Scootergate

ON January 24, a man named Craig Schmall took the stand in the perjury-and-obstruction trial of I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby. Schmall works for the CIA; in 2002 and 2003, he conducted the daily intelligence briefing for both Vice President Dick Cheney and Libby, then the VP’s chief of staff. In his testimony, Schmall had a hard time remembering much of what went on in those briefings-he explained that he had outlined dozens of threats to national security each day and that, in retrospect, they all tended to blur together. But Schmall remembered one moment quite specifically.

It happened in June 2003. In the preceding year, during the run-up to the war in Iraq, Cheney and Libby had visited CIA headquarters several times for briefings on Iraqi weapons programs. By June, American forces in Iraq had not found the expected stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, and people at the CIA were beginning to accuse the vice president and his top aide of leaning on intelligence analysts to come up with evidence supporting the war. On June 5, 2003, the Washington Post, relying on “senior intelligence officials,” published a front-page story headlined “Some Iraq Analysts Felt Pressure from Cheney Visits.” The paper reported that the visits had created “an environment in which some analysts felt they were being pressured to make their assessments fit with the Bush administration’s policy objectives.”

About the Author

Byron York

Byron York is a former White House correspondent for National Review.

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ON January 24, a man named Craig Schmall took the stand in the perjury-and-obstruction trial of I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby. Schmall works for the CIA; in 2002 and 2003, he conducted the daily intelligence briefing for both Vice President Dick Cheney and Libby, then the VP’s chief of staff. In his testimony, Schmall had a hard time remembering much of what went on in those briefings-he explained that he had outlined dozens of threats to national security each day and that, in retrospect, they all tended to blur together. But Schmall remembered one moment quite specifically.

It happened in June 2003. In the preceding year, during the run-up to the war in Iraq, Cheney and Libby had visited CIA headquarters several times for briefings on Iraqi weapons programs. By June, American forces in Iraq had not found the expected stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction, and people at the CIA were beginning to accuse the vice president and his top aide of leaning on intelligence analysts to come up with evidence supporting the war. On June 5, 2003, the Washington Post, relying on “senior intelligence officials,” published a front-page story headlined “Some Iraq Analysts Felt Pressure from Cheney Visits.” The paper reported that the visits had created “an environment in which some analysts felt they were being pressured to make their assessments fit with the Bush administration’s policy objectives.”