From Wayne Madsen Report
October 17, 2005 -- Official Washington remains tense in anticipation of indictments being returned against senior White House officials as a result of the CIA leak investigation by special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald. The Grand Jury is due to reconvene on Wednesday, October 19, however, it is not known when "bills" may be returned in the case that is centered around Karl Rove, Scooter Libby, Ari Fleischer, and Dick Cheney. In a Grand Jury, a bill is an indictment. A "no bill" is a determination by the Grand Jury that there is insufficient evidence to support an indictment.There is already talk of who will replace Rove and Libby if they resign following indictments. Given his close ties to Cheney, Douglas Feith's replacement as Deputy Secretary of Defense for Policy and Plans Eric Edelman is rumored to be a top candidate to replace Libby as Cheney's Chief of Staff. Top candidates to replace Rove include State Department International Public Diplomacy Assistant Secretary of State Karen Hughes and long time GOP adviser Mary Matalin. However, given the close ties of all these potential candidates to the current scandal, other observers believe the White House will come under pressure to completely clean house, especially if Cheney is named as an unindicted co-conspirator or if he is actually indicted outright. In that event, look for new players from the GOP "moderate" wing to come into the White House and Cabinet in senior positions. Names mentioned include former Massachusetts Governor Paul Cellucci, former RNC Chairman and Montana Governor Marc Racicot, former Florida Senator Connie Mack, former Illinois Governor Jim Edgar, former Michigan Governor John Engler, former New Jersey Governor Thomas Kean, and former California Governor Pete Wilson. Also, look for an increased advisory role for former President George H. W. Bush.
CIA case Expands to Pentagon
It has also been revealed that New York Times reporter Judith Miller was granted a Secret Department of Defense clearance while she was embedded with a U.S. military unit in Iraq searching for weapons of mass destruction (weapons that were non-existent). Although the identification of Joseph Wilson's wife as a CIA agent (contained in a State Department memorandum carried aboard Air Force One on a trip to Africa in July 2003) was classified Secret, Miller would not have had a need to know for that information.
CIA Leakgate may be part of a larger intelligence war between the CIA and Pentagon. Miller's status as a security cleared Defense Department embedded reporter adds to the mix of intrigue
The involvement of the Pentagon in Miller's aspect of the CIA leak matter may indicate that senior Pentagon officials have also been called before the Grand Jury. As previously reported by WMR, the Fitzgerald case has, for quite some time, dovetailed with the case by Federal prosecutor Paul McNulty against Pentagon analyst Larry Franklin and officials of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). The AIPAC case continues with other Pentagon officials, Israeli government officials, and a "senior fellow at a Washington think tank [specializing on Iran]" still under investigation. Franklin is now a cooperating witness having agreed to a plea bargain with McNulty. The links between the White House and Pentagon neocon cells, as well as others within the U.S. government, may be what Libby referred to in his letter to Miller: "They [the aspen trees] turn in clusters, because their roots connect them."
WMR can also report that CIA personnel like Valerie Plame and her Brewster Jennings & Associates non-official cover (NOC) team were not the only intelligence personnel targeted by the neo-con cells in the White House and Pentagon. The Middle East group in the National Security Agency's Signals Intelligence Directorate -- a group of Arabic speaking linguists and area specialists involved in collecting and analyzing signals intelligence from Iraq and other countries in the region -- saw a number of its analysts and linguists purged by NSA security on trumped up charges, simply because they knew there were no WMDs in Iraq and they had access to intercepts proving collusion between senior Bush administration and military officers in the run up to the war.
If Fitgzerald's indictments include charges that White House personnel violated the civil rights of Ambassador and Mrs. Wilson, expect a deluge of civil suits being filed against the government by well over a hundred intelligence, diplomatic, and military personnel targeted for harassment and retaliation.