The WHIG Party

There are indications that the latest line of inquiry in the Plame case has expanded as the prosecutor has learned how far back the attempts to discredit Joseph Wilson go. Wilson's wife may have been outed PRIOR to his writing an op-ed in the New York Times in July 2003. Here's a tantalizing news piece:

Earlier conversations are potentially significant, because that suggests the special prosecutor leading the investigation is exploring whether there was an effort within the administration at an early stage to develop and disseminate confidential information to the press that could undercut former Ambassador Joseph Wilson and his wife, Central Intelligence Agency official Valerie Plame.

Mr. Fitzgerald's pursuit now suggests he might be investigating not a narrow case on the leaking of the agent's name, but perhaps a broader conspiracy [...]

Lawyers familiar with the investigation believe that at least part of the outcome likely hangs on the inner workings of what has been dubbed the White House Iraq Group. Formed in August 2002, the group, which included Messrs. Rove and Libby, worked on setting strategy for selling the war in Iraq to the public in the months leading up to the March 2003 invasion. The group likely would have played a significant role in responding to Mr. Wilson's claims.

The White House Iraq Group, or WHIG, was primarily a propaganda arm of the White House committed to selling the Iraq War to the American people through the media. It is not at all surprising that they would be at the forefront of the Plame case, particularly considering that the group counted as its members Libby and Rove. Discrediting opponents and making up news stories in favor of the war was all in a day's work:

The 56-page investigation was assembled by USAF Colonel (Ret.) Sam Gardiner. "Truth from These Podia: Summary of a Study of Strategic Influence, Perception Management, Strategic Information Warfare and Strategic Psychological Operations in Gulf II" identifies more than 50 stories about the Iraq war that were faked by government propaganda artists in a covert campaign to "market" the military invasion of Iraq.

Gardiner has credentials. He has taught at the National War College, the Air War College and the Naval Warfare College and was a visiting scholar at the Swedish Defense College.

According to Gardiner, "It was not bad intelligence" that lead to the quagmire in Iraq, "It was an orchestrated effort [that] began before the war" that was designed to mislead the public and the world. Gardiner's research lead him to conclude that the US and Britain had conspired at the highest levels to plant "stories of strategic influence" that were known to be false.

The multimillion-dollar propaganda campaign run out of the White House and Defense Department was, in Gardiner's final assessment "irresponsible in parts" and "might have been illegal."

"Washington and London did not trust the peoples of their democracies to come to the right decisions," Gardiner explains. Consequently, "Truth became a casualty. When truth is a casualty, democracy receives collateral damage." For the first time in US history, "we allowed strategic psychological operations to become part of public affairs... [W]hat has happened is that
information warfare, strategic influence, [and] strategic psychological operations pushed their way into the important process of informing the peoples of our two democracies."

(via Digby)

Those of us that have been paying attention already know this. We saw the White House link Iraq to 9/11; we saw them describe meetings between Iraqi agents and Mohammed Atta; we saw them discuss yellowcake shipments from Niger; we saw them promote a host of other falsehoods. While many of these stories have been officially discredited, the WHIG's existence has remained largely in the shadows. Josh Marshall explains the consequences of shoving it out into the open:

This group was the organizational team, the core group behind all the shameless crap that went down in the lead up to the Iraq war -- the lies about the cooked up Niger story, everything. If Fitzgerald has lassoed this operation into a criminal conspiracy, the veil of protective secrecy in which the whole operation is still shrouded will be pulled back. Depositions and sworn statements in on-going investigations have a way of doing that. Ask Bill Clinton. Every key person in the White House will be touched by it. And all sorts of ugly tales could spill out.

It is vital if we are to remain a democratic republic that the whole truth about the run-up to Iraq is exposed, so that such a calamity never happens again. Patrick Fitzgerald (a Republican I'd be proud to vote for, incidentally) has a toehold in ripping the whole thing asunder.