Bush Authorized Leak of Intelligence Data on Iraq

[Julie]

Prosecutor: Bush Authorized Leak of Intelligence Data on Iraq

April 6, 2006 — Vice President Dick Cheney's former top aide told prosecutors President Bush authorized the leak of sensitive intelligence information about Iraq, according to court papers filed by prosecutors in the CIA leak case.

Before his indictment, I. Lewis Libby testified to the grand jury investigating the CIA leak that Cheney told him to pass on information and that it was Bush who authorized the disclosure, the court papers say. According to the documents, the authorization led to the July 8, 2003, conversation between Libby and New York Times reporter Judith Miller.

There was no indication in the filing that either Bush or Cheney authorized Libby to disclose Valerie Plame's CIA identity.

But the disclosure in documents filed Wednesday means that the president and the vice president put Libby in play as a secret provider of information to reporters about prewar intelligence on Iraq.

The authorization came as the Bush administration faced mounting criticism about its failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, the main reason the president and his aides had given for justifying the invasion of Iraq.

Libby's participation in a critical conversation with Miller on July 8, 2003 "occurred only after the vice president advised defendant that the president specifically had authorized defendant to disclose certain information in the National Intelligence Estimate," the papers by Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald stated. The filing did not specify the "certain information."

"Defendant testified that the circumstances of his conversation with reporter Miller — getting approval from the president through the vice president to discuss material that would be classified but for that approval — were unique in his recollection," the papers added.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=1813186&page=1

[Confed999]

But the disclosure in documents filed Wednesday means that the president and the vice president put Libby in play as a secret provider of information to reporters about prewar intelligence on Iraq.

Good for them! :) They need more of the same now too...

[Shek]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...040800895.html

A Good Leak

President Bush declassified some of the intelligence he used to decide on war in Iraq. Is that a scandal?

Sunday, April 9, 2006; Page B06


PRESIDENT BUSH was right to approve the declassification of parts of a National Intelligence Estimate about Iraq three years ago in order to make clear why he had believed that Saddam Hussein was seeking nuclear weapons. Presidents are authorized to declassify sensitive material, and the public benefits when they do. But the administration handled the release clumsily, exposing Mr. Bush to the hyperbolic charges of misconduct and hypocrisy that Democrats are leveling.

Rather than follow the usual declassification procedures and then invite reporters to a briefing -- as the White House eventually did -- Vice President Cheney initially chose to be secretive, ordering his chief of staff at the time, I. Lewis Libby, to leak the information to a favorite New York Times reporter. The full public disclosure followed 10 days later. There was nothing illegal or even particularly unusual about that; nor is this presidentially authorized leak necessarily comparable to other, unauthorized disclosures that the president believes, rightly or wrongly, compromise national security. Nevertheless, Mr. Cheney's tactics make Mr. Bush look foolish for having subsequently denounced a different leak in the same controversy and vowing to "get to the bottom" of it.

The affair concerns, once again, former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV and his absurdly over-examined visit to the African country of Niger in 2002. Each time the case surfaces, opponents of the war in Iraq use it to raise a different set of charges, so it's worth recalling the previous iterations. Mr. Wilson originally claimed in a 2003 New York Times op-ed and in conversations with numerous reporters that he had debunked a report that Iraq was seeking to purchase uranium from Niger and that Mr. Bush's subsequent inclusion of that allegation in his State of the Union address showed that he had deliberately "twisted" intelligence "to exaggerate the Iraq threat." The material that Mr. Bush ordered declassified established, as have several subsequent investigations, that Mr. Wilson was the one guilty of twisting the truth. In fact, his report supported the conclusion that Iraq had sought uranium.

Mr. Wilson subsequently claimed that the White House set out to punish him for his supposed whistle-blowing by deliberately blowing the cover of his wife, Valerie Plame, who he said was an undercover CIA operative. This prompted the investigation by Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald. After more than 2 1/2 years of investigation, Mr. Fitzgerald has reported no evidence to support Mr. Wilson's charge. In last week's court filings, he stated that Mr. Bush did not authorize the leak of Ms. Plame's identity. Mr. Libby's motive in allegedly disclosing her name to reporters, Mr. Fitzgerald said, was to disprove yet another false assertion, that Mr. Wilson had been dispatched to Niger by Mr. Cheney. In fact Mr. Wilson was recommended for the trip by his wife. Mr. Libby is charged with perjury, for having lied about his discussions with two reporters. Yet neither the columnist who published Ms. Plame's name, Robert D. Novak, nor Mr. Novak's two sources have been charged with any wrongdoing.

As Mr. Fitzgerald pointed out at the time of Mr. Libby's indictment last fall, none of this is particularly relevant to the question of whether the grounds for war in Iraq were sound or bogus. It's unfortunate that those who seek to prove the latter would now claim that Mr. Bush did something wrong by releasing for public review some of the intelligence he used in making his most momentous decision.

[Confed999]

LOL :) It wasn't much of a leak then. And I was all proud of them too...

[Shek]

A very interesting post on Powerline that gives some perspective on Presidential decisions to declassify information.

http://powerlineblog.com/archives/013761.php

Recalling KAL 007

Reader Les Baitzer writes:

In the continuing discussion of President Bush's partial release of classified information in an October 2002 pre war intelligence report, I've not seen any commentary on a similar incident 23 years ago that involved President Reagan. I am a former Air National Guard Intelligence Officer with over 25 years' experience, including before, during, and after this incident.

Remember Korean Airlines Flight 007?

On September 1, 1983, the Soviet Air Force shot down an unarmed Korean passenger airplane that had accidentally strayed into Soviet airspace. It was flying at a fixed altitude, on a fixed course, and at a fixed airspeed when it was fired upon by a Soviet fighter plane. It crashed and killed all 269 passengers and crew aboard, including a United States Congressman.

Wikipedia has a very accurate account of that incident here: "Korean Air Flight 007." The Wikipedia article includes this comment: "In an act that surprised many within the U.S. intelligence community, the U.S. delegation to the United Nations played tapes of intercepted communications between Soviet fighter pilots and their ground control. While not publicly claimed, it is almost certain that these communications were originally encrypted."

Saying that President Reagan's decision to release a portion the information we had regarding this incident "surprised many within the intelligence community" is an understatement of colossal magnitude. This release of information by Reagan absolutely shocked the intelligence community!

Releasing this information to the public, not only compromised almost our entire East Asian listening network, it also gave the Soviets considerable information about our intelligence gathering methods, capabilities, and techniques.

The tradeoff was Reagan's desire to publicize this incident to further paint the Soviet Union as the "Evil Empire" it indeed was. Much was made of the fact that the Soviet Fighter planes never actually made visual contact with the Korean airliner, and US Intelligence knew that the final decision to shoot it down was actually made in Moscow. US Intelligence monitored all of those communications and the decisionmaking process.

During this time, US RC-135 Aircraft that are intelligence gathering platforms, continually probed the Soviet Eastern border and, while they would occasionally be detected on Soviet Radars, their fighter planes never even got close to the RC-135s. Immediately after the incident, the Soviets commented that they took the action because they believed the aircraft to be a US RC-135. It is a fact that the radar cross-section for an RC-135 and most types of modern airliners would appear quite similar on Soviet radar.

However, as any Junior Officer would know, RC-135s employed extensive measures to avoid detection and did not fly at fixed altitudes, at fixed airspeeds, and on a fixed course, such as an airliner would.

Thus Reagan's release of this information, while undoubtedly a significant international political coup, also provided the American public with a very thorough explanation of the situation. It also greatly embarrassed the Soviet Union, demonstrated their ineptness, and, although I doubt Reagan considered this when he released the information, it was yet another Cold War victory that eventually led to the collapse of that Evil Empire some six years later.

As Jack Kelly wrote in his April 11, 2006 column appearing on RealClearPolitics: "Presidents are authorized to declassify sensitive material, and the public benefits when they do." Political hacks like Joe Wilson and Richard Clarke in concert with very biased anti-administration media organizations run a dangerous bluff when they espouse positions publicly that they know to be untrue, but that fit their political agenda. They bet that certain information won't be declassified and they look like fools when it is released.

During my many years as an Intelligence Officer, I felt that much more information could be declassified and released to the public, and I believe that to this day.
The performance of the mainstream media last week regarding the Fitzgerald brief is an outrageous, outraging disgrace in many respects. Mr. Baitzer's thoughtful message touches on one.

[Bill]

Considering that the left led the screams of "PROVE IT, PROVE IT!!!", it seems pretty god-damned stoopid to blame the prez for TRYING.

LOL.......

[Confed999]

Considering that the left led the screams of "PROVE IT, PROVE IT!!!", it seems pretty god-damned stoopid to blame the prez for TRYING.

LOL.......

They don't want the truth, they can't handle the truth... ;)