Another embarassing administrative cover-up

So Scooter Libby was found guilty, but of what? There were four felony counts which included making false statements to the FBI, lying to a grand jury and obstructing a probe into the leak of Valerie Plame's identity. I guess my question is what was the crime? It seems to me these are smaller crimes in direct relation to the real crime. So, when do we find out about the first and real crime.

It is my understanding the crime first happened way back when proof/support was needed for beginning the war in Iraq. At this time Cheney approached the CIA and requested they find information regarding Iraq's purchase of certain materials used to produce non-conventional weapons from an African country. The CIA approached Valerie Plame's husband, Ambassador Wilson, to go on a fact finding mission. Now, it is this writer's understanding that he was asked to do this NOT because his wife was a CIA operative, but because of his background in Niger, his background as an Ambassador and his ability to ask questions in a diplomatic manner yet still get to the heart of the issue and collect facts. Once Wilson returned to the US with NO evidence to support the White House claim, they then took a new route in order to find "facts" to further their false claims, at this point pulling the UK into the foray and using their "intelligence" to justify our "need". I suppose if the Ambassador Wilson had found true evidence that backed the White House's claim, none of this would have happened. As it was, he seemed truly surprised by what the White House insisted, did a bit more research after hearing the speeches aired to all of us, and needed, in good conscience, to let the American populace know what he knew, first hand. So he submitted his report to the New York Times.

"I thought the Niger matter was settled and went back to my life. (I did take part in the Iraq debate, arguing that a strict containment regime backed by the threat of force was preferable to an invasion.) In September 2002, however, Niger re-emerged. The British government published a "white paper" asserting that Saddam Hussein and his unconventional arms posed an immediate danger. As evidence, the report cited Iraq's attempts to purchase uranium from an African country.

Then, in January, President Bush, citing the British dossier, repeated the charges about Iraqi efforts to buy uranium from Africa.

The next day, I reminded a friend at the State Department of my trip and suggested that if the president had been referring to Niger, then his conclusion was not borne out by the facts as I understood them. He replied that perhaps the president was speaking about one of the other three African countries that produce uranium: Gabon, South Africa or Namibia. At the time, I accepted the explanation. I didn't know that in December, a month before the president's address, the State Department had published a fact sheet that mentioned the Niger case...

...Having encountered Mr. Hussein and his thugs in the run-up to the Persian Gulf war of 1991, I was only too aware of the dangers he posed.

But were these dangers the same ones the administration told us about? We have to find out. America's foreign policy depends on the sanctity of its information. For this reason, questioning the selective use of intelligence to justify the war in Iraq is neither idle sniping nor "revisionist history," as Mr. Bush has suggested. The act of war is the last option of a democracy, taken when there is a grave threat to our national security. More than 200 American soldiers have lost their lives in Iraq already. We have a duty to ensure that their sacrifice came for the right reasons."
(http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0706-02.htm)

The above paper, in it's entirety, can be read at the address posted. This New York Times article was cut out of the paper by Dick Cheney, marked up with explanations and comments, and passed on to White House personnel so they could further manipulate the mindset of the American people, begin covering the behinds of their bosses, AND start the ruination of Valerie Plame's career as a useful operative in the Central Intelligence Agency as well as attempt to besmirch the good name of one of our own honorable American Ambassadors. When things don't go the way we want them, we manipulate the information so that we can get what we wanted to begin with, and that, in a nutshell, is what I think is the mindset of our present administration.

Pretty sad that they can play with their constituents in this manner, and even sadder that we allow them the ability to do so. I am sickened by this; the cover-ups, the falsification of intelligence, the gross abuse by our government to push agenda's for personal gratification. An agenda that has done nothing, NOTHING for the Iraqi people except send them into civil war, and has done nothing for our soldiers and the soldiers of foreign countries except send them home broken and torn or in flag draped coffins.

What the hell is wrong with these people? It puts me in mind of Richard Nixon and of Iran-Contra. It makes me question the values of the Republican Party. It seems in the last two generations (with the exception of Gerald Ford who was a truly generous and morally ethical individual) once one of their representatives arrives into a seat of power, egotism and self-gratification become the core of the administrations. They seem to have become the "PIT BULL" of political parties.

What was that ugly thing that happened in the Clinton administration? Oh yea, he got a blow job by a young woman that I am still convinced was in the Republican Pocket . I mean, for God's sake, who gets sperm on their dress and doesn't send it to the cleaners (FOR TWO FREAKIN YEARS) unless she is PLANNING to blackmail or embarrass the person to whom the bodily fluid belonged to begin with? Well people, better one man get pleasure from some under the desk sexcapade than an entire population get the pain of being reamed in the hoo-haw by our own elected personnel. Not only is this uncomfortable and degrading but it is extremely expensive!