Summary
THE political crisis now engulfing President Bush may cause a shiver in Downing Street, because while the details may be remote, the root cause is not. At the simplest level this is a good old political scandal, with the grubby behaviour of those concerned - vice-president Dick Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis Libby, top Bush aide Karl Rove, and probably Mr Cheney himself - contrasting embarrassingly with the high-minded values trumpeted at election time. That is damaging enough: Libby is accused of revealing the identity of Valerie Plame, a CIA operative - a criminal offence. If the web of those involved spreads to Mr Rove, it could be very damaging for Mr Bush. He could easily end up as a lame-duck president. All this is embarrassing for the Prime Minister: he has championed Mr Bush. There is a danger of being seen to be best friends with a tainted politician, even if he is still the US president. What is potentially more damaging is the root of the whole affair - deceptions over the reasons for going to war. Ms Plame's husband, Joe Wilson, a former US ambassador, looked into the Bush administration's accusation that Saddam Hussein had tried to buy uranium in Niger - a claim amplified by Mr Blair. Mr Wilson found that the accusations were untrue and attacked Mr Bush for using them; Mr Cheney's office counterattacked with their smear campaign. So we are back to the arguments over deceived whom in making the case for war. In the UK, the official inquiries into those issues were conducted by pillars of the establishment, Lord Hutton and Lord Butler - men of integrity, but never likely to rock the boat. In the US, the enquiry has been led independently, with steely tenacity, by special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald. It is quite possible that Rove will shortly be indicted - the equivalent of Alistair Campbell being put on trial in 2003, an unimaginable scenario. Mr Blair may have succeeded for the moment in drawing a line under the "dodgy dossiers" and the rest. But the scandal that now threatens the Bush presidency is a reminder that the greatest gamble either leader took, over Iraq, still casts a very long shadow.
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Mr Bush, a Scandal and Iraq's Shadow
AS injured survivors of the 7 July terrorist attacks struggle with the long-drawn-out process of applying for compen...
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