War Profiteers have no worries

Okay, here’s the situation. It’s clear from the Libby trial that the White House, most notably Dick Cheney, was in a full out effort to discredit Joe Wilson. Libby’s pathetic excuse that he learned of Wilson’s identity from Tim Russert has been torn to shreds today by Russert himself, as well as others. As an aside, it seems like the Libby defense has been to portray Libby as a scapegoat for the leak, blaming it on Karl Rove, and essentially seeking to discredit Judy Miller, who spent 85 days in jail protecting Libby. With friends like that ….

Libby has told prosecutors that he learned of Mrs. Wilson’s CIA status from the vice president, forgot that, and then remembered that he had heard it from the vice president after the heard it later from a reporter. (I can’t make this up.) It’s clear that Cheney and Libby were working with quite a bit of vigor to control the media’s take on Joe Wilson’s op-ed piece that essentially discredited what Bush had said in the state of the union address; that Iraq was not seeking nuclear material from Niger.

They are guilty, everyone knows it, but it won’t matter. They can nail Libby to the wall and Bush will pardon him. The trial is only a formality. In light of this it is easy to understand why Rumsfeld was not let go until after the election. When the democrats gained control of the Congress, Bush “fired” Rumsfeld, not because he thought it was time for a change, but because they knew the Democratic congress would begin holding hearings on Iraq. If Rumsfeld was no longer Secretary of Defense he wouldn’t have to testify before the committee. He won’t be held accountable. It’s all iron clad. They will toss out a few low level crooks like the Army officers that profited by steering contracts in Iraq, but the profligate war profiteers like KBR will never be called to account for a single nickel of ill gotten gains. The profiteers like Cheney, Rumsfeld and assorted other criminals will walk off far richer than they were when they came into office and they will never lose a wink of sleep over the people they sent off on a fools errand that never came home.