's top Middle East aide, helped to craft the administration's tougher stance toward Iran. On the domestic front, senators from both parties said last week that Mr. Cheney's antitax positions had contributed to derailing talks between congressional Democrats and the administration on a budget plan that might include changes to the Social Security and Medicare entitlement programs. . . .

"But as his standing erodes among the administration's most conservative supporters, Mr. Cheney finds himself being criticized by former allies and emerging as a focal point for Republican anger about the war in Iraq. That is making it easier for Republicans to split with the administration on a number of issues, notably Iraq."

Dreazen writes that conservative displeasure with Cheney centers around Iraq, the administration's failure to limit government spending, and Cheney's "support for his daughter Mary's decision to have a child and raise it with her partner, another woman."

Cheney's Snub

The Associated Press reports: "Vice President Dick Cheney will not meet with Japan's defense minister during his trip to the country next week, a decision Japanese media characterized as a snub over the official calling the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq a 'mistake.'

"Kyodo news agency said Cheney has asked Japan not to schedule any talks with Defense Minister Jumio Kyuma, who criticized the decision to go to war last month because he said it was based on the erroneous assumption that Saddam Hussein's government had weapons of mass destruction.

"Kyuma later backtracked, saying he meant that the decision to attack Iraq should have been thought through more cautiously."

Young Cheney

Adam Liptak writes in the New York Times: "Returning to the White House after the Memorial Day weekend in 1975, the young aide Dick Cheney found himself handling a First Amendment showdown. The New York Times had published an article by Seymour M. Hersh about an espionage program, and the White House chief of staff, Donald H. Rumsfeld, was demanding action."

In Cheney's notes, "his own views shine through. He is hostile to the press and to Congress, insistent on the prerogatives of the executive branch and adamant about the importance of national security secrets."

Iraq Opinion Watch

Former NSA director William E. Odom writes in The Washington Post's Outlook section: "The new http://www.odni.gov/press_releases/20070202_release.pdf

National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq starkly delineates the gulf that separates President Bush's illusions from the realities of the war. Victory, as the president sees it, requires a stable liberal democracy in Iraq that is pro-American. The NIE describes a war that has no chance of producing that result. In this critical respect, the NIE, the consensus judgment of all the U.S. intelligence agencies, is a declaration of defeat."

Odom outlines what he calls the most pernicious myths invoked to try to sell the president's new war aims. Among them:

"1) We must continue the war to prevent the terrible aftermath that will occur if our forces are withdrawn soon. Reflect on the double-think of this formulation. We are now fighting to prevent what our invasion made inevitable! Undoubtedly we will leave a mess -- the mess we created, which has become worse each year we have remained. Lawmakers gravely proclaim their opposition to the war, but in the next breath express fear that quitting it will leave a blood bath, a civil war, a terrorist haven, a 'failed state,' or some other horror. But this 'aftermath' is already upon us; a prolonged U.S. occupation cannot prevent what already exists."

Odom, one of the earliest advocates of an immediate withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq, outlined his position in six major articles on NiemanWatchdog.org starting in August 2005.

Former national security adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski writes in a Los Angeles Times op-ed: "The war in Iraq is a historic strategic and moral calamity undertaken under false assumptions. It is undermining America's global legitimacy. Its collateral civilian casualties, as well as some abuses, are tarnishing America's moral credentials. Driven by Manichean impulses and imperial hubris, it is intensifying regional instability.

"Yet major strategic decisions in the Bush administration continue to be made within a very narrow circle of individuals -- perhaps not more than the fingers on one hand. With the exception of the new Defense secretary, Robert M. Gates, these are the same individuals who have been involved from the start of this misadventure, who made the original decision to go to war in Iraq and who used the original false justifications for going to war."

'Not Ready to Make Nice'

J. Freedom du Lac writes in The Washington Post: "The Dixie Chicks got the last laugh Sunday night. Rejected by the country establishment, the polarizing group was tickled to find itself in the warm embrace of the broader Recording Academy, which honored the Chicks with five Grammy Awards -- including the three biggest: album of the year, record of the year and song of the year. . . .

"' Not Ready to Make Nice,' the group's defiant answer to the angry country fans who'd criticized the group for criticizing Bush, won song of the year, the industry's top songwriting award."

Lead singer Natalie Maines told a London concert crowd, on the eve of the invasion of Iraq in 2003: "Just so you know, we're ashamed the president of the United States is from Texas."

As Geoff Boucher writes in the Los Angeles Times: "That led to radio bans, CD burnings, death threats and the Nashville career collapse for a group that had been among country music's most bankable acts."

Russert Watch

Scott Collins writes in his Los Angeles Times TV column: "Those of us who get a kick out of watching Tim Russert every Sunday on NBC's 'Meet the Press' are feeling a little hangdog these days. We always thought Big Russ Jr. was tough on the powerful. Now we learn that to some Washington media types on both the right and the left, he's just a tool for the powerful."

Collins's verdict: "Russert can seem overly dispassionate, particularly during a time when opinion has increasingly bled into the news. And it's the lack of emotion that can make his approach look, after a while, less like real toughness than a facsimile of it."

Cartoon Watch

John Sherffius on the Libby trial; Mike Luckovich on Tim Russert; Tony Auth on Bush and the truth.

And in the Los Angeles Times, Joel Pett showcases several withering Cheney cartoons.