Cheney's link in the chain

Vice president's role in leak is open to supposition, though only referred to twice in Libby indictment

BY J. JIONI PALMER | WASHINGTON BUREAU

October 29, 2005

WASHINGTON - He's directly referred to only twice in the 22-page indictment of his former chief of staff, I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

While the five-count indictment clearly spells out what role Libby allegedly played in the imbroglio, it raises tantalizing questions about how deeply involved the nation's second-in-command was.

The indictment depicts Vice President Dick Cheney's office as the fulcrum of the Bush administration's efforts to discredit former ambassador Joseph Wilson, who was going public with his finding debunking the White House's assertion that Iraq had sought uranium from Niger.

Never mentioned specifically by name - only by title - the indictment identifies Cheney as the person who told Libby exactly where Valerie Plame, Wilson's wife, worked inside the Central Intelligence Agency. The document also places Cheney on the vice presidential plane when Libby and "other officials" crafted how Libby should respond to media inquiries about Plame. Prosecutors also allege that in grand jury testimony Libby misrepresented his conversations with reporters and how he found out that Plame worked for the CIA.

In a prepared statement Friday, Cheney said Libby "is one of the most capable and talented individuals I have ever known," but declined to comment further because of pending legal proceedings.

The indictment notes that Libby first learned from an undisclosed senior CIA officer that Plame "worked for the CIA" on June 11, 2003, and on the same day or the next from an undersecretary of state, apparently Marc Grossman. Neither mentioned that she was an undercover officer, whose identity is legally protected.

It was Cheney who advised him "that Wilson's wife worked at the Central Intelligence Agency in the Counterproliferation Division," according to the indictment.

The division is a clandestine office that conducts secret operations regarding the stockpiling and manufacturing of weapons of mass destruction.

It is not known if Cheney or Libby knew that the counterproliferation division was an undercover office under the Operations Directorate.

However, former intelligence officials told Newsday that both Cheney and Libby were such avid consumers of intelligence that it is unlikely they didn't know.

"And he [Libby] made many trips to CIA" headquarters in suburban Virginia, said Mel Goodman, a 21-year CIA intelligence official.

Vincent Cannistraro, a former operations officer who also worked at the National Security Council during the Reagan administration, concurred, saying, "There's no way they wouldn't know."

The indictment also does not say how or when Cheney first learned that Plame was a counterproliferation officer. It says that Libby "understood that the Vice President had learned this information from the CIA."

The New York Times this week disclosed that the special prosecutor had obtained notes prepared by Libby on June 12, the same day Libby reportedly learned from Cheney that Plame worked for the undercover division. The report said Libby's notes indicated Cheney had learned of Plame's identity from then-CIA director George Tenet, who testified before the grand jury in spring 2004.

But two sources who asked for anonymity said Tenet never discussed Plame with Cheney.