"WASHINGTON (AP) -- Information attributed to Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff in New York Times reporter Judith Miller's interview notes is incorrect, offering prosecutors a potential lead to tracking the bad information to its original source.
Miller disclosed this weekend that her notes of a conversation she had with I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby on July 8, 2003 stated Cheney's top aide told her that the wife of Bush administration critic Joseph Wilson worked for the CIA's Weapons Intelligence, Non-Proliferation, and Arms Control (WINPAC) unit."
Was it a mistake, or something more sinister? Unknowingly leaking the identity of an undercover operative is not a crime. Is this how Libby and the others expect to get off? Is it a red herring thrown out to muddy the already mirky waters of the case?
Even if the inaccuracy helps determine the source, what does it do for the case as a whole? The perpetrators are experienced obfuscators and conspiratists. Remember how Olly North got off from criminal charges in the Iran-Contra debacle due to legal technicalities? It didn't matter that he did break the law, he wasn't convictable. These people know how to manipulate the law, how to subvert the rules. Fitzgerald will have to be on his toes, and a veritable superman when it comes to seeing through the walls of political subterfuge. I wish him all the luck in the world, because he's going to need it.
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