The Wire

Its not every day that US the vice president’s chief of staff is indicted for lying under oath. But that’s what happened on Friday in the US. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, from the office of Dick Cheney, was indicted for perjury and subsequently resigned. The case follows an investigation into the leaking of a CIA operative’s identity, Valerie Plame. Libby is believed to have leaked Ms Plame’s identity and then subsequently denied the allegation before a grand jury. Ms Plame’s husband, Joseph Wilson was a critic of the claims that Iraqi president Saddam Hessian had sought to buy uranium, one of the key claims that led the co-alition to war against Iraq. The Fitzgerald investigation into the scandal has raised questions about whether resources of the office of Dick Cheney were used to track and discredit those opposed to the intelligence used to build the case for war. But questions are also being asked about just how high the scandal could go up the US chain of command, with critics of the Bush administration claiming that the Libby indictment is just a small part of a wider story of lies and cover ups that lead the US to war in Iraq. This report by Erica Vowles begins with comments and Chairman of the Democracy Foundation from Mike Gravel, who is a former senator. He explains the background to the Libby scandal.