A Toronto Star article reports that American prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald’s investigation into the leak of CIA operative Valerie Plame’s identity has led him to the discovery of the White House Iraq Group (WHIG). According to Fitzgerald’s sources, this group was formed by White House Chief of Staff Andrew Card in August 2002, well before the war on Iraq.
Top White House officials, including Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice and Bush’s “architect,” Karl Rove, could be indicted for their roles in the release of Plame’s identity. This has the White House scrambling to keep things under wraps, because the implication is that Fitzgerald “is prepared to shine an unwelcome light on the White House team established to sell Americans on a pre-ordained Iraq war.”
It is appalling that the Iraq war was in the works before there were any valid suspicions that the country was harbouring weapons of mass destruction, the reason the Bush administration has consistently given for its preemptive invasion. In September 2002, Card told the New York Times they had a “meticulously planned strategy” and that “from a marketing point of view, you don’t introduce new products in August,” which was why the wheels began turning in September instead.
Regardless of the outcome of Fitzgerald’s investigation, heads are going to roll in Washington. It has been speculated that if Fitzgerald publishes a report, the person who would be most affected is Vice President Cheney. The possibility that Bush will lose some of his closest advisors will leave the U.S. president not only vulnerable but forced to face the public and his critics alone, for the first time. WHIG officials used the American people as pawns under the false pretence of protecting the nation from Iraq, and it is about time its senior members were held accountable for their actions.
Ultimately, the fate of the Bush administration lies in the hands of the citizens it purports to represent and defend. They were the ones who gave him the power he has and they should be the ones who decide whether and how they will take it away. It is crucial that they make their opposition known, and not stand by complacently to watch this “a smoking gun” become a “mushroom cloud.”
As Fitzgerald’s investigation continues, evidence is mounting that suggests that individuals in the WHIG fabricated information in order to “sell” the war on Iraq to the American public. Not only does this point to Bush’s blatant deception of his country, but it also leaves open the implications of what could happen if indeed Fitzgerald’s suspicions prove true—not only to America, but to the people of Iraq. The American citizens, now more than ever, need to demand the truth, for their sake and for that of the Iraqi people.
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