As with most other sites populated by people who opposed the invasion and occupation of Iraq, BTC News tends to focus on the negatives coming from that country — death and destruction, deteriorating (i.e., blown up) infrastructure, looming civil war etc. — rather than the positives, such as that more people are alive there than dead, some oil is still flowing, the Green Zone hasn’t turned red, and so on.

Today, a reader pointed out another bit of good news. In our comments section, responding to the possibility that we may be able to add the manufacture of chemical weapons to the list of bad things Iraqis weren’t doing when we arrived but are now, blogger John Burt wrote, “I’m just grateful that Bush never claimed that invading Iraq would prevent an attack by ten thousand Saturnian flying saucers, or we’d be wrapped in slimy purple tentacles right now.”

Amen, John, and thanks for the uplifting thoughts.

Meanwhile Murray Waas, one of the few investigative reporters left on the national press scene, has a story in the Village Voice fleshing out the details of former Attorney General John Ashcroft’s sudden decision to recuse himself from the Plame-Rove investigation after three months of supervising it.

Waas, who has also written about the investigation in The American Prospect and on his own blog, says that career Justice Department officials were disturbed from the start by Ashcroft’s refusal to recuse himself, and explains why: In a word, Rove.

Justice Department officials made the crucial decision in late 2003 to appoint a special prosecutor to investigate the leak of the identity of undercover CIA officer Valerie Plame in large part because investigators had begun to specifically question the veracity of accounts provided to them by White House deputy chief of staff Karl Rove, according to senior law enforcement officials.

Several of the federal investigators were also deeply concerned that then attorney general John Ashcroft was personally briefed regarding the details of at least one FBI interview with Rove, despite Ashcroft’s own longstanding personal and political ties to Rove, the Voice has also learned. The same sources said Ashcroft was also told that investigators firmly believed that Rove had withheld important information from them during that FBI interview.

As the truthfulness of Rove’s accounts became more of a focus of investigators, career Justice Department employees and senior FBI officials became even more concerned about the continuing role in the investigation of Ashcroft, because of his close relationship with Rove. Rove had earlier served as an adviser to Ashcroft during the course of three political campaigns. And Rove’s onetime political consulting firm had been paid more than $746,000 for those services.

Ashcroft should have recused himself even had the investigators not homed in on Rove in the early going, but the news that he was aware of the prosecutors’ interest in Rove very soon after the investigation and was being briefed on FBI interviews with Rove indicates a monumental conflict of interest, far beyond the normal problems created by White House appointees investigating possible White House misdeeds.

Waas pulls off the neat trick of including Democratic Congressman John Conyers’ response to his story in the story itself:

“There has long been the appearance of impropriety in Ashcroft’s handling of this investigation. The former attorney general had well documented conflicts of interest in this matter, particularly with regard to his personal relationship with Karl Rove. Among other things, Rove was employed by Ashcroft throughout his political career, and Rove reportedly had fiercely advocated for Ashcroft’s appointment as attorney general. Pursuant to standard rules of legal ethics, and explicit rules on conflict of interest, those facts alone should have dictated his immediate recusal.

“The new information, that Ashcroft had not only refused to recuse himself over a period of months, but also was insisting on being personally briefed about a matter implicating his friend, Karl Rove, represents a stunning ethical breach that cries out for an immediate investigation by the Department’s Office of Professional Responsibility and Inspector General.”

Ashcroft is of course gone now, his position filled by former White House counsel Alberto Gonzales, who has also recused himself, and with good reason: Gonzales was responsible for vetting the documents turned over to the Justice Department for the investigation, has testified to the grand jury and is under fire himself for providing the White House, specifically White House chief of staff Andy Card, with advance warning of the investigation prior to instructing White House staff to preserve any information that could be material to the probe.

Deputy Attorney General James Comey, the former federal prosecutor who has overseen special prosecutor Patrick Fitzerald since the latter took over the investigation, left the Justice Department last week for a position as chief counsel at Lockheed Martin. His prospective replacement is former Gonzales deputy Tim Flanigan, who would also likely have to recuse himself from the investigation because of his ties to Gonzales and the White House.

But before he can get the opportunity to recuse himself, Flanigan has to get through his confirmation vote, which hasn’t been scheduled yet. Some senators, including Senate judiciary committee chairman Arlen Specter (R-PA), are unhappy with Flanigan because of his ties to recently indicted Republican lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his role in crafting the White House policy on using torture as an intelligence-gathering tool.

That leaves, says Waas, yet another Justice Department official with close ties to Bush as the leading candidate for assuming Comey’s role in the investigation.

In his absence, Associate Attorney General Robert McCallum is the most likely choice to be named as the acting deputy attorney general, and thus the man overseeing Fitzgerald’s work. But McCallum has been a close personal friend of President Bush. Justice Department officials are once more grappling as to how to best assure independence for investigators. And Democrats on Capitol Hill are unlikely not to question any role in the leak probe by McCallum.

McCallum went to Yale with Bush and the two have been close ever since.

Comey’s job isn’t the only vacant position at the top of the department. The nomination of Alice Fisher to head the department’s Criminal Division is also stalled, again due to her involvement in the torture issue. Fisher was an Ashcroft subordinate who an FBI memo names as a participant in meetings discussing the legality and efficacy of torture.

Neither Flanigan nor Fisher have any prosecutorial experience, a lack that concerns a number of senators beyond their political ties and their involvement in the White House and Justice Department discussions of torture.

Although it’s extremely unlikely that Congress will investigate Ashcroft’s behavior during the time between when he learned of the investigators’ interest in Rove and the time he recused himself, there’s a better chance the department’s two internal watchdogs, the Inspector General and the Office of Professional Responsibility, will get involved because both offices are staffed by career attorneys who pride themselves on their independence and integrity.

One can hope. But given the astonishingly low standards of behavior, even by Bush administration standards, displayed by almost every Bush official in the case to this point, along with a relationship between the Justice Department and the White House cozier than any since Bobby Kennedy worked for his brother, one probably can’t hope too much. In fact, one might have to settle for just being thankful we aren’t all struggling in the grasp of purple alien tentacles.

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