Cheney, Libby and the Detainees

The other day I wrote about what I hoped we would learn about the Iraq spin machine from an I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby trial, if he didn't plea bargain. The Office of the Vice President has been so weakened by Libby's indictment that we will be learning much more about the unfortunate influence of Vice President Cheney and Libby on the war against Islamic extremism with or without a trial.

On behalf of the Vice President, Libby successfully fought efforts to adopt Geneva Convention standards for the treatment of the detainees in Iraq and Guantanamo. Cheney and Libby, it seems, believed it more important to prevent any limitations on executive privilege-- President Bush's ability to authorize any kind of interrogation-- than to heed the advice of high-ranking people in the Department of State, the Department of Defense and in the armed services who believe that it has been a mistake to flaunt the Geneva Conventions of 1949.

Curiously, President Bush has been passive on the entire issue. So, with Libby gone from the scene and the Vice President on the defensive, we can only hope that the US government will quickly adopt a detainee policy that does not make al Qaeda's job of recruitment easier, as the current one assuredly does.