The Bush administration is reeling, but still standing, as the investigation into the exposure of a CIA agent's identity culminates, writes Paul Wulfsberg from Washington On Friday, the White House saw one of its top officials, United States Vice- President Dick Cheney's powerful Chief of Staff I Lewis "Scooter" Libby, resign after being indicted on charges of obstruction of justice and two counts each of false statements in a Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) enquiry and perjury. As bad as things look for the ruling Republican Party now, it could have been worse. Karl Rove, President Bush's top strategist, has survived for the time being but may still be indicted later this month, while Cheney himself so far does not appear to be a target of the investigation. The charges come as a two-year enquiry into the outing of Valerie Plame, an undercover CIA agent, draws to a close. Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald, who previously had avoided talking to the media, held an hour-long press conference in which he announced his findings so far -- no charges for the exposure of Plame's identity yet, but only for crimes allegedly committed during the investigation itself. "Since the indictment is narrowly drawn, however, my guess right now is that there is no strategy to leverage the investigation into a broader enquiry," said Rick Valelly, professor of political science at Swarthmore College. "[Fitzgerald] plainly has no interest in bringing the administration down. Libby's obstruction of justice is mysterious, but the prosecutor has no interest, it would appear, in cracking that particular mystery. His only goal is to prosecute the flagrant crime which he detected during the investigation." The story behind the indictment is fit for a Hollywood movie -- Plame's husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson, travelled to Niger in February 2002 on a fact-finding mission for the CIA to look into reports that Iraq had sought uranium for a nuclear weapons programme there. Although the resulting memo from the CIA to the White House dismissed the reports as baseless, in his 2003 State of the Union speech US President George W Bush used the same story as the source of his claim that "the British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa." This was a major part of Bush's evidence that Saddam was actively pursuing weapons of mass destruction, justifying the invasion of Iraq. Wilson had already expressed his misgivings about the war on Iraq, attracting the attention of Cheney, Libby and other officials, but went unpunished until 6 July 2003, when he wrote an opinion piece in The New York Times and The Washington Post declaring that the Niger connection had been examined and deemed implausible by the CIA. Eight days later, a syndicated columnist revealed his wife's identity, ruining her career and casting doubt on Wilson's trip to Niger. What the ongoing criminal investigation seems to suggest is that leading officials in the White House had undertaken a detailed examination of Wilson's background using unclassified and classified records from the State Department and CIA, jumping on the information that his wife had suggested that the CIA employ Wilson for the Niger mission. The indictment alleges that after Wilson's opinion piece came out, Libby passed on information from Cheney that Wilson's wife was a CIA agent to several reporters, including the columnist who exposed Plame. Libby would later claim under oath that this information had been circulating among reporters on the Washington beat and that he had passed it on as unsubstantiated rumour. Also on Friday, President Bush made a terse statement at a White House press conference praising Libby's service, but obviously not eager to focus on the scandals threatening his administration. "I got a job to do... I look forward to working with Congress on policies to keep this economy moving. And pretty soon I'll be naming somebody to the Supreme Court." Cheney, who even more than Libby prefers a style of back-room politics far away from the media, was equally succinct, stating "because this is a pending legal proceeding, in fairness to all those involved, it would be inappropriate for me to comment on the charges or on any facts relating to the proceeding." With the administration struggling through the politically greatest difficulties it has faced, many Republicans in Congress are taking care to distance themselves from the White House -- unlike Bush and Cheney, they have future elections to worry about. Cheney will have to curtail his role helping Republican candidates in their election bids, while Representative Thomas M Davis told The Washington Post that he was "very disappointed in Libby, the White House, the vice-president and the president." Valelly noted that even before the Plame scandal reached its current proportions, some Republicans were already starting to see the political wisdom of not tying their fortunes to that of the White House, since "[Bush's] approval ratings are not likely to bounce back." As for the luckless Libby, he has become a political pariah, and packed his bags on Friday without any final words with Bush. If convicted on all five counts, he could face up to 30 years in prison and a fine of $1.25 million. Though the vice-president and his chief of staff are typically not especially powerful on the Washington scene, Cheney and Libby had proven exceptions to the rule. Together they are generally credited as having been among the most aggressive administration officials in promoting the invasion of Iraq. The investigation has been "raising public and journalistic curiosity about the vice-president's office in the pre-war intelligence office," said Valelly, commenting on the slim chance that Fitzgerald could move beyond Rove after even bigger targets, such as Cheney. "Whether that public curiosity leads to anything else is hard to know."
