US Vice President Dick Cheney and other top officials of US President George W. Bush's administration could be called to testify if Lewis "Scooter" Libby, Cheney's top aide, goes to trial on a criminal indictment involving how the US went to war in Iraq.
Libby's "not guilty" plea to the five-count felony indictment, which he gave at his arraignment on Thursday, seemed sure to prolong debate about the White House's prewar use of intelligence, probably in a protracted court battle.
"With respect, your honor, I plead not guilty," Libby told US District Judge Reggie Walton.
Libby is charged with obstruction of justice, two counts of lying to the FBI and two counts of committing perjury before a federal grand jury.
Libby's indictment has enabled Democrats to bring back questions about the Bush administration's primary justification for invading Iraq, the incorrect assertion that ousted Iraqi president Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction and the ability to use them.
The indictment also comes with Bush's popularity rating at its lowest level since he took office after a week in which his administration bungled a Supreme Court nomination, the US death toll in Iraq passed 2,000 and a cloud remained over his chief strategist, Karl Rove, in the leak case. Rove remains under investigation.
Libby waived his right to a speedy trial, and it will take his legal team three months to get security clearances to examine classified information that the prosecution must produce to the defense.
Libby was charged with lying to investigators and the grand jury about leaking to reporters the CIA status of a covert agency officer, Valerie Plame. Plame was revealed after her husband, former US ambassador Joseph Wilson, accused the administration of twisting intelligence in the run-up to the war to exaggerate the Iraqi threat.
Wilson made his accusation after a CIA-sponsored trip to Africa in which he said he found no evidence to support the allegation that Iraq had an agreement to acquire uranium from Niger.
PRECISION STRIKES: The most significant reason to deploy HIMARS to outlying islands is to establish a ‘dead zone’ that the PLA would not dare enter, a source said A High Mobility Artillery Rocket System (HIMARS) would be deployed to Penghu County and Dongyin Island (東引) in Lienchiang County (Matsu) to force the Chinese military to retreat at least 100km from the coastline, a military source said yesterday. Taiwan has been procuring HIMARS and Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) from the US in batches. Once all batches have been delivered, Taiwan would possess 111 HIMARS units and 504 ATACMS, which have a range of 300km. Considering that “offense is the best defense,” the military plans to forward-deploy the systems to outlying islands such as Penghu and Dongyin so that
WHAT WAS ALL THAT FOR? Jaw Shaw-kong said that Cheng Li-wen had pushed for more drastic cuts and attacked him, just for the outcome to be nearly identical to his bill The legislature yesterday passed a supplementary budget bill to fund the purchase of separate packages of US military equipment, with the combined amount of spending capped at NT$780 billion (US$24.8 billion). The Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) and Taiwan People’s Party (TPP) used their legislative majority to pass the bill, which runs until 2033 and has two main funding provisions. One was for NT$300 billion of arms sales already approved by the US for Taiwan on Dec. 17 last year, the other was for NT$480 billion for another arms package expected to be announced by Washington. The bill, which fell short of the NT$1.25
‘CLEAR MESSAGE’: The bill would set up an interagency ‘tiger team’ to review sanctions tools and other economic options to help deter any Chinese aggression toward Taiwan US Representative Young Kim has introduced a bill to deter Chinese aggression against Taiwan, calling for an interagency “tiger team” to preplan coordinated sanctions and economic measures in response to possible Chinese military or political action against Taiwan. “[Chinese President] Xi Jinping [習近平] has directed the People’s Liberation Army to be ready to invade Taiwan by 2027. China has a plan. America should have one too,” Kim said in a news release on Thursday last week. She introduced the “Deter PRC [People’s Republic of China] aggression against Taiwan act” to “ensure the US has a coordinated sanctions strategy ready should
A former television news host and six military personnel — active and retired — have been indicted on espionage charges, Kaohsiung prosecutors said yesterday. Lin Chen-you (林宸佑), a former CTi News host and YouTuber, last year allegedly made videos at the direction of a Chinese agent criticizing the Democratic Progressive Party’s recall campaign, the Ciaotou District Prosecutors’ Office told a news conference in Kaohsiung. He allegedly received 4,325 tether coins for the videos from an unidentified person surnamed Huang (黃), believed to be an agent of a hostile foreign power, they said. Lin, also known as Ma Te (馬德), has a show named
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