Libby was not alone.

• Position: I. Lewis Libby

The October 28 indictment of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby came so close to Vice President Dick Cheney that it singed the hair on his arms. But he tried to stay cool, managing to present himself in front of U.S. troops at the very moment special prosecutor Patrick Fitzgerald was holding his press conference.

No amount of stage-managing, however, could distance Cheney from the heat.

"On or about June 12, 2003, Libby was advised by the Vice President of the United States that Wilson's wife worked at the Central Intelligence Agency in the Counterproliferation Division," the indictment says. "Libby understood that the Vice President had learned this information from the CIA."

But how did Cheney find this out?

It seems quite plausible that Cheney himself demanded that the CIA tell him everything about Joseph Wilson and Valerie Plame Wilson so he could counterattack.

On June 14, according to the indictment, Libby "met with a CIA briefer. During their conversation, he expressed displeasure that CIA officials were making comments to reporters critical of the Vice President's office, and discussed with the briefer, among other things, 'Joe Wilson' and his wife 'Valerie Wilson' in the context of Wilson's trip to Niger."

A few days later, "Libby spoke by telephone with his then-principal deputy," who "asked Libby whether information about Wilson's trip could be shared with the press to rebut the allegations that the Vice President had sent Wilson." Libby gave an interesting answer, according to the indictment. He "responded that there would be complications at the CIA in disclosing that information publicly, and that he could not discuss the matter on a non-secure telephone line."

Libby's fury at the CIA comes through in the account by Judith Miller, who did so much to peddle pro-war propaganda on the front page of The New Fork Times. "I recalled Mr. Libby's frustration and anger about what he called 'selective leaking' by the CIA and other agencies to distance themselves from what he recalled as their unequivocal prewar intelligence assessments," she wrote in her recap for the Times. "The selective leaks trying to shift blame to the White House, he told me, were part of a 'perverted war' over the war in Iraq."

Libby's smearing of Plame may have been another front in this war.

On July 6, 2003, Ambassador Joe Wilson's op-ed debunking the rumor about uranium in Niger ran in The New Fork Times. And then on July 12, "Libby flew with the Vice President and others ... on Air Force Two .... Libby discussed with other officials aboard the plan what Libby should say in response to certain pending media inquiries."

Was Cheney one of those officials involved in this

discussion? Did...