Pardon Libby?

Although Al(phonse) Capone had dominated organized crime in Chicago for years, he was able to escape punishment until 1931 when he was sent to prison for tax evasion. Similarly, neoconservatives, who treasonously tricked America into waging a war which is against our national interest, have thus far escaped punishment. I(rving) Libby, however, like Capone, has been convicted of lesser offenses. As noted by Bob Woodward, Libby, a "protege of Paul Wolfowitz," powerfully held "a trifecta of positions probably never before held by a single person." ("Plan of Attack" p. 48) He was the Vice President's Chief of Staff, the Vice President's National Security Advisor, and Assistant to the President. James Bamford ("A Pretext for War" p. 315) reports that "archneoconservative" Libby had been "one of the key people pushing the separate intelligence channel," i.e. the Pentagon's Office of Special Plans, which cherry-picked unverified pro-war material and stove-piped it directly to the White House, specifically to Libby himself. Libby then disseminated this material, as in, for instance, a January 25, 2003 presentation concluding that Saddam Hussein had WMD and numerous strong ties to al Qaeda. Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage "was appalled at what he considered overreaching and hyperbole. Libby was drawing only the worst conclusions from fragments and silky threads." (Woodward, p.289-290) Cheney and Libby would go to the CIA to pressure analysts to support their claims that Saddam was trying to build a nuclear bomb and had links to al Qaeda. (Bamford, p. 335-336) Michael Isikoff and David Corn write, "Battered by administration officials on the al-Qaeda and Baghdad link, [Paul] Pillar and other CIA officials were looking to be on the team in other ways. So the CIA, perhaps in an act of bureaucratic overcompensation, was willing to give the White House what it wanted on the WMD issue. Indirectly--but significantly--the obsession of Feith and Wolfowitz at the Pentagon and Scooter Libby and Cheney at the White House to find 'the connection' between Saddam and Osama bin Laden was a factor that led to the CIA's overstating the WMD case." ("Hubris" p. 140) For Colin Powell's infamous Feb. 5 UN address, Libby provided Powell with a "60-page version of the case" [for war.] (Woodward, p. 297) Libby was also a member of the secret White House Iraq Group (WHIG), set up in August 2002, whose "job was to sell the war to the general public." (Bamford, p. 318) Libby's pro-war credentials were long-standing. In 1992, as deputy to then secretary of defense Wolfowitz, Libby and Wolfowitz wrote the "Defense Planning Guidance" or Wolfowitz memorandum. (Patrick Buchanan "Where the Right Went Wrong" p. 42) "Disowned by the Bush I White House, the memo was seemingly forgotten. But in Sept 2002, with Cheney, Wolfowitz and Libby restored to power, the Wolfowitz memo reappeared in an official document released by the White House, titled The National Security Strategy of the United States." (Buchanan, p. 44) George Packer writes, "The Defense Planning Guidance of 1992 foreshadows with uncanny accuracy, down to the wording of key sentences, the second President Bush's National Security Strategy of 2002, which poured the foundation for what came to be called the Bush Doctrine, and its first test, the Iraq War." ("The Assassins' Gate" p 14) This Bush Doctrine of pre-emptive unilateral wars is destroying America. Pardon Libby?