The Highjacking of Democracy

By Tom Scott

Deep in a Wall Street Journal account of Judy Miller's grand jury appearance was this crucial sentence: "Lawyers familiar with the investigation believe that at least part of the outcome likely hangs on the inner workings of what has been dubbed the White House Iraq Group."

Very little has been written about the White House Iraq Group, or WHIG. Its inception in August 2002, seven months before the invasion of Iraq, was never announced to the American public. Its main mission as we now know was to market a war in Iraq to the American people.

Only much later would a newspaper article or two mention it in passing, reporting that it had been set up by Andrew Card, the White House chief of staff. Its eight members included Karl Rove, Scooter Libby, Condoleezza Rice and senior White House aides/spinmeisters Karen Hughes, Mary Matalin, James Wilkinson, Nicholas Calio, Condoleezza Rice and National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley.

In recent developments there are very credible reports that several of these players including Stephen Hadley will be indicted by Special Prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald. Hadley is being mentioned as an indictment target along with Rove, Libby, and Former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer. There is also credible information that Vice President Cheney will be named as an unindicted co-conspirator. As was recently reported by this reporter, Libby's deputy John Hannah, is a cooperating witness for the prosecution, providing invaluable evidence pinning indictable offenses on Libby, Cheney, Rove, Hadley and other key White House officials, both past and present.

Of course, the official Bush history would have us believe that in August 2002 no decision had yet been made on that war. Dates bracketing the formation of WHIG tell us otherwise.

On July 23, 2002 , a week or two before WHIG first convened in earnest, a British official told his peers, as recorded in the now famous Downing Street memo, that the Bush administration was ensuring that "the intelligence and facts" about Iraq's WMD's "were being fixed around the policy" of going to war.

And on Sept. 6, 2002, just a few weeks after WHIG first convened, Mr. Card alluded to his group's existence by telling Elisabeth Bumiller of The New York Times that there was a plan afoot to sell a war against Saddam Hussein: "From a marketing point of view, you don't introduce new products in August."

The official introduction of that product began just two days later.

On the Sunday talk shows of Sept. 8, Condoleezza Rice, who coincidentally faces tough questions by lawmakers today over the failed U.S. policies in Iraq where more than 150,000 U.S. troops are fighting a bloody insurgency, warned that "we don't want the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud,"

Mr. Cheney, who had already started the nuclear doomsday drumbeat in three August speeches, described Saddam as "actively and aggressively seeking to acquire nuclear weapons." The vice president cited as evidence a front-page article, later debunked, about supposedly nefarious aluminum tubes co-written by New York Times writer Judy Miller, who as it turns out was a charter member of WHIG,  in that morning's New York Times. That's right, the same Judy Miller who spent 85 days in jail to "protect her sources" in the White House was a charter member of WHIG. WHIG as it turns out was doing more than just public relations; they were funneling information to Ms. Miller and then citing her articles as evidence of Saddam seeking to acquire WMD's.

The national security journalist James Bamford, in "A Pretext for War," writes that the article was all too perfectly timed to facilitate "exactly the sort of propaganda coup that the White House Iraq Group had been set up to stage-manage."

So determined was the ring of top officials to win its argument that it morphed into a virtual hit squad that took aim at critics who questioned its claims. One of those critics was ex-Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who debunked a key claim in a speech by President Bush that Iraq sought nuclear materials in Africa. His punishment was the media outing of his wife, CIA spy Valerie Plame, an affair that became a "side show" for the White House Iraq Group.

That sideshow is what is now being referred to as "Leakgate" and the investigation centers on this group of players charged with not only selling the war by leaking information to the press, but according to sources familiar with the case, to discredit anyone who openly "disagreed with the official Iraq war" story.

It is widely speculated that "Leakgate" special prosecutor Patrick J. Fitzgerald may announce indictments today. The Grand Jury will be seated on Wednesday and its mandate is due to expire on October 28 unless it is extended, which a number of informed observers doubt will occur.

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, both members of WHIG. 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.

Whether or not Mr. Fitzgerald uncovers an indictable crime, there is once again a victim, but that victim is not Mr. or Mrs. Wilson; it's America. It is surely a joke of history that even as the White House sells this weekend's constitutional referendum as yet another "victory" for democracy in Iraq, we still don't know the whole story of how our own democracy was hijacked on the way to a war of lies but the players and the pieces of this puzzle are coming together and the Truth is about to be finally exposed.

Tom Scott is Senior Investigative Reporter for Choice America Network