The agreement that led to Miller's release followed intense negotiations among her; her lawyer, Robert Bennett; Libby's lawyer, Joseph Tate; and Fitzgerald. The talks began with a telephone call from Bennett to Tate in late August. Miller spoke with Libby by telephone this month as their lawyers listened. It was then that Libby told Miller that she had his personal and voluntary waiver. The discussions were at times strained, with Libby and Tate's asserting that they communicated their voluntary waiver to another lawyer for Miller, Floyd Abrams, more than year ago. Other people involved in the case have said Miller did not understand that the waiver had been freely given and did not accept it until she had heard from Libby directly. On Thursday, Abrams wrote to Tate disputing parts of Tate's account. His letter said although Tate had said the waiver was voluntary; Tate had also said any waiver sought as a condition of employment was inherently coercive. Tate said in an interview on Thursday, "Her lawyers were provided with a waiver that we said was voluntary more than a year ago." Abrams would not discuss the question in a brief telephone conversation on Thursday." (Douglas Jehl, NYT, 9/30/2005)

If you’re still awake, here is a brief translation: Miller believed Libby was coerced into giving her a waiver to testify about his role in the Plame case. That’s why she spent 12 weeks rotting in jail until she was certain that he meant it from the bottom of his heart. A whole bunch of lawyers were engaged to determine Libby’s sincerity.

That’s the best the sorry lads on 43rd street could come up with. It gets better. Libby and his lawyer now claim to be astonished that he was the source Miller claimed to be protecting. Apparently, after a year of legal maneuvering behind a cadre of high powered lawyers, Libby realized "it was all about moi."

After shedding her prison garments, Miller wasted no time in holding a press conference. She let it be known that she had negotiated with Fitzgerald to make certain that her testimony "could be limited to the communications with the source for whom I received that personal and voluntary waiver." Needless to say, even more lawyers were involved in these negotiations to make Libby the sole focus of her testimony. That means she still maintains the privilege of covering up for other conspirators.

Why have so many lawyers spent so much time working on a precise script that would allow Miller to testify against Libby – a high powered lawyer who is no stranger to back room deals? You might recall that Libby was the clever guy who convinced Clinton to grant a last minute pardon to Mark Rich after securing good conduct affidavits from Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and the Mossad. And we don’t need to be reminded that both Miller and Libby collaborated for months on manufacturing the bogus WMD hoax. They were indispensable players on the neo-con 'A’ team tasked with marketing the war in Iraq. So, it’s safe to conclude that when Joseph Wilson exposed the 'yellow cake’ uranium scam, both Miller and Libby had equal incentives to retaliate against the ambassador and his CIA wife.

One of the major neo-con players in the WMD hoax was Arthur Sulzberger, the publisher of the New York Times. His stake in this game compelled him to take Judith Miller’s case to the Supreme Court. It’s small wonder that he has been so adamant in his attempt to keep Miller from revealing her role in the Plame games. The role of the Times in launching weapons of mass deception has already eroded the credibility of his media empire to such an extent that he was recently obliged to lay off 500 employees. In the search for untarnished news, readers are defecting by the thousands from the 'paper of record.’

Within the Bush Administration, the designated WMD hit man was Dick Cheney, Libby’s immediate boss. In my estimate, both Libby and Miller have now consented to embrace in a carefully choreographed dance to prevent further revelations about the massive coordinated campaign to deceive the American people and pave the path to war. Aside from protecting themselves and their ideological fellow travelers in the neo-con cabal, they are determined to cover up for Sulzberger, Cheney and Karl Rove. This might explain why Miller insisted on limiting her testimony to Libby’s role in outing Valerie Plame as a CIA agent.

Far from being a reporter, Miller is a power player. She didn’t get together with Libby to ask a few innocent questions about Ambassador Joseph Wilson or Valerie Plame. Rather, she was plotting with Libby to contain the damage from Wilson’s accusations. Keep in mind that Wilson didn’t just throw water on the bogus 'yellow uranium’ scam; he also questioned whether intelligence was being deliberately corrupted. He let it be known that there was no 'intelligence failure’. Rather, there was an elaborate conspiracy to manufacture WMD fiction to justify a war against Iraq. Wilson can be credited with blowing the whistle long before the Downing Street memos.

Given Miller’s intimate relationships with the neo-con intelligence manufacturing operations at the Pentagon Office of Special Plans, chances are she knew more about Valerie Plame than Lewis Libby or Karl Rove. Her supporters constantly bring up the fact that she never wrote a story on Wilson or Plame. Why would she? She was very likely the source of the story. It was part of her contribution to the mission to smear Wilson – which was apparently conducted from the office of the Vice President.

One of the few positive side effects of the war in Iraq has been the exposure of the New York Times as an instrument of state propaganda. Sulzberger is a war monger – a descendant of William Hurst and a purveyor of putrid yellow journalism. The new poster child of media empire is Judith Miller – who makes Jayson Blair look like Edward R. Murrow. Every subscriber to the 'paper of record’ is a willing enabler of a breed of 'journalists’ who are willing to use their pens to spill the blood of other people’s children.

In a land that cherishes free speech, what can be done about a publisher who has no scruples about marketing war and mayhem? As citizens, we don’t have the luxury of voting the bastard out of his exalted office. But we can and we must economically bleed his media empire. If you want to muzzle the sounds of Sulzberger’s war drums, stop buying his paper. Let him pay the price of the blood he spills in red ink. If you want news that’s fit to print, boycott the New York Times and hold your peace demonstrations in Times Square.

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Ahmed Amr is the editor of NileMedia.com