Fleischer then and now: There's a telling difference
WASHINGTON — As White House press secretary, Ari Fleischer was known for staying strictly on message, the public face of an administration reluctant to acknowledge mistakes or internal rifts.
But Fleischer was behind a different microphone Monday: He spent hours testifying in federal court on what it was like behind the scenes in 2003 when a key part of the Bush administration's case for war with Iraq disintegrated.
During more than three hours of testimony that offered a rare glimpse inside the usually secretive Bush White House, Fleischer showed little of the unyielding discipline that defined his tenure as press secretary. He pointed fingers at a former colleague, acknowledged frustration at how powerless he often was to sway the media, and described in detail the frantic White House efforts to contain a spreading public relations debacle.
Fleischer was the main prosecution witness Monday in the ongoing trial of I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby, the former chief of staff to Vice President Dick Cheney. Libby stands accused of lying to federal authorities investigating the White House's role in exposing the identity of a clandestine CIA officer.
At one point Fleischer described the dismay he felt as it became increasingly clear that the White House could no longer back one of President Bush's most alarming remarks in his 2003 State of the Union speech -- that Iraq was seeking to acquire uranium from Africa.
After initially clinging to the claim, Fleisher said he was told that "the ground might be shifting" and that the credibility of his previous statements on the matter was crumbling. "The worst place to stand as White House press secretary," Fleischer said, "is when the ground is shifting."
Fleischer testified after being granted immunity by prosecutors, and his accounts could be damaging to Libby's defense. The former White House spokesman said he first learned of the CIA officer's identity from Libby, three days before Libby claims he heard the officer's name from news reporters. The CIA officer, Valerie Plame, is married to former U.S. Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, a critic of the Iraq war whom the administration was trying to discredit.
But in some ways the legal significance of Fleischer's testimony was overshadowed by the insider account he provided into the administration's handling of the unraveling of its case for war with Iraq.
