So Libby's the first one down. The language of the 22-page indictment makes it impossible to believe that Libby will be the only one. The senior official in the White House, Official "A," (¶ 21) thought by the AP to be Carl Rove, is clearly a target and probably a snitch, otherwise there would be no point in keeping him anonymous. Then there is an Undersecretary of State (¶ 4), one or more other persons in the Office of the Vice President (¶ 5), Chaney himself (¶ 9), Libby's principal deputy (¶ 13) and the "then" White House Press Secretary (¶ 16), any one or more of whom could be guilty of outing a CIA agent, disclosing classified information, conspiring, perjury, obstructing justice or any combination of them. Fitzgerald must play the part of Hercule Poirot on the Whitehouse Express. Too many clues, too many suspects.

Why did the Bush administration go nuts when Wilson challenged them on their Niger yellowcake uranium scam? This administration had gotten away with far bigger lies than a single sentence in the president's state of the union address. In the past they had blithely ignored criticism like that and it had invariably gone away. There was something different this time, and Josh Marshall has been digging into it over the past year. The origin of the fake uranium papers, forged on Nigerian embassy stationary and used by the administration to substantiate its allegation against Saddam, is slowly coming to light and it's beginning to look as though certain members of the administration were involved early on. The implications are truly explosive.

Fitzgerald has wide jurisdiction and, as a prosecutor who leaves no stone unturned, will undoubtedly look into the forgeries. Perhaps he will discover why the Bushites tried so hard to quash the yellowcake story and to intimidate anyone that called them out on it.

This story will be going on a long time.