Cheney's "Lost" scandal of his past in the White House

WASHINGTON - Former Vice President Dick Cheney told the special prosecutor in 2004 that he can not remember his role in most of the key events that led to the discovery of a secret CIA agent in the Iraq war.

Summary Q & Cheney, dated May 8, 2004, interview with the Special Consul Patrick J. Fitzgerald, published by court order after years of using legal maneuvers to maintain its secrecy. Summary showed a vice president with few clear memories of a case that garnered the biggest humiliation for the White House and charges of fraud for his chief of staff.

Cheney did not deny nor admit any recollection about giving orders to Lewis Libby, chief of staff, to tell the reporters that Valerie Plame, the wife of a leading war critic, is a former CIA agent. He also did not recall any conversation with Libby in which both refer to the suspicion that Plame had helped send her husband, Joseph C. Wilson IV, in a dinner of the White House to explore allegations that the Iraqi leader, Saddam Hussein, had tried to buy uranium from Niger for a nuclear weapon.

A number of questions from Fitzgerald produce the same answer. Less than a year after the episode that Cheney can not remember have revealed Plame status as a former CIA agent.

When asked whether he had personally discussed it with reporters about the couple everywhere, Cheney said that he usually does not receive incoming calls from the media. He refused to sign a law requiring the cancellation of the reporters to cancel appointments to quote his name. When the Cheney interview was almost over, he also refused a request Fitzgerald to promise not to discuss the case with other witnesses.

Not all of Cheney's answers are ambiguous. He made some appointments without a name to the CIA and his handling of allegations of Iraqi efforts to buy uranium, an accusation that put the vice president in the midst of its public case about the war. He described the use of Wilson by the CIA to mengeskplor allegations are not professionals and three times did he use the word "amateur". Cheney admitted that he Tenet sarcastically quip, when the CIA gave a question that has nothing to do.

In many cases, Cheney seemed to let his chief of staff to expose incriminating confessions that have been carried out Liby and others in the Grand Jury. Although his memory was still vague about some things, he said that he sure did not hear reports about Libby's conversations about Plame with Rove, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer, or the deputy secretary of state Marc Grossman.

Cheney said he did not know that Libby met with New York Times reporter Judith Miller, one week before the name of the Plame leak and that Libby did not tell her about any previous interview.

Neither the Bush nor Obama has worked hard to block the release of FBI records about the interview on May 8, 2004. The document was published on Friday night, with some parts removed for reasons of national security and presidential privilege, after a lawsuit filed by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington.

Melanie Sloan, director of the organization, criticized the "amnesia" total Cheney about her role in White House scandal, but said that the new document is a step forward to solve the case.