1.13.2004

Paul O'Neill

The investigation into the outing of CIA agent Valerie Plame took months to even see an acknowledgement that the DoJ was looking into the matter. It took more than a year to appoint a panel to investigate 9-11 and initially was to be led by Henry ("The man even Nixon thought was too secretive") Kissenger, and funded at just $3 million (compared to $50 million for the Columbia shuttle disaster) with a short time period in which to work. NO serious governmental investigation was ever launched into what happened in Florida in the 2000 presidential election and none yet into why our we went to war against Iraq using faulty, exaggerated and clearly wrong information about the presence of WMD and Saddam's supposed connection to Al Qaeda.

But in just about 12 hours from the time CBS' 60 Minutes showed Paul O'Neill (former US Treasury Secretary) making comments the White House might not like, there was already talk from high-ranking GOP and Admin officials that they needed to investigate - and not investigate whether the charges he made about Mr. Bush, deficits, and the early Saddam talk were true but about a document supplied by Mr. O'Neill that they say should have been classified.