Lynn C. Woolsey: “last week brought news of the conviction on four counts of perjury, obstruction of justice and lying to Federal…”

“last week brought news of the conviction on four counts of perjury, obstruction of justice and lying to Federal investigators of the Vice President's former Chief of Staff, Scooter Libby. It is easy to forget exactly what this case was about and its precise bearing on the ongoing bloody chaos in Iraq, so I think it is important to refresh our memories. What did Mr. Libby lie about? He lied about his alleged role in blowing the cover of a CIA agent named Valerie Plame Wilson. And why would Scooter Libby or anyone else in the White House even consider doing such a thing? Political retribution, of course. Valerie Wilson's husband, Ambassador Joseph Wilson, had been a public critic of the Bush administration's march to war. He had traveled to Africa at the behest of the CIA and concluded that there was nothing to the President's claim, made in the State of the Union no less, that uranium from Niger was helping Saddam Hussein build a nuclear weapon. Ambassador Wilson dared to question the White House on a critical matter of policy, indeed a matter of war and peace. He dared to suggest that they had taken the Nation to war under false pretenses. So they destroyed his wife's career, and in so doing may have imperiled our national security.”