[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 153 (2007), Part 5]
[House]
[Page 6389]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                        SCOOTER LIBBY CONVICTION

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentlewoman from California (Ms. Woolsey) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Ms. WOOLSEY. Mr. Speaker, last week brought news of the conviction on 
four counts of perjury, obstruction of justice and lying to Federal 
investigators of the Vice President's former Chief of Staff, Scooter 
Libby.
  It is easy to forget exactly what this case was about and its precise 
bearing on the ongoing bloody chaos in Iraq, so I think it is important 
to refresh our memories.
  What did Mr. Libby lie about? He lied about his alleged role in 
blowing the cover of a CIA agent named Valerie Plame Wilson. And why 
would Scooter Libby or anyone else in the White House even consider 
doing such a thing? Political retribution, of course. Valerie Wilson's 
husband, Ambassador Joseph Wilson, had been a public critic of the Bush 
administration's march to war. He had traveled to Africa at the behest 
of the CIA and concluded that there was nothing to the President's 
claim, made in the State of the Union no less, that uranium from Niger 
was helping Saddam Hussein build a nuclear weapon.
  Ambassador Wilson dared to question the White House on a critical 
matter of policy, indeed a matter of war and peace. He dared to suggest 
that they had taken the Nation to war under false pretenses. So they 
destroyed his wife's career, and in so doing may have imperiled our 
national security.
  Remember, this is the administration that guards information so 
closely that it considers its secrets sacrosanct, that has lectured 
others for leaking classified information, but they had no qualms about 
divulging sensitive information about someone else, someone who uses 
her undercover status to help protect the Nation. Why did they out her? 
Because she is married to someone who leveled a legitimate and accurate 
criticism at the White House.
  It just goes to show, Mr. Speaker, they were willing to stop at 
absolutely nothing to discredit anyone who undermined their case for 
war, a case that was based on exaggeration at best, and outright lies 
at worst.
  After the Libby verdict was rendered, a former national chairman of 
the Republican Party tried to pooh-pooh the matter by telling the USA 
Today, and I quote him, ``When you get down to it, it was one case 
involving one guy.''
  Similarly, the Washington Post concluded its editorial by saying that 
the Wilson-Plame case and Mr. Libby's conviction tells us nothing about 
the war in Iraq. I couldn't possibly disagree more. Mr. Libby wasn't 
lying about whether he revealed Valerie Wilson's favorite color. Mr. 
Libby's conduct was part of a campaign of deceit intended to shut down 
any and all objections to the war. And why did they need a campaign of 
deceit? Because there was no legitimate reasonable cause for war 
without the specter of weapons of mass destruction, without the 
disgraceful scare tactic of warning that we don't want, and they said 
this, the smoking gun to be a mushroom cloud.
  It is the responsibility of Congress now to delve even deeper into 
the manipulation of pre-war intelligence. I am eager to hear Mrs. 
Wilson's testimony before the House Committee on Oversight and 
Government Reform on Friday, and I hope this is just one of many such 
inquiries.
  Even as we are currently immersed in a debate right here in the House 
about how to end our occupation of Iraq, it is critical that we hold 
people to account for the mistakes and the misdeeds that launched this 
disastrous war and cost 3,200 Americans their lives.
  Justice was done in the case of Mr. Libby, but I hope when it comes 
to Iraq we can bring about justice in a broader sense, by restoring 
Iraq's sovereignty and letting its people determine their own future, 
by becoming a reconstruction partner and not a military occupier in 
Iraq, by promoting stability in the region instead of being a catalyst 
for violence, a catalyst for terror, by completing a fully funded 
withdrawal from Iraq and bringing our troops home at last.

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