Free Republic

A day after Mr Chirac denounced the so-called Clearstream affair as a "dictatorship of rumours", Le Monde newspaper published notes of General Philippe Rondot that pitched the 73-year-old President into the centre of the scandal, which continues to blow the lid on the way power is exercised in the dying days of his inglorious 11-year presidency. Mr Chirac and his protege, Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin, are accused of covertly instructing a French intelligence official to secretly investigate their internal party rival, Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy, in an apparent attempt to ruin his chances of becoming president. ............. General Rondot...

Wilsongate: Motive, Means, and Opportunity The Buried Story Behind PlamegateBy Fedora Introduction Since Robert Novak mentioned Valerie Plame’s CIA background in July 2003, the media has focused on trying to trace the leak of Plame’s name to the White House, but has devoted less follow-up to another newsworthy angle in Novak’s original story. Novak wrote: The CIA's decision to send retired diplomat Joseph C. Wilson to Africa in February 2002 to investigate possible Iraqi purchases of uranium was made routinely at a low level without Director George Tenet's knowledge. . . Wilson never worked for the CIA, but his wife,...