Leakgate

OPENING: A NY Times op-ed (July 6, 2003) by former Ambassador Joseph Wilson reveals the bogus nature of the story that the Bush Administration circulated about Saddam Hussein trying to buy yellowcake uranium in Niger.

CHENEY: Interesting that Joe Wilson is running off his mouth about how Iraq trying to buy yellow cake uranium from Niger was concocted. Did you know that his wife worked at the C.I.A. in the counter proliferation division? (Fitzgerald indictment Page 5)

LEWIS “SCOOTER” LIBBY: (Speaking to Vice President Dick Cheney and Karl Rove in a White House office). That son of a bitch Wilson, a tool of the middle ranks of the CIA. For Christ sake, everyone knew that the Iraq-Niger-uranium story was bogus. So the pissed off losers at CIA sent him there to “investigate.” That’s an attack on you, boss (points to Cheney). After all, you used this claim in speeches and even fed it to the President.

FLASHBACK: BUSH’S STATE OF THE UNION ADDRESS, JANUARY 2003

BUSH: “The British government has learned that Saddam Hussein recently sought significant quantities of uranium from Africa”

DISSOLVE

KARL ROVE: Look, CIA officials played dirty. They used Wilson to publicize what Washington insiders already knew. Who would believe that phony Niger story? But embarrassing us like that? They want to play dirty. We’ll show them dirty! Get Novak to ruin Valerie Plame’s career. That’ll show a pussy whipped guy like Wilson what hard ball really means.

FADE TO 2003 LIBBY MEETING WITH JUDY MILLER

LIBBY: You can’t use me as a source. But Wilson’s wife sent him on the mission and his so-called information taught us nothing. By the way, she’s a covert op at CIA. Valerie Plame.

Miller writes in notebook “Valerie Flame” — source former Hill Staffer.”

DISSOLVE: ROVE ON PHONE WITH NOVAK

ROVE: Yes, Bob, I hear that his wife is a CIA cover op. That’s what I hear. Call another source. You’ll get her name.

CUT TO LIBBY PICKING UP PHONE:

LIBBY: Yes, you can run it. It’s for sure. Check with Judy Miller or the Time magazine guy if you don’t believe me.”

NOVAK COLUMN APPEARS ON SCREEN

HEADLINES FOLLOW: “SPECIAL PROSEUCTOR TO INVESTIGATE LEAK”

“WILSON ACCUSES ROVE”

FADE TO BUSH ON SCREEN, AUGUST 2004:

“We may still find weapons. We haven’t found them yet. … Let me just say this to you: knowing what I know today, we still would have gone into Iraq.”

LIBBY WITH CHENEY AND ROVE: Well, we got him to say it again. You think we could get Judy Miller to convince those boobs who edit the NY Times to run a “reliable intelligence source verifies existence of hidden nukes in Iraq?” We have to do something to keep people from focusing on the leak and instead pay attention to Saddam accumulating WMD.

 

ROVE: Scooter, it may be too late. The damned special prosecutor is already sniffing around about the leak. Do you think any of the today reporters we talked to will rat us out?

FADE TO BLACK

OCTOBER 2005:

Police Arrest Libby. Fitzgerald holds a press conference explaining how Libby lied, obstructed and connived to cover up a leak. Shots of Bush brooding. He snaps at an aide who tells him 7 more Americans died in Iraq today.

CHENEY MEETING WITH ROVE IN CHENEY’S OFFICE: This is the last time we’ll meet until this thing blows over. I’ve had to let Scooter go. He must know that by keeping his mouth shut he will assure himself of a pardon. He must not mention my presence at any of the conversations. Is that clear?

ROVE: Sir, they’re also after me.

CHENEY: Discipline son. We’re playing for big stakes. The world. Don’t blow it because they threaten you with a little jail time. The CIA spooks are getting their revenge because we took their toys away and used them. Intelligence is meant to serve power, not some abstraction like truth, whatever the hell that means. You taught everyone that lesson, Karl. Don’t blow it by opening your mouth. The press will tire of this leak crap and we’ll distract them with flu vaccines and other issues.

CUT TO LAWRENCE WILKERSON FORMER CHIEF OF STAFF TO FORMER SECRETARY OF STATE COLIN POWELL report to new America foundation (October 2005):

“What I saw was a cabal between the vice-president of the United States, Richard Cheney, and the secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld, on critical issues that made decisions that the bureaucracy did not know were being made.”

HEADLINES: COVERUP, SCANDAL, COMPARISONS TO WATERGATE — MONICAGATE

Cut to shredding machines with documents being eaten

DISSOLVE TO BUSH FAMILY: GEORGE H., W., BARBARA AND EXTENDED FAMILY. THEY ARE LISTENING TO A MINISTER IN A KENNEBUNKPORT CHURCH

“The wicked flee when no one pursues Wickedness keeps a person restless and unsettled. The guilty conscience worries about being caught at any moment and sees every person as the one who will uncover secret sin.” (Proverbs 28:1)

BUSH THE ELDER TALKING TO HIS SON, WHO LOOKS NERVOUS: It’s loyalty that counts in the end. Remember that.

FADE TO archival footage of Justice Clarence Thomas at Senate confirmation hearings as Anita Hill describes how he came on to her with his “pubic hair in the coke can” ploy.

HEADLINES: THOMAS APPROVED BY SENATE FOR SUPREME COURT SEAT / 1991

SUPREME COURT STOPS VOTE COUNT IN FLORIDA 2000

RETURN TO THE BUSH FAMILY MEETING:

THE ELDER BUSH: Loyalty begets loyalty, but disloyalty on the other hand meaning public disagreement with policies means treason.

CUT TO: a Cabinet meeting in Bush’s first administration. Paul O’Neill, then Treasury Secretary, questions the priority of invading Iraq. “It has no justification and will cost a lot.” Bush looks distracted. O’Neill tries to get the attention of “a blind man in a roomful of deaf people” (The Price of Loyalty).

DISSOLVE to O’Neill celebrating the release of his biogrophy written by Ron Susskind

ROVE ON PHONE: “I want O’Neill accused of leaking classified documents.'”

HEADLINES: O’NEILL USED CLASSIFIED MATERIAL IN BOOK (February 2004)

O’Neill looks older, troubled and fearful.

FLASH FORWARD: ROVE AND LIBBY IN A SECLUDED BOOTH OF A WASHINGTON BAR EARLY NOVEMBER 2005

LIBBY: I can’t tolerate the fools who could not accept the harmonious matrimony we carefully arranged. Who could have imagined a coalition including anti Semitic Fundamentalist nuts and Catholic fanatics bonding with neo-con Jews like me, who worship Ariel Sharon and Israel? (HE SIPS HIS MARTINI) It took strategists like you, Karl, to illicit from every member of the Bush wedding coalition “its own rationale for going to war with Iraq.” (Juan Cole, Salon.com Oct 28 2005)

ROVE: Thanks Scooter. (HE TAKES A GULP OF HIS SHIRLEY TEMPLE) Right now we both need good lawyers. But don’t rat just to save your pampered hide. (THEY BOTH DRINK AND SNORT, SEMI LAUGHS) I don’t know if I’m ready to serve a couple of years in a white collar prison before getting a presidential pardon. Remember what old man Bush did?

CUT TO ARCHIVAL FOOTAGE OF BUSH PARDONING HIS CRIMINAL CRONIES IN DECEMBER 1992 BEFORE LEAVING OFFICE:

BUSH PARDONS 6 IN IRAN AFFAIR, ABORTING A WEINBERGER TRIAL; PROSECUTOR ASSAILS ‘COVER-UP’

LIBBY: Whatever happens, we had some good times. (HE DOWNS HIS MARTINI)

ROVE: You know, exercising power is more than an aphrodisiac, as Kissinger called it. It’s like the most explosive orgasm ever, especially when you get to punish those who dared dissent, those who implied moral superiority and accused us of making errors. You know Scooter, I don’t give a shit for those who died and all the destruction. That’s the way of history. We showed the world what it means to have power. So what we didn’t realize one successful program — save for enriching the already endowed. Well, we’re not finished yet. I have a couple of tricks left in my playbook.

CUT TO WASHINGTON DC ON HALLOWEEN NIGHT

Costumed trick or treaters prance through neighborhoods.

A TELEPHONE RINGS AND A HAND PICKS IT UP. REVEREND PAT ROBERTSON FROWNS: “Yes, I still think we ought to close Halloween down. Do you want your children to dress up as witches? The Druids used to dress up like this when they were doing human sacrifice… [Your children] are acting out Satanic rituals & participating in it, and don’t even realize it.” (Pat Roberston, The 700 Club, 10/29/82)

ROVE: I’m glad to see you haven’t let the winds of liberal change affect you.

ROBERTSON: “Many of those people involved with Adolph Hitler were Satanists, many of them were homosexuals the two things seem to go together.” (The 700 Club, 1/21/93)

ROVE LAUGHS: Pat, I heard that Fitzgerald might be a homo. It comes from a well-placed source. Maybe you could inquire with your, how shall I say it, higher sources? I’m sure He’ll confirm what I heard. The ball’s in your court.”

SAUL LANDAU once wrote plays and films scripts.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SAUL LANDAU’s A BUSH AND BOTOX WORLD was published by CounterPunch / AK Press.