Ut Oh, Madam Secretary
by emptywheel
You probably should have testified when you had the chance. Henry writes Condi as follows:
Dear Madam Secretary:
I am writing to notify you that the Oversight Committee has postponed the hearing for which your testimony was subpoenaed, formerly scheduled for June 19, 2007, in order to allow additional time for the Committee to conduct interviews and review documents relating to the White House's use of the pre-war intelligence surrounding the claim that Iraq sought uranium from Africa, and other aspects of its alleged nuclear capability.
The Committee has been conducting interviews and depositions of senior government officials with knowledge of prewar intelligence about Iraq's nuclear program, including George Tenet, former Director of Central Intelligence; John McLaughlin, former Deputy Director of Central Intelligence; Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, former Chief of Staff to Secretary of State Colin Powell; and Carl Ford, former Assistant Secretary of State for Intelligence and Research.The Committee plans to conduct additional interviews over the coming weeks. In addition, the CIA and State Department have begun to provide important documents to the Committee.I hope you will not be inconvenienced by this postponement. The interviews, depositions, and documents are illuminating the Committee's inquiry and will provide the predicate for a more thorough hearing with you.
The Committee will notify you of the new date for the hearing.
Anyone remember the Richard Armitage conversation with Bob Woodward? The one where Armitage said,
Hadley and Joseph know. It's documented. We've got our documents on it. We're clean as a whistle.
And where he goes on to say:
Because I think it was overruled by the types down at the White House. Condi doesn't like being on the hot spot, but she --
I gotta believe that those with whom the Committee has been talking--the folks at the CIA who had already tried to remove the Niger claims, and the folks at State who were skeptical of the claims from day one--I would imagine that they're still quite confident that they're "clean as a whistle." And if CIA is suddenly being forthcoming with documents?
I would imagine that Committee testimony seat just got significantly hotter.
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. This is the 'cold wind blowin' that we've been waiting for.
The letter reads with a voice of confidence that we've not seen so far. Very, very encouraging.
Quick someone feed Condi some coal. We'll have diamonds by morning!
Posted by: Dismayed | June 12, 2007 at 19:08
under pressure
Posted by: joel hanes | June 12, 2007 at 19:13
okay -- clearly, the message to
secretary of state condoleezza rice,
here, is that rep. waxman is gathering sign-
ificant amounts of new information -- in-
formation to be used at her hearing, should
one prove necessary. . . now, to be fair, it
also saves face (and perhaps more importantly,
political capital) -- should she have de-
cided not to honor the june 19 date. it saves
the capital for more important things. . .
. . .things, like a tall glass of
refreshing "mmmm-peach-mint" tea, (a la
a "tea-party"), in the now-unlikely event
that a microwave-able pardon suddenly appears
for that pesky i. lewis "scooter" libby. . .
[more at the above link; and it
looks like we posted at about the
same time, again, EW. . . he he!]
Posted by: nolo | June 12, 2007 at 19:13
Under pressure. Ha. Perfect, Joel.
Posted by: Dismayed | June 12, 2007 at 19:21
"I hope you will not be inconvenienced by this postponement."
Mr. Henry does snark to perfection.
Posted by: Waccamaw | June 12, 2007 at 19:29
Always extra exciting when you get ahead of the pack like this, ew. A very strong day thus far. Well rested.
Great stuff.
Posted by: zhiv | June 12, 2007 at 19:31
Uh yes, Henry does snark well. Actually he hopes Ms. Rice will be very, very inconvenienced by this postponement.
Posted by: Dismayed | June 12, 2007 at 19:37
I would really, really like to see that "bowels of the agency" quote stuffed down her elitist, lying throat!
Posted by: Seamus | June 12, 2007 at 19:48
Question: I saw Colin Powell mentioned in a couple of newspaper articles over the weekend from some interview. I have never fully understood his role in all this, except that I am left with the impression that the Neocons did an end run and more or less left him sitting in the hot seat.
Has anyone ever tried to find out from him what went on, or is he too good a soldier to spill his guts?
Posted by: sojourner | June 12, 2007 at 20:10
In addition, the CIA and State Department have begun to provide important documents to the Committee.... The interviews, depositions, and documents are illuminating the Committee's inquiry...
Waxman's snark is such a pleasure to read.
Deeelicious.
Posted by: readerOfTeaLeaves | June 12, 2007 at 20:33
my take on Bloch is that he'll do the right thing -- for Bloch, not necessarily for BushCo or for We the People.
Posted by: Elliott | June 12, 2007 at 20:37
oops! wrong thread
was my face red!
Posted by: Elliott | June 12, 2007 at 20:38
Looking around, doesn't seem like anybody has noticed Henry's latest chess move, except for ew. Hard to keep up with the wheel today, but give them time.
Posted by: zhiv | June 12, 2007 at 20:45
this (providing the nation with false rationals for invading) is a very important matter and waxman is being patient and thorough.
i like that approach.
lately it's been bothering me about bush and rice ignoring the attack warnings from tenet and clark in the summer of 2001.
officials at that level would never casually ignore such warnings.
Posted by: orionATL | June 12, 2007 at 21:06
zhiv,
The House Oversight Committee has an RSS feed that keeps anybody who's interested up-to-date on their activities. You can find it at http://oversight.house.gov/review.asp
If you don't do RSS, they also have email updates, but I haven't tried that. I find the RSS feed absolutely invaluable. Well, actually I find Henry Waxman absolutely invaluable, but the RSS feed continually reminds me why.
Posted by: William Ockham | June 12, 2007 at 21:12
hey, amazing emptywheel, where can we find your latest guardian expose?
Posted by: posaune | June 12, 2007 at 21:15
posaune,
I guess I'm the RSS evangelist today. Subscribe to the feed here:
http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/marcy_wheeler/index.xml
and you'll never have to ask again.
Posted by: William Ockham | June 12, 2007 at 21:18
[No RSS this time, I promise]
I find it very interesting that all the interviewees that Waxman mentions are "former" this and that, but the CIA and State Department have been providing documents. The "formers" can testify without telling Rice, so that part was probably a surprise to her. I wonder if she knew that the State Department was providing documents. As I recall, she tried to object to that. I also wonder if Simon Dodge has testified, but I suspect Rice knows the answer to that either way.
Posted by: William Ockham | June 12, 2007 at 21:25
I may be clueless about RSS, but Waxman is my congressman. How great is that?
But before I gloat too far, at the same time I'm very frustrated that the hometown LATimes has had only perfunctory coverage of Waxman's oversight extravaganza. It seems like it would be a very good story to write about the staff of investigators, etc. that HW is running. Instead the local fishwrap keeps leaning rightward and throws out headlines "Senate bars vote on Gonzalez" today. It's not quite the Repub talking point of "this must be over, and get back to legislating," but it was close enough. But we'll see if there's any coverage of the love note to Condi tomorrow.
So I guess the real question is, do any of the LATimes reporters have the RSS feed?
And thanks for the tip. As a complete amateur, I'm happy to follow along after ew, FDL, TPM, etc., and kibitz like this from time to time. But more is better.
Posted by: zhiv | June 12, 2007 at 23:07
Has anyone ever tried to find out from him what went on, or is he too good a soldier to spill his guts?
I have the same Question. Seems to me he was crapped all over and took it like a Man or Woman.
Posted by: ddarclay | June 12, 2007 at 23:18
EW I was just getting to email you and ask where can I get my fix of Simon Dodge.
Posted by: John Forde | June 12, 2007 at 23:27
I hope you will not be inconvenienced by this postponement. The interviews, depositions, and documents are illuminating the Committee's inquiry and will provide the predicate for a more thorough hearing with you.
Yes! a "thorough hearing"
On my first pass I read "predicament" but predicate works too.
Was Condi invited to testify or has she been subpeona'd, not that it matters. I don't think she'll show - It's THAT bad.
Posted by: Neil | June 13, 2007 at 01:00
Marcy, is your booktv panel appearance going to be rerun? We missed it the first round :( I keep looking for it to reappear...Have you been notified of a replay or have another filmed appearance scheduled? vc
Posted by: vickie | June 13, 2007 at 01:02
Interesting that Ms. Rice and the rest of the Decider's cadre believe that they hold all the cards that count, as if their opponents can try but never truly disrupt their game of modern-day manifest destiny. So it's a pleasure to see Mr. Waxman gaming Madam Secretary, and it's long overdue. Like the rest of her cronies, she's grown accustomed to cheating and I hope she's gonna get caught.
Posted by: RP | June 13, 2007 at 01:41
"I hope you will not be inconvenienced by this postponement."
hooooo. heee. hee.
un-dah pre-shawr
Posted by: desertwind | June 13, 2007 at 03:40