Rupert Cornwell (Extracted from "Bush at bay", The Independent, 27 October 2005)

"The Bush administration and all Washington were on tenterhooks yesterday as Patrick Fitzgerald, the special prosecutor, wrapped up his inquiry into the CIA leak affair, amid suspense akin to the election of a pope."

{Ed It almost doesn't matter now whether the Grand Jury in America hands out indictments to Libby and Rove or not. There is now a plethora of circumstantial evidence that Vice-president Cheney was behind it all. It was Cheney who principally encouraged the false information which browbeat Powell, Rice and Bush into invading Iraq. From now onwards, so many detailed accounts will be published that Cheney's role will scarcely be tenable for much longer. President Bush, who is being increasingly talked about as being brain damaged from heavy drinking until he was 40 (and probably still continuing), will somehow have to find the advisers who can help him clear out his Augean stables. President Reagan managed it when his White House stables were far less filthy than now. What is Bush waiting for? -- until his public approval rating descends even further from 38% to 28% or even 18% as his ineptitude mounts? ]