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--- Begin Message ----Caveat Lector- http://www.interestalert.com/brand/siteia.shtml?Story=st/sn/07090006aaa03d18 .upi&Sys=mariopro&Type=News&Filter=Late%20Breaking&Fid=LATEBRKN Analysis: Investigations plague BushiesBy MICHAEL KIRKLAND, UPI Legal Affairs Correspondent WASHINGTON, July 9 (UPI) -- The Bush administration is facing a cascade of investigations as the months dwindle before the November elections. Some of those investigations may culminate before November. None appears fatal, and the public seems to be paying little attention so far. Only one -- the continuing inquiry into why Iraqi detainees were abused -- generated the beefy headlines or large-scale media investigations evoked by the many accusations of scandal during the Clinton administration. It's as if the media and the public have been worn out by the 1990s and the scores of Clinton "scandals" that turned out to have little basis in fact. In June 25 Democratic members of Congress tried to gin up a little excitement by demanding in a letter that Attorney General John Ashcroft appoint a special counsel to investigate Vice President Dick Cheney's alleged actions on behalf of his old firm, Halliburton. The Texas energy company, which is still paying off a hefty $23 million severance package paid to Cheney when he left to join the Bush campaign in 2000, has won several no-bid contracts in the reconstruction of Iraq. The Democrats point to a March 5, 2003, Pentagon e-mail message from an Army Corps of Engineers official. The message said Douglas Feith, the No. 3 official at the Defense Department, had approved one massive Halliburton contract "contingent on informing WH (the White House) tomorrow. We anticipate no issues since action has been coordinated w (with) VP's office." The message was part of the material recovered by Judicial Watch, the conservative public-interest legal group, in a Freedom of Information Act request. The White House and Cheney's office have responded angrily to the Democratic charges, saying neither took action to steer the contract Halliburton's way and that the message is just a "heads up" notification common in government. So far there is no word from the Justice Department that any preliminary inquiry is under way to determine whether a special counsel is necessary or whether an innocent e-mail message has been grossly misinterpreted. In fact, it's hard to find a department official who will touch the subject with a long stick. Officials this week will not even say whether Ashcroft has seen the letter from the congressional Democrats, only that the letter will be answered in due time. The allegation is separate from Defense Department investigations into alleged Halliburton overcharges for fuel and meals in Iraq. Meanwhile, the influence dispute has gotten personal. The ranking minority member on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., has been one of the leaders in calling for a Cheney investigation. Cheney responded in June on the Senate floor by suggesting in crude language that Leahy do the physically impossible. Feith's name has surfaced in another troubling area for the administration: Whether top Pentagon or White House officials approved the abuse of Iraqi detainees or terror-suspect detainees held elsewhere in the world. Media reports say Feith first proposed that al-Qaida and other suspects in custody were not protected by the Geneva Convention. Most troubling, a 2002 Justice Department memo from the Office of Legal Counsel to the White House and Pentagon counsels reinforced that position, particularly in regard to prisoners in Afghanistan. White House counsel Alberto Gonzales was one of the recipients of the memo, so it stretches credulity to suggest that President Bush was not aware of at least a summary of its contents. The memo was buttressed by a subsequent letter from Ashcroft repudiating a State Department position that said the Geneva Conventions applied to the Taliban in Afghanistan. Bush later signed a memo saying he believed the Justice Department had established a legal position but that for the time being the conventions would apply. Still, even after Bush's declaration the memos continued to flow from the Pentagon, one saying aggressive interrogation techniques should not be considered torture and that torture of terror suspects could be legally defended. Top-level White House and Justice Department officials vociferously disavowed the Defense Department memos when they became public last month. Still, civilian and military lawyers defending soldiers accused of abusing prisoners in Baghdad are expected to try to show that superiors knew of and approved the harsh techniques. Some members of Congress on both sides of the aisle are still promising an investigation, though it's unlikely they can or want to do so before the election. Another investigation that on the surface appears to harbor more peril for the administration involves the "outing" of a CIA covert official. Former Ambassador Joseph Wilson IV charges that administration officials leaked the name of his wife, a CIA official, to conservative columnist Robert Novak and tried to leak the information to a variety of other reporters because Wilson disputed Bush's claims on Iraq. Wilson served as a special CIA envoy to investigate allegations Iraq was trying to acquire "yellow cake" uranium from Niger for the production of nuclear weapons. Wilson returned from his mission saying there was no evidence for the allegations. When Bush used the allegations in a State of the Union address as one of the justifications for the invasion of Iraq, Wilson went public disputing the truth of the president's statement. At least two administration officials then approached Novak, dismissing the Wilson assignment as a favor to his wife, identifying her as a CIA official by name. Novak published that argument and the CIA official's name in his column. The problem for the administration is that making public the name of a covert CIA official is a felony under federal law. The law applies to federal employees, not to journalists. Wilson said the "outing" of his wife accomplished what the law was designed to prevent -- it reduced her effectiveness and placed her foreign contacts in jeopardy. Bowing to public pressure, Ashcroft did what he initially said he would not do. He appointed a special counsel to conduct an independent investigation of what has become known as the "White House" leaks. Ashcroft chose a Bush appointee, U.S. attorney for Chicago Patrick Fitzgerald, as special counsel. With FBI agents at his beck and call, Fitzgerald has been aggressively investigating the case. Bush and Cheney have both retained lawyers and have been questioned by the special counsel's investigators. Media speculation on who leaked the CIA official's name centers on Cheney's office. However, Fitzgerald has been forced to subpoena reporters who may have been contacted by the administration officials, and their news organizations are aggressively fighting that action, citing the protections of the First Amendment. So while a grand jury has been hearing testimony for most of the spring, ticking away like a political time bomb in the heart of Washington, the investigation may be put on hold while side issues are fought out in the courts. Whether any charges are brought before the November elections is still very much up in the air. When and if they come, they would come like a thunderbolt in the Washington community. But they may come too late for members of the voting public to take them into account, even assuming the public holds the president responsible for the alleged actions of his subordinates. -- (Please send comments to [EMAIL PROTECTED]) Copyright 2004 by United Press International. All rights reserved. ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Yahoo! 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