WASHINGTON – Vice President Cheney personally orchestrated his office’s 2003 efforts to rebut claims that the administration used flawed intelligence to justify the war in Iraq and discredit a critic who he believed was making him look foolish, according to testimony Thursday in the criminal trial of his former chief of staff.
Cheney dictated talking points for a White House briefing in the midst of the controversy that summer, his former press aide, Cathie Martin, testified, stressing that the CIA never told him that a CIA-sponsored mission had found no real evidence that Iraq was trying to buy nuclear materials in Africa.
Aboard Air Force 2, on a trip back from the launch of a warship in Norfolk, Va., Cheney instructed his chief of staff, Lewis “Scooter” Libby, about responding to a Time magazine reporter who questioned how the faulty intelligence on Iraq had become one of the Bush administration’s central arguments for going to war.
In the dramatic replay of events that summer that unfolded Thursday in Libby’s federal court trial, Cheney was portrayed as a general on a political battlefield – enmeshed in tactics, but also deputizing his chief of staff to handle the dirty job of persuading journalists that his war critic was all wrong.
Cheney’s role was brought to life Thursday by Martin’s account. She is the first witness in the case who worked closely with Cheney and Libby as they tried to refute former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who was sent to Niger by the CIA to determine whether Iraq had sought uranium for a weapons program.
Her testimony was buttressed by previously unreleased documents, including notes and margin scribblings Cheney’s staff hastily jotted at their boss’ instruction.
Libby, 56, is charged with lying to investigators and a grand jury about how the identity of Wilson’s wife, CIA officer Valerie Plame, was leaked to the media days after Wilson went public with his claims that the administration had twisted his findings to justify the war in Iraq. Libby has pleaded not guilty, contending he misspoke and forgot about conversations he had with journalists amid the crush of his duties.
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